The legendary Ulisses Jr. on his biggest lessons learned

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Hey, this is Mike Matthews from musclefullife. com with another podcast and today I’m really excited to have Ulysses Jr. as my guest. If you read any magazines or if you visit any websites or Do anything and pay any attention to the fitness industry at all. I’m sure you know exactly who he is. I mean his physique is really nothing short of legendary at this point.

He’s a muscle mania world pro, super body pro champion [00:04:00] winner. He has done covers for every magazine you can name. Travels around the world doing all kinds of tours and events and is a super nice guy. Thanks for taking the time to come on the podcast. 

Ulisses Jr: Oh man, it’s a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

I’m really wanna, I like to connect with the fans and connect with the people. So I, I think this is a good good opportunity for us to reach even more fans and for people to get to know me even better. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, totally. For those of us that don’t know, so how did your journey, to where you are today, how did that begin?

What was the, 

Ulisses Jr: what was the genesis? I’ll be I’ll be giving an indication of my age, but to be honest with you, I started into the whole fitness industry by accident, to be honest. It wasn’t something I was set out, I get a lot of emails from fans that, want me to critique their physique because they want to be a fitness model.

When I started, it was more I wanted to gain some weight, I have African heritage. So I was just, usually the scrawny African kid and the skinny African kid, when we went out for any sports, I was fast. [00:05:00] That was ridiculous 

Mike Matthews: to think about. Like looking at you now, that’s a ridiculous idea.

Ulisses Jr: So my coach was always like, you need to put on weight, you need to work out. And it was drummed in my ears so many times. So I was like, okay, I’ll get I’ll go to the gym and I’ll start. And then really I just started working out really just to gain some weight. I remember asking questions about what should I eat?

What should I do? What should I do? What should I take? All the big guys I saw walking around and and some of them would stop and give me some tips and some of them would be like, oh, just train, and I was just. More, a bit annoying to them, I just persevered on.

I just kept going and I think that’s how my journey started and within a couple of months or so, I started to see results. I wasn’t getting massive, but it was just, I was getting a fuller pump. I was looking slightly bigger, so you know, the confidence went up and I just kept doing it.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s cool. Along the way, what were, what are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced in achieving your fitness goals? And how did you overcome them? 

Ulisses Jr: Some of the biggest challenges, obviously, [00:06:00] first I was a hard gainer, so I think The number one thing is really, training is great, but I think the number one thing I would advise, I would give to anyone starting out is to learn about nutrition and learn because I think if you don’t know anything about nutrition, you’re just training to train really, you’re not going to maximize your potential.

So you need to learn about nutrition along with. Different training methods and, it’s a trial and error and see what works for you because what works for me may not work for you. But at the same time, the more you know, I think knowledge is key. I think the more you know, the better. So for me, I think the number one thing was learning about nutrition, learning about supplementation, what to take, your recovery, your regeneration process because that’s when you grow.

That’s when you see results. I realized that early that you don’t grow when you’re in the gym, you actually grow when you’re outside the gym. So the number one thing for me was, okay, and how does that work? Okay. Nutrition is key. So I was like, you know what? I need to learn as [00:07:00] much about nutrition as possible to aid me because, it’s one thing to have great genes and to have the work ethic and to be there all the time.

But if you’re eating like crap and your diet is not good, then that wouldn’t, that wouldn’t work. So I think that’s the number one thing. A lot of 

Mike Matthews: people, a lot of people fall into that. I fell into that. For quite some time where I didn’t eat, I didn’t eat bad food. I eat nutritious food. I wasn’t really a junk food person, but I didn’t understand, how I was training wasn’t optimal, whatever years ago, I didn’t really know what I was doing.

But on the dietary side, I didn’t realize that, that nutrition boils down to, it’s a game of numbers. Now, of course, eating nutritious foods, your body needs vitamins and minerals. That is important. But, there’s a certain amount of calories that your body needs to build muscle and that, that’s going to be different than somebody else.

Metabolisms are different. So basically what I fell into, and this is the I speak to many people that fall into this rut. Is where they’re eating they’re not eating enough to, to lose fat. They’re not restricting their calories, but they’re also not eating enough to [00:08:00] maximize muscle growth.

So they just sit in this rut. Plateau zone, right? Yeah, eating just enough to just stay how they are. 

Ulisses Jr: Correct. Yeah, I feel you on that. You hit it right on the nail. I think, to have a great physique and nutrition, like you said, it’s all about numbers. It’s a certain number of calories you need for your body to just exist and maintain a certain amount of calories you need to build muscle mass.

So you, when you look at that, you need to be able to understand, okay, I was just talking to a new client the other day. It was just like the average man should have about 2, 400 calories and blah, blah, blah. And I always have to tell them that the average man, when they consider the average man, they’re not considering someone that trains four times a week.

Someone that’s, doing maybe CrossFit or someone that’s doing any kind of, powerlifting. They’re not considering that. They just consider a normal guy. So when you take into that. When you take into account the, what you do and the exercise you do and the amount, the amount of times you tax your [00:09:00] body in the gym, you need to make sure your nutrition matches that, your supplementation matches that.

And, when I actually sat down and, broke it down to him, he really understood. You could see him light up. So I think a lot of people are missing the fact on that. I think once you get a grip around nutrition. You will see how your training will just excel and the results will just come, really.

Absolutely. 

Mike Matthews: And it’s also there’s, the whole clean eating thing is very trendy right now, which there’s nothing wrong with clean eating, but just because you’re eating clean doesn’t mean that you are going to lose fat or build muscle. It what does that break down to in terms of protein, carbohydrates, fats?

And there’s like a book I think that’s at least it was popular at least a month ago. I don’t know if it still is. There’s like the calorie myth or something. So it’s trendy right now to say that to be contrarian and say calorie counting doesn’t work or calorie counting isn’t the key.

When, yeah, it is like how it breaks down in terms of protein, carbohydrates and fats. That’s important as well. Of course, if [00:10:00] you were to. Drop your protein intake to a hundred grams a day and but keep your calories the same that would cause problems. Yeah, Exactly, but it’s you still have to it does boil down to Energy in that you’re feeding your body versus how much you expend I got a lot of people they don’t quite understand that because a lot of misinformation out there, 

Ulisses Jr: Yeah, I think you actually absolutely right way on the same page here energy expenditure has to be taken into account And and you need to know based on your body, everybody has different metabolisms, different body types.

Different ways their body processes or metabolizes, the nutrients they take in. You have to know what works best for you. At their general consensus across the board in terms of, what you should have and how you should eat clean and yadda, yeah, that’s fine. But in regards to everybody’s goals, and everybody’s goals are different, whether you’re a powerlifter or a bodybuilder, or whether you weigh your 6’1 240 pounds as opposed to 5’10 185 pounds.

Everybody has different goals. Different amount of calories that they need to eat, and you [00:11:00] need to learn that as soon as possible to improve your results and improve your physique. 

Mike Matthews: Yep, yep, that’s very true. So what’s like a challenge that you’ve faced on the training side of things?

So let’s say so you had to learn the nutrition side, what about along the way, like what training issues have you run into? Yeah, 

Ulisses Jr: with training it’s really, for me when I started and then I started getting serious about training and competing. I think the number one thing is balancing my physique and making sure my physique look balanced.

Now you get guys that maybe have big quads or big arms and yadda, yadda, yadda. But it’s, for me, I want to be complete. I’ve always strived on being complete. Don’t care about being 240 pounds, if that was the case, I would have went down that route before, but that don’t, that doesn’t interest me.

I think the more complete you are, the more impressive your physique looks and then you can be impressive at 185 pounds and nothing wrong with that. You can be impressive at 190 pounds, you don’t have to be 220 to be impressive, or [00:12:00] 240. And also, it’s all about proportions. So I think that was a challenge for me to obviously, you know As a young guy training, you don’t, when you start out working, you tend to neglect certain muscle groups like legs.

You don’t want to hit that, and back. Yeah, and back. What 

Mike Matthews: is deadlift? Deadlifting is bad for you. I’m not doing that. Yeah, 

Ulisses Jr: you don’t get an 18 year old that’s oh man, I want to go deadlift. I’m dying to do legs, but they want to bench press every day. So it’s one of those things that I think the difficulty was learning.

Not only the nutrition aspect, but in terms of the training, there’s learning how to balance my workout to make sure I treat every muscle group and give them the same attention. And if I had lagging muscle groups, I wanted to make sure I prioritize that in terms of priority. Prioritizing your training.

Correct. Yeah, all of those tricks I’ve used and they’ve worked enormously well for me. I think that’s that’s one of the challenges. And the [00:13:00] other one would probably be like, People seeing that you have great potential and good genetics and probably want you to, maybe use enhancements and stuff like that, I, I got told so many times that, I could be so much better if I just did this or if I just did that, I think that’s a bit troublesome.

So you get young kids that probably a great prospect, but Before they hit 21 or 22, they’ve messed up their physique and then they messed up their body by, going down the route that’s probably not suited for them at that age anyway. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree. And then, just commenting on that, you’ll see, you’ll have a lot of people I guess a lot is maybe generalization, but there’s definitely a fair amount of people out there that, are on various types of drugs, and, they’re not open about it.

And then the advice that they’re giving, they don’t it’s I personally, I don’t care, people do to their bodies, do whatever you want with your bodies, but, don’t give other people that are like are not on drugs the same advice They can’t do the same thing that someone that’s on drugs correct.

Ulisses Jr: I mean they can’t 

Mike Matthews: train the same They [00:14:00] can’t depending on what drugs the person is taking they can’t eat the same So I think that’s the big disservice not that somebody is somebody it’s their body and who cares they can do what they want But it’s when they so that’s the only thing I don’t like about that.

Ulisses Jr: Yeah. To each his own. Don’t get me wrong, man. I have a lot of friends from New York that compete in those leagues, which are fine. I have no problem with that. I go to shows and expos in those leagues and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s still 

Mike Matthews: impressive what they do. Yeah. 

Ulisses Jr: It’s still hard work and you still have to do it.

I think when when you’re giving advice to, to, to young kids, and I call them kids when you’re 20, 21 and, you have that great And there’s a lot of people that, have a lot of potential because maybe you’re bigger for your age and you look great and everything. And you’re being told that, if you did this and that, you’d look like that.

I think it’s, I think it’s a bit misleading. And a lot of people giving these advices are not really pros. They’re usually just your regular low level trainers at a gym really. And and they, they want to be gurus in a sense. So they start giving advices to kids and these [00:15:00] kids, if they see these guys have, a decent physique, they just follow it.

So I just, I, when I talk to fans and I actually go out of my way to answer questions like that from my website all the time. Just because I think if I can stare one or two people, one or two kids away, and you’re like, look, when you’re older, you’re a grown man, and 25, 26, and you want to decide what you want to do, then that’s up to you, but when you’re a teenager, look, just train and eat right and learn about nutrition.

I think that’s the key. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree. And then, being informed. I also get a fair amount of emails. It’s not super common, maybe just because of my crowd or whatever, but I get, various people asking if they should get on steroids or if I’ve ever done steroids or what types of steroids to take.

And, it’s also, What a lot of people don’t realize is that yeah the dangers of steroids are overhyped and there’s truth in that, or at least certain types of drugs. There are other types of drugs that there’s just not enough research to, to really know what the long term effects are.

And if you look at some of the research that’s out there, it doesn’t look very pretty. Some I [00:16:00] always give the same type of reply to people that like, one, you don’t need it unless you want to become a freak huge and you want to be a professional bodybuilder competing in, in untested leagues.

It’s not necessary. The majority of people, they want to look good. They want to have, they want to be big. They want to be lean. They want to be able to go to the beach and look good. You don’t need drugs for that. You just need to eat right, train right, and be patient because even when you’re doing everything right, as If you take a new person and you put 20 pounds of muscle on him in his first year, that’s awesome.

That’s a really good first year. But 20 pounds of muscle on a, on someone that goes from a normal or skinnier type of physique, that’s noticeable, but you’re not, they’re not gonna be like I doubt that’s their goal. They’re going to want another 20, 

Ulisses Jr: what I mean? Yeah, correct.

It’s like you hit your goal, you always want more, you always want more. So that, that, that leads to more stuff and more stuff, to be honest with you. So that I always, when I looked at it, I was, 19, 20 and I looked at it and I read up on it and.

And, just side effects for me the negatives outweigh the positives. [00:17:00] 

Yeah. So 

Ulisses Jr: because of that reason alone, it just, it’s just not for me. Yeah. And I didn’t really want to go into it anymore, but like I said, like I have friends, I know friends that they, that you know that works for them and that’s good.

There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s there, that’s what they choose to do. And I’m not knocking it in any way. I just said, for me it’s just not my angle. And I think. Like you back to your question, I think when you look at some of the things you face or the hardship you face, you have to learn about your nutrition, you have to learn about the training methods, then, if you do have the potential and there.

You have to make sure at a young age you don’t get stared away into something else and you have to make sure so that there is a kind of, I wouldn’t say peer pressure, but there is a pressure there, when you go to these gyms. So you have to just be careful overall. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree. So now, what are some of your big sources of motivation at this point?

Beyond, okay, fine, looking good is great and obviously this is this is your career, but, in watching some of your [00:18:00] videos and just seeing the type of person you are, it seems like there’s more to just Oh, I just want to look good and I just want to make money, 

Ulisses Jr: yeah, no, I stay grounded. That’s one. I think there’s different sources of motivation for me at this stage, obviously, I feel like I’ve reached the pinnacle in natural bodybuilding. And, I feel like, how do I continue? To inspire myself to be better. I think it’s the several things you have to have positive people around you.

For me, I have my family, and I work with some celebrities as well that are very positive, I learned from them how they’ve become so successful in what they do. And one of the first things I noticed is that success is people, successful people always have positive people around them.

Like a team of positive people that work with them to achieve one common goal, whether it’s to get them more publicity, get them more gigs, whatever it is, they work as a team and they have a positive unit around them. So I’ve always had that from my wife and kids to my extended family, they’ve always [00:19:00] been positive in what I do.

And supportive of that and and then my clients and celebrity clients that I work with, I’ve always been positive. I’ve always been true and loyal to them. I don’t really, I’ve been contacted many times to sell stories of people I’ve worked with and I’m not interested. So I think I stay positive or, and by keeping positive people around me and making sure I don’t.

I have any negativity around me. I think that’s that’s kept me motivated. I’ve always, I’m always hungry, I always want to get better. I don’t get complacent. I set goals, whether they’re small goals or not. I set goals, I achieve it, and then I look for the next, I look for the next obstacle to tackle.

And that’s how I’ve always done. Whether it’s from doing one show, to a second show, to get my pro card as a natural, to win in the universe and win in the world. title twice, and it just, I just keep going and that’s one aspect. And then I also have, I’m a personal trainer, I have a degree, I have a degree.

I also have four other, four or [00:20:00] five other certifications underneath my belt. I’ve been doing this for quite a while being a regular trainer is great. Getting into management is another thing, and now I’m a PT director, I run a The biggest gym in Europe, which over 8, 000 members and, Reebok sports club.

We have a basketball court, swimming pool, restaurant, spa, everything here. So it’s really good. And that aspect of my career as a trainer it’s awesome. I trained celebrities and all the top bankers here because it’s situated in a banking industry. So it’s brilliant. So I do that aspect. I do my bodybuilding and appearance aspect.

And then I also have my website now where I. constantly motivate, these young kids coming up to, to really train and, and put good quality products out there so they can look at it and say, look, I’m not just giving you a one day diet to go try or just try this chest workout.

The stuff that I do in terms of my programs are like 25 pages e booklet on training. You got the program. You get the diet plans, three phases of diet [00:21:00] plans, three modes. I count everything, we count, everything from protein, carbs, fats, to fibers, to sugar. Everything is itemized on my program.

So I give quality stuff to my guys and I think that’s why I’ve Had such a huge fan base because sometimes when I look at it, I’m just think like, where do all these people come from? . But I think it’s just that, look, I try my best to reach out to my fans. I try to even do social media chats, once a month.

Yeah. And and so I can talk to people and just say, you know what? And they’ll ask me questions, whether it’s my stats, they wanna know about my training, they wanna know about. So I think overall I just try to be a positive person and have. Positive people around me. I think once you do that, you would excel in whatever you’re doing.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree. That’s that like you said, that with people that succeed in all different types of fields, and sometimes that, the insidious kind of nature of negative people and to me, negative people aren’t just people that are maybe not chipper or not necessarily some people are just more cheerful than others.

Yeah. But then you [00:22:00] have on the other side of the coin, you have people that put you down or try to criticize you in different ways sometimes covertly, where they’re not going to openly say things that are, they’re going to try to work against you and as a friend, quote unquote, so you’ll have a lot of that stuff out there that you really have to watch out for.

And at least in my experience, as you start to do better in life, you’ll find that more of those people will come to you. Yeah. And, try to do that to you. I’m also, I totally agree with that. Where I’m, I have a lot of people that I’d say acquaintances.

And, speak to people I know. Hey, what’s up? See them around. But I’m much more picky with the people that I spend a lot of time with. Not that I really have that much time and I’m always just working anyway and I spend time with my family But you know if I’m gonna do something with people I I’m pickier with my inner circle I guess you could say 

Ulisses Jr: yeah.

Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. I think you’re absolutely right I think we hit it right there on the nail The number one thing is to create a positivity or around yourself And make sure you have the right people around you to be [00:23:00] supportive because if you don’t, no matter how hard you try, someone’s there to bring you down.

So if you have positive people there that’s all about being positive, all about supporting you, all about pushing you forward, then I think I think it’s a good thing. You’re in the win situation there. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I agree. And I think it’s also you’ve probably experienced this as well, just being, just the way that you are and that you want to give back to people and you want to motivate people and you want to help people.

Not and being humble and just not okay, so things start, to get better and better. People, I find that you can get in that position where your attitude becomes much more important, where you can create, if you were to behave differently, you would be creating that negativity, but you can also bring out that positivity in people just by how you are, correct. Absolutely correct. Yeah. Okay. So what are, for the readers here, what are, we talked about the importance of nutrition. So that’s like a big fitness lesson that you’ve learned over the years. Yeah. What, what for you is like a big lesson in terms of training?

Like [00:24:00] how, Over, obviously how you’re training now is going to be a bit different because you’re just like, like you said, you’ve reached the pinnacle and you’re fine tuning your physique would you agree with that? 

Ulisses Jr: Yeah, I would say that. I still think I still have a little bit of window of growth there, I’m in my mid thirties, I’m thirty six, so I think, I have a little bit of window there, but for the most part, I think pretty much up there.

So what would you 

Mike Matthews: say to somebody that’s newer? That like, how did you train to, to get to where you are now? What’s like a big lesson that you’ve learned in, in terms of the lifting side of things? Or the cardio? 

Ulisses Jr: In terms of the lifting side of things, I think it’s, like I said, number one, one of the number one key Advice I’ll give someone is consistency.

You have to be consistent with whatever you do. Because consistency leads to progress. And, if you’re not consistent, the progress will not come. So that, that, that’s one. The other thing I do in terms of, what’s led me to where I am, I look at things very differently. I think a lot of my friends at the time, they just wanted to get big.

[00:25:00] Simple as that. Whatever way they got big, they want to get big. I looked at it more you know what, I do want to get big, and that will come as I get older. I’m not worried about that. But I want to look right. I want to look impressive. So what I did was basically quite simple. I always had an eight week program, eight or twelve week program, and my thing was more on the aesthetic side, everything has to balance, everything has to look very impressive, because if it does, I’ll look bigger, I’ll look impressive, and that would, I would, I’ll be able to, create that illusion, because everything just looks so well placed.

And that was my philosophy around things. So I would assess my physique and say, okay, for the next eight weeks or 12 weeks, my shoulders is small, so guess what, I’m gonna prioritize my shoulder. And shoulders would get hit twice a week for the next 12 weeks. And then when I got to the end of that 12 week, that three months or two, two or three months.

I’ll assess my physique again and say, wow, shoulders look, is looking good. Okay. Now I think my calves [00:26:00] needs to come up. So basically every three months there was some muscle being prioritized. Yeah. To balance my 

Mike Matthews: physique. Yeah, I talk about this. I’m going to be releasing launching another book soon and I talk about this.

Like weak point training, exactly the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. You only can do so much because you can’t just crush your entire body three times a week. Yeah. Exactly like that. And, 

Ulisses Jr: and I was doing this, mind you, I was doing this 15 years ago. A lot of people never even thought about that.

They would just be like why are you doing that twice? Yeah. The last time You were hitting triceps twice or the last time you were hitting hamstrings twice. I don’t understand. Why do you switch it? And they used to, back then, like 15 years ago, they used to think I was, I just didn’t know what I was doing.

It was a bit funny, actually. 

Mike Matthews: Now they’re joked on them. 

Ulisses Jr: Now it’s weird, because now you hear about prioritizing, prioritizing different muscle group, weak body part training and stuff like that. I’m like, man, I was doing this long time ago. And and I was at, and people thought I was crazy then.

And wow, it’s so funny how now people are looking at that and be [00:27:00] like if I want to be aesthetic, I need to do that. This is something I did like way, way back. It was good. I think that’s what’s made my physique more balanced to where it’s at. Because even to this day, I still analyze my physique and say, Okay, I need to hit this body part twice for the next three months because I have a show coming up next year.

So I need to balance my physique even more. I know it looks good, but now I’m splitting hairs. You see what I’m saying? So now I’m splitting hairs, but that’s fine. I still, it still works to be done. Back 

Mike Matthews: to the goals that you’re talking about. You got to have You don’t just want to go in the gym to just move the weight around.

Yeah, 

Ulisses Jr: so that yeah, exactly. And so that was one of my secrets. So now I’m giving you a lot of my secrets. The other secret that I had was, about, hypothephy, it’s all about volume, volume training, et cetera, which is great. And aesthetics is good, but I also wanted to build strength.

So what I did every. Time I worked out it was two things every time I worked out I had to incorporate a [00:28:00] strength move in there or compound move So if I’m doing back as a deadlift if I’m doing legs squat has to be there if I’m doing chest benches there if I’m doing You know shoulders military press, if I’m doing arms, a proper standard heavy barbell curl with the Olympic bar.

So I always had a strength power movement within my workout on each body part that I did. So that’s also one of my secrets. And then not only 

Mike Matthews: did I That’s exactly not only how I train, but it’s exactly like in my books. Oh, 

Ulisses Jr: I see. That’s interesting. And I didn’t even know. And then on top of that, now I would do four sets, sometimes five.

Now, what I wanted to make sure, even though I went for four, I love training higher reps, 15 reps and all that stuff, but I always make sure I had one or two strength sets in there. And when I say strength sets, nothing more than 10, usually six to eight. So basically in my mind, I was getting the best of both worlds.

So two sets would be proper strength sets. 

And 

Ulisses Jr: then the other [00:29:00] three sets I’ll go for volume. 

Okay. So 

Ulisses Jr: that’s how I balanced it and it worked great for me. It really did. And to this day, it does work really good. So I incorporate some strength in that because I always felt like too much of one thing is not good for you.

It’s always good to mix it up a little bit. So whether sometimes it was one set I did, that’s fine. If it was one set I got in there, proper strength, six reps, eight reps, that’s good. But I did my standard 12, 15 reps, which was good. So I got the volume, but I also got the strength. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s great.

I think that’s a big mistake that many new people, new guys make is and girls too is lifting is not incorporating any of the heavier compound lifting and instead just focusing on higher rep, especially isolation stuff, which, you’ll see in magazines or whatever. And the bottom line is you’re never going to build a big chest by doing 20 rep Drop sets of incline dumbbell flies.

It’s just not gonna happen. Correct. If you want a big chest You’re gonna have to get [00:30:00] strong on your presses and there’s just no way around it And the same thing goes like you say for the back, you know If you want a big complete strong back, you got to build up your deadlift if you want good legs you’re gonna have to get strong in your squats and if you look at it like Have you ever seen, I’ve never seen someone, maybe the Olympic guys, but those are the freaks of all freaks, where someone that can deadlift 500 pounds is a big, is big, that person is not, a little scrawny, you just, you can’t, there’s only, your body can only be.

Take on so much weight. Yeah, and it can also, it only can, the muscle fibers that have can only contract so forcefully until it has to add more. If you’re adding weight to the bar over time on those big compound movements, your body is going to grow. All that goes back to nutrition, of course, assuming you’re eating enough.

It’s just like one of those simple little truisms that you’ll see in great physiques that people like you and, even Arnold way back in the day, he started with powerlifting. Yeah, 

Ulisses Jr: yeah. Compounds of, you have to go back to the basics. I always think that. I [00:31:00] think that’s vital. So compound movements Standard.

It has to be in every workout. It’s in every one of my workouts. And then you have to incorporate a strength set in there where you go heavy and push yourself. Because one, I figure it’s two things. The benefits of that obviously is stimulating growth hormone release. which is, which is vital for strength training.

And the other two, the other thing for me, I thought, I did that over the years. I’m going to build muscle maturity really good. And it’s really helped me with muscle maturity. I’m 36 now and muscle maturity. I’m not your typically I’m 200 pounds. People in my pictures, they think I’m like 220 or 230.

But I’m not really on a good day, I’m 200. Sometimes I’m like 195 or 198. So it’s crazy. I’m 

Mike Matthews: 193 right now. So when people see me. I’m not, I’m only 8%. 

Ulisses Jr: Yeah, they don’t believe. They usually, they ask me to stand on the scale and I do and they’re always like, whoa, that’s crazy. So I believe what I’ve been doing with the strength sets and the volume that I’ve been, that I’ve [00:32:00] been doing has really helped.

my physique to build that muscle maturity to a point where I look a lot bigger, but I’m not. And I think that’s key. And I get the best of both worlds, plus I prioritize my training. And I think if you’re able to do all of these simultaneously within a program and follow that throughout, a year, two, three, you’d see great results in that.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I totally agree. I the book that I’m wrapping up is written specifically for advanced weightlifters, people that have their first year or two under their belt. Yeah. Newbie gains are long gone. And yeah, it’s a periodized program that’s laid out very similar to that, where you’re doing some very heavy, almost powerlifting style stuff, and then you’re doing some middle range rep stuff, and then you’re finishing with some higher range.

And, it’s a standard. That’s good. That’s really good. Yeah, people, that’s out there among the more informed people in this world. That’s the standard kind of style that you’ll see so that, yeah, I totally agree. That’s cool, bud. Yeah so what what are your plans from here?

Where what’s in Ulysses [00:33:00] future? 

Ulisses Jr: My plans, look, I think I’m always trying to evolve. I’m always trying to get better. I’ve been approached to do some acting stuff, which is something I’m looking at, really. And that’s been really good. It’d be fun. Yeah, I think that’s good.

But I actually, to be honest, what I want to do and what I think I’m going to be doing is setting up seminars and training camps and stuff like that. So I can really inform people and talk to, the young generation about training, about nutrition, and I’m looking to do that and set that up.

Actually, I have a few dates set up this year for that. So it’s great. I think I’m going to start with that first. Because Transcribed For me, I just like talking to the fans and talking to the masses and letting them know, if I can inform, several thousand or hundreds of thousands of people to train right, to have proper diet, proper nutrition, then, what I’ve learned from others, I’ve I feel I’ve, feel justified in passing that on in a sense of, I’m giving back and that’s my way of giving back.

So I think I’m going to be organizing a lot of seminars and a lot of different muscle camps and training camps, [00:34:00] different, and not only in the States or in Europe, but worldwide, whether it’s Australia, India, everywhere, I’ll just go and probably do that. I think that’s one. And then I’m looking into obviously the entertainment angle as well.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’d be fun. Cool. So you said you mentioned that you have a few products that you sell on your website Yeah, tell us about those real quick. 

Ulisses Jr: Yeah right now currently I released my get mass program Yeah, get mass is great. It’s a 28 page E booklet that basically, breaks down everything.

It has the workout programs on there, it has stretches on there that you can stretch, pre and post stretches, it has diet plans on there, three different diet plans for three different weight classes. It covers, try to cover pretty much everyone and everything is detailed and itemized.

And I take into account your sodium, your fiber, your sugars, everything. So it’s actually really detailed. It’s not like just writing you and telling you to eat something and here you go, [00:35:00] eat some chicken. 

Mike Matthews: Six, six meals of chicken. And this 

Ulisses Jr: is not even pre contest. This is just your normal, healthy.

Yeah. Plan for you to gain weight. The difference with my plan though is that it has the supplementation in there. So in regards to taking the protein, when to take your protein, whether it’s where isolate or concentrate, all of that is in there. It tells you the different aminos that helps as a building block for building lean muscle mass.

If that’s in there, not only have I done that, I also have supplement advice. So each one of those supplements have pretty much give you a description of them. And why it’s important for you to take it so you can read about it. That’s also be outlined on there. So you have the supplement advice.

You have stretches in there. You have cardio program in there. Cardio and abs is also included in my mass program because it’s lean mass. And cardio abs in my mass program is mainly as a daily maintenance. So it’s not a lot, but it’s enough. There’s, there’s three cardio programs on there, so it’s actually pretty good [00:36:00] for you to alternate.

Now, some people might use it more, some people might use it less, but it’s still informative. It’s still there and it’s great. The other thing to. The Get Masked program, I shot a video series, the training video series on that, because it’s a four day split program, 

okay. 

Ulisses Jr: So it’s two days on, one day off, two days on.

So you do basically Monday, Tuesday, you rest Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday. Rest on the weekend and then repeat it again. Ah, cool. Yeah, so it’s great. I shot the video. Not only can you buy the e booklet on my website, but you can also subscribe on my website, and when you buy the e booklet, you automatically get the videos for free to view them.

If you have 

Ulisses Jr: any questions, you can see exactly what I’m talking about. You get an 18 year old that gets the program, wants to work out, but doesn’t know what Pullover is this or dumbbell pullover so he can go on the video and look it over and it’s good I mean my method of training and stuff, it’s it might be different from the norm, you know For example, I have a finisher and all of my [00:37:00] programs a finisher would be where you know to stimulate muscle growth Obviously you have to fatigue and break down the muscle fibers and that’s why I have the finish on there It’s really just a Totally exhaust the muscle fibers and break them down and it’s just one giant set of maybe 50 reps on there So it’s actually pretty good at a comfortable weight But you want to make sure you either do 50 reps or you fatigue and go to failure before you hit 50 So it’s actually really good It’s good.

It’s very informative. Over 28 pages. It gives you everything from stretches to the program to the diet plan to the supplement advice all integrated within the diet plan and it’s pretty good. So far it’s been gotten great reviews from the fans. They love it and and, and they give me great feedback on it.

Mike Matthews: That’s great. And so people can find this at your website, right? Which is 

Ulisses Jr: Yes, which is www ulysses world.com. So that’s ulysses world.com. I also have my, go ahead. Everybody know? 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So they know how to spell Ulysses. It’s U-L-I-S-S-E-S? 

Ulisses Jr: Yes, correct. Spelling, [00:38:00] my name is U-L-I-S-S-E-S. The URL is www.

getglutes. com and in March I will have my Get Abs program coming up because I get so much requests on that. And also for the women, I didn’t forget them, I’m going to have Get Glutes coming out. So it’d be great. And my Get Abs will have a his and her diet plan. So it’d be women can purchase that, which is great.

And it’d be very informative. Again, it’d be over 20 pages of real detailed information for the fans. So for me, I just want to inform people in the right way. And that’s the most, most important thing for me. I’ll have that all available on the website in March and and then hopefully Be able to have, get shredded out by the summer so everyone can get that, which would be great.

Mike Matthews: Cool. That’s great. Yeah, keep me posted on products. I can, we could 

Ulisses Jr: Definitely. And I also have other videos on my website, so if you subscribe on my website, you get to see the videos. I actually do two articles a month on my website. I have one on training and one in nutrition, whether [00:39:00] it’s an article on grains, whether it’s an article on, on, understanding the core, training the core.

I have articles on there about, so many different things. Preparing for fitness show or bodybuilding show. So even when I won the muscle mania world in November last year I did an article on my contest prep for the show and that get hits all the time Everybody liked that article so all that so not only you get articles on there you get videos on there You get pictures on there and it’s great.

So people subscribe and get all the information they can. I even have a sample workout there for free that people can get and just, use it as one of my programs. But I do, I’ve done over hundreds of programs for people. So it’s great. 

Mike Matthews: Awesome. 

Ulisses Jr: Good stuff. 

Mike Matthews: Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone definitely I obviously check out the website, all kinds of good stuff on there.

So I definitely recommend anyone listening to go check it out. Definitely bro. So to wrap up here, is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners? 

Ulisses Jr: I think for me for the guys listening, guys and girls listening, I think if you want to get fit, you [00:40:00] want to, stay healthy, you have to be consistent, you have to, you have to be relentless, you have to train and learn about your nutrition, learn about different things.

Training methods that might work for you, and you have to implement that and be consistent and be patient. I think is the main thing. Be patient with your training. See it out. Make sure the program you’re doing, you finish it. Don’t stop in the middle and get discouraged, it’s, it’s one of those things.

And also I 

Mike Matthews: think don’t hold yourself like, don’t try to just say as a goal oh, the goal is to look like Ulysses. That’s the goal. Like you’re starting from nothing. Okay, that’s fine. That’s like a, that’s a big goal. That takes a lot of time. Because some people will get discouraged, and after a month, I’ll get people that will write me and they’ll be like, Oh, I only gained six pounds in my first month.

Like I thought it would have been Wait, you gained six pounds, and they’ll be like, I only gained six pounds and like my body fat’s the same. But I just doesn’t look like that’s really good. When you see. As long as you’re making progress in the direction, whether it be gaining muscle or whether it be losing fat.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: If, you should see [00:41:00] small improvements every week. And those small improvements over time add up to something big. 

Ulisses Jr: Exactly. I think you, I think me and we hit it right on the nail when we talk about things. Because I always tell people when I started, it wasn’t about, oh, I wanted to look like Arnold.

Or my guys that I like were Frank Zane and Serge Nobre, right? And I didn’t want, obviously, yeah, I would love to look like them, but I always just told myself that, you know what, I’m going to just train and see how I look when I get to 25. 25? Okay, I’ll hit it to 30. 35? Okay, 30. That’s how I did mine.

And what I did every year was set small goals, small achievable goals. And by the end of the year, I look back and say, wow, these small goals have actually led to, this amount. Wow, that’s great. I never looked at it like You probably 

Mike Matthews: have that in your life too, you know what I mean? You set all these little goals, not just physique, but in your work, and then you look back on a year, you’re like, oh, I actually got a lot done.

Ulisses Jr: Exactly. I started off as a floor trainer, getting paid six pounds, six dollars an hour, at New York Sports Club. And then, now I’m running One of the [00:42:00] biggest department in fitness and in a PT gym. So it’s one of those things where you have to set these small goals and, and gradually chip away at it, and don’t, when you have some, you have to be realistic because when you’re not realistic, then you get discouraged and be like, Oh, I’m not going to get there in this.

Don’t think about how you’re going to look in six months. Don’t think about how you’re going to look in nine months. Think about how you’re going to look in five years. Yeah. That’s what you think about. Then you don’t worry about anything. You just keep going. And that’s it. Exactly. 

Mike Matthews: You know what I mean?

And it takes the anxiety out. And as long as you are making a little bit of progress every week. Yeah. Or every two weeks. Yeah. Then you’re on your way. Definitely, brother. Yeah. Totally agree. Alright. All right, cool. Thanks a lot for taking your time. I’m sure everyone’s gonna everything we went over.

So I’m sure we’ll get a lot of good feedback. 

Ulisses Jr: Yeah thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure, man I think you guys have an awesome platform here for people to learn About training and nutrition and I’m just happy to be part of it to talk to people To use this [00:43:00] platform and reach out to people.

So I really appreciate you guys having me on and I hope we can get a chance to chat again.