Instagram Q&A: Comp Prep, Intermittent Fasting, Ab Training

Ah, come on, you wanker. What is going on everyone? Welcome to the Q&A. I posted a thread on my Facebook page and my Instagram yesterday and I got like 150 questions. That was awesome. If you're not following me on either one of them, you need to sort your life out. But anyway, so some really good questions. Absolutely love Q&As, can knock out so much different topics in one go. So time to get stuck in like a second year at Wes. How much cardio do you do a week? See, this, you know, it's kind of an irrelevant question because when you're cutting, you know, it's all about energy balance. So you can either consume less energy or you can expend more energy. So some people, instead of eating 200 calories less, they'd rather do some cardio. So it's all down to what you want to do, but I personally, this, the past couple of weeks, I've been doing cardio twice a week. Either HIIT, some conditioning work, like, you know, hitting the Pranayama sled, flipping tires, or putting in a podcast and doing about 35-40 minutes of incline treadmill walking. "Hey, do I become a good-looking bastard like yourself?" "Do you have days when you just say fuck it and not track macros?" Yeah, absolutely. The whole— one of the biggest benefits of learning how to track your macros is you get aware of food amounts. So like, there's some days maybe I'm traveling, you know, maybe I'm just taking it easy, maybe I'm chilling with my friends, and you know, I won't track, but I'll look at what I'm eating and I'll have a good idea of what I'm eating. It's a really good position to be in with your diet. What are the best foods for clean bulking? There's no magic foods for clean bulking. There's no magic foods at all. Your body doesn't, when you eat something, it doesn't say, oh, look at this, this certain food is gonna make me bulk clean. The difference between dirty bulking and clean bulking will come down to the type of surplus you're in. So you could go into a sensible surplus of about 300 calories above your maintenance and slowly gain weight, or you could just eat like crap and consume 1,000 calories over your maintenance and gain a lot of unnecessary fats. So that's the difference between clean bulking and lean bulking. It's not exactly to do with the foods, it's to do with the type of surplus you're in. But that said, if you're eating, you know, pizzas and McDonald's and all this, you're going to be in a big surplus anyways. You're going to be taking in unnecessary amounts of fat and stuff like that. Do you plan on competing again, and if so, when? Uh, not really, to be honest. I have no plans. The only time I'd maybe do it again is, you know, if I was lean at the time and only had like 4 or 6 weeks, you know, of prep to do. But really, the main reason I did that competition was for content for this channel. How much would you train your core/abs, and what would you do? I train abs after legs. All my ab work is weighted. You should train your abs like any muscle with resistance. So my favorite ab exercises— and this, this got asked so many times, so take note of this— are weighted decline crunches. So, you know, put your feet in on a decline bench and hold a 20kg plate, do crunches, really contract your abs at the top of the movement. Cable crunches, again, you know, you're holding a cable at the back of your head, usually with the two handles, you're coming down and crunching like that. And hanging knee raises. I put a dumbbell in between my knees, hang from a bar, and do crunches. Just like that. They're my— they're probably my 3 favorite ab exercises. Another one is weighted planks. So put a 20 kg on your back, do, you know, 3 1-minute holds. Maybe after a while you can level up to 3 1.5-minute holds. They're probably my favorite ab exercises. Anything that you can add resistance to and get a good contraction on, you're on a good road. What's your plan for the next 5 years, fitness-related as well as work and business? 5 years is a long time. I'm just going to grow my brand as much as possible. Maybe that could be in the form of a restaurant, could be in the form of a gym. I want to get this channel to 100,000, if not more, of course. So yeah, keep doing what I'm doing now, but always be looking to progress. What is your motivation to keep on training and keep hitting the gym? I don't need motivation to do something that I love to do. You'd have to motivate me to do something I don't like, you know, like studying for example. But you know, the gym, hitting the gym is like one of my favorite parts of the day, you know, it's complete me time. I absolutely love it, so I don't need any motivation. You'd have to motivate me not to go to the gym. During comp prep, what did you find the biggest challenge slash most difficult and how did you overcome it? I'm currently 16 weeks out from my first Men's Physique comp. Any advice? Cheers. This also, I got another question is, what do you wish you'd do 10 weeks out rather than later? And yeah, that's definitely like, you know, when I was like 16 weeks out and all, I wasn't taking it that seriously. I was like, ah, 16 weeks away, it's ages away. And then last 3 weeks, I was like, okay, 3 weeks to go. And you know, my training was so aggressive, you know, I was sticking perfect to my diet. And you know, you really have to be doing that, you know, weeks out. So I wish I had that type of focus and intensity earlier on my prep. So my advice to you would be, the time, time goes by fast, and to take it seriously now. What do you think about intermittent fasting? I get this question like every Q&A, and I'm definitely a fan of intermittent fasting. You know, it's completely done, you know, gone away with that whole you have to eat every 2 hours to stoke the metabolic furnace bullshit. But I also don't like— people think intermittent fasting is magic. It will always come down to your total daily calorie intake. But that's the thing, it's great for anyone on low calories or who suffers from cravings. You have a 4-hour eating window. So let's say you're on 2,200 calories, you're cutting on 2,200 calories. You can have like these 2 or 3 massive 1,000-calorie meals. So, you know, you're really satisfied. It's like having a cheat meal every day. So it's really good for cravings and helps with diet adherence. That's pretty much the aim of the game when you're on a cut, is diet adherence. Thoughts on carb backloading? Kind of similar question to the last. Okay, people are, you know, people again, people think carb backloading is magic. And it's actually just, it's just as much bro science saying that as the no carbs after 6 thing. The main reason why it works is just people set a time limit on when to consume their carbohydrates and they just eat less carbs, eat less calories. So, you know, again, it's nothing magical, but if somebody, you know, saves all their carbs for the night, it's great for late-night cravings. So I'm a fan of it in that sense, but again, it's It's just the opposite of no carbs after 6, bro. So, you know, it is kind of bro science-y. How important is fats when cutting? Yeah, it's definitely more important than when you're bulking anyways, because when you get to a low body fat percentage, when you're in a big calorie deficit, your hormones will start to take a hit. So if you're not getting in, you know, enough fats and enough EFAs, then you might start running into some problems. What's next after BodyPower? Are you going to do another show or focus on the YouTubes and your brand? YouTube's a brand. I've said this like many times, if you want to get a big name for yourself in the fitness industry, you know, competing, it's not the best way to go about it. I'm gonna focus on doing collabs, growing my channel, getting— making some good videos, interacting with you guys and stuff like that. Like I said, the main reason I competed was so I could have some stuff for this channel. Training session during BodyPower? Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully I'll meet so many people there. I don't know what gyms I'll be hitting yet, but I'll be with the whole Machine Fitness crew anyways. Why should I pay money for one of your programs when you can't even place? Ouch! Having a good physique doesn't mean you've good knowledge on improving body composition, training, and nutrition. I've seen tons of guys, tons of IFBB pros come out with dogshit advice. So you should buy a training program off someone if they give out sound, sensible, and evidence-based advice. But if you want to buy the latest 6-pack abs workout, go ahead, buddy. How do you balance study/Leaving Cert and exercise? When you're studying, you want to be getting in about 45 minutes to an hour's worth of exercise a day. It'll help you focus, you know, keep your energy levels up. So, you know, you can get a great weight session in in 45 minutes a day. And it'll also bring your stress levels right down too. If you couldn't train for a number of weeks due to injuries, what else would you try to improve on in your life? That's a great question. I'd try to read more books than I do now, and I would just keep trying to broaden my knowledge on training and nutrition and keep coaching people. As a coach, you always want to be staying up to date with the latest research. What's your favorite thing to do What do I like to do in the summer? Barbecues, festivals, going on holidays. I'm hitting up Forbidden Fruit Festival. Anyone wants to come say hello to me there. I'm also going to Croatia shortly afterwards with a bunch of my friends, so I'm gonna get a GoPro for that, get some sick footage. Hey Rob, I've seen your vid on macros, but one thing still isn't clear to me. When counting fat macros, does the type of fat matter, i.e., saturated versus unsaturated? Do all fats have the same caloric value. Uh, yes, all fats do have the same caloric value. Um, and as for the saturated, unsaturated, in a typical mixed diet it doesn't really matter. You know, we've seen now in the recent years that saturated fats are fine. They, they actually may even have some health benefits like boosting your testosterone. The only type of fat that you need to stay away from is trans fats. But now most shopping brands like, you know, Tesco, Marks Spencer's, whatever it is, they, they don't even stock trans fats. So trans fats are actually quite hard to get in nowadays. So like I said, typical mixed diet, just track your total fat intake and eat well. Best place to buy gym clothes? Either LipsOfFitness.com or Machine Fitness. Discount code MFLipsOf10. Has there ever been a period where you've fallen out of your routine of healthy eating slash gym? If so, how did you get back into routine? Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Happens to all of us in the fitness industry. You know, you see guys and they're, you know, during the winter, you see like, you know, Ryan Terry and all them, they're not, you know, ripped to the bone. No one's ripped to the bone all year round, no matter what they say. And they always just post TBTs and stuff like that. And so yeah, like during the winter, there was like, you know, 2-3 weeks where my gym routine was pretty crap and, you know, my diet suck too. It happens to everyone. How do I get back into it? That I'm not too sure of. I think I was just, just, you know, you wake up one day, you look in the mirror, you see you've put on a bit of extra body fat. It's no big deal, but you're like, okay, it's time to start hitting it hard again. What PT course did you do, man? I'm on the Register of Exercise Professionals, which funnily enough spells out R.E.P.S. Are you going to add more clothes to your website? Please do. These t-shirts in black black and white actually got shit today. Do you need to compete to get sponsorship? No. Look up like a vlog I made a couple of weeks ago talking about sponsorships. It's mostly just about social media, okay? Yeah, imagine you're a company, okay, and you want to sell your product, you want to generate revenue. That's what a company does. So okay, I'm gonna sponsor someone who's gonna get heard by a lot of people, who's gonna advertise advertise my product well. If you, you know, you may compete, but if you've got like 200 followers and, you know, they're all your friends, who's gonna hear about the product? So it's just all about social media, or maybe, you know, you write articles or something, but you have to have a way to advertise their product. You're not gonna get up on stage and be like, hey everyone, just before I do a bit of posing, remember I'm sponsored by this company and you should take their protein. You know, you gotta think how you're gonna advertise their stuff. Any interesting collabs coming up soon on YouTube? Yeah, all the Machine Fitness crew that I'll be with at BodyPower and more. What do you think of young teens getting into weightlifting? Absolutely great. There's a lot worse things you guys could be at. What's more important, a good body or a good mind? A good mind, but healthy body, healthy mind. Tips on transitioning into a bulk from a cut? Keep training the same and slowly lower your calories. To the point where you're still having decent gym sessions and losing body fat. How to gain when you have a high metabolism? Eat more. Robbo, would you ever do a reality TV program? Uh, yeah, absolutely. That's kind of what YouTube is like. Views on including one cheat meal every weekend or so when you are on a diet? Uh, not a good thing. Basically, a pound of fat equates to 3,500 calories. So that's why when you're in a 500-calorie deficit and you're looking to lose a pound a week, so you know, 5 by 7 is 3,500 calories. So let's say you eat at a deficit for 6 days of the week, and then on that 7th day you have a cheat meal, which would easily, easily, uh, take up 3,500 calories. I've seen people literally have a cheat meal every weekend and their progress is stagnant. It completely erases it. So if you're serious about your results, then a cheat meal probably isn't a good idea. You should look into flexible dieting and just learn how to fit, you know, enjoyable foods into your daily caloric or macro intake. So hope you enjoyed the Q&A. Sorry if it went on a bit long. You know, once I sit down, start going through a few questions, I get really into it and, you know, talking like it's just me and you. So I got— I'm going over to Dan Hardings on Wednesday. We're having a sleepover, gonna paint each other's nails, gonna be awesome. And so I cannot wait for the whole BodyPower weekend, gonna be vlogging that, but I'm gonna try get a video up between now and then. Hope you enjoyed. Keep it real. I'm outta here. Peace!