Ep 30: Is Natural Bodybuilding real? | Justin Groth

Host David Maloof interviews Justin Groth, a natural bodybuilder and master trainer, about bodybuilding and weight training. They discuss Justin's journey into bodybuilding, the dark side of the industry with the use of steroids, the importance of nutrition and supplements, overcoming discouragement in fitness, and the reality of bodybuilding in Hollywood. 

Justin emphasizes the need for natural approaches to bodybuilding and the importance of consistency and discipline in achieving fitness goals.

Takeaways
Bodybuilding and weight training require a combination of nutrition, technique, and consistency.

Steroids are commonly used in competitive bodybuilding, but natural approaches are more sustainable and healthier.

Supplements such as protein powder, creatine, and branched-chain amino acids can support muscle growth and recovery.

Overcoming discouragement and staying motivated is crucial in achieving fitness goals.

Proper nutrition is essential for optimal results in bodybuilding.

The portrayal of bodybuilding in Hollywood often ignores the use of drugs and presents an unrealistic image.

Justin's contact information: https://www.theofficialjustingroth.com/

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Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome to Adventures in Good Health, the place where we talk about natural approaches to good health. I'm your host, David Maloof. Okay, so today we're gonna talk about bodybuilding, weight training, all that good stuff, because especially as we get older, we need to get stronger. You gotta maintain or even grow that strength. But how do you do all that? It's like,

There's like nutrition involved. There's technique involved. You got the whole situation with steroids that some people are using. There's a lot to go through there. Well, to help us sort through the ins and outs of natural bodybuilding and weight training is my guest today. Justin Groth. Justin is a natural bodybuilder is also a master trainer and a podcast host. Hmm.

I'm thinking we got the right person to sort through bodybuilding the natural way. So let's jump right in with Justin Groth. Okay, Justin, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, David. So, Justin, can you let our audience know, just walk us through your journey up to this point? Yeah. So I'm a natural bodybuilder, a former natural competitive bodybuilder.

And I initially got into bodybuilding or fitness in general when I was probably 19, 20, right out of high school. And, um, like many kids in high school, man, I had identity issues and that's really where it all stemmed from. And when I see identity issues, I mean, I just didn't know what, like I wanted to, I wanted to look my own, look, look my.

I don't know what you would call it. I wanted to have my own unique style. I think I hear everybody. We all have our unique style. And when I was in high school, I got, there was a, Backstreet Boys and Nsync were really popular back in those days. And I got, I got made fun of a lot that I looked like a Backstreet Boy or an Nsync member. And I, as much as that's a compliment in some regards, because they're talented, good-looking people.

I find myself going towards that avenue of trying to look like them more, like dressing like them, having my hairstyle like them. And it just wasn't me in plain sight, right? And I had a real disconnect with that later down the line. And it ended up causing me to like in pursuit of trying to look like them to some degree, because I was young impressionable. I don't know what I'm doing, man. I just, you know, I.

people tell me I look like this person. Oh, that person's really famous and talented. I must be doing something right. I'm going to feed more into that. And so when I, when that happened, I ended up also seeing that I need to lose a little bit of weight here. And by, by the way, for audience’s context, I was, I'm five 11. I'm about 470 pounds regular with no, no massive or no.

No extended amounts of muscle mass or cruel or anything like that. Just regular 175 or 170 pounds. So I didn't have to lose any weight per se, but there was one thing in particular that I did not like about my face. And I was, I had these chubby cheeks and I thought, well, I got to agree. It's chubby cheeks. I don't like these chubby cheeks. So I guess I got to lose weight. So how do you lose weight? I didn't know anything and set the time. So I just figured I'm going to do lots of cardio. I'm going run a lot and I'm going to eat very little.

And so that's exactly what I did. And I ended up getting, getting somewhat okay. Looking at like one 60. And then from there, I just, I w I lost more and more weight and I looked really unhealthy and sickly. And I got to a point where because I have a very addictive mindset. So when I go towards something, I go towards it. I got to about one 36. I was my lowest and.

I, at that point, I told my family, I said, look, I know I'm not going to resurrect this. I need you guys to intervene. And I was actually one that said, Hey, I need help here. Like, I know my mindset. I'm not going to stop this. I mean, unless I do, it's going to be too late and I need to, I need to circumvent this the opposite direction. Like, or I'm sorry, I didn't mean to re navigate this here. Right. So they took me to a dietitian and I hooked up with my mom's personal trainer at the time.

Uh, got a little healthier, obviously with the admins of more nutritious foods, more structured style of eating instead of the one sandwich and diet Coke a day that I was doing at the time. Wow. And it ended up lending, lending a favorable hand because I, I got a little bit more fit. I was getting a little bit more muscle. I wasn't gaining too much body fat. My weight was climbing, but in a good way. And then from there, man, it was really just, I liked this a lot.

It was starting to form my own identity, even though there's a lot of people that have good looking bodies and muscular bodies. I didn't have that. And that wasn't something that these in sync or backstreet boys had. And so I was able to depart from that. And I really just came into my own footing. Okay. Yes. So you were starting to separate from that image. And now a quick word from our sponsor, Dr. Tate's herbal tinctures and tonics.

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For more information, click the links below and now back to the show. Yes, sir. And it was just like, it was really good for me because I was finding my footing and that's important for people to find their footing in life. And it wasn't just the body that was my finding my footing. It was the, the, the, the level of purpose and passion I had started to gain behind fitness. And that came from when I started to.

do competitive bodybuilding shows. And I was getting ready for a competition in my local gym and people would come up to me and they'd ask me, Hey Justin, what's that exercise for? Why do you do it like that? Or, or, or can you, can you correct my form on this? And I found that I had this love to, to teach people in terms of that, like in fitness. And I love to give information and I love to just pour into people with regards to fitness. And that became something of.

like a light bulb went off in my head and I thought I gotta do this. This is something that I have to chase. I have to follow this because I'm gaining fulfillment from this and it's starting to carve out more of who I am. So I'm starting to identify with more of who I am, what makes me tick, what I love, what I can do effortlessly, but I can do it really well. And these things all running parallel with one another made me realize I just gotta become a personal trainer. So I began a personal trainer.

at the same time of competitive bodybuilding and started a business for personal training. And I mean, really the rest, the rest is history now. It's all, it's, it's the same. It's I've just scaled and grow the biz grew the business until it's a, we have a brick and mortar. We have trainers working in the studio as well. I have online mindset coaching for fitness and et cetera. So that's, that's my, that's my, uh, that's my story, uh, for the beginning. That's how I'm sticking to it, man.

All right, well then, one of the things I love about doing this show is I get to meet people who are passionate about what they do and having a focus on natural approaches to good health. That just makes it exciting because to some people it can be a somewhat dry topic. And I think our audience needs to hear that passion, needs to hear people who are excited about.

taking these natural approaches. In your particular case, you're talking about physical fitness, bodybuilding, and the course is always the but. But there's some negative side that some people take when it comes to bodybuilding. Obviously, getting stronger will make you look better.

feel better, but have you found in your career that there is, there's, there's a kind of a dark side where some people will try to cut corners or cheat, uh, through, you know, steroids and, and things like that. Yeah, there's definitely that. And I would say that for the majority of people, they take steroids to cut corners. There are a select few people that actually have.

an ability to take their body to the professional stage and they have a fully focused and honed in mindset towards doing that and they realize that the only way that they're going to be competitive is if they do gear or performance enhancing drugs. And that is just the culture. And it sucks to say that, but that's the culture that they've

that they basically created within the bodybuilding industry, that for people to be competitive, they have to look like freak-a-zoids and they have to build 280 pounds of lean tissue and step on stage looking like a mass monster. And so these guys know, the guys that are the elites, they know, and they're going into, for the professional and the professional rank, they know that they have to do that. There's just no way around it. There's no IFBB,

professional bodybuilder that places within the top 10 that is natural and it will likely never ever happen because to get to that level is genetically impossible. I mean, you'd have to be a clear cut mutant for that to take place and that's just not the case, right? So we have, we understand that that's the delineation between, or I should say the distinction between the both parties. There are a lot of guys that frequent local gyms that are not

even genetically gifted to the point where they can even make it to the amateur stage and they're doing steroids. And that I think is a shortcut. But also some, some, most of these people, I would say to her just influenced by the wrong people. They're influenced by people on social media. They're influenced by their favorite bodybuilder. And these bodybuilders are not telling them the negative ramifications or health concerns that are, that are mostly attributed.

to taking steroids. And I think that they're doing a big disservice. I mean, obviously drugs in any industry, I don't believe should be a part of any industry. I don't care what kind of athlete you are. I don't care if you're swimming, bicycling, rock climbing. I don't care if you're doing bodybuilding or playing baseball or football. I don't think that steroids should be involved in anything. But the fact of the matter is that the society we live in today,

People at the natural level are just not that impressive. And that's the reason why we want to watch the freak shows of the bodybuilders that are big and huge on stage. That's why we follow Lance Armstrong when he was doing his bicycling journey. That's why we look at, we watch, you know, these people that are hitting home runs, we tune into the games because we know they're going to hit another home run. They're going to hit another home run. These, for these reasons,

are the reasons what keep people engaged. And if more people are engaged, that means more money for the higher ups. And so in essence, we just want to look at the freak show. And I'm telling you, I'm telling everybody, I'm not just, I'm not, it's not something I'm passionate about as much as I'm convicted. I'm more convicted over this than I am passionate. Convict, I'm convicted because I don't believe and I,

I wholeheartedly do not believe that any form of drug in any sector of athletics should be permissible because I live by this notion and this model really, whatever you can do is all you can do, period. So meaning whatever you can do on your natural accord is all you can do. And essentially you should be good with that. That's all we should.

all let's that's the only thing we should all live by if we're trying to compete, perform and create. We're not expected to do anything more. It's the reasons why drugs are now involved is because people want to see that next level. People are not impressed by the natural level. And that's a shame, but that's not something that I'll that I'll be victimized by. I'll just this is what's something that I believe will hardly and I'm convicted by.

I'll stand behind forever. So, um, I have a quick story. Uh, about 20 years ago, I was, I joined a gym in Texas where I was living at the time and I had, I was fortunate. I had a great trainer. Uh, he was around my age. He understood that somebody gets a little older. The training process goes differently. And after about six months, he confided in me that the owner of the gym and it was a.

beautiful building, a beautiful gym, but the owner of the building was on steroids and that his own employees were pleading with him to stop taking these steroids. His wife pleaded with him, you know, and I was just a customer and I was, and I didn't know anything really what was going on other than the guy looked pretty big. And I came into one, came in one day for my training session and there was a chaos in the gym.

And it turns out, you know, four or five hours prior to that, while he was opening up the gym, he just collapsed and died of a heart attack. And I think he was like 35, 36 years old. And. Wow.

And then his wife ended up selling the gym and it turned into something else. But I mean, I can say that I personally shied away from not just the steroids, but I was even leery of some other things like human growth hormones. Honestly, I was even leery of creatine. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about things like that, but the steroid side, there's no upside to that.

And for the audience of this show, I don't think we have very many professional bodybuilders. We might, but I don't think we have very many professional bodybuilders in our audience. It's more likely to be people who are exploring bodybuilding, working out, you know, a gym in terms of your physical health. And there is a huge difference between bodybuilding for vanity.

or competitive, just what I'm gleaning based on what you're saying, competitive bodybuilding versus a natural approach to strengthening your body and building up your body. And I'm just kind of curious, there are other supplements that people can take. And I'm just kind of curious, you know, I'm a little out of date as to what the latest are, but what are your thoughts in terms of supplements that are available out there?

There are a lot of over-the-counter supplements that have a significant amount of research backing them. However, I stick to the basics. It's what I'll always say to you. And I mean, I can tell you what I have in my cupboard right now. If you look at my cupboard, you're going to see protein powder. You're going to see creatine monohydrate. I know you mentioned that you're kind of leery that we can talk on that a little bit if you like to. Uh, so I have protein, I have creatine monohydrate. I have a pre -workout.

And I have branched chain amino acids, which are basically just a string of amino acids, isoleucine, leucine, and valine. And I take those in my workout. I'm obviously taking the pre -workout before I train, the protein before and after, the creatine intra -workout. So as far as micronutrients go, I have vitamin D3, I have zinc, and I have magnesium. And that's all I take.

top to bottom, that's all I take. That's all I've taken for years and years and years. Now, there are a slew of other supplements that you could take, but, and I meant to be honest with you, I don't keep up to date with them because I don't care. I have my arsenal of supplements that I take that work for me and that I'm very, very comfortable with. And I, you know, I know the end result, what that's going to be. And I know,

the research that's backing these certain things that I'm taking, which really, you don't really need that much research except for on creatine. You don't need that much research on protein or branched shames or vitamin D3 or zinc or magnesium. These things kind of speak for themselves, but you know, that's, there are new, there are new and I would say more illuminating products on the market right now, but that's not my concern. My concern is in the work. My concern is in the consistency.

My concern is keeping structure and continuing the little supplements that I do take because that's where the body's in. The body is in the work. The body is in the discipline. And not only that, but the mindset is in the work. The mindset is in the discipline. The work works on you more than you work on it, to be honest with you. And once you realize that, that just opens up a whole nother understanding to the endeavor of lifting and to the endeavor of being better.

I mean, many people might think that, Oh, I've been doing this workout for the last, you know, month or two months, and I'm not really seeing changes. And they don't understand what's happening at the psychological and the physiological level. I mean, it takes a long time for your body to make muscle lean muscle tissue. And it also what they're not, what they're kind of putting by to the wayside is that they're becoming more resilient, more stronger, more structured, more organized and more, more.

I would say callous individuals because they're imposing resistance training on themselves when they don't have to. So they're imposing stress on their body when they don't have to. And that's making them a better, more resilient, stronger person, not only in body, but in mind. And that's what's important to understand. And that's what's important to realize when I say the phrase, the work works on you more than you work on it. You'll work on that work for an hour a day at best.

you know, training or doing some type of physical exercise, but that work stays with you and it keeps working on you, it keeps working on your mental faculties. It's going to work towards making muscle and burning fat mass. You know what I mean? So these things, if you, if you switch the scope around, you realize that you're not just getting in what you put in, you're getting far more. The work is working on you more than you're working on it. I mean, it takes on a whole different approach.

So when you say work, okay, go ahead. Oh, just to answer your question. There are many more nuanced supplements, but I don't mess with them. I just stick with the tried and true basics. So my, my reservations on creatine was based on an experience I had in the late nineties where I just heard on the radio, Oh, take creatine. And, um, I bought a big jug of it.

I had no direction, no coaching, no assistance. I started taking it and it made me lightheaded. And I was like, oh, this stuff is awful. It didn't occur to me that maybe having a coach or someone who knew what they were doing kind of walked me through that process. I might've had a different opinion. But after that, I just stayed away from it. I just said, well, maybe I just have a bad reaction. And then eventually I was like, yeah, maybe I should've talked to someone first.

And that seems to be a recurring theme on this show. And it doesn't matter if you're somebody who's dealing with a natural path or an herbalist or a yogi or is people, if you don't have experience, it's hard to just suddenly just wake up one morning and say, I'm going to live a natural life. You know, I'm going to go hit the gym, just sign up at a gym or buy a machine and I'm just going to hit it.

It seems like it's a recipe for failure. So my question to you is, when someone walks through your doors and maybe they've never worked out, or they've tried 10 different times over 20 years and they've never got any results, how do you work with that person to help them, to put them on that road to success? Well, it's all subjective, to be honest with you, David. I mean, if I...

And realistically, if I'm just going to be generalized here, more often than not, people, people give up on themselves because of vices or temptations or bad behavioral patterns or bad habitual patterns. And so my job is not just train them. My job is to rewire them and recourse them in terms of what should be a priority and what should be discarded. And a lot of times these people are just not putting themselves as a high enough priority. And it's the reason why they keep.

They keep letting themselves down by continuing over and over again, this process 10 times, 11 times. And I've never once stopped in my journey. I've never once stopped training because of something. And what I'm saying to you is I don't miss. I don't miss. And I haven't missed for since I was, when I was, so I started competitive bodybuilding in 2008.

I've never missed. I've never missed a day, a workout, a cardio session. I've never missed anything. If it's, if I do miss it, it's intentionally because I'm taking that day off or it's in, it's in my, it's in my, it's in my schedule to take that day off as a rest day. But apart from that, there's never been a negotiation with me. Well, oh, I should work out now. I don't have to work out today. I'm going to skip out. I'm going to do it tomorrow instead. Yeah. Yeah. It's never been that time. I've never done that.

And I will never do that. I don't miss. And that's the reason why I can be an authority in this space. And I am an authority in this space. And that's the reason why I can give direction to people and people that come to me, they listen because I am the walking billboard for what it means to be physically fit, mentally fit, and to not give up on yourself. And which so many of these people have done for so many years. And that's ultimately the reason why they ended up coming to me in the first place, but I need to rewire them. And like I said, I need to deconstruct.

what's been breaking them down and causing them to give up this entire time. I need to hone in on those things and I need to show them that what I need to show them what needs to be discarded and wins to be kept a priority. And I keep guiding them through that process. But again, everybody's subjective. I mean, or this thing is a, this program is a subjective program and there is no blanket antidote or, you know, there is no blanket antidote for everybody.

Can someone achieve a reasonable level of strength fitness with no supplements, just based on their own body? You can, okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Tied to diet. Is that, I mean, I'm assuming tie it. Can you walk us through a little bit about the diet has. Let's take two examples for, for, for in this case, let's take a young 17-year-old that first starts out in the gym.

He eats a diet of pizza, Twizzlers and chocolate milk. Okay. Not the best diet, very processed and, and really just not conventional. Right. So we take him, we put him through and just regular genetics, by the way, regular genetics, not like elite level genetics, just regular genetics. And we put them in the gym, put them on straight training routine for three, three days a week. And.

That kid is gonna easily put on even with the diet that he has, he's gonna, and even if he's only taking in maybe, let's say 70 grams a day of protein and he's, let's say he weighs 150 pounds. So he's taking effectively less than half what he should be taking in or what we like to say in the Biden -Oenning world of the optimized level of protein. We typically like to say one gram per pound of body weight.

realistically, it's one gram per pound of lean body mass, but you can get away with a lot more than that nowadays. Research has shown that, and it doesn't negatively affect the person. It makes them actually leaner, more muscular, and et cetera. But anyways, for simplicity's sake, let's take that person, 150 pounds, 70 grams of protein a day, very, very processed, Americanized diet, very unconventional in terms of macro partitioning.

doesn't have a presence on protein. We put him in the gym three days a week, strength training in about three month’s time. He's going to have easily gone up on his bench, his deadlift, his squat by, I would say I would mark at least 50 to 75 pounds. He's going to increase muscle mass by at least, I would say six pounds, six, seven, eight pounds probably. And.

This guy, and this person is not putting a predication on sleep, on nutrition. He's just eating normal, but now he's going to the gym. He's going to the gym, working out after school for one hour. But then you take somebody who's maybe 40 years old, has done training in the past is not sedentary. You take his, his approach. And again, this person is not new to person to working out and you put that on a, you put them on a.

a very subjugated, nutritiously subjugated diet. And you had them go through the same, you have them go through a more intermediate or advanced approach in training. They'll actually, they'll actually worsen because not only one thing will happen is recovery. Recovery will take a backseat because they're not providing their body with the nutrients and the proteins that they need to recover from their workout. And not to mention just recover, but then build.

because there's a, there's an amount of amino acids that needs to be suited for the recovery process. And then after that, they can be used to build muscle. So they're going to be massively attenuated on that end. So not only recovery and, but then on the building end, and then as a result, they're going to see their body sort of not, I wouldn't say deteriorate, but get less in, but become less than it once was. So.

Those are two opposite ends of the spectrums examples, but that's all in an effort to say that nutrition matters, but it matters where you are in your journey. And it matters how old you are. And it's gonna vastly matter if you're going to try to do this thing at the professional level or even the amateur level. And if you wanna optimize your results, it's gonna very much matter. But it's just one of those things where,

If you're young and you're new to the sport, well then you can get away with eating much of anything and you'll still make gains. But if you're older and you want to make your body the best and optimize it, you're going to want to obviously take everything more, I would say, put an importance on more of the nutritional aspect of things because you're not going to recover as quick as that 17 -year -old did.

You're not going to build as much muscle as quickly as that 17 year old did. Not only one, because he has way more teeth falling through his body testosterone, but on top of that, he's new to this. So he can, he can get away with doing anything, you know, put muscle mass on and strength. So it just depends on where you're at, but just, just to level out your, your, your question, I would say the nutrition obviously matters. I don't think that's even up for debate. Nutrition does matter. If you want to be your best.

you put a presence on nutrition. You even put a presence on sleep.

You know, you mentioned, it was funny, you mentioned, you know, the 17, 18 year old and the 40 year old. So when I was at that gym in Texas, working with that trainer, I came in one day for my session and he said, David, we're running into a scheduling issue. Are you okay if for this one session, I team you up with another one of my clients and you both kind of work out with me together? I was like, yeah, that's fine. Well, you know, in walks this 18 year old kid,

Not a kid, young man, way bigger than me. I mean, I was a 40 year old computer geek, skinny, who was building muscles slowly. And this kid walks in and over the course of our training session, that was our upper body day.

I was outlifting him by 40%. It's like he could do like one rep at one 90 on a bench press. And I was doing 10 at two 70, which for me was extraordinary, extraordinary. And I was able to get up to that point. But he had, his muscles were made way bigger. And honestly, it kind of pissed me off. And, um, and after the session, like the next week, I said, what the hell is with that? This kid can't lift crap.

Yeah, he has 10 times more muscle than me. He says, David, David, David, genetics, you know, you're of Northern European and your muscle is going to be different and he's Polynesian and his muscle is different. He was talking about red muscles and white muscle. I don't know what he was talking about, but he was trying to explain it and he was explaining genetics. And the upshot is you have to have reasonable expectations. And also vanity. Vanity was a big part of my problem.

Uh, cause I, there was only one reason I was working out. I was, I was tired of being skinny fat. And so, uh, and what I mean by that for anyone in the audience is I was starting to gain some weight, but I had very little muscle mass. And so I just had this weird body shape. So, uh, and the working out was doing wonders. It was just taking a long time, but watching some kid walk in, it hurt my ego. It discouraged me.

Uh, it's like, I had all the wrong attitude. So how, how do you help people from, from keeping, from getting discouraged over the court for whatever the reason may be expectations or maybe something hurts or there's pain or their life is getting in the way. How do you work with people to kind of get break past the discouragement?

Yeah, so you said a lot of things that I want to touch on, but I'm going to first start with, you know, it goes back to when I say you have to set yourself as a priority. You have to realize what is a priority and what is not. And I don't think that, I don't think that many people place themselves in a high priority or high priority position as they should. And for that reason, they end up allowing excuses come to play and.

and really take control at that point. So this process is not going to be one that's going to be favorable to most, but that's the reason why you don't walk into a Walmart or a grocery store and you see a lot of fit people. It just doesn't happen. And it's not going to happen anywhere you go. I mean, for the most part. And it's because to gain that type of a physical prowess, it takes a lot of hard work, takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of...

You doing the same thing every single day amidst anything else that's going on in your day amidst whatever could come in between the times that you work out. So the, the, the thing is, is that if people allow their vices or their, uh, let's say they're, they're old behaviors to take control and their excuses to run amok. Well, then this process is going to take forever, but if they.

If they think to themselves, well, you know, I'm getting discouraged or whatever. It's like, well, welcome to the real world. That happens. You just have to bite your lip and continue on because reality is this. Nothing great comes overnight. Nothing great comes in a few months. This process is going to take years. How about this? Keep your head down, do the work and understand that you're becoming better than you were yesterday. Every day moving forward.

And even though you can't see it in real time, again, the work is working on you more than you're working on it. So this thing that you're trying to create here, it's happening and it's happening more and more every single day that you're sticking to plan. You're going to get frustrated. You're going to be discouraged. Welcome to life. Welcome to fitness life. That's all a part of the process. Nobody's exempt from this process.

Not even if you're taking steroids, but the guys that take steroids, they see quicker gains, quicker progression, which keeps them excited, which keeps them motivated and easy to keep going, which is in my end, to me though, that's a delusionary mindset because you're not really doing the work. The drugs are working on you and you have this understanding that you're doing this and this is easy and look, I'm moving up 50 pounds on my bench after last week. You know, it's just,

It's not real life, which is the reason why, another reason why I hate drugs in any kind of sport, because it gives you a skewed sense of what you can do on your own.

Yeah, so it's safe to say people taking drugs to gain muscle mass or losing the weight while they're doing the workouts, that's doing things to their organs. That's doing things to their bodies that could have long -term ramifications and really is the complete antithesis of what we're trying to talk about on this show. And I think people need to hear that.

because it can be discouraging as I gave my pity party example a few minutes ago about, it can be discouraging when you see someone else and they're working out and they're getting results and you're just going there every day and you're following the process and the results are taking a long time. But if you're doing it the right way, based on what you're describing,

You're not hurting your body. You're not hurting your internal organs. You're building your strength, which has obvious advantages. But you can't, people can't do that. And that being working out and building muscle while basically destroying their organs in the process. And one of the things that I see, you mentioned keeping the real world. Let's talk about a little bit of fantasy land and that is in Hollywood.

And that is, you'll see some of these actors, it was really popular with some of the action movies and the comic book movies. These guys get really big. And then they'll go on a talk show and somebody will say, well, how do you get so big? Oh, I worked out every day and I ate chicken breast and broccoli. Chicken breast and broccoli. And I'm thinking there's more to it than that. I mean,

It's got to be a lot harder than just working out every day with a, obviously a personal trainer, eight hours a day or whatever they're doing, but chicken and broccoli, I don't think that's keeping it real, is it? Or what are your thoughts on that? No, it's absolutely not. No, it's absolutely not. It's comical, you know, but the people that, the actors, they're just so politically correct. They want to be so politically correct. And,

And at the same time, they're being vast, vastly disingenuous. And, you know, T whatever, if that's how they want it. I mean, they're, they're told to probably speak that way from their publicist, I'm sure. But the fact of the matter is, I mean, there are, there are drugs involved. They probably have a drug guru that's coaching them on what drugs to take.

monitoring their blood, uh, their blood biomarkers, et cetera, in the process, which doesn't do all that good, all that much when you're monitoring biomarkers in the process. I mean, it's just when you're, when you're monitoring, when you're doing blood work, for example, you're getting a snapshot of what your, your internal physiology looks like a snapshot. So you're not really able to make out details of what's going on internally.

It would be the same as if you try to take the picture of a car going the hundred miles down on our, a hundred miles an hour down the road. You take a snapshot of that car. Sure. You can see what color it is, but you don't see the body lines. You don't see kind of wheels are on it. You could barely make out the make of the car. So, I mean, it's the same thing when you're looking at biomarkers, you're getting a snapshot of what your body looks like at that one moment. So anyway, but these actors, they have a, they have to, they have to.

obviously be a little bit more politically correct and ride the coattails of being more nebulous to some degree, but it's not admirable, it's not respectful. It's not respectable in my book. And I mean, you even P .F. people like The Rock that won't talk about their drug usage. I mean, give me a break. It's just, everybody doesn't talk about it because they want to portray this image that they're pure.

I think at least that's what that's my opinion on it. They want to portray this image is that they're pure and that they did it on their own accord and whatever. It's like you're living in fantasy land, but they're they're not really living in fantasy land. They're making everybody else believe that this is what they've done on their own. And by extension, the people that are looking at them are living in fantasy land. The people that are viewing these actors talk on these talk shows and explain that it was just chicken.

broccoli and maybe a little bit of rice and they worked out. Oh yeah. Which by the way, yeah. By the way, doesn't even, you don't even, you would, your body would physically break down. If you were an astronaut, you work out three times a day doing the bodybuilding style workout with weight training, with heavy weights. You wouldn't be able to recover every day from that unless you were taking gear. So it just, they kind of pigeonhole themselves when they talk like that because it's so obtuse.

from the real practical world of bodybuilding that we as bodybuilders know the difference and we can actually discern what they're saying and see that they're lying through their teeth. But again, it's all an attempt to be politically correct, right? Yes, absolutely correct. And not put out to the world that they're on drugs. So Justin, it sounds like you have a wealth of knowledge and experience.

and you're willing to share that knowledge and experience, what is the best way that someone in this audience can reach you?

Sure. So right. The best way right now would be to hit my Instagram. That's Justin Craig, Groff. It's no underscores or spaces, just a straight Justin Craig, Groff, G -R -O -T -H. And that's on Instagram. That's the best way to DM or that's the best way to go hold me through a DM. You can visit my website, the official JustinGroff .com. And you can also tune into the podcast straight from the chest.

And that's on Apple and Spotify and basically anywhere those podcasts were likely there. You could tune in there straight from the chest. Perfect. And just so that our audience knows, uh, all of Justin's contact information will be in the podcast and YouTube descriptions so that you can just click the links. So Justin, I think you're keeping it real man. And I appreciate that. And I think our audience appreciates that. And.

I mean, I feel motivated right now. I mean, yeah, I mean, I love what you were saying and it, I think what you're saying also aligns very closely to this show. So thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, your experience and your excitement and your passion with Adventures in Good Health. Oh man, it was a pleasure of mine. Thank you so much, David. Thank you, Justin.

Hope if you were listening or watching, you took some notes. Bodybuilding and weight training, that is all very important, but you gotta do it the right way. And the natural way, that's the way to do it. All right, so to my audience, thank you very much for watching, for liking, and for commenting. But especially, if you haven't done so already, press that little button down there for subscribe and notifications.

Because if you do that, every time we post a new video, you will be notified and we have a ton of videos that we are posting every week. So press that subscribe button. That really helps the channel with the whole YouTube algorithm thing. And I thank you. So until next week, I am David Maloof, exploring natural approaches to good health.

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