Men get inspired to take care of yourself and identify obstacles to making it happen
This show’s guest is Body Builder and Fitness Guru Andrew Steven Rose. His specialty is men’s health through nutrition, training, hormone optimization, and overall lifestyle changes. He believes you have to take care of yourself so that you can help others… “We can’t draw from an empty bucket”…
RESOURCES
- Visit Andrew Steven Rose’s website vanguardbarbell.com
- Visit Andrew Steven Rose on Instagram
- Listen to Andrew Steven Rose’s Podcast on Spotify
- Subscribe to Andrew Steven Rose on YouTube
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Listen to this episode on iTunes
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Intro Snip
00:01:54 What does Andrew Steven Rose’s future look like in the sport of bodybuilding?
00:06:07 How does bodybuilding, as an individual sport, require support from so many around you?
00:07:24 What are the big differences in diet and training for powerlifting verses bodybuilding?
00:11:40 What is the “cost” of bodybuilding; what toll does it take on family life?
00:15:20 Does the discipline of bodybuilding carry over into other parts of your life?
00:21:55 What made Dr. Haley interested in weight training and body building?
00:31:15 What did arnold schwarzenegger mean when he said “if you want big arms, you have to have a big chest. But if you want a big chest, you have to have big legs?
00:34:54 When do you recommend hormone replacement or treatment for those you coach?
00:35:51 What are some of the signs and symptoms of low hormone levels or “Low T”?
00:41:14 Can Yohimbe increase testosterone levels?
00:43:01 What is the Benjamin Franklin T-Chart and what does it have to do with hormones?
00:46:45 How can men in their 40’s likely relate to “Mr. Incredible”?
00:48:11 What do some of your clients success stories look like?
00:51:40 Why should men put themselves first more often?
00:59:12 Who should take creatine?
01:00:10 What supplements should people take?
01:02:26 How to contact Andrew Steven Rose and does he offer remote coaching?
TRANSCRIPT
when you look at this from a fitness perspective, if someone comes to me and they want to lose body fat, they want to build some muscle. It’s not always as simple as fix their diet and train really hard. Because if your hormones aren’t where they need to be, I can’t fix that.
There’s nothing I can do that’s going to fix your hormones. There’s no. And this is where I kind of get on my soapbox about the supplement industry. There’s so much B.S. when it comes to supplements of, like, oh, this is a testosterone booster. It’s all crap.
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.
Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Dr Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr Michael Haley, the show host. And today’s guest is bodybuilder and fitness guru Andrew Steven Rose. His specialty is men’s health. Through nutrition training, hormone optimization, and overall lifestyle changes. He believes you have to take care of yourself so that you can help others you can’t draw from an empty bucket.
Andrew, thank you for joining me today. I checked out some of your content, and one of the things I came across on YouTube was you posing in a bodybuilding competition looking awesome. My goodness, you are in shape. Thank you.
Yeah. So are you still pursuing that? So, I started competing in bodybuilding back in 2014, and, I took probably about a six year hiatus because I was at the time, I lived in Pittsburgh.
I had just opened a gym there, and it just, it kind of lost its luster for me. And I
moved to Charleston, South Carolina, maybe ten years ago this December, and I was introduced to powerlifting. So I powerlifting for about six years. And I don’t know what happened. I kind of got the bug and I was like, you know, I haven’t competed in a really long time.
I kind of want to know what this all looks like. So, that was back in 2021. I came out of retirement, so to speak. And, my intention was to do one. show I just wanted to do one show and then call it. Well, one thing led to another. I won the whole show. The promoter came up to me and said, hey, there’s a national show where you can qualify for your pro card so you could become a professional bodybuilder in two weeks.
And it just so happened that that show is in Pittsburgh. So I got to go back home. So I did that show, did pretty well there, didn’t win. And I did it the next two years. And then I took a couple years off and, you know, I have a business here. I own a gym here in Charleston, South Carolina.
So I had bought this, in
2022? Yeah. Early, early 2022. I bought the gym here. You know, put a lot of time and effort into my coaching business as well. And, you know that
my son’s eight now. So it’s one of those things where life is kind of picking up. Outside of the gym, so to speak.
So I said, you know what?
let’s make this the final run. And so I’ve actually got a show, two shows lined up, five weeks from now. So August 23rd is the first one that’s here in town. And then I fly back to Pittsburgh to compete on the 28th of August. And, the goal is to, to win my pro card, and, and that’s it.
So,
now, I guess this is the first time I’m saying this publicly. I’ve said it to some people or, you know, close to me, but,
if I don’t win, I’m just going to call it be done. I’ll still body build, but I won’t compete. I’ll still train the way I train and eat the way I train.
But, without burning the bridge, though, just in case. No. Don’t burn that bridge You never know. You never know. That’s. So that’s what if your son says, come on, dad, compete next to me on the stage. And that’s, you know, that’s the, there’s some outliers there that could get me to step back on stage for sure.
You know, and then one of the things is, you know, to become a professional in any sport, it takes a certain amount of effort and a certain amount of sacrifice and time
and talent, obviously. But, you know, my ultimate goal back in 2014 was to compete as a professional. So,
having that qualification and then not competing as a pro kind of leave something unanswered.
So,
when I come back and I’m going to say this here and now, you know, whoever’s listening to this podcast, I would like them to listen to how I say this. When I come back from Pittsburgh with my pro card, because I’ve already won it in my mind. Yeah. Then I have the decision of, let’s find a show that I can compete and maybe win some money.
So that’s, you know, that’s where I’m at with it now.
I’m in the thick of it. I was just talking with one of my members in the gym. Who’s getting into bodybuilding herself, and she’s asking how things are going. And, you know, I’m five weeks out, so
we’re in the dark part where, you know, basic everyday stuff becomes really difficult.
So,
even today,
I’m scheduled for a podcast and I made sure that it was later in the day. But, you know, this morning,
it was rough this morning. Be honest. It was,
it took me until about two hours ago to wake up. And I get up at 4 a.m..
So it’s been, It’s been a hell of a day. So it’s, you know, bodybuilding isn’t something, it’s a very individual sport. But at the same time, anybody that’s around you, whether it’s, you know, a husband, a wife, a partner, even close friends and family, like they have a huge role in it, too. We were talking about that in the gym
of the support crew that you need around you.
It’s like people circle around you, you know, and
that to me is such an important part is if I didn’t have people in my corner of this,
it’d be a really
dark journey, I should say. And it would be really hard to do without support. I absolutely, completely agree with you. I get it.
How much of it is diet and how much of it is training?
Well, I’ve said this for a long time, even if outside of bodybuilding. Right. So but you know, since we’re specifically talking about bodybuilding, I would say 85 to 90, 90% of it is diet. Now, training, is always a constant. But, your training does adapt over time. I’m,
having a little bit of a powerlifting background.
I love to lift heavy. So I to I would probably change
if it was powerlifting instead of bodybuilding, right. Just say portions. Well, for instance,
if bodybuilding is, you know, 90% diet powerlifting might be 90% training. Yes and no. And it really with powerlifting, here’s what I love about powerlifting.
Is that when I remember the first time I went to a powerlifting meet, again, coming from bodybuilding,
when you see competitors at a competition, you know where you’re at,
you know, the competitors look like what I loved about powerlifting from the moment I started is every different body type, every body shape.
Height, weight. It’s all there. Age ranges. And
it’s a sport that realistically anybody can do and do pretty well now,
you nutrition whenever it comes to training nutrition is always going to be the biggest component.
It’s probably I wouldn’t say
it’s, you know, in direct opposition, you know, going from bodybuilding to powerlifting, but it is a little bit,
toward the middle, right, like maybe 60/40, maybe even close to 50/50.
Diet is not as important. You can eat a lot of food in the
first powerlifting competition, I went to, it was in Columbia, South Carolina.
We drove up the night before and, you know, you go through your weigh in and they check all your gear, and then we all went to dinner
and ate pizza and drank beer.
So to me, that was like, wait, this sport’s awesome. The night before competition, I’m having a pepperoni pizza and drinking a couple of beers with my friends. Yeah. And, you know,
in that sense, it’s a little more laid back when it comes to nutrition. Counting calories rather than nutrients. Correct.
You know, and there’s
that adage of, you know, mass moves mass, right? So, you know, the more food you can eat, the bigger you can get. You know, it’s
not about how you look, I should say. So, I joke about power or bodybuilding rather.
it’s not about how much you lift.
It’s about how much you look like you can lift. Because people think like, wow, you must be really strong. You know, as I get closer and closer, you know, and I will always say this bodybuilding is not a healthy sport. There is nothing healthy about it. The act of building muscle, the act of training and eating well, and
adding that into your life.
That part is healthy. But when you get to the competition side of it, there’s not much that’s healthy about it, especially at the very end. It’s, you know,
you’re getting down to single digit body fat to where
it hurts to walk because there’s no fat in the bottoms of your feet anymore. It hurts to sit because there’s no fat, in your glutes anymore.
It’s, you know, it’s a very, you know, and I think more and more people are talking about it openly.
for a great deal of time, even when I started, it was that there is certain topics when it came to bodybuilding that were taboo. We didn’t talk about it. You talked about it like privately.
I talk about it openly, especially with, I like that. Well, that’s why you’re actually on this show right now. Perfect. I love that,
you know,
I refer to them as the kids, you know, the younger guys and girls in the gym. It’s, you know, I didn’t have. And I’ve always said this, I wish I would have had this gym when I was a teenager.
This place didn’t exist. So,
these kids coming in that are training now that are learning
and they love
to work out. They love to train. And so when they ask questions, which is difficult sometimes for me, if I’m in the middle of my own training session, you know, I’ve got kids coming up asking me questions about this, that and the other thing, and I’m always going to put down my headphones and answer the question because, you know, I want that environment here.
I try to teach them as much about the reality of it as I can, the good, the bad and the ugly. And I think it’s important, you know, in any sport, not just bodybuilding, but, you know, sports that require extremes. Let’s talk about the truth. And it’s, you know, and I’m learning this this year in a way that I never have, this sport has a cost, and it’s not financial.
You know, it’s I’ve got, let’s say my son is eight, and,
he’s going through some stuff as an eight year old and it’s one of those things I was talking with his mom about this,
and I actually have to sit down with him in the next couple of days we were just talking about this earlier today.
And explain what I’m going through. He’s old enough to understand. He’s really smart kid, but like, why isn’t dad here when dad is here? Why is he just like. Because the next five weeks, I just. My bucket’s empty, right? We talk about drawing from an empty bucket like
I not, can’t remember who I had this conversation with the other day.
No, it was his mom. It was. That was my son’s mom. And she’s seen, like, she’s seen me go through competitions before back in Pittsburgh, but we, you know, we’re not married anymore, but we’re super close because, you know,
we have a son. So she doesn’t have to interact with me on a daily basis.
So having not seen me in this space for a while and I told her, I said, I’m not in a good mood. I’m not in a bad mood, I just am. My affect is very flat, so don’t misinterpreted. I’m not angry like, I’m just trying to get through the day. And it’s really like
the cost.
As I’ve gotten older, but the cost has become more, because there’s more things in my life. I have more stuff. I’ve got the gym, I’ve got members, I’ve got my clients. You know, when you and not everybody trains, and approaches bodybuilding competitions the way that I do. It is a hobby, right? As a as an amateur.
It’s a hobby. But I treat it as though it’s job. And when you get so far into it and that’s your sole focus.
There’s no balance. So you drop a lot of things. And it’s this part is terrifying. This time around, because I’ve got so many other responsibilities that are growing that I’m having to neglect.
Over the next month. And then when you come back off from the show and you’ve had a few meals and now you’re drinking some more water and you’re back to normal, you kind of have to pick up the pieces a little bit. And it’s, that’s part of the reason why, you know, I was talking about making this my last,
Yeah. The last dance, so to speak, because
the cost is getting really high. There’s a trade off in everything that we do, and especially in the area of professional sports, I like to look at health from a perspective of survival of the fittest. Now for my customers, patients that are fighting cancer, their survival diet is going to be very cleansing and very detoxifying.
But that’s you’re not going to win a cage match on that diet. It’s a different diet. I like to look at it from survival of the fittest. And I understand what you’re saying, that, you know, you’re not carrying any fat. You can’t even, you know, it hurts to walk. A survival of the fittest. You’re going to need some fat for some sustaining energy.
So
I’m hearing you that it’s not the healthiest sport. At the same time, the there’s trade offs that work in a good way for you because you have to master your diet. You have to not cheat. And when you learn to live without cheating and to be that dedicated, it crosses over into other areas of your life.
Do you find that to be the case? Absolutely.
I use a lot of the concepts. That are integral to bodybuilding on a day to day basis.
we’ll talk about diet and. I eat and this is what I preach to all of my clients that I work with, all of the athletes that I work with.
When we build their diets, we build it around whole food. We build it around as much nutrient dense food as we can. I remember, not that long ago,
a gentleman that I’ve known for a few years through powerlifting community, he reached out to me and he wanted to hire me as a coach. And the first thing I do when I bring on a new client or a new athlete is as I just kind of take an inventory of what they’re already doing.
And I had him write down
his diet. I said, don’t change a thing. Just send me what you’re eating now. And what he sent me was, there was I think there was four meals,
in his day. And only one of them was real food. The other ones were, you know, protein shakes and protein bars and things like that.
And I said, whoa, this is this. I was like, this is easy. This is a super easy fix. We’re going to just and and the thing was, for him, we were able to do a couple things. We got him eating more food and it was real food. And the amazing thing was, I guess what happened with his body?
Oh, he liked it. So it’s, you know, those, those concepts. And even though, you know,
especially the very end of a bodybuilding diet, and this was just last Friday, you know, send check in photos to my coach that I work with, twice a week now. And last Friday, his response to me was, all right, we’re pulling carbs.
So up until that point, I was eating upwards of 250 to 260g of carbohydrate per day. So my calories were close to 3000 calories a day, with a third of my total hydrates. Right. And people look at me like, what? Really? Like. Yeah, absolutely. Now at this point, the carbs are gone. So
obviously that’s the unhealthy, but we’re just trying to strip off the last of the body fat.
But, you know, up until that point, my diet was really well rounded.
When you eat healthy food, when you eat good whole food and you’ve got fruit in there
you’ve just got real food, you don’t have cravings for crap food. Yeah. You know,
I love cheeseburgers, I love bourbon, you know,
I love food, but I haven’t had a drink, and I think two months, maybe three months. I haven’t had a, you know, a cheat meal. I can’t tell you when,
I don’t crave it. Right. Yeah, I’m with you on that. And
The reason I am confident is that there is, this year more than ever, my diet, even before I started my contest, but my diet was, I would say, 90% was just real food. Whole food, you know, fresh food.
as much as a joke about not liking veggies, you know, vegetables and fruit, and the highest quality meat that I can get,
and this is what I preach to my clients and athletes
is if you can put the best quality, it’s like having a V8, you know, I used to have a Dodge Challenger, a big old Hemi V8 in it, and you had to put the expensive
gas in, right? Because that’s what it was designed to run on. And the way I approach it with myself and with,
the clients and athletes that I work with is you’ve got a V8. We’ve got to give it the best fuel possible. And when you do that, your body will respond, you will get healthier, you will feel better, you will move better.
You will have less inflammation.
I joke about this all the time.
my tagline, so to speak, is it’s not the science of rockets. Yeah, yeah. My son, is he driving a challenger or a charger? I don’t know, my 22 year old. But that is something where it has the RT after it, which I guess is the racing technology used to take it to West Palm Beach and the drag strips before they closed it.
And he used to love doing donuts and stuff like that. He made a he made a video. Don’t try this at home. Anyone. He he made a video out in front of my office here and, doing donuts around a Christmas tree while my other son dressed like Santa Claus, was hanging the lights on the tree out the window.
Absolutely nuts. That sounds like a fun video, though. It was. It was something. It was neat. It was pretty cool. Yeah, that’s the problem with those. Those cars definitely make you do stupid stuff. Because you can, you have to be able to control yourself, I guess.
And I remember teaching him how to drive and saying, okay, you know, and
I taught him some things I probably shouldn’t have, but I would point everything out, like, you know, when we go around this corner, looks notice there’s no bumps, there’s no speed bumps, there’s no curbs.
You know, if something goes wrong, there’s room for something to go wrong. Right? And, I know that he thinks like that before doing any stunts. He’s been all right. He’s been safe. people, anyone listening, don’t try this at home. You’re ashamed of your podcast host, Dr Michael Haley, now teaching his kids how to drive recklessly. But they have a good time and they’re enjoying life.
There’s not. There’s a trade. There’s a trade off with everything right? Yeah. And that one so far the trade off has been buying car parts and replacing things. And they’re mostly tires, mostly tires. So you’d go through
those tires are not cheap. But good times. Well, you know, as, as we’re talking about these things, I’m wondering when being in shape became important to you.
And I’m going to go first on this one because I remember
I moved from Ohio to Florida and kind of popped in eighth grade, you know, as a new person in the school. And I was just a magnet for the school bully. And I won’t ever forget the one time I stood up to him, which to me was more of a matter of survival because the kid was two years older than me.
He got held back a couple of years. He was bigger than everyone, and I remember there was
no one around and he went to kind of throw a kick at me. And I got lucky and I kind of caught his leg and kicked him in the back
of his leg and then ran as fast as I can.
I was gone. But the interesting thing, he never stood up to me. He never bullied me again. But he moved on to the next kid that popped in mid-year and he started bullying that kid. And I made an immediate decision. I’m going to stand up for that kid, and he could probably take both of us, but I don’t think he knows it kind of thing.
So I realize at least there’s two of us, and this other kid was definitely not a fighter. I was not a fighter. But I decided, Mike, you got a get in shape. And I started going to the gym, and I wanted to get bigger and stronger
and be a man.
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What made you interested in bodybuilding and powerlifting?
Well, we’re going to go way back. When I was in high school and into college, I was actually a rower. So at the time, I weighed about 140, 145 pounds. Was not a big kid. I’m five foot six. So,
I went into that earlier part of my life as an endurance athlete. That’s how I ended up getting
into racing a bike because
It came pretty logically, you know, kind of racing a bike into running and, when I moved to Pittsburgh,
after graduate school. So it’s interesting. I was, recording a podcast earlier this week with someone else. And the question was, you know, how did you get into to training and to fitness and to, you know, bodybuilding and owning a gym?
And honestly, this isn’t what I wanted to do. I never I didn’t have aspirations as a kid or as a young adult of like, this is what I want to do with my life. It just happened that when I was out of graduate school, I actually went to school to be a teacher. I have a master’s degree in special education and I didn’t want to teach.
I got done with it and realized, like, I don’t really want to do this, so I needed a job. Now, I had trained in college, so I had some experience. So when I moved to Pittsburgh in 2008, I got
my first job in a gym as a trainer. I had no real idea what I was doing.
You know, because I had only trained in college, you know, I trained people at the school, so they weren’t really that serious. And I was there for not very long, I think I lived in Pittsburgh that stint for a little less than a year, and I ended up moving back home
I grew up two hours north of Pittsburgh in Erie, Pennsylvania, moved back home, got on my feet, moved back to Pittsburgh, and I was working in a different gym now.
And I met,
a lot of great trainers. One of my co-workers
was a bodybuilder. I worked out with him quite a bit now. I was still racing my bike at the time. Not as much, at that point, but it was still a pretty big part of what I did. And, you know, I was teaching spinning classes and doing all that jazz, and I was introduced to a guy in the gym named Matt.
Interestingly enough, with Matt, he’s a good friend of mine. He was my first bodybuilding coach. And for whatever reason, we haven’t had contact with each other for the last 2 or 3 years.
And I just reached out to him yesterday morning. I sent him a text. I said, hey, I don’t know what’s going on.
Even if I don’t hear back from you, I hope you’re doing well. Kind of deal. And we reconnected just yesterday, so it’s. I don’t think anything happens by accident, but, So Matt was a bodybuilder, at the gym, and he was. I mean, we call him Big Matt. That’s when you see him even now. And
I think he’s in his early 50s now. He’s I’m 42. Yeah. He’s either in his late 40s or early 50s. I don’t remember, but he’s still over 300 pounds. He’s enormous. So that was my first introduction to body Enormous. In a good way. You mean. Yes. Yeah. He mean he’s just,
So, if anybody that’s listening this or watching this, has any, memory of bodybuilders from the 90s and early 2000s was a bodybuilder by the name of Chris Cormier, and he’s long since retired. Matt sent me a picture, this morning. Now that Chris Cormier was one of the best bodybuilders
of that generation, Matt makes him look small.
Wow. Now he doesn’t compete anymore. He has a supplement company based out of Pittsburgh and great dude all around, but he’s really, you know, who introduced me to bodybuilding. And it was one of those things where
bodybuilding is the antithesis of what I was used to with rowing. Rowing is the ultimate in a team sport.
Bodybuilding, on the other hand,
it’s a very deeply individual sport. And I talk about having a support team and things like that. But at the end of the day, you’re the one that has to be on stage. No one else,
It was just one of those, you know, for me, every sport that I’ve ever competed in.
And I look
back at all of the sporting events and beyond sports, a lot of things in my life
can fall under the same umbrella. Here is. There
wasn’t a lot of moments where I gave 100% to something. You know, when I was rowing in college, I know I can look back and go, you know,
I had some ability,
I didn’t give it 100%. Same thing with,
cycling, I was pretty good, but I never went all in when it came to bodybuilding. Bodybuilding was the sport for me. Where?
for whatever reason, I was like, I’m going to push the limit.
I’m going to give it everything I can give.
and I think part of it, especially this year, is, you know, again, not to burn a bridge because you never know. But if this is the last time I do this, I don’t want to look back and go, what if I would have gone 5% harder? What if I would have been,
a little bit more diligent with my diet or my cardio or, like.
So it’s one of those, for whatever reason, bodybuilding was
that thing for me, that, I enjoy it. It’s fun. And I always said this, I’ll do it so long as it’s fun. And it was, you know, for me to be able to challenge myself on that level, I wasn’t able to do it with. And it was it, just so happened to me.
I think it’s one of those right place, right time things where I had a training partner and a guy that I worked with at the gym that was competing in bodybuilding. So I trained with them. I had no intentions of being a bodybuilder at the time. I just wanted someone to walk out with. And then, you know, he introduced me to Matt.
Matt kind of took me under his wing a little bit
and showed me the ropes, and he coached me for quite a few years and, my first few shows,
and it was it’s just a fascinating to me. It’s a fascinating sport. But it’s also,
it’s a it’s an interesting to me.
it’s a very interesting juxtaposition.
Right. Because it’s a not only is it a fascinating sport, but at the same time it’s like health wise, it can be very detrimental. Whereas like a sport, like, like rowing or hockey, like the health risks versus the benefits, it’s a little bit more balanced. Yeah.
I wonder if you ever thought about this though And I read a book by Arnold Schwarzenegger, probably in the 70s, and he said something like, if you want to have big arms, you have to have a big chest.
But if you want a big chest, you have to have big legs. And that made sense to me when I was in medical school in the early 90s, because as I started reading about hormones, it makes sense that the larger muscle groups create the most stress on the body, driving the hormones for the whole body. And I wonder if you really thought about that and made the connection that cycling and rowing really drove the growth of your body.
Preparing it for bodybuilding. I I have thought about that, and I’m very thankful for that because,
even now
at 42 and competing, you know, I will be competing against guys that are half my age,
and one of the things that happens as any athlete gets older, but when it comes to bodybuilding, specifically, the first body part that tends to atrophy is the legs.
And for me, I’ve been fortunate because of my background in both rowing and cycling, and one of my favorite facets of cycling is track cycling. So single speed fixed gear, like
your legs, are the brakes right? There’s no brakes on the bike. So if you’ve ever watched track cycling in the Olympics. Yeah, they look like bodybuilders on bikes.
Yeah.
and it’s definitely been a huge factor. And my legs are one of the elements that always have stood out.
And
I’m very fortunate in that because I don’t struggle to develop my legs where
some people have such a hard time. Because
Yes,
it’s largely genetic, but it’s I’ve been using my legs in sporting events most of my life, so it’s definitely played a huge factor for sure.
But
that goes into other parts of your body too. Like, you know, I like to look at some of even the women sprinters in the Olympics, the sprinters specifically. Not only do they have big legs, but they have strong shoulders. Even the women. And I believe it’s because those bursts, you know, those maximum
intensity bursts coming from the legs, creating the most stress and the testosterone, doesn’t
know Oh, just go to the legs to repair that. It goes everywhere. Right. And the whole body benefits. I mean, there’s definitely, you know,
we’ll look at your son’s car as an example. Right. So you take a powerful engine. And I used to joke about my car this way. I said, there’s way more horsepower than tire. The thing about it is, like when you have a big engine, you need other systems to support that big engine, right?
So you have a sprinter,
that has the power to generate that top end speed, but you need the rest of your body to account for that, to help create the speed and support the speed. You know, I think it’s a very natural that you’re right. Like, as you’re developing as an athlete, whether it’s a sprinter or a swimmer or, a basketball player or a bodybuilder, it’s, you know, you can’t spot treat where hormones affect muscle growth and development like it’s going to go where it’s needed the most.
Yeah, yeah. You know, on that subject,
some people might need a little help when it comes to the hormones. What do you recommend and what are the signs that they might need some help. And, you know, where should they go to be tested? And what’s your experience with that? I love this, I love this part of the conversation.
It’s my favorite part of being a coach at this point. You know, when I was 20, it wouldn’t have mattered the way it matters now. One of the first questions I and anybody that comes through my coaching program, I coach specifically, I work with men over the age of 35. And I actually don’t think I have anybody that’s under 40 at this point.
So everybody’s over 40. Obviously, as we get older, our hormone levels change. They drop. I describe it as, programed obsolescence. Right. We’re just older. It happens.
And there’s a lot of different signs and symptoms and people, I think for a really long time, they just it’s like, oh, I’m getting older. So yeah, I’m tired and, you know, storing a little extra body fat.
And I’m just I’m really lethargic and I don’t really have the energy that I used to. And like, my libido is not what it used to be. And all of those things I think
were just normalized. And so one of the first things I ask, any new client that comes in this is before they’re even a client, if I’m just having a conversation with someone, when’s the last time you get your blood work done?
And surprisingly enough, most men. I can’t speak for women because I don’t work with them, but,
I imagine it’s similar.
Most men say “I don’t, I don’t remember, yeah, a couple years ago. So I haven’t had blood drawn in probably 20 or 30 years. There we go.
And it’s one of those things where we wait until something is a huge problem to try to address these variables, when very often
it’s something that can be fixed quite simply early on before it’s a bigger problem later.
So being proactive about it
as opposed to, you know, reactionary with it. So the best thing to do and the thing with we use testosterone as an example, an HRT hormone replacement therapy, or TRT there’s a reference range, when you get your bloodwork done for
any hormone,
anything that we’re checking in our blood, there is a, a reference range, the normal range of something.
Right. Vitamin D has a reference range. So we’ll use testosterone as an example here. What we’re talking about, I believe the reference range here in the United States, this part is crucial because that number is different in other countries.
So the normal reference range for testosterone is 300 to. I believe it’s 300 to 800 nanograms per deciliter. So if you go right now and get your bloodwork done and your testosterone comes back at 305 nanograms per deciliter, you’re in the normal range.
Now, you could go to your doctor and say, doc, I’m feeling sluggish. My libido is just not there anymore.
I’m storing some extra body fat. I just don’t feel. I don’t feel good.
can we do TRT? Quite often. A regular doctor like that is going to go well. You’re in the normal range. You’re fine. Now, I always recommend that, you know, when I talk
with these guys, I say find someone who specializes in optimizing hormones.
Because while 305 is in the normal range, that is not optimal for you. If you’re presenting symptoms of low testosterone, that 305 might be low. When you were 20, your natural testosterone level might have been 1100. You don’t quite know that. So it’s really important to work with a physician that understands and listens to your symptoms. And I cannot stress this enough.
I’ve been working with the same physician here in Charleston since I moved here, and
when you go to your doctor and say, I feel like this, how can we fix it? The doctors get to do everything under the sun to try to optimize what’s going on in your body, to make you feel better, and go, how are you feeling?
And then we’ll retest those numbers in a few months and make sure we’re in the right spot. Because any time we manipulate a hormone, and when you manipulate
one thing over here, it’s going to affect something over here. So we got to make sure that we’re control is like if we’re adding in testosterone, exogenous,
we’re going to have to monitor your estrogen as well.
We’re going to have to take a look at,
your hematocrit,
your hemoglobin. And we’re going to have
to monitor what’s happening with your blood to make sure that ultimately you’re healthy.
Because if you don’t monitor these things, like you’re playing with fire, so you could do nothing at all.
And I think the reason I love talking about this stuff is because it’s not taboo anymore, right? It’s not. You know, guys aren’t just going and doing testosterone just to do testosterone. It’s I feel like crap. So I’m going to go and I want to look and feel like I’m 22, you know, I got kids. I got a job and a career.
I want to or maybe, maybe this is the best one. Your kids are grown and they’re out of the house, and you and your wife have time to yourselves that you haven’t had since you were in your 20s. And you want to do what 20 year old kids do, but you don’t have the energy to do it. Yeah.
So there’s really, you know,
when you
look at this from a fitness perspective, if someone comes to me and
they want to lose body fat, they want to build some muscle. It’s not always as simple as fix their diet and train really hard. Because if your hormones
aren’t where they need to be, I can’t fix that.
There’s nothing I can do that’s going to fix your hormones. There’s no. And this is where I kind of get on my soapbox about the supplement industry. There’s so much B.S. when it comes to supplements of, like, oh, this is a testosterone booster. It’s all crap. I did have success with one when I was in college way back, and I didn’t realize that.
Now that same thing is used for libido. But true story,
there was a health food store down the street and they were selling yohimbe bark, and it looked like it came right off the tree. I’d buy, the actual bark. Yes. And, you know, I figure, I don’t know, just, like making a smoothie might as well throw some in.
And, you know, you’d be picking the splinters out of your teeth after drinking your smoothie. But I got big and strong fast.
It was crazy. I had friends that were,
taking testosterone at the time, and I was taking yohimbe bark, and somehow it worked. Now, fast forward years later. I wonder what yohimbe bark Will do now.
Give me a headache.
But it wasn’t the bark, you know. I couldn’t find the bark. It’s something in made in capsules. And it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same experience? No, but at the time,
it was crazy. And I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to take. And we just throw a couple of spoons, a couple of handfuls of bark into your smoothie.
Yeah. And the texture was horrible. It was, you know, it was chewing wood, but it was pretty cool. The results. Anyway, I like how you use the word optimize hormones, because. Yeah, the 305, if that’s normal. But that’s not optimal. And here’s something I see, too. I’m a chiropractor, and there’s people that are slow metabolism packing on pounds.
Their knees aren’t working anymore, and their body is breaking down. And it’s probably because their hormones have tanked and it’s probably affecting their relationship. See
the argument the chiropractor in me would say, no, we’re against drugs. Everything has a trade. But the logic would say, yeah, but the weight is killing them. And it’s leading to cardiovascular disease, knee replacements and all kinds of other problems.
So
if you make a chart, I think it’s the Benjamin Franklin T chart, and you put your pros on one side and the cons on the other, you’re probably going to have more pros and cons,
right?
Yeah, 100%. I think it’s one of those, you know, whenever you’re looking at something like that and someone’s coming to you presenting these symptoms,
I use the coach that I work with right now as a reference because we talk about this quite often. You know, when you make a whether it’s as a physician,
as a coach,
as a mentor or whatever, when you make
a suggestion, if you’re a doctor, if you make a prescription,
you’re weighing the benefits versus the drawbacks, you know, is the benefit of this medicine.
Does it outweigh the drawbacks? And then,
you have to look at all of it. Right? You have to look at every single pro and every single con. This is why I tell people all the time it’s, you know, I can give you the answers, but you need to understand why you have to do some research, ask the question.
And it’s not as simple as going to a doctor and saying, you know, the doctor says, take this medication. A good physician, a good chiropractor, right? I’ll use my chiropractor as an example. He doesn’t just tell me what to do, he tells me why he’s telling me what to do and how it’s going to help, so I can then make an educated decision of, do I want to follow through with his advice or not?
And I think
any care provider,
you know, they should
kind of put those options out of like
here’s what your choices are. We can add this in and here’s why this will help. Here’s, you know, here’s some drawbacks. But I think, you know, if you do this, you’re quality of life is going to go up.
They’re going to move better. You know, your hormones are going to be in a better
spot. And you know,
you’re going to start losing some of that body fat. You’re going to feel better. Yeah.
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Yeah. The crazy person me, I’m 58 now, so, you know, I feel some energy changes, but I feel like I can still fight through them.
You know, I haven’t committed to making any,
changes by, you know, adding hormones or anything like that, but I kind of, before going that route, if I ever do, I do want to get tested, and I want to see if I can make crazy changes and affect hormone levels physiologically. And if I can’t, well, then I have to consider other options.
You know, I feel like probably like a lot of guys that could be listening to this right now. Have you ever seen the show The Incredibles? No, I have it all right. You got to watch it with your eight year old. It’s, you know, it’s a cartoon for kids, but Mr. Incredible, the superhero,
he’s a big badass.
Getting things done, saving people, saving the world. Strong as anyone. And this thing happens to where the government kind of shuts down all the superheroes, and they can’t use their super powers anymore. So he essentially retires from superhero duty and becomes an insurance salesman, and he gets fat and out of shape and just can’t do what he has to do anymore.
He’s not a man anymore.
He got weak. But something bad happens, and there’s. We need the superheroes. We need them now. And he goes through this, you know, getting back in shape. thing. And before you know it, he’s Mr. Incredible again. But it took some time. I’m wondering how many of your clients are like that, where they really were fit and they just let it go.
They come back to you
and
what are some of those successes look like?
that’s a great question. And, you know, honestly,
most of the clients that I’ve worked with, you know, and I market very specifically, to people. Who have either had some version of the ideal outcome, they’ve looked and felt a certain way at some point where they were close to it.
So they have a concept in their minds of what the end result can be. And I think, you know, one of the you brought an interesting point up, or one of the things that you said, it really it hit me pretty hard in it. It’s.
A very common theme among all of the guys that I work with
is that superhero thing.
They want to be superheroes to their kids. Yeah. You know, I’ve said this for a long time. Like, I want my kid to look at me like I’m a superhero. Like, that’s my dad, right?
that’s a driving force for a lot of these guys. It’s like, sure
there’s a personal side of it of like, yeah, I want to look good, feel good.
I want to look good with my shirt off and, you know, go to the pool. And that’s all well and good. That’s great for selling, you know, coaching. I’ll be honest with you. In some my marketing is like, hey, you want to look good with your shirt off of the pool? And, you know, I’ll put a shirtless pic with me at the beach or the pool or whatever.
It works, right? It gets clicks. But, you know, mine are going to require a little Photoshop. But
it’s moving the needle and everybody takes a little bit different time, and everybody’s end result looks a little bit different. But you know, when you feel better, not just because you’re looking better, but
you’re moving better.
You’re feeling better. You have more energy.
your kids aren’t running circles around you. You’re running circles around them. They remember that. And it’s like, yeah, your dad’s a my guy. I think my dad, I think back when I was a kid, maybe he would work a 12 hour shift and come home and work more.
Yeah, I know he never got tired, right? How he did it. And he was in his 50s at the time, and it was one of those things of like. Yeah, he was. He was a superhero. And I think that’s the common thread with all the guys that I work with. I think everybody, everybody I work with has kids and that’s, you know, that’s a good selling point for me too, is like, hey, you got kids, right?
You’re setting an example for your kids. And that’s really that one kind of drives home a little bit, but for sure. But what first happens when you first have kids? It kind of changes your life in a different way. You know, you open up your wallet and you count your money kind of thing. You check your bank accounts and you start thinking, oh my goodness, I got to get these finances right.
And
you end up working harder, sacrificing your physical fitness, but then you want to start doing things with the kids again, and you’re realizing I’m not in shape anymore.
It’s
the greatest
quality
that I think men bring to the table. Fathers bring to the table. Again, this can also, you know,
this goes with females as well.
But I’m not a female, and I don’t particularly work with females. So, I speak on my expertise. I try to stay in my lane a little bit. One of the greatest qualities that men and fathers have is they are willing to sacrifice everything for themselves, for everyone else, whether it’s their business, their family, their kids. They put everybody else first.
And that is such an admirable quality. And I think we need that as a, as a culture. But at the end of the day, know that was the word I was waiting for. But but you you opened this entire podcast up by talking about drawing from an empty bucket and. We all have a bucket.
And eventually that bucket develops a whole and the whole in
my field. And how I present it to the clients that I work with. The whole is fixable by putting time into yourself. If you carve out time and it maybe it’s only 45 minutes a day, that’s fine. Four days a week. And you can work on yourself what you’re going to bring to the table for you, because you’re not going to stop making those sacrifices for everyone else.
That’s just not in your DNA. You won’t do it. So you’re going to turn yourself inside out.
And I use
one of my clients.
He posted something last night. He got to the gym at 10:30 last night after working a full day. He had to go to his son’s baseball thing for a couple hours, and he had something else to do for one of his other kids.
And then he went to the gym. Yeah, hard to do at that time, it’s. And it was one of those things when you want it bad enough because he knows when he shows up for himself, he’s going to be able to show up for everybody else better. And that’s a really hard balance to strike because you’re you know, we’re going to separate this from we were talking about bodybuilding for a bit, right.
That’s completely self-centered and selfish and that’s a whole different thing. But when it comes to your own fitness and taking care of yourself and being better
as a husband and as a father,
as a business owner, whatever it might be. If you don’t. Make some time for yourself every day, that hole in the bucket is going to get bigger, and you’re going to keep trying to draw from that bucket and you’re running out quicker.
So it’s one of those things if you can make the time for it now in a reasonable amount, or you’re going to try to do it later and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more, right? Yeah, yeah. When it comes to physical fitness, I like to remind people that there’s many aspects of it and there’s many ways to train.
I’m a firm believer in moving some weight and strength training, but I’m also a firm believer that you need to be flexible. So you should do some flexibility training. And you want to have, you know, good balance and
coordination. So maybe some agility training or some participation
in sports or activities such as pickleball or whatever that keeps you moving and balanced.
You know, if you need to lose weight, there’s fat burning exercise that’s very different. And there’s cardiovascular exercises. And I do always want to encourage people when we’re talking about these things to don’t get tunnel vision, but remember these various aspects. And that’s only physical health. Now you got the mental health to deal with as well. So don’t get tunnel vision as we’re talking about the gym.
You know, there was one this is a few years back. I had a, a client of mine, and he’s a pretty,
he’s a Domino’s Pizza franchisee. So he’s got tons of Domino’s franchises, and
he had a,
like a team building weekend,
in Las Vegas. So he rented a big house, and he brought his whole, his whole management team.
And there’s people from all over the country that came to it. Right. And he flew me in to speak to this group of people and, you know, I was talking about training and fitness and movement and everything that you were just talking about. And there was a woman there who was extremely obese. And because I always ask them,
You know, if you have a question, ask a question. There’s no, you know, when you were in school and the teacher said, you know, ask the question because someone else probably has the question. It’s one of those things like if you there’s no question that you can’t ask me. And there was a woman that, again, she was extraordinarily overweight, and she raised her hand very,
almost like she was embarrassed to ask a question
and her question, I don’t remember verbatim what her question was, but
it was like, how do I get started?
Like,
I know I need to move, and I said,
walk to your mailbox. Because
she had said that she can’t walk to her mailbox.
and I was I was getting choked up at the time. Right. I deal with some pretty, you know, phenomenal athletes and clients. So here’s a woman who can’t walk to her mailbox, and I broke it down.
I said, tomorrow when you go home, take a step, just start moving. If it’s ten steps and you have to sit down, it’s ten steps and you have to sit down. And then the next day you do 11. And I was actually like as I was talking to her, I was in tears right up in front of this group of people.
I don’t know, and it just so, like it hit me so hard because I think a lot of times people look at someone like me, the way that I look, the way that I dress, like, it’s just super simple and I’m just out of touch with people
who were the exact other end of the spectrum was like, you know, just start moving.
you don’t have to go and lift the weights that I lift or eat the diet that I eat. It can be as simple as if
you can walk ten steps,
you take the ten steps and you take a break, and then you take another step the next day and you just keep to it more.
And pretty soon you’re walking to the mailbox, and pretty soon after that you’re walking around the block and guess what? You’re going to start feeling better. And that momentum is just going to build. And that was one of those, you know.
It’s such a, I don’t know what it feels like to be at that point. I can empathize with people that have never taken care of their bodies or, are extremely overweight. And
it’s just so hard to get started because it is it’s easier to just sit there and do nothing. It is it’s always going to be easier.
But the problem is only going to get worse. It’s only going to get worse. And it’s getting harder and harder isn’t something about it? The best thing you can do is take the first step. You don’t have to. You don’t have to have all the answers, right? You just have to take the step. And then once you take one, you take the next one.
And then you start solving problems. Yeah. Let me ask you just a couple quick questions. Creatine yes or no? Absolutely. It is the most, the most researched supplement on the planet. And it’s again, whenever it comes to supplements, you know, you want to buy the supplement that is not the cheapest you want to buy, the one that’s the best and the purest and the highest quality you can possibly get because you’re putting it in your body.
That’s my caveat to
any supplementation. But creatine is one of those, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re a high level athlete or not. Like, yeah, it is the most heavily researched supplement on the planet. And there’s no reason that anyone shouldn’t use it. I’m in agreement. And, you know, I wouldn’t overdose on it. Not that you’re going to overdose.
You’re not going to want to have the scoops of creatine, multiple scoops a day, five, maybe ten grams if you’re a bigger person. I think it sits between 5 and 10g. Yeah. You will notice a difference. Yeah. What other supplements? Well, I actually have them sitting on my desk, ironically enough. You know, obviously,
if you are taking supplements and this is more on the, you know, if we’re going to go back into the bodybuilding end of things or any time you’re taking oral medications, right?
You’re putting stress on your internal organs. So you should probably take care of your liver and your kidneys. So,
I’m a firm believer in kidney support. Liver support. Or if listen, if you like to drink a lot, you should probably take care of your liver. The supplement I use the most often, though, because I don’t eat a lot of vegetables.
And it doesn’t have to be AG1 I just found AG1 and I like it. I’m not, I don’t I don’t get any money from any supplement company. I just recommend some powdered, powdered vegetable, isn’t it? Yeah. Yep. So I just drink that in the morning. It gets me because I especially as I’m, deeper and deeper in a contest prep, it’s a pretty restrictive diet.
So I’m, I know I’m missing
some micronutrients, so, that’s my way of getting it in. I don’t get any money or kickbacks from any supplement company. It’s just stuff that I’ve started to use over the years. That’s
the most common one that I use. Yeah. You know, the I’ve always told people that one supplement that I recommend everyone have
If you only going to have one thing, a powdered vegetable or a powdered fruit and vegetable or a powdered fruits, if you don’t like vegetables. Yeah. We actually make one. That’s the two together. It’s powdered fruits and vegetables. And if you don’t like my brand, find one you like, because they are all pretty good for you.
You know, and
they tend to be very natural, mostly organic. If they’re sweetened, it’s usually with stevia, which is actually a healthy, nutritious plant food. So yeah, I’m a big fan of them. What else? What have we left out besides? Well, I might as well tell people. How do they get in touch with you if they want to, consultation or, if they want to be trained by you.
How does that work? Well, you can find me on Instagram at, vanguardbarbell_coaching. Awesome, awesome. And are you taking clients locally or nationwide? I, most of my I would say 98% of
my clients are remote. So I think the farthest away I’ve ever had, someone was up in,
Seattle. I think. Maybe that was Canada pretty far.
I’ve trained people all over the place. So, definitely different time zones. So,
the way that my coaching program works is,
everything is done through my app.
So all of our communication, meal planning,
all of their training, every exercise that I’m going to have them do is there’s already a video of me doing it.
And actually, right after I get off
the podcast here with you, I’ve got check in call scheduled with, So the only thing I make mandatory for my clients is that we have to check in at least once a week. So we jump on the phone, we cover everything that’s going on. They’ve got questions. We make sure we cover them and make sure they’re, you know, I love data.
So, you know, what I love about my app is, you know, every piece of data that we can track, we track. So I can show you in real time,
what we’re doing is working. Conversely, if we need to make some changes, I have the data right in front of me to go. Okay, well, this isn’t working the way I want it to work and the way that you want it to work.
So let’s change these variables and then go from there. So, if anybody has any questions about it, they are more than welcome to, to reach out. I don’t hard sell anybody. I’m at the point in my career where I’m really picky about the clients that I work with. So I have, whenever I sit down on
a call with a potential client, I have a legal pad in front of me.
And one of the things written down on that pad is the word fit with a question mark, because I want to make sure, you know, for one, that I’m a good fit for you because I might not be, you know it. There was a time in my career where I had to train everybody that came in front of me, even if I didn’t like them.
So it’s one of those things where,
when you’re hiring a coach, it doesn’t have to be me. When you’re looking at hiring a coach,
There’s got to be a good fit because, you know, the number one thing, especially with remote coaching and the way that a lot of things are done these days,
you’ve got to like that person because you’re going to communicate with them a lot.
And if you can, if you’re really good at that and you have a great system of communication, you can accomplish a ton. But if you’re not looking forward to that check in call or
you’re not really feeling that particular coach. You’re not. It’s never going to work. Just going to be light money on fire. I like that check in call that that puts an element of accountability.
So now I better do the things that you told me to do I like because I’m going to ask you if you did them this is good. Hey, Andrew, I want to thank you for joining me today. I think it’s been a great podcast. For anyone watching and didn’t catch
the Instagram account or, you know, anything that was referenced, I’ll make sure it’s put in the show notes.
So you have a simple link you can click to get in touch with Andrew. Thank you. And until next time, thank you very much.
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