John Meadows Interview Part 2

Hey Guys,

Here is the second half of the interview I did with John Meadows (you can read part 1 HERE).

Enjoy!

Mike:              No, we shouldn’t use them. I agree completely with that. I think an amount of people make a strong argument out of genetic outliners. They shouldn’t be used for plans for everybody else. Coming back, obviously to making sure that you train intensely. I know that you are a big component of intra workout nutrition and obviously fueling workouts correctly. You have said previously that you think that’s one of the biggest discoveries you made in nutrition recently, especially when it comes to recovery is intra workout nutrition. I personally use it with all my athletes. We are looking now at things like the Di and Tripeptides now becoming available in the UK where people were trying to get hydrolyzed casein and things like that from all different types of different places and combine them to make their own products. People were having digestive issues and it was terrible. If you could give us a quick overview on your thoughts of correct workout supplementation and training supplementation?

John:               Let me just start by saying this. I believe your nutrition in this respect should match your training. If I’ve got a body builder, weight lifting is weight training, the way we do it is very catabolic in nature. I’m going to be a little more aggressive with my intra workout nutrition with somebody who is really pounding the weights. If I’ve got somebody that is maybe grappling and by the way, I don’t do a lot of that, I don’t want to pretend I’m somebody that I’m not but if I were to have somebody that’s doing a lot of grappling, I probably wouldn’t be as aggressive but it would still be important though because these guys are burning a lot of calories. There is a lot of stress. The longer and harder they can work out, the better athletes they are going to become.

                        My experience is that these nutrients allow that to happen. The carbohydrates that I love, really there are two of them. Vitargo has been around for a long time. I think that’s a really good one. It’s very low osmolality, which just means that the gastric emptying rate is very high. It clears the stomach very quickly. It doesn’t cause stomach upset. The other one that is my personal favorite is branch cyclic dextrins,also very low osmolality. I’ve never seen anybody have a stomach issue with it. I should clarify. The few people that I know that have stomach issues with these products didn’t use enough water in the drink. You can’t be too concentrated.

                        Once we fixed the amount of water they were using, they were fine. For body builders, those things are also going to drive insulin and insulin response while you train is really good for a body builder because it’s going to help. Insulin is in your blood and your insulin receptors on your cell membrane are going to say, “Okay, cool. I’ve got some insulin.” The insulin receptor, think of it like a key hole and then the insulin comes along and it’s the key. It inserts into the key hole and it opens up the cell. Think of it like a trap door opens. Then you have these carrier proteins, glucose transporters to go to the surface of the cell where this trap door is and the glucose jumps on board and goes back into the cell.

                        Long story short, you are getting glucose in that cell. You are getting all these nutrients that are in your blood into your cells, into your muscle cells and the interesting thing, this is also true for your fat cells but the cool thing about training when you are training really hard, you are trashing your muscle cells. The preferentially suck in glucose. You have an opportunity to suck in a lot of glucose in your muscle cell, whereas at another time during the day, your fat cells are going to just say, “Hey, I want some of this too.” It’s not as optimal.

                        In terms of protein, the biggest mistake I see people make is they don’t use the right protein. Instead of using di and tripeptide, which to be clear to all of your folks listening, those are just proteins that are pretty much digested. They are broken down to their constituent di and tripeptide. They are broken down to their basic form and your body doesn’t need to digest it. The last thing you want when you are training is your digestive system to have to digest a lot of food while you are working out. That’s not a good thing. People, I tell them we’ve got to be very specific with the nutrients or this not only will not work, it will make you feel worse. We need to have the right stuff in to get the effect that we are talking about here. Di and tripeptide are pretty much digested. If you get the right kind and not a cheap version, you are going to have probably over 90% of the protein is going to be digested already, so your body sucks it up, uses it, and makes it in your muscle cells. It drives your free amino acid levels and that in combination with the carbohydrates driving insulin produces this incredible recovery. Insulin is your best friend during training. It will help you manange muscle protein breakdown. Use it to your advantage.

                        You’ve always got this battle going on during the day with muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown. My contention is this. When you train really, really hard, more so with weights, you create a lot of muscle protein breakdown and from what I have seen, from what I have observed anecdotally with hundreds upon hundreds of people is that if you can control the muscle protein breakdown right there as it is happening, and by the way, this is going to give you more energy too. Hey, that’s great. That’s the way to go, in my opinion. I don’t think that this timing is meant for everybody. I don’t think most people even train hard enough.

                        I saw somebody the other day who said, “You have to earn your intra workout nutrition.” I like that. 

                        I thought that was good because that’s true. Most of the people, when I go to the gym now are sitting on benches, they are texting or they are talking on their phones. Let’s be honest here, is an intra workout going to help those guys? No.  They are not even training hard enough to create this environment that we are talking about. This isn’t for everybody. This is for athletes that train really, really hard and I would say the more the end of the spectrum becomes training with weight, the more this has been official but I still think it is very beneficial for people like MMA fighters because they are breaking their bodies down. It may not be like a weight lifter breaking their bodies down but they are training hard.

                        What I would do is I would do a smaller version of what I would do with a high-level body builder but the concepts still pretty much apply. I think it’s important to note that too. It’s not for everybody but when you get these guys that are the top of their sport or maybe they think they are at their genetic limit. This is a way to help you get more; get more out of your body. That’s how I think about it.

Mike:              Yes, it is something I have observed with people I have worked with to increase muscle mass, obviously is what body builders are after because we have to work within weight class limits, well I know body builders do obviously as well but for the recovery aspect. As far as reducing soreness goes, it’s brilliant and people just love it. They don’t feel as though they are running themselves down all the time. It is brilliant.  It's creating that environment for people get the most of it. The anabolic environment for example, and you are well known for the type training that you do, mountain dog style training. It’s very high intensity type training. 

I’ve observed a lot of your clients go to training seven days a week, like yourself going into a competition. That recovery must be a massive part of the nutrition you do with you clients. Do you put that down to the correct nutrition or do you use extra techniques to help with that recovery as well?

John:               Yeah, I should put some context around that too. I don’t train; I don’t have anybody train seven days a week year round.            

                        A lot of people think that. I’m like, “No, no that’s not true.” What is true is that I like for people leading up to an event to be at their physical peak, to be training as hard as they can, getting the best results that they can but the reality is, we are not terminators. We are not machines and we can only handle that level of stress for so long. A large part of the off-season, people are only training four to five days a week. Then they will go to five to six days a week. There is a process that I have of people after their contest is over, I bring them back to four days a week. I lower their intensity levels. I let their body rejuvenate and recuperate and also mentally they are pretty drained. Just mentally I let them get back to a good place, you know?

                        Then as the months go by, I just gradually build their intensity up. Once I build the intensity up in each session, then I add frequency. I start the extra frequency at a lower intensity. Then I build that up. There is a process that is going on here with what I’m doing with people. There are four days that becomes higher intensity four days, which becomes five days, which becomes higher intensity five days, which becomes six days. It’s very well thought out. I’m not just trying to kill people. That’s not my goal. My goal is for people to get better and there is a very structured way that I do this. Now, everybody is different. Some people can only tolerate at their peak six days a week. Most people can tolerate at least six though if you get this right.

                        There is some variation with people but there is also a general pattern of if you do this right, you can increase people’s workloads. The people who I really can’t get their workload up that much, I hate to say it but probably genetically, they just don’t have it. People talk about genetics in terms of physical characteristics. 

“His clavicles are too narrow or this or that.” I think of genetic limitation a little differently. I think about your ability to tolerate stress. I have heard people say they do a leg workout and they can’t recover for two weeks. Mentally they are drained for two weeks. When I hear that, I think this person genetically just might not have it. They are never going to be able to tolerate a lot of stress. That tells me they are probably not going to go to a real high level in our sport. That’s just reality. That’s just what I see.

                        Then I get people that are just the opposite. I get these guys that are freaking animals and I’m holding them back. I’m like, “No, hold on. Let’s just do five days first” and “No, I want to go seven.” They are animals. Those are the guys that as long as we can control it and do this systematically, they are going to improve at a really, really rapid rate. This whole genetics thing, a lot of it to me is just how much stress you can tolerate. Some people just can’t take it to another level during an actual training session. They feel a little pain and they stop. They can’t handle it. Those guys probably aren’t going to make it to a real high level. Again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, of course you have genetic freaks. Some of the top guys in Mr. Olympia, if you saw them train you would probably laugh because their training is pretty soft. They are genetic freaks and they can literally mow the yard and their legs are going to be 32 inches.

                        Anyway, I build a volume up over time. We peak and this becomes much more complicated when people are competing multiple times during the year but there is always going to be a systematic way to do this. There is always going to be a thought process on how to peak for an event and then how to work your way down.

Mike:              Absolutely and a quick last thing. I realize I am taking quite a bit of your time. The last thing I want to talk about is competing frequency. I know body builders compete a few times a year, grapplers and fighters, especially guys looking to climb the rankings, some of them compete once a month or twice a month, which I think is far too much. I still think you should have an off season as it were where you work on weaknesses etc. How often would you see this training for body builders, would you say competing four times a year is too much? Five times a year is too much or just how the individual handles it or do you have guidelines, etc?

John:               In body building, you have to look at where the person is in the sport. If they are an elite national level competitor, for example, I’ve got a guy who just missed his pro card by one place. His name is Matt Burzacott. He just did the nationals. He missed his pro card by one place. He is right there. For him to take a year off or two years off doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. We’re going to be aggressive. He is right there at that level. The next pro qualifier coming up, he will do it. If he doesn’t win that one, there is another one in three months and he will do that one.

Take that example, that’s one end of spectrum and then you’ve got another end of the spectrum. You’ve got somebody who competes and they’ve got really a lot of weaknesses. They are just trying to win a local level contest but maybe they have body parts that are really far behind and maybe they are just really outmuscled. Those are the guys to be competitive, they are going to need to back off the competitions and they are going to have to put more work into their off season and they are going to have to build their bodies more. It’s very hard to grow when you are going show to show to show very quickly. It’s almost impossible to grow. The only way to do it is through creativity with chemistry.

                        I’m just being honest there. For people that need to improve a lot to be even competitive, I’m going to hold those guys back and I’m going to say, “Let’s take our time.” Let’s have a good off season. Let’s gain some real good muscle mass but then again the other end of the spectrum somebody may be right there at that elite level, so maybe they could use an extra half inch here or an inch there but those guys, I’m not going to have. They’ve got a window of opportunity. They are right there, so I’m not going to hold them back. I’m not going to say, “Don’t compete for a year. Don’t compete for two years.” We’re going to keep plugging away and we are going to get that pro card. That’s the different philosophies. It just depends on where somebody is at in their development, where they are at on the competition side of things.

                        It’s really hard for your guys, your MMA guys because I talk about in terms of six months or a year; you’ve got to do that in terms of a month or four to eight weeks.

John:               They need a break.

Mike:              Yeah.

John:               Your programming actually requires a lot more thought than mine.

Mike:              Again, it’s all individual. You mentioned in the beginning how people balloon up in weight afterwards. Sometimes you get fighters that do the exact same thing as soon as the fight is done or sometimes if they haven’t got the right people around them and they are slamming fast food and the weight balloons right up and they’ve got such a hard time to bring it down again. It just becomes a vicious cycle. We find that the people are looking to become pros and really take being a pro seriously, people won’t let themselves go over a certain amount. They make their lives a bit easier on themselves. It’s generally the least professional people come to me going, “I’ve got 50 pounds to lose. I’ve got eight weeks to lose the weight. Can you do it?”

Well, I can chop a leg off.

It all depends on the person really. It is the same kind of thing going up the pro ranks, they fight less but the longer camps, the training for specific things, like with bodybuilders thinking about pro qualifiers. They have shows in mind that they want to hit and do well on rather than, “I just want to get competing experience”, which I imagine is a similar kind of thing.

John:               Yeah, absolutely.

Mike:              The last thing I want to talk about, I’m trying not to take too much of your time because I know how busy you are. The really important stuff is who is the greatest superhero of all time?

John:               I like the cosmic dudes. I like Galactus.

Mike:              Really? I’m really surprised by that. I thought you would be a Captain America guy.

John:               No, I like cosmic dudes. I like Thanos I like Galactus. I like the Silver Surfer. I think the two best stories of all time; I think the Infinity Gauntlet with Thanos is probably my favorite story of all time.

Mike:              Yeah.

John:               If you have just seen the recent Thor movie …

Mike:              Yeah, the Avengers. It’s good to change that. It’s not gems, its stones now. I don’t know how they are going to fit the gauntlet in with it. Obviously the gem is attached to gauntlet.

John:               Right. That will be interesting. For years I’ve been saying, “Make a movie with Thanos. That would be awesome.” Then my other favorite story of all time was when Galactus came to Earth. They did a fantastic Four movie about it but it was absolutely horrible.

Mike:              It was terrible, wasn’t it?

John:               Horrible. They could have at least spent a couple of minutes talking about how the Silver Surfer became the Silver Surfer, first of all.

Mike:              Yeah, you just forgot about that bit, didn’t they?

John:               Yeah, they didn’t get into that at all. It would have only taken a five-minute flashback, right? It could have been great and then Galactus was a cloud. I’m like, “Come on.” It was horrible.

Mike:              Did you read, I think next year, is it next year or the year after it comes out?

John:               I hope it’s a lot better. I heard they were but I don’t know. You hear all these rumors about what they are doing and not doing.

Mike:              Yeah.

John:               The Thor movies have been pretty good. I like those.

Mike:              Yeah.

John:               The new Spiderman looks pretty good.

Mike:              It looks really good to me. It’s my favorite character, Spiderman.

John:               Did you see the new preview with Electro?

Mike:              Yeah, yeah and Rhino as well but it’s like a massive electric shoe, isn’t it that Rhino has got? That looks really good. I think Harry Osborne is walking through the Osborne Mansion and then there are the tentacles in the back in the case. It looks really good. I’m glad they didn’t mess it up. They have done it really well. I know it’s not done by Marvel, so I was a bit worried.

John:               Yeah, so there you go.

Mike: John anything new going on with your website?

 

John: Yes definitely! I am phreaking stoked about it actually. We sent out surveys asking people who had left why they did and what we could do to improve the site.

 

I am going to give you the short version of this. We sent out questionnaires asking people who left the site what we could do better? This painted a VERY clear picture. Here is what they said. 

1) Beginner/intermediate content is needed (teach them how to build their own diet)

2) Content delivered more frequently instead of monthly

3) More "case studies" for non competitors/normal people to see exactly how we diet them to reach their goals

4) A search function (I know, duh)

5) More female in the trenches articles

6) Merge the two websites into one for navigation purposes

So when consulting with the company we work with Blue Laser Design Inc. we eventually decided to do a complete overhaul. This will address all 6 issues and much more.

We are looking at an early May delivery, but much of the issues above (all except #4,6) will be addressed soon, like as in a few days soon!

 

I have already added the beginner (will be called novice) piece and am building up content now in the existing website.

 

We have also started updating content weekly as well. Just those two things have really gave memberships a boost!

 

Mike: Do you really take the Biotest products you promote? Many guys don't in this industry.

 

Well I don't take ALL of their stuff, that would be a lot of pills and powder. I do take their intra mix and swear by it, as do many of my clients. It's called Plazma. it is currently my favorite supplement I have ever taken. I say currently because who knows what they will come up with next. I also take Mag 10 on and off throughout the day (di and tri peptides). I am enjoying a new product they have out now called phosphatidic acid. These are  my key supps. I do also take their fish oil now that I think about it. I can't imagine not taking the Plazma. It's unbelievable.

Mike:              I would like to say thanks very much for your time, John. It is really appreciated that you took the time.

John:               You’re welcome, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure, my pleasure. I’m happy to be on the show.

Stay tuned for more interviews coming soon 

Stay Healthy,

Mike