May, 2020. A proper cheat meal, enjoyed slowly and without guilt. By that point, training had already taught me something important: food tastes different when it’s earned. Not rushed, not inhaled, not used to fill a hole—just appreciated for what it is.
Moments like this were never about excess. They were about balance. About understanding when to stay strict and when to relax the grip without losing respect for the work. The discipline didn’t disappear just because the meal was bigger. It showed up in knowing exactly when to enjoy it—and when to get back to routine the next day.
From the outside, bodybuilding competitions might look simple. You see the lights, the tan, the poses, the body at its sharpest. What you don’t see is what happens a few minutes later, when the music stops, the pump fades, and the judges’ decisions land.
That’s the quiet moment people rarely talk about. The one where adrenaline drains out of your system and you realize the outcome may or may not match how you felt on stage.
It’s emotional in a very specific way. Because in this sport, your body isn’t just flesh and bone. It’s months of structure, restraint, missed meals, early mornings, and small choices stacked on top of each other. When you step onstage, you’re not just being looked at — your work is.
Sometimes the callouts confirm what you believed. Other times, they don’t. And when they don’t, it can feel personal, even when you know it isn’t.
Judging Is Expert — and Still Human
Judges bring a great deal of expertise to the table.
They’re not guessing. They’re experienced, educated, and tasked with ranking elite physiques that are often separated by subtle details most people wouldn’t even notice. That’s not easy.
At the same time, judging will always involve a human element. Bodybuilding isn’t a stopwatch sport, where one competitor clearly crosses a finish line before another. It’s visual. It’s comparative. It’s about balance, flow, conditioning, structure, and overall impression — all evaluated in a short window, under bright lights, while athletes are moving.
Two physiques can both be excellent and still land differently depending on what the judges prioritize that day.
When It Goes Your Way
When the judging lines up with your expectations, it feels like confirmation. Not just that you looked good, but that your decisions were right. That your prep made sense. That your coach read the situation correctly. That the sacrifices had direction.
Bodybuilding doesn’t give you constant feedback. You can’t check your progress with a scoreboard every week. So when a result affirms your approach, it feels like someone finally says, “Yes. That worked.”
Those moments matter. They keep you grounded in the process.
When It Doesn’t
The harder moments come when you step off stage feeling confident — and the placements tell a different story.
That’s the part people underestimate. You don’t always lose because you cut corners. Sometimes the lineup is simply strong. Sometimes your strengths don’t line up with what’s rewarded in that comparison. Sometimes your best look didn’t show up the way you needed it to that day.
And yes, sometimes it just doesn’t feel fair.
That’s a dangerous feeling if you don’t manage it properly. If you let disappointment turn into resentment, it will stall you fast. A loss can be the most powerful thing: it motivates you to reach even higher.
Why Feedback Matters More Than Emotion
This is why I always seek feedback after a show. Not to defend myself, or to complain, but to learn.
The judges see the sport from the perspective that actually matters on stage. If I want to move forward, I need to understand what they saw — not just what I felt. Was it balance? Conditioning? Structure? Presentation? Something holding the look back at the next level?
Sometimes the feedback confirms what I already suspected. Other times it surprises me. Those surprises are usually the most valuable part, because they help me build a smarter plan the next time around.
How I Process a Result
Over the years, I’ve learned this: you can’t let a result define you, but you also can’t ignore it.
The only mindset that works long-term is simple. Respect the judges. Respect the process. Accept the outcome. Then respond by improving something specific.
Bodybuilding rewards consistency, especially when things don’t go your way. In fact, the shows that sting tend to teach you more than the ones you win. Winning feels great. Falling short forces you to evolve.
More Than a Physique
This sport isn’t just about muscle. It’s about how you handle pressure, how you absorb disappointment, and how you stay disciplined when your ego wants answers immediately.
No one owes you a trophy. You earn it repeatedly, over time, through adjustment and persistence.
Judging will always create highs and lows. That’s part of the deal. But it’s also what gives the stage meaning. Because you’re not chasing a perfect score — you’re checking whether your work is moving in the right direction.
No matter the placement, I come back to the same approach every time:
“Bad genetics” is one of the most common explanations I hear when someone feels stuck. Strength isn’t moving. A body part won’t change. Conditioning keeps stalling. It’s an easy conclusion to reach, because it takes the pressure off. If it’s genetic, then there’s nothing to fix.
The reality is usually less dramatic — and more useful.
Most plateaus don’t come from limitations you were born with. They come from habits you’ve repeated long enough that your body has fully adapted to them. Same exercises, same loads, same rest times, same execution, same recovery patterns. The body is very good at surviving predictable stress. When nothing changes, nothing needs to.
In bodybuilding, progress slows not because the body “can’t” grow anymore, but because the signal has stopped being clear. You might still be training hard, but hard isn’t the same as effective. Maybe the weights went up, but the target muscle stopped doing the work. Maybe volume crept higher while recovery quietly slipped. Maybe sleep, food, or stress fell just enough out of alignment that adaptation stalled. None of that is genetic — it’s systemic.
This is where awareness matters. Plateaus usually leave clues before they fully settle in. Pumps get flatter. Strength fluctuates. Joints start talking more than muscles. You feel busy in the gym, but nothing is sharpening. Those are signs that something in the system needs adjusting, not that you’ve reached your ceiling.
I’ve seen this over and over, both in my own training and in the athletes I coach. When we step back and tighten the basics — cleaner execution, better exercise selection, smarter volume, more consistent sleep — progress often resumes without anything dramatic. No miracle program. No exotic technique. Just clearer input.
Genetics matter at the highest levels, no question. They influence structure, shape, and ultimate limits. But most people hit plateaus long before genetics become the deciding factor. They stall because the plan stopped evolving, or because they’re repeating what once worked without checking whether it still does.
The honest question to ask when you’re stuck isn’t “Do I have bad genetics?”
It’s “What has my body already adapted to — and what needs to change?”
Plateaus aren’t a verdict. They’re feedback. And if you’re willing to listen, they usually point you toward the next step forward.
Sometimes the work happens in the shadows, where it’s just me, the cables, and my focus. In moments like this, I’m reminded that the real gains come from the intention behind every rep, not the spotlight on it.
I just shared a new video on YouTube from Columbus, Ohio — filmed one day before the Arnold Classic.
In the video, I meet up with my coach Giuseppe for a final chest workout during peak week. After more than a month of check-ins through photos and video, it was the first time he saw my condition live again before stepping on stage.
We walk through how we approach training this close to competition: controlled weights, clean execution, and keeping the muscles active without creating unnecessary fatigue. At this stage, the goal isn’t building anything new. The focus is on maintaining activation, moving the body, and making sure everything responds well as peak week adjustments come together.
Giuseppe also shares his perspective on my condition, the lineup at this year’s Arnold, and what we’re aiming for heading into the show.
A lot of people think they’re training shoulders… but they’re really just training traps.
If your delts refuse to grow, or your shoulders look “flat” from the front, there’s a good chance your traps are taking over the movement. It’s common — especially if you’re strong, you shrug naturally under effort, or you’ve built years of tension in your upper back from stress, posture, or heavy pulling.
The fix isn’t just changing exercises. It’s changing what your body does when it gets tired.
The problem
When you press, raise, or row, your body wants to help you. And the traps are always ready to help — they lift the shoulder up, stabilize the neck, and take stress away from the delts. That’s great for survival… but terrible for building round shoulders.
If your shoulders rise toward your ears on every rep, you’re giving the trap a job it doesn’t need.
The cue that changes everything
Before you start the rep, think:
“Shoulders down. Neck long. Delts work.”
Not forced. Not stiff. Just a light “down and away” feeling — like you’re keeping space between your ears and your shoulders.
If you keep that position, the delt stays loaded. If you lose it, the trap steals the rep.
Three quick fixes I use
First: lower the weight.
Heavy weight makes you recruit whatever muscle can survive. If you want delts, use a load you can control without shrugging.
Second: slow down the top.
Most trap takeover happens at the top of lateral raises and pressing. Add a small pause or slow the last third of the rep — it forces the delt to finish the movement.
Third: choose shoulder movements that punish cheating.
I like machines or cables for this, because the tension stays consistent and you can’t hide behind momentum.
The goal
You’re not trying to “avoid traps” completely — traps will always be involved. But you are trying to stop them from becoming the main mover.
The next time you train shoulders, don’t ask: “How heavy can I go?”
This week kept returning to one idea: precision beats hype.
On Sculpting Sunday, we started with stimulants — coffee and pre-workout. Used correctly, they sharpen focus. Used poorly, they become a crutch. The real work still comes down to execution: clean reps, controlled rest, and attention to detail. Supplements can support intensity, but they should never replace it.
Motivation Monday zoomed in on what that precision looks like during a set. A controlled arc on the cables, constant tension through the chest, and deliberate movement from start to finish. When the form is locked in, every rep becomes targeted work instead of random effort.
That idea expanded on Truth Tuesday, where the question was simple: Why are you doing that exercise? If a movement doesn’t have a clear purpose, it’s probably just noise. Training works best when every exercise has a job — building a muscle, strengthening a pattern, or correcting a weak point.
Midweek we went deeper into one of the most important skills in bodybuilding: mind–muscle connection. Strength matters, but connection determines where the work actually lands. When the right muscle controls the rep — from the first repetition to the last — progress becomes measurable and intentional.
On Throwback Thursday, we stepped outside the gym to Muscle Beach in 2019. Training there reminds you that discipline doesn’t depend on perfect conditions. It’s about control — showing up, doing the work, and letting the effort speak for itself.
And Friday Flex brought the week back to its simplest form: a gym flex from April 2023. A quiet checkpoint that progress comes from consistency — showing up again and again with focus and commitment.
If there’s a theme running through the week, it’s this: the physique isn’t built by excitement or novelty. It’s built by control, intention, and attention to where the work actually goes.
Flexing in the gym, locking in on the progress that comes from showing up day after day. Focus, commitment, and will — those are the real drivers behind every rep and every result. April, 2023.
Muscle Beach, 2019. Core work under the open sky, sand beneath the bars, salt in the air. Training here always feels different — more exposed, more honest. There’s nowhere to hide when you’re working outside, especially at a place with as much history as Muscle Beach. Every rep happens in full view, framed by palm trees, tourists, and the long shadow of everyone who trained here before you.
I wrote recently in a Tuesday Travelogue about why this place still matters. Muscle Beach has never been about comfort or perfection. It’s about control. About showing up and doing the work where it can be seen, felt, and judged — by yourself most of all. Gymnastics, acrobatics, early bodybuilding — it all happened right here, long before training was curated or edited.
I was recently featured in Muscle & Fitness magazine, where they highlighted one of the core exercises I’ve been using in my training — the incline Smith machine leg raise.
The article goes into detail on how I approach core development, not just from a visual standpoint, but from a functional one. In bodybuilding, the core isn’t just about how it looks. It’s about stability, control, and how efficiently you can transfer force through every movement.
This is something I’ve been placing more emphasis on, especially leading into major competitions. A stronger, more controlled core improves overall execution and helps maintain better structure across all poses.
If you want a closer look at the exercise and the reasoning behind it, you can read the full article here.
People like to think bodybuilding is about chasing heavier weights. More plates, more numbers, more bragging rights. Strength matters, obviously, but strength alone doesn’t build a great physique. Connection does.
You can move a lot of weight and still miss the muscle you’re trying to grow. I see it every day. Joints take over. Momentum creeps in. Other muscles jump in to help. The set gets finished, but the target muscle barely worked. On the flip side, you can use moderate loads and build serious detail if the tension stays exactly where it’s supposed to. That’s mind–muscle connection. It’s the ability to put stress where you want it, on purpose, and keep it there from the first rep to the last.
In bodybuilding, we’re not judged on what we lift. We’re judged on what shows up on stage. Shape, density, balance, detail. That changes how you have to think about training. Completing a rep isn’t the goal. The right muscle completing the rep is. When the connection is right, everything lines up naturally. The pump goes to the right place. Form cleans itself up. Weak points finally start responding. When it’s wrong, you can train hard for years and still wonder why certain areas never improve.
One thing I’ve learned, especially deep into prep, is that chasing numbers stops working fast. Low calories don’t leave room for sloppy effort. I train for feedback, not ego. If a set is written as ten to twelve reps and I lose the connection at eight, the set ends at eight. That’s not quitting. That’s precision. The best rep in a set is the one you actually control. Everything after that is just noise.
The first rep matters more than people realize. Most lifters rush it, bounce into the movement, and use the first few reps to “get warm.” That’s backwards. The first rep sets the pattern for the entire set. If it’s off, the rest usually follow. I treat the first rep like a checkpoint. Am I positioned correctly? Is the target muscle engaging? Do I feel tension where I should? If the answer is no, I reset immediately. One clean rep teaches your nervous system what to do. Ten sloppy reps teach it what to avoid.
Controlling the negative is another underrated piece. Slow eccentrics force you to stay in the muscle. Dropping the weight hands the work off to anything that wants to help. That’s why you’ll see me using controlled lowers, pauses, squeeze-focused reps, and short rest periods. It’s not for show. It’s how you keep tension honest. When the muscle stays loaded longer, it learns faster.
Machines play a role here too. Not because they’re easier, but because they remove options. Free weights demand balance, stabilization, and coordination across multiple joints. That’s useful, but it also creates opportunities to cheat. Machines lock the path. They reduce variables. Especially when you’re trying to bring up a weak point, or when recovery is limited, that fixed path can help you stay connected instead of surviving the movement.
I follow a simple rule in every session: if the wrong muscle starts taking over, I stop. Traps creeping into shoulder work. Biceps dominating back movements. Lower back doing the job rows are supposed to do. When that happens, I don’t push through and hope it fixes itself. I pause, reset my position, and restart the rep with control. Sometimes that means doing one clean rep at a time, resetting between each, until the pattern is correct. The body always chooses the easiest route. Your job is to teach it a better one.
Mind–muscle connection isn’t something you’re born with. It’s a skill. You earn it by paying attention, by slowing down, and by caring where the work actually lands. Once you develop it, training changes completely. The question stops being how much weight you can move, and starts being how much tension you can create in the muscle you’re trying to build.
That’s bodybuilding. That’s sculpting. And that’s where real progress comes from.
One of the fastest ways I can tell how serious someone is about their training is by asking a simple question: Why are you doing that exercise?
Not how it feels. Not where they saw it. Not who they copied. Why it’s in their program.
A lot of people train on autopilot. They bounce from movement to movement because it’s written on a screen, because it’s trendy, or because it looks impressive. There’s no intention behind it — just motion. The workout feels busy, but it isn’t directional. And when training doesn’t have direction, progress becomes accidental at best.
Every exercise in your program should have a job. It should exist to build something specific: a muscle group, a portion of a muscle, a pattern, a weak point, or a skill. If you can’t explain what that job is, you’re guessing. And guessing is expensive in a sport that already asks for years of patience.
This becomes obvious in bodybuilding, where you’re not rewarded for variety or creativity — you’re rewarded for outcomes. You don’t get points for doing a cool-looking movement. You get points for proportions, balance, and detail. That forces you to think differently. You start choosing exercises because of how they load a muscle, how stable they are when you’re fatigued, and how well you can repeat them week after week without breaking down.
I see this a lot with people who chase novelty. Every session has new exercises, new angles, new techniques. It feels productive because it’s unfamiliar, but it’s impossible to measure. You don’t know if you’re improving because you’re never repeating the same stimulus long enough to see adaptation. You’re entertained, but you’re not informed.
When I add an exercise, I know exactly what it’s supposed to do. I know where I should feel it. I know what it’s replacing or complementing. And I know when it’s done its job and needs to be rotated out. That clarity makes training simpler, not more complicated. The session runs cleaner. The feedback is clearer. The results are easier to track.
So here’s a quick check you can use in your own training: before you start a movement, ask yourself what problem it’s solving. If you can’t answer that in one sentence, pause. Either learn why it’s there, or pick something you understand better.
Because movement without purpose is just noise. And the gym rewards people who know exactly what they’re building.
I just shared a new video on YouTube filmed one week before the Arnold Classic, while I was still in New York finishing the final stage of my preparation.
In this vlog, I walk through a full day of my routine while staying at the Equinox Hotel — a place built around the same principles I believe in when it comes to performance, longevity, and recovery. It’s a combination of fitness, wellness, and health-focused technology that reflects the direction I see the industry moving toward.
The video starts with my morning routine, including green tea, apple cider vinegar with lemon, electrolytes, and a few supplements that support digestion, energy, and overall health. I also talk about the importance of consistency in daily habits. In bodybuilding, routines are not just about discipline — they’re about creating systems that you can sustain over time.
Later in the day, I show part of my pre-workout nutrition and a shoulder workout focused on activation and control rather than heavy loads. At this stage of prep, the goal is not to build new muscle. The work has already been done in the months leading up to the show. The focus now is on keeping blood moving through the muscles, staying connected to the movement, and avoiding unnecessary fatigue.
Recovery is also a major part of the day. In the video I visit the spa area at Equinox to go through several recovery treatments, including cold exposure and cryotherapy. These tools help reduce inflammation, support the nervous system, and keep the body functioning well during peak week.
To close out the vlog, I also show some of the evening recovery practices I use before traveling to Ohio for the Arnold Classic.
Driving the cables forward with a controlled arc, I focus on squeezing through the full range to keep constant tension on my chest. When I lock in on form like this, every rep becomes precision work — targeted, intentional, and built for real development.
Coffee and pre-workout can be a great tool — I use both. But there’s a line that a lot of people cross without realizing it: they start relying on stimulants to create intensity instead of using them to support intensity.
Here’s the rule I follow: stims should sharpen focus, not replace it. If you need more and more caffeine just to feel “ready,” the problem usually isn’t the supplement. It’s your routine, your sleep, your recovery, or your ability to lock in mentally without a chemical push.
A good pre-workout should feel like a clean switch flipping on — more alert, more present, more dialed in — not like you’re jittery, distracted, and chasing a rush. If your heart is racing but your training still looks sloppy, that’s not performance. That’s stimulation without control.
The best way to use coffee + pre-workout is simple: take it, then train like it didn’t exist. Your form still matters. Your rest times still matter. Your execution still matters. The supplement doesn’t do the work — it only gives you the chance to do the work with more precision.
Because in the end, real progress isn’t built by being “hyped.” It’s built by being focused — even on the days when you don’t feel like it.
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