Is TRT Cheating In BJJ? (Episode 412)

Speaker 1: What up, guys? So today we're going to talk about testosterone. TRT, steroids, gear, whatever you wish to call it. Uh the juice, Mexican supplements. Whatever you want to call it, right? Um, you know, it's got a lot of names, but we're going to talk about it. I will share some experiences that I have, um, both from doctor times and me being a young, dumb kid without a fully formed neocortex and uh making decisions without any sort of understanding of long-term health. Uh, I'll also share my experiences with TRT and being on it for a few years now. Um, so that this way maybe it gives you some sort of um, information to lean lean on. Uh, we'll talk about pros, cons, dangers, and we'll dance around the topic a lot. We'll talk about men using it, women using it. Um, whether it's cheating, right? We'll talk about that a bit. Um, and we'll be all over the place. This is not the definitive thing. This is literally me and Eugene talking about it because I know he's he's got some curiosities about it and and I'm always willing to talk about it. Like in the gym, I've been asked many times about it from different people and things like that. And I've also many of you guys have um, heard me talk about or have contacted the company First Optimal that I started working with, which they do a lot of other stuff besides just TRT, but they do do TRT therapies for men and women, um, to support them as they get older to make them feel better. So, anyway, let's uh get into today's podcast. Big thanks to our sponsors. Datsusara is one of our newest sponsors. You can find them at DSgear.com. They make high quality backpacks, bags. Um, I've got like this fanny pack. Some of the guys saw it in uh in one of the videos like when I when I walk my dog, I've got my like I've got his treats in there and I've got his like little poopy bags that I I have, right? And there it is. So that's my uh I take that out with me whenever I'm walking the doggy. Actually, mine, does yours have two pouches in the front? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I've got the two pouches in the front. And so Speaker 2: It's got these little guys in the back too. You can hook it on to stuff. Speaker 1: Yeah, you can hook it on your belt and everything else. And then uh they've got the backpack. I've been using that sucker. It's a big old backpack. I've actually got it. It's a great backpack. And the thing that's really cool about them and the reason why I feel comfortable sharing with you guys is I have a I need to go dig them out. Um, but I've got a pair of shorts that I got that were given to me as a gift from a friend like back in 2012 uh from from Datsusara. I think it was 2012, maybe in 2013. But a long time ago and I wore those things for probably I'd say six, seven years. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, like at least at least once or twice a week and wore them like all the time and they don't have any tears or anything on them. I still got them. Um, sometimes like I'll wear them when I go outside and stuff like that. I wear mostly my jiu-jitsu gear and stuff now, but they're high quality stuff. And so again, it's not the cheapest stuff ever, but you're going to get high quality stuff, stuff that will last. big on that. I like that. I like stuff where if I buy it, I don't have to replace it all the time, right? Everybody hates the sort of um, plan obsolescence, right? Uh, where stuff just goes bad. It's designed to break. Everybody hates that, don't you? Um, but, you know, nobody wants to pay a few extra bucks for something nice. You know, it's it's funny, right? Everybody wants everything cheap, but then they don't want it to break. So, I just share that with you. 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But um, you know, the FDA was created to kind of like deal with some of that stuff. So there's some good and bads to it. Um, one of the goods is that you you can kind of like cut down on some of that stuff. And so, you know, it's not regulated, but Charlotte's Web sort of holds their stuff to a higher standard. And I've used a lot of CBD products out there. I think they make a really good one. They make a lot of other products as well, like functional mushroom products, like Lion's Mane, Reishi. Um, they also have some balms and rubs. A lot of good stuff. If you want to check them out, go to their website at Charlottesweb.com. The promo code is Jiu-jitsu 30 for 30% off. C H E W J I T S U 30 for 30% off. Also, thanks to our buddies over at Epic Roll. Epic Roll is a company that makes Jiu-jitsu gear. They're made by Jiu-jitsu black belts and people that are involved in our community. They support competitions like the PGF. Um, a bunch of cool guys and Matt's been a a friend of mine for some years now. He's been a friend of the podcast for some years. We've had him on the podcast. And uh again, he's a he's started the company and he's a Jiu-jitsu guy like us making the stuff. And he's got great designs, great customer service, great quality stuff. I really like his rash guards and his shorts. I mean, I've I've actually started wearing the gees too. I think everything he makes. I haven't had anything as far as how it feels like not live up to my expectation. Um, and I've used his some of his rash guards and his shorts. I've had some of them going for about five years now and they're still going. Like, they're still going. There's no like they're not ripped to shreds. They're still going. And again, I'm hard on my stuff. And so again, if you guys want to check out their website, browse around, see if there's anything you like. They've got anything Jiu-jitsu wise you you might want. 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So if you don't want to uh read it, you can just watch me and listen to me describe this out for you. And I'll give you a couple extras in there when I'm doing the video because I always kind of ramble off a little bit as you might already know. And then you'll get my daily email. The daily email goes through anything and everything that I think might be interesting or useful to you related to Jiu-jitsu, life, lifting, diet, whatever. And uh again, you can unsubscribe at any time. And uh guys, with that said, let's jump into this podcast and let's talk about some old TRT. So guys, welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to talk about TRT. Yeah. Testosterone replacement therapy. Steroids, right? We've um over the last number of years, everybody's like kind of churched it up a little bit. Back in the day, you were just, you know, you would use uh the term, hey, you're doing steroids, you're doing gear, you're whatever. Now it's like you're doing TRT because it comes from a doctor. There are some significant differences by doing something from your doctor versus, you know, doing the um the gym bro cycle that uh you were advised to do when you're in your early 20s like I did. We'll talk about that stuff as we go through. But we're going to talk about it because it's a subject that keeps popping up. Um, it's more common for guys as they get older, women too. Um, we'll talk about that a little bit, um, to do it. And I've gotten a lot of questions from it. You've gotten questions about it. You you're even you've got questions for yourself on it. Um, I've been doing I've been with my company First Optimal since 2024, started doing TRT in 2023. Um, my wife is on it. Um, you know, and there again, there's a lot of different stuff. And I've even had guys ask me, you know, is it cheating? I actually did have that question. Is it cheating? Right. Even if they don't want to compete. You know what I mean? Like if they're just going into the gym and they just don't want to compete. So, we're going to we're going to talk about this. We don't have any definitive answers, but hopefully you guys will if you're interested in the subject, maybe you'll get some ideas, some information, something that could be useful to you, whether to advise your own decisions, decisions you hear about it, or even, you know, someone like a family member or something like that. Um, you know, like I said, I got my wife um into it because of different reasons as we'll talk about in a little bit. Um, but Eugene, I know you kind of wanted to talk about this, so I'll let you lead the way. Speaker 2: Yeah, so it there's been some um, you know, some people getting caught for some steroids. Steroids, I don't know what exactly, but you know, with uh some Speaker 1: Performance enhancing drugs. Speaker 2: We'll say performance enhancing drugs, some prominent athletes and uh it's been in the news and that's something, you know, some some even Speaker 1: Which ain't going away. I mean, you know, Speaker 2: Which some gyms have been caught, you know, more than others. I think it's something that maybe but but when you get older and your body starts to kind of the performance starts to taper a little bit, the recovery starts to taper. You start asking yourself, what can I do? You know, I still want to train. I love training. I love lifting weights. I want to keep looking decent and feeling decent, right? I'm 42 and I'm like, it's kind of started for me the conversation we started earlier before the podcast uh was recording. We were like, we had a tough training session yesterday. It was tough. Every round was tough. Speaker 1: Pretty much all pretty much like the whole class just randomly ended up being almost all black belts. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: We had seven, I think seven black belts. Speaker 2: Seven or eight black belts. Speaker 1: Seven or eight black belts, all tough black belts. Um, and you know, we we had guys that were tough competitors. Some of them were, you know, multiple time world and pan champs. I mean, like, you know, it's it's a it was a tough day. Like there are you you couldn't go to the round and say, oh, there's a blue belt. Let me go catch him so I can catch my breath a little bit. It was like every round was a tough one. Speaker 2: Yeah, it was tough. And so we did a a really tough drill that like and after I was like, dude, I am gas. Speaker 1: Which one did you find tough? The scramble drill? Speaker 2: It was the scramble drill where we had the single leg. The single leg and then you start like kneeling on one leg and and you already have uh your arms around their leg and you start standing up or you you start from a kneeling, but you usually end up standing up and starting to finish the the single leg or transition to a different takedown. The person that is one person defends, the other person tries to finish the takedown. And it's basically we did seven minutes and it was non-stop. Whatever you change positions after like every engagement. So I get the takedown, we switch or I escape, we switch. So it's back and forth non-stop, man. You're just And after that, I was just like, and we still had like half the class to go and I was like, shit, dude, I'm Speaker 1: Yeah, that was just like that was our lead up to like regular rolling, right? We were doing all those takedown drills. And those are exhausting. Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't it wasn't even regular rolling. We did positional and then we did like full rounds. So it was like Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying. We did all that positional stuff like all that wrestling positional takedown stuff, which is exhausting. And then we went into the regular rounds afterwards, right? So that's a that was a tough class, man. Speaker 2: So actually I got home and my wife looks at me, she goes, are you okay? I was like, yeah, I'm just I'm just worn out. I'm just exhausted. So, um, that was kind of part of the the idea behind this and then, you know, with with the stuff in the in the news and the Jiu-jitsu Speaker 1: You drink any dextrose last night? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I did. And I think it probably saved me. I drank some dextrose and some EAAs, uh sip on that. Speaker 1: Yeah, you got you got to have that stuff for like you got to have that dextrose when you're doing a hard class like that. Speaker 2: I'm doing a jury class. Yeah, I'm kind of sipping. That's kind of my drink. I'm sipping through a dextrose and some EAAs. I'm just sipping on that through our class. But I was really worn out and then it was like, you know, uh with the stuff in the news, we just started talking. Me and you kind of just got into it. I was like, man, let's talk about TRT, you know. Well, because there's so much that you can address about TRT. Is it cheating? Is it not cheating? Is it okay to use, not okay? Is it frowned upon? Um, you know, so there's a lot to think about, a lot of different avenues to take this. So let's kind of get into it. Chewy, you are on TRT. I am not on TRT. I mean, I take creatine and and just supplements, just over the counter stuff, but I'm not taking any kind of prescribed TRT or uh uh I guess anything else that would enhance my performance. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you're taking stuff to enhance your performance. You're just not taking pharmaceutical drugs. Speaker 2: I am not taking pharmaceutical drugs. Yes. Speaker 1: You're taking like, you know, you're trying to eat certain foods, you're trying to eat certain supplements and things like that, right? To get the best out of yourself. Speaker 2: Sure. Speaker 1: Which is, you know, performance enhancing in some capacity. But right, it's not pharmaceutical. Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it is. Speaker 1: Like you you know as well as I do, right? If you're eating a good diet, you're on that Eli diet, you're you're going to feel pretty good. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely. Speaker 1: So, so yeah, so, you know, let me sort of back up a little bit. I'll give you guys my experience with steroids. We'll let's just lay it out here because I know this is such a a touchy subject and stuff. And a lot of people aren't very transparent with it. I'll be transparent with it. Um, I had my first cycle of steroids when I was 21. So, the reason why I did them was because I did not like the way that I looked, right? Um, our society pushes certain standards on men and women. You know, women have their standards that they have to adhere to. Men have their standards. Like you look at um, go look at the action figures that we're looking at, right? Look at the the action heroes that we grew up watching. Um, there's actually there was a really interesting video that I watched where they broke down, they showed the the GI Joes from like, you know, the 1950s or whenever they came out to like now. And like now these these guys are like have serratus muscles showing, which means they're probably in like sub 10% body fat. Um, you know, they're just yolked now, right? Comic book characters are all yolked. And so, you know, I looked at myself when I was um, older or as I got older and, you know, I had lost weight when I was younger, but I originally was chubby. And so I was no longer chubby, but I had some loose skin. Um, I had developed gyno in puberty, right? So that's like the the glandular tissue in my chest, right? So it's like, um, you know, I just didn't like it the way that I looked. And a lot of this was just my own insecurity from things that happened when I was a kid, right? So again, people making fun of me, my my dad making fun of me about stuff, right? And so you you you really hang on to this stuff, which, you know, again, I'm all for messing around and teasing your kids and have fun having fun with them. Um, but there's a line, of course, and I would be careful if you're a dad or a mom and, you know, the things that you say to them because they leave scars, right? Um, but maybe not physical, but mental. But anyway, so I get to um, you know, my 20s and I'm like, just I want to look different. Now, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing with diet. My lifting is meh. I'm I'm lifting, I'm getting stronger, but like I'm I'm 21, of course, I'm getting stronger. But I thought, man, if I use like this steroids, this is just going to I'm going to look so jacked. I'm going to look so different, right? So I start doing um, cycle. I got some stuff from a guy in the gym, right? Because, you know, I don't know what it is, man. It's like as soon as you you start to uh give off that energy that I'm looking for something. Speaker 2: The vibe. Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, dude. It's like, you know, I've talked to someone before like, I've never used any sort of um, drugs like, you know, cocaine or anything, right? So if someone said, hey, you got like 24 hours to get some I have no idea where I would get it. You know, but like, it's like, but I talked to a guy who told me, he's like, when you're in that space and you're in that mindset, it's like, you somehow attract the people. It's like the universe says, here you go. So, I, you know, talked to a guy and I remember it was actually a guy that I was training Jiu-jitsu with and doing MMA with. I was driving him home one day. And I said, hey, man, like, have you ever used steroids? And he's and he's just like, hell yeah, whatever. You want some? And so he gives me this cycle. Now, I was going to go on this pretty I had looked up some information and I was going to go on this very like moderately, like very like low end. He's like, oh, just do this, do this. Just throw some stuff on there, right? And so I start using them. Now, I got bigger. I got stronger. But my diet wasn't where it needed to be. I didn't really know what I was doing lifting properly. And so yeah, there were some benefits to it, but at the same time, I didn't get that much from it really. And then when I came off of it, I lost a lot of it because I had no idea what I was doing as far as getting my natural testosterone production down and because I didn't know what I was doing with my food, I just lost a lot of the the muscle I gained and kind of looked about back to the same. And so I dabbled with them a little bit in my 20s. And I really wish I wouldn't have because I think that it probably did hurt my natural production later on. I don't know that for certain, right? But I I think it probably didn't have the best effect because you are messing with the endocrine system and you're doing it in a very haphazardly way, right? Um, and so that was my exposure to it, right? Was that. Um, I started using TRT in 2000 23 with a local company. I switched to a company called First Optimal uh later on in 2024 uh because of, you know, just knowing the guys and um, they they do some really good work as far as really digging into your blood work instead of just being like, hey, just get on this stuff. They like dig in there and and figure out all kinds of markers and things like that to be concerned with. And so I started doing it in 2023 because I was just like, man, my body's banged up. I'm sore. I'm broke. I I I'm not broken. I actually feel pretty damn good. But I just my body was starting to to slow down a little bit. Um, you know, and I was just like, I I'm just losing a step. So I'm just like, well, let me let me try this out again and instead of going, you know, gym bro way where you're just doing whatever the heck the guy is, here, do this stuff. I'm like, let me do this the medical way where everything's being monitored. My blood work's being checked. Um, they're looking at all these levels and they're giving me a reasonable dose, not some crazy dose, like, you know, like, you know, typically you're talking with a TRT dose, you're talking like 100 milligrams, 200 max, right? You're looking somewhere in that range and that's what you're doing. And so started in 2023, um, and that's that, right? And so then I had a good experience and also too, First Optimal got on things like um, thyroid medication. So I I I got on that, which that was a game changer. Like the TRT was great and that was something, but it still didn't take care of this brain fog and sometimes this middle of the afternoon fatigue I was getting. Um, the TRT did that like the uh, the thyroid medication took care of that. It was wild, right? How much how much better I felt from there. And then I had such a good experience. I got my wife to get interested in it, you know, and she got into um, she uses TRT. Her dose is like, I mean, it's it's like tiny how much she uses. And she uses that plus some estrogen related supplements because a lot of times women as they get into their 40s, sometimes those levels bottom out. And, you know, we talk about guys with TRT all the time. We don't really talk about women and how important it is for them because we've we've sort of gendered the the the sex hormones of like, you know, estrogen and testosterone, but they're not like we all have them in us. Right? And like estrogen, for instance, if you don't have any estrogen, you're going to like feel like just from what I understand, your like sense of well-being is just going to bottom out, right? And um, and so, you know, you get those levels into check and um, the benefits of or the so far, the effects have been great. Um, I get my blood work checked regularly. For the most part, it's kind of spot on. Uh, my diet's really locked in. So, um, my blood pressure's good. So it's like it's everything's just where it is. Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I I think like one point that you made was like young Chewy and older Chewy, right? Young Chewy's like, let me just just do this, trust the the guy I train with in the in my car that's going to just like tell me whatever. He has no medical background versus I'm going to do it the right way. I think you have a little more um, more skin in the game, more to lose as an older like, you know, you've got a gym, you've got a career, you got a lot of people that depend on you, family and stuff. I think you want to do it the right way. So I think also you want to Speaker 1: I'm not as insecure either. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true too. Speaker 1: Because I I tell you right now, like the really the real reason I did it because I was already like winning tournaments. I was winning MMA fights. So it's like, why did I need to do it, right? I was already winning. The the reason that I did it was because I was insecure about the way that I looked and I thought if I use this stuff, I could fix that. But the reality is is that you like besides the fact that I didn't get the most from it because I didn't know what I was doing. Even though I got bigger and stronger and everything else, like Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson has this quote where he says, you know, people I'm going to paraphrase here that they will travel they like they travel to escape where they're the things that are going on, right? They're like, I'm going to go travel to Naples, Italy and like all my problems are going to go away. They wake up in Italy and next to them in bed is the problems. You can't get away from them. And so I thought I can use this stuff and it'll just take care of everything. And the reality is is that like you can't just you can't do that because it's not just the way that you look. There's all this other baggage that you got to deal with. And um, I wasn't dealing with that. I was just a young insecure guy trying to fix a problem. And so I mean, I was just searching for an answer. I was searching for the the the solution to my problems and some guy's like, yeah, man, I got you. So, you know, it's it's the way that people do when they get desperate and they're they're they're trying to fix this problem. They'll they'll they will buy into things that just aren't the best solutions because they want to like try to fix this problem. And I was an insecure young idiot. So, Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think like one question is intent, right? Does intent matter? And I think if you are using something like TRT, I think intent matters if you're like, I want to feel better, more energy, or even get my levels to what they need to be for my age, you know, versus like am I a younger person or someone with normal levels and I'm trying to use it to gain an advantage, right? So that's kind of where I think you can draw the line is the intent to use for an advantage of some sort or to feel like adequate, whichever that could be different because, you know, as we age, testosterone levels decline naturally. So like, I guess that's kind of like a varying thing. Like what is what is cheating? What is not cheating, right? Is it all cheating? Speaker 1: I mean, you know, here there's a there you can get into a lot of ideas. I mean, obviously if the if that organization tests you and it's outlawed in your divisions, then I guess it's considered cheating, isn't it? Um, now, I think Speaker 2: As far as what TRT is, I don't know if TRT is outlawed anywhere, is it? Speaker 1: It's not I don't know that it's outlawed anywhere, but I'm just saying like like it's outlawed in like say like the UFC or something, right? Like you can't you can't go in with a script, I don't think, right? Speaker 2: Well, Speaker 1: Because because of all the guys that, you know, were basically TR on TRT back in the day like TRT Vitor. Um, you know, and so and also too, the thing about normal levels, by the way, is like normal's a wide range. So like you could be you could be bottoming out and feeling awful and, you know, having these low levels that are just inside of normal and the doctors are like, well, you're in normal range, you know, versus, well, like, yeah, it's normal, but is it optimal, right? So for instance, here's an example, my my thyroid my thyroid um, my TSH uh hormones, right? So like I had hypothyroid. Um, I'm like I I I'm subclinically hypothyroid, which means that my metabolism in essence is a little bit slower. We'll we'll say it that way, right? Um, and so when you um, when your thyroid functions are low, your TSH levels go up. So my TSH levels were elevated, but they just weren't in this little range on the the test on the blood work, right? So all my normal doctors never touched it. They're like, hey, you know, you're normal. It's in range. I get on to First Optimal and they're like, whoa, they're like, you probably feel awful, don't you? I was like, well, I mean, I can fight through it. I have willpower. You know, yeah, like by four or five o'clock, I'm exhausted and like I have these days where I'm in a mental haze, but, you know, you do what you got to do. I just figure I'm getting older. They're like, well, let's get your levels into an optimal state. And so, boom, you know, all of a sudden they get back to it. My TSH levels are right around like 1. something, which is good instead of being like 4. whatever. And I feel great. So it's like again, it's this idea where when you're talking about from the standpoint of like health and longevity and just quality of life, right? It's not about like are you in the normal range necessarily. It's more about like how do you want to feel? Because you could be in the normal range, but it may not be an optimal range for feeling at your best and performing at your best. Even like my wife, like my wife was, you know, like testosterone's low, estrogen levels are low. She's going through like perimenopause and all this stuff, having all these issues with, you know, exhaustion, headaches, which she was taking like other pharmaceutical drugs to deal with, which she then she's no longer on anymore because she doesn't need them. Because you're addressing some of the root issues. And so yeah, it it's like this is happening. Now, are her levels normal? I guess you could say they're normal. Is it optimal for her? Well, obviously it wasn't. I mean, she feels a hell of a lot better. Like, you know, you could literally like you could do this. You could look around our house. You could go look at our garden right now, right? And like the house is all nice and tidy. The garden's going. She's already got the garden going, right? It's like we've got all the different stuff starting to sprout. Last year, I remember she wanted to and she was just wiped out, dude. You know, and like she was just like, I guess it's just because I'm dealing with Luca. But at the same time, like this year, she's dealing with Luca and he's a hell of a lot more of a handful now at three than he was when he was like two. But at the same time, like she's able to have the energy to do those things. And uh, you know, then also too, there's that whole thing where you think about being in a marriage, right? Like as guys, like if we're doing something like TRT and we're all revved up, like and our woman's not, right? Like that that might create friction if they're running into issues where their testosterone's bottomed out, their hormones are bottomed out and they feel awful. And, you know, so again, it's like with like that health and longevity stuff, I I I think it's like you have to think that I think like the I forgot the age, but basically the normal ranges are to encompass a lot of different ages, right? And so, you know, you could be in a normal range but not feel great. Um, and so it really comes down to how do you want to feel? Uh, you know, and I'm not saying you need to go like off the walls crazy with your dosages because obviously the doctor wouldn't let you do that anyway. Um, but, you know, you can bump it up a little bit because we have modern medicine to do that. So why not use it? Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, again, you're going back to intent, right? Like is it to feel a certain way, like to function in a way that you feel better? Because we talked about TRT uh before we started the podcast, we were kind of just talking some ideas through and, you know, there are some pros and cons, right? Like, so if you use TRT, like people on I think you had kind of mentioned if those that are on TRT tend to have like better some of their levels, like blood pressure and like um their I don't even know if it was BMI, but like their body composition was better. So they were healthier. And I think for me it makes sense. If you think about it, if I feel better, like just you said, Jess, your wife was like, man, she's has more energy to do stuff. So like if you have low levels of testosterone or some hormones and you don't feel like you want to do anything, your mood is not great. You don't feel energized. You may just sit around, eat crappy food, not be active, um, you may do things that aren't beneficial, like drink alcohol, you may sit and doom scroll because you just don't feel good. And so you're doing things that people that don't feel good do, right? If somebody feels good, they're more active, they're maybe going to the gym more, uh, they're hopefully trying to take care of themselves, right? That's that's the whole point of this thing. So like, think about where you are in your life and what you kind of want your life to look like and like where you envision and but doing it the right way, right? You went you did it the right way. You said, well, I'm going to go to a professional that's going to check my blood work, which is like that gives you like the read out of your stuff. That's what you need. And then let's dig a little deeper because I've gone to my primary care doctor and he's like, uh, do you want to be intimate with your wife? That's the question he asked me. He goes, because I was like, I'm feeling like kind of low energy and he's like, Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And mind you, I'm like one of the healthiest people that he sees. You know, I go for annual physical. I'm literally one he's like, and he said this to me. He's like, you're literally the like the healthiest person I see. Yeah. Because he sees like, you know, 70, 80 year old people that are like on 20 meds or whatever and you know, just trying to survive. And I'm trying to feel good and I'm training, you know, multiple times a week with strength training and Jiu-jitsu and I want to feel decent. I want to feel like I got hit by a truck every time after training because sometimes I do. Speaker 1: Well, I mean, sometimes I do. I mean, like that doesn't TRT doesn't take that away from you, right? Like you're still get more. Speaker 2: No, but it does help with recovery. Yeah, you're still getting older. So he asked me, my primary care goes, do you feel like you want to be intimate with your wife? I was like, yes. He's like, well, then your testosterone's fine. I was like, okay. I shouldn't argue. I just knew I wasn't going to win this this discussion. So I just I said, forget it. And I didn't even like because I asked him to kind of test my blood levels and my testosterone and he didn't he didn't want to do that. So, anyway. Speaker 1: And so why not why not? Speaker 2: Like, why not just test just to like say, hey, let's yeah, if you want to like, I mean, because there's this weird thing in America where like the doctors are like, you know, in different like my doctor, like for the most part, he understands what I'm doing and he's actually pretty supportive of it. Um, you know, but at the same time, I he understands because he's like you said, he sees all these like people that are out of shape, whatever else. Like I went in for my 40 year checkup. My blood pressure was fine. I show him the blood levels that I my labs. He's like, everything looks great. Like, all right, like, you know, basically we hung out and talked for a few minutes and I asked him if he could clean my ears because my call fire is like So we spent 30 minutes scraping that stuff out of there. I had these huge chunks of junk. Um, and I don't fault them for it, right? It's just you have someone that's trained to do a job and that's what they're doing. And the thing is is that what you're asking of them is something that's out of their wheelhouse, right? Because they're going to keep you alive. They're going to make sure you're not dying. That's it. That's it. And, you know, some of them will go a little bit further than that, but then beyond that, it's kind of like, well, that's kind of where the and I don't mean this in any negative sense because those people are very useful, right? Um, that same doctor that I'm talking about that mine, right? Like there was once where I had kind of a it was I don't know what it was some sort of weird thing that happened after COVID. I have no idea. But it led to me getting all these different like things like echocardiograms and stuff like that. It ended up being nothing, but I had all these tests done and so like I remember same thing, like I go to the echocardiogram, the person there at the cardiologist office. She's like doing my heart and she's like, because she knew I was kind of nervous about it. And she says, man, I um, I can't tell you this definitively, but you have a a terrific looking heart. This heart looks like the heart that we see in textbooks. You know, it's the perfect size, all the the things are pumping like they should be, whatever else, that kind of deal. And so, um, you know, that's when you go to a place where you say, let's find people who are focused on making you feel better or helping you optimize because that's really what it is, right? It's about being optimal, not necessarily just normal or acceptable. Because there's acceptable values, but like we can make you feel optimal. Now, people can say one thing or the other, but it's like we have modern medicine. So yeah, is it natural what we're doing? No, it's not natural. But like if you have uh an illness and we cure that illness with modern medicine, that's not natural. Like that's something that we've cooked up with science and technology. So like if it's available to you, you know, and whatever else, like why not take advantage of it if it's a right fit? I mean, obviously you got to talk to your doctor. You got to figure out if it's right for you. Also something to to sort of bring up is that like if you're not addressing a lot of other stuff, so for instance, let's say you already drink too much. You drink too much booze, you're, you know, eating terrible food all the time. You know, you got really bad cholesterol and all these other things. You got bad blood pressure. You're already dealing with all these other things. You go, well, I'm going to go take TRT. It's going to make me feel better. Well, you know, maybe, but it also could exacerbate some of those symptoms if you don't deal with that stuff too. You know, like I mean, I know that like it's it's made out to be this miracle drug and it's a very powerful thing. But at the same time, like your diet really matters. You know, even with TRT, if I'm not eating a good diet, I don't feel good. Um, you know, even with the thyroid medication, like if I'm eating a bunch of food I shouldn't be eating that's not like good optimal food for performance and for health and for longevity, like I'm not going to feel good. And, you know, it's just so you you can't just slap this in there and then not focus on any of that other stuff and expect to just be great, right? So, um, and Speaker 2: I I think if you choose to to move in the direction of using TRT, I think you have to or testosterone, you know, you have to do the the I say low low hanging fruit. Exercise, obviously, strength train, eat well, sleep enough, drink enough water. You do those things and see how you feel because that actually like we mentioned earlier, if you do those things, you're going to feel better. Now, are you going to feel where you but for me, when I started doing those things deliberately, I felt significantly better. Yeah. Now it's kind of become my norm and now like, all right, well, now now I can push myself a little harder. I can do a little more. What's yeah. What's next? Um, my thing with the doctors a lot of times, these primary care and some of these physicians is they treat the symptoms and not the cause. That's the that's my problem. It's like you have pain, let's give you medicine for pain. Let's not figure like sometimes, yes, they'll look at the try to figure out what the cause is, but a lot of times like like my son's got allergies. I took him to the allergy doctor and I was like with my daughter there and so it was kind of hectic. So I couldn't really ask all the questions afterwards. I was talking to my wife and she's like, well, why is he having inflammation in his lungs? Yeah. Like I don't know. They they gave him medicine for inflammation, but why is he have that? He's doing all these things like why what what's the cause? And like I was like, I don't know. I didn't really ask that. I just they told me to give him this inhaler and that inhaler and I said, okay. And my wife's like, you need to we need to figure out why he's having these issues. Yeah. Not just how to suppress them or control the issues. That's important, right? We want him to breathe well and be able to run around and Well, and maybe maybe there's nothing you can do because it's coming from some tree pollen or maybe it's something in the house that he's being exposed to. Like you can figure you can sort of pinpoint what what's going on. But it wasn't like he's been on allergy shots for years. It's like, dude, like are they not helping? Like just figure out. So figure out the, you know, the cause of these things is really, really important. And I think like when you do blood work or dig deeper into your blood work, you can figure out maybe, hey, on this baseline level, this basic blood work, we're not really seeing everything. Let's dig a little deeper. Let's find a little bit more about maybe there's something else going on and it's not just always these very generic general blood work that that's going to answer some of those questions. You got to dig a dig a little deeper. Yeah. Well, it's also like think about you with um physical therapists. A lot of physical therapists deal with like old people who are coming in who are just trying to get back to like walking around, right? And then there are like I remember you told me a story about a wrestler that you worked with where, you know, he went to a physical therapist, he got cleared and then he goes back to wrestling and he's getting his shoulder ripped apart because he's not ready. So then he comes to you and you start working with him and you're, you know, basically realizing, oh, dude, you're not ready to come back. Like look, you have no strength in these ranges of motion. So it comes down to just knowledge of like, you know, different things. Like if if this person is an expert at getting 60 year olds back up to speed after their hip surgery versus I've got I know exactly what's going on with wrestling and Jiu-jitsu and I can make sure that you have the strength you need to possibly avoid injury, right? Like it's just different knowledge. And it's again, it's this is not to sort of put people down. It's just simply saying like, all right, like I go to my piece, I go to my primary care doc, you know, every year, get my checkups. If I need something that's within that that realm or I need referrals or whatever, I go to him. Um, and if I need to like, you know, dig into my blood work and, you know, add supplements or things like that, I go to my people like Allison and and Joe and all them at First Optimal to help me address that stuff, right? So it's just about like you you it's like having a team and, you know, you got these guys, this is your basic stuff. Here's your performance stuff. And, you know, and then to me it's like, well, that's kind of people they can do it if they want to. Um, should they have to? I don't know, right? It's like, but it's available to everybody. I can't change your I can't say, hey, we can shift your genetics around or I can give you a wealthy family to be born into or I can have you give you powerful friends that are willing to bankroll your training. Like, none of that's fair. It gives unequal sort of uh advantage to certain people, but it is what it is. Um, so again, when it comes down to the rules, is it cheating? Well, if it's if the if the rule set says X, Y, Z, it's cheating. And you do X, Y, Z, it's cheating. It is what it is. So guys, today's quote that I'm going to share with you kind of goes back to what we talked about. I wanted to get the exact quote to share with you. Um, it's from Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorites. It's from his essay um called Self-Reliance, which if you've never read Self-Reliance, Emerson's writing may take you a little bit to get used to because it's obviously from the 1800s. But um, it's really good. It's one of my favorite essays from him and I've probably read it or listened to it. I mean, no less than probably close to 100 times. I just I I remember like when I was um, going through my early phase of like doing the business stuff and being very unsure of myself. I would basically every day, I would either read it or listen to it. Um, a lot of times I would get up in the morning, I would go for like a nice long walk and I would listen to it on audiobook or I would read it. Um, and skim through it. I just like it and uh, anyway, one of the quotes from it or one of the passages, um, it goes back to that idea of traveling and I'll kind of get to the reason for sharing it, but he says, traveling is a false paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home, I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last, I wake up in Naples and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting identical that I fled from. I seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. And that doesn't have to be a place thing. There's another book called um, Psycho-Cybernetics, um, by a guy named like Maxwell Maltz, who was like a he was a plastic surgeon. And he noticed this thing where like, let's say some guy was really like up in arms, he hated his nose or something, right? So he'd come in and he'd like, hey, let's fix the nose. And so he would give him the exact nose that he'd wanted. Surgery's done, the guy still feels like he hates his nose. Right? And so how many of us have had something like that happen where we hang on to some side of ourselves or some negative thing that we're saying to ourselves and we think that like if only I could travel. If only I could just lose a couple more pounds. If only I could use some steroids and get bigger. If only, if only, if only, right? I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with changing yourself because obviously if you're lifting weights and you're making yourself look better or if you're getting good at something and developing skills, those are all good things. But at the same time, like you really have to monitor this idea because nothing's going to make you happy other than like yourself, right? Like you have to figure out that there's nothing like you can't buy a car and everything's going to be great. Buying some big expensive house is not going to fix all your problems. Like nothing will. You have to figure that that's a that's an internal journey that you have to go through. And obviously there are things that you can do to help support it, like doing things that are built with your own virtue of hard work and discipline, like like becoming good at Jiu-jitsu or any skill for that matter. Um, building something, you know, it could be a business, could be a family, could be a a house, could be whatever it is, building something, right? Doing something where you feel like you have some satisfaction and you feel proud of what you've done. But at the same time, like you still have to like deal with the story there. And so that one was always something that I resonated with. That's um, because I think a lot of us we chase things to deal with an insecurity in ourselves. We're trying to deal with this lack of um, acceptance we have for ourselves or even just simply like you feel like you're not enough, right? Which I mean, at some point, maybe you're not yet, you know. Um, but even when you do get those things, right? You can still have that thing where like, you know, I I've done it before when I was younger, like, who am I to do this? You can have that imposter syndrome nonsense where you have this weird story you tell yourself and you fixate on the little things that you did wrong versus, hey, look at all this stuff you did right. You know, um, and even like I've talked about this with like competitors. One of the biggest things for competitors is getting them to like really believe in themselves. You know, because they'll constantly some of them constantly fixate on the little things that they did wrong or their losses and whatever else versus like, hey, did you realize like you had all these wins over here and you did all these things and look at all this other cool stuff you've done. Um, and so that's one that always sort of stuck with me and I always like that quote. Um, maybe it resonated with me because when I was younger, I was I I dealt with a lot of insecurity and um, feelings of if I did this, then I would feel better. And then I did the thing and then I was like, well, I still don't feel much different than I did before. Um, maybe you can think about it like the blue belt blues. People get all excited about getting a blue belt. They think it's going to really be something magical. Then they get it and they're like, I don't feel any different. What gives? I was supposed to have some magical end of the rainbow moment. The the sky was supposed to open up and God was supposed to bestow upon me some man, you just you got you got some different cotton wrapped around your waist and that was about it. But uh, it's a good quote. And uh so, you know, maybe that helped you guys out or maybe something to chew on for the day and uh that's that. So, big thanks to our sponsors. Datsusara, they're one of our newest sponsors. You can check them out at DSgear.com. They make a lot of high quality bag they've got a lot of different products if you want to browse around. Um, but I've used their like their packs and their uh backpacks, fanny packs, things like that. I really like them. I think they look good. Like if you're watching the video, you you're showing you the fanny pack. Um, and it's a very masculine fanny pack, right? It's awesome. I like that. I like to take my dog on walks and I put his little treats and stuff in there. And uh, you know, they've got a lot of different cool bags and stuff like that. They're their backpacks are are are heavy duty and you can like when you ever like I remember me and my wife would go into like we were looking for houses a couple years ago. Well, not a couple years ago, but like six, seven, eight years ago. We're looking around at houses. Sometimes you'd go into a home and it you could just feel it was sturdy. And then sometimes you go into homes and like especially if it was like a flipper. It's like every every material they got was like the cheapest material they could find and you're just like, it feels flimsy. You know, sometimes you get that sometimes where you uh you'll get something that looks good, but like you can just feel it's this is going to fall apart pretty quick. This stuff you grab a hold of it. You're like, this is like quality stuff. This is going to hang out. This is going to even the zippers feel heavy duty, right? Like you know what I mean? It's like it's something like where you know, this is going to last a while. And so, um, I'm excited to have them on as a sponsor. If you guys want to check them out, go to DSgear.com. The promo code is Jiu-jitsu 10 for 10% off the order. And you can uh get a discount there. Also, thanks to our sponsor Charlotte's Web. They've been a long time sponsor of ours. They make terrific gear. I get my my gym's gees made through them. I get my rash guards and shorts made through them. I I I talk about it all the time. I love their their nogi stuff. Their their nogi stuff for me is like bar none the best. Um, you know, when you when you factor in the price, the quality, the fit, for at least for me, the fit's great. It hugs my arms and it's it's loose enough on my chest. Like sometimes I'll get some of the gear and because of like my sort of like thicker torso and everything else, it fits kind of too tight in the chest, but then if I get too big of a size, then it's like loose on the arms. So this fits like perfect, right? It's got a nice uh a nice form fit for a fella who lifts weights and uh wants to show off the guns a little bit too, right? Um, but anyway, good stuff, good quality stuff. I really like their gear and I I feel comfortable sharing with you guys. Many of my students wear their stuff too. If you want to check them out, go to their website at Epicrollbjj.com. And the promo code is Jiu-jitsu 20 for 20% off the order. And if you guys are interested, if you're a gym owner, I get my stuff made through them. They're pretty uh their prices are pretty fair. And again, it takes out the middleman. So you just get Matt or whoever you talk to from there to help you out with it. They'll help with the order together and get everything taken care of for you. Kind of takes some of the takes some of the load off of you if you have to deal with vendors and things like that. Also, if you guys wanted to join our loyal Patreon uh membership there, you can check us out at patreon.com/thejiujitsupodcast. Um, when you join up, you'll get access to the different perks that we offer and support the podcast with a very inexpensive monthly price. I mean, it's cheap. Less than like less than an expensive coffee or something, right? Um, and you get some perks for it. And if you guys want to check out those perks and possibly join up, you can do so by going to patreon.com/thejiujitsupodcast. Support the podcast and we can give you some access to some other uh perks and exclusive content that you don't get anywhere else. And last but not least, guys, if you would like to get my daily email and get a free ebook and video guide that goes into how to be a little bit more focused with your training, you can check it out at jiu-jitsu.net/join. When you join up, um, I will give you the ebook and the video guide. So if you don't want to read or if you want to watch the video, you can do whatever you want to do. And then on top of that, the ebook uh goes through 12 different strategies on how to get focused. And then you get my uh daily email, which goes through anything and everything that I think could be useful to you for training, diet, lifting, being old on the mats, anything. It's there. I I just like sharing this stuff on the the emails and uh if you like the podcast, you'll enjoy the the the daily email. And so you can get it there. Um, and unsubscribe at any time. So, guys, I appreciate you for being here. If you have any questions or ideas, um, or something came to you during the podcast, feel free to shoot us a message on Instagram at the Jiu-jitsu podcast or check us out uh anywhere else that you would like. Email, email's fine. And guys, if you guys like the podcast, give us a a review, a five-star review. If you don't think we're worth five stars, feel free to shoot us a message and let us know why not. Um, and uh I think that's that. We're starting to ramble now. We're running out of steam and so I appreciate you guys for being here. We'll talk to you next time.