บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Natural Diuretics & Peak Week Case Studies | Brandon & Jacob EP.5

oily, you you can't position your bikini. So your bikini just goes and just falls down. So that was definitely, you know, a point of frustration that and that we were obviously told we can't use any other tans, otherwise I would have just went, look, we're going out and we're self-tanning with Pro Tan. But we work with that. I did see a couple of girls that had done that. Obviously they got the intel prior. we did not. But a a very cool show there in general. And obviously Nathan and and Rachel competed there. And as for Josh he had give us bit of an overview as to how he went. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, he had a good showing. WMBF Gold Coast. Came in a little bit sharper and and fuller and more defined. The the first show he did five divisions, which was spanned over three hours. So there BK: That's lot. Jacob - Lost German: was you know, I I remember I don't know if you remember when I did that, Brandon, for my first show, but you were probably thinking the exact same thing. However This was spaced over even longer duration. So to to hold the look for that long. And unfortunately for him, his quads are such a strong point. If we lose BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: detail there, lose depth in the lines, well, that's really going to take a lot away from his his look as a whole. But the WMBF BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: Gold Coast, he held his look really well from first time as juniors, novice, and opens. and then we've taken a few. Keynotes are away from that with potentially looking at some slight adjustments to posing. and then I know I can push him quite hard with carbohydrates leading into the show as well. BK: Yeah, carbohydrates he he tends to burn through them quite swiftly. I mean with the a lower body and holding the look, one of the things that most people underestimate, well don't consider is that fatigue plays into the look. So yes we can we we we can mod our a variables in reference to nutrition, which aid with preservation of the look. But when you're on stage for that kind of duration, there is fatigue-related mechanisms of which do influence the look, and that's a hard one to work with. I mean, yes, you're going to ensure posing endurance is as good as it can be, so you have the ability to sustain. But it's usually, yeah, the legs just trying to, when you've done 30, 40 minutes of cumulative posing and you're coming into your fifth category, it becomes exponentially more challenging. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, absolutely. And really the only lesson there is hey, let's pick the most ideal divisions, but it also is more of a challenge when you have no idea what the run sheet is gonna look like and when they make changes the morning of as well, which which happened, which is also frustrating as well. But we move. We move and we BK: Yeah, yeah. Jacob - Lost German: We we deal with what we have. but I mean, there was a lot of good feedback we learnt from the first show. And coming into the second show, I thought, okay, we're gonna potentially gonna have some fullness carryover here, but it actually wasn't the case. I had to push him even harder with regards to carbohydrates than I did previously. And we ran three high days in the days leading up to the show, which yielded a really nice look of Balancing fullness, tightness, and and conditioning for the category, which is another good conversation. You know, do BK: Mm. Jacob - Lost German: we always need striated glutes? Ideal world, and the ideal answer would be, yeah, absolutely. But you know, we want to be peeled out the wazoo, but maybe sometimes it's not the best net result. There might be a net loss if maybe you'd held back. say, three to five weeks of dieting potentially. BK: mean it it's it's individual dependent based on the volume of muscle they have, the architecture and the category they're doing. For bodybuilding, seldom is there an occasion where additional conditioning doesn't benefit you within the constraints of ri of not burning up the good stuff, i.e. muscle mass. Classics are a little bit different though, because as you know, there's just so such a big portion of your mark is made up as a product of shape and if pulling your conditioning a little bit further. takes away from those classic lines. That could be problematic. But this is especially problematic with the guys who are coming up and don't have a whole lot of muscle maturity because oftentimes you're going in seek of things that don't exist yet. I want these glue starvations, they don't exist yet. For example, if you have someone who doesn't have the development, well then you you run the risk of just burning up Their muscle real estate in seek of something that's not available yet. And that's it actually becomes easier to gauge an athlete, I believe, as they move through their career. There's likely some mechanisms there by which it becomes easier to retain the muscle mass by virtue of their the manner that of which they conduct themselves in training. Maybe there's some physiological components there as well. But having more muscle mass makes it easier to identify fullness and flatness and and sort of steer the ship as well. But bikini is also a big one. That that is the an ex Jacob - Lost German: With conditioning. BK: with conditioning, an exceptionally fine balance. And I can't recall how much we discussed sort of Rachel's run-ins of the WMBF Melbourne last podcast, but obviously since then we've done the NPC. in Indonesia and then moving on to WMBF here in Taiwan. And I mean it's a very specific look. There seems to be a lot of a huge amount of diversity in WMBF at the amateur and pro level. It's a point of discussion. W NPC is definitely the most consistent flat out for what they want. But from the perspective of conditioning, it's it's a matter of having conditioning in the right areas, which is tough. Cause your hereditary your body fat distribution is sex specific and plus your hereditary. So for Rachel, for example, to get her glutes

and hamstring tie-in where we need it, she's quite lean up top, quite lean through the midsection. So then it's a matter of balancing these variables in the peaking structure specifically. Jacob - Lost German: I think for people that, obviously don't have eyes on Rachel quietly and is maybe a little bit of a an understatement in the comparative difference potentially, would you say be? BK: Yeah, I mean f for WMBF, she's comparatively quite quite lean. So we we built Rachel for the NPC straight up. It was that's the standard we're going for. That's the look. The and this weekend show is kind of the the main show, if I was to frame it. And with WMBF, there is a big difference. Reminds me of 2016 Men's Physique, where you've got a big conditioning and size gap between amateur and pros. And we've we've seen this, it's it's a tough piece for any federation to to negotiate. Like how do you how do you make this work? So two hundred and sixty with Men's bazek, the size was here, I'm I'm Signing with my hands by the way, at an amateur level, the amateurs turn pro continue to grow. Now the amateur and pro, there is a huge size creep. If you roll into it in 2016, if you rolled into the IFBB with pro-level size, they would say you're you're too big. So you got to downgrade your size to gain access to the pro and then you grow up. So looking at the say the weekend, it was just so obvious with how. At the amateur level, it was a softer look. But the pro winner, lovely Eastern European, is very hard for the category. So it's like if you come in at a pro level, you're not gonna get a look in here. So this is the sort of thing you've got to contend with, and it seems to be pr quite substantial at the level of the WMBF. Whereas if we go to I IFBB, NPC, if you roll in and you're you're you've got a pro physique, great. You know, y as an amateur, like you're on route to becoming a pro. so yeah, it's been interesting. Jacob - Lost German: Would you are you are you quite familiar with the WMBF criteria B for bikini? BK: At the highest level, like it's this is where I spend all of my time only looking at pros, because we we're not here to you know, we're here to create that standard. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. Yeah. Well w would you say with that understanding that the winner of the pro show was right on the money with respects to conditioning, shape and and size within that bikini category? BK: She does look great. If you look at see, I'm always looking at whirls. If we look at worlds, we've seen the pro-bikini girls. They're pretty darn large. A great degree of width through the upper back. a lot of quad. Great glue projection. So this is kind of what we always model off. But I believe in some contexts this could be an inappropriate thing to do as an amateur. So I yeah. I I think that the the girl who who won it, Lenny, she looked great. She she really did. I mean what are your thoughts on that from what you saw in the live feed? Hmm. Jacob - Lost German: I quite liked her look, from what I could see. I do I don't know. I didn't screen record the the pro division, but I mean looking at the lineup that Rachel was in. I wasn't quite sure if I was a hundred percent on board with everything that like I was seeing. But you were you were there. you were there and I've got the screen recording. BK: Yeah, look, I I was there. yeah, look, judging is is the it is subjective. you know, and I have my biases. The the two number two forty who won the the the the category, she looked very good. Jacob - Lost German: Yes. BK: if her and Rachel went one and two, I would have went, yep, cool. Like either way. That's that would have been like a pretty pretty darn good. The girl that got second and please no, this is no disrespect in any way. Just didn't have a midsection. There's just not a hint of detail in it. So but she had good silhouette. But I thought I I wouldn't have considered her. But one of the things they did really poorly at the weekend is they didn't rotate the athletes well at all. Like you go to the pro lineup, you got fifteen people on stage. They basically chose their top three when they walked out and just rotated the top three. And I thought, gosh, that is so disrespectful to Rachel, this is not a pro lineup that Rachel's in here, but at the pro lineup, man, you know, you're giving your life to this game. You you may want to compare. And you know, in Rachel's lineup, for example, the the three and so she was three, but she never was actually compared against alongside two forty who place one. Whereas I thought, why wouldn't you rotate them in because they have the two strongest competitors? But go figure. Okay, here's what it is. Jacob - Lost German: I've got a couple of comments. Firstly, most of these girls are posing improperly with that that arm way too far out. So that as a head judge should be calling that out and that is deduction i from a presentation perspective. straight BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: away. And I don't know, Rachel looked very sharp. I thought her conditioning was pretty good. But do you think she was maybe too was BK: The conditioning was definitely there. Jacob - Lost German: was she as detailed and vascular as WMBF, or did you find a a better balance from what you thought? BK: Sh I would say, if you're looking, look at this comparatively to Rachel, comparatively to the competitors, I would say she. Her conditioning was quite close to Lenny at the pro level. Jacob - Lost German: Mm. BK: Not quite, but close to it. In terms of her comparative look from NPC, etc., NPC was a more full look. This was detailed, but not as full. Coming off this show. We have just started loading for the entirety of the week. We've just run a essentially a a nonlinear pigment protocol coming into the NPC this weekend because she needs a lot more glute projection and dealt fullness. So she's hard here, but not as full. Like she she has a bit more to top up, if you will. So yeah. Jacob - Lost German:

Okay, cool. Yeah, but I I thought she presented really nice from the live stream, which again, as if you're watching this, it isn't that great. So take everything I say with a grain of salt, but from what I could see presented a really nice and a really nice package, super wide up top, really nice delts, you know, posed appropriately, and then even from the back, like really nice back development and probably if all the other girls posed appropriately, the backs would be very comparative because when you do have to bring that arm in and keep it close to the torso, it does make it harder to create width in that back pose. BK: It yeah, certainly. And look the the changes to the IFBB sorry, the WMBF Bikini when it was originally posted, it was very hard-hitting. Like you need to pose like this exactly this many inches, the hand from the most lateral aspect of the glute. You will be penalized. Even the foot positioning in the front profile was much more feet parallel, straight ahead. As we went through the season, there's been an evolution. Everyone's towing out more, towing out more, toeing out more. seem to be getting very relaxed with arm positioning, and it's just hey, when you're dealing with essentially fifty affiliates across the globe with WMPF, how do you keep a tab on that? And if no one is posing as they should, are you going to award the posing and award the physique or a combination of both? Hey, that's how it goes. It is, it is. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, it's very tough. It look it's an interesting conversation because y even going back to, maybe why the NBC IFBB is a little bit more successful with their judging is I think natural bodybuilding generally tries to create ways to differentiate. Like we're gonna hit our side chest like this with our hands clasped rather than BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: like one on the other. you know, you have to hit a back double bicep with a hand up to make it classic. But does that inherently make a physique classic? In my opinion, no, it it doesn't. It it's more just a way to make things different. and this might be because as naturals, we are not capped by our ability to put on muscle. We are always trying to put on as much muscle as possible. But when you get to The IFBB, MPC at the highest level, they're capped by how much they can grow, and that almost creates the differentiation between the categories. BK: Yeah. I mean look I'm all about having some you know make changing up your posing for the for the organization, provided it's additive to the physique. Sometimes the adjustment's a bit like, man, I don't know if I like that. But Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. BK: you know, standardizing it is important and that's a a variable outside of our control. but we also had Nathan compete at that show as well in Taiwan. That was very cool. his first show for the season. And if you've been in the game for some time, you'll know that Nathan is one of the OGs and you know, a very close friend of mine and in

in a lot of ways well he is my earliest mentor in this game. I got a lot to thank that man for in terms of the creating the man I am today. So it was a real it's always a full circle experience to go and travel with Nathan. He we went and stayed together, Nathan, Rachel, Weenie and Kev in one apartment. So it was just bodybuilding central. And yeah, it w it was a cool it was a great showing for Nathan. We we lost about six weeks in his condress preparation by virtue of sickness. And that meant that whilst we were running i Perfectly with our timeline initially. We had to rush a little bit at the end, and the poor guy had I believe 13 days low days on route to his loading period, the longest we've ever run him. And coming into loading period. Jacob - Lost German: These were low days too. BK: I mean his low days were about twenty just over two thousand, which for a gentleman of his TVM's right up there. And We had to load in the most aggressively we ever have. We we ran 550 and the the carbs didn't stick. Okay. 550 again. okay, we're starting to stick. 400 again. And then on show day I think we're around 300 deep. By the time we got on stage. And the look was was great. it's a little touch more. We can refine for conditioning, which Nathan is known for. Just that crisp density. But I mate, he he presented a great, a great look on stage. and obviously between him and Dirk, it was a pretty close, close piece. Dirk's very complete, just very dense, man. And doesn't have any real kind of weaknesses. despite the fact that in the front and rear profile, Nathan will make everyone look small. There is I could see like A area where it's like, look, you could you shape a point here. And talking across the the from what I can gather, the consensus across the judging table was really diverse. Like third place Jacob - Lost German: Really? BK: should be apparently. Yeah, so Jacob - Lost German: Right. BK: apparently it was like, look, you know, one and two, okay, could look go like this, and then three and four, so what ended up two and three could have went like this as well. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to the having Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. BK: such diversity, but that's why you have seven people on the judging table, right? Jacob - Lost German: the the call outs were quite interesting and you c if if the judges aren't doing s or if the head judge isn't doing something just for the theatrics of BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: you know the show, you can generally get an idea of what's going on on the table. And for the most part it looked like Dirk won the symmetry, won the muscularity round. just with how they move people around. Because Nathan and either the third place or the fourth place BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: finisher that they were compared for the symmetry and the muscularity round it looked like and Nathan was always in that comparison as a two-man call out. and and that I found that interesting. Like I,

you know, the the Japanese gentleman very muscular, but probably yeah, but probably lost out BK: yeah. Wheat. Some areas there's some gaps though. Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: on conditioning and you know balance. And I thought maybe maybe do a three man call out, get Dirk back in there and, go shot for shot. But Dirk was, he looked very impressive. and I did put my my my words on the line saying, I think Nathan's gonna, you know, pip Dirk here. But I do think if, you know, his trademark condition was in, I think it would have been it too structurally big, too conditioned. Yeah, maybe Dirk's a bit more balanced, but the other points would just be too overwhelming. BK: Yeah. It it's quite possible. It's quite possible. And I mean, we we're looking at I should make mention like Nathan's conditioning is in good steed. We're looking at, you five hundred grams off off the glutes here. That's the difference, right? So it's not it's a it's a two week piece. That's what we have. And we're going into the ICN nationals next up, which g which provides Nathan with the opportunity to bring his beautiful twin daughters to the event and Have them see him on stage, which is a major motivating piece, right? So onwards and upwards. And beyond that, we also have the IFBB. Gosh, it has been a big week, couple weeks. If BB and NZ. And speaking of organization, that that was one of the that was the worst show organization I've ever I've never I wasn't in attendance. But our athletes who were there are like, I don't think I'm gonna go to nationals now. I cannot deal with that again. So for for context, they simple thing at the AGP apparently, where they rolled in the morning, the boys are pumping Jacob - Lost German: Hmm, mm. I heard about that. BK: up, we're on. We're on in two categories time, we're pumping up, by the way guys, we're gonna put the pros now and we're gonna put you guys two hours later. what? And then they go, actually, there's no pros here yet, because they're not supposed to be on for two hours. You guys are on in five. Minutes. But we just cooled down, we just lie down. So the guys are getting whiplash here. Now obviously, there's implications there for peaking, but keeping in mind that peaking exists on a continuum, so it's not a matter of you miss the peak, everything's ruined. It's more a matter of well, I I could have squeezed out an extra two percent or one percent here had I timed this right. So the boys are very rushed. Luckily, there was three guys there there was Rhoda, Rhoda's son Ryan, and Onad. Now Rhoda's an experienced. Athletes very calm. I'm chatting him, he's like it's all cool bee. on adds a bit more on edge and and I work with that, that's fine. But and but very gratefully Rhoda sort of you know kept Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, that would've been great for Onad to to get that. okay, it's all good. Yeah, we're we're good here. Yeah. BK: Yeah. It's all good boys. You know, we that's a B variable. Let's focus on what we can do. Right now we can be chill and we need, and we need. So let's let's do that. So chill when we can, and we need. On top of that, they put out their even initially they put out their show. And everyone's getting stuff done by AI, so they're making their AI sort of templates for their shows, etc. That's fine. But guys, please proofread it. Because it says Jacob - Lost German: no. BK: one show format. One show format means everyone comes out, they're judged and awards. And then they ran as a two-show format. So it's like, you know, we've developed a whole entire system. I just think it's very disrespectful because you you have athletes who fe for for the organizers it's a show. Okay, I see it. And I don't have any skin in the game. I don't understand the economics of running a show. Okay? So it's it's there's more to it than I can conceive. I understand that. But athletes give their life. We're giving years of their life to the craft. To give you the best show. So please at least try to get them in a ballpark for how things are run on the day. We understand it could be plus minus a bit, but not you're on stage now, you're on stage in two hours, you're on stage in 45 minutes, and now actually we're gonna run it as like stagger it like this. So then you have Onad who's doing classic and bodybuilding. What does that mean? Get judged for bodybuilding, jump off, change your trunks, mess up your tan, and they don't have on stage on on hand tan is there, which they Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, they didn't have any BK: They should. Jacob - Lost German: additional. BK: Just cheap it out, man. And then on stage for classic, change trunks again, bodybuilding awards, change trunks again, classic awards. Guys, come on. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. BK: Anyway, it was interesting, poor guy. Jacob - Lost German: Well, that I can only imagine the the weekend you've had, man. Like not only the the the number of shows but the the added elements, the B variables as you call them, that that were BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: going on. It would have been a doozy. BK: But you know what? The coolest thing is this, everyone pulled through, everyone conducted themselves exceptionally well. Each athlete presented their all-time best. And that is something to be proud about, right? And that's why we do why we do this. You know, it's it's it's it's progression on route to mastery. So it's very happy with with how the last couple of weekends went. Jacob - Lost German: Cool. And look, I know we spoke about before we started the podcast around like you know, I briefly mentioned about Josh's peaking structure where we ran three high days and you know, the week before I had some good data collected around okay, I'm gonna have to at least situate the first day here and I'm probably gonna have to push a little bit harder because I had to push more in at the back end of that week leading BK: Mm. Jacob - Lost German: into the show. Did anything change for any of your guys moving into that first

show? yeah, any any variables that that you could talk about? BK: Yeah. I mean look, for the WMBF Gold Coast, that was the first show for a lot of the guys. So we can kind of start there. I mean we had Cam on stage at that show. Cam's conditioning is Yeah, so Cam's conditioning. Jacob - Lost German: Let me bring up some videos. You know I like these videos, man. BK: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cam Cam's conditioning is is great and he's on route to world, so it's it's preservation's really important for us. And leading to this show, we actually started to close the energy gap. So you got Benny here. So we we've been repleting him times three per week and started to increase his everyday nutrition, his low days as well. So for him, coming into that show was as simple as repositioning his three repletion days, putting in place a fiber drop and modding his sodium potassium ratios. And the guy was on stage in very good shape. And Jacob - Lost German: yeah. BK: I think Cam surprised a lot of people. Even chatting with Nathan, he man, Cam surprised me how well he unfolded on stage, how wide he was on stage, and how well he he posed. So very happy with how Cam went, and it was a very simplistic peek because he because we're essentially closing the energy gap. And the thing with Cam is he he burns through carbohydrate. So keeping him full enough on the day is important because he had multiple categories. Let's have a look here. And his rear profile is is very strong. He opened up very nicely alongside his competitors there on the day. And quite t the to to contrast, we had Benny as well, who who won the overall there. Benny we we Jacob - Lost German: One point between Benny and Cam. BK: Yeah, that close, right? And look, we did push the button quite hard for conditioning for Benny to to get that last bit off him and he will continue to refine a little bit more coming into his last show for the season. But Benny one thing we noticed with Benny is the carbohydrate sticks exceptionally well. And just to define that terminology, for some individuals when you start pushing carbohydrate into them, they essentially burn off carbohydrate at a rate of which some in some cases, depending on the load, exceeds their rated of deposition in the peripheral structures. And that's why sometimes you top them up and it's like wow that did nothing, keep going. The carbohydrate doesn't stick in the peripheral structures. Benny's not like that. We ran a full back, a bona fide backload with Benny, which wasn't that high. It was about eight 850 carbohydrate over two days. And he's not a small guy, so you're running at just over 10 grams per kilo body weight over two days. So average of five, obviously higher, and then we taper it. And the carbohydrate sticks exceptionally well with Benny on show day. It was pretty moderate. Carbohydrate load is dose, and we had an acute sodium load up around 4,600. Sorry, a light was actually a little low, about 4,000 milligrams. And he topped up nicely. He looked pretty pretty houseful on the day. Jacob - Lost German: So when you're getting data from refeeds or when you're looking at him throughout peak week, is it more a matter of you throw in carbohydrates and you see a really instantaneous shift in fullness that then gives you the the idea around okay, now I probably don't need to do multiple days of loading here to get the result I'm looking for. BK: Well essentially for for Ben there was two things that came into play there as to the choice of a backload. One is I want every day available in a devicet. Second of that is, as confirmed, in his repletion phase within the Condor's preparation, he the carbohydrate sticks well and it doesn't have much of a loading look. So Essentially for him, we would run our refeeds and then I want photos, we were looking at photos the day off the refeed, the day after, and the day after. So where what is the effect on how far does he the day off the start of the refeed? that carbohydrate sticking? Where is the the look? Because yes the goal is to come in full But the goal is to be full and tight. And obviously tightness could be compromised if we have a loading look and or if you are actually spilling. And just for for context for listeners, the the loading look, I kind of analogise it to like if I have this cup here, I'm holding a cup for those who are listening. If we imagine that the cup represents the reservoir of muscle glycogen, but I'm pouring into that cup with a funnel, and if the The water that I'm pouring into the funnel, which represents carbohydrate, exits the funnel at a faster rate or meets my input. You know, I'm gonna spill when I've topped up the glass. But if I pour at a faster rate, I can overflow the funnel. And I haven't even overflowed the actual reservoir, the cut, in this scenario. In which case you have a spilt look, but you're not actually full. And then it just takes a moment for the carbohydrate to find its home. It's usually transient. but you're on stage for a transient time. So if you had that loading look, you're in strife. And for some individuals it's more noticeable than others, and obviously it's dependent on the volume of carbohydrate per unit of time of which you're you're pushing in. And it seems to be somewhat season dependent. So Nathan, for example, usually gets a slight loading look in the upper quads, which is part of the reason we generally run two up, one down coming into the show. But even with the assertive low we ran this time, that was not something of which actually occurred. And it may be a matter of the type of carbohydrate. Carbohydrate influences this as well in that if you have simple carbohydrate and you actually facilitate a hyperinsulinemic response, you may have faster carbohydrate deposition in the peripheral structures. May also may also benefit for those with a loading look with some light resistance-based training that in itself seems to increase non-interdependent glucose transport. So

there's some components, there's some levers you can pull here, but just to define that. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. Cool. I like that. and that gives you people a little bit of an idea of what's actually going on when we do this. Now, moving into this weekend, what's on the cards? I know I'm I'm gonna go out and support Cam at the States. Rudy BK: Yes, thank you. Jacob - Lost German: Hill, which would be cool. He asked me and then he was like, no, you don't have to come out. I'm like, man, you asked me, I'm I'm coming. I I'm coming now. BK: Ha ha That's cool. Yeah, so this weekend's actually a pretty casual weekend, by comparison. We've got Cam on stage in New South Wales, Darren on stage in Vic. He's running his second and final show. He also competed at the WMBF Melbourne. Got a lot of time for Darren, he's So did I. Jacob - Lost German: I tried to convince him to do some more shows, B, don't worry. I tried. BK: But I think he's just like, man, I'm I I've created what I think is the masterpiece and I'm happy with that. I said that's cool, man, as long Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. Yeah. BK: as you get what you want out of it. A lot of time for him. He's he's in good nick. He's got some very detailed legs and he's definitely bringing that to the this weekend show. And above and beyond that we have Rachel at the NPC Naturals here in Ho Chi Minh City. So i it's com comparatively a simple weekend. And I mean the evolution for Cam's peak is simple coming out of our last show. We increased our energy intake some more. We kept our loading days the same, so we expect to get potentially a little bit more fullness per unit of carbohydrate there just because his base or muscle coaction is bit higher. Darren's peak is similar, but we were a little bit more assertive on this round based on previous data. But essentially he has a mid load and Rachel, we are taking it legitimately day by day. So rise in the morning, look. Cool. Let's start with this amount of carbohydrate review in the evening and adjust. Because we're just looking to stabilize. So she's got two shows this this weekend. So she'll run a regional on Saturday and then a PQ on Jacob - Lost German: Mm. BK: the Sunday. And for her, she's met the conditioning. We need to ensure we've got the glute projection and delt projection to maximize competitive potential. So carbohydrate is just is just coming up. We evaluate if we need to taper at some point, we will. The intention here is to have a high degree of stability so that we can run a double day peak and have it operate with maximum predictability. So Jacob - Lost German: Right. Yeah. Well I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a question here at you B with a double show and considerations. So, as I've as I've said before, maybe the bros are thinking, Well we need to you know, we dried out, I need to dry out again because I've thrown this all this you know carbohydrate in there. Like how how am I gonna dry out with only one day, or n no days really, the back to back shows. Like am I gonna push in some dandelion root extract and Upregulate diuresis or what what am I gonna do? BK: look for bikini it's pretty simple. For bodybuilding, maybe a touch more in-depth, but not anything astronomically complicated, it's not rocket science. So for for say bodybuilding back to back is pretty simple. we will obviously run low-volume food selections coming into the into our category. Likely a day prior also. we would potentially put in place some potassium-in-the-food selections in the morning, give us a nice potassium-based with acutely low sodium coming into the category. That's a little less of a consideration for bikini because you're not chasing a very vascular, crazy look. But then after the afternoon leading to the next show, we would generally push in a fair bit of fluid, increase diuresis rate. increase obligatory secretion of sodium considering we pushed in a fair whack earlier in the the day. We'll likely push in a small aliquot of vegetables to ensure that we can keep GI we don't we want to manage GI volume, but we want to keep motility in check because you only have a window of time where you can reduce fiber and not actually become constipated. We might put in place a stool softener in there as well, not a laxity, stool softener just to keep things moving through the afternoon. And we usually play the afternoon by feel how full were we? How do can we preserve this look for the next day? Wake up the next day and it's set. And in no in most scenarios we run a similar protocol to we ran the day before, but obviously we tweak it based on fullness, flatness, slash tightness, softness ratios. So it's not usually that challenging. Keeping in mind that again, like people have this idea that peaking is this uber fine balance where I take the I go I go one rice cake too much and I'm I've just I've ruined everything. Everything's just destroyed. It's Jacob - Lost German: It's all over. Yep. BK: gone. It's not how it works, ideally. Okay, it's more a matter of you you're on this peaking axis and everything's 99% there, now I'm gonna get 1% more. okay, now 1% over, now I come back. It's just this it's it's it's a it's a continuum is really what I'm saying here. And when you have that, when you can conceptualize that, it becomes an inherently less stressful process. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. because I was scratching my head that whole time you were talking, thinking there was a whole more a whole lot more complexity in the process and we needed to add all BK: Ha ha ha. Jacob - Lost German: these extra variables in there. but yeah, it's all quite simple, right? BK: Here's the thing, if if you happen to run a massive hyperhydration protocol followed by an assertive depletion of fluid, you you could have some pretty aberrons there. There is lag time associated with upregulating and down-regulating the hormones associated with w with fluid retainment and sodium potassium resorption. So you you never want to flip

everything on its head completely because then you do have lag time. It might be six hours that you've disrupted massively sodium potassium homeostasis. Well then things need to recollect. Whereas in our fine balance again. In our case here, we're just we're just making these small adjustments here. So the body is always within arm's distance of you know Fluid homeostasis slash. So potassium homeostasis. So it's easy to adjust. But when people start doing extreme things, we're talking about peaking more in more detail last episode, right? Where most of these guys who deplete fluid, they're they're just cliffing in with an okay look before they dehydrate and usually they look worse through the day. Could you imagine then you you decide, okay, I'm going to now hyperhydrate, etc. You're just gonna get some really unpredictable responses there. That would be very high stress. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. Or even you run into a situation like you had at the IFBB show in New Zealand where things don't go to plan. And you've done this expecting, you know, the result to occur at this time. You've got fifteen minutes, give or take, that the look will either hold or start to deteriorate, and now you've been pushed back two hours or you need to be on stage forty five minutes before BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: you were expected. So i Control what you can and if the look is pretty much, ninety eight percent, ninety nine percent there morning of the show, it's not really bec gonna become an issue as, you know, you were describing Rhoda as being really calm because he knows that the look is BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: pretty much there. There's not much else that needs to be done. It's all very, you know, putting that cherry on top for the show day. BK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He has a disposition of which we should all strive for on show day. Zen Mo. Another individual of whom he's exceptionally chill is Kung. You know, I recall him at the W Jacob - Lost German: Mm. Yeah, he's super chill. Super chill. BK: yeah. I recall him at the WMVF Melbourne show. And I said, Yeah, cool, I'll come get you an hour. He's Yeah, cool, ma'am. just gonna sit here and meditate. And he was there, headphones in, just eyes closed, and I could just I'm looking at him like, man, this is amazing. We're just turning up the dial of parasympathetic dial. This is great. I know you're gonna have plenty of juice when needed when it comes to the pump up, etc. So another chiller and brings a very sharp look to the stage, credit to him. Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, it's a good conversation though, because I remember do a couple of different experiences of mine personally. It was one that where I was a bit more like, cool, show day, this is fun. And then the next one was a bit more serious. I had the headphones in and I was sitting down trying to to zone in. And then the last one again, I was a little bit more relaxed. And I would definitely say a more relaxed slash fun approach to show day had me much more calm. And cool, but I think it's quite an individual thing as well to to play with and don't try and it's not a hardcore process show day, you know. We're not we're not you know, carrying the boats. It's it's not about David Goggins, so to speak. it's about keeping things chilled, relaxed, maybe having a laugh with some fellow competitors as well, is a good way to BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: keep the mood where it needs to be. BK: Look, you gotta know your athlete. Jacob - Lost German: how do you function? BK: Look, I I I will say this. I'm a lot more relaxed these days in life in general. I don't believe that your personality traits are fixed. I think they're modifiable. I think it's an a variable. So for example, I used to identify myself as someone who is highly strong. But I don't need to be. It's my choice how I respond to my environment. And these days I do my best to pause and allow myself the ability to think logically and rationally, because once you have to regulate those sympathetic drivers, you're you're starting to think a little less rationally, et cetera. But outside of that, looking at the sort of from a physique perspective, on show day, my recommendation to all athletes is be calm when you can, answer when you need. So if we want to assimilate carbohydrate, I want to upregulate the parasympathetic drivers of your nervous system, right? If I upregulate the sympathetic arm, I'm going to be the body's focus on mobilizing energy substrates. Now, yes, I'm going to amp you up a little bit when it comes to the pump up, but outside of that, I want you chill. Get to the venue early. Kick your feet up. If you like listening to smooth jazz, I do. On show day, do that. That's cool, right? Just relax. Okay? Keep an eye on the showtime. Give yourself enough time to pump up. Your food's all organized. You've got a redundancy in place. The day is stretched out. All is good. The big work is done. Let's present the masterpiece. And for some individuals that's that's easier than others. for example, Dirk is an ultimate chiller. That guy is so relaxed. Even when we had the National Bodybuilding Summit, he rolls in, Yeah, they lost my my luggage. I'm here like that's really quite that I'm halfway stressing. He's like, Yeah, it's all good. Jacob - Lost German: It's inconvenient. BK: No one's gonna want my gasp clothes anyway, no one's gonna want my protein. And then you know, two hours later gets this call, he's I gotta get back to the airport tonight, pick up my luggage. Just relaxed, right? Nathan's a little bit more highly strung. but that's where you know we we come together and I'm like, good man, I got you. You just chill, I'll do this or whatever. But in general, the more relaxed you can be on show day, with the exception of when it counts the pump up, slash on stage, you're then put a show, the the better. and I recall you being quite, I will say this, Jeff, you are incredibly composed in general. So when you say, hey, I

had one show which I was a little bit more stressed, I don't think you would be overly externally stressed by conventional standards. I've seen you, you're conduct yourself on the day very You are a tactician in everything you do, from the from how you conduct yourself with others to how you conduct yourself. And even your posing, it's very composed. It's not manic, it's it's strategic. Every movement has function, and you're like a stone on stage in the best way possible. So credit to you. Jacob - Lost German: I appreciate that, man. But I guess there's a couple of takeaways there. You're probably gonna be more stressed if you've left stones face down. Like you you haven't turned over all of those stones. but I really do like the the psychology of Show Day and like the the impact you can have on someone if you say the right words, keep them calm. but yeah, that WMBF show was a little bit more. I a bit more of a heightened, okay, this is a this is a big thing, this is a big show. I remember Argie. He put out a he was competing there and he put out a bit of a story post being like like super keen to compete with these guys and he's got like a couple of photos up of like myself and some of the other competitors. I'm like, like what what are people talking about me for? Like it it created BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: a little bit more like angst I guess. but that BK: Yeah, yeah. Jacob - Lost German: was like a cool experience in and of itself. But yeah, it's i i as a competitor, if you've done everything you need to, if you're organized, it is merely just about sitting back and relaxing and knowing that there's nothing else to do except stand BK: Lambu. Jacob - Lost German: up when you need to and pump up. BK: Yeah, and I will put this forth that having nerves coming into a show, just in general, is almost unavoidable. Yes, it becomes a little less the more experience you get. But I think the difference between newbie athletes and high-level athletes, it it's not they don't experience nerves, it's just that they accept having some nerves on route to the stage as part of the performance-based process and go, yep, cool. having nerves y you will be nervous coming into your stage appearance because it's something you care about. You have given a big part of your life Jacob - Lost German: Hmm. Bang on. BK: to it. So I think just outside of being organized and in general trying to be calm, I think that you if you view nerves as a as a positive piece, like yes, when when you're in your pump up, etc., then it it will work with you, not against you. Jacob - Lost German: It means something to me that means it's important. It's generally what nerves come up. BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: Now, there was a listener question. he also kindly suggested that we need to normalize the audio. So thank you for that constructive criticism. I always take that on board. So he also then acknowledged the change in the production. So I'll take that that W. Yep. So good improvements BK: All right. Jacob - Lost German: there. Thanks, man. It was actually we'll get a little Gourmet Paul. Is he someone that you've is over in America? BK: Good day. Jacob - Lost German: Maybe someone you've had something to do with in the past, Brandon. BK: I I I'm trying to recall I I have a Jacob - Lost German: I'll ha yeah, I'll have to show you after. but yeah, I'm I'm sure there's s some link there. BK: I I know Paul, yeah, top top two. I've if it's I'm trying to think of Paul's handle. I'm thinking like, is that Paul's handle? but it's who I think it is, then yes, absolute legend. wonderful gentleman. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. So Paul's question was how do we transition broadly from pre prep to the phase in between contest prep? Do we look to find maintenance gradually, or do we anticipate slash encourage added weight with a bigger jump to previous numbers? BK: to answer this, I will say this. We're never dogmatic with the way we do things, right, Jacob? But we have obviously the there's a logical basis for how we go about things and there's a broad trend. And obviously the function of the pre-prep is to create an appropriate starting position for the contest prep. So one thing you want to avoid is running the pre-preparation phase and then starting the contest preparation at the same level of body fat that you commenced. The pre-preparation phase. It didn't serve its purpose then. So in general, the exit from the pre-prep is perhaps a little more conservative by comparison to an exit from a conventional mini-cut, as the intention is to preserve the look and create body mass stability. And within that duration between completion of the contest prep, start of contest, sorry, completion of contest pre-preparation phase and commencement of contest prep, you know, create an environment that's conducive to performance. And if these as a proxy for steam loss accrual and bring out a little bit more Lee mass accrual throughout that that duration. But generally speaking, we're quite quite conservative with that. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. So rather than a recovery phase where there's a more assertive push of intake, you might word it in a way that we're going more of a reverse approach. We we've got a rough idea of what maintenance will probably be, but we're gonna preserve that look whilst reinstating some of those performance hallmarks as well. BK: Yeah. So I mean if if we'll say we have a eight week duration between completion of the pre preparation and commencement of contest prep, I don't mind a conservative exit whereby, okay, we are now exiting the pre preparation phase. This is the increase to our nutrition. And let's say the increase Is a couple hundred calories below their projected maintenance. They might maintain a little bit of diet momentum in the first week, and then we use that data to evaluate what the energy gap is and then make the next increase. I don't have a problem with that. whereas obviously it's quite to the I mean coming out of a pre-mini-cut phase, I would happily push them up towards maintenance, maybe a small surplus phase dependent from the get-go. If it's a recovery phase post season, well then obviously the objectives are quite different. We want to actively pursue some body fat accumul accrual. So it'll be a much more assertive jump out of the dieting period. Jacob - Lost German: Mm. And I I think as we did a an episode on pre prep before, that it's such an important phase and you put forth, hey, you've done hard work for six to eight weeks, depending on how aggressive you're gonna be. There's absolutely no reason you need to throw all that down the drain and restart where you were before as BK: Yeah. Jacob - Lost German: you've spent an you know unproductive comparatively period of time in a diet comp you know in comparison to being where you were before when it comes to training performance and the total amount of muscle mass that you probably would have acc accrued in the alternate reality. BK: Mm. True that, true that. But great question. Thank you, Paul. We should actually put out some more question boxes for this in the future so we can get some some more questions on here. I think that'd great. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah, but that requires organization, Brandon. And I think you and I both know it's BK: Okay. Jacob - Lost German: gonna be a challenge, but I think we can do it. BK: Simple enough. We'll get this season done and level push on. Wonderful. Jacob - Lost German: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. If anyone does have questions to save us putting out a ch a question box, pop down in the comments. Let us know if you got any specific examples. You can be super specific, or you can be broad. We'll do our best to break it down and give you some good insight. Any leaving remarks, Brandon? BK: As I would just say a big thank you to everyone of whom has tuned in. It's it's been really quite awesome to roll into these shows and to hear of people who are tuning in. So big thank you, and if you are enjoying these episodes, then do the usual. Like, share, etc. We greatly appreciate it, and we hope to continue to provide value for you guys moving forward. Jacob - Lost German: Alright guys, thanks very much for listening. We'll catch you in the next one. BK: See you guys.