Build Muscle & Strength & Forge Your Life Path | Dorian Yates

When people come to train with me, I said our objective is to get an exercise and go to real muscular failure. You got to give it more than it's used to. The body does not want to change. It wants to keep status quo. So you got to give it a bloody good reason as we would say in England to change, right? So you got to put more stress on the body than it's used to. And then you need to recover from that. That's the idea to do enough to stimulate but not more than that because this is an overload you got to recover from. And the number one thing that I hear from people is I don't really have time for that. I have a business. I have a family. I said if you could give me 45 minutes twice a week, that's all you need to do. And it's not theory because I've done it. You change your life literally with that and a good diet. So the whole time thing excuses, it's not relevant. I'm not listening. You don't need a lot of time. Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dorian Yates. Dorian Yates is a legendary six-time Mr. Olympia winner who is also considered one of the greatest pioneers of training methods for bodybuilding health and fitness. He is known for using and recommending low- volume highintensity workouts, meaning very few sets done with maximal focus, perfect form, and directed muscle engagement taken to muscular failure and beyond. Today, Dorian teaches us how the typical person who is not interested in competitive bodybuilding should train for health and fitness and overall best results. We cover muscle building, fat loss, mobility, what forms of cardio are best, when to do them, and much more. The advice Dorian provides today is immensely valuable and applicable to everyone, men, women, young, and old. He explains how for most people, the best muscle building and strength results will be achieved by training no more than three, and in some cases only two days per week. Dorian also shares valuable insights on how to mentally frame and navigate your life and goals. How to use your hardships as fuel. He has a lot to say about that based on his own experience, but also how to recognize and lean into your natural strengths. How to be practical in choosing what dreams you chase and how to know when to pivot from one endeavor to another. We also discuss cannabis. In fact, even though I of course knew he was, Dorian and I first connected because of an episode that I did about cannabis. Both the potential benefits of cannabis as well as the very serious risks that may exist for certain people. Dorian's experience and read of the data on cannabis contrasted with mine. And that led us to an ongoing discussion that we continue today on the podcast and that has me now reading into some newer studies. And I promise that I'll update everyone on my take of those studies once I get through them. Oh yes, and Dorian also took me through a Yates style highintensity workout at Gold's Gym Venice. We trained back, we filmed it, and it's posted to our Eclipse channel, so you can check that out. It's linked in the show note caption. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dorian Yates. The Dorian Yates. Welcome. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah. Uh certainly uh big fan for many years. Thanks to you and thanks to Mike Menser and a few uh at the time real iconic class. Um I trained differently than everyone around me told me to. And while I never became a a competitive athlete uh at anywhere near the level that that you did certainly um it got me the results I wanted so much faster. I feel super healthy and great at 50. And I really want to talk about this highintensity, lowish volume training that really um can be credited to you um because for those that don't know uh the community that you come from um there have been people who have been big proponents of long sessions, many hours in the gym. At the opposite extreme, there's been people such as Mike Mener who have been proponents of very brief, very high intensity, even one set to failure and that's it. and you brought things into some sense of moderation. This is almost like a hybrid. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Between the purest hit, which uh I mean I I didn't come up with the idea. The guy that really initiated the whole thing was Arthur Jones, who was the guy that made the Nautilus machines and then he passed it on, right? And Mike Mensah made it more popular because Mike Mensah was American champion, Mr. universe and it was in the magazines and um I read Arthur Jones's books and I think I'm a logical thinker so it made sense to me. Mhm. Uh but if it made sense to me and it didn't work out practically, who cares, you know? So like yourself, I was kind of training like that and everyone was telling me this is not the way to do it. You need to train more often, uh do more sets and so on. So I tried it and uh the whole thing with my career is a bit like a science experiment in a way that I documented everything. So I've got every workout. The first time I stepped in the gym and said seriously, okay, I'm going to train and uh I want to be a competitive bodybuilder and this is how I'm going to change my life and maybe I'm going to get a gym or something like that. That was about it at the time. But I said, "Okay, so I'm tracking everything. My progress is going really well. I'm training like three times a week for maybe 45 minutes, an hour, but I'm working as well. I'm doing construction. I'm doing some heavy jobs. So, this is taking energy. Going well. Going well. Okay, then let me try it. Let me jack it up. And I'm train four times a week. I do a little bit more. What happened? Nothing. That's what happened. Everything stopped for three or four weeks. I cut it back. Started growing again. So, I didn't really need to learn that lesson too many times. Um, and I got to be British champion. I got to be pro, turned pro. And, uh, I read everything that Mike Mensah wrote in the magazines and everything like that. And got to meet him when I came out here and we discussed training and so, okay, what are you doing? You know, I'm warming up whatever it takes, couple of sets. I'm doing a set to failure and then I'm resting two or three minutes, dropping it down 10% maybe, and going to failure again. So, I'm hitting that nail in twice just to make sure it's it's in there. So, Mike said, "Why don't you try cutting back to one set to failure?" So, I started that around 91 92 and I feel like I got another, you know, another level of growth from that. Um, so people say, "Oh, Dorian doesn't do HIT." I don't know what category we want to put it in, but it's probably somewhere between conventional bodybuilding and the extreme of hit that Mike Mensah was doing and uh, Arthur Jones, which would be perfect for the average person. I mean, Arthur Jones was doing like a whole body workout couple of times a week. That was his initial recommendation. And I agree for the average person that's great because you want to build a certain level of muscle mass for your health, but I was a competitive bodybuilder. So you got to be concerned with a little bit like, you know, side delts, rear delts, average person could do one shoulder exerciser would be enough. So you need to do a little bit more as a competitive bodybuilder. Um, so somebody came up with a moniker blood and guts. They saw my training. That looks like blood and guts. So that's what we called it. Um, so it's high intensity training, a lot less than the other guys were doing probably, but maybe the hit purists will say, "Oh, it's not." But it is what it is. And it's all I've got it every workout written down so people can see what I did. And call it what you will, but you know, it was briefer than everyone else I was competing against. And it had an effect. Although not everyone followed what I was doing, but prior to myself being successful, it was like six times a week. Some people were doing twice a day. Not very often to be honest. There's a lot in the magazines. Arnold promoted that a lot, right? But if you look at Arnold, he was probably a full size when he was 21, 22. He was huge. How did he get there? He was bench pressing 500. He was doing deadlifts. He was doing squats, whatever. He built the foundation. And I believe competitive bodybuilders back then, they kind of use the weights as a calorie burner as well. So, they got the muscle mass, then they're doing more volume and more sets and more reps. And obviously, this is helping to maintain the muscle while at the same time burn a lot of calories. So, I said, wouldn't it be better to do the weight training just to build muscle and maintain muscle and do some cardio exercise to burn extra calories so then you'll be able to recover properly? So, that was my approach. So, it probably falls somewhere in between the two camps to be honest. Yeah, I remember trying the one set to failure, a couple warm-ups, one set to failure. You'd pre-exhaust, you know, leg extensions into leg press. And um it occurred to me after about a year or two that I needed to do a little bit more. I mentioned that because I think um I'm like most people in the sense that let me frame this right. Um I could get certain movements to really thrash the muscle that I needed to with one or two sets, but if there isn't really good mind muscle connection and fiber recruitment, you might need a bit more. It's possible. Yeah. I mean, it's none of this is written in stone. When people come to train with me, I said, "Our objective is to get an exercise and go to real muscular failure. We'll need to get there safely." So, we do a couple of sets to warm up. But if somehow you don't feel or I don't feel you nailed it in that set, let's do another one. You know, there's there's no law can't do a little bit more. So, you are correct in saying that somebody that's very experienced, they got that mind muscle connection where you can just link in and you can fully destroy it. So it depends on the person, but the idea is to not do more than is necessary. Because then you're going to find it harder to recover. And the process is stimulate, right? So you got to train, you got to overload. And during this process, you're not growing. You're creating damage, stress to the muscle that then has to recover and then overcompensate. So two things need to be in place. need to be sufficient intensity or overload or there'll be no reaction and then you need to recover from that. And let's just put it straight out there, man. You know, there's a big difference between somebody using anabolic steroids than somebody that's not. So, somebody that's using can recover from that process more quickly than somebody that isn't. So, I feel I should always say this because when you're looking at a champion bodybuilder, how he trains and you're young guy trying to build up, that's probably not appropriate for you right now. That guy has already got the size and is refining for a competition or something. So, uh that's the idea to do enough to stimulate but not more than that because this is an overload you got to recover from. So, you got to recover before you grow as well. So, you don't want to go back to the gym before that whole process is uh has taken place. So, I I use some simple analogies sometimes when people are training with me, like we're going in now, we're knocking a wall down, right? We're rehabbing your house, we're knocking a wall down, and the guys need to come now with the bricks. So, they need materials and they need to do it, but they're halfway through building that wall and you come and knock it down again. We're not getting anywhere, you know? So, that's the process that you kind of have to understand. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. 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One of the um really kind of unfortunate things about resistance training is that it fills the muscle with blood temporarily. Yeah. In part because of some quotes that came from Arnold in pumping iron. the the so-called pump is it's an illusion, right? It's transient. And while it can be helpful in letting you know that you targeted a given muscle correctly, I think people get addicted to that feeling, but they're not realizing that the damage to the muscle tissue that then is allowed to recover is what makes the muscle actually larger when you're outside of the gym. A pump is just a temporary extra blood flow to the area that feels good. you're pumped up, you feel tight, but you could get a lightweight and get a great pump. It's not going to stimulate any growth. So, don't be fooled by the pump. It's nice and it's part of the process, but you got to overload the muscle. You got to give it uh more than it's used to. The body does not want to change. It wants to keep status quo. So, you got to give it a bloody good reason, as we would say in England, to change, right? So, you got used to. Otherwise, you won't adapt. So even if it's like, you know, half a pound more or one rep more, it's got to be something more that the body says, "Hey, th this stress, I can't handle it. I need to reinforce myself and adapt to this stress so next time it won't be so stressful." That's basically the the process. So, and it can't be linear forever, right? Maybe in your first year of training, first 18 months, you just go in like I put 20 25 pounds on in the first 18 months that I was training. and natural as well. So you you know it becomes a case of diminishing returns though and at some point you can't just keep going up like this. So I tell people train real hard for like five or six weeks and then come down for two weeks maybe submaximal. So you'll sort of saw to it like that hard for five or six weeks then back off. And during that two weeks are you telling people to stay out of the gym entirely? No. I'm telling them you can go in and do some light weight like but nowhere near failure blood flow keep the maintenance if you want to take a week off I think is good couple of times a year a lot of guys when I had a gym you know the guys I'm stuck on this and that I said okay take a week off no what do you mean I said man just take a week off yeah come back in a week and tell me how you feel and I came back and I was stronger I was like yeah no [ __ ] man because you've rested you let your body rest and rebuild so that be a lesson to So, if I could travel back in time, I wouldn't have called the movie Pumping Iron. I would have called it Stress and Adapt. Stress stress recover adapt. Not quite so sexy. Like I feel like I'm coming. But that whole notion of the pump plus this idea that um you know many many hours in the gym is what's required. I think if it kept a lot of the general public out of resistance training. I think now that's changed. Um and fortunately because I think it it is very beneficial. Um, if we could get a little granular about training and recovery, I think it'd be helpful for people. I realize that you laid out the top contour uh really nicely. So, for a person who's natural, not taking hormone replacement therapy or anabolics, um, you think two maybe three whole body sessions to start out to learn the movements? Um, is that doing one or two sets to failure? What does that look like for the for the raw beginner? a raw beginner first of all you need to learn how to do the movements correctly before let's thinking about going to failure. So it'll be a certain period of time learning to do the exercise correctly. Uh putting some kind of idea in their head of what's going on. Uh you know what do the pecs do? Bring your arms down and across the body. What do your lats do? They bring your upper arm down and back. So, you'll be amazed like if your nephew are pro bodybuilders, some of them don't know like why they're doing what they're doing. What's the mechanics involved? And I get them to do light sets very perfect. Do you feel that? Do you feel how it contracts when you lats and you squeeze and you contract? Yeah, I feel it. Feel it. Okay, now you got it. But you've got to try to maintain that when it gets really hard because we're going against the natural mechanics of the body here, right? Because we're, as I say, we're doing chest. Yeah. Trying to isolate the pecs. There's some delts involved and triceps and work that or we're working legs, we're working back. The body normally doesn't work like that. It works as a unit, right? If you throw something, you don't do that from your tricep, right? It'll be from your foot through the hips, through the shoulder, whole body thing. So, when the exercise gets really hard, your brain is going to try to recruit or change the exercise to make it easier. So, I got to get people to override that instinct. Just stick with the form until we get to the point where you can't do anymore and understand, you know, that's why I get them to do light stuff at first to really feel it, understand. I explain what's going on. Couple of weeks after that, we can start pushing to failure. Actually, I had a guy recently that we had a business meeting and he told me he was diabetic and he had liver problems and he was overweight and this and that. I gave him a challenge. I said, "He trained with me for a month. I'll fix all that shit." Yeah. Oh, but my doc took this and that. I said, "Listen, he trained with me three times a week for about 45 minutes. After one month, obviously, I changed his diet as well. Basically, for a short period of time, very low carbs. Uh after one month, he was not in the diabetic zone. He was out of the pre-diabetic zone. It was in the normal range. Great. and his liver function that was three times the normal amount liver enzymes was back to normal. Uh I told him, "Check it out. You got a fatty liver." So yeah, I had a fatty liver. I said, "I know." He said, "My doctor told me not to eat fat." I'm like, "Man, do you know how long, at least I don't know here, but in England, how long an MD, a doctor spends studying nutrition?" Yeah, it's trivial. One afternoon, two or three hours. I mean, you can learn nothing. So, the doctor was telling me he's got a fatty liver, so stop eating fat. I said, that's absolutely the worst advice you could get because the reason you've got fatty liver is because uncontrolled blood sugar. So, we get your blood sugar down. One month, his liver was normal. His blood sugar was normal. He lost like five, six kilos of body fat just in a month. And we're doing three times a week, whole body. Uh, we split it up actually into three workouts. So, he's hitting everything uh once a week. When our uh mutual friend, you knew him better than I did, uh the now deceased, unfortunately, Mike Mener, told me to train each body part once per week. At first, I thought he was crazy. So, legs once a week, calves once a week, maybe twice for some people, the calves, but um shoulders and arms and chest and back on three separate days. Legs, chest and back, shoulders and arms. I thought he was crazy, but then, you know, I thought about it and the chest and back workout, you're indirectly targeting the arms. Y legs is a if you do them right is a whole body experience and uh stress on a lot of stress on your nervous system which has to recover independently of the whatever muscle group you're training um if you do legs I mean really to failure there's a lot of stress on your nervous system as well so that also has to recover that's why I say after 6 weeks I've just noticed with myself and many people it seems to like you hit a plateau there so try to push through it come down and I take a rest and uh go again later. So, I know that your your opinion on real world results versus um uh laboratory studies, but these days, let me just put something out there. I'd like to see your response. These days, uh you know, people will talk a lot about, okay, the studies or muscle biopsies show you train a muscle and stimulate uh hypertrophy, growth, and then muscle protein synthesis peaks, you know, 48 hours later, which means that you can hit the muscle again, ideally 3 days later or two days later. I tried that because I thought, "Hey, listen. I'm a scientist. I'll try it." And I immediately started going backwards with my progress. This was a few years ago. And um went back to training each thing directly once per week and where there's indirect uh stuff, you know, arms getting hit once indirectly because of a chest and back workout on a separate day. Found I went right back to to progress again. And so, you know, I'm a scientist trained to do science. So what how do you think about something where in a laboratory you can see something like protein synthesis peaks 48 hours later therefore train every 72 hours versus the real world phenomenon. This is all very interesting, but if it doesn't work in practicality, what's it worth? You know, I hear this a lot now about this science-based training, but I actually don't know what science they're talking about. I mean, some meta studies, I think, but how were those studies carried out, with whom, and so on and so on? I don't know. I know the case of Viettor study where he put on 65 pounds of muscle verified in a month by training like less than about an hour a week. I think those were whole body sets to failure. And yes, he was very underweight because he wasn't on anything and then he got sick. So he's underweight. So he's building back muscle, but he wouldn't build it back without much stimulus. So 65 pound of muscle, although it was uh muscle memory, let's say, had been that big before, but he put it on in a month. And you compare that with Arnold that dieted down to 210, I think, to do this film, Stay Hungry. Then he went back up to 230 for the Mr. Olympia, but that took him like 3 months. So you can compare the two. So when the people talk about these science-based studies, and he shouldn't train to failure, it's better to keep reps in reserve. I don't know which studies they're talking about. I'm not saying they're not out there, but I'm not familiar with them. I'm not familiar with how they carried out the studies. But if it doesn't work in practicality, does it does it really matter? Mhm. Well, often I I've spent some time with these and you might not be surprised to learn that a lot of times it's, you know, we got some college students, they're doing leg extensions, you know, we're looking at, you know, biopsies of the quadriceps, this kind of thing. Rarely is it the kind of compound movements, multi- joint movements. Um, sometimes, but but not always. Well, I look, my experience with the HIT, has been I'll say it's not just about gaining muscle. I mean, I'm now 50. I know you're almost 64. Yep. Looking looking amazing. Um we'll tell us more about longevity stuff in a in a bit. But I have to say part of it is also that if one trains the way that you're describing each muscle once per week, focusing on intensity, not volume, and so forth, six weeks or so, then backing off for two weeks. You also find that in your peer in your peer group, you're not the one always complaining about pain. And you have energy for other things, which we'll get back to. I mean, unless you're a competitive bodybuilder, I most people, including myself, need energy to tend to life and want to be able to enjoy not be. It's not the soreness, it's the constant aches and pains that come from overtraining. I think that most people uh don't have to live with, but think they do. It depends on your goals. Yeah. But I really believe the average person Yeah. that wants to get health benefits from bodybuilding, weight training, resistance, whatever you want to call it, right? they let's you have a guy that's 40 or 50 or 60 guy or a lady whatever the idea is if you could because you've lost muscle mass slowly since maybe 1% a year since you're 40 right and this is affecting your health your metabolism your ability to process sugar many many things yeah uh bone strength and the number one thing that I hear from people is I don't really have time for that I have a business I have a family I said, "That if you could give me 45 minutes twice a week, that's all you need to do." Okay, you need to eat properly and everything like that, but that's all you need to do for the average person. If you took eight to 10 exercises that covered your whole body and you did it twice a week, that would be enough for the average person. One for chest, one or two for back, one or two for legs. Hey, if you want to do some bicep curls and some triceps, you can do it. But you're doing pressing anyway. So, for the average person, that would actually be enough. And it's not theory because I've done it with people. Like I'm saying, this gentleman that came along, we put 45 minutes in uh nearly an hour, three times a week cuz I had him doing cardio as well. Well, guess how long the cardio was? Six minutes. Six minutes. You mean pedal hard? We're doing We're doing um sprints. Mhm. like on an air bike. It's my favorite because it engages every muscle. Push, pull, legs. If you do a 20 second all out and you can see how you got on the side of the thing, you can see how much watts you're generating. So now you have a target to hit or exceed every time. So do a minute, minute and a half warm-up, whatever. Feel warm. All out. Balls out like the devil's chasing you for 20 seconds. First one's tough, but it's okay. Go down slowly for a minute. do the second one all out. The second one's really tough. The third one is I've never met anybody that wants to do one after the third one because literally you can't breathe. Um, and the benefits from that again, I think there's a book called the one minute cardio. It's a bit tricky because it's not really one minute. It's one minute of sprints, but it's 6 minutes in total. and they compared that to 45 minutes of steady cardio on a treadmill or whatever it is. And the results are more or less the same. So, what do you want to do? Do you want to spend six minutes? Do you want to spend 45 minutes? I rather do the six minutes. Um, I do a bit of long cardio as well myself cuz I like biking in the mountains and stuff, but if you did that twice a week along with some weight training, that would be amazing. You change your life literally with that and a good diet. So the whole time thing excuses, it's not relevant. I'm not listening. You don't need a lot of time. Well, what I love about you is that you've done things at the ultra elite level within bodybuilding. But the advice that you're giving right now is very practical for the everyday person. And I'm not a psychologist, but I'm going to venture a hypothesis here, which is that some of that has to do with the fact that you grew up bluecollar background from Birmingham, working full-time while building out your bodybuilding career. You didn't come to it with a briefcase full of cash and and have the opportunity to just say, "Oh, how much training can you do?" Uh, well, let's figure it out. Like, you had to be very practical. And my guess is that you had to be very practical about recovery and nutrition as well. You probably I'm guessing there was a point in your life where you couldn't afford, you know, uh, grass-fed meat shipped in from, uh, south of France. And this guy, I'm not saying you do that. Let me tell you a story, man. When I was uh, British champion, that was a big thing back then. British champion, right? 3,000 people in the audience packed out. We had buses coming from our gym. All this stuff, you know, air horns. British bodybuilding crowds are not like they're pretty rowdy. They're not. I think the Brits around any sport get pretty rowdy. They're pretty rowdy. If you see boxing in Vegas and there's a British fighter, they take over the whole place, you know. Uh so anyway, this great accolade. I'm British champion now. And I went home. I got no car. I'm I'm living in a council estate. It's like projects, you know, council estate. I got no carpet in my bedroom. I don't even have a proper bed. I just got a mattress. Yeah. I got a TV that barely works. And I got a trophy. I'm like, "Wow, look, I'm I'm British champion, but nobody gives a [ __ ] really." Like, you know, I do and the people that's in the bodybuilding community, but this hasn't translated into anything yet. It took me about five years of really like you know 100% dedication for me to be turn pro and the ironic thing is I guess like when you're starting and you got nothing nobody's very interested and nobody wants to help you when you start when you become successes then successful people want to help you because they want to help themselves which is it's fair enough it's a transaction but until then no so Uh I got my first car when I was 25. All my friends were driving 18, 19. But the funny thing is I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. I knew I was on this mission and this in itself was so powerful like nobody else had that had this mission that I was doing was just to change my life basically and bodybuilding was the the vehicle. And uh I think uh something that really helped me is I'm an avid reader. I have been since I was about 10 years old. And I can take in a lot of information on a subject if I'm very interested. I'll almost be get obsessed with it for a while and then I might just I forget about that. I go interested in something else. Um so all the guys that I was training with, they were like just watching videos and listen to other guys in the gym. I was reading Mike Menso. I was reading Arthur Jones. I was trying to figure it out for myself. Um, which means you need a very uh independent kind of personality. So, yeah, let me try do a bit more. Doesn't work. Finished, you know. And the fact that I've got all this every single workout from 1983 to 1997 written down all the diets later on when I'm using anabolics, what I'm using and how long and all this stuff so I could uh analyze it, you know, see what's working and what's not working. A lot of guys were like shooting in the dark uh hoping they're going to hit something, but they don't. And I, you know, I didn't have time to waste. This was a mission. Uh, I didn't have skills. I didn't have a family, you know, all this stuff. So, bodybuilding was my road to change my life. Where it was going at first, I didn't know, but I knew it was going somewhere. I knew I could be very good at it. Did you have the sense even before all this that uh perhaps you were uh different or or that you were destined to pursue something 100% from the what's your earliest recollection of knowing that you were going to aspire to some very high peak? Well, the first thing I was into was uh Bruce Lee, right? So, you know, Bruce Lee and then even I was impressed with his physique then, but now I look compared to a bodybuer on the wall, you know, with the cuts down there and everything. So, I was doing push-ups. Uh, just at my last year at school, I started getting bodybuilding magazines and doing a bit of weight training. Um, so there was that. Then I left home at 16 and I just didn't have the lifestyle to pursue it. And for some reason, I'm not doing this. I said, "I'm not doing this until I can do it properly." And uh I always knew I was different, I guess, you know, but you didn't I didn't know why and I didn't know where it was going, but I knew it was going somewhere. And it's a strange feeling through my whole process. I feel like I've done it before almost, you know, like it was destined. It wasn't a surprise. uh in the earlier years it's like I just knew I got to just put everything into this. I got to put everything into and I can't let anything distract me 100% into this. Um so yeah I was I knew I was destined for something and when I started doing bodybuilding I was ah so this is it. Yeah. I don't know if you heard the story but I got a little bit of trouble just rowdy guys really. We got picked up on a street at the wrong time because there were some street riots in Birmingham which we weren't involved with but wrong place wrong time. Got sent to a detention center and in there they had weights and there was 300 guys and like I was nearly the strongest guy in there. There was only guy who was stronger than me was like 50 60 lbs heavier and I was really lean. I had abs and everything. Everyone was like wow the physique. Even the prison officers in there were like you should do something with this. said, "Don't worry, I'm going to." So, that was another one like, "Hey, you've got something here." You know, there was a crossroads here and I was like, I never want to be in a place like this again and lose my freedom, but you literally become a number and you're told when to get up and when to do this. And those places suck. And I I saw people in there that would I knew they were destined to like this is their life. Even they didn't care. Yeah, I know. But I don't give a [ __ ] I might be in jail, but this is just the life I've chosen. Good luck with that, man. It's not for me, you know. So, that again was like, hey, you need to do something with this. And uh when I left there, I didn't start training. I was like, I got to get a job. I got to get an apartment. I got to get stability. Uh and when I did, I was like, right, I start my bodybuilding journey. Write it down today. The date. I still got it, man. What's in those notebooks? Um everything from what you did for a warmup, how you felt going into all the sets and reps, warmup, how I was feeling that day. Some days I was feeling overtrained and tired. Even though I was training three days a week, sometimes I had to back off the intensity because of work and stuff like that. U but how I was feeling. And you know, it's interesting if I look at my books over the years. The first ones are quite childish. Got these little go for it, you know, mass and power. Kind of cool, too. I'm glad actually you mentioned that. I've I've kept training logs inspired by you and by Mike uh um for many years. and getting to read that kind of stuff, the kind of silly stuff. Yeah. I mean, it captures the spirit of it at the time. Not only that, I wouldn't forget half of the stuff that I did if I hadn't documented it. Even now, I'm like, my guys on social media was like, when were you doing this exercise and when did you start when did you change to this one? I'm like, I don't know, man. I have to go back and look. And sometimes it's not as I thought it was when I go back. It was a little bit different. So, it's great that I got all that written down and documented. And uh I used to have every month a review where I'm at and the goals for the next month. Try to make them realistic, but you know the goals in mind for the next month. Super methodical. Very methodical, analytical, logic. Do you get that from one of your parents or because to go in the opposite direction of your parents? What's the uh Well, my mother was uh actually quite very educated. Mhm. She was private school and everything, but my dad was very workingass car mechanic and everything, but he managed to perfect combo. Yeah. He managed to uh you know, I was young. I lost my father at 13, right, from a heart attack. Um, but he was a working-class guy that managed to buy a small farm. He managed to learn to fly an airplane. I went up with my dad when I was like four or five years old. He was flying little four seat Cessnas and everything like that. So, I mean, he must have been a smart guy and very driven to be able to do that as a working-class guy. Imagine back in the 1970s flying airplanes and you you work as a maintenance engineer at the rover plant or something. Yeah. I think for Americans, they don't realize how stratified the class system in England was in that time. Yeah. Is very different. Very absolutely a working-class guy flying an airplane. There was nobody else doing that. Um, so he must have been a guy above average intelligence. So my mom was as well. So I probably got the logical stuff from my dad. I would say, you know, my mom's more female, more emotional. My dad was probably very uh you know, logical in his ways. And an engineer, you know, engineering is about numbers and everything. So uh well, a lot of people ask me what happened if you didn't lose your father when you were 13. You Dorian Yates the bodybuilder probably wouldn't exist. Because if life's comfortable, you won't put yourself through this [ __ ] man. I mean, it's a lot of work, a lot of dedication, a lot of sacrifice, and uh over many, many years. It's not a, you know, it's not a short-term thing to get from being starting bodybuilding to be to be a pro bodybuilder took me seven years. And that was quick. That was relatively quick. So, seven years of absolute this is my main focus of life. This is what I'm doing for seven years to get to be a pro and then I was seven years as a pro as well. By now, I'm sure that many of you have heard me say that I've been taking AG1 for more than a decade. And indeed, that's true. 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And while I've always loved the AG1 original flavor, especially with a bit of lemon juice added, I'm really enjoying the new berry flavor in particular. It tastes great. But then again, I do love all the flavors. If you'd like to try AG1 and try these new flavors, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now, AG1 is giving away six free sample packs of AGZ, which is AG1's new sleep formula, which by the way is fantastic. It's the only sleep supplement I take. It eliminates the need for all these pills, and my sleep has never been better. The special offer gives you six free samples of that AGZ as well as three AG1 travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription. Just go to to get started. Today's episode is also brought to us by ourplace. Our place makes my favorite pots, pans, and other cookware. 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The design allows for the eggs to cook perfectly without sticking to the pan. I also cook burgers and steaks in it, and it always puts a really nice sear on the meat, but again, nothing sticks to it, so it's really easy to clean, and it's even dishwasher safe. I love it, and I use it constantly. Our place now has a full line of titanium Pro cookware that uses the first of its kind titanium non-stick technology. So, if you're looking for non-toxic, long-lasting pots and pans, go to fromourplace.com/huberman and use the code Huberman. With a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns, you can try ourplace with zero risk, and you can see why more than 1 million people have made the switch to ourplace kitchen wear. I have two questions, one practical, one uh more related to your personal story. Uh the practical one is one you know nowadays there's an almost obsession uh online of uh young guys teens 20s 30s who immediately think they should be on testosterone enhancement TRT that you know going beyond TRT getting on gear how long gear for the folks that don't know is uh is a verbiage for for steroids um TRT testosterone replacement therapy you know lower dosages designed to bring things into upper normal range um in some cases a little higher. What uh from the time you picked up a weight maybe in this youth detention center until the first time you went on gear, how long was that and how much did you achieve doing the sorts of training you were talking about before? I want to separate this out from the competit from the competitive phase. Um in part because frankly I think and I've been very open. I went on I'm on lowdose TRT. I started when I was 45 about 125 milligrams a week. Okay. Um the same as you. Uh so um but I I always tell people they they really really really should wait if do it at all. How long did you have without without anything where it's you know okay food training sleep maybe some supplements like some creatine some some protein powder right so I started in 83 earlier in the year uh I was 180 185 but very lean you can see some pictures of me when you have those thick joints I mean you're you have an athletic I got very low body fat as well naturally uh my son and my daughter they both like had abs and like when 11 years old, very very lean, pale skin, low body fat, thin skin, uh type of thing. So you wouldn't say, "Wow, look at that guy. He's big." But you would say, "Wow, he's he's really cut this guy." That's how I started, 180. So, uh, after 6 months, I think I was 195 and the gym owner put on a contest in Birmingham, local gym thing, and he was like, "Come on, go in a contest." I don't know. Okay. So, I went in, no diet, no steroids, nothing. It was the first time as contest. I still got the pictures, but the two guys that I was competing, they came second and third. I won. But both these guys were already on stuff. So, I was able to beat them not using anything, right? Because genetically I'm better, I guess. I'm not saying in six months uh I overtook them. I probably started ahead of them. So that was with nothing. I got up to 210. So I just looking back uh because we did some social media posts with my early training. Yeah. So I'm benching three plates aside for like three or four reps and I want to go now into the IFBB and compete. Yeah. Which I know everybody's using, right? So I was 210 uh when I decided I'm going to do this competition and I did some deb 20 milligrams a day for about 6 weeks and I switched to Anavar for the contest. So I went from 180 to 210. So that's 30 lbs I put on in a year and a half training or something. Then I decided to do the composition. So in 6 weeks I think on 20 milligrams of DB bar I went to like 230 you know it's a big boost in 6 weeks but I already put on 30 lbs like without anything. Um and for me it was always like I'm going to do competitive bodybuilding and I intend to make a career out of it. So I just want to be on the same playing field as everybody else. So I won the novice competition in the IFBB and like just everyone was like freaking out. The guy who was the head of the federation who's also a judge at the Mr. Olympia and some other guys came backstage and said who the where the hell have you come from and why are you in the novice competition? I said well I'm from Birmingham and this is my first competition in the federation. So I start at the bottom and wait. You're probably better than our best heavyweight. I'm like, "No, come on." And they were laughing like this kid. Like, we want you to join the British team in two weeks time at the World Games, which is world championship. So, I went from a novice two weeks later to compete in the World Games against Buried Demay, who became a top Olympian, Matt Mendesol, who was the best amateur in USA at the time. And I got seventh place there. And I remember like I basically spent out all my funds to get ready for this concert. I had nothing left. I had to buy a tracksuit, tanning lotion. Like I was earning very little money. So this took all my money and I'm broke and I had to ask my brother-in-law, "Can you lend me like 20 pounds cuz I need to do this and get a taxi to the the uh the team selection, right?" So I went to the team selection. I got picked. But I was like amongst all these guys and I'm thinking like I just borrowed some money to get here, you know, but they picked me for the World Games team. So I went quite uniquely I think from a novice competition to a world championship in two weeks. So that's, you know, kind of the level I was at when I first started competing. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but um do you think it's fair to say that for people who are not going to pursue competitive bodybuilding that it's probably best to explore how far they can go with their training and good nutrition and perhaps even without hormone replacement until they're really need it or later. I mean, to me it seems like given the health risks, unless there's it's sort of like boxing like like boxing's fun. I've done some boxing, done some sparring, but at some point you realize, wait, if I'm not going to make money doing this, if this isn't my career, getting hit in the head is just not worth it, especially for my job. I'm not asking you to be a public health adviser, but you've been in this sport. A lot of young guys are uh and gals are interested in looking better, feeling better, and going immediately to what peptides can I take? What, you know, should I be on HRT? Should I take Anavar? And I've got my opinions, but you're the expert here. Well, it's my opinion and the way I looked at it was like I'm going to do this as a sport, right? So, I justified it because everyone else is doing it and I did it as a professional and uh 1990. So, I was two times British champion, overall British champion in 1988. I got my pro card and my first pro contest was Night of Champions, which was probably second or third, you know, uh below the Mr. Olympia cuz those of you who don't know, you can't just go into Mr. Olympia, right? You have to win a pro show or place in the top three as it used to be then. I'm not sure. Now, they seem to give out so many pro cards. It's kind of lost its value. But then it was tough to get a pro card. So, I said, "Look, I've been doing all this. Yeah, I'm taking steroids, which may have some negative effects on my health later on. May do. So, I'm going to go to Knight of Champions. If I don't get in the top five, I'm not good enough. So, at that point, if that's the case, no longer justified to take the steroids, right? Or compete because I've gone as far as my genetics will allow me. As I observed the history of bodybuilding, the guys that were great champions, they were great like out the gate. They didn't get, I don't know, 12th place in Mr. Olympia and then next year win it. Like, you got it, you don't have it, right? That's what I thought. I'm going to be brutally honest with myself. I have a gym. I'm making okay money now. If I don't compete, I could open more gyms, put more time into that. Uh I have a young son. You know, there's kind of making a sacrifice of time and energy and everything because I'm putting everything into this. So, if I don't get in the top five in the night of champions, competitive career is over. Steroids are over. Do something else within the sport. Open more gyms or something like that. Uh anyway, the story is I got second. So, uh I continued to do what I got to do as a professional and I feel it was justified because I was earning a lot of money, more money than anyone else I knew ever earned. Um but what's my advice if you were a 20-year-old guy and you you were speaking to me and I'm giving you advice? Get as far as you can naturally. Yeah. and then look at it. But whatever gains you make by taking anabolics is a temporary situation. You will lose it when you get off. All right? So, it's a merrygoround. Once you get on the merry-go round, you don't really want to get off because when you do get off, you start to lose all those gains. You start to feel mentally depressed because now your hormones are on the floor. So, what you going to do? Jump right back on again. And it becomes this merrygoround. As far as I'm concerned, everybody should make their own choices in life and be able to do what they want to do. But keep that in mind. Is it worth it? Because negative possible negative effects uh physically and also is not talked about a lot mentally. I believe there's a lot of people in the sport with mental health problems, especially women now, because they're in the high doses now, where before they really weren't. Um, and we're in this age of instant gratification. Everybody wants everything now, right? And I see it a bit like this, maybe from the guy's point of view. Well, listen, women are having breast implants, right? They're having lip fillers and Botox and all this [ __ ] So, why can't we take some anabolics just to look good and have abs on the beach? Why not? Uh because of that. And ask yourself if it's worth it because this is a reality. You can't keep those gains. So, you're probably going to be forced to continually do this over a long period of time and that might be bad for your health. Um I seem to be in very good health. Uh, but I've changed my lifestyle and done a lot of different things to kind of recover from the stress that I put on my body in a professional career. And I'm here today and I'm healthy and I'm successful and my business is good and I'm happy. Uh, but it could have been different. You know, it was different for a lot of guys that I used to compete against. Yeah. A lot of them are dead. Yeah. So, is it worth the risk? I mean, that's their question to answer, but I would say it's not. But, hey, that's just my opinion. Well, I'm struck again by how rational you were. If I place in the top five, etc., I'll move forward. If not, very grounded. Yeah, they So, that was the first question. Um, and we will return to some training things. But the second question relates to this, uh, thing that you mentioned about your dad had he not passed away young. Um, a friend of mine, uh, we were talking recently about, uh, having daughters versus sons. Uh, I won't provide the context for this, but and he said to me, uh, he's got three daughters and he's very happy with his three daughters. And he said and he said uh you know the one thing about uh sons is they feel I think he was talking about himself they feel like they have to fill their father's shoes. There's going to be a phase where they're competing with their dad no matter what. And my reflexive response was and then I realized listen I went through all that stuff. All that stuff. And in many ways my dad and I are on good terms now but we had some choppy years in there but uh for sure but now we're good. But the friction, I mean, that grew me a lot, too. I mean, it it uh forced me to work harder. I mean, there were probably some long nights that, you know, I just I wasn't consciously tying it to like, oh, I'm trying to, you know, outdo him, but I pushed myself to become somebody that was at least as, you know, successful in certain ways and ideally more. And so, do you think this is a this is a I think every situation can go two ways, I mean, you have a son now. So, how do you think about this with him? I think he found it tough. He confined uh with my wife a little bit that he found it tough like uh but I'm like don't try to compete with me in what I do because but take the principles of discipline and hard work and you can apply that really to anything. Uh but yeah, I think you know uh my son did some bodybuilding. you know, was he was uh playing with the idea of competing, which he probably could have done uh quite well. But I said, "Look, you're a sensitive guy." Yeah. Much more sensitive than me. I got thick skin. But let me tell you what will happen if you compete. You win. Ah, of course he won his Dorian son. You lose. How can he lose his Dorian son? I said, "Either way, that's be prepared for that's going to be the reaction." So, you know, if you want to do it, I'll support you. But he decided not to get into the competitive side of things. Um, well, he trains people and stuff. So, you know, there's still both of my kids are in the fitness world, let's say. Um, but competitive world is a is a different thing. And there's very few people that can get to the top and make it work for them. you know, more people now because before you had to compete and you had to win and you had to be in the magazines. Now you a lot of people can make money online coaching or whatever it is. Uh so there's more avenues now that you can go into to make money in the what's called now the fitness industry is so much bigger than when I was competing. But I would say purist bodybuilding is less people doing it, more people going to the gym and doing fitness in general. Uh, but I think bodybuilding per se was more popular in the 80s and '90s cuz it was all new and there was less there was no CrossFit, there was no MMA, there's, you know, things have changed since then. There was no fitness Mr. Olympia, there's no I don't know, they got so many classes now. So, there's many more things for people to do than, you know, maybe they figure it's not worth it to be a competitive bodybuilder if you can learn uh earn an income online and not, you know, put yourself online in competition. So, things have changed a lot since then. Yeah. And the the bodies that are in movies have changed tremendously. I mean, the average size of a male or female, the the shape is is so much more bodybuilderesque now. Everyone's using juice, right? You know, it's uh it's mainstream now. When I started bodybuilding in 1980s, I don't think the general public really knew about steroids or, you know, they get a little inkling when Ben Johnson's got a positive. Now, everybody's it's mainstream, right? Everybody knows about steroids. And I think it's seen as by males as a cosmetic enhancement just like females putting blush pants in or Botox and or whatever they put in their lips and everything uh to make that change. So it's mainstream. You got rappers, you got movie stars like they want to get in shape for a movie. Come on, man. It's not happening in two months that transformation without some chemical help which you know they're earning million in the millions in the movie. So maybe it's worth it for them. Of course. Mhm. You mentioned you have a thick skin. Um one of the things that uh got me to learn about you early on because frankly I I was involved in other things. Uh a little bit of martial arts, some soccer, some things. And and bodybuilding to me wasn't something I really wanted to pursue as a sport, but I wanted to put on muscle. I was tall skinny kid. Um, that's what led me to Mensor and how I learned about your training, discovered what you were doing, and then, um, really learned to extract the what I think is the the best of of bodybuilding for somebody who doesn't want to do it. Like, how are they training, how are they eating, what are they doing that's separate from the drugs that I can benefit from this kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, TRT is can be very useful to treat depression and other things for men and in some cases even women. We'll get back to that, but I I want to just kind of frame this in a certain way. However, the um you know, one of the things that I think drew me to what you were doing at the time is that you had this kind of like mellow um sort of I would say kind of like quiet thick skin stance. We also have kind of commonalities through our music tastes. So, I saw that and I recognize certain things in the tattoos, the punk rock thing. I Yeah. Oi music and that kind of thing. And so, you go, "Oh, here's somebody who's kind of different than the rest of this this community." But when people see the videos of you training, we'll put some links to those. It's so striking because you're like this, but then in the moment of a set, it's like I mean, intensity is doesn't quite explain it. It's like, and I'm curious because people can see those videos. What was going on in your head? Were you think going into the set, through the set, were you thinking about I'm just guessing your your dad uh how you were an underdog. Were you just thinking about the muscle? What were you using besides listening to loud music and um intensity doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from someplace. What's your internal narrative at those times? Well, I always prepared myself before I went to the gym. Just walk through the doors casually. I'd review my training before I went there. This is what I did last week. This is what I want to do today. And I would sit and do a visualization. So I'd have specific clothes for the day and like OCD maybe. And I used to have this thing which seems strange to me now. Yeah. I used to iron my clothes before I went to the gym, right? They had to be ironed. They had to be thing. And I just read a study how ironing clothes really lowers your cortisol by about 40%. I didn't know that. I was just doing it. I trained with my friend in New York. He's like, "What the [ __ ] you doing, man? Just put your t-shirt." No, no, no. I got to iron it. There was a whole game preparation going on to get me in uh maybe OCD, maybe too much, but it worked for me. Yeah. So, I review, go to the gym, and have my targets. And uh I use a special type of motivation. It's called [ __ ] you motivation. Uh [ __ ] you to all the teachers at school that said you couldn't get anywhere. [ __ ] you. [ __ ] anyone. So I'm going to show you. [ __ ] you. So [ __ ] your motivation. It's a great one. Yeah. Whatever you got inside you, anger, negative emotions, use it all. Use it all like fire. And then when I go home, I'm like, I'm chilled. I've slayed dragons in the gym. I've hacked people up with my sword. I've And it's like a form of mastery over oneself, mastery over the whole thing with the dieting as well for competitions. Maybe I went a little bit overboard with it and came down a little bit too much because then it was like mastery over my instincts of want to eat and do I do this? No. I'm deciding here. I'm in control. And maybe this worked against me a bit as well because I would be like going to the world. I don't care if you if I feel a little I'm going through it, you know. So, um yeah, I used all these anger, negative emotions, whatever it is. I I'll show you. I'm going to make it. I'm going to do this. So, whatever works for you, but for me, that worked. You know the anything negative turn it into something positive. You know it's um transforming the negative energy which could be destructive to myself or maybe other people around me taking it uh alchemy you know changing it into something else. So I used all that negative feeling negative emotions and I stayed in Birmingham as well while I was Mr. Olympia for 6 years. uh more opportunities here and everything, but more distractions as well. So, I wanted to stay in the same gym, try to keep that same attitude even though I got more money in the bank and I'm driving a Mercedes instead of jumping on the bus, right? But I wanted to keep that. That's why I didn't move over here. A lot of people asked me, well, I didn't go to the States cuz the industry is there. Um, but by the time I got to be Mr. Olympia, I could kind of dictate things. So, I did what I wanted to do, which was keep my head down and keep that hunger going. I love the transmutation of anger and the everyone's got their stories of the man and I can remember in the third grade someone said something about the jacket that my mom gave me that day to wear and like these little things. I mean, they don't bother me anymore, but there were times when, you know, we can we can layer in it's fuel, man. Use it for fuel. Yeah. Take that anger, the negative thing, whatever, change it into something positive. Uh, and we were discussing earlier like do we know any like elite level athletes that came from a very comfortable wealthy family? I don't know any. I'm not saying there isn't, but I don't know any. You need that. You need that motivation. You know, you want to make something. You want to make something of your life. You want to prove to yourself and everybody else uh you know that that you've got something. And uh I just when I was young I looked at life around me. I thought I don't what is this? I'm going to get a mate, have some children, go to work, come back. Uh for a lot of people, this is great. Maybe the love of the family and everything like that, but I didn't have that. Even when I had a family, it wasn't a family. I never, you know, my mom and dad were kind of together because it was the 60s, but I got the idea that, you know, that was because of me, maybe. Uh so we never sat down and had a meal as a family. What I never so we were mom and dad were married but they were leading kind of separate lives and I was in the middle somewhere I guess. Um yeah so if I didn't have that motivation you know maybe my dad would have taught me to be a mainten you know car engineer or something. I don't know. Uh it would be a whole different story. I'm sure I have this theory that um barring accident or injury that we kind of have a unconscious sense of how long we're going to live. I started thinking about this when I read the biography of Steve Jobs who, you know, he was really on a mission early on and and kind of an odd guy. He he was in the area I grew up in and you know his whole thing with LSD but also scream therapy but also he thought that objects had personality and things like that. He was he's quite different and he was doing something different. He was doing something different. He saw the world very differently and he changed the world. Like him or hate him, he he absolutely changed the world. If you learn about him, you realize that he he had some sense that he might not live a very long time. And he died quite young. Pancreatic cancer. Is it a sense or is a premonition? Is it You know, and you can edit these thoughts, I think, cuz I always had this bit of a fatalistic thing maybe because my dad died so young. So my dad died at 42. My mom quickly met another guy that she wanted to marry and he also died at 44. So I saw two guys, okay? They both smoke 40 cigarettes a day, which was usual at that time and don't exercise and drink alcoh get enough sleep and no sunlight, all these things. Um, but you know, I've I've changed this over the years because now now I'm 63 going on 64 and uh appear to be very healthy. I feel great and I'm looking forward to the future. And I don't know, none of us know, right? I'm just trying to live the best life that I can live day by day and uh you know be the best version of myself and have a good quality of life and uh appreciate every day at a time. I mean this is what we learn from dogs. Yeah. They don't live in in the future. They don't live in the past. They're just there all the time. They're there as a reminder. We're both dog lovers. So we were talking about that earlier on. So, uh, we don't know how long we're going to live. Just make the most of it every day. And, uh, I, you know, I said I read a lot. So, I was this book, um, by a lady that works in end care, you know, so she interviewed all these people that, you know, they know they're dying, right? They're on the way out and what they regret and all this stuff. Uh, mostly it was not doing the things they love. Mhm. Not telling the people that they love that they love them enough. Not one [ __ ] person said, "I wish I worked harder." or anything like that, you know? So, I think we have to just make the most of the moment. Make the most of each day and uh appreciate it because it's, you know, it's going to end, right? We're going to move on. I don't believe we stop. We just move on. Yeah. I I think we continue on in some in some form. We're already there. We're already everywhere at the same time. And that's what I think. We're just aware of this. We're on this channel right now. We're on this radio radio wave. I certainly subscribe to that. And I want to get into kind of your um exploration of of psychedelics and uh consciousness um and then moving on from it, which not everyone is aware of. Um but before we do that um despite the living for the day by the day um you had this sense that like you're going to put everything you have into something and you went for in this I'm realizing now very logical like if this then that if that then not this it wasn't do more or die. It was maybe do or die during the training but it was um when the feedback signal was there's a real opportunity here you put everything inact but you weren't foolish with your life resource. No, I did it step by step, you know, and uh anabolics that I took when I was amateur was, you know, is fairly low. So, I don't think there was that much risk there. When I was becoming Mr. Olympia, it went up another level. And uh growth hormone was not available early 80s. So, that came in late 80s into the '9s and so on. But I don't think there's much danger in that. as danger is in the body weight. Um, high blood pressure, inflammation, diuretics, diuretics. I mean, that's a instant death sentence if you overdo that and it has happened. Uh, the guy I mean it hit me the guy that I got second to at my first night champions, Muhammad Benaziza. I don't know if you remember him. He was a short guy but amazing a lot of muscle and he passed away on a tour because he was doing extreme things with water and uh diuretics and they actually did uh introduce testing for diuretics 1996 in the Mr. Olympia because people were concerned about this. There was a few guys that died just trying to get dehydrated and get in condition. Um, but I think somebody failed the test and challenged it legally and it didn't stand up. So then they just dropped it. They did steroid testing interestingly in 1990. How'd that go? Sorry. Take a look online. I mean, it's got, you know, it's funny there. It used to be a big deal to try and figure out is somebody taking stuff or not. I mean, there's just these telltale signs, right? A certain leanness, a certain uh, you know, uh, protrusion of uh, some vasculature in the neck. I mean, you can tell when people are on and when they're not, right? And um although there are a couple genetic freaks out there like yourself when you were younger, my friend Nimma, who uh works with Mark Bell, who you know, he's got really long muscle bellies. He's naturally lean and and you just he's a real athlete and and according to him, I think as of last time we spoke, you know, he hasn't touched anything and people would, you know, die to have his kind of musculature and but he trains hard. He does everything. But it's kind of scary to think what happens when guys like that would go on. I think you could look online 1990 Mr. Olympia. Uh I don't know because they didn't publish the weights. Uh but Lee Haney still won it. He was maybe a bit lucky to beat Lee Labrada. Uh but I'd say Haney was probably 20 down. I mean the fans were like, "Fuck this. We don't want to pay like a couple hundred dollars to see, you know, guys that are a lot less than before. But we want to see the same or more. You know, nobody wants to see a guy run 100 mters in 11 seconds when they've seen under 10 seconds. So, I think the people that control the sport, they realize this this is not going to fly. So, they dropped it. It's so interesting because, you know, bodybuilding is an unusual sport. But, for that matter, so is free solo rock climbing. We had Alex Hunold on here. He, you know, climbed LCAP, probably the most dangerous athletic feet of all time. One slip and fall and you're dead. He said you can make mistakes but not not slip and fall mistakes. Um things like that, things like bodybuilding, things like what we see from the Red Bull athletes. I do think that serves an important role in getting hum us as the rest of us to think about what's possible with the human body technology and pharmarmacology. And I do think that from each extreme sport, even skateboarding, a sport I was involved in early on, by the way, street skateboarders putting their theirelves at extreme risk, only one one guy wears a helmet. Yeah. one on vert they wear helmets right but on the street they don't do it why because it's not part of the culture it would like asking professional bodybuilders to stop taking gear it's not going to happen it's embedded in the culture to see how far you can take something in a certain dimension I think these things provide a useful role in getting the rest of humans to understand what's possible and there's usual usually excuse me valuable takeaways like resistance training absolutely nutrition the new nutrition guidelines for the US just came out Today they it basically inverted the food pyramid. Limited amount of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs. You know, it's funny. It's it's basically what uh has been talked about in the fitness bodybuilding community for a very long time. Insulin management, low sugar. I mean, it's so funny because now everyone's like, "Oh, you know, this is so outrageous." But that was pulled from the sport that you're describing. So for people who might not be familiar with the names uh because our listenership is broad I think it's important for people to understand how something like fitness or health progresses. It pulls these things from the pioneers that were willing to frankly go pioneer how it's done. It doesn't come from university studies and I say that as a university professor. It comes from the real world it and then back through again. We were probably 20 years ahead. I mean I don't know about the US but uh I went to a conference in London and uh it was a national health service how they're now uh going to study more nutrition because in their five or six years they do they do two hours study on nutrition which is like I mean you can't even get high school level understanding in two hours right so I was pleased to hear that Now, they, you know, they're going to look at, uh, nutrition as part of the health thing, but it was funny because, uh, they were promoting a plant-based diet. Uh, but, you know, unfortunately, it's going to lack this and this and this. So, we need to reinforce it with supplements. It's all in the animalbased diet, but that raises cholesterol, so that's bad, but we'll have a very deficient diet and have to supplement it. I felt like, wouldn't it be better just to take the diet that has the nutrients in it in the first place? So, I see competitive bodybuilding is like the peak of an iceberg. You know, it's an extreme. It's right at the top. Yeah. But the basic things that we learn can apply to somebody that wants to improve their health. So, in an extreme level, we could say maybe it's unhealthy. But if you take the basic principles, it can be very healthy. uh having your hormones in the correct place, building muscle mass. The there's incredible things that you can do for your health, and you won't be uh needing to rely on uh medications to control your blood sugar and your blood pressure and uh whatever else your your body can do it itself, you know. acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration, can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So, to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an element packet dissolved in it. I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So, if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's to claim a free sample pack. This is a perhaps a good uh moment to uh tell a brief story about our mutual friend Mike Menser. I'll keep it really brief. Um, I paid for an online consult with Mike. It was like a hundred bucks. I had to wire it to him, which was a fortune for me. It was like all my money. I was in high school, right? You know, I was working at this little skateboard shop when, you know, selling shoes. Maybe it wasn't all my money, but it was significant. I had to wire it to him. He calls and my mother was um like, "Why is this grown man calling?" You know, um, who's this grown man calling the house? He laid down the program. He barked when he spoke. I don't think people realize he he literally barked when he spoke each word, but there was a real um kindness be way back somewhere in that bark. Um and the methods worked, but he gave me some we stayed in touch and uh for a couple reasons. First of all, he emphasized on that call, but in subsequent calls, um stay away from anabolics. I didn't ask, he just said it. He said, and he said, "Learn to enjoy training really [ __ ] hard." Those are yourself, man. It's a beautiful thing when And I was like, "All right." Like, I was coming from skateboarding. Like, I'm used to getting hurt, right? And I was like that, you know, but he's like, hard." His words. And then he also encouraged me to read. He was like obsessed with philosophy. He was obsessed with Pan Rand objectivist epistemology. A lot of that stuff I found to be somewhat interesting. But I mean, he was super dedicated to that, but he also embedded in me. He said, uh, he said, "You seem like you like learning. Maybe you should focus on school." I was like, "All right." And at the time, I was kind of rebellious against my dad. And I took his advice. Because it was coming from him. And then when I got to school, we stayed in touch. I was in Santa Barbara. And he said, "Just remember, I'll never forget this. He said, "Just remember 90% of what you're learning is completely wrong,…

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