Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto, savage.com.
And in today's episode I'm going to be going over the overview of
the world's competition, which is the competition I just
finished and it is the last of the five competitions I've
competed in this season. I'm going to do a little
overview of the competition itself, talk about the peak
week, talk about the nutrition, talk about the the show itself,
talk about the judges, the posing, all that good stuff.
Just kind of give you an overview of what this show was
like and also talk about the celebratory meal post show and
what that's like from a psychological standpoint and a
physiological standpoint and kind of how I do things
differently with this ketogenic approach.
But before we dive into that, let's roll the intro.
OK, so we are live. This is an overview of Worlds,
so Worlds is the largest competition in the Debut NBF
Federation. This is pretty much the Super
Bowl of natural bodybuilding. The Debut NBF is the most
prestigious of the natural bodybuilding federations, and
this is the behemoth of that federation.
There were literally 54 countries represented at this
competition specifically, so pretty big deal.
Before we dive into the competition itself, do I want to
talk a little bit about peak week?
So when it comes to this week's peak week, we basically, let's
talk about travel first. So we drove to Dallas from
Arkansas. We had a direct flight from
Dallas to Seattle, and we had all of our camera gear with us.
It was just a little bit of chaos there.
But we got to Seattle on Tuesday and then we get checked into our
Airbnb, get all situated, settled in, and get ready to
rumble for the week. I had my media guide Chip and
good friend Greg. They flew in on Thursday, so we
started creating content with them at that point.
When it comes to this peak week specifically, I did opt to
increase my intake with the extra pound of ground lamb and
30 grams of ghee. There was not any duck fat at
the Whole Foods that we went to. So I was using ghee for a fat
source and I had that extra pound of lamb and 30 grams of
ghee each day this week apart from the refeed day in addition
to the normal macros that I've been consuming, you know,
throughout this prep as it pertains to, you know, this
point in the prep. So the whole point there was
that I started incorporating that extra pound of lamb on
Monday instead of later in the week because I wanted to ensure
that I would fill out properly and peek for this show.
Because there were going to be some bigger guys on stage and I
wanted to make sure that I was fully filled out and looking
like I should and peeking properly.
So that was the the manipulation from a nutritional standpoint
there. On Friday, I had the traditional
ketogenic caloric refeed pizza made with almond flour topped
with lamb every single day had a Bell's Brown Aikido brick so had
that dialed in as well. So the nutrition was pretty good
from an electrolyte standpoint. I was holding my sodium constant
at about 11,500 milligrams of sodium throughout the entire
week. So that's what we've got going
on from a electrolyte standpoint, potassium probably
about half that and I can, I stayed consistent about two
hundred 225 ounces of water throughout the peak week with
the training. I basically maintain training
throughout the entire week except for the day before the
show. This show, since it is a pro
show, took place on Sunday instead of Saturday.
So my training was dialed in and I was training pretty much the
traditional, you know, full body split that I've been doing.
This whole prep going pretty heavy honestly, up until about
Friday, started to reduce the intensity a little bit on
Friday. And then on Saturday all I did
was 20 minutes at level 12 on the Stairmaster and kind of like
a light pumping circuit with full body just to push all of
the nutrients from that refeed meal on Friday into the tissue
and make sure that I was filled out properly.
I was posing every single day, practicing my posing, getting
that dialed in. This week, I was holding each
pose for 60 seconds so everything was just totally
crisp. Like my posing is on point.
I've been really putting in the work with the posing throughout
this entire prep, so and that's pretty much what I had going on
from a posing standpoint every single day this week, 62nd
holds, I've been increasing that incrementally every week from, I
don't know, I probably started like 15 second holds and I'm up
to about 62nd holds. So that's what we had going on
from a peak week travel, nutrition training and cardio
and posing standpoint. Again, this was a massive show
so I didn't really know what to expect.
This was my first time ever even attending Worlds, much less
competing in it had gone pro at the Washington show earlier in
October. I had my pro debut at the Boston
MA show two weeks prior, and then I went to Worlds for this
weekend show. I had no idea what the
competitor class was going to look like, and let me tell you,
it was incredibly stacked. There were 16 competitors in my
lightweight class alone, to give you an idea that, which is by
far the biggest class I've ever competed in.
And oftentimes when you compete in the class, you know, you get
your lightweight, middle weight, heavyweight classes.
There's going to be a couple competitors that just aren't
conditioned, aren't, you know, lean like they should be.
They haven't got their posing figured out.
They just aren't really ready for the show.
That was not the case here. Everybody was professional.
I was competing against professionals, everybody was
1000% dialed in. So it was a totally different
caliber competitor, but I look like I belonged up there.
I was dialed in as well, so I have no regrets from that
standpoint. I woke up on the morning of the
show at a weight of 152.3 lbs, which interestingly enough is
the lightest I've ever competed. At my very first show in 2012, I
weighed 153 lbs. So if you stop and think about
it, I was less weight than I was 12 years or in 2012 on the
bodybuilding show Dame. But I'm much bigger and more
developed, so I've got a lot more lean tissue now.
But I was just so much leaner at this competition than I was at
my first show that I came in at that lighter weight of 152.3,
which again is just crazy. My first show of this season, I
think I competed at 1:59, so I've continued to drop quite a
bit of weight and lean out even further for you know these these
next shows. But yeah, it's just kind of
crazy that I got down that low in the 1st place.
I didn't anticipate getting that low at the onset of the prep,
but I'm pretty wild when you're that lean, how low your body fat
go or how low your body weight goes as a natural competitor.
So I woke up that more like I said at 152.3, did a quick
little physique, check everything was 100% peaking
properly. I had vascularity like crazy.
I was seeing veins in places I've never seen before.
So I feel really good about how I had gone into the peak week to
really get everything optimized from an electrolyte standpoint,
from a nutrition standpoint, from a training standpoint, I
wasn't holding any excess fluid. Everything was perfectly in
place, as it should be, and all the factors that I had control
over were accounted for. The morning of the show, what
I've been doing is just simply having a fatty coffee.
So I had that. That morning I had two cups of
coffee. In the total canister of coffee
There was 6 tablespoons of heavy cream, 4 tablespoons of a nut
pods Creamer and one tablespoon of butter.
So that's what I had from a nutrition standpoint in my
coffee. I had one keto brick at about
8:30 in the morning and then I when I got my touch up I got a
second coat of tan, basically the tan.
The color look great. I got my first coat the day
prior. They put a coat on there and
then I got my second coat the day of the show, the morning of
and the color looked perfect. The last show, the Boston show,
they got me a little too dark and that washed out my
definition. So I was a little worried about
that happening, but that was not the case with this one.
The color was on point when it comes to the backstage area at
Worlds. Everything was super crap.
There were so many competitors there and it was a very crowded
room. They were doing the tanning and
they had the competitor backstage area in the same spot.
So they had, you know, a wall set up for tanning.
And then all the competitors were just kind of milling about
in that same room. So everybody had their blankets
down. Everybody was snacking on the
rice cakes and peanut butter and Jelly.
There was literally one guy that was, you know, sipping out of a
container of syrup like Aunt Jemima syrup.
He was just down in that drinking it, basically.
It's crazy what people do during peak week and show day to fill
out, to manipulate electrolytes, to cut water, carb load, things
of that nature. So definitely very different
from what I'm doing from a ketogenic prep standpoint.
But again, that's what they were doing.
I had my one keto brick right there at about 8:30 when I was
getting my first or second coat rather of tan.
After that I had a second keto brick about two hours later or
so and we started pumping up. So that's when they took us into
a separate room for pumping up, which is basically just to force
some more blood into tissue people will use like resistance
bands, push ups, some light dumbbells, things of that
nature. And that room was also
incredibly crowded. It was like standing room only
you couldn't even do push ups. So I kind of went out in the
hallway, did some work there. I brought a little space heater
with me to keep warm. It's usually pretty cold
backstage, so I brought a little space heater to keep warm and
keep the the Vascularity flowing.
So that's what I I was doing. I had some bands with me, it
pumped up and then we all went out on stage.
There was again 16 competitors in my class and everybody
brought their a game. And what was interesting is
because there were so many competitors, the judges decided
to randomly break up the lineup. So they had the the competitor
group more or less cut in half and then they had the first half
going through other poses while the second-half stayed not
backstage but behind that first group.
And we just held our our relaxed pose that entire time.
Which I honestly think was pretty unfortunate because I was
randomly in that second group. Which means that for the longest
I was just sitting back there in this front relaxed pose, not
going through the actual poses, but just holding that relaxed
pose, which, if you've ever done a bodybuilding show, is not a
truly relaxed pose. You are still flexing
everything. So I was doing that the entire
time until they called me up, obviously.
But they were, since there's so many competitors, then they
broke us up like them. It's like they almost gave more
attention and time to that first group.
And then when they did call me up, I went through all my poses.
Everything was looking great. My posing was dialed in.
That was composed. I wasn't fatigued, I was filled
out. So the vascularity was there.
Everything was good. But they had already spent so
much time on that first group that I don't feel like I really
got as much stage time in front of the judges as I would have
liked. But it just kind of is what it
is when it comes to, you know, a class that big.
So kind of unfortunate in that regard.
But again, what I I have no control over that.
So I did what I could and I brought my best package, which
is all anybody could do. Yeah, so that's what we had
going on there from how they broke up the the large class for
the judges. Now the way they do worlds is
you have the different weight classes in which I was a
lightweight and the lightweight class goes from 150 lbs up to
165 lbs. So I was definitely on the
lighter end of my weight class. Everybody in my weight class
that outsized me and then obviously everybody that was in
the middle weight and heavyweight class and certainly
outsize me. But when it comes to the
individual classes, they only award the top five competitors
and only the top five competitors get to showcase
their individual choreographed routine.
And I was not in the top five with this show, ladies and
gentlemen. I was not in the top five, which
is unfortunate, but it is what it is there too.
I mean, you never know what the judges are looking for.
This is a subjective sport, as I've said multiple times, and I
likely was counted off for not simply having enough size.
I mean, I'm never going to be the biggest guy on stage, so I
can just focus on being the leanest, which I feel like I
certainly accomplished. But you know, again, the judges,
depending on what they're looking for, that it is what it
is. So I did not have the, I do not
have the knowledge of knowing what my actual placing is
because they only award the placing for the top five.
So I did not get to do my routine.
I did not get to battle it out for the overall in this
competition. Everybody that was on stage
looked amazing and I was honored and proud to step on stage with
them, but just was not in my cards for me to take away a
trophy with this competition. So I don't actually know what my
placing is or was because they only again award the top five
their their placements. So I I think I would probably be
in the middle of that line up more or less.
That's kind of what I would gauge based off of the size that
people were bringing, the the condition that people bring.
I would probably be in the middle of that class of 16 from
a judging standpoint. There were I believe 8 or 12
competitors in the middle weight class and 10 competitors in the
heavyweight class and the winner of the heavyweight class was
actually the winner of the overall.
So they were definitely again looking for, you know, total
package obviously, but size for sure.
It was rewarded at this competition And interestingly
enough, the gentleman that won the heavyweight class and the
overall title, Brian is his name.
He was the one that competed with me in Boston and won that
overall title as well. And he's got I think 40 lbs.
And I was talking to him backstage at Boston and he's 192
lbs at that show. I don't know what his weight was
at this world's competition, but he's got 40 lbs on me, so a much
bigger guy than me. He also looked great and I'm
super happy for him, super excited for him, super proud of
him man. So Congrats to Brian there I was
at the end of the day, just incredibly honored to step on
stage with all these guys. They, like I've said multiple
times, they all are professional athletes.
They all have their posing dialed in.
Their conditioning is on point. They have shot size, they have
shape, they have symmetry, they have proportion, they have, they
have everything, they have the full package.
So to be able to step on stage with such an elite class of
competitors from people literally all over the world was
an honor in and of itself. And I was blessed to be able to
grace the stage with these other competitors.
They had a judge's feedback time allocated after the competition
at about. It was like several hours after
the competition. Basically they they ran the
whole competition the the judges came back to the host hotel to
give feedback. However, they were running quite
a bit later than anticipated because the show ran longer than
anybody expected because there were so many competitors.
So we at there when they were supposed to arrive at 6:00 PM
and they had not yet come at 7:00 PM, so we had dinner
reservations made. And unfortunately I did not get
to get the feedback from the judges, which is very
unfortunate. But at the same time, I have
gotten feedback from all the judges at the prior shows.
I'm assuming they were going to say something similar because
many of them were the same judges.
So I don't feel like I missed out too much there.
And because I was not in the top five, they likely weren't going
to give me much specific feedback because they weren't
looking at me the majority of the time.
Once they'd kind of narrowed that down South, I I did talk to
somebody who did talk to the judges and what they told me was
them. They had more or less had me
pegged in the middle of the the line up.
So I was probably somewhere in the 8th or 9th place if I had to
guess. And then obviously the feedback
was just Simply put on more size.
So I need to put on more size from a judging standpoint to be
more competitive at this elite level.
So there is that, which I fully intune to do when it comes to
what I have control over. Obviously I'm going to build
more in this offseason coming up, but from a competition prep
standpoint for this specific competition season, I feel
incredibly good about everything that I did going into it.
I brought my best level of conditioning hands down, no
questions asked. I brought my best posing hands
down, no questions asked. The nutrition was on point.
I did not deviate once from a macronutrient targets, did not
deviate once for my training or my posing or my cardio.
I mean, I'd literally put in the work every single day without
fail for 33 weeks. I lost 30 lbs in the process,
went from 15% body fat down to three something.
So with all the factors that I personally had control over, you
know, again, I can't control who come competes.
I can't control who other who, what other competitors show up.
I can't control the judges. I mean they they've got their
own subjective desires and what they're wanting to see in a
competitor. I can't control those things,
but the things that I can and should control I controlled to
the best of my ability and I have no regrets.
Nothing to hold my head down to Bound and I feel very good about
the package that I brought to the stage.
At the end of the day with bodybuilding, the goal should
always be to just simply look better than you have at prior
competitions. Every time you step on stage
should be better than the the time prior.
And I feel like that has certainly been the case with
this season. Certainly when you look back at
prior competition seasons, I mean, I got leaner than I've
ever gotten before. My whole goal with this was to
be the leanest man alive and I feel like I'm pretty competitive
in that regard. Like my my body fat is lower
than it's ever been, lower than anybody I know is.
So I feel pretty good about the goal of being the leanest man
alive, and I'm going to get some updated DEXA data to Y'all soon
so we can get some tangible markers on that.
But when it comes to the competitions, I did everything
that I could. I feel very good about
everything that went into it. I feel like I've dialed in this
prep protocol. I feel like the peaking went
perfectly and I was really just happy with the outcome through
its entirety. Like I have never had this level
of just peace with the competition prep.
Like, I felt great throughout the whole thing.
I was able to maintain all my responsibilities as a business
owner, as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a husband, as a
friend, as a employer. Like I I didn't let anything
slip as I went through these 33 weeks of prep.
And I feel like that in and of itself is a tremendous
accomplishment. So I feel good about that.
I never got really crazy, irritable or depressed or just
zombie status, which you see a lot of competitors do.
So this was a very sustainable prep for me in that regard and I
I appreciate that fact. My hormones have definitely
become down regulated as a result of the low body fat and
low intake. So I'm going to be working on
bringing that back up to a more healthy sustainable level post
show. But this is literally been the
most successful competition prep I've ever taken part in without
question. So again, at the end of the day,
there's nothing that I could have would have or should have
done differently from what I've done.
I feel like I've proved that this ketogenic prep protocol
certainly works from a bodybuilding standpoint, from a
conditioning standpoint, from a sustainability and health
standpoint. So I feel very, very good about
that as well. So yeah, I'm at peace with the
judges feedback. I mean, I need to put on more
size for sure, which I will. But you know, considering my
age, this is this bodybuilding, natural bodybuilding
specifically. It's like an old man's sport.
Like a lot of these top level athletes are older because
they've had more time to put on, more muscle over time, and you
can do that with natural bodybuilding.
So I'm going to do that. I'm going to put on more size
and I'm going to come back bigger and better than ever
before the next time I step on stage.
So I feel really good about the outcome of this in its entirety.
When it comes to the post show celebratory meal, let's talk
about that. So after we realized the judges
were not going to be getting there anytime soon, we went
ahead and headed to our Brazilian steakhouse.
Novios was the name of it. And I took my wife and son, I
took my meaty guy, Chip and I took Greg out to eat, and we had
an amazing meal of all you can eat meat from all different cuts
of meat. We had pork, we had beef, we had
lamb, we had chicken. And it was all incredibly
delicious there. You'll probably all eat in a
Brazilian steakhouse before, but basically the way it works is
there's a salad barn. You can pretty much pick
whatever you want from that, of which I did not really get
anything other than one deviled egg or two deviled eggs, a
couple pieces of cheese and a couple pieces of salami.
And then you sit at your table and they bring out these skewers
of meat and they just cut them off for you.
And they'll keep keep them coming until you tell them to
stop, basically. So I enjoyed all different kinds
of meat, and that was the entirety of my celebratory meal.
Most competitors after a show will go out and they will eat
just crazy amounts of food that are all coming from sources that
they have not had during the prep.
So lots of sweets, lots of sugars, lots of carbs, lots of
fats, lots of lots of everything.
And it's oftentimes not healthy foods.
It's it's pretty typical for people to just binge on desserts
post show. And I certainly don't want to
participate in that because for one, from a physiological
standpoint, your body just has not had those foods for so long
and then you just overload it with them and then it's going to
respond poorly. You're going to see a massive
spike in blood sugar and you're going to feel terrible.
You're going to have some incredible GI distress.
And it's just not good from a psychological standpoint.
People often times, well, they'll gain a lot of weight
afterwards because the fluid retention, they'll step on the
scale the next day and then it'll shock them at how much
more they weigh and then often times they'll start binging and
purging. It's just not good.
That's what happened to me my first competition and I did not
ever want to resort back to that again.
I don't think that would be the case with these competitors
because these are professional athletes.
So hopefully they have done this a time or two and know that
that's not optimal. But again, they probably all
went out to eat and had a bunch of food that they would not have
benefited from in an optimal, ideal situation.
I did not do that. I stuck with the foods that I
know that I I know my body responds well to, which is
quality meats. And I took a blood sugar and
blood ketone test before that meal, and after that meal
everything stayed totally stable.
So that was good. I did not track the macros
myself, but out of curiosity I had Greg bring a food scale and
he was just simply tracking the weight of the total food that
I'd consumed because I was curious to see what that would
be and I wanted to be objective as how I felt and not really
worry about that. So I had him track it and I just
simply ate and I ate 3 lbs of meat, ladies and gentlemen.
So I had two bricks that day going into the show to fill out
properly and peak. And then I had 3 lbs of meat
post show and no crazy deviations in blood sugar
ketone, which was pretty impressive and I honestly felt
totally fine. I felt pretty full.
By the end of 3 lbs of meat I felt full, but I felt like I
could recognize that sense of satiety.
A lot of people they their their leptin is all screwed up at this
point. Their their ghrelin is all
screwed up. They have no touch of reality
with with regards to what their true satiety signals are.
And that was not the case for me.
I ate 3 lbs of meat and I felt full, but I I felt like I was.
I had a good pulse on that the whole time.
Like I knew when my body had had enough.
So that was that. And then I came home to the back
to the Airbnb rather and Crystal had prepared for me a ketogenic
brownie which she made with half of a keto brick.
She put 2 tablespoons of almond flour in there, 2 eggs and a
little bit of baking powder to cause it to rise.
And then we topped it with two tablespoons of peanut butter and
that was pretty much it. A little bit of a mascarpone
cheese. And those are all foods that
I've had throughout this prep as well, so I knew my body would
respond fine to it, which it did.
There was no crazy deviation in blood sugar or ketones after
that, and I went to bed full satisfied and totally content
with the foods that consumed. And I woke up the next morning
at a whopping increase in weight of 153.1.
So I literally did not even gain an entire pound overnight, which
I I feel very confident saying No other competitor can probably
say that because they're all going to have a ton of fluid
retention as a result of the increase in carbohydrates.
So I woke up 1 LB heavier after eating 3 lbs of meat and that
brownie. I think we roughly calculated
the calorie intake of that entire day and it was north of
7000 calories. So pretty significant increase
in food, but all quality foods, all foods that I don't have to
feel guilty about eating and all foods that I know my body
responds well to. So I basically was able to eat
that and not have any guilt associated with it.
And then just hit the ground running the next day feeling
totally fine, totally normal, totally satisfied and get right
back on track. Tracking my intake for going
into this reverse diet, which I'm now in the middle of or not
the middle of, but I've just started.
So I'll be strategically reverse dieting up from there and
everything will be tracked and accounted for.
And I'll have a plan and a protocol with that as well to
ensure that my body returns to a healthy hormonal state,
metabolic state and all is well post show and post deficit.
So very, very important to have a plan with reverse dieting and
I'll do a whole podcast on that in detail and I'll be
documenting my reverse diet in detail just as I have the With
This prep going forward as well because that is a topic that is
often times misunderstood and not talked about enough.
I'm actually recording this podcast the Monday after that
competition, so this is all fresh content.
I woke up this morning at that 153.1 and today my main goal was
to simply spend some time relaxing with Crystal and my son
Rigel and just simply be present in the moment.
The day after the show and we did just that.
We spent the day today relaxing and we actually had a hot tub at
the Airbnb, so we finished out the day with us sometime in the
hot tub. We went training at a local gym
here and brought Rigel with us and we just had a great workout.
I would do a set and then Crystal would do a set and I
would hold Rigel while she was doing her set and we would swap
back and forth. We trained hard, we trained
heavy how we fully enjoyed it and it was just great to
disconnect for a little bit and have just the three of us and
train and enjoy each other's company and enjoy the hot tub
and then just relax a little bit after that competitive season
and that competitive grind and the world's competition.
So today has been a great day. I've been hitting all of my
target macros for the reverse diet starts today and have not
felt deprived, pleaded or any issues whatsoever.
So today's been a great day ladies and gentlemen.
This entire prep has been a great experience, a great prep
and I'm just excited and incredibly grateful for all that
has transpired over the past 30-3 weeks.
There is a lot coming in the pipeline that I'm also very
excited about. The reverse diet being one.
Lots of stuff with the business, lots of stuff with the
bodybuilding endeavors from a building standpoint, the reverse
diets, the content I'm creating around that, this competition
prep is going to be, we're building an online course that
documents how to do a competition prep like this in
incredible detail. So anybody that's interested can
do it as well. And I'm going to be working on
that with all the content that we've captured from this
competition prep. So lots of exciting things.
We've got Thanksgiving this week, I'm going to go see my
family spend some quality time with my loved ones and it's just
going to be great. There's a lot of a lot of good
things in the near future and I have nothing, nothing but
positivity thing, positivity coming my way.
So I feel very grateful. I feel very blessed and I'm just
incredibly appreciative of all y'all support.
This podcast, like I said is going to be just a has has been
just an overview of this last show, this world show.
We are still traveling right now so I'm recording in the Airbnb.
The audio quality is not great. We've all kind of lost our voice
this week, so my voice is not that great.
I'm exhausted right now, so my apologies there, but hopefully
this little recap of the show itself has been a value to you.
I'm probably going to do an entire competition, season wins
and losses, Part 2 for the pro show specifically, so I may or
may not make that into another solo podcast at some point.
Honestly, I think would be a great podcast, just simply
talking with Crystal about what her perspective has been like
with me alongside me going through these past 33 weeks.
So we've got that in the pipeline as well.
But again, I appreciate y'all dealing with these shorter
episodes here lately with all of our travel schedule and chaos
with these competitions. We will resume the normal
featured guest style podcast as soon as I get back in town and
settled back down from these competitions.
But I do appreciate y'all holding in there with me until
that point comes. So again, thank you all for
tuning in. Thank you all for listening and
we will talk to you next time.