Speaker 1: I get a You Bloody Champions Craig Anthony Harper reporting
Speaker 1: in for Judy. It's the You Project. What the fuck
Speaker 1: else would it be? I hope you're having a good day.
Speaker 1: It is. It's one thirty two and the thriving metropolis
Speaker 1: of Melbourne. It's Wednesday. So a couple of hours ago
Speaker 1: I was going back and forwards with an old friend
Speaker 1: of mine on the phone who is a fucking t
Speaker 1: rex and his business partner is a stegosaurus, which would
Speaker 1: make me probably a tricerah toops or a bronze saurus.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's three dinosaurs on a show and we're
Speaker 1: going back and forth. His name is Keith Ellis and
Speaker 1: Paul Kirkham of course, but we're going back and forth
Speaker 1: Keith and I and I said, look, while you're on
Speaker 1: the phone, could I ask you whether or not we
Speaker 1: might have a chat later the TSAVO long shot And
Speaker 1: he said yes, So here we here we are. So
Speaker 1: thank you boys for the short notice approval, thank you
Speaker 1: for figuring out how to do the tech. Do you reckon?
Speaker 1: There's ever been three older human beings on a podcast.
Speaker 2: I don't know where I combined ages, but it'd be
Speaker 2: over two hundred. I think so it'd be well over
Speaker 2: two hundred. I'm sixty one.
Speaker 1: How old are you?
Speaker 3: I know you told me the other day, Paul, I'm
Speaker 3: sixty eight and on the other state, I'm seventy one.
Speaker 1: Fuck and hell, have you look at you? I think
Speaker 1: this is probably your third podcast, mate, and you did
Speaker 1: the other two with me? Or have you done others? No? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just savings out for you, Craig. I feel I
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about that now or can you can
Speaker 1: you tell my audience who haven't Like, last time you
Speaker 1: were on was about seventeen thousand episodes ago. So, by
Speaker 1: the way, I just thought I wrote this down because
Speaker 1: I never know day to day what number we're up to.
Speaker 1: But if this goes up tomorrow, to go up tomorrow
Speaker 1: the next day. But if it goes up tomorrow, this
Speaker 1: will be episode number one thousand, eight hundred and twenty three. Now.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what episode you guys were first time,
Speaker 1: but I think it was in the first five or ten.
Speaker 1: And I will say maybe without Maxes your company, this
Speaker 1: show might not exist because you guys sponsored you guys
Speaker 1: financially kind of backed the goliath. The media Goliath. That
Speaker 1: is that you project you financially supported me when nobody
Speaker 1: else logically would, So thank you for that. Boys, But
Speaker 1: can you believe that, Keith? Eighteen hundred and twenty three episodes.
Speaker 3: It truly is incredible, Craig. I mean, it's just been
Speaker 3: a long time, as you said, since we've been on.
Speaker 3: But I hope we didn't offend anybody that badly that
Speaker 3: far ago, you know, so we're pleased to be back.
Speaker 1: Well, it's always it's always good, Paul. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about so there'll be some We
Speaker 1: have about seventy percent female audience, sixty five seventy percent,
Speaker 1: so there'll be people who not only do they not
Speaker 1: know what Maxes are, they don't really have a great
Speaker 1: understanding of supplements or any of that particular landscape. But
Speaker 1: give us a bit of a snapshot of the Max's story,
Speaker 1: like the genesis. How long have you been around and
Speaker 1: just explain to people what Maxes is and what you
Speaker 1: do before we just jump into a conversation. Yeah, sure, Craig.
Speaker 2: Well, we started our company in nineteen eighty nine, but
Speaker 2: Keith and I go way back long before that. So
Speaker 2: back when I was a lad when I was about
Speaker 2: twenty years old, I used to go to a gym
Speaker 2: in Nana Wadding here in Melbourne, and the guy used
Speaker 2: to run the gym was one mister Keith Ellis. At
Speaker 2: the time, he was a competitive bodybuilder, and I was
Speaker 2: this skinny bloke who came in to join the gym
Speaker 2: and trained there under Keith's tutelage for a number of years.
Speaker 2: And I think I started out about seventy kilos and
Speaker 2: probably about three years later I was about ninety five kilos.
Speaker 2: So whatever he told me kind of worked and that
Speaker 2: I stayed at that way for quite a while. But
Speaker 2: as I've got older, I've kind of shed most of
Speaker 2: that and I'm sort of pursuing a different sort of
Speaker 2: athletic approach to my life. But going back to the
Speaker 2: Maxis story, so Keith and I knew each other from well,
Speaker 2: what is it about forty something years ago? Forty five
Speaker 2: years ago, I suppose, But about thirty five years ago
Speaker 2: I was I've got a science background. I was kind
Speaker 2: of making my own little supplements because I used to
Speaker 2: work in the pharmaceutical kind of industry and I had
Speaker 2: access to things like amino acids and proteins, and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So I used to make my own little
Speaker 2: formulas up and I kind of had a few friends
Speaker 2: of mine that I used to make them for. Anyway,
Speaker 2: one day I rang up Keith. I hadn't seen him
Speaker 2: for a while. I rang him up and I said, look,
Speaker 2: Keith making these these supplements, and I'm wondering if you
Speaker 2: might know if there would be a demand for these
Speaker 2: sorts of things in the gyms and the people, you know.
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, yeah, that sounds really good. So
Speaker 2: he came around and we had a little bit of
Speaker 2: all this stuff. I used to make the things, and
Speaker 2: Keith would go out and sell them to all his
Speaker 2: friends in all the gyms and health food stores and
Speaker 2: things around Melbourne. And before you knew it, we had
Speaker 2: this little business bubbling along. We were both working doing
Speaker 2: other things, but we were doing this as a sideline.
Speaker 2: I grew into a business and here we are many
Speaker 2: years later, and it's turned into quite a good business
Speaker 2: and it's been really good to us over many years.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because Max's and my business back then Harper's,
Speaker 1: which like we're both pioneering in a way. Not that
Speaker 1: we didn't fuck up a lot of things all three
Speaker 1: of us, I'm sure, but when you were kind of
Speaker 1: when the door to like training supplements, sports supplements, when
Speaker 1: that door was starting to open, personal training was just
Speaker 1: getting off the ground as well. I started Harpers in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, so a year after you started. But I
Speaker 1: was thinking back in the day when when I started
Speaker 1: personal training, there was no there was no industry, there
Speaker 1: was no regulations, there was no insurance, there was like
Speaker 1: nobody knew what the fuck I was doing. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: what you know, and people would come into my studio
Speaker 1: and think it was a gym and they would want
Speaker 1: to join. I'm like, you can't join, and they're like,
Speaker 1: what a terrible business model a gym that you can't join? Right?
Speaker 1: And I go, well, know, everything's by appointment and it's
Speaker 1: all consulting and one on one or maybe two on one,
Speaker 1: and then you know, like everyone said that would work,
Speaker 1: and it ended up doing okay, of course, and now
Speaker 1: it's proliferated and there's seventy seven fucking PT centers on
Speaker 1: Hampton Street where I live. And I think the supplement industry,
Speaker 1: for want of a better term, sports supplements was that
Speaker 1: kind of similar, Like was it regulated was there any
Speaker 1: rules or like back then it was it the wild West.
Speaker 1: It was the wild West.
Speaker 3: But I guess like pioneering, it's exciting and interesting grade
Speaker 3: because yeah, like you're saying, we stuffed up too, you
Speaker 3: know a number of times. But from that, you know,
Speaker 3: you learn more from your mistakes than you do from
Speaker 3: your victories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that mirrors a lot in our life. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was new.
Speaker 3: It was exciting because you know, some plentation was just
Speaker 3: just just starting to break in. And obviously the path
Speaker 3: the entry was a lot easier than it is of
Speaker 3: course today. Yes, and yeah, yeah, sure we made mistakes,
Speaker 3: but we learned very quickly because financially well and I
Speaker 3: and we told the story a number of times. I
Speaker 3: think we launched the business with one thousand dollars each,
Speaker 3: you know, circle back to twenty twenty five. What could
Speaker 3: you start with one thousand dollars each? You know, it
Speaker 3: was ludicrous and that included buying stock, raw materials. Yes,
Speaker 3: so very very very humble beginnings, but we kind of
Speaker 3: had nothing to lose. And I remember there was a rival,
Speaker 3: if you could call that supplement company, and I was
Speaker 3: working part time in the gym to sort of pay
Speaker 3: the bills and buy the food. They're still training a
Speaker 3: bit back in those days. And the guy there is
Speaker 3: a bit of a crusty old devil.
Speaker 1: He said, you'll be broken three months, you know.
Speaker 3: But I've said to him, as a bit of a
Speaker 3: smart answer backward, to say, oh, well, it'll be a good,
Speaker 3: interesting three months. I learned from it, and I've always
Speaker 3: got my job. So circa thirty seven years later, you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't broke and we've still got a job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was the same. It was
Speaker 1: the same with what I did. Even my mum and dad,
Speaker 1: who God bless them, like they were business people and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, that's not a business though, you know
Speaker 1: that's not because even back then, I think my clients
Speaker 1: were paying on average one hundred dollars for three sessions, right,
Speaker 1: so it's thirty three dollars an hour, which now seems
Speaker 1: like nobody would work for that. Well, so people would,
Speaker 1: of course, still not too too bad of money. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, when I first started training at
Speaker 1: a place called track Side Sports, before I had my
Speaker 1: own studio nine eighty six, people are paying one hundred
Speaker 1: bucks a week to work out with me and my
Speaker 1: parents are like and other friends. People aren't going to
Speaker 1: keep doing that. That's crazy, Like nobody's like you could
Speaker 1: join a gym for three months for one hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, or they could spend three hours with you
Speaker 1: for one hundred dollars or have a three or six
Speaker 1: month membership. In some cases, why on earth would people
Speaker 1: do that? I think I wonder how many industries Keith
Speaker 1: start off where you know, people shake their head. There
Speaker 1: would be a lot and go, well, that's never going
Speaker 1: to take off, And it's taken off absolutely. You know.
Speaker 3: It's funny you mentioned track Side because I think you
Speaker 3: invited me there one night, and I gave a bit of.
Speaker 1: A presentation here too. We did. We both went down
Speaker 1: on it, okay.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm not a as you can probably
Speaker 3: tell from this, I'm not a great public speaker. I'm
Speaker 3: not comfortable as such. But I remember that went particularly well.
Speaker 1: I thought that that night. I don't know if you remember, Craig,
Speaker 1: you might have thought it went. I feel like that
Speaker 1: was I feel like that was the peak of your
Speaker 1: professional speaking career. It was.
Speaker 3: It's been Daniels since then anyway, with Soldier on. But
Speaker 3: I remember looking into the crowd, and a lot of
Speaker 3: those people in there no sort of average Joe's and
Speaker 3: Jim go. So you know, some good rigs good for
Speaker 3: ZX male and female. I thought at the time, even
Speaker 3: way back then, I do remember it that there's something there,
Speaker 3: there's something here that they were sort of sitting on.
Speaker 3: Not every word, but you know, I say, you know,
Speaker 3: this is this new, fresh, evolving market called sort of
Speaker 3: supplements and improving your performance and getting bigger biceps and
Speaker 3: narrower waste or whatever it might be. So there was
Speaker 3: always that glint there that I sort of always honed
Speaker 3: in on, and that that sort of repeated many times
Speaker 3: at other places. We went and introduced into health food
Speaker 3: store uners that traditionally sold glaize cherries and Echinasia, you know,
Speaker 3: and we went along with the first big can of
Speaker 3: protein at the time of seven and fifty grand was
Speaker 3: the bigger size you can get.
Speaker 1: I think Paul I came out with a one point
Speaker 1: yeah at one point five or yeah too, Kilo.
Speaker 3: Remember this beautiful gentleman in Ringwood and I took along
Speaker 3: to him and says, hello, it looks like pool chlorine.
Speaker 3: You know, like you said, it won't well well he
Speaker 3: rang me up two days later. It was like twenty
Speaker 3: five tubs and it sold, you know, so small steps,
Speaker 3: but it was interesting how it connected with people, you know,
Speaker 3: because we gave sort of value and quality and all
Speaker 3: that was behind the product. But it had to sort
Speaker 3: of say something or it had to sort of embellish
Speaker 3: what we're trying to get across as who we were
Speaker 3: as a company and.
Speaker 1: People, Yeah, yeah, how much have you? I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a weird question because there's no specific answer, but Paul,
Speaker 1: I'll go to you like in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a good product. You know, Like
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about marketing, branding, selling myself. Fortunately I
Speaker 1: didn't need to have a million sales to make a profit,
Speaker 1: right but with you guys, you kind of literally do
Speaker 1: eventually need to have a million sales, you know, of sorts.
Speaker 1: So so you create a good product, you've got you've
Speaker 1: got your protein, and you've got your different supplements and
Speaker 1: these are good and you're speaking to or selling to
Speaker 1: a at that time and largely uninformed and uneducated market
Speaker 1: and audience where people are just starting to become aware
Speaker 1: of supplements. What kind of a learning curve was it
Speaker 1: for you trying to build a business and a brand
Speaker 1: and systems and all of that around the thing that
Speaker 1: you originally created in your kitchen or wherever it was.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a very good question, Craig, because when you
Speaker 2: first start out something like this, and back then we
Speaker 2: didn't quite know what we're getting in for. We just
Speaker 2: thought it was a good idea and that if we
Speaker 2: liked these products ourselves. And I mean initially it started
Speaker 2: because I was making these things for me to use myself,
Speaker 2: and then you know, and then Keith got involved and
Speaker 2: he was using them, and so you kind of made
Speaker 2: things that you wanted to use for yourself. And then
Speaker 2: I kind of had this view that some if I
Speaker 2: think it's good, then other people probably would think it's
Speaker 2: good as well. So that's kind of the I guess
Speaker 2: the mantra I had when we created a product, that thought, well,
Speaker 2: would I use this myself? So when we would go
Speaker 2: to like a health food store, gyms are okay, because
Speaker 2: I mean Keith could sell to the gym guys because
Speaker 2: he spoke that language.
Speaker 1: But we were into a health.
Speaker 2: Food store, as Keith said, we were talking to perhaps
Speaker 2: an owner who was a bit more into kind of
Speaker 2: the more natural, health foody type products, and they weren't
Speaker 2: really into sports supplements, and they probably hadn't really had
Speaker 2: a lot to do with this sort of thing. But
Speaker 2: I think when we went in there, we kind of
Speaker 2: might have impressed them maybe with our passion, because we
Speaker 2: both really believed in these things and we both use them.
Speaker 2: I mean, I started out this journey because funnily enough,
Speaker 2: I started using Masashi as a competitive brand. But you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day, they were kind of like the
Speaker 2: bee's knees and Masashi amano acids were something. When I
Speaker 2: used them, and I played a lot of sport when
Speaker 2: I was younger, I actually felt that they gave me
Speaker 2: a bit of an edge, you know. I really felt
Speaker 2: good using amino acids, and so I started making my
Speaker 2: own amino acid formulas, kind of looking what Masashi had done.
Speaker 2: And then I spent a lot of time at at
Speaker 2: monash Uni researching amino acids for sports performance or healing
Speaker 2: after surgery and all these sorts of things. And I
Speaker 2: was able to use that knowledge to create formula that
Speaker 2: I felt would work, and I tried them all out
Speaker 2: of myself, and they seem to work really well. And
Speaker 2: then Keith and all the guys in you started using them,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of how it all all got going.
Speaker 2: So when we took these into a store, you know,
Speaker 2: I could speak with some authority on these things because
Speaker 2: I'd done a lot of the research. I've tried them
Speaker 2: out myself, and the people in the store we mostly
Speaker 2: bought into the idea, and so it was it was
Speaker 2: pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should also point out, I don't think we
Speaker 1: have yet that your background is. Are you you're a
Speaker 1: chemist a researcher. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I went to Minus did chemistry and buyo chemistry
Speaker 2: at Minus UNI. Then I did chemical engineering at Swinburn
Speaker 2: and that that led me into a career and that
Speaker 2: sort of pharmaceutical biological sciences type of environment, and all
Speaker 2: along the way I had this real keen interesting sports
Speaker 2: and nutrition and built a base of knowledge as I went.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd be just mostly experimenting on myself, and
Speaker 2: then when we started this supplement company, I could start
Speaker 2: experimenting on other people as well as myself.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, so you're actually credible. You're not like
Speaker 1: Keith and I who made it in Plaster Scene and
Speaker 1: sand Pitt and monkey Bars and then kicked off our careers. Well,
Speaker 1: Baull went de Monish, I went to Pinridge. But you
Speaker 1: like back in the day when I first met you,
Speaker 1: and you're still you're both actually and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this everyone because they're bloody looking at me, but they're
Speaker 1: both in very good shape. You both look way younger
Speaker 1: than your years, and you're both very fit and strong.
Speaker 1: But you back in the day, Keith, you were a
Speaker 1: competitive bodybuilder, and I guess that especially when you're trying
Speaker 1: to get these kinds of supplements off the ground and
Speaker 1: you can walk into gyms around Melbourne and maybe around
Speaker 1: Australia being in great shape, and people knowing who you
Speaker 1: were probably opened a few doors and allowed a few conversations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was certainly a part sport, Craig.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a bit of sort of quasi
Speaker 3: you know Jim Brow science that went with it. But
Speaker 3: you know, I felt that not having tickets on this out,
Speaker 3: I found I had a physic there was probably years
Speaker 3: ahead of its type, you know, the more leads athletic
Speaker 3: that was, you know, fairly well built, you know, And
Speaker 3: I chased that bodybuilding dream for a number years. I
Speaker 3: spent a lot of years in the States, and you
Speaker 3: know some of the grandfathers of the sport, Charles Glass,
Speaker 3: my Christian, all those, all those Iberian brothers. It was
Speaker 3: a fantastic training ground, you know, to realize kind of
Speaker 3: what's involved and what you didn't want to get involved in,
Speaker 3: what you did want to get involved in it. There's
Speaker 3: certainly dark side, but you take out the dark side,
Speaker 3: it's a fantastic pursuit. You know, it's time douming your
Speaker 3: need commitment. But all those things, I think hold you
Speaker 3: in good stead for life. You know, there is some
Speaker 3: colorful characters in the sport, no doubt I think that.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: It's like body building and and by the way, when
Speaker 1: I say bodybuilding body shaping, you know, I don't mean
Speaker 1: getting on stage necessarily at all. Everyone. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: just the process of going into the gym and trying
Speaker 1: to you know, make your body function and look and
Speaker 1: feel and be a little bit different through some kind
Speaker 1: of strategic process with you know, some supplements and some
Speaker 1: food and some training and some stimuli and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But for me, although I did get
Speaker 1: a little obsessed for a while, as a lot of
Speaker 1: people do, but overall, What it did for me was
Speaker 1: just create habits and patterns and behaviors and an operating
Speaker 1: system that you know, serve has served me well forever.
Speaker 1: Like I really haven't I reckon since I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: I might have had twenty days out of the gym,
Speaker 1: you know, and as you know, I train with crab
Speaker 1: Mark Lampard multiple mister Australia IFBB pro Forma pro and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And these days, like the gym is
Speaker 1: it's more fun than anything. It's like there's no there's
Speaker 1: no fucking pbs being set, there's no there's no competition,
Speaker 1: there's you know, we're too old to have massive egos
Speaker 1: because there's nothing to be egotistical about. But just going
Speaker 1: there lifting a few weights, you know, getting under a bar,
Speaker 1: moving some moving some against some resistance, and connecting with
Speaker 1: other people. For me, you know, that's been a lifelong
Speaker 1: kind of you know benefit and value and not only
Speaker 1: physiologically but also sociologically mentally emotionally. I think I would
Speaker 1: be nuts if I didn't have the gym. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like some people have yoga or they have TM
Speaker 1: or they have whatever. I think for me, that's my meditation,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's I think it's for a
Speaker 1: lot of people done the right way. It's certainly a positive,
Speaker 1: but yeah, like you said, there can be a dark side.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, Paul, about the evolution of
Speaker 1: the the industry, like from nine nine making the potions
Speaker 1: in your house and showing Keith and then going out
Speaker 1: and about and pedaling your wares until twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: it seems like every second person on social media has
Speaker 1: got their own brand of something or their own you know,
Speaker 1: as you said before Keith it I think you said
Speaker 1: something like, you know, it was a lot harder then
Speaker 1: and now the barriers to entry are low. It's like
Speaker 1: I reckon, if I wanted to have Craig Harper protein,
Speaker 1: not that I want to do that, not that anybody
Speaker 1: would want to buy it, but I could probably get
Speaker 1: that done in a couple of weeks and sell it
Speaker 1: on my website and sell it through this podcast. And
Speaker 1: because all I'd need is somebody who can do that,
Speaker 1: which I reckon, I know ten people who could do that.
Speaker 1: So it's really changed, Paul.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Craig, Well, I think when I started training back
Speaker 2: in the day, so when I was a lad, I
Speaker 2: used to play ice hockey, and I was pretty skinny,
Speaker 2: so I need to beef myself up a bit for it.
Speaker 2: So when I started training, I just went to the
Speaker 2: Nana Warding gym and didn't know really much about supplements.
Speaker 2: And I went to a health food store in Hawthorne
Speaker 2: and I said, I need something to build me up,
Speaker 2: and they had there was a product and you probably
Speaker 2: remember this Craig called body Bulk by Neutral Life. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. I think it was pretty much a can
Speaker 2: of skim milk powder with flavor in it, you know,
Speaker 2: And so I would I would religiously take this stuff morning,
Speaker 2: noon and night. And that was about the only kind
Speaker 2: of weight gainy type supplement that I think was around
Speaker 2: back in those days. And this is sort of in
Speaker 2: the in the early seventies where you know, fast forward
Speaker 2: to today and there's you go into a nutrition warehouse
Speaker 2: of one of the big supplement stores around Australia and
Speaker 2: there are literally walls and walls of different formulas of
Speaker 2: protein and different brands and Australian brands and overseas brands,
Speaker 2: and it's mind boggling how many there are. So there's
Speaker 2: there's been an amazing evolution and I think when we started,
Speaker 2: doubt there might have been two or three Australian brands.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned Masashi, there was our Cells, and there
Speaker 2: were maybe one or two others, but.
Speaker 1: That's about all there were when.
Speaker 2: I guess back in the late two thousand and about
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, I think it was we started.
Speaker 2: So we started our Max's product range, which was arranged
Speaker 2: sort of target the bodybuilders.
Speaker 1: The guys, but we also saw through the.
Speaker 2: Two thousands that a lot of the females were the ladies,
Speaker 2: were getting into training, and they just a lot of
Speaker 2: them didn't want to take a male oriented product. It
Speaker 2: was you know, I guess nutritionally probably was okay, but
Speaker 2: all the marketing was you know, for big, muscly, smelly guys,
Speaker 2: and so we kind of recognized that and we launched
Speaker 2: our female brand, which we called, you know, creatively called Maxine.
Speaker 2: And that's that's been around now, as I said, since
Speaker 2: two thousand and ninety nine, and that's.
Speaker 1: Gone really well.
Speaker 2: What we what we sort of found was there's always
Speaker 2: really been a market for male products since that sort
Speaker 2: of those even the nineteen seventies, but the female market
Speaker 2: has really kicked on, particularly in the last three or
Speaker 2: four years, and I think a lot of companies now
Speaker 2: have realized that that women are really looking for products
Speaker 2: that are specific to the female physiology. And also they're
Speaker 2: marketed to women and not marketed just as a bloke
Speaker 2: taking the blokes protein and putting it in a pink label.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So there's been you know, there's been quite a lot
Speaker 2: of maturity coming into the into the market as well,
Speaker 2: and there's been lots of different different trends.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the trend in.
Speaker 2: The last probably five years has been not protein has
Speaker 2: always been a big thing, but pre workouts has become
Speaker 2: a massive thing, you know, just most guys, particular in
Speaker 2: particular women are getting into it as well. But most
Speaker 2: guys feel like they can't train unless they take a
Speaker 2: pre workout, and you know, they feel like if they
Speaker 2: train and they haven't got a pre workout, they don't
Speaker 2: train properly. So I think pre workouts have become a
Speaker 2: bit of a crutch. I mean, we sell pre workouts
Speaker 2: because they're very popular. There are some pre workouts will
Speaker 2: kind of almost blow your head off. We don't subscribe
Speaker 2: to that theory.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 1: We sort of think.
Speaker 2: Pre workout should give you a boost. But really, you know,
Speaker 2: the motivation has got to come from within. If you
Speaker 2: can't really train hard without taking a pre workout, then
Speaker 2: you kind of need to have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a look at yourself.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I'm not sure that the sixty one
Speaker 1: year old Host of the Year project with periodic actual
Speaker 1: fibrillation should be taking those Yeah. Well, that's the thing
Speaker 1: I think with I reckon with everything, whether it's protein powder,
Speaker 1: whether it's pre workouts, whether it's coffee, whether it's cheeseburgers, Like,
Speaker 1: it's all about the application and the dose. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like if I have two
Speaker 1: coffees a day, because I, like I said, I have
Speaker 1: a little bit of af every now and then two
Speaker 1: coffees to day, I'm good. Three coffees a bit borderline,
Speaker 1: four coffees, I'm fucked. Like I feel anxious, I can
Speaker 1: feel my heart in my chest. And so it's it's
Speaker 1: learning how your your body works, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think that I was going to say to you, Keith,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but do you
Speaker 1: remember or you might know Paul, the guy that's set
Speaker 1: up or one of the guys that set up. Masashi
Speaker 1: was Tim Horwood. You know you know of him? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. Yeah. So he used to own a gym
Speaker 1: in him in a couple of blokes who used to
Speaker 1: own this mangy shitty gym in me tone called the Stables.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that vaguely? Yes? Yeah, yeah. So the
Speaker 1: Stables was, with all respect, just a shithole of a place,
Speaker 1: but awesome, awesome. It was this old factory. So to
Speaker 1: all my listeners who were like, this is three dinosaurs
Speaker 1: reminiscing exactly what it is, right, but me in the eighties,
Speaker 1: so I would have been about I went to Western
Speaker 1: Australia and I worked on a construction site and in
Speaker 1: a gym for a year, So construction through the day,
Speaker 1: gyms at night. Then I came back. Then I got
Speaker 1: this job in Inverted Commas from three three pm till
Speaker 1: nine pm at this gym called the Stables. I say
Speaker 1: the word Jim loosely. It was just an old warehouse
Speaker 1: that they rented and filled with gym equipment. No ladies
Speaker 1: train there. Maybe once a month a lady would come
Speaker 1: in and go fuck and then run out. But it
Speaker 1: was just all these Neanderthals training. We had one hundred
Speaker 1: pound plates. We had two hundred pound dumb else. It
Speaker 1: was just like some Neanderthal kind of habitat. But I
Speaker 1: worked like Tim and another guy called Andy I forget
Speaker 1: and another dude owned that and that was yeah, that
Speaker 1: was back at the That was just as I think
Speaker 1: back in those days, Massashi were getting off the ground.
Speaker 1: So that was the Yeah, it's really you guys and
Speaker 1: them were really at the forefront I think back in
Speaker 1: those days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well they were got a cutting edge massage
Speaker 2: and they were really quite a successful company back then.
Speaker 2: And you know, they still are today unfortunately or not unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but they're not obviously in the same hands. They've changed
Speaker 2: hands a few times over the years. But we're proud
Speaker 2: to say we're still the same company. I still aim
Speaker 2: owned by the same guys, which Keith and myself, and
Speaker 2: we're still patting away here in Australia making the stuff
Speaker 2: everything here, employing Australia people as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're pretty proud of that. Well, I use
Speaker 1: and recommend it. I'm wearing my Max's T shirt right now.
Speaker 1: By the way, everyone, I'm not paid by Maxes. I'm
Speaker 1: not like this is I'm not doing this because there's
Speaker 1: any bloody commercial arrangement. I just these guys and I
Speaker 1: have been friends forever. But we do have something maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit exciting, not no commercial element involved, but
Speaker 1: something exciting that the three of us might be doing,
Speaker 1: which I'll announce as some stage down, I would say
Speaker 1: in the next month. I wanted to ask you about
Speaker 1: of all the supplements that I jumped on your website
Speaker 1: just before we went live and had a look, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, fucking hell, there's so much stuff, right, and
Speaker 1: then on top of that, there's a million other things
Speaker 1: as well. What are the what are the big ticket
Speaker 1: items at the moment? Be the one of you like,
Speaker 1: what what are people buying the most? So apart from
Speaker 1: pre workout, but what pre workout createam I guess is
Speaker 1: right up near the top. What else is super popular
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 3: Well, I think just just I guess a little bit there, Craig.
Speaker 3: I think it's what we've learned is that certain companies
Speaker 3: and brands, and some great brands out there and companies
Speaker 3: as well in our space their competitors, yes, but you
Speaker 3: know there's a healthy respect between us all I think,
Speaker 3: and certain companies and brands get associated with particular market segments,
Speaker 3: like I guess we're well known for our proteins. You know,
Speaker 3: we do a great job, I think, a great job
Speaker 3: with those, and we're known for that.
Speaker 1: We've found over there.
Speaker 3: We try and vary into other spaces, like pre workouts
Speaker 3: are solid, but we're certainly not known as a as
Speaker 3: a pre workout brand, you know, So we stick to
Speaker 3: our lane and it serves us very well. Whereas a
Speaker 3: lot of the more young, younger companies, and most companies
Speaker 3: compared to us are younger, and with the expansion of
Speaker 3: social media in the way we connect with people, you know,
Speaker 3: we took many, many years to kind of get up.
Speaker 1: To a certain level of success.
Speaker 3: And well today you know, in a very short period
Speaker 3: of time through social media and the way you market
Speaker 3: your products, you can go to zero to one hundred
Speaker 3: and one or two years. Yes, other products any better
Speaker 3: than others, Maybe not, maybe so in some cases, I
Speaker 3: think we've were just stuck to that mantra of sticking
Speaker 3: stay in your lane really and proteins, you know, Proadin bars, cookies,
Speaker 3: that type of space is we're extremely strong at and
Speaker 3: we don't send to venture too much into the other zones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think just to further that, probably if you
Speaker 2: look in the protein space, there's.
Speaker 1: Been quite a lot of movement.
Speaker 2: I mean the dairy proteins, like particularly the way proteins
Speaker 2: have been that I guess the mainstay of most supplements
Speaker 2: in this space for.
Speaker 1: Many many years.
Speaker 2: But in the last probably five to eight years probably
Speaker 2: there was there's been a move towards plant based proteins
Speaker 2: and very good quality products in that area. And then
Speaker 2: probably a little bit more recently, it's been that sort
Speaker 2: of collagen style protein and they become super popular, and
Speaker 2: I think they've all got their place. I mean, some
Speaker 2: people move to say a plant based protein because they
Speaker 2: may have some issues with dairy, you know, from a
Speaker 2: digestive point of view, or they might just have a
Speaker 2: view that they want to pursue more of a plant
Speaker 2: based diet than than an animal based diet. But then
Speaker 2: on the collagen front, collagen proteins they are they're an
Speaker 2: animal based product, as most people would know that they're
Speaker 2: kind of made from the connective type tissues rather than
Speaker 2: the muscle type tissues that you would have in meat
Speaker 2: from things like bovine or marine some fish and cows basically,
Speaker 2: but the the thing that a lot of people don't
Speaker 2: realize with collagen proteins is that collagen proteins are great
Speaker 2: for joint health and helping to repair joints like ligaments,
Speaker 2: and they're great for skin, and they're great for nails
Speaker 2: and hair and those sorts of things, because the major
Speaker 2: protein in things like your hair and your skin and
Speaker 2: your nails and your joints is a collagen protein, but
Speaker 2: muscle protein it has a different sort of amino acid profile.
Speaker 2: So if you're taking a collagen only for muscle growth,
Speaker 2: you probably want to make sure you're having other protein
Speaker 2: sources in your diet because collagen protein doesn't have all
Speaker 2: the amino acids in the right proportion.
Speaker 1: So that's just just a little tip.
Speaker 2: If you're taking only a collagen protein, make sure you're
Speaker 2: getting good protein sources from other things like meat or
Speaker 2: plant sources or whatever.
Speaker 1: So just to trap for your on plays.
Speaker 2: You know, there are many different protein types on the
Speaker 2: market now and people are spoiled for choice, and there
Speaker 2: are also lots of different formulas. So you know, we
Speaker 2: have in our range, we have formulas for shredding and
Speaker 2: dropping body fat. We have formulas that help people gain weight.
Speaker 2: We have formulas that help people sleep, and several other
Speaker 2: variations as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I use the I don't know what's the one
Speaker 1: that I have. I should at the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but I have every morning I have because I get
Speaker 1: asked this right. In fact, I did an episode a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago called My Health Protocol, which is
Speaker 1: not at all exciting. But people want to know how
Speaker 1: I train and what I eat and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: so and I told them I have every morning. I
Speaker 1: have the same thing, which is very boring. But I
Speaker 1: have almonds, I have oats, I have cilium husk. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I have some seeds. But on top of that, I
Speaker 1: have forty grams of your protein powder. I have the
Speaker 1: chocolate one, which is fucking delicious, so it's like a
Speaker 1: big And then what I do, because I'm weird, I
Speaker 1: put it all in a blender so it comes out
Speaker 1: like flour. And then I put almond milk because me
Speaker 1: and lactose don't go that great. And yes, everyone, I realize,
Speaker 1: almond milk is not milk. It's just fucking distilled water
Speaker 1: with an almond waved at it. I know exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Our best marketing of all time four dollars
Speaker 1: a liter for distilled water with an almond. But I
Speaker 1: have that every day, and as you guys know, I
Speaker 1: don't eat lunch, so I eat that, which is about
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy grams,
Speaker 1: and then whatever I put on top of milk with
Speaker 1: the milk, and I personally I have zero hunger till
Speaker 1: about six or seven at night, which works for me
Speaker 1: because I find and this is the variability about nutrition
Speaker 1: and supplements and calories, is that what will be ideal
Speaker 1: for Keith won't work for Poor, what will be awesome
Speaker 1: for Craig won't work for either of them. And you're
Speaker 1: trying to find out with all of their stuff, everything
Speaker 1: from training to nutrition, to sleep, to hydration to supplement.
Speaker 1: You're trying to figure out how your body responds optimally
Speaker 1: to these different things. You know, like we know, correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, Paul, But like creatine, isn't creatine
Speaker 1: pretty good for like eighty percent of people, but for
Speaker 1: twenty percent it does not much at all? That's what
Speaker 1: they used to say, or is that not true?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think, well, you know, it's very individual thing.
Speaker 2: So some people get a really good benefit out of creatine,
Speaker 2: and other people get a minor benefit. I think most
Speaker 2: people get a minor benefit. It also depends on your diet.
Speaker 2: So the answer to all of these things, you know
Speaker 2: when you're talking about nutrition usually is it depends. So
Speaker 2: it depends on what you're currently eating. So as an example,
Speaker 2: if you eat a reasonable amount of red meat, there's
Speaker 2: quite a bit of creatine in red meat, so you
Speaker 2: will probably find that your level of creatine in your
Speaker 2: muscles is reasonably good if you're on a normal diet
Speaker 2: where you're eating a.
Speaker 1: Reasonable amount of red meat.
Speaker 2: If you're on a more of a plant based diet,
Speaker 2: you're probably not getting a lot of creatine at all,
Speaker 2: and so if you take a creatine supplement, you'll probably
Speaker 2: find you'll see it quite a noticeable difference in your
Speaker 2: energy levels, the amount of weight you can push.
Speaker 1: You probably will put.
Speaker 2: On muscle reasonably quickly if you haven't been using it before,
Speaker 2: and you're training at the gym and you're getting a
Speaker 2: reasonable protein intake. So there's different things now. Then there's
Speaker 2: that sort of genetic makeup that lays over the top.
Speaker 2: So some people are good creatine responders and some people aren't,
Speaker 2: and it's as we said, it's an individual thing.
Speaker 1: So wow, I think that goes not very much everything.
Speaker 1: Do you know the main benefit for me of creatine?
Speaker 1: And I use it for recovery, and I use it
Speaker 1: for energy, and I use it for training and all
Speaker 1: of that. But for me, the main benefit sounds like
Speaker 1: a sales pitch everyone, It isn't. It's just true is
Speaker 1: cognitive function. It makes my brain work better. And so
Speaker 1: again everyone, not a prescription or a recommendation, but I
Speaker 1: actually take fifteen grams a day. I think the recommended
Speaker 1: is like five of five ten, but I take fifteen
Speaker 1: and literally within half an hour my brain works better.
Speaker 1: Not that I mean it works pretty well anyway, but
Speaker 1: it's like, literally, my brain is my tool like that's
Speaker 1: my that's in my bloody toolkit. Is my brain in
Speaker 1: my mind, and that needs to work pretty well. I
Speaker 1: was going to ask you about so with without trying
Speaker 1: to get too sciencey, right, and I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of ardiis recommend the daily intakes, but the RDI
Speaker 1: in Australia for protein, which is ridiculous in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Everyone's point eight of a graand per kilo of body weight.
Speaker 1: So let's say, someone like me who weighs eighty five,
Speaker 1: but let's round me up to ninety. So ninety times
Speaker 1: point eight of a gram is seventy two grams of protein, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's just not enough for me, And I'm a sixty
Speaker 1: one year old bloke. Have you got any idea? And again,
Speaker 1: it depends a very personal person. But I feel like
Speaker 1: somewhere around one and a half to two grams per
Speaker 1: kilo of body weight for people who are working out
Speaker 1: is probably closer to the mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're pretty close. I think there if
Speaker 2: you look at a lot of the literature now, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence that shows that that sort of
Speaker 2: level of one and a half to two grams per
Speaker 2: kilogram of body weight is probably about where you need
Speaker 2: to be, particularly if you're reasonably active. Now, there's a
Speaker 2: few advisors on that. First of all, if you're sedentry
Speaker 2: and so you're sitting at a desk all day and
Speaker 2: you're not doing a lot of activity, you can probably
Speaker 2: survive on point eight of a gram. I mean, I
Speaker 2: use the word survive, but really what you want to
Speaker 2: do is thrive. You don't want to just survive. So
Speaker 2: to thrive, I think a minimum if you're not doing
Speaker 2: any activity, should be one gram per kilogram body weight.
Speaker 2: But I would say that if you're doing any sort
Speaker 2: of activity, one and a half grams to to you know,
Speaker 2: the harder you train, the more often, so you're trainingly
Speaker 2: every day, you know you're up that two grams a
Speaker 2: kilo per kilogram of body weight would be about where
Speaker 2: you need to be. Anybody, whether they're training in the gym,
Speaker 2: they're doing you know, they're more of an endurance athlete,
Speaker 2: so they're doing they're a runner or a cyclist or
Speaker 2: you know, playing football or whatever it is, they should
Speaker 2: be up.
Speaker 1: In that sort of one and a half.
Speaker 2: Grams per kilogram of body weight to two grams. And
Speaker 2: it all depends on your exercise level, I guess so,
Speaker 2: And that's what you really need to do do thrive
Speaker 2: rather than survive. And the other complicating factor is what
Speaker 2: we find as we get older is that and you
Speaker 2: know we three are in this category, that there's what's
Speaker 2: called anabolic resistance. And antabolic resistance relates to your body
Speaker 2: doesn't absorb and use protein anywhere near as efficiently as
Speaker 2: it used to when you were twenty years old. So
Speaker 2: so base if you're taking in a gram of protein
Speaker 2: per kilogram body weight when you're twenty, you're probably going
Speaker 2: to use a lot more of that to build muscle
Speaker 2: than if you do it when you're sixty.
Speaker 1: So to compensate for that, you need to take in
Speaker 1: more protein.
Speaker 2: You just need to provide more substrate for your body
Speaker 2: to get access to so that it's there when it
Speaker 2: needs to build build muscle or maintain muscle. So that
Speaker 2: makes it even more important now. I mean, Craig, you
Speaker 2: could probably talk to this, although you probably talk to
Speaker 2: your clients and that sort of thing I have over
Speaker 2: the years, But saying you need one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: grams of protein, for example, A lot of people just
Speaker 2: don't understand what that actually means. You know, how what
Speaker 2: is one hundred and fifty grams protein? I don't know
Speaker 2: if you want to talk.
Speaker 1: About that, but I think people confuse, you know, they go,
Speaker 1: I add one hundred and fifty gram breast of chicken.
Speaker 1: I add one hundred and fifty grams of protein. So no,
Speaker 1: you didn't know that's a protein source that I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't have an I think there might be thirty
Speaker 1: grams of protein in a chicken breast that size or something,
Speaker 1: it probably forty maybe forty five grams, and in an
Speaker 1: egg there might be six grams of protein or give
Speaker 1: or take five or six grams. So yeah, getting Actually
Speaker 1: for somebody like me, let's say I went two grams
Speaker 1: per kilo of body weight, that would put me out
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy grams of protein, which is a
Speaker 1: fair bit of actual protein, and that requires a fair
Speaker 1: bit of food. But my dinner is quite big, my
Speaker 1: breakfast is quite big. Every now and then, if I
Speaker 1: am hungry through the day, which I don't often get
Speaker 1: a hungry, but if I am, I'll I'll just make
Speaker 1: a protein drink with that protein powder I spoke about before,
Speaker 1: or eat a few almonds or a bit of both.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's I actually think, Like what's interesting right
Speaker 1: now is until about five years ago, you know, we
Speaker 1: spoke a lot about lifespan primarily, and now we're talking
Speaker 1: a lot more about health span, which is literally very
Speaker 1: relevant for us, you know, three dinosaurs, but which is
Speaker 1: literally how long how long can I live? And of
Speaker 1: those years that I do live, how well can I live?
Speaker 1: Can I be somewhere close to optimal for my age
Speaker 1: and my genetic potential, you know. So I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, Keith, you're seventy one or whatever you are,
Speaker 1: and you don't. I don't, I don't know. I can't speak,
Speaker 1: but you definitely don't look anywhere near your age, and
Speaker 1: Paul neither to you. And I think, and it ain't
Speaker 1: about aesthetics. It's ultimately about health and performance and function
Speaker 1: and energy and wellness. But I think now we're starting
Speaker 1: to understand that this doesn't, you know, getting old doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily need to come with some fucking massive, never ending,
Speaker 1: irreversible decline of health and energy and cognitive function, like
Speaker 1: we're realizing now. And I think people who aren't athletes,
Speaker 1: and people who aren't clinics, and who aren't in health
Speaker 1: or fitness per se, I think people are getting smarter
Speaker 1: and starting to track things and starting to diorize their food,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're they're kind of their sleep and
Speaker 1: their resting heart rate and their kind of energy levels.
Speaker 1: So I think overall, like we're starting to become a
Speaker 1: lot more aware and responsible and enlightened around managing ourselves
Speaker 1: into older age. What do you two think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a that's a great point. Craigan and I
Speaker 3: think there's a there's a tipping point, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a tipping point for me was firstly, you know, when
Speaker 3: you when you kind of build this behemoth physic or
Speaker 3: whatever you like to call it, there's that mental and
Speaker 3: sort of psychological and physical aspect of when you're starting
Speaker 3: to downsize in dealing.
Speaker 1: With that, that's one part of it.
Speaker 3: And some people, I guess it's like US aflor footballers
Speaker 3: when they give up their career. It's after football, they
Speaker 3: struggle with a few things, not all, but if there's
Speaker 3: a replacement in your life or something else as a
Speaker 3: priority in life. Could be family, it could be relationships,
Speaker 3: or could be a new sport.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's.
Speaker 3: Important to get that simulation. But getting back to some
Speaker 3: of the food intake, my theory has always been eat
Speaker 3: towards your age. You know, certainly your appetite lessons, as
Speaker 3: your pardin requirements, get the types of food that you
Speaker 3: like to consume does change.
Speaker 1: But mine, really I've kind.
Speaker 3: Of followed a bodybuilding lifestyle and diet all my life.
Speaker 3: I don't actually lift weights anymore. I do other things.
Speaker 3: And you kindly reminded me last couple of weeks when
Speaker 3: we met. You should be lifting some weights, Keith, and
Speaker 3: you're probably right, Craig, So I'm thinking of lifting some
Speaker 3: few not that I don't know, but you know, I
Speaker 3: think you do know. So I just think, you know,
Speaker 3: you eat to eat to your age, and your lifestyle
Speaker 3: should be adjusted and regulated to your age as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think.
Speaker 3: Because you're seventy he should be doing this and run
Speaker 3: around that block or walk around the block any fast
Speaker 3: or quicker. I think it's a belief in yourself what
Speaker 3: works well for you. I just pull one last dinosaur
Speaker 3: out of the cupboard because this is probably the only
Speaker 3: forum I get to say these things. I remember when
Speaker 3: I first went the Golds Gym in the States and
Speaker 3: the bastion of bodybuilding.
Speaker 1: There's a guy called Mike Mensa.
Speaker 3: A lot of the younger listeners wouldn't know, but obviously
Speaker 3: Craig and Paul knows it very well. He was like
Speaker 3: the father of heavy duty training, and he was just
Speaker 3: a real behemoth. He used to walk into Golds Gym.
Speaker 3: He go to Dunkin Donuts and get a six pack
Speaker 3: of ice doughnuts and a big black coffee like it
Speaker 3: looked like in a gallon jar, you know, the coffee,
Speaker 3: and that was his pre workout.
Speaker 1: He was the father of pre workouts.
Speaker 3: And this probably would be in showing me age will
Speaker 3: and truly, but this would be nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Ye, he'd walk into that and he used to.
Speaker 3: He was a very powerful guy, you know, squat six
Speaker 3: hundred pounds in the day for reps and bench press anyway.
Speaker 3: So I kind of got to him one day and
Speaker 3: got at the side and I was chatting to about it.
Speaker 3: And he was a very personal guy, and people thought
Speaker 3: he was hard to approach, but I kind of break
Speaker 3: down those few of those barriers and we chatted away.
Speaker 3: So can you let me in on a secret? A
Speaker 3: secret everybody thinks I eat six ice doanuts a day
Speaker 3: and drink coffee. He said, I'd eat one, throw the
Speaker 3: other five away, and he take two mouthfuls of that coffee.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. But he would train. And I said, the reason,
Speaker 1: you know the reason, Mike, He says, it was a belief. Brother.
Speaker 3: It was a belief that he could lift those ways.
Speaker 3: It was a belief that he could be so strong,
Speaker 3: and it was always a belief that he's going to,
Speaker 3: you know, build us Yeah, it's enormous physic So you know,
Speaker 3: I know you're a bit of a mind man, and
Speaker 3: motivations and so forth. You know, that belief in yourself
Speaker 3: no matter what age, it's such a crucial.
Speaker 1: Thing, one hundred percent. Oh yeah, that's such a funny
Speaker 1: story and a good story. I trained in I went
Speaker 1: over there when I was young. I went in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five and I, oh no, that was the first time.
Speaker 1: Second time I went, I was it was nine and
Speaker 1: ninety five, so I was thirty two and I trained
Speaker 1: in golds in Venice for about two weeks. And I
Speaker 1: was pretty big and in pretty good shape, and I
Speaker 1: looked like I'd never worked out. I looked like it
Speaker 1: was my first time in a gym, you know. For
Speaker 1: me anyway, I was like, I felt, I'm pretty big.
Speaker 1: I think I was maybe one hundred kilos. I wasn't
Speaker 1: too fat, like I was probably ten or twelve percent fat,
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty pounds, pretty good shape for my
Speaker 1: not very good genetics. And yeah, I just looked like
Speaker 1: a fucking novice. And it's funny how you go into
Speaker 1: one room and you're amazing. You go into another room
Speaker 1: you're a shitkicker. You go into one room, you're a genius.
Speaker 1: You go into another room, you're an idiot. It's all context,
Speaker 1: a pennant. But I think, look, another important part of
Speaker 1: this I reckon is, you know, like the chronological age
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be representative of or in alignment with,
Speaker 1: you know, biological age. And my listeners have heard this
Speaker 1: a lot. But of course, of course how old we are,
Speaker 1: how many years we've been on the planet is a factor.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's a variable that we can't escape. But
Speaker 1: we all know sixty year olds that look like forty five,
Speaker 1: and sixty year olds that look like eighty, you know,
Speaker 1: and there are people that happen to you know, whether
Speaker 1: or not they're genetically gifted, or whether or not they've
Speaker 1: optimized their genetics through choices and behaviors and lifestyle, or
Speaker 1: whether or not it's a bit of both. But you know,
Speaker 1: one thing is true for everyone, and that is you
Speaker 1: can't get another body, right, You can't go get You
Speaker 1: can replace most things, but you can't replace that. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a little bit of a swing happening
Speaker 1: where people are becoming maybe because it's although a lot
Speaker 1: of what's on the internet is rubbish, But I think
Speaker 1: if you know where to look on what to look for,
Speaker 1: you can get great information. Let's talk about We've got
Speaker 1: about another five or so minutes, Paul. What do you
Speaker 1: think about moving forward for the industry like for supplements.
Speaker 1: To me, it seems like it's becoming very online centric.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I think interestingly, if you look at sort of
Speaker 2: global friends, there is a real move to people buying
Speaker 2: everything online. I think there's certainly still a very thriving
Speaker 2: what we call bricks and more to people going into
Speaker 2: stores looking at getting advice from people in store, but
Speaker 2: I think more and more people, first of all, are
Speaker 2: doing their research online and getting all the information they need.
Speaker 2: I think the other trend I see, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: you said this too, Craig, is that people are getting
Speaker 2: advice not from what I call a qualified source, but
Speaker 2: from an influencer or influencers. So there are there's a
Speaker 2: million experts out there on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 2: and TikTok and other platforms that are emerging, and they
Speaker 2: present well because they've got a good physique, male or female,
Speaker 2: and they give advice and sometimes it's conflicting with other
Speaker 2: people's advice and people just don't really know what is
Speaker 2: that advice correct or not not correct?
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there.
Speaker 2: Are all these different nutritional gurus out there, there's people
Speaker 2: with training advice and whatever.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: My take on this is be very careful when you
Speaker 2: are searching for information on social media because whether it
Speaker 2: be about diets, whether it be about supplements, whether it
Speaker 2: be about training advice, because you really need to sort
Speaker 2: of check out the credentials of the people who are
Speaker 2: giving that advice before you take that and run with it.
Speaker 2: Most of the time the advice that you'll get maybe
Speaker 2: moderately harmless, but sometimes that can be quite dangerous. And
Speaker 2: so that's something where getting advice from qualified sources to
Speaker 2: me is super important. And in the supplement world, there
Speaker 2: are plenty of fly by nights in the supplement world,
Speaker 2: so just be a little bit careful with that as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so there's some of the trends I see emerging.
Speaker 2: But as Keith sort of said earlier, there are new
Speaker 2: companies entering the supplement and space every day, and you
Speaker 2: don't need to have too much behind you to sell supplement.
Speaker 2: So a good example of that is in Australia, we
Speaker 2: are governed by depending on the product, there's a Therapeutic
Speaker 2: Goods Administration, so they preside over products that are kind
Speaker 2: of things that are presumed to be like a drug
Speaker 2: type product, tablets, capsules, injectable products and these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So if you go into a local pharmacy, a chemist
Speaker 2: warehouse or the like, most of the vitamins and the
Speaker 2: supplements that you'll find on the shelves of a chemist
Speaker 2: warehouse are overseen by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and they'll
Speaker 2: have what's called an artg listable or registrable number on
Speaker 2: the front of them. Most health food stores, when you
Speaker 2: go into a health food store in Australia, the majority
Speaker 2: of products that are on the shells or health food
Speaker 2: stores overseen by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand or
Speaker 2: we a breve out that to phyzants and there's a
Speaker 2: list of regulations that companies like ourselves must comply with
Speaker 2: when we produce these sorts of products. But you can
Speaker 2: buy a lot of products online from companies that have
Speaker 2: that just don't even look at these regulations and put
Speaker 2: whatever they like into the supplements and a lot of
Speaker 2: these companies are offshore, so you can you know, they
Speaker 2: advertise products they're offshore, and you don't really even know
Speaker 2: what facility they're made in. It could be made in
Speaker 2: someone's garage somewhere or other on some obscure in some
Speaker 2: obscure country. I believe there are some companies that are
Speaker 2: selling themselves as being an offshore company, but they're actually
Speaker 2: making the products in Australia, but they're not making them
Speaker 2: to any regulations. So once again, you when you're buying products,
Speaker 2: just be careful who you're buying them from. Have a
Speaker 2: look at the website, have a look at the credentials
Speaker 2: of the company that you're buying from, to make sure
Speaker 2: that the products that you're the product that you're buying
Speaker 2: is from a reputable company and what the product sees
Speaker 2: is in it is actually in it. Because there are
Speaker 2: lots of cases in the industry where products are being
Speaker 2: tested and the ingredients that are supposed that are on
Speaker 2: the label certainly aren't in the product.
Speaker 1: So there's lots of traps there.
Speaker 2: And buying from a reputable Australian company and I'd like
Speaker 2: to think we're one of those, and there's plenty of others.
Speaker 2: You know, I've mentioned companies like Masashi. There are other
Speaker 2: good companies body Science, there's Muscle Nation. These companies are
Speaker 2: all very reputable companies. I trust what they say they
Speaker 2: put into their products. But there are other companies that
Speaker 2: are a little bit more fly by night that I
Speaker 2: would look at and go, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: belie what's on the label of those I look at
Speaker 2: them and I go, hmm, that doesn't sort of been
Speaker 2: true with perhaps surprise they're charging versus what they're saying
Speaker 2: is actually in the product.
Speaker 1: So I had something come into my Instagram feed last night.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of the company. It definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't new, but it was this new blend of two peptides.
Speaker 1: One of them was I think BP whatever one five yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then another one and it's this new combination and
Speaker 1: that the advertising was razzle dazzle, and they made all
Speaker 1: these outrageous claims about all the shit that it did.
Speaker 1: And then I went, I'm going to try and find
Speaker 1: any research that backs this advertisement, and so I did
Speaker 1: a deep dive. I actually got off my phone. I
Speaker 1: was on my phone. Then I came to my computer
Speaker 1: where I'm sitting now, and I tried to find any science,
Speaker 1: any research, any way of validating what they were saying,
Speaker 1: and there's fucking nothing. But the way that they talk.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is not science, this is not
Speaker 1: this is marketing. But it's written as though it's science.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that terrifies me for people. And
Speaker 1: that's one story. Another story is I had something come up.
Speaker 1: This guy was talking to another guy in an interview
Speaker 1: and he was saying he was talking about nicotine. This
Speaker 1: is a funny segue, but he's talking about nicotine and
Speaker 1: the benefits of nicotine, right, you know, some alleged health
Speaker 1: benefits right now? Anyway, I know people use nicotine or nicorette,
Speaker 1: some of those gums and stuff has a new tropic
Speaker 1: or whatever. But he was saying, Oh, people get all
Speaker 1: hysterical about nicotine, But do you know what has What
Speaker 1: has the second highest ingredient of all the food that
Speaker 1: has the second highest amount of nicotine in it is eggplant.
Speaker 1: I'm like really, And then under that I think was tomato,
Speaker 1: and then white potato or something. I'm like, who the
Speaker 1: fuck knew that eggplant has I'm like, is this true?
Speaker 1: So then I started doing some research. I'm like, does
Speaker 1: eggplant and I went down a rabbit hole. Well, yes
Speaker 1: it does, but you need to have ten kilos of
Speaker 1: eggs and it's so stupid ten kilos of eggplant to
Speaker 1: have the same as one cigarette the nicotine in my
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, this is just misleading bullshit. And
Speaker 1: it's like so technically he was not lying, but he
Speaker 1: was being mis leading, like wildly misleading. I think there's
Speaker 1: there's plenty of that goes on.
Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned peptides before, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of who are and if you if you actually google peptides,
Speaker 2: you'll you'll get what happens. Then you'll get in undated
Speaker 2: on your social feeds by companies trying to selltides to you.
Speaker 1: But an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: About peptides is that peptides are basically peptide is a
Speaker 2: bunch of amino acids joined together. Now, when you take
Speaker 2: a peptide, if you take a peptide in a capsule,
Speaker 2: it'll go into your stomach. The capsule will be broken
Speaker 2: down and your gastric juices that the acids and the
Speaker 2: actual enzymes in your stomach will digest that peptide and
Speaker 2: it's totally useless. The only way you can get benefit
Speaker 2: out of a peptide is by injecting it into yourself.
Speaker 2: So if you see an ad for a peptide that's
Speaker 2: in a capsule or a tablet, it's not going to
Speaker 2: work because unless you.
Speaker 1: Can say it's bullshit, it's okay, it's bullshit.
Speaker 2: So unless somebody has come up with some very clever
Speaker 2: technology that is able to take the peptide and get
Speaker 2: it through your digestive tract into a party of you're
Speaker 2: intestine where it will actually absorb a peptide of any length,
Speaker 2: and usually our digestive tract can't absorb a peptide that's
Speaker 2: any longer than about two or three amino acids joined together,
Speaker 2: and most of these peptides are significantly longer than that,
Speaker 2: then it's bullshit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it. I love it that you finally
Speaker 1: opened the swearing door and came stumbling through. I didn't
Speaker 1: right at the end. Yeah, right, all this time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and let's not leave it five years and a million
Speaker 1: episodes next time. We appreciate you. Keith, get back in
Speaker 1: the gym for fuck's sake, Paul, thanks for sharing that
Speaker 1: large brain of yours. We appreciate you. Will say goodbye
Speaker 1: fair but in all seriousness thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 1: Boys really appreciate you. Thanks, Thanks creign with pleasure