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April 10, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
24:22
20240410_phil-heath-seven-time-mr-olympia-winner
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Adoring Your Physique 00:13:57
Phil Heath is a seven-time Mr. Olympia, one of the first guests in a long time with a physique to rival my own.
His new documentary produced by Dwayne The Rock Johnson charts an unprecedented quest for an eighth title in the most prestigious bodybuilding contest in the world.
If you don't own it, it will show up on that stage.
He's got big arms, big views on health, motivation, and resilience.
And now Phil Heath goes uncensored.
You have to be vain.
You have to spend a lot of time adoring your physique.
What's with the tiny trunks?
They all seem to be about three sizes too small.
This is true.
We were pretty high up a little bit.
You've had a few tensions with Arnold, haven't you?
He criticized bodybuilders with a belly.
You definitely have to have the biggest calves, the biggest everything.
How would you feel about this whole issue of trans athletes?
What's your general view of that?
They told me that you hired a trainer.
I think I'm a challenge.
You know, I came ready.
Hello, a little Phil.
One, two, three.
Phil, great to see you.
Yes, thanks for having me.
You are almost certainly the strongest person I've ever had in here.
Awesome.
How do you feel about that?
Feel really damn good about it, to be quite honest.
When you've won Mr. Olympia seven times, same number as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Yes.
Does every bar you go into anywhere in the world, does some guy with big muscles come and try and have a whack?
If anything, they're trying to ask me what my routine is.
Really?
Yeah.
But don't try and like have a fight with you early.
No, initially in my career as an amateur, you know, I was working at a bar actually.
So yeah, had a few, you know, interactions.
How does that end for the others?
Not so good.
Not so good.
They also got arrested.
So I was, you know, helping run the bar.
So I already knew the cops.
So I was like, yeah, get this guy out of here.
It takes unbelievable iron will self-discipline to get to the stage where you can win Mr. Olympia.
Yes.
When you give it up, how do you maintain that iron will so that he doesn't all that work doesn't just disappear?
Right.
Well, just like anything, right?
You want to make sure that you keep a certain level of personal excellence.
After achieving all those titles, you know, I know how to eat.
I know how to train.
The last thing I need to do is just get lazy.
And like Arnold would say, be useful.
So I'm going to use those muscles.
You know, I'm going to go to the gym.
I'm going to continually do my cardio.
I actually recently lost 40 pounds.
So I'm happy about that.
You know, and what's your gym routine like now?
Arnold told me a few years ago that when he goes to the gym now, he does much smaller weights, but more repetitions.
Yeah.
So I've adopted that as well.
In fact, we were just training a couple of days ago out in Birmingham, and we were doing exactly that, like very short resting periods and still moving some good weight around, but reducing the resting periods, you can only go so heavy at that point in time.
What can you bench press these days?
Ah, gosh, these dumbbells.
With the dumbbells, you like 150s.
150.
Only 100.
On each arm.
Yeah.
Pounds or no, not kilos.
No, no, no.
Pounds.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Because I'm up to 27 and a half kilos.
Okay, that's good.
That's 50 odd pounds on each arm.
Yep.
Right?
I'm getting there.
You are.
Now, they told me that you hired a trainer.
I have.
How's that been working?
Good.
I mean, I think I'm a challenge, but I do like it and I like the competitive part of it.
I get why you guys get so obsessed with it because the competition is fun.
Yeah.
What do you find the most difficult though?
For me, it's the lifestyle that has to go with it if you want to actually get really, if you want to get lean.
I know what I have to do.
I have to give up drinking alcohol.
I have to eat really healthy food.
I like to go, I'll probably go home tonight.
I'll probably have a glass or two of a fine red wine from France.
And I'll probably, if my wife isn't watching, I'll have some cheese with some crackers, right?
And I love that.
That brings me genuine pleasure.
So I don't want to be Mr. Olympia, which is probably just as well.
But I do want to have a balance of life where I get some pleasure, which I know is probably not that good for me.
But I also go to the gym so it's not all catastrophic.
That's really where my mind is.
I like that because even throughout my career, there would be times where I'm not competing.
So being Mr. Olympia, I normally only train for one show a year.
That would be about 16 weeks out from the competition.
And then even while I'm touring around, such as now, last night we had our premiere of Breaking Olympia, and I had one glass of champagne, right?
And normally I wouldn't drink a whole lot.
So I just had one.
And previously in my career, I'd have a couple shots of this and that just to get a nice taste of things and figure out what I do like.
But I overall felt that with bodybuilding, when you're training at the highest level, you just have to know that that alcohol, those pizzas, those burgers will always be there.
But for right now, I got to be strict for these.
There also must be a mental strength aspect to being a champion, right?
I'm just sure of it, right?
Where there are lots of people that were good bodybuilders in your era.
What made you the best?
My intention.
My intention was to be my best version of self and not always compare myself to someone else.
You know, a lot of time, I think we look at our peers, especially now with social media, right?
Like we always look at this phone and see other people's highs.
You're literally looking at peers now.
Well, this is true.
This is true.
And we recognize that I can steal my own joy with the passion that I have with bodybuilding by always comparing myself to someone else.
I always looked at my pictures.
I would print them out.
And then I would just stare at that and ask myself, what do I feel like I want to truly look like?
And that way I can envision it for my next workout.
So I would actually take a marker and etch out.
Really?
Yeah.
Like I would get very meticulous with this.
What tiny bits of your torso?
Yeah.
So I would, I'm not a real artist, but like I would scratch in like some better calves or better delts, better chest, and ask myself, okay, that looks really cool.
Now I can reference the different exercises that I've done in the past and say, what else can I add in or take out?
And that way I kind of have a better method to my madness.
And then after a couple more weeks, I then reassess.
So it's like a constant audit.
And that way it keeps me in line with always having that 0.1% improvement that people talk about, but then having some real data metrics to do it.
And even with your career, I mean, gosh, like you're very accomplished, obviously.
That required a lot of mental fortitude, a lot of attention to detail.
You would actually take on guests such as me and then review certain things of asking yourself, did I ask that right question?
Did I pay attention to his body movement, this and that, so that you could be better?
We're all in that pursuit of purpose.
Well, the constant pursuit of excellence.
Absolutely.
I think is what drives the best at anything, right?
Yes.
It's what makes the difference.
But also, I think a lot of self-sacrifice.
I mean, you have to give up a lot.
A lot.
To be Mr. Olympia, the best bodybuilder in the world, what did you sacrifice?
I sacrificed a total, a little bit over 10 summers.
So the Mr. Olympia contest would generally be in September.
That would mean if you go four months back, you don't really have much of a summer.
And I was living at the time in Denver, Colorado, where, you know, it's a great time there.
You know, it's not snowing.
So, you know, of course, friends want to have barbecues and whatnot.
And there would be weddings or even some of my college teammates having children.
You weren't there for any of this.
No.
And if I was, I remember going to a wedding by one of my former high school teammates by the name of Jamal Crawford.
We played in the NBA for about 19 seasons.
He invited me to his wedding and I was like, gosh, I'm literally four weeks out from the Mr. Olympia and I don't want to mess this up.
but he's one of my really good friends.
I brought my meals to his wedding where I was literally going back to the car park, eating a meal, going back, because I can't eat the meals that they provided.
So I was still trying to be as sociable as I could, but those are the sacrifices you make when you want to be the best and just knowing how to communicate to your family and friends because they're not always going to understand why.
No.
In fact, probably the opposite.
Dwayne DeRock Johnson is exec producer of this documentary, Breaking Olympia.
He's a great guy.
I mean, I find him a very impressive character, both professionally, personally.
He seems to have got his life balance right with work.
And obviously, you know Arnold very well.
I mean, these two are the two of the most iconic people, I guess.
Yeah.
In terms of big guys.
Yeah, for sure.
What have you gained from your relationships with both of them?
That they always work hard, like no matter what, like whether it's two hours of sleep or no hours of sleep.
I mean, they will go hard.
Arnold, just a couple of days ago, we were training and he said, his team hit me up and said, hey, Arnold wants to work out.
They said 8.30.
I got there at 8.30.
Guess what time he was there?
7.50.
Of course.
And then I realized the next day, I'm going to beat him to the gym.
Now he's at 7.30.
So he's such a competitive person.
With Dwayne, similar.
I go to the gym.
I was lucky enough to go to Iron Paradise where he gets after it and sends us those amazing videos.
And we were able to really get after it.
And I noticed when I went up in weight, he went up in weight.
Who's stronger?
We kind of both looked at each other and kind of gave each other the nod.
Okay, we're going to stop right here before someone maybe get hurt.
But we have that great respect of one another because with bodybuilding, you have to maintain a certain level of ability to remove that ego.
And it's hard when you're with a couple big guys in the gym and you want to really, truly get after it.
But he's a strong dude, man.
He is.
So you've had a few tensions with Arnold, haven't you?
Like, he criticized bodybuilders with a belly.
Yeah.
You talked about his lack of legs.
Yep.
Is that all part of the.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, I feel that when you're Arnold and you've put your entire life toward health and fitness, he has championed not just on the stage, but he creates his own stage at the Arnold Classic.
He just wants the best product for his show.
And yeah, back in his day, it's just like other sports.
They transcend.
So back then in his day, you didn't have to have the biggest, ginormous quads to win a competition.
You had to have the biggest chest, you know, the best abdominals and the best arms.
Now, you definitely have to have the biggest calves, the biggest, you know, everything.
And it is a good friendly banter.
I enjoy it.
How does the current Mr. Olympia compare to you guys?
The current Mr. Olympia compared to Arnold and myself, we're much taller.
Right.
So there's a lot different.
And that gentleman came, Derek Lunsford, he came from the men's 212 division.
So he's a little bit smaller, but very well developed.
And I've known him for quite some time.
He actually trains with my old trainer, Hani Rambod, and he's a really good competitor.
I give him a lot of credit because of him being so much shorter.
He packs like per pound the best package.
So he's...
You have to be vain to be a bodybuilder.
You have to spend a lot of time looking at and adoring your physique.
I don't think we adore it, to be quite honest.
I think we're looking for...
When you're doing the whole like, I mean, there's a slight self-adoration, isn't there?
Or not?
No.
I know for myself, like it was more of, I don't really like that.
Yeah, that looks pretty cool, but I could still do this.
So you're still appreciating what you've created, but at the same time, you're trying to have a better understanding of what the judges might.
What's with the tiny trunks we were just looking at?
I mean, they all seem to be about three sizes too small.
This is true.
Back in Arnold's day, I mean, they were, you know, kind of like boomers.
Now, like, we were pretty high up a little bit.
And it's because of the glute development.
We want to see more of that.
Like the striations in someone's glutes, they almost look like grill marks, you know?
And that requires a total commitment to exercising your glutes as a male, doing massive amounts of cardio.
In order to get that level of conditioning, you have to do like, you know, two to three hours of cardio a day.
Really?
A lot of weight training.
Oh, yeah.
Like it's two to three hours of cardio.
Yeah.
Never mind anything else with the weights.
Which is insane.
I mean, but anyway.
What would you do?
The step mill, you know, the revolving stairs.
Yeah.
And the key.
At your absolute peak, where you were like as good as you've ever been.
Yeah.
Talk me through the day's training.
Oh my gosh.
So you're waking up at 4.45, 5 a.m. doing cardio for 45 minutes.
What's the first thing you do?
You get up, get up.
Nothing to eat or drink or nothing.
Just, well, drinking something, you drink some water, definitely, bring some water with you to the cardio machine.
Luckily, I had one in the house.
So I'd do that.
I'd do the step mill for a good 40 to 45 minutes, hopped out of that.
I have a Vitaris 320.
That's a H-bop machine.
It's a hyperbaric machine.
Hopped in that, did that for 45 minutes, came out, did a shake, then do, oh, gosh, 35 to 45 minutes of infrared sauna treatment.
And then I get my first meal in.
And thereafter, I'm either doing neuromuscular massage or doing some P E M F because I want to remove all the EMFs around me and stuff like that.
So I have one of those mats, the grounding mats and stuff.
And everything is about biohacking.
I'm doing three to eight.
Blood Work and Recovery 00:08:33
How much would you eat?
Oh, gosh, five to seven meals a day plus two shakes.
And what are you eating in the meals?
Oh, two and a half cups of egg whites, two egg holes, 200 gram of oatmeal or farina.
And then you're doing a good 300 gram of steak, chicken, or fish, you know, five times.
Five times?
Five times a day.
Yeah.
Lots of vegetables?
Not a whole, well, it depends.
You're doing carbs of, you know, different starches.
So for me, I like rice, but I actually like sweet potato a lot better for my physique.
I'll try to rotate different carbs and different proteins and just try to gauge like how my body's digesting those proteins and carbs.
And then some avocado for the healthy fats.
And then as far as vegetables are concerned, I'm doing zucchinis, squash, sauteed spinach, the normal thing.
What do you make of the body positive movement, which seems to be the complete opposite, where you have people who are massively, maybe even morbidly obese, not remotely fit, and they're put all over the cover of magazines as body positive.
Everyone should love themselves and love their body.
I'm not a fan of this because I think, why would you encourage people to think being morbidly obese and really unhealthy is a good thing?
Why celebrate it?
I guess there's some people that just love what they love, right?
But for me, I agree with you.
I think if we were to look at obesity and what it means, you know, health-wise, looking at those blood markers, I think we would be able to see through blood work that they're not as healthy as they seem.
And although they love themselves, we want them to live a healthier life.
So therefore, you know, type 2 diabetes, you know, that's a big deal.
Type 1, type 2.
I want people to just be as healthy as they can, but I do want you to love yourself through it.
But when we see the TV shows of like a person being heavily overweight, there usually is some type of illness mentally or psychologically.
Their emotional attachments to food is a big thing, especially in America.
And we can only do so much as far as educating.
But at the same time, I just want to implore everybody to try to be the best version of self.
And you don't have to be a Mr. Olympia.
You don't have to be, because look, that takes a lot of work.
Obesity can kill you.
We don't want heart disease.
We don't want high cholesterol.
We want the A1C levels and all those things.
We don't want you to have to live off of, we don't want you to be in a hospital.
Like who would want someone because of the being or diabetes, like, you know, have to have an amputation?
You know, I would hate to see that.
I get sad just thinking about it because there's so many people that suffer from that.
Yes, absolutely right.
The issue of performance enhancing drugs in bodybuilding.
Is the reality that everyone did it?
At some point, for sure, I'm sure they dabbled in that.
To what extent I can't speak of.
Did you?
Yes.
And what do you feel about that?
I think it's something that is of a personal choice.
I think it's based on one's blood work.
As far as I'm concerned, my biggest thing was to make sure that, number one, I compete naturally as long as I could.
And I actually did that.
In fact, my first couple of bodybuilding shows, I was competing against guys that I didn't realize were unnatural.
And it was as a joke, my friends were like, no, you should do this bodybuilding show.
And I do this bodybuilding.
I was like, God, why is this guy like all these veins and this and that?
And I asked, I said, hey, excuse me, where do we go pee, you know, for the test?
And they're like, oh, there's none of that at this particular.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
But what it taught me was that, wow, there are people that do those things.
Phil, like you've always been an athlete your entire life.
If you were to ever do something, make sure you do one major thing.
And you know what that is?
And I'm sure you've done it.
Get your blood work done because you don't know what you don't know.
And sometimes you tend to realize, why am I comparing myself to somebody else?
That's why I'm doing these PEDs because I want to get the gains as fast as that person, but you don't even know how to train, how to eat, what cardio to do.
Given how much of this is in sport generally, illegally, obviously, in most cases, in fact, all cases.
I mean, there's even a games now, of enhanced games they want to do where everyone's on it.
But is there an argument for just letting everyone do what they want to do?
I think there's been various sports that we kind of can say that has occurred, right?
Like, you know, you always talk, not you, but like we've all heard in baseball, like there was an era.
There's cycling, there's been an era.
I'm sure in wrestling or sprints, there's been an era.
I think there's always going to be someone that wants to try something different to maximize their potential.
With these enhanced games, I'm actually curious to see who's actually going to sign up for that.
Because I don't think it would be any big names, do you?
Well, no, no, because immediately they're signaling themselves to be cheats, right?
Right.
To the rest of the world.
They wouldn't be in those games because everyone's effectively cheating.
Right.
And therefore, the argument is that by all cheating, no one's cheating.
Right.
Because everyone's got the ability to do what they want to do.
It'd be interesting to see how they would flip that to see, oh, well, based on this data, we were able to get this person this much faster or jump higher or whatever based on these medications and how it can actually proliferate better success, right?
I'm really curious about that.
But with other sports, you know, I never heard of like certain scandals like in hockey or even basketball with this.
I mean, we're seeing people playing at, you know, very high speeds.
Why is that?
I have no idea.
Maybe because the money's involved in a certain way.
You want to protect certain people.
Punishments also maybe.
Yeah, like, like, I know for one thing, like, you know, the NBA, like, there's been only like a handful of guys that ever got popped for this.
But I'm thinking, like, how do you play like a certain amount of games throughout 20 years or whatever?
And, like, you're able to look a certain way.
I mean, there's certain guys that were freaking jacked at one point, and these are basketball guys.
But who's to say?
I don't know.
But I will say that it's always important because I'm 44 years old.
So I know my testosterone is not the same as what it was when I was 20 years old.
But it's very, very important to educate these athletes, these trainers, get their blood work done.
I work with a telehealth medical company called Transcend, and that's what we do.
And we make sure that any person from all walk of life actually know, are you type one, type two, diabetic?
Do you have any type of different markers?
You're hematocrit, your hemoglobin.
And actually, people don't even know what that is.
How would you feel about this whole issue of trans athletes?
I mean, in bodybuilding, if you wanted to, I guess you could be Phyllis.
A Phyllis.
And go and compete against.
Galicia.
Yeah.
And go and compete against the women.
Put on a wig.
Yeah, just reduce your testosterone a bit, but your body mass would be the same.
I mean, what's your general view of that issue?
I think that they should just have their own league.
Yeah.
I think it's just, don't make it so confusing.
I guess for me, like, I don't care.
Live your life.
Like, these are things that I just, I want everybody to live their life.
Of course.
No problem.
But I think under a discussion.
It's a form of cheating, though, isn't it?
I think so.
I think so.
It gives you a performance enhancement.
I just don't understand.
But I don't understand why you wouldn't want to just, as a competitor, I'm thinking I'm a very competitive person.
Take part in fair competition.
Right.
You just say, well, I'm trans.
I want to go against trans people.
Yeah.
Why would you want to transform?
Or against your biological sex, right?
And if you've competed as a man and then you transition to be a woman, why can't you?
Physiology means you can still compete against.
Actually, I like that.
Why not?
I don't see any problem with that.
I don't either.
I think maybe we do see that in our lifetime, but I think it's just this is all fresh.
This is all new.
And, you know, it brings out better conversation.
But I think even having this discussion has been even beneficial to me because I don't hear this very often, right?
I think anyone that is, you know, considering to transition and wants to compete in sports, like what was the swimmer?
Yeah, Leah Thomas.
I just want to maybe understand the psyche of like, hey, the psyche is extremely selfish and it's cheating.
Honestly.
When you watch her winning a race by 50 seconds, you're like, is this a joke?
You know, what are you doing?
You weren't successful as a male swimmer.
Letting Trans Athletes Win 00:01:49
Right.
And now you're killing all these biological women.
It's like, to me, it's nuts.
Wouldn't it have made sense for like all the women of these different Division I programs to just boycott?
Yeah.
That's what I think they should do.
They should have just done it.
I think if all women athletes said, we're just not going to do this anymore, it would stop tomorrow.
Do you think that feminism has died in a way because of this?
Yeah, because women are too afraid to stand up for women.
Women's rights.
It's crazy.
It's nuts.
It goes against all title.
Women won't even say what a woman is because they're terrified of being cancelled.
Yeah.
Think about that.
It's crazy.
We've got to wrap it, but I just couldn't let the moment go given my workout regime.
And obviously, I do my...
You know, I came ready.
Yeah, I'm ready.
I'm ready.
All right.
I've got that alarm wrestle.
I know.
No holding back, Phil.
Okay.
Oh, gosh.
These guns, mate.
It's your show.
First of all, have a little feel.
Have a little Phil.
Not too bad.
Huh?
Drug test right now.
Thank you.
Thank you, Phil He.
I want to see what this is actually going to be like.
Okay, one, two, three.
I can do this all day.
Can you?
Yeah.
I can't.
Get going then.
Well, go on, Phil.
You're supposed to be Mr. Olympia, mate.
I just like being on TV.
I'm hanging on quite well here.
My sheet, maybe I'll get.
I'm gonna let him win.
I'm gonna let him win.
Yes!
Yes!
Come on!
Phil Heath, Mr. Olympia seven times.
P. Morgan, Mr. Olympia, no time.
Vany V D V Chief.
If you know you're Latin, great to see you.
Right on.
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