I get a You Bloody Champions Craig Anthony Harper reporting in for Judy. It's the You Project. What the fuck else would it be? I hope you're having a good day. It is. It's one thirty two and the thriving metropolis of Melbourne. It's Wednesday. So a couple of hours ago I was going back and forwards with an old friend of mine on the phone who is a fucking t rex and his business partner is a stegosaurus, which would make me probably a tricerah toops or a bronze saurus.
But anyway, it's three dinosaurs on a show and we're going back and forth. His name is Keith Ellis and Paul Kirkham of course, but we're going back and forth Keith and I and I said, look, while you're on the phone, could I ask you whether or not we might have a chat later the TSAVO long shot And he said yes, So here we here we are. So thank you boys for the short notice approval, thank you for figuring out how to do the tech. Do you reckon?
There's ever been three older human beings on a podcast.
I don't know where I combined ages, but it'd be over two hundred. I think so it'd be well over two hundred. I'm sixty one.
How old are you?
I know you told me the other day, Paul, I'm sixty eight and on the other state, I'm seventy one.
Fuck and hell, have you look at you? I think this is probably your third podcast, mate, and you did the other two with me? Or have you done others? No? No, I'm just savings out for you, Craig. I feel I feel pretty good about that now or can you can you tell my audience who haven't Like, last time you were on was about seventeen thousand episodes ago. So, by the way, I just thought I wrote this down because I never know day to day what number we're up to.
But if this goes up tomorrow, to go up tomorrow the next day. But if it goes up tomorrow, this will be episode number one thousand, eight hundred and twenty three. Now. I can't remember what episode you guys were first time, but I think it was in the first five or ten. And I will say maybe without Maxes your company, this show might not exist because you guys sponsored you guys
financially kind of backed the goliath. The media Goliath. That is that you project you financially supported me when nobody else logically would, So thank you for that. Boys, But can you believe that, Keith? Eighteen hundred and twenty three episodes.
It truly is incredible, Craig. I mean, it's just been a long time, as you said, since we've been on. But I hope we didn't offend anybody that badly that far ago, you know, so we're pleased to be back.
Well, it's always it's always good, Paul. Can you tell us a little bit about so there'll be some We have about seventy percent female audience, sixty five seventy percent, so there'll be people who not only do they not know what Maxes are, they don't really have a great understanding of supplements or any of that particular landscape. But give us a bit of a snapshot of the Max's story, like the genesis. How long have you been around and just explain to people what Maxes is and what you
do before we just jump into a conversation. Yeah, sure, Craig.
Well, we started our company in nineteen eighty nine, but Keith and I go way back long before that. So back when I was a lad when I was about twenty years old, I used to go to a gym in Nana Wadding here in Melbourne, and the guy used to run the gym was one mister Keith Ellis. At the time, he was a competitive bodybuilder, and I was this skinny bloke who came in to join the gym and trained there under Keith's tutelage for a number of years.
And I think I started out about seventy kilos and probably about three years later I was about ninety five kilos. So whatever he told me kind of worked and that I stayed at that way for quite a while. But as I've got older, I've kind of shed most of that and I'm sort of pursuing a different sort of athletic approach to my life. But going back to the Maxis story, so Keith and I knew each other from well,
what is it about forty something years ago? Forty five years ago, I suppose, But about thirty five years ago I was I've got a science background. I was kind of making my own little supplements because I used to work in the pharmaceutical kind of industry and I had access to things like amino acids and proteins, and stuff like that. So I used to make my own little formulas up and I kind of had a few friends of mine that I used to make them for. Anyway, one day I rang up Keith. I hadn't seen him
for a while. I rang him up and I said, look, Keith making these these supplements, and I'm wondering if you might know if there would be a demand for these sorts of things in the gyms and the people, you know. And he said, oh, yeah, that sounds really good. So he came around and we had a little bit of all this stuff. I used to make the things, and Keith would go out and sell them to all his friends in all the gyms and health food stores and things around Melbourne. And before you knew it, we had
this little business bubbling along. We were both working doing other things, but we were doing this as a sideline. I grew into a business and here we are many years later, and it's turned into quite a good business and it's been really good to us over many years.
It's really interesting because Max's and my business back then Harper's, which like we're both pioneering in a way. Not that we didn't fuck up a lot of things all three of us, I'm sure, but when you were kind of when the door to like training supplements, sports supplements, when that door was starting to open, personal training was just getting off the ground as well. I started Harpers in
nineteen ninety, so a year after you started. But I was thinking back in the day when when I started personal training, there was no there was no industry, there was no regulations, there was no insurance, there was like nobody knew what the fuck I was doing. It's like, well, what you know, and people would come into my studio and think it was a gym and they would want to join. I'm like, you can't join, and they're like, what a terrible business model a gym that you can't join? Right?
And I go, well, know, everything's by appointment and it's all consulting and one on one or maybe two on one, and then you know, like everyone said that would work, and it ended up doing okay, of course, and now it's proliferated and there's seventy seven fucking PT centers on Hampton Street where I live. And I think the supplement industry, for want of a better term, sports supplements was that kind of similar, Like was it regulated was there any rules or like back then it was it the wild West.
It was the wild West.
But I guess like pioneering, it's exciting and interesting grade because yeah, like you're saying, we stuffed up too, you know a number of times. But from that, you know, you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your victories.
Yeah, that mirrors a lot in our life. But yeah, it was new.
It was exciting because you know, some plentation was just just just starting to break in. And obviously the path the entry was a lot easier than it is of course today. Yes, and yeah, yeah, sure we made mistakes, but we learned very quickly because financially well and I and we told the story a number of times. I think we launched the business with one thousand dollars each, you know, circle back to twenty twenty five. What could you start with one thousand dollars each? You know, it
was ludicrous and that included buying stock, raw materials. Yes, so very very very humble beginnings, but we kind of had nothing to lose. And I remember there was a rival, if you could call that supplement company, and I was working part time in the gym to sort of pay the bills and buy the food. They're still training a bit back in those days. And the guy there is a bit of a crusty old devil.
He said, you'll be broken three months, you know.
But I've said to him, as a bit of a smart answer backward, to say, oh, well, it'll be a good, interesting three months. I learned from it, and I've always got my job. So circa thirty seven years later, you know, we didn't broke and we've still got a job.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was the same. It was the same with what I did. Even my mum and dad, who God bless them, like they were business people and they're like, hey, that's not a business though, you know that's not because even back then, I think my clients were paying on average one hundred dollars for three sessions, right, so it's thirty three dollars an hour, which now seems like nobody would work for that. Well, so people would,
of course, still not too too bad of money. But back in the day, when I first started training at a place called track Side Sports, before I had my own studio nine eighty six, people are paying one hundred bucks a week to work out with me and my parents are like and other friends. People aren't going to
keep doing that. That's crazy, Like nobody's like you could join a gym for three months for one hundred dollars, you know, or they could spend three hours with you for one hundred dollars or have a three or six month membership. In some cases, why on earth would people do that? I think I wonder how many industries Keith start off where you know, people shake their head. There would be a lot and go, well, that's never going to take off, And it's taken off absolutely. You know.
It's funny you mentioned track Side because I think you invited me there one night, and I gave a bit of.
A presentation here too. We did. We both went down on it, okay.
And you know, I'm not a as you can probably tell from this, I'm not a great public speaker. I'm not comfortable as such. But I remember that went particularly well.
I thought that that night. I don't know if you remember, Craig, you might have thought it went. I feel like that was I feel like that was the peak of your professional speaking career. It was.
It's been Daniels since then anyway, with Soldier on. But I remember looking into the crowd, and a lot of those people in there no sort of average Joe's and Jim go. So you know, some good rigs good for ZX male and female. I thought at the time, even way back then, I do remember it that there's something there, there's something here that they were sort of sitting on.
Not every word, but you know, I say, you know, this is this new, fresh, evolving market called sort of supplements and improving your performance and getting bigger biceps and narrower waste or whatever it might be. So there was always that glint there that I sort of always honed in on, and that that sort of repeated many times
at other places. We went and introduced into health food store uners that traditionally sold glaize cherries and Echinasia, you know, and we went along with the first big can of protein at the time of seven and fifty grand was the bigger size you can get.
I think Paul I came out with a one point yeah at one point five or yeah too, Kilo.
Remember this beautiful gentleman in Ringwood and I took along to him and says, hello, it looks like pool chlorine. You know, like you said, it won't well well he rang me up two days later. It was like twenty five tubs and it sold, you know, so small steps, but it was interesting how it connected with people, you know, because we gave sort of value and quality and all
that was behind the product. But it had to sort of say something or it had to sort of embellish what we're trying to get across as who we were as a company and.
People, Yeah, yeah, how much have you? I mean, this is a weird question because there's no specific answer, but Paul, I'll go to you like in terms of you know, let's say you've got a good product. You know, Like I knew nothing about marketing, branding, selling myself. Fortunately I didn't need to have a million sales to make a profit, right but with you guys, you kind of literally do eventually need to have a million sales, you know, of sorts.
So so you create a good product, you've got you've got your protein, and you've got your different supplements and these are good and you're speaking to or selling to a at that time and largely uninformed and uneducated market and audience where people are just starting to become aware of supplements. What kind of a learning curve was it for you trying to build a business and a brand and systems and all of that around the thing that you originally created in your kitchen or wherever it was.
Well, that's a very good question, Craig, because when you first start out something like this, and back then we didn't quite know what we're getting in for. We just thought it was a good idea and that if we liked these products ourselves. And I mean initially it started because I was making these things for me to use myself, and then you know, and then Keith got involved and he was using them, and so you kind of made
things that you wanted to use for yourself. And then I kind of had this view that some if I think it's good, then other people probably would think it's good as well. So that's kind of the I guess the mantra I had when we created a product, that thought, well, would I use this myself? So when we would go to like a health food store, gyms are okay, because I mean Keith could sell to the gym guys because he spoke that language.
But we were into a health.
Food store, as Keith said, we were talking to perhaps an owner who was a bit more into kind of the more natural, health foody type products, and they weren't really into sports supplements, and they probably hadn't really had a lot to do with this sort of thing. But I think when we went in there, we kind of might have impressed them maybe with our passion, because we both really believed in these things and we both use them. I mean, I started out this journey because funnily enough,
I started using Masashi as a competitive brand. But you know, back in the day, they were kind of like the bee's knees and Masashi amano acids were something. When I used them, and I played a lot of sport when I was younger, I actually felt that they gave me a bit of an edge, you know. I really felt good using amino acids, and so I started making my own amino acid formulas, kind of looking what Masashi had done.
And then I spent a lot of time at at monash Uni researching amino acids for sports performance or healing after surgery and all these sorts of things. And I was able to use that knowledge to create formula that I felt would work, and I tried them all out of myself, and they seem to work really well. And then Keith and all the guys in you started using them, and that's kind of how it all all got going.
So when we took these into a store, you know, I could speak with some authority on these things because I'd done a lot of the research. I've tried them out myself, and the people in the store we mostly bought into the idea, and so it was it was pretty cool.
Yeah, we should also point out, I don't think we have yet that your background is. Are you you're a chemist a researcher. Yeah.
So I went to Minus did chemistry and buyo chemistry at Minus UNI. Then I did chemical engineering at Swinburn and that that led me into a career and that sort of pharmaceutical biological sciences type of environment, and all along the way I had this real keen interesting sports and nutrition and built a base of knowledge as I went.
You know, I'd be just mostly experimenting on myself, and then when we started this supplement company, I could start experimenting on other people as well as myself.
So yeah, yeah, so you're actually credible. You're not like Keith and I who made it in Plaster Scene and sand Pitt and monkey Bars and then kicked off our careers. Well, Baull went de Monish, I went to Pinridge. But you like back in the day when I first met you, and you're still you're both actually and I'm not saying this everyone because they're bloody looking at me, but they're both in very good shape. You both look way younger than your years, and you're both very fit and strong.
But you back in the day, Keith, you were a competitive bodybuilder, and I guess that especially when you're trying to get these kinds of supplements off the ground and you can walk into gyms around Melbourne and maybe around Australia being in great shape, and people knowing who you were probably opened a few doors and allowed a few conversations. Yeah, it was certainly a part sport, Craig.
You know, it was a bit of sort of quasi you know Jim Brow science that went with it. But you know, I felt that not having tickets on this out, I found I had a physic there was probably years ahead of its type, you know, the more leads athletic that was, you know, fairly well built, you know, And I chased that bodybuilding dream for a number years. I spent a lot of years in the States, and you know some of the grandfathers of the sport, Charles Glass,
my Christian, all those, all those Iberian brothers. It was a fantastic training ground, you know, to realize kind of what's involved and what you didn't want to get involved in, what you did want to get involved in it. There's certainly dark side, but you take out the dark side, it's a fantastic pursuit. You know, it's time douming your need commitment. But all those things, I think hold you in good stead for life. You know, there is some colorful characters in the sport, no doubt I think that.
I agree.
It's like body building and and by the way, when I say bodybuilding body shaping, you know, I don't mean getting on stage necessarily at all. Everyone. I'm talking about just the process of going into the gym and trying to you know, make your body function and look and feel and be a little bit different through some kind of strategic process with you know, some supplements and some food and some training and some stimuli and all that
kind of stuff. But for me, although I did get a little obsessed for a while, as a lot of people do, but overall, What it did for me was just create habits and patterns and behaviors and an operating system that you know, serve has served me well forever. Like I really haven't I reckon since I was fourteen. I might have had twenty days out of the gym, you know, and as you know, I train with crab Mark Lampard multiple mister Australia IFBB pro Forma pro and
all that stuff. And these days, like the gym is it's more fun than anything. It's like there's no there's no fucking pbs being set, there's no there's no competition, there's you know, we're too old to have massive egos because there's nothing to be egotistical about. But just going there lifting a few weights, you know, getting under a bar, moving some moving some against some resistance, and connecting with
other people. For me, you know, that's been a lifelong kind of you know benefit and value and not only physiologically but also sociologically mentally emotionally. I think I would be nuts if I didn't have the gym. It's kind of like some people have yoga or they have TM or they have whatever. I think for me, that's my meditation, you know, I think it's I think it's for a lot of people done the right way. It's certainly a positive, but yeah, like you said, there can be a dark side.
I wanted to ask you, Paul, about the evolution of the the industry, like from nine nine making the potions in your house and showing Keith and then going out and about and pedaling your wares until twenty twenty five, it seems like every second person on social media has got their own brand of something or their own you know, as you said before Keith it I think you said something like, you know, it was a lot harder then
and now the barriers to entry are low. It's like I reckon, if I wanted to have Craig Harper protein, not that I want to do that, not that anybody would want to buy it, but I could probably get that done in a couple of weeks and sell it on my website and sell it through this podcast. And because all I'd need is somebody who can do that, which I reckon, I know ten people who could do that. So it's really changed, Paul.
Yeah, Craig, Well, I think when I started training back in the day, so when I was a lad, I used to play ice hockey, and I was pretty skinny, so I need to beef myself up a bit for it. So when I started training, I just went to the Nana Warding gym and didn't know really much about supplements. And I went to a health food store in Hawthorne and I said, I need something to build me up, and they had there was a product and you probably remember this Craig called body Bulk by Neutral Life. I'm
not sure. I think it was pretty much a can of skim milk powder with flavor in it, you know, And so I would I would religiously take this stuff morning, noon and night. And that was about the only kind of weight gainy type supplement that I think was around
back in those days. And this is sort of in the in the early seventies where you know, fast forward to today and there's you go into a nutrition warehouse of one of the big supplement stores around Australia and there are literally walls and walls of different formulas of protein and different brands and Australian brands and overseas brands,
and it's mind boggling how many there are. So there's there's been an amazing evolution and I think when we started, doubt there might have been two or three Australian brands. As I mentioned Masashi, there was our Cells, and there were maybe one or two others, but.
That's about all there were when.
I guess back in the late two thousand and about two thousand and nine, I think it was we started. So we started our Max's product range, which was arranged sort of target the bodybuilders.
The guys, but we also saw through the.
Two thousands that a lot of the females were the ladies, were getting into training, and they just a lot of them didn't want to take a male oriented product. It was you know, I guess nutritionally probably was okay, but all the marketing was you know, for big, muscly, smelly guys, and so we kind of recognized that and we launched our female brand, which we called, you know, creatively called Maxine. And that's that's been around now, as I said, since two thousand and ninety nine, and that's.
Gone really well.
What we what we sort of found was there's always really been a market for male products since that sort of those even the nineteen seventies, but the female market has really kicked on, particularly in the last three or four years, and I think a lot of companies now have realized that that women are really looking for products that are specific to the female physiology. And also they're marketed to women and not marketed just as a bloke taking the blokes protein and putting it in a pink label.
You know.
So there's been you know, there's been quite a lot of maturity coming into the into the market as well, and there's been lots of different different trends.
I mean, you know, the trend in.
The last probably five years has been not protein has always been a big thing, but pre workouts has become a massive thing, you know, just most guys, particular in particular women are getting into it as well. But most guys feel like they can't train unless they take a pre workout, and you know, they feel like if they train and they haven't got a pre workout, they don't train properly. So I think pre workouts have become a bit of a crutch. I mean, we sell pre workouts
because they're very popular. There are some pre workouts will kind of almost blow your head off. We don't subscribe to that theory.
Really.
We sort of think.
Pre workout should give you a boost. But really, you know, the motivation has got to come from within. If you can't really train hard without taking a pre workout, then you kind of need to have a little bit of a look at yourself.
I think, yeah, I'm not sure that the sixty one year old Host of the Year project with periodic actual fibrillation should be taking those Yeah. Well, that's the thing I think with I reckon with everything, whether it's protein powder, whether it's pre workouts, whether it's coffee, whether it's cheeseburgers, Like, it's all about the application and the dose. Do you know what I mean. It's like if I have two coffees a day, because I, like I said, I have a little bit of af every now and then two
coffees to day, I'm good. Three coffees a bit borderline, four coffees, I'm fucked. Like I feel anxious, I can feel my heart in my chest. And so it's it's learning how your your body works, you know. And I think that I was going to say to you, Keith, I don't know if you know this, but do you remember or you might know Paul, the guy that's set up or one of the guys that set up. Masashi was Tim Horwood. You know you know of him? Yeah,
we do. Yeah. So he used to own a gym in him in a couple of blokes who used to own this mangy shitty gym in me tone called the Stables. Do you remember that vaguely? Yes? Yeah, yeah. So the Stables was, with all respect, just a shithole of a place,
but awesome, awesome. It was this old factory. So to all my listeners who were like, this is three dinosaurs reminiscing exactly what it is, right, but me in the eighties, so I would have been about I went to Western Australia and I worked on a construction site and in a gym for a year, So construction through the day, gyms at night. Then I came back. Then I got this job in Inverted Commas from three three pm till nine pm at this gym called the Stables. I say
the word Jim loosely. It was just an old warehouse that they rented and filled with gym equipment. No ladies train there. Maybe once a month a lady would come in and go fuck and then run out. But it was just all these Neanderthals training. We had one hundred pound plates. We had two hundred pound dumb else. It
was just like some Neanderthal kind of habitat. But I worked like Tim and another guy called Andy I forget and another dude owned that and that was yeah, that was back at the That was just as I think back in those days, Massashi were getting off the ground. So that was the Yeah, it's really you guys and them were really at the forefront I think back in those days.
Yeah, yeah, well they were got a cutting edge massage and they were really quite a successful company back then. And you know, they still are today unfortunately or not unfortunately, but they're not obviously in the same hands. They've changed hands a few times over the years. But we're proud
to say we're still the same company. I still aim owned by the same guys, which Keith and myself, and we're still patting away here in Australia making the stuff everything here, employing Australia people as well.
So yeah, we're pretty proud of that. Well, I use and recommend it. I'm wearing my Max's T shirt right now. By the way, everyone, I'm not paid by Maxes. I'm not like this is I'm not doing this because there's any bloody commercial arrangement. I just these guys and I have been friends forever. But we do have something maybe a little bit exciting, not no commercial element involved, but something exciting that the three of us might be doing, which I'll announce as some stage down, I would say
in the next month. I wanted to ask you about of all the supplements that I jumped on your website just before we went live and had a look, and I'm like, fucking hell, there's so much stuff, right, and then on top of that, there's a million other things as well. What are the what are the big ticket items at the moment? Be the one of you like, what what are people buying the most? So apart from pre workout, but what pre workout createam I guess is
right up near the top. What else is super popular these days?
Well, I think just just I guess a little bit there, Craig. I think it's what we've learned is that certain companies and brands, and some great brands out there and companies as well in our space their competitors, yes, but you know there's a healthy respect between us all I think, and certain companies and brands get associated with particular market segments, like I guess we're well known for our proteins. You know, we do a great job, I think, a great job with those, and we're known for that.
We've found over there.
We try and vary into other spaces, like pre workouts are solid, but we're certainly not known as a as a pre workout brand, you know, So we stick to our lane and it serves us very well. Whereas a lot of the more young, younger companies, and most companies compared to us are younger, and with the expansion of social media in the way we connect with people, you know, we took many, many years to kind of get up.
To a certain level of success.
And well today you know, in a very short period of time through social media and the way you market your products, you can go to zero to one hundred and one or two years. Yes, other products any better than others, Maybe not, maybe so in some cases, I think we've were just stuck to that mantra of sticking stay in your lane really and proteins, you know, Proadin bars, cookies, that type of space is we're extremely strong at and we don't send to venture too much into the other zones.
Yeah, I think just to further that, probably if you look in the protein space, there's.
Been quite a lot of movement.
I mean the dairy proteins, like particularly the way proteins have been that I guess the mainstay of most supplements in this space for.
Many many years.
But in the last probably five to eight years probably there was there's been a move towards plant based proteins and very good quality products in that area. And then probably a little bit more recently, it's been that sort of collagen style protein and they become super popular, and
I think they've all got their place. I mean, some people move to say a plant based protein because they may have some issues with dairy, you know, from a digestive point of view, or they might just have a view that they want to pursue more of a plant
based diet than than an animal based diet. But then on the collagen front, collagen proteins they are they're an animal based product, as most people would know that they're kind of made from the connective type tissues rather than the muscle type tissues that you would have in meat from things like bovine or marine some fish and cows basically, but the the thing that a lot of people don't realize with collagen proteins is that collagen proteins are great
for joint health and helping to repair joints like ligaments, and they're great for skin, and they're great for nails and hair and those sorts of things, because the major protein in things like your hair and your skin and your nails and your joints is a collagen protein, but muscle protein it has a different sort of amino acid profile.
So if you're taking a collagen only for muscle growth, you probably want to make sure you're having other protein sources in your diet because collagen protein doesn't have all the amino acids in the right proportion.
So that's just just a little tip.
If you're taking only a collagen protein, make sure you're getting good protein sources from other things like meat or plant sources or whatever.
So just to trap for your on plays.
You know, there are many different protein types on the market now and people are spoiled for choice, and there are also lots of different formulas. So you know, we have in our range, we have formulas for shredding and dropping body fat. We have formulas that help people gain weight. We have formulas that help people sleep, and several other variations as well.
Yeah, I use the I don't know what's the one that I have. I should at the top of my head, but I have every morning I have because I get asked this right. In fact, I did an episode a couple of days ago called My Health Protocol, which is not at all exciting. But people want to know how I train and what I eat and all that stuff, so and I told them I have every morning. I have the same thing, which is very boring. But I have almonds, I have oats, I have cilium husk. Sometimes
I have some seeds. But on top of that, I have forty grams of your protein powder. I have the chocolate one, which is fucking delicious, so it's like a big And then what I do, because I'm weird, I put it all in a blender so it comes out like flour. And then I put almond milk because me and lactose don't go that great. And yes, everyone, I realize, almond milk is not milk. It's just fucking distilled water with an almond waved at it. I know exactly what
I'm doing. Our best marketing of all time four dollars
a liter for distilled water with an almond. But I have that every day, and as you guys know, I don't eat lunch, so I eat that, which is about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy grams, and then whatever I put on top of milk with the milk, and I personally I have zero hunger till about six or seven at night, which works for me because I find and this is the variability about nutrition and supplements and calories, is that what will be ideal
for Keith won't work for Poor, what will be awesome for Craig won't work for either of them. And you're trying to find out with all of their stuff, everything from training to nutrition, to sleep, to hydration to supplement. You're trying to figure out how your body responds optimally to these different things. You know, like we know, correct me if I'm wrong, Paul, But like creatine, isn't creatine pretty good for like eighty percent of people, but for
twenty percent it does not much at all? That's what they used to say, or is that not true?
Yeah? I think, well, you know, it's very individual thing. So some people get a really good benefit out of creatine, and other people get a minor benefit. I think most people get a minor benefit. It also depends on your diet. So the answer to all of these things, you know when you're talking about nutrition usually is it depends. So
it depends on what you're currently eating. So as an example, if you eat a reasonable amount of red meat, there's quite a bit of creatine in red meat, so you will probably find that your level of creatine in your muscles is reasonably good if you're on a normal diet where you're eating a.
Reasonable amount of red meat.
If you're on a more of a plant based diet, you're probably not getting a lot of creatine at all, and so if you take a creatine supplement, you'll probably find you'll see it quite a noticeable difference in your energy levels, the amount of weight you can push.
You probably will put.
On muscle reasonably quickly if you haven't been using it before, and you're training at the gym and you're getting a reasonable protein intake. So there's different things now. Then there's that sort of genetic makeup that lays over the top. So some people are good creatine responders and some people aren't, and it's as we said, it's an individual thing.
So wow, I think that goes not very much everything. Do you know the main benefit for me of creatine? And I use it for recovery, and I use it for energy, and I use it for training and all of that. But for me, the main benefit sounds like a sales pitch everyone, It isn't. It's just true is cognitive function. It makes my brain work better. And so again everyone, not a prescription or a recommendation, but I
actually take fifteen grams a day. I think the recommended is like five of five ten, but I take fifteen and literally within half an hour my brain works better. Not that I mean it works pretty well anyway, but it's like, literally, my brain is my tool like that's my that's in my bloody toolkit. Is my brain in
my mind, and that needs to work pretty well. I was going to ask you about so with without trying to get too sciencey, right, and I'm not a big fan of ardiis recommend the daily intakes, but the RDI in Australia for protein, which is ridiculous in my opinion. Everyone's point eight of a graand per kilo of body weight. So let's say, someone like me who weighs eighty five,
but let's round me up to ninety. So ninety times point eight of a gram is seventy two grams of protein, right, Like, that's just not enough for me, And I'm a sixty one year old bloke. Have you got any idea? And again, it depends a very personal person. But I feel like somewhere around one and a half to two grams per kilo of body weight for people who are working out is probably closer to the mark.
Yeah, I think you're pretty close. I think there if you look at a lot of the literature now, there's a lot of evidence that shows that that sort of level of one and a half to two grams per kilogram of body weight is probably about where you need to be, particularly if you're reasonably active. Now, there's a few advisors on that. First of all, if you're sedentry and so you're sitting at a desk all day and you're not doing a lot of activity, you can probably
survive on point eight of a gram. I mean, I use the word survive, but really what you want to do is thrive. You don't want to just survive. So to thrive, I think a minimum if you're not doing any activity, should be one gram per kilogram body weight.
But I would say that if you're doing any sort of activity, one and a half grams to to you know, the harder you train, the more often, so you're trainingly every day, you know you're up that two grams a kilo per kilogram of body weight would be about where you need to be. Anybody, whether they're training in the gym, they're doing you know, they're more of an endurance athlete, so they're doing they're a runner or a cyclist or you know, playing football or whatever it is, they should be up.
In that sort of one and a half.
Grams per kilogram of body weight to two grams. And it all depends on your exercise level, I guess so, And that's what you really need to do do thrive rather than survive. And the other complicating factor is what we find as we get older is that and you know we three are in this category, that there's what's called anabolic resistance. And antabolic resistance relates to your body doesn't absorb and use protein anywhere near as efficiently as
it used to when you were twenty years old. So so base if you're taking in a gram of protein per kilogram body weight when you're twenty, you're probably going to use a lot more of that to build muscle than if you do it when you're sixty.
So to compensate for that, you need to take in more protein.
You just need to provide more substrate for your body to get access to so that it's there when it needs to build build muscle or maintain muscle. So that makes it even more important now. I mean, Craig, you could probably talk to this, although you probably talk to your clients and that sort of thing I have over the years, But saying you need one hundred and fifty grams of protein, for example, A lot of people just don't understand what that actually means. You know, how what
is one hundred and fifty grams protein? I don't know if you want to talk.
About that, but I think people confuse, you know, they go, I add one hundred and fifty gram breast of chicken. I add one hundred and fifty grams of protein. So no, you didn't know that's a protein source that I mean, I don't have an I think there might be thirty grams of protein in a chicken breast that size or something, it probably forty maybe forty five grams, and in an egg there might be six grams of protein or give
or take five or six grams. So yeah, getting Actually for somebody like me, let's say I went two grams per kilo of body weight, that would put me out one hundred and seventy grams of protein, which is a fair bit of actual protein, and that requires a fair bit of food. But my dinner is quite big, my
breakfast is quite big. Every now and then, if I am hungry through the day, which I don't often get a hungry, but if I am, I'll I'll just make a protein drink with that protein powder I spoke about before, or eat a few almonds or a bit of both.
But yeah, that's I actually think, Like what's interesting right now is until about five years ago, you know, we spoke a lot about lifespan primarily, and now we're talking a lot more about health span, which is literally very relevant for us, you know, three dinosaurs, but which is literally how long how long can I live? And of those years that I do live, how well can I live? Can I be somewhere close to optimal for my age
and my genetic potential, you know. So I feel like, you know, Keith, you're seventy one or whatever you are, and you don't. I don't, I don't know. I can't speak, but you definitely don't look anywhere near your age, and Paul neither to you. And I think, and it ain't about aesthetics. It's ultimately about health and performance and function
and energy and wellness. But I think now we're starting to understand that this doesn't, you know, getting old doesn't necessarily need to come with some fucking massive, never ending, irreversible decline of health and energy and cognitive function, like
we're realizing now. And I think people who aren't athletes, and people who aren't clinics, and who aren't in health or fitness per se, I think people are getting smarter and starting to track things and starting to diorize their food, and you know, they're they're kind of their sleep and their resting heart rate and their kind of energy levels. So I think overall, like we're starting to become a lot more aware and responsible and enlightened around managing ourselves
into older age. What do you two think?
Yeah, that's a that's a great point. Craigan and I think there's a there's a tipping point, you know, there's a tipping point for me was firstly, you know, when you when you kind of build this behemoth physic or whatever you like to call it, there's that mental and sort of psychological and physical aspect of when you're starting to downsize in dealing.
With that, that's one part of it.
And some people, I guess it's like US aflor footballers when they give up their career. It's after football, they struggle with a few things, not all, but if there's a replacement in your life or something else as a priority in life. Could be family, it could be relationships, or could be a new sport.
You know, I think it's.
Important to get that simulation. But getting back to some of the food intake, my theory has always been eat towards your age. You know, certainly your appetite lessons, as your pardin requirements, get the types of food that you like to consume does change.
But mine, really I've kind.
Of followed a bodybuilding lifestyle and diet all my life. I don't actually lift weights anymore. I do other things. And you kindly reminded me last couple of weeks when we met. You should be lifting some weights, Keith, and you're probably right, Craig, So I'm thinking of lifting some few not that I don't know, but you know, I think you do know. So I just think, you know, you eat to eat to your age, and your lifestyle should be adjusted and regulated to your age as well.
You know, I don't think.
Because you're seventy he should be doing this and run around that block or walk around the block any fast or quicker. I think it's a belief in yourself what works well for you. I just pull one last dinosaur out of the cupboard because this is probably the only forum I get to say these things. I remember when I first went the Golds Gym in the States and the bastion of bodybuilding.
There's a guy called Mike Mensa.
A lot of the younger listeners wouldn't know, but obviously Craig and Paul knows it very well. He was like the father of heavy duty training, and he was just a real behemoth. He used to walk into Golds Gym. He go to Dunkin Donuts and get a six pack of ice doughnuts and a big black coffee like it looked like in a gallon jar, you know, the coffee, and that was his pre workout.
He was the father of pre workouts.
And this probably would be in showing me age will and truly, but this would be nineteen eighty five.
Ye, he'd walk into that and he used to.
He was a very powerful guy, you know, squat six hundred pounds in the day for reps and bench press anyway. So I kind of got to him one day and got at the side and I was chatting to about it. And he was a very personal guy, and people thought he was hard to approach, but I kind of break down those few of those barriers and we chatted away. So can you let me in on a secret? A secret everybody thinks I eat six ice doanuts a day
and drink coffee. He said, I'd eat one, throw the other five away, and he take two mouthfuls of that coffee.
That's hilarious. But he would train. And I said, the reason, you know the reason, Mike, He says, it was a belief. Brother.
It was a belief that he could lift those ways. It was a belief that he could be so strong, and it was always a belief that he's going to, you know, build us Yeah, it's enormous physic So you know, I know you're a bit of a mind man, and motivations and so forth. You know, that belief in yourself no matter what age, it's such a crucial.
Thing, one hundred percent. Oh yeah, that's such a funny story and a good story. I trained in I went over there when I was young. I went in nineteen eighty five and I, oh no, that was the first time. Second time I went, I was it was nine and ninety five, so I was thirty two and I trained in golds in Venice for about two weeks. And I was pretty big and in pretty good shape, and I looked like I'd never worked out. I looked like it
was my first time in a gym, you know. For me anyway, I was like, I felt, I'm pretty big. I think I was maybe one hundred kilos. I wasn't too fat, like I was probably ten or twelve percent fat, two hundred and twenty pounds, pretty good shape for my not very good genetics. And yeah, I just looked like a fucking novice. And it's funny how you go into one room and you're amazing. You go into another room you're a shitkicker. You go into one room, you're a genius.
You go into another room, you're an idiot. It's all context, a pennant. But I think, look, another important part of this I reckon is, you know, like the chronological age doesn't need to be representative of or in alignment with, you know, biological age. And my listeners have heard this a lot. But of course, of course how old we are, how many years we've been on the planet is a factor.
Of course, it's a variable that we can't escape. But we all know sixty year olds that look like forty five, and sixty year olds that look like eighty, you know, and there are people that happen to you know, whether or not they're genetically gifted, or whether or not they've optimized their genetics through choices and behaviors and lifestyle, or whether or not it's a bit of both. But you know, one thing is true for everyone, and that is you can't get another body, right, You can't go get You
can replace most things, but you can't replace that. So I think there's a little bit of a swing happening where people are becoming maybe because it's although a lot of what's on the internet is rubbish, But I think if you know where to look on what to look for, you can get great information. Let's talk about We've got about another five or so minutes, Paul. What do you think about moving forward for the industry like for supplements. To me, it seems like it's becoming very online centric.
Is that right? Yeah?
Well, I think interestingly, if you look at sort of global friends, there is a real move to people buying everything online. I think there's certainly still a very thriving what we call bricks and more to people going into stores looking at getting advice from people in store, but I think more and more people, first of all, are doing their research online and getting all the information they need.
I think the other trend I see, and I'm sure you said this too, Craig, is that people are getting advice not from what I call a qualified source, but
from an influencer or influencers. So there are there's a million experts out there on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and other platforms that are emerging, and they present well because they've got a good physique, male or female, and they give advice and sometimes it's conflicting with other people's advice and people just don't really know what is that advice correct or not not correct?
And I think, you know, there.
Are all these different nutritional gurus out there, there's people with training advice and whatever.
I think.
My take on this is be very careful when you are searching for information on social media because whether it be about diets, whether it be about supplements, whether it be about training advice, because you really need to sort of check out the credentials of the people who are giving that advice before you take that and run with it. Most of the time the advice that you'll get maybe
moderately harmless, but sometimes that can be quite dangerous. And so that's something where getting advice from qualified sources to me is super important. And in the supplement world, there are plenty of fly by nights in the supplement world, so just be a little bit careful with that as well. So yeah, so there's some of the trends I see emerging.
But as Keith sort of said earlier, there are new companies entering the supplement and space every day, and you don't need to have too much behind you to sell supplement. So a good example of that is in Australia, we are governed by depending on the product, there's a Therapeutic Goods Administration, so they preside over products that are kind of things that are presumed to be like a drug type product, tablets, capsules, injectable products and these sorts of things.
So if you go into a local pharmacy, a chemist warehouse or the like, most of the vitamins and the supplements that you'll find on the shelves of a chemist warehouse are overseen by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and they'll have what's called an artg listable or registrable number on
the front of them. Most health food stores, when you go into a health food store in Australia, the majority of products that are on the shells or health food stores overseen by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand or we a breve out that to phyzants and there's a list of regulations that companies like ourselves must comply with
when we produce these sorts of products. But you can buy a lot of products online from companies that have that just don't even look at these regulations and put whatever they like into the supplements and a lot of these companies are offshore, so you can you know, they advertise products they're offshore, and you don't really even know what facility they're made in. It could be made in someone's garage somewhere or other on some obscure in some
obscure country. I believe there are some companies that are selling themselves as being an offshore company, but they're actually making the products in Australia, but they're not making them to any regulations. So once again, you when you're buying products,
just be careful who you're buying them from. Have a look at the website, have a look at the credentials of the company that you're buying from, to make sure that the products that you're the product that you're buying is from a reputable company and what the product sees is in it is actually in it. Because there are lots of cases in the industry where products are being tested and the ingredients that are supposed that are on the label certainly aren't in the product.
So there's lots of traps there.
And buying from a reputable Australian company and I'd like to think we're one of those, and there's plenty of others. You know, I've mentioned companies like Masashi. There are other good companies body Science, there's Muscle Nation. These companies are all very reputable companies. I trust what they say they
put into their products. But there are other companies that are a little bit more fly by night that I would look at and go, I don't know if I belie what's on the label of those I look at them and I go, hmm, that doesn't sort of been true with perhaps surprise they're charging versus what they're saying is actually in the product.
So I had something come into my Instagram feed last night. I can't remember the name of the company. It definitely wasn't new, but it was this new blend of two peptides. One of them was I think BP whatever one five yeah, yeah, and then another one and it's this new combination and that the advertising was razzle dazzle, and they made all these outrageous claims about all the shit that it did. And then I went, I'm going to try and find any research that backs this advertisement, and so I did
a deep dive. I actually got off my phone. I was on my phone. Then I came to my computer where I'm sitting now, and I tried to find any science, any research, any way of validating what they were saying, and there's fucking nothing. But the way that they talk. I'm like, oh, this is not science, this is not this is marketing. But it's written as though it's science. And that's you know, that terrifies me for people. And that's one story. Another story is I had something come up.
This guy was talking to another guy in an interview and he was saying he was talking about nicotine. This is a funny segue, but he's talking about nicotine and the benefits of nicotine, right, you know, some alleged health benefits right now? Anyway, I know people use nicotine or nicorette, some of those gums and stuff has a new tropic
or whatever. But he was saying, Oh, people get all hysterical about nicotine, But do you know what has What has the second highest ingredient of all the food that has the second highest amount of nicotine in it is eggplant. I'm like really, And then under that I think was tomato, and then white potato or something. I'm like, who the fuck knew that eggplant has I'm like, is this true? So then I started doing some research. I'm like, does
eggplant and I went down a rabbit hole. Well, yes it does, but you need to have ten kilos of eggs and it's so stupid ten kilos of eggplant to have the same as one cigarette the nicotine in my And I'm like, well, this is just misleading bullshit. And it's like so technically he was not lying, but he was being mis leading, like wildly misleading. I think there's there's plenty of that goes on.
I mean, you mentioned peptides before, and there's a lot of who are and if you if you actually google peptides, you'll you'll get what happens. Then you'll get in undated on your social feeds by companies trying to selltides to you.
But an interesting thing.
About peptides is that peptides are basically peptide is a bunch of amino acids joined together. Now, when you take a peptide, if you take a peptide in a capsule, it'll go into your stomach. The capsule will be broken down and your gastric juices that the acids and the actual enzymes in your stomach will digest that peptide and it's totally useless. The only way you can get benefit out of a peptide is by injecting it into yourself.
So if you see an ad for a peptide that's in a capsule or a tablet, it's not going to work because unless you.
Can say it's bullshit, it's okay, it's bullshit.
So unless somebody has come up with some very clever technology that is able to take the peptide and get it through your digestive tract into a party of you're intestine where it will actually absorb a peptide of any length, and usually our digestive tract can't absorb a peptide that's any longer than about two or three amino acids joined together, and most of these peptides are significantly longer than that, then it's bullshit.
Yeah. I love it. I love it that you finally opened the swearing door and came stumbling through. I didn't right at the end. Yeah, right, all this time. Yeah, and let's not leave it five years and a million episodes next time. We appreciate you. Keith, get back in the gym for fuck's sake, Paul, thanks for sharing that large brain of yours. We appreciate you. Will say goodbye fair but in all seriousness thanks for being on the show. Boys really appreciate you. Thanks, Thanks creign with pleasure