Alberto, Jeff, Brad, and Brian discuss all the costs (financial, time, health, etc.) to consider when planning a contest prep. What are the financial costs associated with prepping for and competing in a bodybuilding show? What is the coaches’ order of operations in terms of when to purchase what over the course of a contest prep? Why do the coaches recommend waiting to sign up for the show you’re planning on competing in? When is a good time to schedule your polygraph test and tan? What costs o...
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Eric, Brad, and Alberto discuss programming and exercise technique strategies to make your back training more effective. Why does training your back require a bit more strategy than other muscle groups? What are the coaches’ recommended movement patterns for complete back development? Do muscles only grow uniformly or is it possible to get regional hypertrophy? How much range of motion should you aim to get when performing lengthened partials? What are some different ways you can track your back...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 19 min
Alberto, Steve, and Brian discuss what orthorexic behaviors can look like in bodybuilders and how these behaviors can lead to suboptimal progress and a reduced quality of life. What is the coaches’ experience with orthorexia personally and with their athletes? What are some common behaviors the coaches see that are unnecessary and suboptimal? Why do people sometimes still do things they know they don’t need to do? What are some strategies to combat orthorexic behaviors? What are the benefits of ...
May 29, 2025•1 hr 9 min
Eric, Jeff, and Brian discuss the intersection between effort, mind muscle connection, and biomechanics to give you more flexibility in your technique, exercise selection, and programming. How important is having a good mind muscle connection when performing an exercise? Does rep speed matter as long as you’re hitting the appropriate proximity to failure? How much of a difference does training at longer muscle lengths really make? What are Eric’s current principles for exercise selection? Can yo...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 41 min
Brian, Alberto, and Brad discuss the importance of progress pictures, how to take them, how often to take them, and explain the difference between social media friendly progress pictures and progress pictures that are actually going to help you get better. How do the coaches like their athletes to take their progress pictures? What lighting do they prefer? What attire do they prefer? How often do they recommend taking progress pictures when prepping? How often do they recommend taking progress p...
May 01, 2025•1 hr 3 min
Brian and Jeff answer audience-supplied questions about recovery, refeeds, periodization, food focus, exercise selection, posing, and more. Is it okay to train through some soreness or should you wait until the soreness is gone to train? What are the coaches’ thoughts on cheat meals and cheat days? When is the best time to have a refeed? If someone is training for hypertrophy, how often do they need to change their training? If someone’s goal is maximum strength, do they need to run strength blo...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Eric, Alberto, and Jeff discuss how they review an athlete’s season with the athlete to help them process their emotions, see their achievements, develop a perspective that is going to help them, and determine what they need to work on in the offseason to have a better physique and prep next time they compete. What can you do to help you process a show or season where you didn’t place as well as you wanted, so that you have a more positive outlook on the experience? Why is it critical to know yo...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 31 min
Brad, Jeff, and Brian discuss the unavoidable side effect of generating fatigue, the current fear of doing too much that is causing some athletes to miss out on productive stretches of training, and many different strategies for managing fatigue and improving performance. What are the coaches’ thoughts on decreasing your calorie intake on rest days and during deloads? How can you structure your training around your refeeds to maximize performance in the gym? What are the limitations of choosing ...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 31 min
The big question…Is long-duration static stretching redundant if someone is already resistance training or does it provide complementary effects? Nick, Eric, and Brad discuss this and many other stretching-related questions. Does static stretching before exercise help prevent injury? Can stretching cause muscular hypertrophy? How could someone use static stretching to potentially help prevent or reduce detraining when traveling? How does Brad commonly program stretching for his athletes? When ar...
Mar 06, 2025•1 hr 33 min
Jeff, Alberto, and Brian share how they eat and train when traveling, both during prep and in the offseason. The coaches also go over the importance of becoming a resilient bodybuilder. How has Jeff gotten more comfortable traveling during prep? How do the coaches decide on what to eat when they’re at a restaurant? What is the one food Alberto always travels with? What suggestions do the coaches have when it comes to foods you can eat while you’re traveling to your destination? How did Alberto w...
Feb 20, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Brian, Alberto, and Brad discuss the benefits of making your training fun and a bunch of different things they do to keep themselves and their athletes excited about their training. What do many people overlook on their quest for “optimal”? What can you do during a set to help keep you engaged and help you push yourself? How can getting your emotions involved in your training help with progress? How does having fun affect your perceived level of effort? How can you autoregulate your exercise sel...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Eric and Steve discuss how our food choices affect our weight, digestive system, and how we feel. They also go through dietary changes you can make to help optimize the functioning of your digestive system. Why is it important to give your body time to adapt to the dietary changes you make? What are some dietary adjustments you can try if you’re struggling with constipation or bloating? What is fiber and what are the potential benefits of consuming a high-fiber diet? Does it matter which foods y...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Alberto, Eric, and Jeff discuss how to know if you are progressing at a good rate for your genetics and where you are at in your lifting career, what to do if you aren’t, and the importance of having realistic expectations about how quickly you can progress. What is the difference between progressive overload and progression? Do you want to be more proactive or reactive when it comes to increasing and decreasing load? What is “autoregulated double progression” and how can you use it to help you ...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 19 min
Brad, Jeff, and Brian talk about times they felt and still feel isolated and misunderstood during their bodybuilding journeys. Along with sharing stories from their past, the coaches give advice to those who feel isolated and misunderstood. What is the coaches’ advice to those who have friends and family who don’t understand why they compete in bodybuilding? How do the coaches balance bodybuilding with their marriages? How important is having support from others? Do the coaches ever feel isolate...
Dec 26, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Brian, Nick, and Brad discuss how to grow your arms and delts while keeping your joints pain-free and healthy. How have the coaches’ views changed when it comes to programming direct arm and delt volume? What tips does the team’s physical therapist have for training your delts if you’re dealing with shoulder pain? If you can’t train a muscle in its lengthened position, is it even worth training it? What are good progression strategies for isolation exercises? Do you need to have isolation exerci...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Andrea, Brian, and Alberto host an audience-supplied Q&A session. Topics range from programming, to lifting equipment, dietary strategies when trying to put on muscle, shifting your mindset towards recovery post prep, and more. With non barbell exercises, why would you do high reps if you can reach failure in a lower rep range easier and faster? How concerned should you be about time under tension? How do you incorporate RPE when doing drop sets, rest pause, and super sets? What are the coac...
Nov 28, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Brian and Alberto share their thoughts on and benefits of the newer divisions that have come into the sport of bodybuilding in recent years. The coaches give tips on how to choose which division to compete in and how to customize your training to best support your success in that division. How much can a natural athlete customize their physique to align with the division they compete in? If you’re new to lifting, should you train for the division you plan on competing in? Do most top natural men...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr
Brad, Eric, and Jeff discuss different strategies you can use to help you find the sweet spot between time efficiency and stimulus efficiency for your situation. How long should you rest between sets? Is resting longer between reps to extend the length of a set a good strategy? What are antagonist paired sets and why would someone use them? How to drop sets compare to myo-reps in regard to effectiveness? What evidence is there on double days? Why is it important to be able to differentiate which...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 29 min
Brad, Jeff, and Brian discuss when, how, and why they program cardio for themselves and their athletes. How do the coaches view and prescribe cardio during a fat-loss phase? What are the coaches’ thoughts on doing additional cardiovascular exercise for overall health? What is the benefit of having a step goal over a calories-burned goal? What is the highest the coaches typically program someone’s step goal? Do the coaches ever use cardio as a way to stimulate an athlete’s appetite during a gaini...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Brad and Jeff discuss the physical and mental characteristics of a successful bodybuilder, how to maximize *your* potential, and the amazing things that happen when you let yourself be free of worrying about your genetics. How can you know if you’re going to be good at bodybuilding? How do you know if a certain recommendation applies to you? What is the *art* of bodybuilding? What was Brad’s mindset during his 2024 prep, which he felt led to his best physique ever? The answers to these questions...
Oct 03, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Brian, Steve, and Alberto discuss when and what criteria need to be met to make a dietary adjustment. When do the coaches adjust an athlete/client’s plan and when do they have them hold steady? What types of adjustments to the coaches typically make? What can you focus on and how can you stay motivated when your weight/the scale is not a good indicator of progress? How big of an adjustment do the coaches typically make when they decrease someone’s calorie intake? When the coaches decrease someon...
Sep 19, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Alberto, Brian, and Eric have a spirited debate about who they each think are the top 5 natural male bodybuilders of all time. The coaches talk about the early years of Kai Greene’s career when he was natural, the criteria they think is required for someone to be the GOAT (greatest of all time), who they think is the GOAT and why, honorable mentions, and a lot more. Bodybuilding is where art meets science meets sport, and if you are a fan of natural bodybuilding you will love this episode. Times...
Sep 05, 2024•1 hr 32 min
Alberto, Jeff, and Nick discuss the struggles with gaining weight in the offseason, finding your ideal rate of gain, identifying what your current rate of adaptation is, and advice to help you stay patient when you’re doing all you can do. Who should bulk? What can happen when you get too fixated on gaining weight at a certain rate or weighing a certain amount? What were the coaches’ motivations for and experiences while intentionally gaining weight for the first time? How beneficial is a “dream...
Aug 22, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Eric, Brad, and Brian discuss methods dual athletes can use to maximize their competitiveness in both bodybuilding and powerlifting. These same methods can also be used by noncompetitors who want to get big *and* strong. Why do the coaches program more bodybuilding work for their powerlifting athletes than they used to? Do the benefits of specificity max out at a certain point? How does specificity change over time? How does the minimum effective dose for novice lifters and advanced lifters diff...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Brad and Alberto go into detail about what to expect when prepping for a bodybuilding competition, the importance of having people you trust to give you honest feedback on how you're acting, and some of their top tips for a successful prep. How does prep help you learn more about yourself and become a better version of yourself? Should you chase feelings of hunger? How do the coaches recommend dealing with the common side effects of prep such as being overly preoccupied with food, sleep deprivat...
Jul 25, 2024•59 min
Andrea, Brad, and Brian host an audience-supplied Q and A session covering a wide range of interesting topics. Deep in prep, do the coaches ever have athletes experience serious medical issues? When training for hypertrophy, how many reps should you leave in reserve when doing compound exercises? What about isolation exercises? What is the difference between a movement’s RIR and a target muscle’s RIR? Is it more important to have carbs before your workout or after? Is it necessary to feel the mi...
Jul 11, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Eric, Jeff, and Alberto discuss how they program their own and their athletes’ training differently than they used to. The coaches talk about how to apply new training techniques and understandings, the benefits of being open-minded, exercise selection, managing fatigue, range of motion, and a lot more. If you’ve been wanting to learn more about training at longer muscle lengths and lengthened partials, this is a great episode to listen to. The coaches go through how to train at longer muscle le...
Jun 27, 2024•1 hr 39 min
Nick, Jeff, Brian, and Alberto discuss how to manage your athletic and lifting goals while still being present for your children and partner. The guys talk about how they stay highly-competitive bodybuilders with kids, how they’ve learned to be flexible, how they’ve gotten good at getting the most out of the limited amount of time they sometimes have to train, being a “good selfish”, and a lot more. The dads also share how they talk about or plan on talking about bodybuilding when the time comes...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Eric, Steve, and Brad have a unique conversation about tracking and bringing mindfulness to a behavior. The coaches discuss the distinction between tracking to learn more about what you’re currently doing versus tracking to change a behavior. Sometimes just tracking a behavior is enough to get the desired outcome and sometimes *not* tracking something can lead to better outcomes. Along with discussing the different types of tracking, the coaches also go through how to choose what you should trac...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 23 min
Jeff, Brian, and Brad discuss training to failure, RPE-based programming, and percentage-based programming. What is RPE and RIR? Should you use RPE-based programming? If so, when and how should you use it? How do the coaches help their athletes get better at rating a set’s RPE? What approaches do the coaches use for prescribing proximity to failure with bodybuilders? Can training to failure and leaving reps in reserve both work? Why isn’t all training to failure the same? The coaches answer thes...
May 16, 2024•1 hr 19 min
