The Endless Pursuit of Progress - Sam Sulek (4K)

Go see Chris live in America - https://chriswilliamson.live Sam Sulek is a professional bodybuilder and YouTuber. From zero to millions of fans, Sam Sulek’s rise has been nothing short of explosive. In just a few years, he’s become one of social media’s most-watched and talked-about creators. Sit back as we dive into the story of the man behind some of the internet’s most beloved vlogs, fueled by hefty scoops of chicken and rice. Expect to learn what Sam would be doing if he wasn’t doing fitness and bodybuilding, why so many people are drawn to Sam’s content and if he expected at all to become an ASMR channel, if there are any pressures to brand himself as anything different than his most authentic self, what Sam’s relationship with the mirror is like, if Sam has any concerns over longevity in his current pursuits, how to keep pushing even when motivation is low, Sam’s thoughts on science based lifting, Sam’s top 10 exercises of all time, and much more… - 0:00 Where Would Sam Be Without Bodybuilding? 6:56 Where Sam Finds His Inspiration 17:56 How Sam Deals with Online Criticism 27:39 How to Be Comfortable Living a Simple Life 33:06 Why It’s Important to Stay Hungry for Success 43:55 Sam’s Opinion on the Rise of Male Body Dysmorphia 01:00:23 How Sam’s Perspective on Bodybuilding Changes 01:11:20 How Sam Stays Driven and Disciplined 01:26:56 Optimising Your Diet to Build Muscle 01:36:43 What Diets Did Sam Follow to See Progress? 01:45:24 Sam’s Thoughts on Evidence-Based Lifting 01:55:37 If Sam Could Only Keep 10 Exercises 02:08:57 What’s Next for Sam? - Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  If you weren't doing bodybuilding, what do you think you'd be obsessing over instead?

• 0:04Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, it would have to be something, but honestly, my, I was kind of lucky starting off body. I don't even say bodybuilding. The only, and this is something people say anyway, if you don't compete, you're not a bodybuilder. Like it's a little, cause when someone does their first show, you know, they kind of want to express this like, you know, glamour about it.

• 0:27Chris Williamson?

  Elitism.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  It's like, I'm a bodybuilder because I competed. You just, but I kind of leaned into that. So before I actually competed, I was, I'd always describe myself as like, just, I'd say a lifter. Cause it's, the point wasn't more so to compete in bodybuilding. Like when I'm working at arms, I'm not thinking like, okay, I need arms to be a little bit bigger so that I can beat this guy on stage. It's more so, I want them to be bigger for me. And then that kind of played into, once I was at a certain level, like, okay, now it's about time to compete. Like it was always on the list, but it wasn't like the point, especially not in the beginning. For me, I'm like, I just want to get big. I, I did gymnastics when I was like 11 to 16.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  I think it was good, but I wasn't like, gonna be college level scholarship, like no Olympic, but like it was fun. And there was one guy named Connor who is, he's the older dude. And now I might not look at him the same way, but at the time he was nuts. He was huge. So we all, whenever we do like strength or conditioning, that's how, I think that was probably some of the seed that got planted. Cause I was doing like four hours a day, like middle school, early high school.

• 1:42Chris Williamson?

  So you already had one obsession.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  So that was like it, like every, it wasn't, and I never had to be dragged to do it. Cause like I was excited. It was fun. So once I quit doing that. To switch it with the bodybuilding just happened to be something I was already kind of interested in and it just fit perfectly like we would talk every summer where some of the guys would be like, okay, this summer, we're actually going to work out and we never did it. But once I actually quit doing it, that's what I replaced it with. But if it wasn't bodybuilding, let's say there was an alternate universe, Sam, or I've got the itch where it's like, oh, it'd be awesome if I could play guitar like Rob Scallan. He's a, he's a YouTuber who's into guitars and everything, or just anything like that could have been it. But it happened to be like, okay, I'm going to get into working

• 2:26Speaker 01

  out really serious. And that also just happened to be the perfect match for me.

• 2:31Chris Williamson?

  Have you held on to the bendiness from gymnastics at all?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  A little. I can like, when I stretch, I can loosen up. But when I'm off season, full of carbs, like it actually kind of sucks to squat because I get like

• 2:44Chris Williamson?

  How tight everything is?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Everything is tighter. When I'm dieted down, I can get my hands under a squat bar fine. But when I'm eating a lot of food, like when I'm more like a two seventy, like I'm sitting there for five minutes, just trying to stretch out.

• 2:57Chris Williamson?

  Uh, Mike Isratel had a, uh, some back surgery thing on him and it's cut open. They've removed fat. They've got rid of fat cells. They've stitched him back up. It's like a big traumatic surgery.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Chris Williamson?

  And I asked him what the most painful thing that he went through was, and it was that he, he said they'd laid him on his back with his arms like this.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Chris Williamson?

  And so he woke up and the most painful thing was the fact that he'd been in an overhead position with his arms over his head for a few hours.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25Chris Williamson?

  And that always makes me laugh.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  I never heard that part. I did see that though. Some of those, if I had something done like that, for whatever reason, I probably wouldn't post that surgery picture with like the bloody shirt.

• 3:37Chris Williamson?

  That man has no shame. He just

• 3:40Speaker 01

  But that's kind of, that's kind of cool too, because he actually gets to show it off.

• 3:42Chris Williamson?

  Well, I think, you know, why is it that people have resonated with you? A very sort of transparent look into, even if people don't see themselves directly in Mike getting his back cut open, or you spending a lot of time obsessing about the gym, what they do see is a person being

• 4:05Chris Williamson?

  Transparent, right? And that's where relatability comes from, I think. Like authenticity breeds relatability. And, you know, if Mike had just disappeared and come back with a smaller waist and some scars, people would have been like, hey, what's going on? And I think that that wouldn't feel very legitimate.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. That's one thing where I didn't plan for it to be like that. But I got a lot of questions this whole weekend where it's like, and every, any, all of us do. Like everyone who's semi six, any, even like you've got 10,000 followers. Like it's, okay, what's the secret? And it's the same thing with bodybuilding. What's the one set that I can do where it actually completely makes it super easy? And it all just happens like nothing. And it's, um, like usually if somebody wants to start posting things or trying to, you know, do anything, it's always like, okay, what are people doing? Let me try to emulate that, like recreate it or just like jump on a trend. Which like is fine, maybe try to change it up a little bit.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  But it's like the best thing that you could do is pick something that you already do and you already like, and just try to like document that. Like if you're a, um, and it's to the point now, like where if you weren't doing that, you're almost missing out. Or like if you have a small business or if you're into like restoring cars, or you have some kind of random interest, like the, what I really like about social media is there's so many niches that no matter what you're into, you could make it a thing. And, uh, so I guess if I could say one tip, being able to talk on camera helps a lot. Cause then you actually, like, when I look at people, I've seen guys post things in the gym forever, before I posted anything. And they're still posting the exact same thing.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  And I've seen this guy for like seven years and he's super big. But he's never like spoke on video. And I'm like, that's the whole point. I want to, I want to know who this guy is so I can kind of like get back to those experiences. Yeah. So it's like, it's almost a, a situation where you already have something really valuable.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  And it's your own individuality and to try to like, you know, conform to what everyone else already does is basically to lose that. So you're already your own individual guy, like no one has lived your life. Try to show that part off, but I'm also not the best source of that kind of tip. Cause my first YouTube video is the same as this one. There was, it's the same as the most recent one. So there is no like, okay, I went through years of study and data and analytics. And this is the like, it wasn't a Mr. Beast story of I analyzed the whatever. If somebody told me they were going to post like what I posted, I don't think it would work.

• 6:50Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. If you tried to plan it in advance, it would have probably sounded like a failure.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it just happened to line up.

• 6:55Chris Williamson?

  Who was inspiration for you coming up? Both content creation side, but also mindset physique wise.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I really watched a lot of Callum von Moger. Like back when I was, you know, or a 16 year old, cause the guy who got me into the gym, like, I mean, I was getting into it anyway. But he was the guy from my high school who actually body built, he competed like at, at the end of where he was a senior and I was a junior. Like we were both like the bodybuilders of the school, you know, like a high school level. But he got me into Callum and then eventually I started watching all the rich piano bigger by the day videos. Which then you can kind of see the similarity where it's okay. He's posting a video every day.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  He's in the car, he's doing a real workout and like I, I only thought about it like, I like that format. I go to the gym and I work out and I drive back to record that is like nothing, like it's, it's very seamless for my routine. But it, it was also just something like nobody was doing. Like I was, when I was coming up before posting anything, I'm looking at regular influencers. I'm like, oh, you guys wouldn't even work out if you didn't have a camera. And I'm squatting in like a dead gym. It's like two in the morning. No one's wa- like, I, I recorded the set for me. Nobody else watched it happen. And that's, that was like a chip on my shoulder thing of like, it doesn't even matter. There's no one in here. I'm still getting after it. Cause I want it and there's nothing that's going to change that.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  So when I started like actually posting things, once I saw a group of brothers who went to my school really blow up one summer. And I'm like, I was getting kind of like jealous. I'm like, okay, now I gotta start doing it. I was gonna do it eventually, but that was like the starter.

• 8:40Chris Williamson?

  Catalyst.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  I was like, I've always kind of hemmed about this where it's like, am I a different guy now that I'm recording all these things? And trying to like talking about it and putting it out there. And like I, I would just always think about that in like the back of my mind. Cause now these workouts are not just me alone. Now there's an observer. So it's like, is the experiment altered? Cause now people are watching it. And I don't think it is. Like after all this time, I think I'm still, if anything, it's a little bit of an accountability factor. Cause if I didn't think, you know, maybe I wasn't totally into it. I know somebody's watching, so I might go a little extra hard. So I think it hasn't taken away too much.

• 9:21Chris Williamson?

  But maybe I did a little bit.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, but if you get distracted by it,

• 9:26Speaker 01

  it's like the, the workout should come before the recording of the workout. I've always thought.

• 9:32Chris Williamson?

  Have you found it hard to hold on to authenticity now that millions of people are watching?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Well, now it'd be, if I made a video that was inauthentic, it'd be strange. Like I'll, uh, cause I'll record, cause now I'm kind of getting around doing all these events. I get to talk to everybody and sometimes it's hard to actually separate someone's social media persona versus their real like human personality. Because sometimes we look at a video as like you're kind of hosting a show. And a TV host does not talk off set the same way.

• 10:08Chris Williamson?

  Hey guys, welcome back to the.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  On set. Like it was like, all right, we're gonna hit a chess date today. And I'm doing like a YouTube intro and there's like sounds like, like that's just not what I do. I, for me, I think that'd be silly anyway. So it's, um, I think it's for me, kind of a cool mentality. Where I'm not exactly even thinking like, okay, I want to improve my content engagement. I'm trying to improve my reach or like anything like that. Cause I almost boil it all. Cause it's so one dimensional. Like it branches out. I talk about everything, but it's like, I want it to be about the gym specifically. So for me, it's like this kind of branching off point of motivation. Where in my mind, I feel the better than all my workouts are.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Not only is that better for me, cause I want them to be good. But it will just bleed and like bleed out and raise everything else up. Because it's all stemming from the workout anyway.

• 11:05Chris Williamson?

  There's four hour compilations of your car talks to go to sleep to. Did you anticipate that you'd become an ASMR channel eventually?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  But I, I actually heard that before, never in high school. But when I was in college, my, it was like my second year. I gave a couple of presentations, like one time I, one of my curricular or extracurricular credits. Was mafia cinema history. So it was following.

• 11:37Chris Williamson?

  That's niche, but yeah.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  It was following like from the first, um, what do you call a soundless movie?

• 11:44Chris Williamson?

  Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Where in between frames of like actual video, they just had black, a black screen with the words that got said. Like it started from there and then.

• 11:52Chris Williamson?

  What a funny, what a funny way to, to put a movie together.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  But it's like, that's all you had. They can, they can time sync audio with a clap like we can now. But then it went up like all the way through Godfather and everything else. And I had to make. A group video where it was clips from all these movies and someone had overlayed their voice and edited all together. And I was posting like little TikToks at the time, like fitness TikToks. So I almost volunteered for the editing voiceover. So I could get a little like, that was the first video that I ever edited it technically.

• 12:26Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And people told me after, when they heard it, they said, dude, you should do like an audio book or something. And I didn't hear it. I did not like, I couldn't hear it because it's my own voice. But then I gave a different presentation in a different class and the two guys sitting next to me said the same thing. So I don't know what, what changed over the course of those years, or if like, maybe I got a little older and I could be more outspoken and like not shrink down and be so nervous because I'm like talking to someone. But that's part of it where when I think of how you could like do a, like do the books on what all the just success came from. It's like, I think posting a lot of videos, actually like meaning what I'm talking about and really working out and like being behind it.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Like that, that's something I could tell anybody to do. And I always say that the X factor was involved because a lot of it was things that I just could not be predicted, but happened to work out really well.

• 13:21Chris Williamson?

  I would subscribe to a Samsung like sleep stories app. If that goes out on Audible.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  I get, I get curious about doing like just audio books.

• 13:29Chris Williamson?

  I, I, I think it'd be great. Like you're just describing a, an afternoon walk through a gentle meadow or something.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I'd probably, I'd get to read the books because I'd be, I'd be reading it and it'd be a little more, you wouldn't say literate, but you'd be a little more just.

• 13:47Chris Williamson?

  I could look, dude, if the, if this bodybuilding thing and all this Jim Shark stuff, you know, if that doesn't go well, I, I genuinely think that there's a, an opportunity, you know, a nice collaboration with Karma Headspace or something like that, sleep stories would be good. So I, you know, just lingering on what we said there, this authenticity with millions watching and.

• 14:07Chris Williamson?

  It is. There's a degree of performativeness you want to, you're always compelled to do because.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like in a way, I think there's kind of like a Sam on video. And then there's like a Sam when I'm talking with my buddies or a group. But I almost don't think it's too much of a like thing because you will naturally act differently based on who you're with. And for me, when I'm working out alone and I've got just the camera, like I thought I'd get a camera guy because that's what everyone does. But it's so natural for me to have that like actual back and forth. It's all just things that I get to think of. Like even though I'm probably a little less energetic, because obviously if you're in a group hanging out, whoever, like you're going to be a little more jumpy.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  But when it's just me, like, I don't think that's like, as even though it's a little different than my typical back and forth. Like even now, this probably wouldn't be exactly how I talk like in the world, but it's not intentional in a way.

• 15:10Chris Williamson?

  The goal is to try and reduce the distance between those two people, right? Get them as close as possible.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  It's like you'll dress up for a fancy restaurant. That doesn't mean you always dress up.

• 15:19Chris Williamson?

  But it also doesn't mean that you in a suit is somehow inauthentic. Yeah, but you know, I think even the lowest followed person with a couple of hundred followers on their Instagram. If you turn the camera around on yourself and you press the button, like, oh, fuck, I need to do. There was a statistical increase in cosmetic surgery. I think it was called Zoom face. After COVID, because people were seeing themselves on camera so much that they were observing their own flaws. And you know, that's you just on a live call with your boss or either you're assistant for your team or whatever. So holy shit, like if that's how people are feeling just with video calls on COVID.

• 16:02Chris Williamson?

  Imagine what it's like when you start posting or you put an Instagram story.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I never, I never heard about that. But that's, that's one thing where, because the body, like even getting into bodybuilding and everything that comes along with it. And like bringing like a prepped meal to school or just whatever, it's still a little like off the beaten path. It's getting super normal now because everybody's in the, into the gym, which I think is perfect. Because now gyms are going to, you know, not substantially, but gradually increase in. Value because there's just more of a demand. So it's like the more the merrier. But uh, just from knowing that it's kind of a thing where like if you post on social media, you're asking to get hated on. It's just the nature of it. But bodybuilding is like also a guarantee because it's it's you could play into it like

• 16:49Speaker 01

  maybe someone's insecure about how they look and they're gonna go after someone who they like whatever, it's just part of it. But already knowing that, like to, you know, get into it and see anyone say anything. It's like it's if you're unapologetically into something. Like if I saw you eating a bowl of ice cream and I said, I can't believe you're eating vanilla. That's the worst flavor. You're a total loser. But you really liked it. You you wouldn't be offended by that. You'd think I'm weird for even trying to criticize you for it. Because you really are into it. So that's um, that's something where it's it's its own skill to be able to put yourself out there. And only take criticism for what it is. Like if someone posted uh, or made a comment on my video.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  And this is more like when I put my director producer hat on. And they say this video's mic, this video's audio sucked. Delete your channel. I'm gonna take that as, alright, my, I might need to fix my audio. I don't need to take the hate with a critique. Because I can take, I want the critique. That's the good.

• 17:49Chris Williamson?

  Thank you for your feedback.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you can, you you should be able to separate that from the the context of how it's said.

• 17:56Chris Williamson?

  What have you learned about dealing with criticism and and self-worth and stuff like that? Because if the plan was, hey, it'd be cool if some people watched this. And then there's an awful lot of scrutiny and you're young and are approaching this from a little bit of a different angle. It's going to invite in criticism.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:16Chris Williamson?

  How how have you learned to deal with that?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Uh, it's not like I totally did not even think about it in the beginning. Because when you first start getting, like, let's say you're posting something, you get like a few thousand followers. It's um, you know, it it takes a second. But if you look back on it, it's really a milestone that your videos are being shown to more people. Because if the same 10 people love every video in the comments. That means your stuff's only getting shown to them. It's not getting shown to anyone else. So, once people start giving you, uh, like, you know, just saying regular, just hate, that means that they're someone who got shown your stuff for the first time. So, it actually means your things are moving out of like a small little scale bubble and scaling.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  But it's, I don't know, for someone who's struggling with it, I'd say like, remember this guy just scrolled away. He did not, he doesn't even remember saying it. It's, it's just a weird thing where, you know, your phone is a totally different communicative device than real life. So, maybe judge what people actually say to you in person and just, uh, for some people, it's much harder to get over, I'm sure.

• 19:26Chris Williamson?

  It's a good point that that comment someone just made is flippant, passive. Whereas for you, that might linger. I mean, I, I know for me, you know, over the thousand episodes I've done this show, there's certainly some comments where I've gone to bed at night and I'm like, fuck's sake.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Think about it.

• 19:43Chris Williamson?

  Like, that's the, that's the thing that you're gonna think about as your head hits the pillow. But you just remember the insults and forget the compliments. It's kind of the way that the world works.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  And it's, uh, and even just try to, like, this is one thing I really like is trying to imagine anything where it's not a debate, but just like two sides of an approach. Like, okay, do I want to read every hate comment and take it personally and like really only look at those? Or do I want to like, look at the system as it really is? There's like always way more real comments. So, why does that, why does a negative one get so much impact? And 10 other, like, how many good comments even outweigh one bad one? And if that one actually like hit you in a weak spot, there could be no number and that could just be it. So, I think that's where it's, um, it's almost like it, it shouldn't be, but it is.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  It shouldn't happen, people shouldn't be mean, but they are gonna be, that's just how it is. So that's where it's actually your responsibility to try to be impervious to it. Because you're kind of suffering in your own mind. Cause it was your choice to let it in and get upset. Because if you were a little, kind of like, I don't wanna say mentally tougher, but kind of um, if you could take a little more stoic approach like that, then you wouldn't even get upset about it in the first place.

• 21:00Chris Williamson?

  What does that stoic approach look like to you?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  It's just not a, you know, not making a fuss about something if it doesn't actually require that. Because I, I think about that a lot, like my, my whole thing is, or one thing I like to think is like, okay, was today a good day? Like net, and it doesn't have to be crazy good, but like on average, was I feeling like pretty good, not too stressed out about things? If I have a to do list, it's not like, like I'm taking the proper steps to actually complete it. Like it's, I'm not letting anything linger too much. And if I'm making myself upset, or like if I'm tired and I'm going into situations with a negative starting point, well then you're already, you can be upset by anything.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Oh, this weekend was so busy. Oh, it sucked. Oh, I'm so tired. Like you, you can instantly do that and it's like nothing. Cause it's this weird self depreciation, like boomy, things are so hard. And it's, it's a, I mean, I, I get the logic because it's, it's a comfortable, like retreat. Everything is so hard, everything sucks. I can do nothing about it, it's just how it is. So there's nothing. Like it's a, it's a taking your hands off the wheel of things when you're not six years old. Like this is, you reach a point where you're, you're responsible. Like I, you know, I've still got some, some stuff in my parents' house, I'm gonna go pick up and things. But at, at this point now, like twenty-three-year-old Sam, I'm completely responsible for all my own stuff.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  So I gotta actually take a hold of it. And if I make myself upset about like the stupidest things, well then I'm stressing myself out for no reason.

• 22:38Chris Williamson?

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• 23:21Chris Williamson?

  gonna win. That's drinklmnt.com/modernd wisdom.

• 23:41Chris Williamson?

  It is a strange thing to try and deal with the criticisms of people that you don't know. At least in my experience, the amount of times that you can try and reverse engineer, well, would you, don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from, don't accept.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  That's a good one.

• 23:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's, it's nice. All of this stuff makes sense.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  We're just, we're saying it in a hypothetical.

• 24:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  When you're in it, it's much different.

• 24:06Chris Williamson?

  I got this conversation later on today with a couple of young philosopher bros. And they do logic, right? So it's a very sterile, rational way to sort of look at situations.

• 24:20Chris Williamson?

  Honestly, the more that I've done a little bit of research into logic, the more it feels like it just completely fucking falls apart the second an emotion comes in. You're like, oh, this sounded so great. But you're not an equation. You're not a sterile laboratory.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's something that's fun on paper because you could, you could read that and think, oh my God, if I start thinking that this way, I'll never be upset again. And it's like, you're not a freaking robot. I bring this up a ton where I'm like, just because you can use Excel doesn't mean you don't have to run around like we used to do when we were hunter gatherer. We're not that much different. Like, we can do way different stuff, but you're still like genetically right there. You gotta run around and friggin' move.

• 25:01Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  But yeah, same thing. You can't, like, the idea to kind of, like, almost be afraid of your own emotions where you don't want to even get into it.

• 25:09Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  And just like thug your way out of it where it's like, I don't care.

• 25:13Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  It's just like any kind of extra masculine.

• 25:16Chris Williamson?

  Have you heard of ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy? It's not too dissimilar to CBT. It's kind of CBT adjacent, I suppose, but in in many ways. CBT is teaching you the thinking patterns, the way that your brain works, so that you can better see and move through challenges. Acceptance and commitment therapy, a lot of that is about this thing is happening and you sort of allow it to move through you. So it's CBT I for insomnia is very popular and ACT I for insomnia is also pretty popular. But the approaches are very different. So acceptance and commitment therapy for insomnia, a lot of the time is just, okay, I'm awake. What would it be like if I was okay with being awake?

• 26:01Chris Williamson?

  Not CBT, which a lot of the time feels like you're you're in battle with it. Oh, that's catastrophic thinking. That's anchoring bias. That's, you know. And at least in my experience using ACT for challenges that you've got in your life. You said before, do I feel sort of generally pretty good about the day? Am I not too stressed? So.

• 26:28Chris Williamson?

  What would it be like if I was just okay with this? What would it be like if I was just, my knee, I've got a little bit of a knee injury or something? You go, I can fight against it, or I can reverse engineer it. You know, this is a challenge that I need to get through. This is where the real work begins. You go, my knee hurts. What if I was okay with my knee hurting?

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Chris Williamson?

  I'm still need to go and do the thing, but at least for me, and maybe it's different for different physiologies. For me, I just like that sort of ease, regulation thing. For me, that's that that that works quite well.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  But then that's where, like, when I talk about the logic of taking things like two extremes. Well, what do you do? Like, just take everything negative that ever happens to you and say, this is just how it is. That's okay.

• 27:09Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Like, that's completely.

• 27:11Chris Williamson?

  My hurting, I don't need to fix it. I can just let it fester and get worse.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Like, it's um, it's, are you gonna lower your standards to the problems that you're dealing with? Or are you gonna raise your standards and fix those problems and be in a better position? So you can't fix everything, but some of the things it's, that's where the milligram comes in. The things that you could fix, you should fix. And the things that you can't, you shouldn't worry.

• 27:35Chris Williamson?

  Well, that's the stoic fork, right? That dichotomy of control thing. So you mentioned there about training at the gym, two in the morning, kind of getting it done. This is me on my own. How difficult has it been to maintain a simple lifestyle now? Because I can't imagine that training in the gyms near you is quite as peaceful as it used to be.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Maybe a little, but it's actually, it's the best there out of anywhere.

• 28:01Chris Williamson?

  Because people have seen you a million times.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I've been at this gym since I started working out. So I see all the, all the same people work there.

• 28:07Chris Williamson?

  Amazing. Oh, it's.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  If anything, they're probably like, oh, he's on my machine. Like, oh my God, Sam's on the Smith. I wanted.

• 28:14Chris Williamson?

  It's gonna be death of thirty minutes, motherfucker.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Because it's a, and it's, and it's just like an exposure thing, you know, like just from being there so much. But when I, when I get to visit places, that's where it's a little crazier. Or um, like even, it's kind of a classic trope of, holy, my Instagram just blew up. Go to LA. I'm out of here. And it's a, you're kind of boxing yourself in because now you're doing what everyone else does. For me, I've been like, the gym is gonna have the same weights anywhere. The whole point of social media is you can do it from anywhere. I don't need to uproot my whole life and everyone that I know just because that's what other people do. So it's um, at home, it's like very normal. But it's it's definitely different.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  But even as different as it is, um, like I I got this a lot. It's like, how crazy is this? And like objectively, it's totally crazy. Like I can still see that from before to now. But you do get a little bit exposed to it just from it never just happened. Like first it was like one guy at a Kroger said,

• 29:21Speaker 01

  whoa, dude, I saw you on my phone earlier. And it was a video that had like 2,000 views. Like it just happened because he was that was the start. And then like the next week, there was another guy. And then it like all very like point one percent increases over time. So there was no moment where the frog jumped out of the boiling water. Cause it just raised temperature super slowly. But it's it's definitely crazy how big it's all kind of scaled. But at home, it's it's pretty normal.

• 29:49Chris Williamson?

  How do you not get distracted as more options come onto the table?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  I think I've still got a little bit of that kind of,

• 30:01Speaker 01

  I don't want to say hater preconception, but almost like hard headedness of like, I know what I'm doing. I know what I want to do. I know who I wouldn't want to like get involved with. Cause it sound like everyone on social media is always the nicest person ever. Like it's it's like anything. So I can see guys where I would say, I like this guy. This guy's cool. We have talked before. Let's do something. Uh, but even and I always think about this at the expos, like to see an expo. Everyone just left this lift London and they are getting after it. This year is their year. I saw I saw Sawyer Cloud. I saw David Lay. Phil Heath was there. This is gonna be sweet. In a week, that that motivation is gonna it's gonna dwindle.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Because this is a this is like the just for show part. And in the moment, it's super flashy. But you know, e- even the workouts I got to do with some of the gym shirt guys like Jackie Yules and Marcus and like it's really fun because I get to live with guys who are kind of higher level advanced, like Jack Eagles is a total beast. But that's, you know, countered by the three months of workouts I just did on my own, which were only for the purpose of like progress. So it's um, it's like there's a ratio of like fun to work. Where like, you know, how many, there would be a million hours of, I always reference the basketball players because they're such a good example of a lot of practice before performance.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  And it's like, how long would you sit and watch like a Kobe Bryant shoot free throws? Like, how long would you watch LeBron do dribbling drills?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  You wouldn't, but that's the kind of, um, I see a lot of quotes where it's like, those are the glorious, gloryless battles, which when one add up to a seamless victory. But it's, it's like, you can't forget that all happened before. But it's easy to when all you see is that end result, like when we're all in match track suits. We're a freaking Jim Shark team. Don't forget, everybody is now going back to where they belong, not belong, but back to where they're from.

• 32:05Chris Williamson?

  To do the boring.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  And they're all going to get back to, back to work. They're all going back to normal.

• 32:09Chris Williamson?

  Dude, it's the same with the show. It's, this is fun and it's cool, but.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  That's not.

• 32:18Chris Williamson?

  Over this weekend, you know, I've been, I, I landed on Thursday. I had the athlete venue thing on Friday with all of us going. I didn't get to do the athlete workout on the Friday afternoon because I had to go back and prep and read. And then I had to do it before we left on Saturday and then left early on Saturday. And then on Sunday, did it all morning and then didn't get to go to the product showcase last night for the same thing. So yeah, you're right. It's 95%, 98% of it is all of this stuff, which is me looking at a laptop or me with a Kindle or me with a book or me with notes or me walking and going, what the fuck do I think about that thing? Like, what's the idea? What's the name for that concept? What's the whatever?

• 33:01Chris Williamson?

  And then, oh, okay, I get to come back and, and finally have some fun. But there's a, a cool story from Atomic Habits by James Clear. And, uh, I think it was the lead coach of maybe the Chinese weightlifting team. Or maybe this is Ben Berger on Chasing Excellence. It's one of the two. And they spoke to, uh, the lead coach of Chinese weightlifting team. They said, what's the difference between the guys who are elite and the guys that are world champions? And he said, it's the world champions that are prepared to do the most boring work with the least amount of complaining. And I just really liked that idea because.

• 33:40Chris Williamson?

  Especially as things become more successful, and this is like a really unpopular talking point on the internet, because everybody wants to hear the zero to one, not the fifty to fifty-five, or eighty to eighty-five, or ninety-five to ninety-six. They don't want to hear about the top-end stuff, because it doesn't sound, it sounds more exclusionary, right? Because by definition, most people are on the come-up, as opposed to closer to the top. But I think it's important to give people an idea of what are the pitfalls that are coming up for you. If you do what you say that you want to achieve, which is become better in whatever it is that you want, even becoming better as a parent, becoming better as a dog owner, becoming better as a friend, or whatever, as you become more advanced, there will be fewer and fewer people that can give you advice about what

• 34:22Chris Williamson?

  you're going to come up against. Anyway, point is, people that are prepared to show up and do boring things, as their situation becomes more luxurious, feels sort of opulent, you know, if you're a world champion Chinese weightlifter, I imagine you've probably got your meals cooked for you, you'll have bodywork, you'll have a coach, you'll have a mindset person, you'll have friends, you'll be living in a house that's probably quite nicely put together, a bed that's constructed for your particular physiology, firmness, all that sort of stuff. And you think, how do you remain hungry to go in and do an hour of

• 35:00Chris Williamson?

  mobility work, four times a week, when you have your meals cooked for you, and you've got a custom-built pillow and stuff? And that preparedness to accept, no matter how good I get at this thing, I will always have to do boring shit. And that's not a bug, it's a feature. And not only is it a feature, it's a source of competitive advantage, because as things get more salubrious, as you, as you raise up through the ranks, other people will have the same thought that you do, which is, I shouldn't need to do this shit anymore. You go, okay, so if you can continue to lean into the stuff that you did at the start, at the end... That's where the competitive advantage lies.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was I was just doing the math to make sure I knew what it all added up to. But not even including, because before the bodybuilding show that I just did. Like I was dining for like five months, but just counting the year from January into that first show. A three month period. There was five days straight of cardio. It was a hundred. It was one hundred twenty hours. Because it was it was thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes after the workout for two of those months. And then for one of those months was an hour in the morning and an hour after.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  So five, like, who would even be able to watch five hours or something like that, let alone or five days of something like that? Let alone do it. And that's the stuff I don't show off. Because, I mean, for one, nobody even cared to watch it. But it's it's like a it's like a hidden quest in a video game. Where it's actually the most valuable thing. Or like it's straight out of Indiana Jones. When he's got to pick the premises, he's in this kind of magical cave, if you haven't seen it. And there's a million gold, like there's a hundred gold chalices. And they're all super flashy. And if you pick the correct one, you get in eternal life or something, whatever.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  So there's two guys that show up, it was Indiana Jones and then another like villain guy. And he picks the flashiest, most diamond encrusted one he could get his hands on, like what he thinks would be the trick. Drinks from it instantly dead or something like that. It's been a while. And then Indiana Jones picks the scrappy wooden one. And that was the secret, the one that was understated. And it's so that gets me motivated to do that kind of stuff and track all my cardio and calories and everything. Because I know its value, because I've done it and gotten the value from it. So I know that it actually like is the trick. But if you if you've never done it, you don't have that proof. And it's it's always a what if? And that's everything like that's honestly, that's the.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  At least stateside, that's your kind of program to do that. Middle school, high school, okay, you have to go to college to get this job to do this. Like the idea of doing, getting into like a trade or getting into like, I think I have this awesome business idea. That is the minority by far to branch off from this conditioned path. And it's not like it's bad, but so, so many people might've been able to do so many awesome things. If they could really do what they wanted to do instead of just, you know, following the beaten path.

• 38:23Chris Williamson?

  Bro, if you're succeeding in a life that you hate, imagine how great you'd be at one that you actually enjoyed. But there's so many people that are crushing it and then not fired up for what they do.

• 38:36Chris Williamson?

  Imagine how good you could be if you actually woke up on the morning and were excited for what you were about to do.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Like it was a, and that might just be a timed thing. Like there's a video of Seinfeld in an interview. And, you know, I don't, I don't know if I call him the greatest source of whatever, but he's like, you know, back, you know, back in the, in the nineties, back in the eighties. The flex was like, what do you do for work? And that's a little different because I mean inflation and you know, whatever. But at the time at least it was, oh, this guy has a cooler job than me. Oh, this guy worked at a guitar shop. That's cool. I'm a freaking accountant. That's just paper, everything. And it's, um, like it's very monetarily driven. Like, uh, it's, it's one of the three classics. It's like sex, drugs and money.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  That's, you know, monetized social media wise, in its own way, the sex side. But in regular Instagram and when it comes to, um, or at least the money side. That you don't have to do anything. You don't have to be an interesting guy at all. If you get your hands on a super fancy car and make some videos about it. You didn't even have, you could know someone who had it and he let you, and that's your whole gimmick. Just the fact that you like have something this valuable. And for me, I'm like, that sucks. Like you didn't, you didn't do anything to get that. And the ones that did, well, they don't even care to show it off. Because they are kind of, you know, comfortable enough with wherever they're at. Where it's like guys who say, oh dude, I'm gonna do a bodybuilding show. I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna be the next whoever.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  My thought on that is always you're trying to essentially argue your case to the universe. And internally in your mind, that, you know, kind of idea to want to propel, like convince everyone you can do it. May come from an internal doubt of, I don't know if I can do it, but I want, I want to do it. I don't know if I can do it. I'm going to tell everyone I can do it and then maybe I'll be able to convince myself. So it's not bad to want to say that and then still really go after it. But like however I'm wired, I don't exactly want to talk about what I'm going to do. And it might be a little bit of a defense mechanism for me. Cause if I have a plan to do something and then it totally flopped, well, no one knew.

• 40:58Chris Williamson?

  If you don't set a goal, you can't fail.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Nobody knew I was going to do it. So I don't, but I don't think it's as much of that as it is. Like, you know, on the social media side, if I said I was going to do a bodybuilding show in six months. The whole time people would, people would say like, he's not going to do it. So I'm like, I don't want to even talk about it. So usually it's like, okay, 12 weeks out, videos, you know, transformation programs. Like just really hyping it up months in advance. So for me with mine, he was like, all right, we're doing a show in like three days.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  We're already, we're already ready.

• 41:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Not even to give anybody the opportunity to think it wouldn't happen. Cause then you just do it. And that's already way more impactful because then anybody could say they're going to do it. But to actually like have that belief very firmly, or it's not even a belief. It's like an under. It's, I want to have an understanding that I know I can get where I want to go. Where it's to the point where you don't believe that if I knock this water, I was going to spill everywhere. You know it. You know, that's what is going to happen from the circumstance. So if you're really. And maybe in the beginning, I'm sure some of it was just from optimal delusion. But I think you might even need some of that just to get started.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  But now it's to the point where I know what I'll be capable of. Or I know what I am capable of, and I want to at least reach that level of effort and consistency with the things that I'm really into. I'm not like that with everything. But with the working out, at least very specifically, like that's my thing. You know, all your eggs and not all your eggs in one basket.

• 42:40Chris Williamson?

  Most.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  But if most of them are in there, you should give it a lot of attention. And I know I'll feel better if I do.

• 42:45Chris Williamson?

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• 43:30Chris Williamson?

  Use it every single day for a month. If you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back. That's how confident they are that you love it. Plus they ship internationally and right now you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below. Heading to livemomentous.com slash modernism using code modern wisdom at checkout. That's 35% off livemomentous.com slash modern wisdom. A modern wisdom at checkout. When it comes to prep, first bodybuilding show this year. Male body dysmorphia is on track to overtake female body dysmorphia within a couple of decades. What's your relationship with the mirror light?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  I was definitely feeling it a little because you are, it's one day where you just really depleted all your water. Like you will never look like that on a regular day to day basis. And also, I mean, it's also kind of an interesting look. Like, do you really want to look like a stage bodybuilder all the time? Like I get, so I get the allure there for the day. But afterward, like actually eating more food and kind of getting a little bit softer just from, because that's the nature of it. That was actually when I did feel it a little because I was just looking at the absolute craziest version of myself ever. And now I'm not that. But it's kind of a, it's, it's more of a mental thing where what do you imagine yourself as? When you think of Chris Williamson, are you thinking awesome lighting,

• 44:52Speaker 01

  huge, jacked, ripped, pumped up?

• 44:55Chris Williamson?

  Yes, keep going.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I'm thinking, or at least I try to like imagine myself more so is like just like how I look in the day. Like the, the more that, or the larger I've gotten, just in like the, the pursuit of size, the more comfortable I've gotten with like just the fact that I'm as big as I am, where I don't, I don't feel the need to like only post my biggest picture and like even go so far as to like Photoshop it or like that's just, that sucks. Not only is that like you're just lying by doing that, which for the people you're showing is, that's, that's stupid, that's rough. But you're lying to yourself because you're definitely looking at that picture and thinking, you know, that's how I look. And that's not how you look. When I'm, when I'm pumped up in the gym, that is its own circumstance,

• 45:39Speaker 01

  which is cool in its own way. And then I can go back to what I normally look like. And for me, I've been so like real progress driven with the gym where I'm not so concerned with how do I look today for everyone who's going to see me. And those guys are the guys who stay lean all year round, always posting Instagram.

• 45:58Chris Williamson?

  Because they're scared of getting too fluffy to make the longer term progress.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Well, maybe not scared in every case, because if that's the look that you really want, then you're good. That's sweet. Like you're, you actually kind of did it. But if you're someone where you actually are scared of that, then that's the motivation. It's just fear of looking a little softer or anything. And I mean, we're not helping. You know, guys who post a really crazy picture aren't exactly helping the situation because they're showing a totally crazy version. But it's that's where I mean, it's just how it is. So it's kind of your responsibility to try to grasp it more objectively. Like, these guys look like this because of everything that they're doing. You can't forget that.

• 46:39Chris Williamson?

  Do you see this with the fans that you interact with? You know, you've got young followers. What's your demographic? What's the?

• 46:46Speaker 01

  It's wide. It's it's um, it's probably evenly dispersed between eighteen and below, eighteen to like thirty and then thirty and above.

• 46:55Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Because I'll get, I mean, I'm I'm getting off flights. And like this older pilot is like, how's my landing, Sam?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  It's like, it took me a second, but it's way wider than I ever would have guessed.

• 47:10Chris Williamson?

  Well, even within that, right, guys, I guess of all ages.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're everybody's in the gym.

• 47:14Chris Williamson?

  The male body dysmorphia thing, just I think it really fascinates me. I think we've got a good cultural narrative and archetype around.

• 47:24Chris Williamson?

  You know, body positivity for all that there were lots of things that was maybe a little contrived with that for women.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:31Chris Williamson?

  I don't think we've had the same sort of a movement for men. And I think that that's why this male body dysmorphia thing really, really ramping up. I mean, you saw bigger, stronger, faster, right? Where Luke Skywalker action figure in the sixties was sort of like nerdy dude. And then in the nineties, you know, he's been doing five by five for a few years. And then by sort of the two thousands, he's been on a very, very heavy course of trend. And you go, why does Luke Skywalker need striated delts? So you've got this bigflation thing that's going on.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  But that's not new. I mean, when did Rocky come out?

• 48:07Chris Williamson?

  That's true. That's true. But I I think if you were to look at how prevalent that's been, the saturation level of like, yeah, if Rocky as a boxer is ripped, uh, yeah, is it unrealistic? Uh, many boxes that built? Probably not. But like, at the very least, the nerdy dude that like, swings the lightsaber around, probably not him. Um, but there's no area now that's beyond somebody being jacked for it. Uh, I'm just interested in what's what you're seeing from your audience and what you think for sort of younger generations, even younger than you that are coming up now to try and have this balance. I want to look better, but I don't want to. I don't want to feel in deficit and I I don't want to go through life hating the

• 48:52Chris Williamson?

  mirror.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's um, that's definitely an angle I have to bring up, or that is someone like to be looked at. But in in terms of the situation, I think guys are always going to have it easier. Because as much of a standard as there is, it's still not the same as for women. And guys are more likely to look at things as like, shit, man, I'm just fat. Or if you're if you're got like, that could just be like, like, guys will joke around with each other like that. Because like, that's just kind of how we are. It's a little more. I don't want to say playful, but you could you could say kind of blunt like that. But it's not as likely to eat at us. I would, you know, I'm not exactly the guy to go to to be like, what was it like to lose 300 pounds? I could

• 49:33Speaker 01

  try to guess. I don't know for sure. But I I think it's definitely increasing the more prevalent fitness is becoming. But it's a it's something where another middle ground, like, okay, I either have to look like a Ronnie Coleman or like a Greg Plitt, or I'm completely worthless, which is this side of the scale, which that sucks. Or, man, I don't care how I look. I'm gonna be 400 pounds and I'm gonna love it. There's no problem with this at all. And that's that sucks, too. So there is a middle ground of where I think it's important to, you can be your own like worst critic. But it's different if your own worst, if you're your own worst hater.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  You can tell yourself you have things that you want to work on. But to really like self depreciate and like, I'm just such a, I, I hate to hear it. I'll see guys where they, I'm into the gym and it's, it's always the same guy I reference here because it was so egregious. Every time I'd come in to work out, he's like, how you doing, man? He's like, shit, squatting today. I hate it. I want to get out of here. He's not joking. And I mean, for him, that's where it goes back to like, sometimes it's like self soothing behavior to say, oh, this all sucks so bad. And you're like releasing your responsibility for the situation. Like everything sucks. Oh, just how it is. But it's, um, yeah, that's what I really like to hear the most.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Because for a high school guy to go from like one sixty, normal looking dude to pretty big. I mean, after a year of only working out, no diet at all, you can look pretty good. Like you drastically different, but it didn't take that much. Cause you do get that early starting point of, well, you were already pretty lean.

• 51:19Chris Williamson?

  New, new gains are real, dude.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, newbie gains. Right in the beginning, you're the most susceptible to your training. So for someone to show me their, you know, fat loss transformation, like dude, look at this picture. And it's not the guy I'm looking at right now. Like it's hundred fifty pounds. So these guys will could be in like my gyms that I go to. And he's with his dad and like, we get a little picture and then, you know, he walks off and does a set and then his dad's telling me he's like, dude, he started watching you talk about dieting, like he really got into it. I never could have guessed this would have happened, like completely changed the dude's life. And it, but not because I said something, but because he like took the action to do it. And when someone does that, like out of, honestly, out of everything, even someone who like,

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Had a regular, like maybe they started off a little leaner. They got pretty big. They had a big bench or something. Like I'm always more impressed. I can actually like get a look, just something about like, I know that you know about the things that I really value, like doing cardio a ton, tracking your calories, going into your kitchen and like, I want to eat something. I'm not going to do it though. I can, I can handle this internal battle I'm giving myself. And actually making it happen and like losing, because losing so that much weight is like, I don't know about 10 times, but it's up there in a multiplicity of difficulty from just working out and liking it and getting a little more muscle.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  So those are the guys where when I hear that, I'm like, we're going to talk for a little longer. Like we're not, I'm going to, we're going to have a little chat here. Like that's what I want to hear.

• 52:57Chris Williamson?

  You mentioned sort of some of the differences between guys and girls that you've gained, what, 100 pounds ish probably, something. Yeah. From bottom to top. Yeah.

• 53:11Chris Williamson?

  A lot of muscle, great condition. You look fantastic on the stage. Given that most guys go to the gym in order to get attention from girls, what is the ratio of attention that you get from guys and girls now that you are in the big 200s?

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. I don't know. I don't know about the, if the social media stats are any indicator or like what your gender demographics are. But at least from my like long form videos where people are actually coming to watch me talk about working out and like the things that go along with it. It's, um, I, I call them the four percenters because it's the 4% female viewers. And I mean, it's not like unreasonable because I'm talking about working out as a guy from a guy's perspective. Uh, but I mean, I'll, I'll chime in because sometimes I'll be like, I'm sorry, I'm not, I don't, I'm not the guy to watch for glute training. So it's sometimes where if someone's, you know, dude, I want to get into a serious,

• 54:06Speaker 01

  like I'm, I'm going to really lock in. I want to know what it's like to lose 300 pounds. I want to know what it's like to whatever. Like that's where I'm going to say, I can tell you what I know, but if you want to watch someone who did it. Then you get to watch somebody else and kind of get inspired from their track.

• 54:21Chris Williamson?

  What about I R L? Because you know, guys that might not even know who you are as you're getting bigger. Like dude, like what are you doing for arms?

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:27Chris Williamson?

  Are there many girls that come up and go, Sam, like you, your forearms are getting so big?

• 54:32Speaker 01

  So that's, that's one thing which was not the motivation because the guys who think, like even the idea is strange. Oh, if I was a big, if I was just bigger, girls will be all over me. If I, if my doubts were a little, that's not, that's not the value system for sure.

• 54:49Chris Williamson?

  That's not how it works in your experience.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  But if you get big enough, they will come up and talk to you and they'll say, my brother loves you.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  My, my boyfriend loves you. Could you take a picture so I could send it to him? Because I see you on his phone so much that they, they don't watch the videos, but they see him like secondarily. So it actually, if you get big enough, girls will talk to you because they will come up and ask you for a picture for their dad.

• 55:21Chris Williamson?

  There's a, a meme online that you have a, a fear of women.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  So that, that plays back into the earlier TikToks.

• 55:29Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Where I, my formula, which I just thought was funny, but like how all my things were, was if you want to post a video about working out and like a 10 second little short, like you might think you want to talk about how serious the gym is or have like a, like, don't even do a caption. Just, just say like grind or like, you don't know what it takes. But how I've always looked at it is like, if you're big, you have already said that you are serious. Like unspokenly, just from how you are as a guy or what the, the video was. Like clearly you're serious because you have these results that you're showing off in the video. To say anything like a motivational just thing on top of that, which like, if it's a motivational video, that's different.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  But in terms of like regular kind of content, like you're putting a hat on a hat. For me, it's like post a workout video that's just really cool and hype of the workout. And I'm like lifting bench at 315, but then the caption is like just something silly.

• 56:27Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Something you wouldn't expect because it's like, you know.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  I the only reason I want to get strong is so I can protect my cats at home. Or like it's like I had to cut this workout short today. My mom had to pick me up to go get groceries. So like something silly, because that's not something you'd expect. And everybody always posted, like you'd want to post like, oh, I'm so.

• 56:48Chris Williamson?

  Hardcore grind sets.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  So it's almost like, you know, just you can be, if you're serious enough about something, it's even funnier when you're silly with something else.

• 56:58Chris Williamson?

  What's that got to do with the fear of women thing?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Because that's his own joke. You would think big, brawlic guy, like just from what we were saying before, it's like, oh, you're working out to get girls. That is kind of, and I didn't come up with that joke. Like I saw it before and kind of just like, it happened to scale a little more with me. But it's like, that's its own joke of like, oh, you, this is this big, like masculine dude, whatever, like, can I work in with you? And then in the video, I just like disappear, like teleport.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Because that's, that's just something that you wouldn't expect. Like, it's funny.

• 57:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  But then it, but you know, then it bled into like real life where like we didn't meet and greets. And like the first time I ever took a picture and there was a girl there, all the comments were like, what the, I thought he was.

• 57:41Chris Williamson?

  They feel like they've been betrayed.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it's like, what do you, in a world where that was actually the case, what do you want there to be like, guys, this meeting greets guys.

• 57:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, like that, that wouldn't, you're at least going to get four percent based on your demo.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  That's four percent.

• 57:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Instagram's twenty percent, but that's because it's Instagram. Because that's, because that's not like really watching your stuff. Like, I think the most real viewers and the most real feedback and comments, that's on the YouTube. Because there's a lot of intent to watch a whole workout.

• 58:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Or even some of a workout. Whereas on Instagram, you can just, something can be shown to you, scrolled away. It's like nothing.

• 58:19Chris Williamson?

  You were posting on, you may still do Spotify video, I think.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  There's stuff that gets reposted there.

• 58:25Chris Williamson?

  That's not you. That's not your channel.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I'll get into it. It's I've got a couple of things where it's like on the list of things to kind of

• 58:30Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Like track down or get control of.

• 58:32Chris Williamson?

  Well, they do video now, so you can basically duplicate.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I can just plug it over there.

• 58:35Chris Williamson?

  The whole thing. I think that'll be good because people, it would certainly work to listen to.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you just listen to the whole thing. Maybe I'll cut.

• 58:41Chris Williamson?

  Brunting in there.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  That's that's something where if it was an audio form, I'd probably cut some of that out. Instead of the workouts, sounds and ASMR, I'd probably just say what the workout was in its own little minute segment in the middle and then talk about it after.

• 58:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Because I, yeah, that's its own joke. Like, it'll be, dude, don't watch this video without headphones. Or my wife came in and she thought I was watching, like, whatever.

• 59:07Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  And it's so I actually think like, I don't know, I just, for me, that makes me feel like I'm keeping it real.

• 59:13Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  But is it too much?

• 59:15Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  So I don't know. I'm not too worried about it.

• 59:18Chris Williamson?

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• 1:00:02Chris Williamson?

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• 1:00:23Chris Williamson?

  Bodybuilding is already a rough sport, physically, psychologically, hormonally.

• 1:00:31Chris Williamson?

  How much are you thinking about longevity at the moment?

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's one thing I'll bring up because it's like guys will ask me, it's like, are you gonna move to open? Are you gonna, or it's can't wait to see you as Mr. Olympia? Like as though it's a, it's, that's the track that I'm on. And for me, it's more so, it's like, okay, what am I willing to do that adds to this? Whole thing with bodybuilding that will take me, you know, a certain degree of distance. Right? Because if you're a top level Olympia competitor, that comes with its own things, you know? Like, it's not as though bodybuilding on a competitive level is, and I might not be the one to say recommend because I'm not like a complete G of bodybuilding, like a Jay Cutler or like a real commentator

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  or a judge would be who's been in the sport for years. But it's like, it's not something to be pursued forever. Like, actually, the bigger I've gotten, the more I've started to be content with the size that I already am. Where I used to imagine 300 pound Sam Sulek. Like, yeah, once I get to 300, that'll start to be, but it's a, it's something where when you actually get to a different position, just over time and like through progress, you're going to have a different perception of like what you actually want. Because even though you may have reached that level from having a certain goal, now you're a completely different person with different circumstances. And as good as that goal may have been to motivate you in the beginning, sometimes that can change.

• 1:02:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  And it's not a giving up. It's just you've gotten a better perspective and now you know more to make a better decision.

• 1:02:07Chris Williamson?

  That's a really fantastic point that

• 1:02:12Chris Williamson?

  adjusting your goals as you get closer to them to some people feels like seeding ground. You've already done the hard part. Why are you not applying more pressure and, and, and really, really pushing? But

• 1:02:29Chris Williamson?

  The same as what you considered to be a good dish when you were starting out as a chef will not be what you consider to be a good dish as you become more sophisticated. And that dish may be more simple. So you may start out making these really complex things with five hundred ingredients. And you think, well, actually, you know, just a good pasta, like I can just nail a good pasta. And I think that that's pretty sweet. So yeah, the ability to discern good from bad, like taste, like what's something that's a tasteful goal for me to go toward, what's something that resonates? How do I realize as I get closer to something that maybe the ladder I was climbing was kind of leaning up against the wrong wall a little bit. So I'm just going to adjust it and I'm going to keep climbing over here.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  And it's with bodybuilding, at least there's a few examples. I mean, actually, I'm sure there's thousands where it's just, it's not highlighted on social media, so I wouldn't have any input on when this might happen. But with bodybuilding, it's a, it's not something I'd recommend for everyone. Like when I see the, like, I'd say it's prevalence now, like the idea of I need to be a bodybuilder or like a younger guy saying I have to be able to get on stage at a certain point. I, I think it's a bit overinflated in its value because it's very showy. You only see that like little flashy kind of point at the end. And it's also in a scope of social media where like as much as I'm not trying to overdo

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  it and make myself like look cooler or better, like portray the crazy lifestyle that I might actually live, like it's still kind of flashy in its presentation. So if you get obsessed with like the idea of something to actually approach what that real thing is, and now your idea of it is actually going to become a real understanding of it and you'll realize like, shit, man, I wouldn't, I like those guys where they have gone pro, like they really got into it. They were hundred percent serious.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  And then I realize this isn't for me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna not like backpedal isn't the right word. I'm gonna just redirect towards something which I actually value now. And if at any point that would happen, then that's what I would do.

• 1:04:39Chris Williamson?

  How do you now personally weigh health versus aesthetics? You've got this.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, everybody, uh, there's actual like numerical metrics. You know, everyone's getting their like, honestly, I think everybody should be getting their blood tested. Even just out of curiosity.

• 1:04:56Chris Williamson?

  That's something you're doing regularly.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's definitely like anybody who's serious about bodybuilding. They're all getting relatively extensive blood tests pretty regularly. And if they're not, then like you are missing out. But what sucks is actually it's, um, I'm kind of spoiled because my general practitioner will order all my stuff. Like a full panel of everything. Whereas a lot of doctors, like I'll, I'll hear stories where it's like, you know, can I just get like, can I just get my test leveled? A normal dude. Nah, you, you're young. You don't have to worry about something like that. And it's, um, like, I mean, I'm sure you've got your own take on it, but it's just kind of this behind the curve.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Sort of thing. Cause that's something like could, what if you're a guy where you're straight up hypogonadal? And you're, you might be literally whatever value is barely any. That could totally.

• 1:05:51Chris Williamson?

  One fifties or the two hundreds or something.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Well, I'm saying like, if, if there was somebody where they were under a hundred and it's like, you didn't have any control over that. And if your hormones are totally out of whack, then that would be warrant for intervention. And that was something that'd be totally like doctor viewed. But what I see a lot is you could take that statement. And stretch it as far as it could go to justify the craziest things. Like it's with, and I see a lot in training. A 50 year old ex 900 pound squatter complete, like real experience and respect in the space will make a video. And he's training now still. And he's been training for 40 years or 35 years. And he'll say, you know, right now it's back squats. They're just not.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  The reward, wrist or reward ratio, it's not there. It's too much on my lower back. My knees are, they've been kind of worn like it's, so for me, I've got to stick to more like lighter leg press and, you know, just more kind of stable movements. And that's backed by his situation. And someone who is kind of starting a little earlier in the gym, they might have an awesome like grasp of everything will hear that. And then that's an easy argument to say, well, this guy said you don't even need to squat. I'm not squatting. Dude, squats, like not even an acceptance of like, I don't want to squat. That's why I don't do it. But just this, um, you know, trying to bring the bar down to their level of like, oh, I'm not willing to squat. I don't want to do it.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  If I can justify why I don't need to do it, then actually I'm not skipping anything. I'm doing it right by doing less.

• 1:07:28Chris Williamson?

  What's the, uh, line? What's the linkage or analogy between that and the bloods?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's just, um, cause then some, you know, somebody could say, oh, you know, my test was probably super low anyway. They didn't even get a test. Somebody could say, it's like, you know, I, I looked at, I was looking at WMD and it's like the, so I don't bring that up as much, but then the normalcy and like the, um, generally the conditioned of just like, that's not a big deal. Like that's not something I'm.

• 1:08:01Chris Williamson?

  Bro, let me give you this. Let me give you this. According to the American Urological Association, 25% of patients on TRT never had the testosterone checked. One third weren't even deficient. I saw that last week.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  But what's the age demographic? Because if that's, if that's still like what somebody would conventionally say a normal age to be, like a 35 above, I think that's a much different situation than anything earlier. Because you're literally still a developing dude, you know, like you, that's, that is a thing that you are messing with. Which is not just like, eh, it's just, you know, whatever.

• 1:08:38Chris Williamson?

  We were talking before we got started about, um, some of the challenges you have. Help wise with bulking up and what that does to you, the way that you feel. You've already mentioned mobility.

• 1:08:50Chris Williamson?

  What's, what are some of the unseen, uh, side effects of gaining so much weight in such a short space of time as a young dude?

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, um, so that's one thing that's kind of interesting because there's this sort of.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  I almost want to say just what you would call your, how you're carrying the weight that you're carrying. Cause right now I'm, I'm like, I'm two fifty. And I'm, I'm actually a little bit lighter from this whole week of everything we've been doing and not eating as much food and traveling. But still, like, I feel very light. Like, I do not feel as though I'm, I'm super heavy. Because in the range of like, my big and bulked weight, to like, my lighter, carb depleted, maybe a little less hydrated weight, like, I'm on the bottom end of that scale. Whereas like, two years ago, for me to really bulk up to two fifty and be a very water retentive, like, it felt completely different. Like, bend over to put your shoes on and like, you can feel, you're like, you're almost holding your breath because there's

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  so much pressure. Like, you had a, you had a full stomach. Like, just things like that. But the scale really could, I mean, it's, it's so gradual. Or no, it's so extensive. Because anything that I could say, like, like, I fit in an airplane seat, fine. Like, I used to, that's not, that's an Eddie Hall, Ronnie Coleman.

• 1:10:09Chris Williamson?

  Brian Shaw problem.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Problem. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm big, but I'm still like, relatively human shaped, you know? Like, like, muscle does not exceed my frame. Like, if you looked at, um, like, a very good example would be a Derek Lunsford.

• 1:10:23Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  And I, I'll, I'll bring him up sometimes because he's got a really interesting look. Because you could basically describe him as you took a regular, I mean, he's like a regular lean guy, and you just dragged the muscle scale all the way to the max. Because, I mean, sometimes to even get to that size, like, it, it, it just has an effect.

• 1:10:44Chris Williamson?

  What's his weight?

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  He's gotta be heavy. I, I don't know any exact terms. And it's different when you're shorter, too. So, so someone who's six foot three at two hundred is very different than someone at five foot four at two hundred. So he's a, well, he's heavy. But he's like, crazy big. So for him, he's got his own, that's where, like, when we were talking on our panel talk yesterday, when the guy said, like, what if you had a change about your sleep from being so big? Like, those guys must have their own stories. Or like, maybe they.

• 1:11:14Chris Williamson?

  Industrial strength CPAP machine.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  I can't even say, that'd be for them.

• 1:11:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you think about discipline? I'm interested in where you go for.

• 1:11:29Chris Williamson?

  Drive when motivation is low.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, cause I don't usually think to my, I never have self-talk in my mind. Or I say like, I need to be more disciplined right now. Because and it's maybe just because of what motivated me to get into it in the beginning. Like, I just never, like, that was never my mantra of a word. And with anything working out related, I um, I guess I almost feel like I'm on a like, sometimes I feel a little hypocritical when I'll say, like, typically good motivational, like, okay, even if you feel like you're not gonna get after it, like, you just gotta like, know that you're gonna regret it if you don't.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Things along those lines, but for the most part, like, I kind of treat it as this, like, this is gonna happen. Like, there is no, like, the idea of, okay, I need to take a break today, or I need to take a rest day today. I'm getting better at it because it is objectively necessary at times.

• 1:12:29Chris Williamson?

  I'm getting better at taking a rest day.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  I think they're unnecessarily taken a lot, which makes me like, a little more tentative. Because it's like, I know people are skipping just because they didn't want to do it. And it's the same thing as the logic of the guy who actually did an objectively correct thing. I'm a little fatigued, I can feel it. The muscle that I was gonna hit today is even a little sore, and I didn't really get a lot of food or water today. A rest, if I stay home and really refuel and get a good night's rest and do this workout tomorrow, it will objectively be better for my long-term progress. And someone could pretend they're using that logic and justify, I don't want to go today. Rest days are actually good.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  You know, you rest days are good, and then they take two weeks off. That's the other extreme. I think of, on the scale of no rest days ever to two weeks at a time on the regular. This is in the middle ground, that's like, right here, it's much more on this side of things. And it's, I think you're a different guy if you go even when you don't want to. Or when you subjectively have extra difficulties, because now you're the guy who did it even when it was hard. And it's like, you know. Nobody knows that you did it. Even when I was dieting for a few of the workouts towards the end. Like I was super low energy. Like I'm like, I'm doing three sets of pull downs and I don't feel warm at all until like the fourth one.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  And I'm recording it. And for me, it's like, there's different levels of actualized thought. Where like, if you think something, you know, and you constantly think the same thing, you can start to engrain it in your mind. But if you say something and you consistently say, like, oh, man, I'm so tired. As you're convincing yourself that it's true. You're making it true. And also, I'm not gonna, like, I don't like guys when they complain in a prep. Cause if I'm trying to watch someone else's video of like them working towards something, I don't want half the things they're saying to be like, I feel like shit, man, this sucks. I really don't even want to be here. Like that's, so I didn't even like the idea of anything like that. But so for that workout where I'm dying, like it was really hard.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Like two, four hundred milligrams of caffeine was not getting its, its direct translation. But, oh, all right, that was a good one. Let's move on to the next one. Walk, walk, walk, turn the camera off.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  But, but it's like, cause I, and it's not even like a portrayal of that. Cause I bring that up as soon as that show was done, like I brought that up. I'm like, guys, I was dying on a few of those lifts like hard. I didn't want to show it though, cause like, I wanna, you know, you're kind of, you've got this mental version of what the world is when you think about it. And if you can think about it in a better way, it'll kind of bleed into like actual reality.

• 1:15:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you've sort of faking it until you believe it. Wait, look, the devil's in the details with this. When should I take a rest day?

• 1:15:32Chris Williamson?

  Versus like, am I taking a day off because I might get injured today? I'm not slept well, I really need it.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:15:39Chris Williamson?

  Or am I selling myself short? Am I not allowing myself to say these things out loud or attach much worth to these thoughts? Because I'm denying what is actually true. Because this is better for me in the long run, because it's a positive mindset. Am I being honest with the audience? If I don't put forward the weaker version of me that I don't want to be? Or am I being more honest if I do put it forwards? It's infinite spiral of.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  I think that at least that last portion gets a little. Well, I I think it'd be it's a it's own thing where it's a completely different perception that I'm like portraying. I think it's different when he's like, you might say something then, like in a situation like that. And then later, like, guys, remember when I was super high energy for that back day? That was not it. I think it kind of balanced out when you say that later. But that's something to think about for all of them, for sure.

• 1:16:33Chris Williamson?

  Well, how many times have people in an argument with a partner said something that they then later regret?

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:37Chris Williamson?

  Right? In the moment, a heated moment of a diet or an argument, we often say stuff that's random.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a that's one thing getting back to um. We were saying something a second ago about like different kind of thought processes and things. And one of probably one of my first, like what you kind of call eureka moment of like self-realization. I was like in high school and I imagine Sam Sulek pissed like beyond belief. And it's like, you know, for whatever, not even anything serious, like in the moment, this was the worst thing ever. I'm in the shower, I'm like sitting there just stewing. And I I was, I take a second, I go, dude, being this like upset is just so tiring. Like, what am I doing?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Like, I hadn't been into any kind of a like motivational speaker, like thought control, kind of, not thought control, but like thought, like, you know, kind of controlling your own thoughts, like what you think of things or anything like that. But that was the first time I had a certain kind of reflection of like, what am I even doing right now? This is not, this is not even necessary, and this also sucks. And it's like a good little, just, all right, let's chill out here.

• 1:17:50Chris Williamson?

  Do you get angry? You seem pretty chill all the time.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  I'm much more chill now, I believe. Like, I wasn't, I was never not chill. Like, I was never like fighting anybody or anything. But I think over time, I've become much more chill, for sure.

• 1:18:01Chris Williamson?

  Is that a cultivated practice or do you think that's just you?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  A little, a little cult. Like, I was, um, there's this one YouTube channel, it's called Grave Mind.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Right, and it's a kind of small, but they it's a lot of it's all just excerpts from like all sorts of like Marcus Aurelius kind of or like the Stoic mind, like all sorts of little books like that. Like I've never gotten into like where I sit and I read a whole thing or anything. Like some of those ideas are very kind of translatable to the training. So it was half training because it's like the better of a, you know, kind of head and direction, a thing that's controlling your training, the better the training will be. So it wasn't exactly a like, you know, self-help thought process of trying to learn more about how you are as a person. It was like, this is actually going to make my training better. Yeah. That was kind of the motivation, but it definitely extends into just all of life.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  But it's like, you know, there's things you can't control, there's things you can control. To be upset about anything unnecessarily, you just you're stressing yourself out for no reason. And you're creating your own negative energy by like looking at something in that light. So just a lot of like, I got into that for like a couple of, I don't see maybe like a month. I like watch a lot of those videos and I took whatever I took from them. And I think it was, it put me on a better mental path. And it's, um, but like, it's a little silly to say, just for the regular person to hear. Cause it's like all the cliches of like, you know, the grass isn't always green on the other side or like, you know, just whichever ones. And they're so just like random, like you just spit them out, you don't even really take it in.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  But if in like, if you ever have a situation in life where you screw up or something bad happened or whatever. And then you think of one of those because you're like, oh shit, that was actually true. That that was literally me just now where it's, um, you know, you're going to come across a problem you didn't expect.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  And to, you know, kind of cower from it or just like pretend it didn't actually happen. It's, it's something where you kind of, and I think with the training for me, when I'm doing all these videos and like really it's a lot of self-reflection practice. Because now instead of just a thought about how my training is going, I'm putting it out into like real words and really like, you know, because I don't, the, the whole point of all the things I post is the objective take on, you know, working out from Sam of the perspective of whatever that day was. So even if I said something that may have been in the moment, objective, like I was saying, like this is what I believe. A year later, I could say something else.

• 1:20:42Chris Williamson?

  I reserve the right to change my mind.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  I'm a different guy. Yeah, I'm a different guy. I have done different things. I've seen different things. I've met different people. To be the same guy over time is, you know, just suck.

• 1:20:53Chris Williamson?

  But that would be even less authentic. Yeah, there's a. I think one of the problems with anybody putting anything out on the internet, whether you're a content creator or a person that your mum that posts on Facebook. Because we have this concrete record of everything that everybody has ever said throughout all of time. What you end up with is the opportunity for people to call out what on the outside looks like hypocrisy. But from the inside is just updating your worldview and learning and developing and growing. And confusing those two. And the quickness of people to say, well, you didn't say that before. You didn't agree with forty five minutes of cardio. I thought it was thirty, Sam. Was it not thirty in the last prep?

• 1:21:37Chris Williamson?

  And the incentive there is for people to not say that they have changed their mind when they've changed their mind. If, and it also encourages people to never actually state their opinions.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  That's, that's what I was about to say. If you know that you have had a few things where you look back and say, yeah, I actually don't do. I don't drink a protein shake with a hundred grams of sugar in it anymore. I did at the time and I'm like.

• 1:22:03Chris Williamson?

  Was that something you used to do?

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  It's like, well, post workout, you're very sensitive to an insulin response.

• 1:22:09Chris Williamson?

  Fucking will be if you put a hundred grams of sugar.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  A hundred grams is literally just straight sugar and like two scoops of protein.

• 1:22:13Chris Williamson?

  You're kidding me?

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Well, it's as dextrose, the highest glycemic index sugar there is. And that was, and it's, it's like it didn't work.

• 1:22:20Chris Williamson?

  I bet you felt great after that.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  I, one of them came back up.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  When I got back to the, uh, when I got back to the apartment and then I made another one to replace it. But that was like, I had just eaten a huge meal too. So, but, so I would. I would not recommend them as much now. But also, I can't say that it was like completely foolish because it worked towards what my goals were. So it's it's just something like.

• 1:22:44Chris Williamson?

  This physique is partly built by hundreds gram sugar protein shakes.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. So it's like, you know, it's just part of the journey of things. And that's something bodybuilders, um, like that's another, like, if you could say something that's a little different about how I've talked about everything is for them. It's always been this portrayal of I'm only eating rice and chicken and broccoli and that's all. And I never cheat and I never eat anything else. When you record like a CD for bodybuilding, but really these guys are eating all sorts of junk. Like Lee Priest is a, he's, he's unapologetic in the sense that he's gonna say everything how it is.

• 1:23:17Chris Williamson?

  He's a fat boy.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  And he's, he's like, I'm eating McDonald's. I mean, I'm just eating to get big, man. If you get fat in the off season, that's how it is. Then you can diet. So I, um, for me and now my statement, or what my current take is on like trying to leverage growth from increased calorie input.

• 1:23:33Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Is like, you know, bulk, but don't get too fat. Like, cause if you, they'll call it a perma bulk where it's like, dude, you have, you have gained forty pounds and thirty pounds of that was not muscle.

• 1:23:48Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  And that's where, well, now you're kind of screwed because you gotta lose it. But there is, there is a sweet spot where you will gain a little bit of body fat, you know, maybe ten pounds, whatever. And I think what throws people off is for one, like maybe they wanna, they wanna do it. They wanna eat for like a couple of months, get a little bigger and then diet back down. I think it could be like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to diet. I know people don't like diets. They've never done it, but they hear what people say about it. I don't know if I could do it, maybe. I don't wanna do it. But it's also, oh man, I got my bicep vein right now, though. I can see my abs right now. I don't wanna lose that.

• 1:24:22Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  And for me, I get a, I've got a picture and it's a three month difference and it's insane. Because it's me like eating a bunch of trash. Well, not even, not, actually it's, it's improved gradually. Like now, more food. Is like you're putting more, it's, I think about it like putting more things through like a fine filter. And it's like the more additives and just like whatever, like not as though I'm picking out specific ones, well, I'm never gonna eat red forty because of it, but it's like just on a basic convention bias. Like I know this is a good, a big bowl of oatmeal and ground beef and like a semi-natural barbecue sauce is gonna make me feel good. But more so, it won't make me feel bad.

• 1:25:04Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  And I can eat more of those. So it's just an objective take that that is better. But in the time when I was eating like a full pint of like vanilla ice cream and a protein shake, the logic was, well, there's a ton of calories in this, I can eat it very quickly. I am gaining weight. The goal that I am trying to achieve is being achieved. Is it exactly the most optimal way? Well, sometimes you kind of have to, you gotta screw up, I don't know what I, I said a good way of saying this, but it's like you have to learn from your mistakes so that you can be better later. So it's not make mistakes on purpose, but when you do like, and you realize they were wrong.

• 1:25:41Chris Williamson?

  Update your worldview.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So the problem isn't making them, the problem will be not learning from them.

• 1:25:47Chris Williamson?

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• 1:26:31Chris Williamson?

  and costs thousands, but with Function, it's $499. And right now, they're giving a thousand Modern Wisdom listeners a hundred dollars off on top of that, bringing it down to $399. So you can get the exact same blood panels that I get and save a hundred dollars by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. What do you think are the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to diet when trying to build muscle?

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  I it's because it's it's very black and white, I feel because you're either a real hardcore, like I'm going to track everything. I got a scale. Or I'm like, pretty good at reading all the nutrition labels and I'll make sure I eat enough food. Because it's really, you're either eating enough or you're not. And for someone, like, no one is going to track their calories 25% of the time.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Like the, nobody's going to be on their diet 50% of the time. And even if they were, well, then it's not going to work. You're not going to notice any substantial changes from it because like dieting, the scrutiny, I consider close to the scrutiny of like getting a medical degree. It's not like getting a business degree or an accounting degree or something where, you know, you got a 2.0 GPA. Here you go. You did it. You know, 70 average, you pass. Like, if I only dieted 70% of the time, or 70% as, you know, somehow 70% of what was actually necessary, then if I went on stage,

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  I'd look a fool. I'd be literally way too soft. And in relation to the guys who actually did it, like, or even someone just trying to lose weight. You can be on it 70% of the day. You could be on it 95% of the day.

• 1:28:26Chris Williamson?

  And do a lot of damage in that 5%.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Five minutes, unfiltered in a pantry, you can completely, you can completely undo.

• 1:28:35Chris Williamson?

  That sounds like a Sam Sulek sex tape. Five minutes unfiltered in a pantry.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  But you can completely undo all your work. And that happens a lot. I was good today. I'm gonna have a milkshake. Just ruined it. Just with the one thing.

• 1:28:49Chris Williamson?

  Well, the margins are very tight, right?

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you're either in a deficit. And it's not necessarily on a day by day, because sometimes you throw refeeds in or whatever. But you're either in a deficit consistently on average, week by week. Or you're not. Or you're in a surplus consistently, average week by week, or you're not. And even if you, and it's like, honestly, a week is probably a good chunk to describe. Because if I was in a good six days. I can I can undo that in a day.

• 1:29:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  I can undo so three hundred calorie deficit for six days. Eighteen eighteen hundred calories is like.

• 1:29:25Chris Williamson?

  Meal. It's a meal.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  That's one meal. Or it's like half of a crazy meal if you're like really nuts and you're already. Cause you're already in a dieted state, like you're already subject to like suck up carbs. Like I've had a, you know, cause rather than just reverse dieting very slowly. Like I I've had like a ten thousand calorie day one day and it wasn't like ten thousand calorie challenge. Like that was I tracked everything just because I want to know. Like that's just what happened because I let the floodgates loose. Ten thousand like a four thousand calorie day. On a Sunday could throw off all your stuff Saturday to Friday. So it's um, you know, it's something where these they either someone could either step it up enough where they actually make it happen.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Or they're kind of just caught toiling. Or they just don't even want to deal with it. And I know it's I'm not saying it's easy. But I'm saying if you do track everything on a scale and you count it all and you like. Disperse your meals evenly throughout the day. So that you are not like dying hungry because you just starved yourself all day. Well, then the likelihood that you'll actually like get lean. If you did everything right, it it's like a hundred percent.

• 1:30:35Chris Williamson?

  Where are the biggest vectors of weakness in dieting for you? It sounds like you and me have the same thing, which is nighttime snacking tends to be. A big temptation, which means if you can just discriminate a little bit more. Calorie expenditure toward the end of the day, you can go to bed feeling.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:53Chris Williamson?

  Not like you're gonna go do the pantry sex day.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  I have never blown my calorie deficit from breakfast. It is always later in the day. So what I do is I just wait till. Sometimes I'll just wait until kind of as late as I feel like. Usually noon is a good like when I, because right now I'm going from eating a ton of food. To now eating like basically a normal amount of food. Which just that change, even though I'm not in a serious deficit, is still enough to start to. Get me a little bit lighter and actually get some fat reserves burning. But nothing like really what we call locked in yet. Like fast forward a few months, we're like, okay, I've got twenty five hundred for today. And I need to make them count because I'm getting hungry. I'm gonna wait until maybe one, usually not beyond one.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  And it's not because of the magic of intermittent fasting. But you can skip breakfasts and you're not dying. You can wait a little bit and then I just wanna time it where it's I'm hungry, but I'm not starving. Cause if you wait until you're really starving, well, then now you're starving. You wanna eat.

• 1:32:00Chris Williamson?

  You're at the mercy, you're at the mercy of that desire to eat.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's like a threshold of hunger where if you let wait until you're too hungry, it might make you more likely to overdo it.

• 1:32:08Chris Williamson?

  There's a, I had an Achilles repair after playing cricket, which is the most British way to snap an Achilles.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:13Chris Williamson?

  And the advice from the surgeon was don't chase the pain. When he was talking about using the painkillers, that you always want to be out ahead of the pain a little bit. Uh, and it's kind of the same, like, don't chase the hunger with this. Allow yourself to get, I'm starting to feel it a little bit and I'll just, I'll nip that in the bud. As opposed to being ravenous. And that's how you go from needing a 500 calorie meal to a thousand calorie meal. And you go, that was two fifths of my entire day on 2,500 gone in a single meal. God, the rest of the day is gonna suck.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Right. So that's, um, that's something I always have to. It's like a dichotomy of trying to get good at anything or trying to really progress at something. Because there is a perception that I have to be either Rocky Balboa. And run, do 10 miles every morning and drink egg whites and, or if I can't do that, I'll do nothing. Like that's, uh, yeah, there's a good reference. A guy was like, people will have a slashed tire approach to dieting. Where if one tire gets slashed, like you had a bad day. He, I've, I've had days where I cheated. I didn't say it till later, but I, I had a couple of really big days on my diet. But the idea that, okay, today was a little off.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Screw it. Done. Like it's either perfect or nothing, which is is so crazy because it's a it's like just what you'd call someone's hypothetical like perfection where they imagine like the perfect version of themselves. And they set the bar there and like real life is nothing like that. But now to like if they think that this is the bar. To be anything short makes them feel comfortable. Like it's just not for me. If I can't be perfect, I don't want to be anything at all. But with with working out like what I was about to really get into is it's a combination of for one, you do have to be serious like with dieting. The whole point is literally

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  on average, you are hungrier than you are not hungry. And you don't get to eat a lot of stuff like it's just it's difficult. It's something hard. So as you have to like kind of raise to the occasion like I can handle this. I will be tougher to be able to do it. And like really bring it and put a lot of effort into it. But at the same time, you want to give yourself a routine that makes it the easiest for you. So for me to say like, you know, if you if I really time out my diet well, it actually doesn't feel like I'm dieting that hard because I had very low calorie, high volume meals. And like an egg white omelet with a full pack of like a salad mixed into it. Rice. It's just so it's um, but that only comes after

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  that hard headedness of saying, I'm gonna do it in the beginning. Because if your first instinct is to coddle yourself. Well, then that's not a position where you're ever gonna, you know, deal with it when it gets hard. Officially grounded. Yeah, but you have to be able to like, that's where I like, I used to do basically three to four times the amount of volume in a workout that I do now. I used my mind was five sets on five movements. So for one chest day as a hundred sixty five pound Sam, I was doing five sets of bench. Five sets of incline bench, five sets of flies, five sets of dips, five sets of something else.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  And like it is a little fluffier volume. Like I wasn't capable of the intensity that I can reach now from doing it for so long. But in my mind, more is better. I don't care that it's gonna take a while and be long. Like that's just, this is what I want to do and this is how I'm gonna do it.

• 1:35:55Chris Williamson?

  Response, increased dose, increased response.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Nothing is gonna change that. So it's this like hard headedness where it was hard for me to even go from 25 sets down to 11. Cause that's, I just cut it in half and then half the work, more results. I think that's nuts. But you know, it's something where even though you're reluctant, still trying things like that and changing it up. Like that's, that's sort of the whole point. Like you want to optimize this routine so that you can do it the most efficiently. But you can look at that as though, oh, for me, an optimized routine is I go to the gym once a week. Sometimes I don't even go. Like that's just the, the routine that's optimized for me. And that's where it's more of a coddling than it is like a bringing it. You either raise the bar or you lower yourself to the bar.

• 1:36:43Chris Williamson?

  What is some of the more, did you ever have a non just macro tracking approach? Did you ever do any more wacky diets?

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Well, I wouldn't say like wacky, but when I started working out, I just made sure I hit my protein. That was all.

• 1:36:57Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Like main gaining, you're a beginner. I was also still doing diving at the time. And as a beginner, just from eating your protein, like that's, no one is eating 250 grams of protein a day.

• 1:37:09Chris Williamson?

  Just because, I don't think.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Just because they're hungry.

• 1:37:11Chris Williamson?

  I don't think anybody flukes more than probably a hundred and 20 to 150 grams. No one accidentally falls backward into 150 grams of protein.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Never happens. Like you're, I mean, when I was a kid, I was like, oh, back from school. Eat a whole bag of croutons. I'm like, that was good. Let's go do something like that was a meal. That was like a snack or whatever. And so I protein was the thing I would track. And that was all. And like anything else I ate, whatever. And that worked pretty well because I coupled that with like really hard training. But yeah, nothing too wacky. For a while I really got into drinking egg whites, like cracked into a cup.

• 1:37:51Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  And my only gripe is the or the only thing stopping me from still doing it is the fact that the like the egg protein raw is so bound up with itself that it's bioavailability is like 50%. So if you're eating 150 grams of protein worth of egg whites

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  in a raw form, you're only breaking it down to 25. And I'm not going to eat double than what I like. I'm not going to counter that.

• 1:38:17Chris Williamson?

  Do you think people need to think more about that about bioavailability when it comes to protein consumption? Cause you can hit your 250 if it was all through egg whites, it's 125.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So but usually with the proteins, like my rule is the proteins that I would really count towards my number of like, this is the ones I want to get in the day is kind of like what I call direct animal proteins. Like a dairy, maybe not a cheese, because you know, they're filtering things out. But like any kind of milk or yogurt or cut of cheese, that's in there. That's all that's, you know, every amino acid necessary, whatever. Or like any meats or eggs, like that's pretty much what counts. And then everything else like the the proteins that are in, you know, the two pieces of bread you made a sandwich with. Like, sure, they are proteins, but it's like, you know, taking amino acids. Like you don't make a protein shake out of, you know, BCAAs.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Because it's only specific ones, like you want that whole chain of everything. So I always just break it down to those and things that you would conventionally call protein. Like you're good, like beefs and chicken, anything like that. Like, that's not something to worry about. It'd only be weird if you. You know, if you're the type to say, okay, I need all this to be plant based, you know, legumes or soy or whatever. And that's something where

• 1:39:32Chris Williamson?

  Difficult restrictions going on here.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  That's something where I'm not the guy to ask, because that's not what I do.

• 1:39:36Chris Williamson?

  There was a, uh, the reason I asked about the wacky diet thing. Me and my friends, I started training 20 years ago, so 37, I started training when I was 17. And, uh, bodybuilding.com, the Misk forums on there, that world before we kind of just understood it was Kaiko meets if it fits your macros and then we need to kind of filter it through.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, like for to get to a bodybuilding look.

• 1:40:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And then when you, when you're thinking about lifestyle, you just factor in what you've done, which is, I don't want to feel like shit. I should probably try and eat mostly whole foods, mostly simple, balanced, blah, blah, blah, like colorful plate stuff.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  So you ever, did you ever mess with like the

• 1:40:13Chris Williamson?

  We didn't know that. 20 years ago, we didn't know that, Sam. This is new fucking unearthed evidence. And some of the stuff, we were adamant that skip loading, I tried to tell you about this yesterday. So skip loading was a version of carb backloading where you went all week carb free and the goal was to hit at least a kilo of carbs on a Sunday. And this, the argument behind this was you wanted to avoid metabolism dropping off too much. So by spiking it really high on the Sunday, it would allow you to sort of, um, keep the metabolism burning going. It's like, doesn't lull your body into a false, don't try and assess the fucking science. Okay.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm just thinking about it as like my bro science mind of like

• 1:41:02Chris Williamson?

  Good. That's, that's the hat you need. You need the bro science hat, not the real scientist hat. And then there was another argument that was, uh, I think skip loading was also done as a part of bodybuilding prep. You might even do this where you do your full refeed and then wait to see how long it takes your weight to come back down to the pre refeed weight. And that was, okay, that's how much sort of drop off I've got at the moment. That's how much I'm burning. Carb night, which was carb backloading, but once per week, but only on an evening. Carb backloading was this whole period that we went through. There was a Time when Christian Thibodeau had blueberry extract in this Nalgene bottle, but you needed to get it was you were drinking this much of it. We were like, it's the blueberry extract. That's really what's going to cause the fat burning to work.

• 1:41:46Chris Williamson?

  And it was a wonderful time. We were, you said Indiana Jones. I felt like an explorer, you know, got the hat on, got the little assistant. Running around trying to find stuff and um. Turns out. Most of it didn't work, but it was a it was an adventurous time. You, you, the golden era has gone, dude. You just know that it's. Protein and calories. Yeah, but it might be blueberry extract.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  It's a different look now, though, like what, uh, but my whole, even with any kind of training is I'm not so picky. About someone's like, I'm going to look at someone and think, what is that guy doing? If he's doing something that is egregiously strange. If you're, if you're doing something weird, I'm going to say, dude, or I'm going to at least think it. I wouldn't just tell somebody this like in real life if I saw him. Uh, but with, with the training, it's like, you know, guys are doing now over here. What um. Oh, and hydrox.

• 1:42:40Chris Williamson?

  Hydrox.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  Hydrox.

• 1:42:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, it says it all. He called it hydrox.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  But, uh, but all sorts of different kind of training. And there's like some of the Chinese weightlifters where they, they're, they're doing a freaking back to a Y sub. This guy's back looks like a freaking. Pro bodybuilder, like all the cuts and everything. So what's, is it, is it that your training was better than this guy's training? Is it that, and then it's, oh, well, this guy's training only worked because of his genetics. And it's like, well, then it still works for him. So I'm looking at it as though it's not exactly what you're doing, but I can boil down. The basics. These guys worked hard. They do a lot.

• 1:43:19Chris Williamson?

  Consistent.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Their diet's reasonable and like they care about it. So they put energy into it. Shock, horror. It's like, if you're doing a full body workout every day and like, that's your thing. And it's, um, I think we've come. Or we're about to come full circle. Because there's, um, I think it's. There's been a progression since what we call the golden era of who is trustworthy? And it's, you know, it requires some nuance to actually know the real answer. Cause Arnold era. Man, Arnold is huge. All these bodybuilders are huge. They work out. I'm going to do their workout. Fast forward, fast forward. Okay, now these bodybuilders are getting extra big. They must be getting extra smart.

• 1:44:01Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  And then, you know, cue Rocky IV. Steroids are involved. Cue the David Laiter era. Cue the natural era. Cue. These guys work out and they're just like me. These guys know what they're doing. Fast forward a little bit. Okay, now that's. Oh. These guys are lying. This is the fake natural era.

• 1:44:24Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  I can't listen to these guys because they're they're not actually telling the truth about it then. And then now we're in the like scientifically explainable era. Where it's. It's not the gains that I have. It's the training and the explanations why I do the training that I do. Which makes me superior. Because I can explain it very well and I have different studies to support it. But at what point could I give you? Uh, like, let's let's say I was I was working on my own energy drink. Or something like that. At what point could I tell you? Hey, man, I've got 10 studies that say this is the best thing ever. And then you drink it and it tastes like shit.

• 1:45:03Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  How? Can any amount of studies and data and science? Make you think that that actually tastes good? So I think we're to the point where it will almost revert back to a point of. Your results will begin to speak for themselves. Under the context that you know what went into those results.

• 1:45:22Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting. What? What do you make of the? World of evidence based lifting, science based stuff at the moment?

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  I think um, I think there's people who are gimmicky about it. And make it a thing because they know it's like. Um, because an older person or an older guy who works out is going to stick to the basics that he know worked for him. Which is, you know, sweet. But, you know, he's it's gonna be harder for him to accept new ideas. So for a younger guy. It's kind of this like clout mentality of like, oh, I'm on the new wave train. But some of it's a little silly. I don't think all of it is. So I'm not, I would never. The point isn't exactly what they're doing. But a lot of the idea behind it and it's kind of its own subculture. Is it's very like, it's a weird elitism.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Because it's not like it's Chris Bumpstead saying like this is the error. And like their whole thing is this is right. You are wrong. And like, that sucks. That's not cool. And that's not even true. Because there's so many people that get so many different results doing so many different things. Like, the idea that they're following is if I'm not perfect, then there's, there's no point. And it's getting back to like the conditioning of preschool, middle school, high school, college. You know, I want to get a degree so I know I can get a job. I want to know it's going to work. And that's the, the demand of being able to explain it with studies because, you know, going into the gym at all is kind of uncomfortable.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  For the non beginner for any, of any age where it's you've never worked out before. It's always like, oh, what are people going to watch me working out? I've never done it. I'm uncomfortable because I've, I've never actually gotten experience doing it. Like, do I need to get one of my buddies who works out to bring me to kind of coach me? Well, then they're going to know that he's coached like, like it's, it's something where it does have an inflated kind of situation. You don't get nervous about going into a freaking Starbucks, but the gym is a little different because it has that physicality. So for them to, um, you know, just think like, okay, this is actually the solution.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  Because this is perfect and this will work. It's a, it's a snake oil of an idea instead of a product.

• 1:47:40Chris Williamson?

  What, what do you mean that?

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Cause the, the convincing point is that if you do it, just like how we're saying to do it. We can guarantee that it will work for you. When really, I think the best guys who work out and lift it, just what you call the best lifters would be, uh, the ones who actually, you know, get their hands on their own wheel and learn it for themselves. And then they get a deeper understanding because I could read a book about like, uh, you know, let's say for some reason I was raised in captivity. And I, I read a book that was like, how to act normal. As much as I could read it, it would never translate to actually being a regular guy.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Cause you, you have to do these things to learn them. Like it's a different kind of experience. Cause the working out isn't something you can just say on paper. You have to actually become experienced from doing it. And then you'll be different in the future. So to say like, and, and even just to say something so blatantly, at least what I would consider at least.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Ill advised of this is the perfect way to do anything. That's not true, man. Like you're just saying that.

• 1:48:51Chris Williamson?

  How much of it do you think is um like uncertainty reduction?

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. A lot. And it's um, I think in a way it's a little bit bringing it down like I talked about either raising to the bar or like kind of coddling yourself and making it seem like less of a thing. If you bring it and you get serious, you say, okay, the gym is full of guys who really get serious.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  I'm gonna do it and I'm going or I'm gonna do these things which people said is the perfect way to do it and it's not, you don't have to go that hard or you don't have to do that much like things like that. I feel is a lowering of the difficulty, but it's argued as an improvement of the efficiency. But for me, I'm looking at that as though like, do you hate working out? Like if you hate working out, then you want a routine where it's like one set a day. Like the ideal, well, I guess the ideal would be zero sets. Like in in their world, it's, I wish there was a pill, like a real where it's you never have to work out again.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  And this is where my bias could come in because it's not an objective, like I'm just adding to a conversation like I can't say anything completely objective. But from my perspective, like I like it in the gym. If a workout took, if I could do 20 sets and that was actually like pretty efficient and it worked, that's what I would do. But it's not because that's like, I'm not chasing a maximum efficiency in a way, I'm I'm half chasing like maximum enjoyment. Because I like I like to be in the gym.

• 1:50:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think that's a good, well, you've said yourself, you went from 25 sets, reduce that down because you were more efficient. That you some could say you're updating your worldview, you have accumulated some evidence that has now changed and informed the way that you're going to show up in the gym. But I think there's definitely an argument to be made that we are not equations and the I guess the the.

• 1:50:52Chris Williamson?

  The slight addition to what you've said there is the assumption there is a science-based approach to lifting or an evidence-based approach to lifting causes a less enjoyable sort of routine. But some people may go in and say, like, just imagine for a second that the evidence-based routine happened to be more fun. But I don't know how or why or whatever.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  If for me, it clicked as more fun, I'd have to do it.

• 1:51:15Chris Williamson?

  Yes, then you'd be like, oh, wow, I've got both things. I've got both efficiency and I've got enjoyment coming through both. But yeah, if you're like, dude, I say it again, the era in which I sort of came up learning about lifting, we didn't, is it five, three, one? Is it five by five? Is it German volume training? Is it drop sets? Is it rest pause? Is it myosets? Is it myo? Like, you know, there's so many. And ultimately, when you look across what most people's points of failure are for the normal lifter, for 99% of people that are going to the gym, which is still only what, like, 3% of the population or something? So it's a tiny amount of a tiny amount. The point of failure is compliance.

• 1:51:59Chris Williamson?

  And the reason for the failure in compliance is typically motivation and enjoyment. So what you should be optimizing for, what this is what the science, the evidence-based lifting community should do, they should make their workouts as fun as possible. So that would be a great study. What is, and this would be a fucking, actually a fucking phenomenal study. What constitutes an enjoyable workout? I would have to assume that variation across the year in terms of exercises would be one of those variation in terms of sets, reps, progressions. You know, you don't want to be doing drop sets all the time, but it's kind of fun to do that. You don't want to be doing pump stuff all the time, but that's also kind of fun. You don't want to have to be doing squats all of the time. I can switch those up. Maybe I'll do some walking lunges. Maybe I'll do suitcase lunges. I

• 1:52:42Chris Williamson?

  want just to back rack lunges. That'll give my like shoulders a little bit of a rest and I don't need to warm up so much. Okay, so where, where can you maximize compliance through enjoyment as well as through efficiency for effectiveness on the other side? So there's a, there's an equation that you can reverse engineer somehow.

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  But so if I had to put a little more of like, my current 2025, you know, September 1st take, it would be not so much that I'm against any particular style at all. It's more so. I'm not like it does not please me to see people be very unopen to discussion. And like very just hard headed with a take like that. Because I've changed my mind and like learned different things very drastically. Even the like the videos, my training looks incredibly different now than even a year and a half ago. And I think it'll look different in a year and a half from then. But one, one more thing about the studies, though.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  I'm personally not the kind of person in a control group study.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  By any stretch of the imagination. So that's my own bias of is a study from 180 pound guys who are starting to work out. Who don't eat all the protein that I'm eating, who aren't doing all the cardio, who just end up and having this whole lifestyle with everything that goes along with it. That is not me or any of these more kind of older school or hardcore bodybuilders or power lifters. So it's, it's as though those, those studies aren't invalid, but it's just not, you know, it's, it's like you, um. You know, if you, if you canvas, what's the best TV show? And it's things intended for children, like not to say that that's so intended for like a 65 year old guy who's in a nature.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  Sure, it could be the best show for that intended target audience. But it probably wouldn't be the same for me. So then that could, that can make me kind of backpedal and say, actually. For the younger audience, so the untrained audience to look at these studies. If they think, or if they would be the people who are in them, well, then I guess I could see a little more. And I'm just trying to exert my will in the way of like thinking that what I do works. And that it should be working for everyone.

• 1:55:00Chris Williamson?

  Advanced lifters by design are going to be less represented in these things.

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But that's where like, I don't want to do that. Like I don't, I'm not trying and I always all usually if I say anything kind of statementy. I'll try to preface it because I mean it to be, this is my take. Like it is not, the videos are not meant to be like this objective thing. It's like how I think about any given thing at any given time. So it's like, if you're watching a Sam video years in the future and it's a clip of me saying something like, look at the upload date and just take it into account.

• 1:55:35Chris Williamson?

  Correct at the time. All right. Let's say that you only had 10 exercises for the rest of time to build the best body that you could.

• 1:55:45Chris Williamson?

  What are you going to choose?

• 1:55:45Speaker 01

  I've got.

• 1:55:46Chris Williamson?

  Talk me through the philosophy.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  I've got a roster set up. So when it comes to legs, I think that the idea of a crazy heavy squats or leg press all the time as a quad builder. It just wouldn't be it for me because I've had periods of time where I basically did a leg extension exclusively. Usually when I diet, my leg extension volume increases because, I mean, squeezing wise, activation wise. You know, if you slapped electronic pulse indicators, maybe you could get a real readout of how much they're activating. But for me, like if I had to pick a quad movement, I would just kill it on the leg extensions. Cause you can really pump them up, go a little heavier. Like if I had to pick one, it'd be they, that would be it.

• 1:56:26Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Then hamstrings would be, I'd be a little torn, but I'd probably pick.

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  I'm very torn, either seated or laying curl. But either a hamstring curl.

• 1:56:40Chris Williamson?

  I've got to pick one. I'm afraid Sam, you can't.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  I guess I'd have to pick the, I'd have to pick laying.

• 1:56:45Chris Williamson?

  You'd get a little bit more stretch.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  I would, well, I just like, not even because of that, because you would actually in a seated position.

• 1:56:53Chris Williamson?

  If you pull forward.

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  Would your, you know, hips not be more rounded over where your hamstrings tie in? So now they're actually more stretched. Like you feel your hamstring stretch when you bend your torso to touch your toes, not when you're laying down. So like the idea when people talk about there's more stretch on the laying curl. I don't I don't even see it.

• 1:57:13Chris Williamson?

  Well, that depends if you're sat like this, because often there's handles.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Chris Williamson?

  People press themselves up.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So that would be.

• 1:57:20Chris Williamson?

  You've pushed this off.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:21Chris Williamson?

  As opposed to pulling yourself in. So I guess it depends how you position yourself.

• 1:57:24Speaker 01

  So I I guess, but right now I'm on a kick of laying curl.

• 1:57:28Chris Williamson?

  All right. So quad extension, lying hamstring curl.

• 1:57:31Speaker 01

  Hmm. And then for back, I'd probably just have to do regular pull downs. But you can also cheat them into a row by leaning back extra far.

• 1:57:40Chris Williamson?

  All right. Okay. Yeah, that's that's that's acceptable because you've just got the one machine.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  It's the same handle. It's the same setup.

• 1:57:45Chris Williamson?

  Okay, all right.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  But for me, anyway, I need more lats because I want them to be wider. Like, the thickness of my back is actually fine. Like, I want them to extend out. Like, that's what really gives that sort of look illusion.

• 1:57:56Chris Williamson?

  What do you think about when it comes to lat pull down, hand position, cues? What are you thinking?

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Because then you you can change it up pretty drastically. Like, if I do a lighter set, which is normally toward the end, I can put my hands extra far out. And it's a bit a little bit more like, rather than pulling my shoulders up and down, which kind of gets like a lot of my lower lats, a kind of erector, like middle thickness. Rather, you know, having wider hands and rotating around my shoulders, that gets me a little more upper lats. But or you could also make it super heavy and do a closer grip. And you get a little forearm and bicep just from the nature of it. Like, that's more of a compound movement of a row.

• 1:58:35Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  But then you can really load it, too.

• 1:58:37Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so quad extension, lying hamstring curl, lat pull down with a little bit of fuckery on the handle.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:58:44Chris Williamson?

  What's for?

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, for for chest, I think I'd have to pick.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm a little torn. But honestly, if I had to only pick one.

• 1:58:52Chris Williamson?

  No, you can. You've got 10 in total, so you can.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  But you get a lot of muscle groups. You got to at least cover your bases.

• 1:58:57Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  So I would say, there was a time when I would say incline barbell. If I was on an incline barbell kick. But it's it's a little tricky in your shoulders because it's very like directly mounted. Like, the only time I ever get my shoulders is usually incline barbell. When I like it, I like it, but I wouldn't do it all the time. So that's where I would say dumbbell. But even then dumbbell is very limited because you can go really heavy and the individual loading and the fact that they can move out the entire way you'd still squeeze at the top. You can rest a bench with a bar at the top because it's all just going through your bone structure, not so much with dumbbells.

• 1:59:35Chris Williamson?

  You're always adjusting.

• 1:59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're never going to relax on the top of a dumbbell. But what I think I'd have to pick now would actually be a seated cable press. So if you've ever seen seat here, cable here, cable here, you pull it in, you kind of like this.

• 1:59:52Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  Because that is.

• 1:59:54Chris Williamson?

  Stay neutral throughout that?

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  Pretty neutral, yeah.

• 1:59:56Chris Williamson?

  So you're not, you're not allowing.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Not incline, not decline, I kind of hands up a little bit.

• 2:00:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Because that's a much more versatile set because I can do it really heavy like a conventional press, but I could also go lighter and be much more squeeze emphasized because there's like the two bases I basically cover for every move, every body part. If I do a heavy one, I'm going to counter it with a lighter squeezing. And to do only one, I think you'd be limiting your stimulus. So that, uh, that puts us at what?

• 2:00:25Chris Williamson?

  That's, that's four now. So there's definitely on incline dumbbell press, which I think for every guy is always going to be up there for chest. It feels good on your shoulders. It's always one of the first movements that you do when you get into the gym. You feel like it's building the bit of the chest that you want, which is up here. But if you do a really light set, you just don't feel it the same as you do if you're on cable. So I understand that tension, especially because you're being pulled that way, not that way, right?

• 2:00:56Speaker 01

  So you always have that kind of, you know, widening force even at the top.

• 2:01:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's a good point. All right, so there's four. So extension, curl, pull down, cable, press. Yeah, is that on a, on a little incline, 30 degrees?

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  Just flattish, basically flat, flat loaded.

• 2:01:15Chris Williamson?

  All right.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Because then you could also put your hands up a little and get more upper chest, get down a little, get more.

• 2:01:20Chris Williamson?

  You're being very cheeky. Okay, number five.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  So five and six for arms would be, uh, well, for triceps first. I'd I'd probably have to pick just a easy bar curl push down. So not the V bar, like 90 degrees is too much. Straight is also a little too much on your wrists. So a little camber, more like a 120. That's about right. Cause I can also do that light and squeezing, or you can really like get into it and have some heft. What are you thinking about with cues for that? Are you more upright if you got a little bit of bend in the hips? Yeah, decently upright. But if you're, if you stand too upright, well, then now you're like turning into an ab exercise. Cause you're loading your arms downward and you have to keep yourself tense to stay there. So I, I'll hunch over it.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  Or if I'm doing a hard one, I'll put my head to the side of the cable and kind of like wrench it a little like that. Not for all of them, but for some of them. Okay. And then dumbbells is just dumbo curls. Like it's, it's hard to beat. Seated, standing, supinated? With it, with it counted as different movements? Yes. Got to pick one. Well, I guess I'd have to just pick standing. Standing, supinated? So more of a regular, a classic twist of neutral at your, you know, your hips into supinated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cause just the, with some movements, being able to change the load completely changes the style of the movement. Cause I could do the 30s and really hold it and squeeze it. Or I could try to do like the 70s and have it be a much heavier kind of brunt sort of thing.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  So that's a, all right, we're getting close. To six now, so you got four left. Yeah, so six now. I can chill on shoulders because I don't, I haven't done a real shoulder workout for like years at this point. Cause they're just, they're already big. Like they don't, relative, my arms need to grow. So I'd, I'd want to add a forearm curl cable. Okay. So you're holding one D handle, you know, cable up here, I'm loading it down this way. Like this is the force. Okay. And I'm just doing this. Okay. And it's not a huge movement. Yep. But it's like enough where you're actually kind of thickening this up. And I used to do a ton of that. And then my forearms got big enough and I never did it again. Now you're back on it because the arms have caught up. Now I added a little more, but it's a, yeah.

• 2:03:34Speaker 01

  And honestly, for just, I think it was a joke, it's Hugh Jackman. Or someone, or Stallone, worked their forearms like crazy. Cause when you're acting, you're not always shirtless, but you're usually sleeveless. And having big forearms makes you look extra cool. So I guess after that, I'd probably have to add a calf raise. Just because. Standing seated? Eh, seated. Seated is a little bit better. Okay. Even though you're going to be hitting, I always get these the wrong way around. Soleus, whatever. For me, I feel it and my calves will grow from it. So I've got my own anecdotal evidence of it worked. Okay. Got two left. So the next one has to be the cardio bike. Which not many people would add. Cause they're thinking, I don't even need to do cardio.

• 2:04:19Speaker 01

  Cause it's not on their mind. But that's a, yeah, so seated and then the pedals are like where my feet are over here. It's kind of a. A little bit further back. It's a reclined position. And it's the easiest one. Little backrest. My torso does not move. So I can pedal as much as I want. I'm just sitting playing my phone for 30 minutes. Like you can do it and also make it easy. Have you got a preferred machine for that? Like to pre-call, make it particularly good? Just, and some of them, they have little handles. Sometimes the handles are too close to where your knees are. And you'll bump your knee on them. That's, that's my only gripe, but I'm not, I'm not picky. The one I have at my house is like. I mean, it's the equivalent of one that you'd get for free if you picked it up from like this out of the road. But it still works.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  And actually that one's harder on a, um, well, it reads harder. Cause sometimes the math that they do to calculate calories burned. It's not completely, cause if someone like me pedaled for 30 minutes at X difficulty at X speed.

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  An Olympic cyclist or like a marathon cyclist could do it at the same speed and the same difficulty and he would actually burn less calories because he's more efficient and I'm less efficient. So it's not necessarily always aim for the same number. It's like I know the feeling of like this is hard, but it's not too hard. Like this is the right energy expenditure level.

• 2:05:39Chris Williamson?

  I did that on a, I've been getting into incline treadmill walking to get to zone two. Zone two for me is really hard to hit. It's way faster than a normal walk on the road and it's way slower than a jog and.

• 2:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, my incline preferred is like three point five, five percent.

• 2:05:57Chris Williamson?

  Three point, for me, three point two at fifteen.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:00Chris Williamson?

  Is, is nice, but I don't know what the metrics are of the, whatever the machine is that was in the UK. And I was three point two fifteen. And I was like, this doesn't feel right. Okay, I'll just keep going up four, like four, still doesn't feel right. Five. What the fuck is this number? It got to five point three and like, it's about there.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Speed is off.

• 2:06:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Is that miles per hour or?

• 2:06:23Chris Williamson?

  I don't know, because it wouldn't be kilometers over here because it would still be miles per hour. I, whatever it was.

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:28Chris Williamson?

  The, the exact same. You go, I can go to a new machine and after you've done, you don't even need that many sessions. What? Twenty, thirty sessions before you go, I kind of understand how I'm supposed to feel and where my heart rate's supposed to be at, like just by a sense of breathing. Okay. So you've got one left. What's left?

• 2:06:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, one left.

• 2:06:45Chris Williamson?

  What haven't we done? We haven't good, you haven't touched abs, you haven't touched glutes directly, you haven't touched shoulders directly. What else is missing? I think that's it. Lower back, I guess.

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  In a bodybuilding sphere, you don't, you don't want your, your lower back developed enough where it's got like a little texture. But if it gets too big, it'll take away from your waist. Because the whole point is this illusion of wider shoulders and a smaller waist. So now that they're already developed, I probably wouldn't, I, I don't hit my abs because they get worked, you know, kind of secondarily from my, even doing dumbbell curls, I'm keep myself stable. Like, once they're there and you're actually still working out, they're not going anywhere. Because you're, and then every time you look at yourself in the mirror, you're going to flex them. Like, they get worked enough to be maintained. So that's a, like, that's why there's not a lot of ab workouts. Because I did a lot before and now they're just not going to go anywhere. Like, same with shoulders. So.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  I'd have to, I'm a little reluctant, but I can't think of anything else I'd wanna do. I'd pick the adductor machine. So that's where you're squeezing your legs together.

• 2:07:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay, why?

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  Makes your legs a little thicker in the middle. Cause that's, it's this whole kind of like system of a, like kind of, it ties in, it ties in kind of below your knee, more hamstring. But it's this sort of just piece right in the center where if your adductors were completely undeveloped and you stood up straight with your knee straight, you'd have a really big gap between your legs.

• 2:08:13Chris Williamson?

  And you think you wouldn't be able to fully get that with the extension?

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  Uh, well, the extension is just quad, cause that's a quad, like a knee flexion. And this is, uh, like leg, well, you know, I don't even know what you call it.

• 2:08:26Chris Williamson?

  That.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  They, uh, yeah, the joke is the,

• 2:08:32Speaker 01

  uh, well, it's, I don't know, there's like two versions of a joke, cause they'll call that one the ball crusher. Cause that's what you're squeezing legs together. But the older, like, the joke that people would say before was, that was either the good girl or the bad girl machine.

• 2:08:46Chris Williamson?

  Uh, one's forcing it apart, one's forcing it together. Yeah, okay.

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  Cause I don't really, I don't wanna perpetuate that name, but that was, that's kind of a reference to, to those.

• 2:08:55Chris Williamson?

  Okay, very good. Sam Sulek, ladies and gentlemen. Sam, you're awesome, man. I really loved hanging with you this weekend.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's freaking fun.

• 2:09:03Chris Williamson?

  What's next? What can people expect over the next few months from you?

• 2:09:06Speaker 01

  Uh, nothing. A couple of people asked me that. It's like, all right, man, what are you working on? And I'm like, well, I got some renovations going on. I gotta clear out my garage. It's a, like, I've got, I've got my, uh, I've got a few lists. I can't couple them into one, cause it's all like my thing. But I've got like social media list, like getting, uh, I say it's, you could say it's more for the production value, but I just like camera stuff. So I'm always trying new camera things, just cause it's, but it's, you know, it does directly play into how the videos look. Like, that's my little fidgety tinker thing to get into.

• 2:09:43Chris Williamson?

  Just iterating.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But in, in terms of the, I mean, there's not a lot of flash with real working out.

• 2:09:50Chris Williamson?

  Clear out the garage.

• 2:09:52Speaker 01

  There's not gonna be Sam two point O. It'll only be a gradual evolution. So it's like, you know, check back in two years and we'll have a lot of updates.

• 2:10:00Chris Williamson?

  Okay. I'm looking forward to it, man. Appreciate you.

• 2:10:04Speaker 02

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