Ep. #359: Ben Pakulski on What It’s Really Like to Be a Professional Bodybuilder

Ben: If my objective is to build muscle, lose fat. My objective in training then should be to create the greatest amount of muscular stimulus with the least amount of systemic stress. So I don’t want to have to do tons of volume. I don’t have to do tons of work. I want to do the smallest amount to elicit this muscular building response.

Mike: Hey, Mike Matthews here from muscle for life and legion athletics and welcome to another episode of the most for life podcast. This time we are going to be talking about bodybuilding, the sport of bodybuilding, which is a rather strange one that requires a special level and a special type of masochism.

If you want to make it to the big leagues in bodybuilding, you Not only need great genetics, but you also have to micromanage your nutrition, you have to beat the shit out of your body with absurd amounts of training, and of course you have to do enough drugs to make Jordan Belfort blush. And it’s also a rather Lonely sport.

It makes for a rather isolated and lonely life spent mostly in the gym, grinding away to add that next pound of muscle. And even when you make it to the professional level, it really doesn’t pay all that well. And so I’ve often wondered why people do it. Why do they choose to become bodybuilders? And what is it really like to dedicate yourself and Dedicate your life.

to the sport. And a couple of months ago, I was invited to attend a podcasting event put on by my buddies over at Mind Pump Media. Shout out. Thank you guys. And there I interviewed the ex pro bodybuilder, Ben Pakulski. Now, in case you are not familiar with Ben, he was an Olympia level bodybuilder, and he used to step on stage at 280 pounds and walk around in the low 300s during the off season.

And in this interview that I did with him, I got to ask him about what that was like, what that experience and that lifestyle was really like, and how The transition out of the sport has been for him, both physically and psychologically. And as you are going to hear, Ben also just shares some great training advice too, including his favorite exercises for developing different muscle groups, observations on the relationship between Volume and intensity and muscle growth, how stress affects your ability to gain muscle and what to do about it.

And more. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in. Instead, I’m just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, bigger, leaner, stronger. Now this book has sold over 350, 000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best body.

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That is enough shameless plugging for now. At least let’s get to the show. Yeah. I 

Ben: want to hear about your book. So you were telling me. Yeah. For 20 years, I was 100 percent focused, like single mindedly laser focused on becoming the best bodybuilder in the world. Effectively the biggest human being on the planet was the framing in my mind.

Yeah. Along the way you run into a lot of roadblocks, you learn a lot of things that do not work, but most importantly, you learn what does work. And I really think there’s value in people to understand even though you don’t want to look like that and I don’t even want to look like that anymore, the people who learn the most.

The people are the people who are always pushing the envelope. I think I had a credible opportunity because I was literally pushing the boundaries of human performance. I was pushing harder than anybody and I knew where the line was. I knew where it was going to, where I could toe the line.

I knew where if I went a little further, it was going to break. And I pushed frequency and volume. I pushed volume of training. I pushed. Every aspect of like, how hard can I push this thing a little bit further to see, how far can we push that line? How far can we push that line? At one point I was 318 pounds and lean, full eight pack.

Like I wasn’t fat by any stretch. And to get that big, not that I advocate that, but at the time it wasn’t even, how much do you weigh right now? Two 65 to 60, but so down almost 50 pounds, but still on my way down, I’m still big, but this is two years of literally trying to get all this tissue off that I’ve accumulated for the last 20 years, eating much less training much less, doing more cardio, doing more parasympathetic activities, meditation, yoga.

So it’s a completely different thing. And, I’m very blessed that I had a shift in my life that, Allowed me to leave bodybuilding because I was so single mindedly focused on that, that I think I probably would have accomplished my goal of being Mr. Olympia and probably had a lot of negative side effects to deal with after the fact because I didn’t build muscle easily.

And that was my, why 

Mike: did you decide to 

Ben: stop children? I had kids. Yeah. My, my son was a nudge and my daughter was a punch in the nose. 

Mike: Okay. 

Ben: Yeah, both within 18 months of each other. And I’m so blessed for the man. Like I couldn’t be more grateful, I had one kid and I was like, Oh, I can still keep going.

And then my daughter came and I was like, no, I can’t be, you can’t be a selfish person. Like bodybuilding is selfish. Any athlete, anyone who wants to be the best in the world, you have to be selfish You can’t be balanced. It doesn’t exist. Like you have to have single minded focused.

And if anyone gets in your way, you squash them or they’re out of your life. That’s it. I’m very blessed that I was so blessed by God or whatever to allow me to have that awakening because it was literally that I was asleep for 15 years with these blinders on to try to become the biggest human being on the planet.

And as I say, I didn’t have genetics for building tremendous amount of muscle. I didn’t have genetics to be lean. I was a good athlete as a kid, but I was never very muscular. It was actually funny. I was talking about this yesterday. I have journals from when I was 15 years old. I was religious with my journals all through my teenage years and twenties.

That must be interesting to look back. It’s interesting when you see me at 154 pounds and 13 and a half inch arms and people like, what? What I’m like, yeah, that’s where I started 15 years old, 155, 13 average arms. I think when I saw, 

Mike: I was like 18, I was 155, 160 

Ben: pounds. I’m 

Mike: not a big guy now. I’m only 195 pounds when I 

Ben: started skinny.

Yeah. And looking at looking back at all that stuff is very interesting to see and looking at all your trials and tribulations throughout the. Journey is and at the time you’re like, gosh, I wish I built muscles easily as those guys. And, and that’s obviously a subjective thing because, I perceived myself to be working really hard to be really diligent with my sleep to really deal with my nutrition, everything.

I was, as perfect as I knew how, and the guys I was competing against, at least externally, weren’t working as hard or paying as much attention to nutrition. It’s like 

Mike: those NFL players that like show up with big Macs. 

Ben: Yeah. And and it’s still held true. 

Mike: Wasn’t there one? I don’t really follow football.

There’s one in the office. They’re talking about some guy like that’s all he ate and he was like some super freak. I know. All he ate was McDonald’s Lily. That’s all he ate. 

Ben: Yeah. You talk about what’s the fighter from Brazil who literally lived on McDonald’s? The most famous fight. Yes. Okay. I lived on McDonald’s two to three times a day.

I think I’m skinny. It’s okay. No, that’s why your bones break because you have no density. Yeah. But yeah, even toward the end of my career, I had, the amazing opportunity to travel with the best bodybuilders in the world. And even that, like I was the guy who had to pack my meals out there, measure my meals, and these guys are eating whatever they want, burger and fries and stuff.

And. They look better than I do. And I’m working twice as hard. That’s okay. And looking back on it, I think it was my greatest gift because it forced me to search for what dietarily allows me to where can I push it a little bit and still maintain this lean muscular physique? And where can I not get away with these things?

And obviously that was very personal to me, but I’ve also been able to apply those principles to thousands of other people since there’s so many things along the line there that you identify as this is extremely important in your progress. And that’s not so much, even though, like we talked about just before the conversation, there’s some things that people put a lot of weight on and they’re useless and it’ll come out.

Years that oh, that doesn’t do anything, but then there’s things that I’ve identified because I was pushing the volume and pushing the, the envelope so much that I’ve identified people are going to realize how important that is. And I’ve been able to help a lot of people since retiring even before retiring.

Build a tremendous amount of muscle in a really short amount of time, because there’s some very basic principles. It’s not complicated, people that complicate exercise because they don’t know anything about it. And I think it has to be this tremendous convoluted number of reps or it’s like 

Mike: guruism.

People, my way is the way. Yeah. 

Ben: So the thing that I teach and 

Mike: I can’t even explain in a way that you can really understand it, but trust me. Yeah. I used a lot of big words. 

Ben: Yeah, exactly. I know what I say 

Mike: because it works. Yeah. Okay, dude. 

Ben: What I teach is quick question 

Mike: before you get into that.

Cause it’s just, it’s in my mind and I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how did drugs play a role in that? And the reason why I’m asking is I’m actually genuinely curious because I have, being in the fitness space I myself have never used any drugs. I, It didn’t, it never really made sense for where I want to be with my body.

And even at this point, even if I wanted to do it, I couldn’t hide it, so to speak. You know what I mean? I’ve had the same physique more or less for years now, but I’ve heard that professional bodybuilding is more or less a, it’s who can take the most drugs. 

Ben: Yeah, man. Is 

Mike: that true? Listen, we can go down 

Ben: that route as long as you want.

And I’ll be as transparent as I can. Because you had mentioned, 

Mike: you mentioned okay, so you had to be so diligent with nutrition. You’re diligent with everything to make sure that you can stay lean, continue gaining muscle. I know that a lot of people would naively think if you can take enough drugs, doesn’t it doesn’t it allow you to just eat the big Macs and not pay that much attention to things.

Sure. Bodybuilding in the 

Ben: seventies, eighties and nineties was a training centric culture. Currently, it’s a drug centric culture. And the only variance is people think that they can take a tremendous amount of drugs and get to where I got. And the answer is absolutely not. You realize that the guys at the top of the world are actually taking so much less than the guys trying to get there because the top of the world are the ones that respond best to the lowest amount.

So if you go into your doctor right now and you go, doc, it’ll feel so good. I have low testosterone. Your doc is going to give you this reasonable amount of testosterone hormone replacement. Most pro bodybuilders. They’re taking more than that. There’s no question. I took more than that. But it’s not as obscene as the internet would have you believe.

Yes. We’re augmenting hormones. No question. But the guys at the top of the sport, most of them, and I can’t speak for everybody. Most of the ones that I know get away using so much less and that’s why they look healthy. They look great. At least the ones at the top of the sport. Now there’s guys that do they have to use a lot to get there?

And then they were able to taper. No, it was always just that biology. It’s the guys who respond best to the lowest amount. So they’re able to maintain their health, able to maintain the function of their body. Their muscles look healthy. And then you have these other guys who on social media and at the gym and you’re like, Oh, that guy doesn’t look very good.

But yeah, that’s because his body’s toxic. He’s taking all these ridiculous number of things. He doesn’t know what they do, but he heard somewhere on, some bodybuilding forum that this was the thing you need to be taking. These guys are not using as much as you think. And then the thing that I thought was the most unique identifying factor to all these top guys is they don’t lose muscle.

If you and I stopped training for three months, chances are, you’re not going to look the same. Chances are, I’m not going to look the same. I’m going to look, I’m going to lose muscle. I’m going to lose, I’m going to get much fat. I found with these guys, man, some of them take two to three months off training.

Don’t eat one, two meals a day. Don’t lose any muscle. And there’s something to be said there for, the idea of protein breakdown. There’s some genetic anomaly there that says, you’re just going to maintain all this muscle that you’ve gained so that when they get back into training, all of a sudden their body’s just fresh and responsive and they grow.

And that is, is the unique identifying factor that I saw in a lot of top guys that people just disregard yes, they gain muscle faster, But they can also go weeks without training or eating and still not lose any muscle. That’s not everybody, but these are the top guys, right? Yeah. So I was very blessed to have great relationships with a lot of guys and I got to interact with them.

I got to literally spend weeks with them on the road or whatever. You see exactly what they’re doing. Yeah. You’re like me. You haven’t trained in weeks. No, it takes time off. Oh yeah, if I do that. Yeah. I’m the guy like waking up in the early morning, 200 pushups because I got to make sure I’m getting my stimulus in.

Mike: Yeah. 

Ben: Yeah. So it’s 

Mike: such an advantage cause they can travel around, they can do 

Ben: whatever. And it’s like they can just hit pause. Yeah. Like throughout my career I had five, six meals a day. Otherwise I was losing weight fast and 

Mike: granted I was very heavy. It was very big, but I’ve heard about that for a guy that, you, so you’d have to bring your food and then let’s say if you’re going to be in the plane for nine hours, you’re flying to Europe.

If you didn’t eat, would you? Land lighter, if you, if let’s say you didn’t eat for the, on the flight, I 

Ben: don’t know that I was that, 

Mike: okay. I heard stories of stuff like that, but I 

Ben: think that’s pretty ridiculous yet. I know that if I did it for any single period of time, like my training would suffer, everything would suffer.

Was very aware of that, getting back to it, I think drugs is certainly a part of the culture. Unfortunately it’s a part of a lot of professional sports and, looking back on it now. Knowing what I know now would have never done it, but at the time, I was 18 years old and I just decided Hey, I want to be a professional bodybuilder.

Why did you choose that? I didn’t start at 18 years old, but I had this awareness this is what I want to do. I think it was because I was a very good athlete growing up, but I was terrible at team sports because I was, this wasn’t a good team player. Like I’d be like, guys, sit down, I’ll do it myself.

Everybody’s get out of the way and let me do my thing. And bodybuilding was this thing was all on me and no one else was responsible for my outcome. And I love that because it was something I could internalize. It was very independent kid. From the time I was seven years old, I did my own thing and Bodybuilding seemed to fit.

I was a very fearful kid. I was very lonely. So bodybuilding was this thing where the muscle allowed me to overcome the fear because I’m going to build this big, strong armor and you’re going to fear me rather than me having to fear things around me. And it just allowed me to do it by myself. So there’s deeper levels of emotional baggage that are there.

And I think most bodybuilders, to be honest, have some emotional baggage. Because why else would anyone want to be that big? Looking back on it now, it’s like I needed bodybuilding man, to be honest, it’s I needed it. I needed it to build my confidence. I needed it to build this armor that would protect me from the world.

That what I thought the world was this big, scary place from some things that happened when I was a child. Now it’s Oh, I realized I don’t need it anymore. And important message for the listeners is all those things that I thought would change. Me, meaning develop more self confidence, overcome fear, make me more attractive to the opposite sex.

None of it was true. Maybe from an external perspective Oh, this guy’s got all these things together for himself. Yeah. It didn’t change so much. And I, I said this before, like I was 293 pounds. Three or four days out from a contest. One time was absolutely shredded 293 pounds. And I was the most insecure I ever was because I knew I was being judged and it was a very empty place to be, it was very lonely place to be because you alienate so many people on the way.

Cause you’re so single mindedly focused on, ascending this proverbial mountain that you look back and you’re like, shit, I’m by myself. I’m here at the top of the mountain, it doesn’t get any better than that. Yeah. But you’re like, Oh man, I just, I neglected all those people.

And I love the fact that I was blessed to have that awareness when I got there, and I think it was my children that gave me that awareness. It’s yeah, great. You can go accomplish this superficial goal, but it’s not going to change the person you are. You have to look so much deeper and look at why you think you need bodybuilding.

And then as you start to find that, then you can actually start to become a better human being and treat people better. And I know that treated people badly, but I was just like, If you’re not making me better, you’re making me worse. So yeah, man, to sum that up, drugs are a thing, but it’s not nearly to the extent that people think, and yes, there are people who are abusing these things, but they’re not the people who are at the top of the sport.

The people that the people who are trying to get there speculating that, Oh, these guys, the top of the sport using this much. Cause that’s how it looks. The way they do realities, it’s not true. The guys at the top of the sport, the guys who are you know, trading hard, eating well and are superior genetically.

And I didn’t believe myself to be superior genetically. Although, many people would argue like you got to 318 pounds, you’re superior genetically, but I had a lot harder time building muscle than most people did. And like I said, it was a blessing. 

Mike: Interesting. All right. So let’s go back to then what I took us off on a tangent just because I wanted to get you.

I want to get your thoughts on that. But you were saying earlier. I’d be curious as to what do you think in 10 years from now, what are people going to be talking about as this is definitely a thing, things that you, what are some things that you know, work that maybe you couldn’t point to scientific research or maybe it’s 

Ben: there’s there’s some side streets that I’m 

Mike: going 

Ben: to pull one step before that and answer that question as well. But I think exercise is convoluted and confused. So people look at exercise and they think that, you Exercise is the goal and exercise is not the goal. The goal is stimulating your body.

The goal is using this external stimulus, being the exercise to create an internal response. And if you start to frame it that way, you start to realize that what happens outside of your body is not necessarily the objective. It’s to use this thing outside of you. To now create that internal response you want.

So whether that’s an internal response of muscle building or fat loss or whatever it is I want this our strength adaptation. I want this thing to happen. So the mechanism outside of me is much less relevant. The internal response is what I’m after. So people get attached to the mechanism of achieving this response, right?

They’re like, Oh, CrossFit is the best way to get lean. Or, you got to squat to build big legs, or you got to do bench press to build a big chest. All of these axioms are. 

Mike: Binary thinking is pretty much, it’s almost always it should be suspect, I think, in anything, 

Ben: right? So what I teach is it is scientific.

I teach physics. I teach the physics of exercise and I don’t teach it as physics, but I’m like, Hey man, this is biomechanics. This is the way your body moves. Now, how do we, Subject your body to forces to make it to adapt because ultimately that’s all your body’s responding to, right? Exercise is a means of subjecting your body to external forces to create an internal response.

So how do we really narrow this down and simplify the thought process to subject my body to the appropriate amount of force to create this muscular adaptation without exceeding the amount of force? Because that’s either going to do cause negative things as far as injury. Or it’s going to cause negative amounts of excessive stress.

Cause we know stress with the look of it, like this kill switch for muscle building or fat loss. So I need to create the absolute perfect storm of muscular stimulus without exceeding my body’s capacity to contract or tolerate the stress that I’m subjecting it to. And that sounds abstract, but it’s really simple.

It’s Hey, what does that muscle do? And how do I challenge it? It’s really that simple. It’s like this muscle has two ends. Every muscle in the body has two ends. One end is stable as the other one moves closer to it. That’s it. And if we could simplify that and minimize all the other things that are happening and forget about what you think is the best way to train that muscle and just literally think and go, how do I challenge this thing?

If I’m trying to challenge my pec, I’m trying to challenge my bicep or my quad. I have to objectively go, okay, what does that muscle do? And now how do I put pressure on it? Resistance against that. And how do I make it as hard as I possibly can at every inch or every millimeter of that set of rep, rather than objectively attaching to why I got to do a bench press.

If I want to get a big chest, who cares? Bench press is not the goal. 

Mike: It’s like getting back more to our first principles. Let’s just start with, 

Ben: and everybody misses that, right? Everybody goes, how many sets and reps do I need? But how many exercises should I do? Yeah. I said the answer just doesn’t matter.

It does matter, but not yet. So until I can standardize this basic principle of one repetition needs to be the same and needs to be standardized and then, and only then can actually start to quantify the stimulus. So then I can actually learn that manipulating sets, reps, volume, and load matters because I know every rep I’ve done is exactly the same.

And so many people are caught up in periodization and Oh, should I do more volume, less volume strength? The answer is when you’re training the way most people train with this swinging and momentum and so on. Much extraneous movement. It’s impossible to know what to do next because you can’t definitively say how much work is being put into that muscle.

It’s because it’s all over the place. This thing gets harder. I use more bodies, more momentum. I swing things. I use more muscles. So how much actually went into the muscle you’re trying to train? I have no idea. So how am I supposed to know if you need more or less, more frequency? Who knows? So let’s start with this foundational thing of okay, can I definitively say that the muscle I’m trying to train is actually the thing training at every inch of that rep.

It’s not just every rep. It’s I want to know what every inch and everyone’s gone through this. And you know what I’m talking about? You’re doing lightweights and you’re warming up for something. You feel it in the muscle. You’re trying to train, you start progressing up. You can still feel it. You go a little heavier.

Now I don’t feel it anymore, but you can assume that your body has adapted its position to distribute load to all of the prime movers that are possible that can possibly move this load. Is that what I want? Do I want to move load or do I want to challenge a muscle? Cause that’s, it could be a completely dichotomous objective.

If my goal is to move load, that’s a different thing. If my goal is to challenge a muscle how do I put this muscle in the greatest position to actually receive the challenge and that’s what I teach, man. It’s like this. Basic principle of learn how to set up, learn how to set up to advantage the muscle you’re trying to train.

Give it the greatest mechanical advantage. That’s a good example of that. Bench press, you want to do a bench press. And there’s a few things that go into a setup, but the first and most important thing is keeping your shoulders back. So as soon as your shoulders come forward, even a millimeter, you’re going to lose peck contraction.

So mechanically, if your shoulders are rolled forward in any amount, your pecs can do less work. Speaking specific to a press, you’re practicing less work and I still have a hundred pounds weighing. So here’s a thought. I have a hundred pound dumbbell in my head. And my shoulders are retracted as much as I possibly can.

My objective should be I want my peck to do 100 percent of the work, right? It’s not possible, but we’re trying to get as close as we can to that. We have other muscles that can assist. So we have, let’s say front delt, tricep, bicep, lat. We have five muscles that can assist objectively. I want the peck to do a hundred percent of that can’t happen, but I should try to get as close to that as I can.

So how do I set up to make that the reality? And if my shoulders are retracted, I know that my pecs are going to do a greater percentage of load than if they’re rolled forward. And as soon as my pecs start to roll forward, even a little bit, the pecs can do less work. Therefore, the delt has to do more work.

The tricep has to do more work just because it’s still this a hundred pounds in my hand. So I still have to move that amount of load. So now you’re asking more of the other muscles that may be okay, but if that’s your objective, train that objective, if I want to train my triceps, I’m going to do a tricep exercise.

Mike: Yeah. I’m not going to better, safer ways. To train your shoulders and roll them forward and do a bench press. Yeah, 

Ben: exactly. Man. So that’s the basic premise is like find the easiest mechanic with 

Mike: plays into that too then. So sure it does. And the closer you go, the more triceps. 

Ben: Yeah. And there’s so exactly.

And there’s one other level that people don’t ever consider and that’s sternal angle. So like the size and orientation of your rib cage plays a big role. Big role in actually what part of your pack and how much of your pack is going to be challenged. Someone who has a more if I’m standing something closer to a horizontal sternal angle, and that’s not obviously possible to have a horizontal sternal angle, but you have some people who have a very vertical sternal angle.

So someone has a really small rib cage, their pecs will be very vertical. They’re going to have a lot harder time recruiting their on a Bench press or a flat bench, or even an incline than someone who has a more kind of horizontal oriented, it wouldn’t be horizontal, but more closer to the earring on the side of horizontal.

So that’s probably the biggest factor. Those two things is that sternal angle, the angle of my rib cage and the retraction and protraction relative position are the biggest considerations. And nobody thinks about that stuff, right? So one of the things you get a lot, you get this question all the time too, like what’s the best exercise for chest?

How many exercises do I need? Yeah. The answer is one, find the one that actually works well for you. Find the setup that allows you to challenge the pecs to the maximum extent possible in that one exercise. You don’t need six exercises yet. So let’s master this one. And because I know if I can find one that gets the greatest amount of challenge, the greatest amount of stimulus to the pec, I’m going to get a lot of response.

So I want to spend the most amount of time learning the skill of exercise. And I think this is what people miss. Is there missing the skill? So if I want to learn to play basketball, I can learn how to dribble. I can’t go and play a game. If I don’t know how to dribble, I go to dribble with one hand, then the other hand, then maybe I’ll learn how to go to my legs, but it’s this constant progression that starts with this foundational principle.

I got to learn how to dribble. So in training, you got to learn how to challenge the muscle. I don’t care what exercise you choose. I’m not attached to any, squatting is better than leg presses. It’s not, which one allows me to take this muscle through its full range. Allow me to challenge the muscle.

Maximally through its full range. That’s it. That’s my objective. So if people can learn that and, think about it like this, if you have a, this kind of circle of comfort, like I want to stay in this little circle where all the exercises that are in that circle are the ones that I’m really good at.

Like I’ve picked one exercise or two exercise per body part and I master those. And then slowly we start to introduce exercises that are outside of the circle and bring them in and expand my circle. So we may start with one to two exercise per body part and master those things. And it may take you four weeks.

It may take you four months, but master those first. Cause then I know definitively I have something that I can use to challenge my muscles as I slowly then expand my skillset and allow myself to diversify my ability to challenge this muscle. That is the foundation of muscle building and that’s the.

The big piece that everybody’s missing is, everybody’s looking for the miraculous workout program, the sets and rep scheme. That’s going to change my life. How many, I need tons of volume, any high volume, low volume. The answer is you don’t have no idea which one’s going to work for you. And it could change based on your ability to execute, right?

People say, Ben, what do you believe in higher, low volume? The answer is for who, right? If someone’s really good at contracting muscle, they’re going to obviously need substantially less volume because they’re actually subjecting their body to more work. If someone is very poor at contracting muscle, they may need greater volume and greater frequency to elicit the same minimal response.

There’s so many levels, but that’s the foundational principle that everybody misses, so before all those listeners out there dive into the next program of thinking about how many sets reps, exercises, volume, load, all these things Stop. And can you tell yourself definitively at every inch of every rep that the muscle I’m trying to train is actually doing the work because I guarantee you can’t.

Mike: And what are, Oh, cause you’ve had so much experience. What are some examples of the best exercises for you exercises that you found were like, I really like this for this. I really like this for this. 

Ben: Yeah. The ones I find honestly work best for me typically work best for everybody, regardless of their mechanics.

It’s just a matter of manipulating the setup a little bit. Okay. People with long femurs, long legs with typical, I can’t build my quads. 

Mike: Yeah, 

Ben: Yes, you can. You just 

Mike: need to 

Ben: learn 

Mike: how to set up for the squat to do it for you. So just to me. I’ve actually haven’t, I would say my legs have responded decently, but I have long femurs.

So squatting has always been a pain in the ass. So I’m literally a pain in the ass. So it’s I get a sore back, I get sore glutes, 

Ben: but my knees and my knees hurt my, my, yeah. So the simple answer is men. And I’ll speak at a high level because you’ll understand this and most of your listeners will understand it while trying to make it as simple as possible.

The way you squat has everything to do with the proportion between your upper leg and lower leg. So if you’re someone who has a really long femur, logically, as you descend into a squat, your glute has to go further back because if it didn’t, you’d fall over. 

So if I stand up straight and I’m standing, just standing normally, My center of mass is balanced through the middle of my foot.

So center of mass, you could, you guys can envision if I’m standing straight is balanced through middle of my foot, my knee, my hip, my shoulder, right? As I take any of those joints away from that center of mass, the further the joint goes away, the more of the muscles that cross that joint have to work. So someone like yourself with long femurs, as you descend into a squat, that hip goes way back because of the length.

Now I’m going to challenge that muscle tremendously, or the quad may not go, or the knee may not go as far forward because of just mechanics. So you’re buying. Body has to be balanced. So you’re inevitably going to build tremendous glutes and probably get lower back pain because you’re going way outside of what your body can handle at your hip.

So if we can manipulate the ratio of femur to lower leg length, now I can change the mechanics of the squat. How do I do that? And it’s by as simple as adding something under heel. Like you may need to add as much as four inches under your heel to balance out the differential between. Those two links.

But if I can add a heel elevation, now all of a sudden, gosh, I can squat with my torso being vertical and actually get a tremendous amount of challenge to my quad as well, while not giving a tremendous amount of, so people go, what about my knees? People run into knee problems when they’re doing that stuff with poor pelvic stability.

So that’s another thing we, people should understand is. Typically knee problems are a result of either poor foot mechanics or poor hip stability mechanics. So most people, the knees, this hinge joint that kind of exists between these two complex joints. So knee is relatively simple. The thing with the place where it runs into problems, if it’s trying to perform the function of the hip or the foot, so that hinge should function like a hinge.

And if we start to, if we limit the rotation of the hip or the foot, the knee needs to pivot. Pick up some of that rotational component that the hip is lacking where the foot is lacking. And that’s where people run into knee problems. So if you have a stable pelvis, what foot 

Mike: function, just so people listen, what are you referring to exactly there?

Ben: Walking gait, right? You should be landing with the heel strike, rolling the outside of your foot and then have this natural pronation. So the pronation is also this rotation that happens in your knee joint. So it’s just this natural function of, most, some people are flat footed, thereby, if you’re flat footed, you’re going to lack pronation.

You’re going to be more in the slap foot position. You’re going to be internally rotated in the hip. So all these things, if you’re internally rotated at the hip, you’re going to lack hip external rotation, which is going to prevent you from going all the way down in a squat. You do go down in the squat, you’re going to get back pain and knee pain.

Like just that’s the way the body works. Realizing that doesn’t mean you can’t squat. That means you need to learn, okay how can I compensate for these things that I lack, or how can I improve them as I go? And I’m not attached to having to squat, but I’m attached to having to take this muscle through its full range challenge.

So you asked some of my favorite exercises specific 

Mike: to legs. And just to chime in real quick. So just out of personal experience. So what what I’ve had, I wouldn’t say knee problems, but achy knees here and there, but something that helped. Was squatting in shoes with an elevator here squat shoes, proper shoes which I’ve been doing for a while, but I found that out a long time ago, like this really makes a difference for me.

There’s no question. It 

Ben: allows you to get more vertical. That’s it. And if you added something that was even bigger than that one inch, that’s a lot or one and a quarter inch, whatever it is. 

Mike: If you added a two or three inch, you feel even better. Interesting. Yeah. I haven’t tried going higher. I just bought, squat shoes a long time ago.

And I was like this is, I’m never squatting without these again. Cause this feels way better. Yeah. And then I was lacking external rotation in my right, which is where I was my knee was bothering me. Sometimes I have a little daily routine of 10 minutes or so of yoga stretches that I do focusing just on for me.

So it was, I need more internal rotation on my left, more external on my right. And so I was doing yoga classes for a couple of months and I just found the, okay, these are the stretches that work really well for me. And also for my SI joint on the left that will act up. It’s just, I don’t know. I have imbalances.

You have a shoulder thing as well. My right side, I’ve had it before. I’ve had some bicep tendons. 

Ben: So those things are all correlated, right? You have a, a. Tilt of your pelvis. So if one side is lacking internal and one side is lacking external, it tells you one hip as far as the other one’s back. And usually that’ll manifest in the opposite shoulder.

Mike: But I’ve been doing now for, I don’t know, six or seven months at this point, a daily routine of 10 minutes or so of stretches. And it has made a big difference in my squatting in particular because I have a lot more, I’d say probably 50 percent more external rotation in my right now. Yeah. From, and it’s it was actually weird to feel like the squat felt different.

I was feeling it in different muscles on my right side that’s just my experience, exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah. 

Ben: And everyone’s balances, right? Everyone’s screwed up at something. It’s just learning 

How to fix it. It’s learning how to train around it, or, train around it while you improve the skill at the same time.

So that segues perfectly into what I’m about to say. I think exercise can be framed in a really simple way. You have exercise that you’re really good at. That should be used for output. Like I actually want to work really hard on this. I don’t have to think about it. I have unconscious competence.

I want to train hard with this exercise. We all have those body parts like, gosh, this just feels really good. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t know why. I just know that I can work hard on this and we have the other ones. I’m not so good at. So I call those skill acquisition and I think there should be a good balance in everyone’s workout day to day between exercises that are output based and ones that are skill acquisition based.

So you asked what exercise I thought of the best? The answer is, depends on who, for 

Mike: you, 

Ben: for me. Yeah. So I’m always trying to develop the skill of certain things like squatting is a shitty exercise for most people because they don’t have the skill. You have to master the skill. And if you want to master a skill of anything, how often you have to do it often, right?

You got to do it more than once a week, probably three times a week minimum. And you don’t necessarily need to do it to max of effort, but you got to do it. You got to practice that skill. So squatting can be a tremendous excess for people, but I’m not attached to Oh, that’s the best exercise. So the way I frame this is skill acquisition exercises are often things that are internally stabilized.

So squat requires me to stabilize my trunk, my spine, my scapula, my pelvis, my feet, like all these things need to be stabilized by my muscles. Externally internally stabilized. And then I have these other exercises that are externally stabilized or artificially stabilized, meaning it’s, I can shove into a machine.

So typically the output based exercises are going to be the ones that are artificially stabilized. If I can do a bench or a bicep curl and I have a bench to push into with my arm, I can probably produce more output in the bicep because I don’t have to worry about creating stability. But that doesn’t mean I only want to do those exercises because I still want to do the quote unquote functional stuff that allows me to use my internal stabilization to actually control my body.

So I like to have this nice balance of things that are skill acquisition and output based, which is internal, external stabilization. So hack squats, like for, if it’s a legs, I would have a hard time with any on the sled or you’re talking about the barbell. Okay. Yeah. So if someone’s trying to build muscle, I would have a hard time with anyone giving me a, an argument against tech squad.

I’ve always liked tax. It’s so much better than like press cause you can get more range of motion just because of your relative hip position and it’s so much better than the squat because you get more stability. I’d have a hard time for someone saying, Hey, I think squats, but it may be better for some people, but even that I would doubt.

The most tremendous amount of growth came from me when I was adamantly doing hack squats every weekend. I was doing them 

Mike: for a while when I was in Florida, the gym had a, I don’t know if it’s a rare piece of equipment, but that was the first gym I’d worked out in that at least where I had, I guess in the past, a long time ago, I didn’t train legs for shits.

Maybe I never noticed it, but that was the first gym at, since I actually started training properly that had it and I was doing it consistently. I really liked it. Unfortunately, Jim, I go to now, it doesn’t have one, but. Yeah, 

Ben: I think it’s just, it’s basically a squat that adds more artificial public stability, because if you can’t squat well, if you’re having a hard time with feeling your knees, it’s just stability.

Like you lack, if you lack stability, you don’t build muscle. So stability governs muscular contraction. If your brain senses instability, it down regulates muscular contraction. So for you to actually benefit from squatting, you have to be so good at the skill that you don’t have to think about the skill anymore.

I could just do this up and down. Now I have to focus all of my focus on stability. That’s a completely different thing for most people. Whereas if I go into hack squat. I don’t think about stability. I can just think about output. It just goes straight to similar to like press in that regard, but yeah.

Yeah. But just a different range of motion. Yeah. So that’s a great example. And so looking at exercises that way is this internally stabilized or externally stabilized? And do I need to learn the skill of internal stabilization? Cause that’s a skill, both of which can benefit, but realizing that you want to challenge muscles in every workout and if you can’t stabilize a muscle internally, cause you lack the skill then you got to use the ones that are artificially stabilized.

Mike: Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. What about let’s. Say chest and back, what were your go tos? Sure. Just know what people listening are going to be wondering for other muscle groups. 

Ben: I’m a very unique case because my ribcage is substantially bigger than most people. As far as my angle of my sternal angle, it’s funny.

I see this in my kids too. My kids are five and six and they have this very steep, they’re very small, but it’s very steep sternal angle. So it’s not just a matter of my ribcage being big. It’s just this particular genetic angle. So if I lay into a flat. For people to visualize this. It’s like pushing the chest out, right?

Yeah, exactly. Point shoulders, back chest goes up. So if I lay into a flat bench press, that position that my sternum is in is, as people can imagine, is almost to where my sternum now is pointing toward the sky. 

Mike: Yeah. Almost like a decline for a person with a more flat. That’s the exact 

Ben: comparison.

So for someone to do the equivalent of what I’m doing on a flat, they’re going to have to do a 30 to 40 degree decline. Yeah. So when someone writes in a program, do a flat bench press who’s doing it? Because if I’m doing it, I’m going to get a big chest. If you’re doing it, maybe not you, but person at home, you may just get sore shoulders and not get any pec development.

Or this is a bit of a paradigm shift for most people, a flat bench press for probably 90 percent of the people is the best option. Upper chest exercise, like people like, Oh, you want to train your upper chest? You got to do incline. The answer is no, you don’t. For most people, if you have a flat rib cage and you’re doing an incline chest, you’re training your shoulders and you probably get sore shoulders because of it.

So I’d say for about 80 to 90 percent of my clients, their upper chest training is done on a flat bench, which sounds pretty good. Backwards. But if we get a chance to go to the gym this weekend, I’ll show you. And it’s just a little like watching where the load is being placed and then watching how the muscle contracts.

And if you just watch the insertion of the muscle pull closer to the origin where does it go? Does it go close to the upper chest? Does it go close to the mid chest or closer to lower chest? And if you just observe, you can go, Oh gosh, that is. 100 percent upper chest. There’s no lower chest involved for most people.

So if they want to train the lower chest, you’ve got to learn how to manipulate the angle. So for me, it was a flat bench press decline seldom and incline still works for me, whereas inclined for most people doesn’t work. Yeah, sure. So yeah, back exercises I think a reverse grip pull down with a relatively wide handle is, and this is good and subjective and personal.

I think it’s the best. I haven’t done reverse verse grip in a long time. Yeah. So for the, I haven’t even thought of it. If we’re talking lat, I think it’s the best exercise because maybe not for Rambo and not for trap, but if we’re talking lat, because What I’ve realized in my 20 years now of training, I think that people miss.

So as I briefly said earlier, if I’m trying to train my chest, I need to maintain a position of retraction to get maximum chest stimulation. The same is true with a lot, except in the inverse. So I need to maintain a position of protraction, which is effectively reaching my shoulder forward and away from me.

Not necessarily my arm goes with it, but it’s a shoulder, this position of shoulder protraction. And if I can maintain that Protraction while I go through shoulder extension, which is, for people sitting at home, if you’re sitting up straight and you reach arm in front of you, you really try to reach, get your shoulder to stretch it as possible, feel that stretch and then drive your elbow down, not back down that shoulder extension.

So most people, when they train back, they think back. So they’re pulling the weight toward them and you don’t want to do that. If you’re training a lot, objectively, you want to be trained. You’re trying to. Get your elbows far away from you as you can and create the biggest arc possible. So it’s, there’s never a back movement.

If you’re training a lot, it ends up being back and around, but it’s not the thought process of being back. So as soon as I pull back, then it’s being a rhomboid and trap exercise. So as soon as those scapula for people listening, 

Mike: If they were done, like lat pushdowns 

Ben: Where you’re like standing straight up, yeah, you get the exact same movement.

It should be the exact same movement. Yeah. So like a straight arm pull down with your arm. Yeah. So that’s where people go wrong. And that’s why a lot of people lack lights, including myself for a lot of years, I was wrong with that. And I was like if I want to get the lat, as short as possible, because objectively an exercise, our objective should be to get the muscle as short as possible, as most contracted as possible.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to pull my shoulder back. The truth is, yes, you do need to pull it back to get it fully shortened, but by pulling it back. Too early, you could lose the contraction of the lat. So you end up relying on the forearm flexors and the rhomboids and traps. So 

Mike: I ran into that myself where I had a fairly strong back, but I was like, why am I, that’s just, they’re just shit.

Ben: I can 

Mike: pull, I could pull, especially given my body weight. I haven’t since having kids, my sleep has been funky. And so I haven’t been pushing heavy weights as much now as I used to in the past, but I was like, I’m pretty strong on, in all of my polls, you’d think I would have more lats, but it’s a retraction.

Yeah. And then I, when I started doing, I started doing a lot of standing lat pull down or push down and actually whichever those names is correct. And that helped and I started doing it a few times a week. 

Ben: Yeah. And honestly, that’s one of the greatest things for shoulder health too, because so many people live in this kind of like constant shrugged state where the shoulders are up around their ears.

That’s a stress state. That’s, but the opposite of that is pulling them down, which is the function of the lat. So if we learn to pull them down and back, we can actually improve the shoulder integrity as well. So those are excited. So reverse grip pull down was one of your favorites.

Yeah. When done properly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. You’d mentioned earlier about stress and how it affects muscle building.

I think it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on that. An article actually just went up I just saw it a few days ago over at Greg Knuckles site, Stronger by Science. It was written by Greg, actually. I haven’t read it yet. I saved it to my Instapaper because in typical Greg Knuckles Fashion is very long, but I want to go through it.

I wanted to hear your thoughts though on that. Cause it’s something that isn’t spoken much about and I myself, it should be, I agree. And I have experienced it now firsthand over the last year and a half or so. I mentioned my sleep being, I don’t think when I would tell that to people, they’d be like Oh, didn’t you just have a, a kid was, your second kid.

Yeah. But that’s not why I think actually is more related to just stress, mostly coming from stuff at work and which is now coming to an end internal stuff, whatever. And even though I wouldn’t say that it’s manifesting psychologically all that dramatically. Like I don’t have symptoms of anxiety or depression, or I seem to be pretty much just doing my thing.

If I only sleep three hours one night, yeah, I’m not having a great day the next day, but I still just do my thing, but it definitely impacted my training. There’s no question. I noticed. And now that I’m starting to sleep better, stress levels objectively have come down the situation at things that were causing problems are now resolving magically.

I start sleeping better magically. My workouts in the gym, I start, I’m feeling like myself again. I’m like, yeah. I can progress this week. It doesn’t feel every workout. Isn’t it’s so fucking heavy that I’m just struggling to maintain my numbers. You know what I mean? So 

Ben: stress is a massive thing that I think everyone should be considering.

And it’s, we talked about writing a book and it’s one of the six foundations of a lean and muscular physique, I believe, is learning how to manage stress and change your perspective of stress and learn that some coping mechanisms, right? Stress can be viewed in a really simple way. Looking at the autonomic nervous system, right?

So we’ve got a sympathetic and parasympathetic. You used to define those quickly. Yeah. I’m so sympathetic. is going to be a fight or flight. So we’re going to be stressed. Like anything that causes the smallest amount of stress is going to be a sympathetic stimulus. And then we’ve got the parasympathetic branch, which is rest and digests calming us down.

And ideally we want to have a balance between those two. And we’re going to have stresses in our day. We’re meant to be stressed, but we want to have things that we’re meant Balance that out. So simply for people to do it, it’s create a chart. I do the same with all my coaching clients. It’s I want you to write down all the things today that were sympathetic stimulus.

So it could be, I don’t know, you got a bill, you got to fight with your wife. You I don’t know, your boss yelled at you. You got cut off in the car. I don’t know, your workout is a sympathetic stress for most people. You look at anything and Oh, make this list. And for most people, be long. And parasympathetic stimuli are things that are going to balance that out.

And I could talk about that in a minute, but so the more sympathetic stress you have, and you go add a workout on top of that, your body’s just living in this constant state of stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and adrenaline. And those things are literally the kill switch for muscle building. If I don’t, why is that?

I don’t want to go too far into the weeds, but why is that? So cortisol is going to promote fat storage and lower testosterone. So if my cortisol is always elevated, also muscle breakdown, right? Yeah. Cortisol is not bad. Like people here, they think it’s bad. It’s not bad. It should be this natural rhythm, right?

It should be high in the morning, low in the evening. And it’s a useful thing to acute 

Mike: stressors. You 

Ben: want, it kicks your energy systems in exactly. But the problem is we live with way too much stress and there’s so many things that are stressors that you don’t realize in your environment, in your life, so many things that are happening.

But so people are living with this massive amount of sympathetic stress and they go in the gym and they’re only solution to working hard is I’m going to work hard today. I’m going to hashtag crush it today with no days off. Yeah. With no specific objective of you should think about, If my objective is to build muscle, lose fat.

My objective in training then should be to create the greatest amount of muscular stimulus with the least amount of systemic stress. So I don’t want to have to do tons of volume. I don’t have to do tons of work. I want to do the smallest amount to elicit this muscular building response, effective dose type of exactly.

And progressive because your body will respond to a novel stimulus. It has to be progressive, which is why it needs to be standardized and then hopefully documented. This is the big paradigm shift in, in exercises. Everyone just wants to go in and work hard. And I say if your only solution to progress is working hard, you’re fucked because at some point you’re going to work so hard that your stress is going to override the stimulus.

No matter how good you are at exercise your stress, the amount of work is going to override the stimulus. So you got to learn how to train first and standardize the stimulus. And then objectively how little can I do? To get this muscular response. And that’s really the simplicity of it. And so if we want to start looking at these parasympathetic things to balance your body out, it’s really the stuff that you would know it’s connecting with nature.

It’s getting outside and maybe grounding and looking at the sun and getting some sun on your body. And it’s breathing, it’s meditation, it’s creating strong relationships, like creating community. It’s very simple stuff like that. Yeah. Like love, Be grateful. Those things are very calming to your nervous system.

They’re stimulating to the parasympathetic branch. And that’s from my perspective, the biggest mistake I made throughout my bodybuilding career. Cause I was that guy who came from a family of lazy, overweight alcoholics. And I had a badge of honor around. I’m never going to be called lazy. I’m going to outwork everybody.

If it means I die in the gym, like I’m going to, I’m going to crush you first. I’ll never quit. And. That was my badge of honor. And I didn’t want to lose that. But at the same time, it was the dumbest thing I ever did, because if I have to outwork everybody, I like the idea about working everybody. Cause at some point it’s a competition, but the biggest mistake I made was doing too much and thinking, as an athlete, you ever tell an athlete do less, what’s he going to tell you?

Ah, yeah, yeah. I’m doing more than anything. 

Mike: Yeah. 

That’s 

Ben: almost as a challenge to do more. Yeah, exactly. You’re saying I can’t do more. That was my Achilles heel, man. That was like, I was always overstressed and under recovered. And I had somebody said Take a day off because he realized, and after a contest, when you took a couple of days off, you looked so much better, you spent some time in bed.

It’s not just about spending time in bed. It’s I read into all my programs and I read parasympathetic days, meaning what are you doing today? Go get a massage, go to the beach, go for a walk outside, get some sunshine, listen to some music. Calming music, like no sympathetic arousal, right?

Ideally. And I write that into everyone’s program because like you have to schedule it. Cause if you don’t schedule with people, they’re not going to do it, especially type of personalities. Totally. So I usually write in an hour in the morning of parasympathetic or even 30 minutes usually try to do an hour before bed.

And we can talk about that too. The idea of I’ve built this framework on the night. Yeah. How to do that. And then once one day a week, there’s no sympathetic stress. Like you’re not allowed to go for a run. You don’t know what to go for a walk. I can go for a walk now at the train.

Ideally like no caffeine, no blue lights. I recommend 

Mike: very, something very similar in my books, just as a standard. I try not to get too prescriptive about it, but same concept is no vigorous figure physical activity, 

Ben: no roller coasters. Yeah. No, as much as it sounds silly, like it makes a difference.

Mike: I know. So what’s your pre sleep routine? You mentioned owning the night. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Mike: Two hours eliminating 

Ben: all blue light. I think that has been the 

Mike: biggest, no screens, no 

Ben: TV. Yeah. That’s been the biggest difference maker for me is minimum two hours. And that’s yeah. Television, cell phone. What do you do instead?

Computer read or both my children. Like the idea of connecting with human beings, what a novel concept, so I often try to bring my team over. Like I try to bring some people over once a week for my, my, my team. And yeah, we have dinner and we connect and we laugh and there’s no cell phones. That probably makes a big difference.

Yeah, I’m just feeling a sense of community, it makes them feel better. It makes me feel better. Everybody has a positive attitude, bringing kids over to play with my kids. And if it’s not them, it’s, it’s my wife or it’s whoever, but learn how to connect with people. And if you can’t connect, read, like challenge your mind and you’ll find it’s easier to fall asleep.

Your sleep is better. It’s all framed around that. Only the night includes I guess I liked, it also includes minimizing food intake two hours before bed. It includes, the sleep environment. So obviously I understand getting rid of EMS cold, all that cold. Yeah. All those things, so it’s all this framing that I’m creating in the book and the book is framed around six foundations of a lean and muscular physique.

And these things that I’ve decided over the last 20 years are probably the most important, it started off with a list of 12 or 15. It was like all these things that I thought were somewhat important and I was able to narrow it down because obviously. Being able to focus on things is important, but sleep and stress are both on that list because if you don’t change those, the likelihood of you, no matter how hard you work, you get it.

Yeah. Like you’re not going to, I’ve lived it. I’ve lived in the last year and 

Mike: a half. I’ve told guys that, at the office, I was like, in a sense, I feel like I was a little bit lucky that I had a stretch there of four years or so where I could just, I could push myself hard in the gym and then work.

12 to 14 hours work right up to the point of going to bed. I would go to bed at 1145 and I would wake up at 6 30 every day for my alarm. My alarm is 6 45 wake up myself every day. Just, and I was a robot in that sense. And I was able to make really good progress. 

Ben: Your sympathetic stimulus was probably minimized outside of work and.

The gym, right? Cause if that’s all you got, that’s pretty good. If there’s not a whole bunch of other things like lack of sleep and kids, and even the kids screaming, this is a dad, even if they’re crying cause they’re hungry or cause they poop their pants, that’s still stress. Totally. Like you’re still getting a massive amount of sympathetic arousal.

And if you living in there, that’s that state all the time, you’re not sleeping well, you’re not recovering well. Like your body can’t grow. And this is what people mistake, right? Everyone thinks the first thing you ask somebody, the first thing they respond when they say, Hey man, like, why don’t you think you have the body you want?

What’s the first thing everybody says? Yeah. Nutrition. Yeah. It’s not nutrition. Nutrition is a big thing, but it’s all these other things that are playing a role. Like I think everyone would agree if you’re sleeping really well and you’re not stressed, your margin for error and your nutrition is way better.

If you’re training really well, your margin for error, your nutrition is way greater, right? Like I can eat a little more freely if I’m training really well and I’m less stressed. Yeah. Yeah. But if I have high amounts of stress, now my nutrition matters way, way more because I have to make sure that I can’t get any, I can’t get five calories more than my macros.

I’m getting fat, but if I’m sleeping well, if I’m not stressed, all these things, okay, now I can eat a little extra. My body’s actually going to grow. It’s going to build muscle rather than adding fat. Wow. What a concept. So I think that’s the biggest mistake people make in their life is like, Oh yeah, it’s my nutrition.

It’s not your nutrition. It’s this, some of the parts. And I think training is the foundation of all of it. 

Mike: Yeah. I’ve been very conscious of my nutrition, not so much from a body composition standpoint, but more just from a, cause again so it’s been about a year and a half with my sleep going, good, bad, good, bad.

And, but I don’t want to, I was okay with skipping some workouts here and there. If it really wasn’t a good night of sleep, I figured this is just not going to be productive. And so just not train as much as I enjoy it, but I skip a day, but also what I wasn’t willing to do is just let all of my routines go.

Fallout. Like I still, so I wake up early, five 36 or so my late would be six 30 and then I like to read. So I have an infrared sauna. So I go in there for 30 to 45, maybe 60 minutes, spending what time I woke up and I read and and then I’m to the gym. So for you, if I’m skipping the gym, if I’m starting a little bit later, I still want to do that.

I don’t want to, I want to do my work. I’m not willing to let everything go to shit. You know what I mean? And so I was very conscious of my nutrition just to support the training that I could do and support it. Yeah. The other I do want to be productive. I, even though my body might like me to just sit around, I know I’m not doing that.

And so for me, I know that helped just by how I felt, it 

Ben: may have 

Mike: been a stress 

Ben: because people don’t realize that nutrition can be a stress to whether it’s a psychological stress Oh shit, I’m missing my meals. I’m not eating really well, but it can also be a physiological stress.

Like I’m eating crappy foods. Nutrition is very important. Like I don’t want to underplay it at the same time. It’s not the end all and be all that people believe it is because you could have a nutrition perfect and still get fat if you’re stressed and you’re not sleeping well, I don’t care who talks about macros because macros is a big piece, but if you introduce those other stressors in there, Your ability to digest and absorb those foods changes based on hormonal profiles.

So there’s a lot of considerations there that people aren’t making. And I think it’s easier than they realize if you give them a framework around which to frame it. So the six foundations, like I say, 

Mike: I like it. You mentioned transitioning in terms of your identity, because you’re a bodybuilder and that, that was you for 20 plus years.

And now how has that been stepping away from that? And then are you at a point where now you’re feeling like you’re finding a new identity or you’re there or what’s that like? So for 20 years, 

Ben: I was, the better part of 20 years, I was single mindedly focused on this goal.

Like I said, that was who I was and that was everything I did. And maybe I shouldn’t say that’s who I 

Mike: was, but that’s what I did. Yeah. By definition then, I think we probably are in many ways, what we spend our most of our time doing is a reflection of who we are, whether we. I think it’s just reality.

Sure. 

Ben: Yeah. And then when I decided to remove that, it’s still, it’s only been two years. It’s still a Struggle to find your exact. Cause I’m a very goal oriented guy. Like I said, I got to have a very clear cut objective and I don’t, I feel like I’m meandering through life and I’m like doing a lot of shit, got my hands in a lot of things, got a lot of irons in the fire, but I want that one thing that like I can cut away everything else that I haven’t found it yet.

And so it’s an interesting transition, man. But I tell you the beauty of it for me is it’s been, it’s so much less of an external journey and so much more of an internal journey. So I think at every point in everyone’s life is there’s a Particularly men, I can’t speak for women, but for men, most men have this innate desire to accumulate things, right?

Whether it be money or in my case, muscle or whatever it is. And you’re, cause you believe you’re going to accumulate these things and it’s going to make you significant. It’s going to make you feel better about yourself. You’re going to transcend the proverbial mountain, but you get to the top of the mountain, you’re going to accumulate.

And whatever it is, and you realize it’s empty and hollow and lonely. You were climbing the wrong mountain. Yeah. Or you get there and you’re like, Oh shit, it’s not what I thought it was going to be. So you start looking around and you start climbing back down the mountain and you’re less concerned with these material things.

And for me, it was this muscle thing. And I started realizing that, okay what is it? And for most people growing up, and I think it’s part of the journey of being a human is there’s this need to accumulate external things this external journey. And then when you transcend the external journey and hopefully everybody does in their life, it becomes an internal journey.

Like you realize that the real journey in life is finding yourself and finding peeling away the layers of the onion of this person that you think you are, or the person that you’ve become based on the scenarios you put yourself into and actually finding who you really are inside.

And there’s a lot of value in that, right? It’s thinking about the reality that. The person that you are now, it’s not necessarily who you are inside. It’s the person you become as a result of reacting and responding to the situations you’ve been subjected to. You wanted to receive love as a child.

So you acted a certain way to receive more love. You didn’t want to receive angry parents or, some type of negative response. So you didn’t do certain things because you knew your parents were going to react a certain way. And then you started asking yourself is that me? And that’s the journey now is trying to identify the things that I really believe are my inner essence and remove the things that are contrived.

It starts for me with forgiveness forgiveness for the people that have maybe done things to me that I believe to be negative or have framed my life in some way that’s made it harder for me, quote unquote, harder, the story you tell yourself. Yeah. But this is a really cool journey, man, where you start just looking back and unraveling layers of the onion and going, why am I the person I am?

And why do these things set me off? And why am I angry about this? And why am I happy about that? And questioning everything you thought, about who you are in your life. And that’s really where I am. And I think once you find that in your essence, you can find what brings you joy. You can find who you are and you can truly be yourself with the people around you.

And I would have never realized these things had I had not gone through what I did as a bodybuilder. Had I not had my. 

Mike: Amazing children. And what does that mean for you in terms of goals now? Because being a very goal and you’re not, I can relate to that. Yeah, I’m just curious as to, 

Ben: I’ll tell you one thing.

That’s been the hardest thing for me and I haven’t been too transparent with this, but I think I should be after having left professional bodybuilding where I was on the highest stage in the world, competing in the Mr. Olympic contest. That’s a very blatant external goal and it’s very motivating to go, I’m going to get the best guys in the world.

I want to be the best. And then now transcending that. Yeah. And not having an external goal physically, it’s very hard to train at the same level without having a specific goal. So my, my training has been much less challenging, much less goal. It’s there’s nothing there. I can relate to that. I was never on 

Mike: your level, but even just previously where I was just more numbers oriented Hey, I would like to hit, these benchmarks and worked toward that, but then.

With stress and things where I’ve now the last year and a half, my training, Ben, I’ve been, I felt like I’m just trying to keep up. I’m just trying to not fall backward. And I can relate to that where it’s, it is a bit less enjoyable. I still do it and I still have good workouts, but it’s different.

I 

Ben: don’t even know if it’s less enjoyable. I actually think I enjoy it more. But don’t work as hard because they don’t have an objective. Like previously when I was competing every day needs to be the best workout of my life. Otherwise I was down on myself. Like I failed. Now I actually get to do what I want to do.

I have no attachment to the outcome. And I’m like, Oh, I actually like doing this, but I’m not working as hard. Cause I just I don’t need to I don’t have any reason to, and I’m trying to find it. But. Maybe I don’t need to, maybe unconsciously I just need to let it go and do what I want to do and have fun and look good and feel good.

And, but it’s challenging, man, especially to eat well all the time. I do eat well all the time, but it’s not regimented, like you say, because I don’t have a reason to goals wise. I love the idea. And, I relate on this man is living in the world, a better place. And I have this amazing.

Platform where people follow me and listen to what I say. And I want to leave the world a better place. And I think I do that by leading by example and teaching people that it’s okay to be this big, muscular human and still treat people with love and respect and kindness and lead this next generation of young males and females in the fitness industry by being a great parent, by being a great man, by being a person of integrity, by being a person of discipline and show all these values that we have.

That I have inside that some people are afraid, I think, to let show, right? Like it’s okay to be a loving guy. It’s okay to be a caring and thoughtful person and still have this big masculine persona. So I think for me, it’s there’s something in there. And again, I don’t know exactly what it is, the more people I can get to love their body, I had this conversation with somebody yesterday.

Most people train their frame, their training around anger and fear and like running away from something. But why not turn it into love and running towards something like love your body, connect with your body, feel your body, get to know your body. And I want to try to create that message for people.

Like it doesn’t have to be about, I’m pissed off at somebody. Therefore, I have to go work out harder. It was like, it doesn’t have to be. I go to the gym because I have to, you don’t have to do anything. Let’s we get to, so how do we learn to frame, create that framing of positive reinforcement? Then you’re literally, every time you contract, mostly you’re bringing love into your body rather than bring hate into your body.

And that’s an abstract thing for people to think about, but Now, if I’m, if every time I go to the gym, I’m framing it around, I hate this person. I don’t want to do this. 

Mike: Or maybe even just I know just, of course, this working with a lot of people where it’s more of a self criticism thing.

Like maybe it’s not even about other people. It’s just I look like shit or, that’s why I’m doing this. I want to stop hating what I see in the mirror. 

Ben: That’s exactly what I was saying. It’s maybe they’re taking that even deeper with their training, because if I’m framing my exercise around, I hate myself or hate this exercise or hate being here every time I look at my body, that unconscious thought of hate comes in I didn’t like that work.

Like I didn’t do good enough today. How about flipping it around and doing man, I did well today. Like being grateful for that. Maybe that’s an opportunity for you to anchor love and joy and achievement accomplishment and do it more and more every time. Cause Hey, I feel good about this. Hell yeah.

Let’s celebrate that set. We did great on that set. Yeah. That shit’s important, man. As much as it sounds woo and convoluted no man, like it so I do this with all my clients is I let, I try to get them to remember a time where they had a sense of achievement or accomplishment.

And every time they’re having a bad day, I’m like, Hey, remember that time when you had this happen? I’m like, yeah. I’m like, go there in your mind for a second and now let’s go do our set. So we’re anchoring our positive emotions rather than these negative angst, anger, and have to type of emotions. And I think it’s a big Peace.

And if we can start having people anchor happiness and joint training, and then thereby loving themselves, all of a sudden we made the world a better place. Cause if I love myself, how can I be mean to other people? Like it all starts there, and I think that for me, that’s the opportunity that I have in front of me is to be the voice for that.

Maybe the lighthouse in the storm where people are going to stop. Anchoring anger in your training and start anchoring love for yourself so that now we can love the people around us and love our neighbor and love our family and our spouse and our children. And there’s so much to be learned in there, I think.

And that’s where I’m trying to hash that out. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I can relate to that. Even just being appreciative of my body and what I can do with it and how good it can feel sometimes. Yeah. And that I’ve been, that has just. Struck me sometimes where I’m like, thank you, buddy, dude, you’re working well, right?

Yeah. 

Ben: You’re awesome. You’re in great shape. You’re a successful business guy. You’re a great husband and dad. Wake up and go, fuck. Yeah, I’m awesome, man. And it sounds I think that’s, 

Mike: I think that’s okay. As long as you’re going, Hey, other people can be awesome too. And other people are awesome. So it’s not about holding yourself.

If you can tell 

Ben: yourself you’re awesome, maybe. And you actually mean it, not from an egocentric way. Like I actually love this body, man. Like good for me. I’m actually stuck with what I said I was going to do today. Yes. I had the discipline and the self character or the self confidence to fall through this stuff.

You can, maybe then you could take that and give it to somebody else. Cause it’s hard, man. It’s really hard to go to somebody and go, dude, you’re awesome. And I actually mean it because you’re in a place of fear. And if you learn to love yourself, truly love yourself, it’s so much easier to go up to someone and give them a truly loving hug or go Mike, you’re awesome, I think that’s a powerful place, man.

And for so many years, I was very insecure in my body at 318 pounds. So I wasn’t comfortable enough going up to someone and going. Man, I did actually, but way more so now gosh, I know what you’re going through, man. I know what it took to get that body. You’re awesome, dude. And people take it from me now and they’re like, wow, like that guy was one of the best in the world.

Wow. That means a lot. So when I say it and I mean it like it’s special, and I think that may be an opportunity for me to help, lift the energy of the earth is just like telling people when I actually mean it, when they actually deserve it and they’re actually falling through things like dude, you’re fucking awesome and meeting it.

Yeah. Maybe a cool thing to spread some joy and love, man. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s awesome. I think you’re awesome too, by the way. And that’s something that it actually resonates with me because I’ve been aware of, I don’t give compliments to very many people and it’s not because I think poorly of them. I think sometimes some people will get that impression and I can understand them outside of listening in, But it’s not that at all.

I don’t know why I just, and I never, I’m not, I don’t go fishing for compliments either. So at least I can say that I’m not a hypocrite, but I like that because it’s, I’ve had to remind myself, even like at the office with my guys, I’ve had to be Thank you. Aware of that. And I’ve even put it on like my list of things to keep in mind, give compliments, man.

Don’t being a 

Ben: leader is a hard thing. It’s probably the hardest thing I’m going through right now in my transition. Yeah. It’s a hard thing, man. Because as a bodybuilder, I don’t have to lead anybody. I just be by myself. And if I didn’t want to talk enough to talk, but now you got to be like, you have to be the guy that people want to follow.

Totally. And that’s different. It’s new. Like you, you have to be on your game all the time and that’s mentally challenging, physically challenging, but I love it, man. I love the idea of having this amazing opportunity. To lead a new generation of awesome humans. And that’s what my framing of my podcast, right?

Is this new generation of awesome humans and a new generation could be up to 65-year-old men or women, like totally. If you’re trying to change your life, if you’re trying to become the best version of yourself this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to just become the catalyst for creating an 

Mike: awesome version of you.

Do you feel like you I feel like this, it seems like you have a desire to just do more, to have a bigger impact. And sometimes I myself feel like, what am I doing? I’m almost like I’m wasting my time. I should be doing more. I should be, if I try to assess myself.

And say, I clearly have certain skills and I could do things with these skills. And am I really putting these to the highest and best use? Am I really operating at the level that I could be or should be operating at in, in Jordan Petersonian terms? Am I really bearing the appropriate amount of burden or am I just cruising?

Because I can’t say that my life is hard. I can’t, 

Ben: I feel the same. And I think you’re becoming a good leader and that’s maybe where your growth lies, right? It’s like, how do you become the best leader? So that. Those people become followers of you, not in a bad way, but follow you to spread your message.

And that’s how you create a greater impact, right? Cause then you have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who are relying on you, but you’re bearing the burden because they’re relying on you to be on your game all the time to be this great. Inspirational leader. That’s a huge burden, man. Does that feel like a burden for you?

No. When we talk, you’re just using your term. I don’t think you feel it’s a burden 

Mike: at all. Yeah. Cause that’s where I thrive, man. I love that. I’m all about responsibility. And yeah, 

Ben: I love the opportunity to help people. I love it, man. I don’t take any stress out of that. I’ve got a gym and I’ve got, A very small number of members, like a hundred members who have this exclusive facility.

And I literally try to have my finger in everyone’s life and I’m like, Hey man, how can I help you man? Like, how’s your training? How’s your stress? How’s your sleep? What can I do to help you? And that’s a pretty awesome place to be. And then. That kind of transcends to this tribe of people online that look to me for some type of assistance in living their greatest life, live in their awesomeness.

Yeah. I do not love it. I think it’s great. And like you, I think it’s a beautiful thing that you don’t think it’s hard because perception is a big thing, right? If right now in your life, you’re like, oh man, I’m so burdened. This is so much stress. There was no more. That’s it. And that’s the same thing with training is like, how hard are you working?

I’m working hard. No, you’re not. No, you’re not. Yeah. Trust me. You’re not working hard. Come spend an hour with me. We’ll see if you’re working hard. You’re not fucking working hard. Nobody works hard. Yeah. Compare yourself to Navy SEALs. Compare yourself to, you’re not working hard. You’re doing a workout.

Yeah. So don’t hashtag. That was something that annoyed me 

Mike: about this sleep issue where I go, okay, so psychologically I feel like I feel okay, but physiologically, what is this? So this means that. This is the amount of burden that my body like, and this is where it taps out and it’s just that’s how it manifests is in sleep.

It’s nice to see that it’s resolving and I guess a little lesson I’ve taken away from it is to not let problems fester. I’m not that person usually, there’s a situation in particular that I don’t want to go into too much right now just because of the circumstances, but that was a festering problem that, and the reason why I allowed it to burn.

Persist for so long as I actually truly wanted to help. It wasn’t that it wasn’t that I wanted to run away from it. Smiling because we were living a very parallel life. Okay. So then you can relate to what I’m saying. And but you get into that place and I’m sure you’ve been there where you’re like, okay, you don’t know what to do anymore.

And then. Come up with a new plan of, you still want it to work. You still want it to, you still trying to be like positive about it and not let it bring you down. But that, that builds the stress of it builds, right? Because it becomes then a bigger problem.

And so eventually it was like, okay, now I’m done with this. And from that point forward. Yeah. 

Ben: And for me, the same thing, man. But my problem, if there is, if it is a problem is that I care about people. So rather than being, okay, I’m just going to chop this and let it go. Yeah. A hundred percent.

You’re like, oh man, how can we make this better? A hundred percent. I actually want you to like, anyways, we won’t get into details, but if you care about people, it’s very hard to let you, I always see the best in people, man. It’s my blessing and my curse, right? It’s no matter what you’re doing right now, I’m always going to But I know deep down in there, there’s somebody who’s, a great person.

They just need some love and some attention and some something, but yeah, that’s sometimes a blessing and a curse. See, I’m 

Mike: not naturally like that, but I was like consciously being that way. Cause I know that’s the right way to be. 

Ben: Prior to my bodybuilding career, I was never like that, but.

After this kind of awakening that I’m going through now, and I think that I really try to see the world through other people’s eyes and if I could see the world through your eyes, I can be more empathetic and historically, I’m not at all an empathetic person, probably the least, but like my highly disagreeable.

If 

Mike: you’ve ever taken 

Ben: my responses, shut the fuck up and fix it. Yeah. Don’t complain about something. That’s always been my response. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Get off your fucking ass and do it. But now it’s like, Oh maybe we could help them a little bit and maybe I can be the guide and maybe I can assist and help them get over this hump.

And I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but that’s the 

Mike: default now for now. I think it really, the results, or what works is what’s right in my opinion. So in some people that works and some people you can just say, stop complaining, fix it, you know what to do, but, and that’s right for that.

And some people that does not work. Bedros is someone who 

Ben: is here with us this weekend. And he’s the guy you want to talk to about that. Cause he’s been my business coach and he frames everything in his business around never allowing for 1 percent divergence. So if there’s someone who gets 1 percent out of line, you tap them back in line, nice and firmly.

And if they get it aligned again, You chop them out. And I was like, Oh, that’s it. And I need that. Yeah. It’s if you really want to run a successful business, that actually makes a difference in this world. Absolutely. You can’t allow for 1 percent divergence. And cause you know, the idea is you diverge 1 percent now, six months from now, where are you at?

You’re way over here in the tangent. And then you’ve created a big turmoil, which is probably what it sounds like. You and I have both allowed to happen. Yep. And it didn’t speak so much bigger than need to be like, it could have just been dealt with right away. And stupidity, ignorance, love, what do you want to call it for me?

I was like, I was trying to be caring and try to take care of people, but it ends up coming back. Kicking in the ass. 

Mike: Yeah. This is a great talk. 

Ben: Thanks Mike. Yeah. 

Mike: Where can people find you and what, where’s your hub? Yeah, 

Ben: I’m building my hub right now. Okay. Since having retired from bodybuilding, I’ve shifted my business quite a bit.

So the hub will be muscle intelligence. com. Cool. They can also find me at MI 40. If they want to. Look up M I four zero and my 40 nation. com and Ben Pekulski. com. And I’ve also got the podcast, which is currently muscle expert. com or certain muscle expert and muscle expert. com, or we’ll be changing very soon to something that’s a little more all encompassing, like I relate.

This is not just about muscle. It’s about some other things. 

Mike: So yeah. Evolving your brand. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Appreciate you, man. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

This not only convinces people that they should check the show out. It also increases its search visibility. So And thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won’t miss out on any of the new goodies.

Lastly, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscle for life. com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

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