Full transcript of “The REAL Fake Natty Problem”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:01 What's up guys? Jeff Cavalere at thex.com. So, I'm bringing into the coach's corner here today because I'm going to address the controversy. Something I don't ever do and there's a reason why I don't do this. I don't talk about other fitness YouTubers or videos that they've made or controversies because I don't believe that it aligns with what I've tried to do here for 15 years, and that is to deliver content rather than controversy. At the end of this video though, you're going to leave with something much more positive because I believe as my job has always been and it will be today, it is to deliver useful content to you. And these types of controversies, though interesting, I don't believe necessarily leave you with something that is actionable that you can do something with to better your physique, to get rid
0:48 of a pain you're having right now. All the reasons you may have tuned into my channel for all these years. So, in this particular controversy, we're talking about one that involves Jeff Nippard and somebody by the name of Hussein. He clearly has a ridiculous physique and to me would clearly seem to be not natural. Okay. But at some point, I guess to bring you up to speed, you can watch all the videos others have made on this with a lot more detail. Jeff apparently thought that he was natural or said he was natural or defended the possibility that he might be natural. And that's caught a lot of heat for Jeff in terms of his ability to credibly assess somebody's natural status and then brings into question what else he might have said. Okay, that's where people go with these types of things. Now, I think we need to stop for a second and assess what the benefit is of these types of
1:34 videos. Is it benefiting you in any way? Particularly because we're talking about health and fitness videos. This is a self-improvement genre, right? this is what you're here for. Maybe you like the controversy, right? It's interesting, but is it benefiting you? So, I believe some of the responsibility then shifts to the viewer, right? When you come to my videos and you have high expectations for what you're going to receive from me, then I have some expectations of the viewers. And that is you have to be able to discern first and foremost whether or not the information you're being given is just total BS. Because if it is, you can just skip past that video and move on. and maybe even move on to another content creator because this one's not for you. The second thing is if it
2:20 passes that filter, that first filter is whether it's applicable to you or not because not every bit of advice is applicable. For instance, if I gave you a machine workout to do and you don't have access to machines because you just work out at home, then that particular video wouldn't be applicable to you, but it doesn't mean that it's not beneficial to a lot of people. The third thing though, and this is the key, this is my highest expectation, is that if it passes the first two filters for you, you need to be willing to implement the information in a meaningful way to then go see if it actually works for you. And when I say for you, I mean for you, works for you. Because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether or not that information that when implemented works for you. Who gives a [ __ ] whether it works for Hussein or Jeff Nippard? Or who cares
3:07 whether they're using whatever they're using and therefore it's changing how that thing is working for them? Because at the end of the day, what matters is how it works for you. Now stay with me here cuz I think the big issue that we're having nowadays is we're not looking to ourselves and we're looking at the others around us for somehow the validation to determine whether or not this information is useful to you. So, when you go back to the natty or not discussion and whether or not this particular person is natty or not, how does that benefit you? And I've heard the arguments before. I've heard the arguments. Well, if I know that he's natural, then the things he's telling me and doing will then have a better chance of working for me. But if he's using steroids, then I know that they're not
3:52 going to be able to work for me. That would have basically undercut the entire magazine industry that I grew up with if that was true. because I only had as a resource the bodybuilding magazines to go by or Arnold's encyclopedia. And every one of the guys in those magazines were using steroids. Every single one of them. But if I said, "Well, [ __ ] they're on steroids, so therefore their advice means nothing for me because it's not going to work." Then I never even would have started lifting. There would have been no reason to. But by following advice and learning from that advice that hey, I can't do 48 sets like Arnold's doing and pairing it down, I got results. And this is the part that I think is really important. This is where this video becomes important for people
4:38 and becomes helpful and is not just another self-serving review on the controversy because I don't think that helps anybody. When I was younger, the person that I had to answer to was the person in the mirror. I had a mirror set up right next to my squat rack. I had that mirror there. And even though most of the time when I looked in it, I didn't like what I saw back. I didn't. He was too skinny. He wasn't muscular enough. He wasn't strong enough. That was who I answered to. But what would happen is as I put the work in, as I implemented the advice I was given, even if it wasn't the best advice, because as we've learned over the years that some of that bodybuilding advice was really excessive and built around people who had done large amounts of steroids, it was still successful for me
5:26 because I implemented at the level that I could as a 125 pound skinny little kid who was starting out. When I did that, I started to see changes. I started to see a little bit of a six-pack, a little bit. I started to see a little bit of a bicep. I started to see a little bit of delts. All these things got me excited to continue to pursue more. And that mirror though my enemy at times became my biggest inspiration. Fast forward now. Here's why I feel bad for you guys. Because this this phone right here is the death of motivation. If you go on Instagram right now and you start scrolling through Instagram, you will see people that will look better than you for the rest of your life, you will
6:11 have no chance to ever look as good as they do. And if you're measuring yourself against them, you will be defeated and you're not going to be encouraged to keep pressing forward because you're going to think, "I'll never look like that person." And then when you know and you find out that that person's on steroids, then you decide instead of saying maybe I need to follow somebody else or maybe I just need to kind of redefine my own goals based around myself, you decide to quit or stop entirely. And I'm not targeting this at just the youth. I'm not. There are people my age, younger and older, who always want to know about the people that they see on social media or what my
6:57 opinions are of the people they see on social media because they want to know whether or not it's obtainable. And I laugh because it's like it has nothing to do with that person. It has everything to do with you and how you process the information that you're being given. how you process that information because we're all being bombarded by that information. The information must become implementation at some point. And when it does, something really significant will happen. Once you implement, the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to actually possibly find the things that actually work for you. when they work for you, you will start to focus on yourself once again and less on the influence of the
7:45 influencers. Because when you see the results that you get, like I said, you'll become motivated that you're capable of things that you never knew you were capable of, of making gains you never thought you were capable of. And that should motivate you to continue your pursuit because you'll try some things that don't work. I promise you, we all have. You're going to try some things that don't work. Your filters are going to get better, too. those front-end filters are going to become refined so that when you start to hear some pieces of advice, you're going to say, "That doesn't sound good." Even if it's based around science, because not all science is good science, you'll start to hear things that say that just doesn't sound right. And you'll be able to filter past that and maybe even look for other sources of information. Hopefully, you'll come to the Athenx channel for real science. But you'll get to the right place and you'll get the
8:31 information that you can use and implement that actually does something for you. Guys, after all of that though, if the advice you're being given is not implementable, then you have to question whether or not you even really should be watching the video. I get that the controversy is probably interesting, or I get that some of those topics are a little bit interesting. They're good diversions, but if they're not aligned with helping you to be able to implement something, and again, a natty or not video doesn't help you implement anything, there's nothing that you can implement, then it may not be serving you. And as a matter of fact, it's serving a bad purpose in in the fact that it's discouraging you. And I hate that. The last thing I'm going to point out, guys, is no matter what you decide to
9:17 implement and the stuff that you find works for you, the number one thing that you can do to benefit yourself from any of the information you're getting is be able to do it consistently. and an overindulgence in the types of videos that aren't conducive to you wanting to stay focused on yourself rather than others is likely going to interrupt that consistency at some point. And consistency really is the key factor that trumps everything. Regardless of what split you're following or whatever type of workout you're doing, if you can stay consistent with it and consistent with your nutrition, you can see results. And I'll even bring it home with this. our own Jesse, right, who's made a transformation in front of your eyes that's taken multiple years to do. He
10:05 could have been easily distracted by the temptations, by the influences of the influencers who looked better than him or the commenters who said, "He should have been doing this much faster. He could be much more muscular. he could have much better gains if he stayed focused on them rather than himself. Then he never would have been able to achieve what he has. And even in my case, I wanted to do something as a kid. I was skinny, right? But back in my day, the the steroid users were few and far between. Everyone could point to the one or two in the gym. It's not like today where a large contingency in the gym are on steroids. Back in that time, there
10:50 was a there was a a pride in being natural, right? These days, there's no nobility for being natural. As a matter of fact, it's just not even a thing. I, however, continue to carry that through my career and my life. I do take pride in being natural. I do want to set the example now for my kids. I do want to be an example for you guys now at 50 years old of what is possible if you stay consistent. You never see me get fat for eight months out of the year. You never see me change. Some people say that's a bad thing. I don't change. I don't get You should be way bigger by now. You've been doing this for 15 years. You don't see that happening. Everything's pretty consistent with me because I live a very consistent life and I apply the knowledge I get to my training and I'm
11:37 constantly trying to evolve that. I'm constantly trying to get to a better place. Even though life would say it's going to get harder and harder for me to do as I get older. The point is guys, if you have a clear goal in mind and if you keep yourself in focus rather than others, maybe these types of videos become a little entertainment every once in a while. But don't let them become the guideline for how you conduct yourselves in the gym and outside the gym in terms of pursuing your goals. This is about self-improvement. This is not all about entertainment. And for that, guys, stay focused on yourself because when you do, you can. If you've looking for programs, guys, I have full programs. I have meal plans. We have all the tools that you'll need over at athletex.com. We have supplements as well. The point is stay focused on you
12:24 and let these controversies sort of sit where they belong. That's not really that important. All right, guys. See you soon. Make sure you subscribe, turn on notifications so you don't miss a video when we put one out. See you soon.
