#3 Dorian Yates - Winning at All Costs

Win or lose, succeed or not, this is gonna be down to me. No outside factors. So I'd have a little bit of testosterone in there, like propionate, 'cause it's quick acting. It doesn't aromatize as much as the longer acting ones. But just like 300 milligrams a week, just to keep a base level of testosterone in there. And the rest would be primobolan, parabolan, which was the trembolone we had at that point.

The good stuff.

Legendary. I was reading everything I could get my hands on. Every book on bodybuilding, every book on nutrition, every magazine. No internet, of course. We're talking the early '80s, yeah? So you gotta search for your information. You got magazines. I mean, they're like fucking gold to get these magazines. So you're waiting for them.

Dorian, thanks so much for coming on.

No problem, man. Really appreciate it. Gotta support the local lads, you know?

Exactly. Yeah, there's only so many people that you can do in person in the fitness industry in Marbella. Like in the summer, there's a lot of people, but you are top of my hit list. 'Cause I said I wanted to get the first 3 in person before I start doing some online ones. And I'm so glad I pinned you down because you're away last week.

I've been away a while, yeah. I was last week, I was in Bucharest because that's where we have the offices for the main business. I have DY Nutrition, so I've been there. And I was away for the winter as well. I was in Brazil.

Ah, where'd that go?

Yeah, Mrs. is from Brazil, so and when it's winter in Marbella, it's summer in Brazil. So that's gonna be our thing. I think we're gonna spend winter there.

So there you go. Man of culture.

Yeah. I try to get like summer all year round now, man. I spent 50 years in England. I did my time, you know?

Exactly. And so you're in Marbella now. And so let's bring it back all the way to Warwickshire. Okay. If I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Warwickshire.

Warwickshire. So a lot of people probably don't know this, but you grew up on a farm.

Yeah, well, I mean, technically it was not a farm, I suppose. I mean, we were surrounded by farms. It was called a smallholding. So we had about 7 acres of land. I think my mom and dad bought it initially as a chicken farm, I think, while I was very young, like 4 years old. That obviously didn't work out for whatever reason. They got rid of all the chickens and my mom was using it for horse riding, teaching the local kids horse riding and stuff. So yeah, I had a lot of space. I grew up. I mean, it was different days, like everywhere I had to go, I had to walk, I had to ride my bike and riding horses as well. So a very physical upbringing which put me in good stead for later on, I suppose.

Nice. And so what would you say you were like as a teenager growing up? I have a feeling you're a little bit of a troublemaker.

Well, you know, it was— I can look back now and analyze. I think I was a happy kid, you know, growing up in this environment surrounded by animals and everything. I mean, my nearest friend's house was about a mile away, so and the school was like a mile and a half away. It was a great environment, I think, to grow up. But then there was a big shock in my life at 13 years of age. My dad passed away very suddenly. He was only 42 years old and he died of a heart attack. So that just changed everything.

Would you say that motivated you in a way to kind of, you know, you want to make it happen?

It motivated me. I believe it definitely motivated me. And it also made me very upset and very angry. And I didn't think that anyone was really catering to me or looking after me and just a lot of anger and when I got to the gym, I used that anger, I call it fuck you motivation. Nice! You know, I actually thrive on negative, I turn a negative into a positive, yeah, so I took my anger in a gym and turned it into something positive and I like to hear negative things, I like to hear when people say I can't do things and I use, always use that as fuel and always felt like I had a chip on my shoulder, always felt like I was an underdog. And again, when I went to bodybuilding, I'm like the guy in Birmingham, right? Training in a little basement gym there, trying to beat the best guys in the world that predominantly came from America with great gyms and food and, you know, all the culture and the background there. I mean, in America, they have weight gyms in the school.

Yeah.

So you're introduced to weights at school. Where in Europe and England and Ireland, as you know, we don't have such things in the school, right?

We weren't even allowed.

Soccer, cricket, or rugby, if you don't like it, you're screwed, you know? So, the point is a lot more people in the USA were introduced to weights because it's part of their upbringing. They go to school, they play football, basketball, baseball, they have a weight room. So, a lot more people were going to the gym in America. The sport was based there. And of course, I heard this, you can't, you know, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't beat the Americans, you don't know the right people, blah, blah, blah, blah. So stuff like that, I always thrived off it. I never used that, the negative, and turned it into a positive. So was I a troublemaker? Not really, but, you know, I was a kid. I left home at 16 and I was on the street and staying at friends' places, and we had, you know, we were all skinheads or mods or something, and we all kind of grouped together. It was like a family thing.

Yeah.

So I wasn't really a troublemaker, but, you know, shit happens in that environment. And I got a short sentence in detention center when I was, I was 18, and I went there for a few months, and they had the weights in there as well. So I was kind of— I'd done a little weight training at school when I was doing karate, and I got a few magazines, and I really was really interested in it. And but never able to pursue it because of my circumstances. And then I was in the detention center and they had weights in there. We used to do— it's basically powerlifting, you know, we used to do twice a week. But I noticed, and everyone else noticed, that I was stronger than the other guys. I had a better physique. And I was like, wow, so this is it, this is my thing. Because I don't have any other, you know, opportunities really to succeed. I didn't have an education, I didn't have family backing at that point. So here's something that I was kind of naturally good at, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the physical challenge. As I said, I was brought up like that, walking, riding a bike, horse ride, you know, I did some things when I was a kid that now would probably be exceptional, but nobody told me, so I didn't realize. One time we had this running thing at school like run around the track. It was a sponsored thing to raise money for the school minibus or something. And I'd never done any running training, but I was boasting to my mate whose whole family were boxers. They all were boxers, so they all ran, yeah, and lightweight boxers, so good runners. And I was like, I'm gonna beat you, I'm gonna beat you. And, uh, so we've done this running thing. All the kids dropped out after a few laps, they couldn't do anymore. Got to about 13, 14 laps, and it's just me and this other lad that I was you know, giving it the big one to him. And I was like, I can't give up now, I can't give up because I give it the big one, you know. But he's going to keep going, I'm going to keep going. And, and, uh, at some point before we got to 20 laps, he just dropped out. He said, I can't do anymore, and dropped out. And I just kept going and, uh, got to 45 laps, like, just went through some zone where I didn't feel anything. I was literally felt like I was floating around the track.

State of flow.

Yeah, state of flow. There was— I just broke through. I didn't know what it was like till later on. And then, uh, the teacher had to stop because she was like, look, I've got to go home. I've got to stop at this point. And I was 11 years old. So I basically ran a half marathon around the track at 11 years old with no training, just through sheer determination. And at some point, I broke through where I felt, what is going on here? Jeez. Like, I don't feel anything. I don't feel any, like, I don't feel any stress or anything. I'm just floating. I keep going forever. So that, I guess, was kind of breaking through some pain barrier or something. But you know, nobody said anything. I did a lot of things that was just like, I look back and I was like, wow, that was a bit unusual, but nobody really pointed it out, you know.

So I know this, this podcast is going to be so good. I'm already pumped up, like I want to go to the gym again now. We got fuck you motivation, we got Infinity running laps.

Motivation, use it, use it, guys. You know, it's all nice for everybody to say, oh, you're gonna do great and all not really that useful. Yeah, you know, exactly. A lot of talk, you know, uh, oh, you're great, you're great. That's why I, I mean, you can ask the guys in my gym, even when I was training for pro contests, even my own training partners didn't see me without my top off in the gym. Yeah, because of course if they saw it, their reaction would be, you're amazing, like, you're better than everybody. But I didn't— that was not really useful to me, so I just kept covered up most of the time. I didn't want to get the feedback from the guys in the gym because obviously I did look amazing to them, but they were not judges at the Mr. Olympia. They were not seeing the other guys, so it wasn't that useful for me to get smoke blown up my ass.

Yeah, and I bet you—

I'd rather hear the negative and turn that around.

Exactly, that's like the David Goggins motivation as well. You get into the gym, uh, you know, you're, you're hanging out with this crowd and you enter your first bodybuilding show. What made you just want to enter it? What made you sign up?

Well, there's a process there. So I went to detention center. I, you know, I determined that this would be my future, not the future of the other guys that could be in and out of institutions for the rest of their life because they're drifting into a life of crime that would be their life. Yeah. So it was like a turning point for me. I was not meant for that life. I was meant for something else and I knew it, but I didn't know what it was. And then I was like, ah, so this is it. So I left the detention center, and it wasn't as simple as like, right, I went to the gym because I was very analytical, very planning, planning this out. It's almost like I knew that this would be my career, so I had to do it properly. Yeah. So I needed a couple things. First of all, I need to get a job. I need to get regular income. I needed to get an apartment somewhere to live, uh, so I had some stability. That took me some time. I got an apartment on Castle Vale housing estate just because nobody else really wanted to live there. It was a notorious housing estate in Birmingham, Castle Vale. I mean, tower blocks, a lot of crime, and nobody really wanted to go there. So, you know, the council at that place, if you were a young— I mean, I don't think you can get this now, but if you were, you know, if you were like, didn't have somewhere to live, the council will give you a discounted place.

Yeah.

'But as a single man, you're on the low, you know.' Yeah, you're on the bottom of the waiting list. 'And we'll give you the places that nobody wants to go.' But I was like, 'Cool, I'll go there.' So I got my apartment there, I got a job, and I started training already with a physique. Yeah, I mean, I already had this, this was natural. I've had abs, I've still got abs now, I'm 60 years old. Yeah, I'd have since I can remember, since I was 13, 14 years old, I just had a good Genetically, yeah, at least low body fat, good structure, not massive or anything. I went to the gym, I started training, I was around 13 and a half stone, so I don't know what that is in pounds, but, uh, around 13 and a half stone, and had been training in the gym for, I think it was 8 months, yeah. And that's the first pictures you can find of me online because the guy that owned the gym— don't forget then we didn't have you know, you weren't walking around with an iPhone. Yeah, yeah, people didn't have a camera.

No, yeah, not even a VHS.

The gym owner had a camera because he was, uh, he worked for the police on the side as a, you know, a crime scene photographer. So he was a photographer by profession as well as owning the gym. Yeah, so he's like, wow, can I take some pictures of you? And these are the ones online you can find, wearing a pair of gray running shorts or something. And, uh, those are the— I mean, fortunately had the camera, so it's a record. There I am, I've only been training about 8 months, but seriously, yeah. And, and before I went to the gym and started training, this lag time where I needed to get a job, I need to get apartment, get myself ready, I was reading everything to get my hands on. Every book on bodybuilding, every book on nutrition, yeah, every magazine. No internet, of course, we're talking the early '80s, yeah. So you've got to search for your information, yeah. You've got magazines, yeah. I mean, they're like fucking gold to get these magazines, you're waiting for them from every month for it to come in the newsstand. You go to the magazine, I know, I know, it's next week. Yeah, that's how it was.

Yeah, yeah, compared to now there's almost too much information.

Even the Mr. Olympia, yeah, yeah, if you want to see how the guys looked at the Mr. Olympia, you're going to wait for the VHS to come out or the magazine. You're talking 2 or 3 months after the contest before you have to— guys actually, you know, someone would get the VHS and we'll all gather around in someone's apartment or at the gym and like watched the Mr. Olympia for the first time 2 to 3 months after the event. We didn't see it till then.

So would you even hear like word of mouth?

Yeah, you'd hear. And I mean, when I was competing in the Mr. Olympia, people used to ring the gym. Like the phone would just be ringing off the hook because that's how they found out who won the Mr. Olympia. Or in America, they'd call Gold's Gym in Venice. What's the score? What's the Mr. Olympia? I mean, the phone would be ringing all the day. So that's how word used to spread then. And it wasn't so easy to get information. I even went to the library and got books on nutrition to learn about macros, and nobody was really doing that then. Yeah, I was very analytical. Yeah, so in 8 months I'd made great progress, and the guy at the gym said, look, I'm putting a contest on next week across the street there. There's a hotel there called Temple Hotel. No, it doesn't exist anymore, but um, he said, why don't you enter? I got a first time as your piss head. Like, the first time I've been training 8 months, man. Yeah, you'd win. I don't know, like, not really planned for this, you know, because I wanted to plan everything. I really planned for this. I don't know, I got a cold or something. Yeah, so for a few days I couldn't eat properly. I'm gonna go to the gym, but I lost a few pounds because of this cold. Then I looked in the mirror, I was like, oh, I look kind of ripped, right?

Got that good lighting.

How about I just go in that contest then, yeah? So I remember my girlfriend at the time, we bought this Sudden Tan, it's called Sudden Tan from Boots, the chemist, yeah? Yeah. It's the only tanning stuff you can get. And trust me, mate, I'm whiter than these walls, yeah? I've been living in Marbella now for 10 years, so I've got some color, but back then I was white as a bottle of milk, yeah? And we put one coat on of this kind of foam stuff with a sponge to get color. I'm like, whoa, look how dark I am, yeah? But if you see the pictures on stage, I'm still bottle white.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, I won the contest, and I know the two guys that I was competing against were on the juice and I wasn't. Yeah, so it's like, that's pretty good. Yeah, first contest.

So you won your first contest naturally?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, I think that's a good point to make, is like, hold off on taking any enhancements as long as possible.

As long as possible. I mean, you know, everyone makes their choice. And I knew that steroids were a part of bodybuilding then, even back in the early '80s. I mean, local contests, people were taking steroids. Not a lot, maybe to the extent they take now, but they're taking something. Yeah, so it's like, if I'm going to be on an even playing field with everybody else, I've got to be, you know, starting at the same spot, right? So the next year, all right, right now I'm planning this. I'm going to go to the IFBB— it was called the IFBB, English Federation of Bodybuilding. I'm going to go to a regional novice contest. That's somebody that's never won a contest before. Not a first time as you haven't competed before, but you haven't won a contest. So intermediate, it was called. So I'm going to go, I want to win the intermediate qualifier, I want to go to the championship, and then I want to be intermediate British champion. That's my goal for this year. Achieve that, the next year I might try to go like the open class or weight class. Yeah. Anyway, I went to this novice contest, was in Morecambe on the coast there, and I went on in the novice contest. I've done my, you know, whatever, your compulsory poses, and then you walk off. Yeah, I got off backstage. A guy called Ron Davis was there. He was the head of the English Federation. He was also judging the Mr. Olympia. So very, you know, knowledgeable, respected guy in the industry. And not the other judges there, and they were like all there waiting for me as I come off, and they're like 'Kid, where are you from?' I'm like, 'I'm from Birmingham.' 'How come we've never heard of you?' I said, 'Because it's my first contest.' 'But why aren't you in the heavyweights?' I said, 'No, I don't think I'm good enough for the heavyweight.' And then they're like, 'Guys, a joker.' Started laughing like, 'Mate, we've got news for you. You're probably the best heavyweight bodybuilder we've got in the whole country.' I'm like, nah, I know what I like. I couldn't— I didn't see what they saw. No, I see the pictures now, I do. But yeah, at that time, no, you know, I was backstage looking at this guy, looks good, this guy, oh, I think he can win. But I mean, it was just— it was a clear winner.

Yeah.

And, um, a guy called Frank Richards was there. He was the highest placing British bodybuilder in pro contests apart from Bertil, I think. But anyway, Frank was on the scene there. I think he got a very high placing in the Night of Champions and in the Mr. Olympia. So he was the British, the best British bodybuilder at that time, and he was at that show. And Peter McGough, who was a journalist who went to be editor of Flex magazine, yeah, he was interviewing, uh, interviewing the guy at the time, Frank Richards. He said, so how long you think you're going to stay pro, Frank, and compete and everything? He said, uh, not that long. So why'd you say that? And he pointed at me on stage, he says, because the fucker's like that. So he reckoned, you know, everyone could recognize it. Yeah. Um, and so they said, look, the World Games is on in London in 2 weeks' time. The World Games is like a world championship level, and we're putting a British team together. We'd like you to come and try out and be on the British team for the, for the World Games. So I was a little reluctant because I hadn't planned for this, you know, and I'm very analytical. I like to plan everything. So, but, you know, they're like, come on, come on, let's try out for the team. So I went to try out for the team. I got on heavyweight. I went to the World Games and I got 7th place there out of 13 competitors. Of course, these are the best guys in the world at amateur. You know, Barry DeMay won the class. He went to be top, uh, you know, guy, Dutch guy, isn't he? Dutch, yeah. So he won at the time. Second place was Matt Mendenhall, who was phenomenal, best amateur in American bodybuilding, and probably a guy that never reached his potential. He could have been a potential Mr. Olympia. But anyway, that was the, the standard of the guys, and I got 7th place there, although I was not as in good shape as I was a couple of weeks before. Because to be honest, uh, to get to that novice contest in Morecambe, I was broke, mate. Yeah, I mean, really broke. Like, just to spend money on a I had to rent a car. I couldn't drive, so I had to rent a car that my mate drove up there, spend money on a new tracksuit and tanning stuff. And I had no money. I had to borrow some money off my brother-in-law just to go to the selection, you know. So I just didn't have any, you know, and this before sponsors and everything.

And so what were you working at on the side?

I was doing door security then in Birmingham. So, of course, you know, there's a lot of lads from the gym. There was a guy from a gym called Az, who managed the gym at one point, but he had a few doors, you know, so he used to— the guys from the gym used to go work on the door, just, you know, just money, right? Just buy your food and everything, extra money. So I was doing a bit of that. I had a job before that, it was very heavy laboring, so it was kind of like, uh, you know, I would go to the gym and train and sweat, and I go to work and train and sweat and get dirty and everything, but So I was just doing at that point just the door work just to get by. And the World Games was a big boost because it was on actually on TV, right? Yeah. So they filmed the opening ceremony of the World Games, which had many sports. Basically, it's sports that haven't made it to the Olympic Games. So there was a lot of different sports there, and they filmed the opening ceremony. And of course, Ron Davis, who was, you know, a smart guy, was like, you and Della Shahabi, who was like British champion, go out there to represent bodybuilding and you do poses. And of course, when we did the poses, it's something visual for people, and all the cameras came over. So it was on TV, it was in the newspapers. And by the way, this did really piss off the established British team members.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like this Martin crew.

They had a word with me afterwards, like, we're gonna have happy about that. Like, you know, you just come on along and we've been here for years and you're there representing the country. Yeah, I'm like, look guys, I have the greatest respect for you all. I looked up to you guys in the magazines and all that stuff, so no disrespect, but I didn't choose to do that. I was chosen. Yeah, what do you want me to say? No, I'm not going to do it. So sorry, the, you know, the team boss chose me to do it and that was that. Yeah, and from there I, I got a bit of publicity and actually got my first paid guest appearance in Ireland.

Back to you were competing at, you know, you're on the big English stage now. And so when did you start just getting a love for bodybuilding? What made you fall in love with competition prep?

As I said, my first introduction to bodybuilding, let's go right, when did I, when was I aware that bodybuilding was even a thing? Was my last year at school when I was doing karate, and I started doing a bit of weights with that. And one of my friends that I trained with, his older brother had some magazines, old magazines, and we started reading that. And I do believe I saw Pumping Iron somewhere. It was being shown in one of the universities or something. Yeah. So I was already, wow, this is something different, this is something interesting. But what as I said, I was not able to pursue it just because of all these things that were going on until years later. And it was almost like I was made for bodybuilding, like mentally and physically. I was just like, this is just perfect for me. And the one thing is, like, because of kind of what happened to me, uh, I don't really trust anybody. I don't really trust, like, anybody to do anything. So I want to be in total control of everything. Yeah, yeah. Win or lose, succeed or not, this is going to be down to me. No outside factors because people have been making stupid decisions as far as I can see, in my opinion, on my life. And I don't, I don't want anyone to make any more decisions. I'm making all of them. Yeah, and I want to be in control. And, um, I had this inbuilt kind of discipline, and also I've got a very analytical brain. Yeah, and a planning brain. So it was very useful for bodybuilding because it takes a lot of discipline, takes a lot of planning, you know, with your meals and the training and everything like that, the structure. All right, the training is tough, but you go to the gym once for an hour or something and that's all. But the rest of the day, I got to get sufficient rest, I've got to get sufficient nutrition and all that. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of discipline to maintain that over the long haul. And that's what it's about, man. You know, you see people go crazy on things all the time for a few months and then they burn out. Yeah, you know, it's— to be a great bodybuilder, it's taken many years to get there.

Yeah, and you got to love it as well.

You got to love it, man. I love the challenge. I love a physical challenge. Even now, like, ride my bike up the mountain when it gets tough, I like that. I like a challenge. And, um, you know, it's a fact that human beings are not supposed to be comfortable. All the time in order to function optimally physically and mentally. We need some challenges, we need some stress, and the modern environment is taking that away and making people weak mentally and physically. Yeah. So I love that challenge, and I still have to love to have that, not to that degree, but I still like some challenge. You know, I do the sauna, which is heat, which is a stress. I do cold showers, I do different forms of exercise. You need a certain amount of hormetic stress in order for your body to function optimally. So, you know, like, let's take cold, right? In an extreme, you would have hypothermia and you would die, right?

Yeah.

Heat also, too much heat could kill you. Yeah. Even exercise to the extreme could kill you, especially when you do it. Yeah. And it's the right dose in order to get what you want from it. So yeah, I, I fell in love with bodybuilding, and I knew that this was going to be my future. I actually didn't know— I didn't— or maybe I did in the back of my mind, but I was like, let's take this one step at a time. I want to get to be pro. Yeah, yeah. And let's see if I'm good enough to be a good pro. And if I'm good enough to be a good pro, I'll take it on there. I was not really thinking about being Mr. Olympia at that point, although Ron Davis did sit me down. He had a gym in Birmingham which I tried to train at for a while, but it was just too nice. It was full of people from the office and yeah, stuff like that, commercial. Couldn't do it. But he was a great help in building my confidence. He sat me down, he's like, okay, let's go through these guys at Olympia. You can already beat this guy. Yeah, like, you know, he's like number 11 or 12 or something in the Olympia. You can beat him now. Yeah, I'm still like, nah.

And how important is that confidence when you're going into a show? Because I'm competing in 7 weeks, so I need to hear it.

It's It's very important. I mean, at the end of the day, it's visual, right? The product that you're showing is there, but I think it's important to believe in yourself. On the other hand, it's important to be realistic, you know. Yeah, I might dream about being a 7-foot-tall basketball player, but I know it ain't gonna happen, you know, like, so you've got to be realistic. And I did put myself under some pressure I won the British Championship in '86. I won the overall thing in '88 and got my pro card. By the way, a pro card then had real value. Yeah, because they were not easy to get. Yeah, one person per year from a country, one person from UK is getting a pro card a year. Yeah, Jesus. One person that has real value. Now it's like they give them— you can get them on the back of a box of cornflakes.

Yeah, you can, you can enter a show that no one shows up to.

I don't know, it doesn't really mean too much. I'm IFBB Pro. Well, great for the IFBB, they make a lot of money on your membership fees. But really, a pro, professional, means that you are making your living from that sport. So if you're a professional competitive bodybuilder, you should be making your living from that. That's the definition of pro. So, and, and now the pro card has been devalued because so many people have them. Um, so it was different then. So I got my pro card in '88. Overall British champion. And I said, okay, now I'm pro. Now I'm going to take 18 months out, give my very best shot to this pro show, because if I don't get in the top 5, that will be it for me. Yeah, because of everything I have to put in, a sacrifice I have to personally make. Um, I had a young son, so his family as well, they're going to make sacrifices, man, because, you know, you lose time, you lose focus, things like that. And also the steroid question, which is necessary as we discussed to compete. Yeah, but there are negatives, possible negatives on your health. So I was like weighing that up. If I can't get in the top 5 in my first pro show, then logically looking at the past, how things are, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee Haney, people like this that were very successful, they didn't go in the first pro show and get 10. And then next year be the winner. You got it or you don't got it. Yeah, I had to be a bit harsh with myself there, um, but I got second on my first pro show, close second. Yeah, and not only that, uh, the guy that won, Mohammed Benaziza, was amazing, um, but Weider was— I was the one that Weider took an interest in. Yeah, and flew me out to California to do my first photo shoots for the magazines, which was That's every bodybuilder's dream. If you do— there's no internet, yeah, magazines. You've got to get in Flex and Muscle Fitness magazines, then you've made it. And if you're on the COVID you really made it. So I went there and I got my first cover, and actually that's because I'm a stubborn bastard and I wouldn't do what they wanted me to do. They wanted me to wear sunglasses and do this pose, weights, and spray me with stuff so it looked like I'm sweating and Fortunately, it was a British photographer, Chris Lund, so he could kind of relate to me. I was like, mate, I can't do this shit. I said, I'm from Birmingham, I train in a basement, I don't wear fucking sunglasses, you know. Can we just do some real lifting or something? So he was— he wanted to do like a dumbbell row, but you know, like that, with, you know, all posed and everything. I said, mate, look, it's 200-pound dumbbell there, I'll row it. It's like, you can lift that? So I can lift it, but I can't hold it there and smile. I'll get it up you snap it, and trust me, this people will love it. They will love this. Yeah, because I know I'm a fan and I know what I want to see. And when I see the post shit, I'm not inspired at all. Yeah, yeah. When I see Tom Platz, even if he's covered with a sweatshirt and sweatpants, but the guy's trying to look— he's training like a maniac and he's covered in sweat. This is what inspires me. And I should imagine it's the same for most people. Like, guy in his sunglasses, or a guy on a beach with some birds, like, nice, but yeah, it's not inspiring me and I can't relate to it. Yeah. Yeah, so I got the 200-pound dumbbell, got it up, bang, he got the shot, and that was my first, uh, cover on Flex magazine.

Nice. And were you competing in the Olympia at this stage?

No, I just got second in the Night of Champions, and then I returned the next year to that contest, Night of Champions, and won that outright easy.

Nice.

Uh, and then later, that was in May, and later in the year, September I think it was, was my first Mr. Olympia. And, you know, coming up against Lee Haney as 7-time champion. Yeah, it was the Mr. Olympia when I started.

So what a feeling. I'd say you could— you couldn't believe it.

It's crazy. Yeah, no, I had to have a word with myself because I'm like, man, you can't be going there in awe. Yeah. And as a fanboy, otherwise you can't beat somebody with that perspective, yeah. So I had to degrade Lee Haney in my mind a little bit, like, okay, he's a great champion, but he's a man. He's got two arms, two legs, he lifts weights just like you. And guess what? He ain't training harder than you because that is not possible, yeah. So why not you? Why not? Why not? I had to, like, have this conversation with myself in my mind. So um, when I went there, I was not, uh, looking at Lee Haney. I was looking at that— I need to beat this guy.

Yeah, and I love that, why not you? Like, that's something that we, we all need to say when we're starting something. Like, if you don't go into that with that mindset, be it starting a podcast or, you know, becoming a trainer or competing, you gotta have that why not you mentality.

So why not? You've got to believe in yourself, man. And, you know, 'Well, there's other people out there that have done it before. They've done things like this and they're human beings and they have the same, you know, the same everything that you have. So, yeah, why not? If you're putting in the work and you've got the potential then and you believe in yourself.' And that was just growing, you know, my belief in myself getting stronger and stronger at that point.

And so for your first Olympia prep, what was your week looking like? How many times a week did you train? What was your diet like? And what was your first Olympia stack like as well?

Well, the training didn't change from the offseason. Yeah. So, it was 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 or 2 days off. So, and it was like shoulders and triceps, back, day off, chest and biceps, legs, day off, possibly 2 days off in the offseason because I was concentrating on growth. And if you ever come to train legs with me, you'll understand why you're probably going to need 2 days off.

Okay, I'm going to hold you to that. That's going to be the next one.

Okay, we'll do that. Yeah, because, you know, he who feels it knows it. You gotta do it before you can really understand it. So, but for a contest, I would generally run 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off. So I was hitting every body part every 6 days. Yeah. And then, uh, in the offseason I'd do a moderate amount of cardio, like 30 minutes on my days off. Now, for a contest, I would step it up, but immediately, as soon as I go into the phase, I will be doing twice a day. Yeah, but moderate. Yeah, so it's not taxing, it's not cutting into my ability to recover from the weight workout, which is the main thing. Yeah, we're bodybuilders. Exactly. We're not marathon runners or anything. So I was doing stationary bike, treadmill, walking on incline, or even just walking outside with my dog, like fast walking, 45 minutes in the morning, 45 minutes in the evening. So this is just general calorie burners to expend more calories. Yeah. So calorie expenditure has gone up a little bit, calorie intake is going down a little bit. So I got the deficit there. And it would change throughout the years, but I would always be getting a gram to a gram and a half of protein for pound of body weight. So, you know, I was probably up there 400, 450 grams of protein a day.

I always forget how heavy you are.

Yeah, yeah, we're talking 300 pounds, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So we're looking at 450 at 1.5, and, you know, enough fats Probably just enough to be healthy, but if I had to do it again, I would put more fats in the diet because we then, don't forget, we were thinking fat is bad, we've got to keep it to the minimum. So I was doing egg whites and throwing away the yolks. Now I would say, no, that's stupid because you need the fats and there's some aminos in the yolk which gives, you know, the better balance. A whole egg is a much better balanced protein than an egg white.

Nature's multivitamin.

You know, I was throwing a few, like 3 egg yolks in there with 12 egg whites or something like that. I was having that twice a day. Carbs were coming from oats. I really liked oats, some rice, maybe sweet potatoes, vegetables. I wanted 2 pieces of fruit a day or something like that. And I would be aiming to lose 2 pounds a week. Like, that would be what I'd be looking at. After the initial couple of weeks when you drop your carbs down and so on, you will lose water. So I might have lost 5 or 6 pounds the first week, then it would kind of level out. After that. And as far as steroids go, I was a big believer in when you're doing contest prep on using non-aromatizing compounds. So I'd have a little bit of testosterone in there like propionate because it's quick acting, it doesn't aromatize as much as the longer acting ones, but just like 300 milligrams a week. Yeah, just to keep a base level of testosterone on there, and the rest would be a Primobolan parabolan, which was the trembolone we had at that point.

The good stuff.

Legendary, legendary. Just the blue and white box, you know, just to look at it. I mean, you don't get it anymore. It was made by a company called Negma in France. Yeah. But trembolone is very powerful and we knew that, although we didn't have many books or anything like just word of mouth. I remember it came end of the '80s maybe. And it was the new thing. Like, you know, it was the new thing, but it was like, wow, this is very powerful. That's why it comes in such a low dose, 76 milligrams, not 75, 76. Yeah. So people were doing 2, maximum 3 of those a week. Now I hear people doing 800 milligrams of tren or something. No wonder they're getting mental problems or whatever it is. Trembolone is very, very androgenic and very powerful. You shouldn't use a lot of it. You don't need a lot of it to get the benefits. So, propionate as a base of testosterone, which I dropped out of last week, primobolan, which does not aromatize, it's kind of mild, and Anavar. That was the base and then growth hormone, of course.

And, what would you find was the most harsh, like the most, the strongest and it would have the most sides?

I didn't really get side effects on, on a contest prep. I would say if you put the trembolone up too high, then that could be problematic.

Yeah.

Anavar is fairly mild, primobolan is fairly mild, and, you know, testosterone in moderate doses is okay. Uh, I'd say the only steroids I didn't really feel good on was Anabolon or Anadrol, oxymetholone 50s.

Yeah.

But apparently it's quite poorly received by the receptors. That's why it's made in such a high dose, 50 milligrams, where most orals would be— I mean, Anavar used to come in 2.5 in those days, yeah, and Dianabol 5 milligrams. So oxymetholone or an Apollon 50s, I mean, yeah, you'll get a big boost in size and strength very rapidly, but it's a lot of water retention as well, and you lose it equally as quick afterwards, and it's harsh on your system. So Yeah, not my favorite, but my side effects from steroids were just the usual ones. I was quite prone to getting acne in the off-season with this, with the high androgens, testosterone and stuff. My blood pressure was too high when my body weight was up around there, and probably now you would be— I would be advised to take, and probably would have been a good idea to take something to lower that blood pressure. Yeah, but it wasn't stated to me and I didn't really know and I had a doctor, I mean he was my doctor when I was, I don't know why but I kept contact with him because he was my doctor when I was living on Castle Vale, the council estate, yeah, and after I was on the World Games and he saw me on TV, he was like, well, because I said, look, I'm taking steroids, they're like, just monitor me. So he did very basic, very basic tests and he's like, you know, your blood pressure's too high and this and that, it's not good in the long term 'But I understand you're making money, so make as much as you can and get out.' Good tactic. That was his, you know, view on it. So yeah, the potential side effects are there and you've got to manage that. And now there's much more information out there, much more access to testing and things like that. So definitely, if you're using it, you should be responsible and at least know what's going on. I think a lot of people don't want to know because they're kind of like head in the sand. They're like, well, if there's something bad going on, then I have to confront, I have to make a decision rather just not know.

Yeah, and did you get your bloods taken and everything?

Yeah, like quarterly. And, uh, only thing with my bloods is, uh, sometimes my liver enzymes are a little bit high, but nothing too concerning. And, uh, some readings, kidney readings, were too high because of my muscle mass. Yes, some, some readings will go high, like, um, One of the creatinines.

Yeah, creatinine.

I mean, that will go crazy high. I had people calling me from the labs one time like, sir, are you okay? Do you feel okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. Because your creatinine level is like— yeah, but do you realize that this goes up with muscle mass? Because even the parameters for a Caucasian and African American is different because African Americans naturally carry more muscle. So the parameters are different. And I said, I'm carrying a lot more more muscle mass than the average person, believe me. I was like, oh, okay, then they got it. So, but yeah, you need to be informed. Yeah.

And what do you think of the cycles that bodybuilders do in today's day and age?

Well, I don't really know. I mean, I hear things. I don't really know what people do. So you'd be better informed than me. What would a high-level competitive bodybuilder be doing these days in the off-season? What do you think?

Yeah, I would say they're, the doses would be a lot higher from what I hear. People are on grams, literally grams.

I mean, you know, we were pushing it like, I would say myself and a couple of other pros that we used to speak and everything, we'd probably be like— and I didn't take stuff constantly. Yeah, yeah. So I would go high for like 5 weeks and then taper down for 3 weeks, take a couple of weeks off and go around again. Yeah, that's why we used to do it then, like start high and blast it in and tape it down. There's 101 ways to do it. Yeah.

And then, so when you finished competing, did you go on a TRT type of dose?

Well, I didn't because of my extreme personality and lack of knowledge at the time. And lack of, you know, there was no internet, as I say, even when I retired '97, internet was just kind of starting, but certainly wouldn't be any information about bodybuilding steroids on there. And I went to see an endocrinologist and get his advice and he was like, he's like, well, honestly, Dorian, you probably know more than me about this situation. It's not my thing, you know. I'm like, fuck, no thanks. Like, nobody needs to— nobody knows anything. And you know what? I'm just gonna stop.

Yeah, right. And so you went cold turkey?

I'm just gonna stop. And I went cold turkey. And I mean, there was a lot of things going on with my life at the time. I lost somebody young and very close to me. You know, my marriage was— I was starting to have to face some things in that that I was not facing before, and a lot of stuff going on circumstantially. And plus now I lost my profession. Yeah. And it wasn't a choice. It wasn't like I planned for this, which I like to do, right, as we, as I've mentioned.

Yeah.

So boom, you know, your career's over. And your marriage is falling apart and your nephew just died and all at one time with no testosterone in my system. So—

when you need it the most.

I mean, I went to some dark places. I mean, I think if your normal level of testosterone under those life circumstances all hitting at once, people would fall into depression. But I had this as well. I didn't literally know who I was and what I should do now with my life. I mean, so I went into a dark depression, and it took me about a year to— because I had promised myself that I'm only doing steroids because of my career. I'm not doing it for my ego.

Yeah.

When I finish my career, I'm going to stop steroids. So I made this like promise to myself, and I felt like, but yeah, but if I go on TRT, that's like I'm back on steroids and I broke the promise to myself. Yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of a stupid mindset really now, but So that's where I was at. And then in the end, I was like, you're going to need to get back on a little something, man. So that's when I went on to TRT. And like, I mean, you know, within a month, my whole mental outlook was a lot better. I'm not saying it was over, you know, back to normal. I was out of depression, but it was a big difference. And over time, I began to look at things differently. Like, not what did I lose, what did I gain? Man, you've done 12 years of absolute dedication. You haven't been out with your friends for a drink. You haven't been out to the movies that they finished like after 11 because you need to be in bed by 12. You know, you just put yourself in this, you know, in this box. Kind of thing. And I'd done it so long that I started to believe that that was me. And certainly everyone around me would think that's me, but it wasn't me. What I came to realize over the years is by nature I'm a free spirit. Yeah. I had self-disciplined myself to be this guy, but at the heart it wasn't me. And actually, if you look back at any picture of me during my bodybuilding career, you won't get a smile. Yeah, because I was just in this like fucking tunnel vision achieve, but I wasn't really enjoying it. Yeah, because I didn't want to relax too much, you know. If you relax and you slip a little bit, maybe it's a slope, you know.

Yeah, you get complacent.

Yeah, you take the— oh, this is too much fun, man, you know, like. So, you know, don't worry about that. I made up for the fun later on, you know.

Yeah, Rash told me. Rash filled me in on some Amsterdam days.

So whatever I do, I tend to do to the extreme. So, you know, and I kind of had to do that because I went through this period of, you know, total discipline. I had to have a period of like, like a bit going a bit crazy to balance myself out and to be the rounded, balanced person that I believe I've achieved now at this point. But we're talking what is it, 25 years? Yeah. You know, it's 25 years, man, since I was on a bodybuilding stage, and obviously a huge part of my life. But I had to find out and go and seek and find out other things in life. And yeah, definitely went through the party phase until it was— I'd done that.

Yeah, you get out of yourself.

So I got bored of it.

Yeah, yeah, I've been through those phases myself. I remember when I first started doing this and YouTube and everything, I didn't go out for 3 years. I didn't hardly drink for 3 years because I had to make my career in fitness work. And that was 2014, '15, and '16. And then in 2017, when things started working a little bit for me, 2017, '18, '19, got it all out of my system, went a little bit wild. 2018, '19, met Linda. And then, you know, we traveled around a lot and now a lot more calmer. So you need to do those times where you get it all out of your system, and then you go back.

Your, your, your perspective on life is, is balanced a lot on your experiences and what you've done. And, uh, also, I feel I can speak to people, you know, guys that have had drug problems. I never really got to a point where I felt I had a real problem, like I was really addicted, but probably, you know, I can understand it. Yeah, you know, I skirted along the danger line. Yeah, I didn't fall over, but you know, I've been there, so I can talk to people about that. I can talk to people about depression. I'm 60 years old now. I got a lot of life experience, and you got to go through it, I think, into to ultimately realize that most things in life, they always come back to balance.

Yeah.

You know, nothing to the extreme is healthy, but, you know, it's part of life. We've got to go through it to learn these things.

Awesome. And so you finish off bodybuilding, you're in a dark place, you pull yourself out, and then you kind of transition into your life as somewhat of an entrepreneur. You know, you had the gyms and DUI Nutrition, which I believe was also— you had CNP Nutrition for a while as well.

I was a partner in CNP and for various reasons. Got out of that and eventually did my own thing with some partners and investors. And I got a great team now with, with DY Nutrition. We got like almost 30 full-time staff. We're building our own factory now, which is really big. I go next level, but this is a big year for us building our own factory. So, been involved with that supplement industry. And, you know, you, you can go back and look in my book. Blood and Guts is the first book I wrote, early '90s, and then one around, I think it was '95, '96, Warrior Story. And go and look in there what I was doing and how I was training and which supplements I was using. I've always been an advocate and a user of supplements. And, you know, for bodybuilding. And I'm going to be branching also now into wellness, you know, anti-aging, for want of a better word. I use supplements now like antioxidant supplements, anti-aging supplements. Yeah. And there's a lot of research coming out on that so that I'll be branching out into that as well. But the point is, I was always a user of supplements. I was one of the first people to use powdered amino acids in the mid-'90s. Yeah.

What was the taste of them like back then?

Pretty foul.

Yeah.

Pretty foul, but it didn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, everything tasted like shit then. Yeah. You know, the protein wasn't such a good quality and stuff like that. But yeah, creatine came out, powdered branched-chain amino acids. I got from a company actually in Australia called Musashi. They used to send them to me and I was, I think, was the only person that was getting them. Even American companies didn't have them at the time. So the thing is, I've been always an advocate of supplements and I'm a man of my word as well. So if I do something, I mean, there's many ways that people cut corners in the supplement industry.

Oh yeah.

You know, you can test a product and it might have X amount of protein in it because it's been spiked with amino acids or they use the low quality protein. But how much of that are you going to actually utilize and absorb?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was that company again. It was, it was like a British company. It was a yellow, yellow branding. It was something like Bikini World.

It was ridiculous.

But they had labeled it as 30 grams of protein per scoop, and there was 15 grams per scoop, and the rest was carbs. The rest was just sugar. Everyone's like, no wonder it tastes so good.

Yeah, this happens a lot in the industry, unfortunately. But I'm not interested in doing that. I got my name.

Yeah.

You know, and a lot of these companies, who are they? Yeah. Who is this company?

I couldn't even remember the name.

You don't know the name because there's some guy behind it who's just in there to make a quick money, don't give a shit about the customers. Yeah. I give a shit because I used to be a kid and have limited income to spend on my supplements and everything. So whatever I do, if it's got my name on it, then it's gonna be the best that you can get in that particular category at this point in time. Something comes along in the future that's better, I'll use that. But at the moment, you know, we use, you get so many different grades of protein that you can get. We use only the best protein, creatine, everything like that. So, yeah, that's where I am with the supplement company now, branching out, growing, building our own facility. And of course, I do certain training camps with my training certification and stuff like that. I was in Brazil doing a camp. I've done a camp in Gold's Gym as well last year. That's my passion, you know.

Yeah, I think you have that.

Grinding in the gym. And teaching people in the gym. And, you know, no false modesty here. I mean, you can debate who you think is the best bodybuilder, right? But I'll put it out there, you can't debate who's the best fucking trainer.

Yes.

All pro bodybuilders, I will say that easily I'm the most knowledgeable and best trainer. And if you come in a gym with me, you will learn a lot. And it's not just, oh, Dorian pushed me to the point I threw up or something. Yeah, that's I'm going to push you, but I'm going to push you in a way that's productive, and you're going to learn a lot that you can't learn from listening to me. You can't learn from a video. You got to do it. You got to feel it, and all the little things, little small nuances in the exercise and how to control the weight and where to squeeze it and how to position your body, all these things, all the little things make a difference. That's my career. Yeah. All the little things. I got every workout written down, man. From that first workout when I went in the gym in 1983 until 1997, I've literally got every single workout written down in that. And I can go back and look at some of those workouts now and can't even remember them, who I trained with, where, which gym was it, what pose was it. It's crazy, you know.

So you've trained one of, we have a mutual friend, Mike Thurston, he's one of my best friends in the industry, and he can verify what you're saying. He said it was the toughest training session of his life.

Yeah, there's two videos out there, I think one with Mike on chest and, and a back day, legs. We did legs with chest and legs. We don't think we've done it back. We've done a back day like many years ago in UK.

Ah, that's it. Yeah, yeah.

And the last year he came out here twice and yeah, I mean, you know, he, he, he, he gave his heart and soul. So that's all I can ask. And I'm sure that he learned a lot. I don't know whether he can keep that up on a day-to-day basis, maybe not.

Now, Vita, but, uh, so you have somewhat of a trademark training approach. It's called high-intensity training. What exactly is that if you were to summarize it?

Okay. First of all, there's a history there, yeah. I didn't create this high-intensity training myself. There's all history to it there. So there's a guy called Arthur Jones. Arthur Jones was a— I mean, the guy was a genius, yeah, a little bit eccentric and made his money from movies, and he used to organize safaris and everything. Anyway, the guy had a lot of money, but he was fascinated in bodybuilding and what's the best way to build muscle, and what is it that, you know, how does this process work? And what he discovered is the trigger to muscle growth is the intensity, the point where it goes to its absolute maximum and it can't do anymore, and it's a form of stress as we were talking earlier on, beneficial stress, yeah? So why does a muscle get bigger and stronger? What is it? What is the signal that tells it it needs to do that? It's a certain amount of stress, yeah? If you go out in the sun, the skin picks up the stress from the sun. Yeah. Whoa, I'm getting stressed. How do I handle this? Create more melanin, create more melanin, to protect yourself from that in the future. So the same thing if you do, I mean, if you haven't ever done anything and you do push-ups, you'll build a little bit because your body's not used to that. Yeah, but it adapts very quickly. And I have this theory that most people that go to the gym, that most of their gains they get in the first 12 months. Yes, after that they don't get it because they're not able to, or they're not understanding what, what is necessary and Even if I explain it, they find it hard to grasp the concept. It's the intensity. So when your body's very uncomfortable and it's struggling for that last rep and it's never been there before, it's never been under this stress before, oh, I need to adapt. So first of all, there's a stress, okay? When you're in the gym, you're not growing. Muscle fibers are being damaged, you're being stressed out, yeah? Now your body needs to recover from that exercise. That's the process. Needs to recover, needs to rebuild. So it needs rest, needs the nutrients, and needs the correct environment hormonally to adapt. After it's recovered, then it can recompensate or grow. So that's the process. Stimulation— most people are not doing that bit because they're not training hard enough. Yeah. And if they do, they're often not leaving enough time for recovery. So they're going in and bashing it again before it's fully recovered. So you need the stimulation, need to train hard enough, you need enough time in the environment to recover. After you've recovered, you grow. Don't— it's not the other way around. Yeah. So if you go and bash it again before you've recovered, you're not going to— you get nowhere fast. Yeah. But the first key thing is you've got to stimulate it. So that means training very intensely, but for a short period of time.

Yeah, so how long were your sessions typically?

Never more than an hour, and that would be leg day. Yeah, we're talking quads, hamstrings, calves. Longer rest between sets because the oxygen debt of doing squats or leg press is greater than doing curls, so you need— the rest periods are going to be longer. Uh, 45 minutes on average, leg day maybe an hour, 4 times a week. Uh, genetically gifted person.

Yeah, yeah.

On steroids. Yeah, you're natural and you're not that gifted and your recovery ability is not that great, you probably need to do less. Yes, yeah, yeah, less. Yeah, and that's so funny, most people, average person not using any enhancement, 2 to 3 times a week. Yeah, yeah, the rest of the job is outside the gym. Yeah, it's just a short, sharp shock. So you take that exercise to failure, move on to another exercise, and it's not the amount of exercises that you do that stimulates growth. It's not the amount of sets you do. It's got nothing to do with volume. All right, let's, let's talk logically. If volume was the key factor in stimulating muscle growth, wouldn't we continually increase our amount of exercise?

Yeah.

So as a pro bodybuilder, I should have been training 10 hours a day. And trust me, if that's what it took, I would have trained 10 hours a day and eat dog shit between sets if that's what it took. Yeah, yeah, whatever it took. But it's not what it takes. It takes intense targeted training and proper recovery. So most people— and listen, if you're listening to this, yeah, and you haven't made any progress in the last 2 months, what have you got to lose?

There you go.

Okay, what have you got to lose? Train maximum 3 times a week, split your body into 3 body parts, 3 whatever— chest, shoulders, tricep, back, bicep, legs. Train, warm up, do 1 set, 2 sets to warm up, whatever it takes, and then just go balls in. And you got to focus. You got to focus on the muscle. You got to focus on the mechanics. Yeah, and some exercises you've got 2 levels of strength, some you've got 3. So if you have resistance in the peak contraction, you have 3. So let's take a pulldown for back. You've got 3 there. Positive, pulling, weakest part of the movement. Static, hold, Stronger than the positive. Negative, strongest part of the movement. So we can do the positive with controlled power. Get here, you should be able to pause for a second. If you can't pause there for a second, you didn't get it there with Muscat. You use momentum to get it going. No momentum. Down, pause, slow, control. Keep doing this. Have a training partner there if you can, yeah. Because you're going to fail here. Yeah, yeah, and it can help you through that to get here where you're still strong and get to here where you're still strongest too. So you need to do a couple of reps like there where you're really going beyond failure. Done, finished, that exercise is done. Go to another one, maybe 3 exercises for your back. So we're talking about 3 sets of pulldowns, 2 or 3 sets of rows because you need to warm up 1 or 2 sets And maybe 2 or 3 sets of cable rows and finish with 2 or 3 sets of deadlifts. 1, 2, 3, 4 exercises, leave the gym. You can do that in half an hour. If you listen, if you haven't progressed in the last 2 months, if you do what you did in the last 2 months in the next 2 months, what will you get? Exactly the same results. Yeah, I don't know if it was Einstein or maybe somebody, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome.

Yeah, it's Einstein.

Yeah, right. So if you— what you're doing now is not working now, it won't work next week or the week after or the fucking week after that, or so on and so on and so on. So if you're not making progress, visual progress, in 2 months, you're not getting stronger. And, and, you know, we can make this whole process sound very complicated, which is what internet gurus and trainers try to do to, to sell, to validate themselves, to make themselves sound important. Yeah. Is not that complex, yes? You must get stronger to get bigger. So if your weights are going up, great sign, you're growing. Yeah. If they stay the same as they were last month or the month before, you are not going anywhere and you will not go anywhere in the next 2 months. So reassess, come back, do a lot less, get a lot more rest. You might even start like this. First of all, Take a week off. Don't do any training for a week. Let your body recover. Come back to an abbreviated routine, and you will respond. Trust me, if you're doing it properly.

That's a gem. I think that's something that I haven't heard anyone ever answer.

I'm challenging anyone that's listening to this. If you haven't progressed in the last 2 months, you will not progress in the next 2 months. I'll guarantee you that. Come on, logic. Think about it, guys. Yeah? So change it, change it up, change it to a brief routine and you will find that you're going to start, oh, I got one more rep, oh, it's going up, it's going up, yeah, that's right. There you go.

I'm surprised. I think that is, that's something I'm going to carry into my own training.

So I should finish the Arthur Jones. Yeah. He was the guy and you should read Arthur Jones, not saying he got everything right because he wasn't a competitive bodybuilder, which is a bit different, because the average person just needs to build the main, you know, basic exercise, the main muscle mass. In a bodybuilding contest, we maybe we need to work the side delt and the rear delt. Average person doesn't need to do that for, you know, for their health and so on. Yeah. So, you know, some things Arthur wasn't thinking along the lines of a competitive bodybuilder. So Arthur Jones was the guy that came up with this theory, and of course the Nautilus machines, which were amazing. We've got the Flowbar machine. Nautilus machine is amazing because the cam ensures that, like, if you have a barbell and you do a curl, at the bottom, the resistance is very little. And as you go up, it gets more and more until you hit the midpoint where it's maximum, and then it falls off again. Yeah. With the Nautilus machines, that means you got the maximum resistance all, all the way through the movement. So, they were revolutionary and still the best weight training machines on the market. Without a doubt, yeah, yeah. And his son Gary Jones made the Hammer Strength line.

Oh, he actually made that, did he?

So yeah, yeah, so that's, you know, related as well. Also another great piece of equipment. And then Mike Mentzer came along, who was competitive bodybuilder, world champion, pro, wrote a lot for the Weider magazines, got demoralized in 1980 when he got 5th place in the Olympia that he was expecting to win, and Arnold came along at the last minute and decided to enter the contest, although that shouldn't have been allowed.

But anyway, but he gets special treatment.

Yeah. So, you know, it's Arnold, so he did that. And, uh, Mike Mentzer retired after that point. I think he never really recovered from that. But that was the history that I was introduced with, and, and I took that and kind of adapted it a bit and used my training diaries as my kind of scientific experiment, which was basically collecting data. Yeah, I was collecting data on my training and analyzing what would happen if I changed, you know, if I trained more often. And if I train more often, my progress would come to a halt. Oh, so let's go back to an abbreviated routine. Boom, start growing again. All right, don't need to learn that lesson over and over again, do I? That's— thank you for that. Yeah, so, uh, 3 or 4 times a week, uh, 3 times a week if you're natty. Don't try to do more than that and go in there and train strictly warm up 1 or 2 sets and then just all out, everything, life depends on it set and move on, do another exercise. 3 exercises for back, 3 for quads, maybe 2 for delts, 2 for biceps, triceps. If I write this down on a piece of paper and give it to somebody, it looks like nothing. They're like, well, there's nothing.

Yeah, people almost want to do more.

Just, just— this is human nature. Human nature, I understand it. More is better, but it's not in this case. Yeah. More intensity is better, not more volume, more intensity. Mike Mentzer used to say, you know, human nature to assume that more is better, and it's not, except for money and women. And you're probably wrong about those two as well. I'll bring you problems as well.

More money, more women.

More is not better, man. Better is better. Yeah. And so smarter is better.

Yes, there you go. And so what's your, your current training or even day in the life routine looking like out here in Marbella?

It depends because I'm not that guy anymore that needs a regimented routine, so it's a bit looser. You know, I do quite a bit of traveling.

Yeah.

Uh, for promotions for DY or for training camps and things like that. Uh, so I travel quite a bit. When I'm here, my training is twice a week in the gym with weights. Twice? Twice a week in the gym with weights, and it's very light because my point— what am I doing now in the gym? Why am I going to the gym? I'm trying to maintain my current level of muscle mass, and I'm limited by two torn rotator cuffs that I've had surgery on, but it hasn't been successful. So my pressing ability is very weak. I can't do overhead presses. Yeah. Things like that. So I just do, um, this is my upper body workout, which I do, uh, light dumbbell press. And when I say light, I mean light because my shoulders, you know, they can't really move a lot. So I do like maybe 50 pounds, yeah, dumbbells. I do dumbbell bench press, which I superset with cable rows, so it's like chest back.

Yeah.

And then I'll do the fly machine superset with pulldowns. Uh, I'll do some light lateral raises. I'll do some light triceps and biceps, like one exercise for everything. And some stretching, and I'll do some high-intensity intervals on the air bike, which is a killer. Yeah. I do like a minute easy. Cardio. 20 seconds all out. Yeah, the air bike, guys, listen, if you try this, it's gonna suck your soul out of you. The air bike is the Assault Bike, whatever you want to call it, is the best piece of cardio. It's very simple. It's quite cheap to buy. It's the best piece of cardio you can do because you're pushing and pulling at the same time, which means you're working all upper body your muscles and you're going all out with your legs. Yeah, so the oxygen debt is crazy. I do 20 seconds all out and I try to look at the wattage so I've got, you know, a guide of how high I'm going on the watts. And I do that several times, like maybe 4 times, and that is my cardio workout. And I do that on the other workout when I do legs. At the moment I'm just doing isolated stuff because I have a little hip pain uh, which I'm hoping to solve. I'm going to Colombia next month for a whole stem cell treatment.

Oh, that's meant to be the best spot in the world.

I've heard lots of good stuff about it that can build back cartilage because some of my cartilage is worn down on my hips and knees from all the heavy lifting. So I'm looking forward to that. Maybe there's going to be more I can do when I come back. But at the moment I do, uh, like leg extensions, leg curls, a Dr. Machine. Uh, I do just bodyweight squats, like sets of 50 and stuff like that. And some kettlebell swings, and that's my lower body workout. And on the other days, I usually try to do one class of Pilates a week, one class of yoga a week for the mobility. And I usually do one long bike ride a week. It might be up the mountains or it might be kind of easy, but that's kind of average routine.

Nice, Danny.

A little bit of everything really, because what do I require from my body now? I need to maintain the muscle mass, which is very important for your health as you get older and your bone strength. And everything. So that's the weights. Yoga and Pilates is functional and mobility and a little bit of relaxation. And the bike, I just love the bike. I love to be outside here in Spain. It's nice weather. We've got nice hills here. I love that. And, you know, I do things like hiking and stuff like that as well. Just, I don't really consider it training. It's just kind of relaxing.

Have you done La Concha?

I've done up to the Iron Cross, which is three-quarters of the way up. I didn't fancy the last bit because coming down, it bothers my ankles and my knees. Going up is just great. It's hard work, right? But coming down, you know, that stop, stop, stop on your ankles and your knees. And I don't fancy— I have to be cautious now. I do horse riding as well, but I got to a limit.

Very classy.

Horse riding I did as a kid. My mom was a horse rider, you know, she used to teach horse riding. My sister does dressage, she's got like 8 horses and stables. So it's in the family and I took it up again and I got to a decent level of proficiency where I was jumping some small fences and stuff. And my trainer kept telling me, like, everybody falls off at some point, so you're going to fall off and get hurt. And I kept saying, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. And I haven't yet, but I thought, you know, I got a lot of injuries. If I fall off the horse, it's not going to be good. So I said, I got to a level of proficiency and it was good, but I'm not going to push it anymore because I— because of that risk factor. So I'll just enjoy going for a little ride sometimes, you know.

Nice.

But it was a challenge to kind of learn to ride a horse again at 60 years old. I did pretty good. I think that, you know, you got something in your DNA if you've done it as a sport as a child.

So it came pretty quick riding a bike. And what made you choose Marbella to settle down in?

I chose Marbella because a friend of mine called, uh, Arash, yeah, brought me here. I'd heard about Marbella and, uh, let's go to Marbella, got some friends out there and it's like party central. Yeah. 2005 or 2006 was the first time. That's why I was coming here, my long weekends of debauchery and, yeah, partying and drug taking and girls and all that stuff. So that's why I first came here and I got to know a lot of people and, uh, then I got an apartment here and I was like splitting my time until I was like I don't know why I'm going back anymore. So I moved here permanently and became Spanish resident in 2013, 9 or 10 years I've been Spanish, I'm, you know, British citizen obviously, but Spanish resident. And it's great because it's Spain, but it's also, as you know, it's very international. I mean, English is really the first language here. Everyone and my friends in the States, so you speak Spanish now? I'm like, yeah, poco.

Yeah, poquito más. I have learned not as much Spanish as I'd like because everyone speaks English.

Me too, me too. I'm a bit lazy with it because I don't need to.

Yeah, it's just never a need.

I went to a camp one time, I was only there for a week, but nobody hardly spoke English, and I started rapping a little bit by the end of the week, you know, because you need that daily practice.

Yeah, yeah.

I was having lessons once or twice a week, but learning a bit, but if you don't use it on a daily basis, it doesn't stick in the brain. So I mean, I can get by. Like, I was in Costa Rica, and I've been to Brazil where they, you know, it's Portuguese there, but I can get by and like ask where things are and everything, but I can't have a fluid conversation. And if someone Spanish speaks to me like rapidly, like, yeah, you zone out a little bit. So I would I would like to do it, but it's a matter of like committing to it and putting enough time into it. And I allow myself a certain level of laziness these days.

Yeah, I think you've earned it. I think you've earned it. And so going back to the South America thing that you mentioned, you mentioned you're going to Colombia. I know you've spoken about ayahuasca, which is something I'm so interested in. I've never done it. I'm just so intrigued by all this. So what was your first ayahuasca experience?

Well, that's interesting. My first— well, my first— I'm a big advocate, almost evangelical advocate of cannabis because I know all the benefits that it has, which is amazing. So, I've been smoking cannabis like— I mean, I smoked when I was a kid, but I kind of gave it up when I was bodybuilding because I thought it's not good, it's not healthy, and it's going to make me not motivated or something like this. So I cut it out apart from like occasions. And then I started smoking again after I retired and educating myself on it. I found out a lot about it. So that was the cannabis thing. And then I started reading and I came across some books about DMT and ayahuasca, this plant medicine from South America that took you on a spiritual journey and revelations and everything. It sounded very interesting. But that was it. I guess it was in the back of my mind. And I went to Brazil. I met Gal actually in Brazil, and I said, "Would you like to come with me? I'm going to the Amazon, and we're going to get a guide and go on a boat down the Amazon for a couple of days and, you know, just get out in nature." So she came with me. Uh, so we just met, but I was still like, still half like the party zone still there, you know. So I'm in Brazil and I thought, well, in the Amazon, I said to the guy, oh, you get some coke? He's like, yeah, of course, the best, like, you know, just raw shit.

Yeah, it's from the plant.

So yeah, so I had that, you know, we're going out, did a bit of that, bit of vodka. I don't think Gala even knew, like, was keeping it quiet, you know. So that's where I was at. And then we're out on the boat. I'm like, hey, when we go out on a boat, can you get that stuff? I heard about that stuff called ayahuasca, that drink stuff. He's like, yeah, I'll get it. And, you know, I don't know what he got, whether it was ayahuasca or if it was really strong ayahuasca or what it was. I don't know, you know. I mean, please, kids, don't do this at home. It's not a recommendation. This was Wild West. Pissed off. I didn't know what I was doing. He didn't know what he was doing. He got me some ayahuasca apparently, I believe it was. And so he said, I got the stuff and you can take it tonight when we pull the boat over. I mean, the Amazon is so big, it's like it's got beaches there like the sea. So pull over on this beach thing and you're going to do it there, right? So, and he had a guide that was Indian. And he said, uh, so the guy said to me, you're doing the ayahuasca tonight, yeah? I said, yeah, yeah. He said, don't smoke any weed today then, because you're not supposed to.

Yeah, you're meant to fast even.

And yeah, yeah, but I didn't do any of that shit, yeah. I mean, I was drinking vodka and doing coke the night before because I didn't know, you know, I was innocent. And these guys didn't tell me. And this guy's telling me at the last minute, don't smoke weed today. I'm like, okay, that's all. Yeah, don't smoke weed. So the boat's going along And then this Indian guy, I mean, he's got marks on his face and everything, there's a proper— he's like, come here. So I followed him into the captain's cabin and he's got 3 lines there of coke and his captain's done one, he's done one, he's like, there's one for you. I'm like, yeah, but I'm doing that thing tonight, am I not supposed— he's like, nah, this will be all right.

So you've got a combination of everything.

Thanks for that, mate. Yeah, so of course I've gone and I've done the ayahuasca and I've drank it and it's like I'm just being violently vomiting, violently sick. I said to Gal like, do you want to come and look after me?

Yeah.

I mean, we just like, we met about a week before, right? So do you want to come and look after me? Apparently I'm going to throw up and I might shit myself. So you're going to see me at my worst. If you still like me after this, then, you know, if that's not love, like 'Maybe you're going to see all of that shit, or maybe we've got something, eh?' So she said, 'Sure, I'll come and look after you.' I mean, I was throwing up, and I was asking in my head, 'Where's my spirit animal? Why am I not flying through the jungle?' And all this stuff. And I thought that this ayahuasca stuff was shit and had poisoned me, and I had a really bad experience. But I did remember one thing, yeah. So I was asking these questions in my head like why I'm not having these experiences that I'm expecting. Yeah. Stop poisoning yourself. And then ask another, stop poisoning yourself. I just got over and over again, stop poisoning yourself. Yeah. But I didn't get it, it didn't click at the time. Yeah. I thought it was the ayahuasca that was poisoning me. Yeah. But actually what it was, and it's a female entity, a female voice that you feel. Hear, feel, I don't know how to say it, but it's talking to you, 'Stop poisoning yourself.' So that was that, and that was my experience. And then I was doing, I was out here some years later doing yoga, and my yoga teacher said she was going to an ayahuasca retreat, and would I like to go? Because I was under a lot of stress at the point with a business thing, and it was, you know, it was getting me down. I was under a lot of stress. And she said, maybe it's good for you. I'm like, nah, did that thing before, man, it just made me really sick and everything. And in between I'd smoked DMT and that gave me some crazy visions and all that. And the last 10 minutes and I feel fine, I didn't throw up. So I thought, that's better. And then I had a girl that I'd helped with a few things and she sent me a message. She said, "I've got a message for you and I need to speak to you because I don't know what it means, but maybe you do." I said, "All right." I called her up. I said, "What's going on?" She said, "Oh, I was painting for hours and I fell into a kind of a trance and I saw a vision, and it was 3 little Indian guys crouching down with the bowl in front of them, like a wooden bowl or a bucket or something, and they had a stick and they were stirring it, and they were just chanting your name." I said, Do you know what it means? I said, holy shit. I said, that's ayahuasca. That's how they make it, like in the thing with the— Yeah, the brain. That's ayahuasca and they're calling me. So it was a message to go. And this time was a totally different experience. I had a few days to like stop smoking weed and make sure you don't have any sex, no alcohol, no meat, all these things that you do. So I did this properly and I went there and did the ayahuasca with the shaman, which is important. Yeah, yeah, so he's made the brew, he knows what the medicine is, he knows how to deal with the situation after like 50 years of experience and training and things passed down from his generations of his family. He can see and feel things that we can't see. So I had the medicine and then I saw like a green just green mist or something. And I had this female voice in my head saying, hello, do you remember me?

Fuck.

And I'm like, yeah. She said, are you afraid? I said, no. She said, okay, well, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna work with you, and don't worry, you're not even gonna throw up this time. I was like, great, come on then, let's go, man. And, phew, it's hard to describe the experience, but I mean, literally the next day I was a new person.

Wow.

And I saw like even my business situation. I mean, like someone I literally wanted to rip their fucking throat out because they were causing so much stress. I saw them and I saw their life and why they were like that, why they were behaving like that. And I saw everything from a totally different perspective, which calmed me right down. And the next day I was like feeling like a different person. And even people were coming up to me and saying, whoa, you look great, man. What did you do? A load of ayahuasca. Yeah, a lot of ayahuasca. But it just changed my— it even changes your face. It looked different. Like, it takes all the stress away and everything.

And you did it here in Spain?

I did it here in Spain, uh, through some people I know. And it's not something that's advertised. There are companies that advertise out there. I would say avoid these people that advertise. There's one company I'm not going to name in Spain, but it's very low quality. They have people in and out every weekend, and you've got no reference to know whether this is a good or bad experience because you're, you're a newbie, right? Yeah, exactly. So next week is just some other new people. I go to now, I've done like 3 camps in Costa Rica where I've been headlining the camp. So I'm the guy that brings people there, especially people coming from the fitness industry. And, you know, they were a bit sitting on the fence because is this for them? Is this something for hippies or is this some weird thing? And, oh no, Dorian's doing it, so maybe it's not, you know. So I got a lot of people out there, had 3 groups of 20, so 60 people out there. To do, to go through the experience with these, with Sol Tara, which is, they have a place in Costa Rica and Peru. I mean, a very professional before care, during, after care, because you can have a lot of issues that come up after a camp. Yeah. You know, you don't know what you're going to stir up in your mind.

Yeah, I'm not sure how I would react to it, you know.

Well, with these people, you've got somebody you can call afterwards and say, you know, and talk through the and everything like that. So the before and aftercare, I think it's, uh, it's very important. See, and if you're thinking of doing this, I mean, you know, think about it and take your time and, uh, go somewhere where you're gonna have a positive experience and everything's gonna be managed.

Yeah, I was in Tulum about, about a year and 2 months ago, and again, I saw it being advertised everywhere, and I said, that's not the way I want to do it. I want to do it the way it's meant to happen, you know what I mean?

Find the right, find the right place with the shamans that I've worked with actually here and in Costa Rica. They're called Shipibo. Shipibo is a tribe and it's in their tradition. Yeah. You know, and these guys go through a lot of training and I see people that, oh, you know, Bob down the road, he's a shaman. No, no, he's not. No, he's not. I could say I'm a shaman.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I've done more than 20 ayahuasca ceremonies.

Yeah. Jesus Christ.

And I know a lot about it, but I'm not a shaman by any stretch of the imagination. But there's people that have less experience than me calling themselves shaman. They're not. Even to be a facilitator, a sultara, a facilitator is somebody that that is in the ceremonies to assist the people if they need help and, you know, work with the shaman just to check on people. Are you okay? Do you need any— this kind of thing. Even to be considered to be a facilitator, you need to have done a minimum 40 ceremonies. Whoa. Yeah. So I couldn't even qualify to be a facilitator at Soltara. That's how professional they are. Yeah.

And so people are like jumping in after 10 sessions telling them telling people that are shamans and stuff?

Oh, they, I mean, it's not really regulated. Yeah, I'm sure. Anyone can call themselves a shaman, but I'd say be very careful about it. It's a big step for people to make and you want to have a good experience. Yeah.

What would be your advice for somebody going into it for the first time like myself?

Find out what you can about it and, you know, try to go to a place that's doing it professionally and for the sake of some time and an airfare, I would be looking at going to South America.

Yeah, yeah.

Peru, Costa Rica, somewhere like that where you can get a professional camp and also one that doesn't have a fucking 100 people in the ceremony.

Yeah, yeah.

Quite small groups. So it's, you know, people, it's intimate. People can take care of you. They see everybody in the room. So, soltara usually max at 20 people in the ceremony, and they have 2 shamans, normally a male and female, which is nice. Yeah.

And so you've probably one of the most well-rounded people I've ever met in my life from the experience you've been through. What do you think is for you the key to happiness? What really makes you smile and feel good inside?

Interesting question that was debating with a few people the other day. I mean, what's success?

Yeah.

How do you define success? I mean, some people define it by material possessions. Well, that guy's very successful. Look, he's got a big yacht and this and that. But that's not necessarily success. It's not necessarily happiness because there's a lot of very rich people that are very miserable. So what is happiness? I think it's being comfortable and being in love with yourself and projecting that out to the world. And what's success is that you learnt a lot and ultimately had a positive impact on the world and the people around you that you came in touch with during this life. Yeah. So when you check out of here, if somebody asks you or if you ask yourself, or you know, a lot of people I've spoken to a lot of people that have clinically died because it was something I was interested in at one time, what happened to them. And normally they, you know, go to this place of total peace and then they'll see their life in front of them, but they don't see it, they feel it as well, literally like a movie. And they see the impact that they had, negative, positive, on all you know, everything, well, you know, what did your life achieve apart from something for yourself, that it had an impact, a positive impact on people around you? I'm sure there's some people that I've upset in my life or had a negative impact on maybe, but I would definitely like to think that it would be more positive than a negative at the end of the day.

Yeah, you left the earth in a better place.

Yeah, and But as for my personal, what did I want to do with my life? Yeah, I live in a real world, man, where, you know, money is a ticket to freedom. That's all for me. So if I have enough to be free, I can go where I want to go. I can eat where I want to eat, when I want to do it. Nobody ain't telling me what to do. I got my freedom as much as I can get. That's the only purpose of money for me. And maybe I can take care of some people around me if it's necessary. So it's not about the materialism and it's about the experience I've had in my life. If I look back at where I've come from and who I've been and what I've done and where I've gone, I mean, I'm fucking proud of myself, man. I am really proud of myself. I am my own hero because I know what I did, man. I know what it took, and I know how difficult that was and how rare an achievement that is. So I'm in a place of feeling very comfortable with myself, and that's what I want to do now, apart from my own personal goals. I want to be an instrument for good, you know, in, in this world. That's— and I have the ability to do that because I have an audience. Yeah, so that's what I'm using for now. And starting my own podcast very soon. And sure, yeah, there will be some bodybuilding related stuff on there, but it won't be totally focused on that. It'll be on— focused on how you can become better.

Become your own hero.

Better. How you can become your own hero and how can you become better physically, mentally, spiritually. And there's a lot of science coming out now on, you know, how we can age better that, you know, when I was a kid, guy in his 60s, 65, man, he's on the way out. He's got a walking stick, right? You know, That don't need to be the case now. I mean, you know, people like myself are proving this. There's people in their 60s doing well. And, you know, why not into your 70s and so on? I just want to be a functional person and have a great quality of life. And I want to share all that with all my audience, all the information that I've been exposed to, and have great guests on there that can, you know, educate me. I'm going to be learning along with the audience. So I'm looking forward to that, and that's going to be something positive and a platform as well, which, you know, people can reach out to me and say, hey, we'd like to hear you speak to this guest, or we'd like to know about this, what do you think about this and that. So looking forward to that, getting myself out there a little bit more now. I've been a guest on many podcasts, of course, Joe Rogan, Value Entertainment, you know, some big podcasts. But I want to have some, I got great people that Joe Dispenza, Wim Hof, people like that outside of the sports arena that already I have contact with. So, I think it's going to be interesting.

Awesome. And I think that was probably the best answer and the best way to wrap today off, bro. You absolutely smashed it. I feel like I just got like a masterclass, you know.

There you go, man. Be your own fucking hero.

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, don't, you know, listen, don't outsource that, yeah? Oh, this looking at this guy or this girl or whatever. Be your own hero, man. Be, you know, life is like, life is a movie or a book or whatever you want to play. You know, Shakespeare said, you know, life is a stage, we're all just players. He had it right, man. It's like, that's what life is, yeah? And we're in a very complex virtual reality game. That's what we're in.

We're in a simulation.

But you can influence it. You can influence it because the universe is magnetic. So it gives you back what you're giving out. So some people say, yeah, but I'm focusing really hard on I want a lot of money and this and that, and it's not happening. I'm saying, yeah, because you're focusing really hard. You're trying really hard, which means that you're functioning from a basis of fear. Like, it's really hard to get, and maybe I can't get it. So that's what's getting picked up. Oh yeah, that's what you want, that's what you get back.

You're focusing on the outcome not going your way.

It's not that hard. Yeah, you got to just really believe. And of course you have to take physical steps. I couldn't believe I was Mr. Olympia and sit in a chair and boom. Mr. Olympia, I got to go through the physical journey. But you know, the experiences that come into your life, the people that come into your life, the opportunities that come into your life, it's amazing. Once you really believe in this and you observe it, and I just laugh sometimes because things come up like I'm thinking the stem cell treatment in Colombia, I was thinking, ah, stem cell treatment sounds pretty good, but I'm not really sure if it works. 'Wow, it's gonna be expensive as well. Yeah, it'll be good though.' Boom, within 2 weeks, and during some other business talks, I spoke to a guy and he's involved in stem cell clinic and we'd like to offer you this free of charge and come down here. And that's it.

That's how the universe works.

And stuff like that happens to me all the time. And every time it happens, I'm like, 'Yeah, this is easy, man. This is easy.' Get excited about it, believe it, man. Just have one little— there's no coincidence in this thing. Oh, that was a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence, man. You created it. So the power of your mind, that what you're putting out there is so important. You got to take time to get some control and some mastery over this. And meditation is very important for that. You need to have some still time Meditate, because you know the first step in mastery of your mind is being aware of what you're actually thinking. Because we're not aware. We've got all these hairs buzzing around. And you've had a negative thought, and it's like before you've even recognized you've had a negative thought, which is just a seed in your brain, it's putting roots down and getting into your brain. And before you even know it's there, what meditation does, it kind of slows things down. So now I'll have a negative thought, and we all have them. Yeah, it's coming in. I'm like, uh-oh, uh-uh, no, you don't.

Gotcha.

No, you don't. You get out. I'm going to replace you with this. I saw you. Not coming in. Bye-bye. And it's just constant monitoring of what you're actually thinking because we walk around all day. How many times you've been in your car, you're going somewhere different, but you fucking go past the turn-in because every day you go this way. You're on autopilot. We're often like this throughout the whole day and we're thinking shit, we don't even know what we're thinking. So, meditation is one of the keys to getting control of your mind. So, you should have that in your daily routine just like your training and everything else. Awesome.

Unbelievable, Bodhan. So, tell the people where can they find you, the new podcast as well. By the time this is out, I can link that to yours as well.

Yeah, new podcast. Podcast, I just got the studio now, so probably hitting the first guest in a couple of weeks. So, it might be 6 to 8 weeks before it comes out from when we're recording this because I need to record my backlog and then release the first one. So, my social media is the place where you find all the news, Instagram, the Facebook. DY Nutrition, of course, is my company. Again, websites online. It's not hard to find, yeah, DY Nutrition, uh, and the social media was, is, uh, where all the news is at. And then the new podcast, new platform, I'm looking forward to this, is going to be exciting. And, you know, work with the, with the people. Who, who would you like me to talk to? You know, I'm going to have people from, you know, all, all kinds of people on there, anyone that I think is interesting. And that we, as in, i.e., myself and the audience, can learn from, you know, because I love learning, man. I love reading, I love learning, and if I'm passionate for it, I like to learn. If I have no interest in it, like learning Spanish, actually, it's not particularly pressing. I'd like to do it, but, you know, it's not pressing at the moment. So, you know, how do I how do I optimize this period of my life now where I'm getting older and the people that are following me, you know, that are over 40 years old, how do we optimize ourselves, our experience and our life and everything is more interesting to me now than how do I become Mr. Olympia because I've already done that, it's in my past, although I have a lot of knowledge from this that I can pass on, it's not my main focus of interest. Of learning because I've pretty much maxed that out. So I'm learning about the body, about genetics, how we can maximize and influence things and how amazing the body is. You know, I've done a lot of shit to my body, man. But here's the thing, the body can repair and rebuild itself. It just needs the right environment and the right mental outlook and I just was in Brazil and did extensive testing there for cardiovascular fitness, exercise fitness, and everything like that. And I scored to be about 35 years old according to, you know, the fitness biology aspect. So all the good things I've done in my life and the kind of lifestyle I've been leading in the last 10 years losing weight, doing the movements, doing the high-intensity cardio and the diet and everything like that is obviously, you know, there's the proof, there's the data.

There you go.

Awesome.

Good luck.

Appreciate you so much coming on. Thanks for having me on, man.

Unreal. Cheers.

Here, boom.

¡Salud!