Make it Make Sense: Understanding the Fitness Journey is a podcast for everyone, from beginners to seasoned athletes. Hosted by pro men's physique athlete and experienced fitness coach Frank, the show explores all aspects of fitness—physical, mental, and emotional. With candid conversations, practical advice, and insights from across the fitness spectrum, this podcast is designed to inspire, inform, and empower all demographics on their unique fitness journeys.
Hey. What's going on? It's your boy, Frank Hamilton, online fitness coach. You know, the man with the motto, be grinding or be nothing. Welcome to
Speaker 1:the show. Hey. What's going on? Coach Frank here. Make it make sense podcast.
Speaker 1:Alright. Episode 3. We gotta keep it moving, keep it going. Alright. Today, what I wanna talk about is when people are on their fitness journey and they set a goal, but they set a low bar for achieving the goal.
Speaker 1:What I mean is, one of the things you you hear commonly from people when they start working out is, well, I I'm going to the gym. Alright. So what you have a program trainer, you know, anything you're doing, specifically or in particular? No. I'm going, but, I mean, you know, isn't that enough?
Speaker 1:You know, I used to tell people, you know, this this all the time, you know. You know, going to the gym, you know, it's just like going to the bank. You know, you can't take anything out of it unless you put something into it. You know, you won't give you won't get anything. You won't receive anything without giving anything.
Speaker 1:You know, you can't just walk into a bank and say, give me money. You know, you can't just walk into a gym and say, alright. Give me the completion of my goal. I need the end result right now. It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:You know? So when I say people set a low bar, they set a bar of, I'm at least going to the gym. You know? I understand, I understand when you first start going to the gym, like, it's difficult, if you don't know anything, if you're trying to do the whole process on your own. You know, it may be a thing, you know, just, you know, just to get up and go to the gym.
Speaker 1:Now although those actions are the same as I'm just going to the gym, but if someone looks at I'm just going to the gym as a completion, as a milestone, as something, you know, that's major, that's a lot different than someone saying, I'm going to the gym, just to see if I like that environment. I'm going to the gym to see if that's a time of day that I can go to the gym, see what it's see what the crowd is like if the day care, you know, those particular things. You know? They can both be seen as, you know, just going to the gym. But someone that sees, I'm just going to the gym, as the completion of something, they're gonna just focus on that only.
Speaker 1:At least I'm here. So the intent of their movement when they get to the gym is gonna be all over the place. Those may be the folks that have, you know, the long conversations. They have the a lot of friends, things like that. There's really no direction because their whole goal was achieved already.
Speaker 1:They just wanted to go to the gym. You know? But and so when you're working out and you're starting your fitness journey, you know, it's simple to set that low bar, you know, because a lot of us do it. You know? I'll admit, you know, when I first started working out, I did the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:You know? I didn't take the time to learn how to work out. All I did was I went to the gym. You know? I did the the trendy things.
Speaker 2:You know, I was taking protein, taking creatine and whatever other vitamins and, you know, vitamin b and and things like that, and I'm just walking around with my gallon of water and, like but I had no clue as to how to work out. I didn't know how to build a program. I hadn't, like, truly looked at myself and assessed myself as into what I wanted out of working out and how I was gonna achieve it. And that's one of the main things, you know, is, you know, people just say, I'm gonna start working out. Okay.
Speaker 2:But what does that mean? Like like, what's the goal? You know, it's like, I remember when when I first started, you know, I first started competing as an amateur. You know, the environment of the people that I was around, no one had gotten a pro card before, you know. At that particular time, I would say it was more a thing to just say you were going pro as instead excuse me, instead of actually doing it.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't like a a thing. So it was like, you know, people were just competing. And so, like, initially, although my the goal I set in my head, but I hadn't set into practice, was to go pro. That was my goal, but I hadn't really set that goal in the practice. I wasn't necessarily doing the things that I needed to do to to achieve that.
Speaker 2:You know, I was you know, my workouts weren't really this weren't really with the focus or with the intent of going pro. I was just working out. And I would say what what I had done was I had set a low bar. I had at least where, you know, for the for the people that I that I was around, after going to the USAs, you know, after my first amateur show, I'd pretty much done a lot. I've I've done better than some of the people that I was around.
Speaker 2:So my my bar of achievement was that I saw for myself then was just better than them. Not not better than them as a person. I'm not trying to say that. I'm just saying just as in, you know, competition. I had placed better than the people I was around.
Speaker 2:So if I while focusing on that, it made it seem as though I'd actually done something because I I lowered my bar. Right? I didn't folk I didn't stay focused on what I wanted to do, which was to go pro. I guess I got, you know, lost in lost in the height of competing, you know, your body look in a way that it's never looked in my entire life. Like, I grew up so small framed to I mean, I I try to tell people that all the time.
Speaker 2:I was, when I graduated, I was 18 years old, 6 to maybe a 140, £145. Like, I I was not a big guy. So now, you know, after after doing an amateur show and doing a national show, what a regional and a national show, you know, obviously, I looked different than I had growing up, so I kind of got lost within that process. And it really hit home when let's see. So my competition rec track as an amateur was did my first, regional show in Arizona, the Daisy Pro.
Speaker 2:I did my next show, the USA's, in Vegas, and I got, like, 12. And to me, that felt like 12th and 15th. To me to me, that was on top of the world. I placed at my first national show. It was way better than I thought I could've ever done because I had never anticipated I I I hadn't put myself in those positions mentally.
Speaker 2:Right? I was just competing and saying I wanted these things, but, you know, it's it's like you have to see your excuse me. You have to see yourself in the position you want to be if you want the work to be there. So I had said I wanted to be pro, but, again, I only hung around amateur competitors, or no competitors at all. I wasn't very familiar with many of the pros or or the process of of posing as a pro in in the shows and things of that nature.
Speaker 2:So I was saying, you know, I wanna be pro, but, you know, my actions weren't really following that. So as I was staying on my track, I did my amateur my my regional show, the AZ Pro. I did the, USAs, a couple weeks later. That was 2012. 2013, I think I just only waited to do the Pittsburgh Masters, because I was under the assumption that, you know, I've been doing a Masters show, that after having placing so well the previous year at at the USA is that I would easily be able to go to this show and be better than.
Speaker 2:Right? Wrong. I didn't even train to be doing another national show. I pretty much continued to train as I as I trained when I was training for my first regional show. So, again, I was saying that I wanted a goal, but I wasn't putting myself in position because my actions weren't showing that I'd my bar was low.
Speaker 2:So I remember when I went to Pittsburgh to do the show, we're sitting in the ethics meeting, and I'm looking around at these guys, and everybody in the auditorium at the ethics meeting was humongous. I was like, where are mister z guys at? This is ridiculous. Right? So getting ready to line up.
Speaker 2:I'm, backstage. I'm seeing some of the guys. And I remember it was a buddy of mine, still a friend to this day, keep in touch, Negus. He was on the show backstage, and he was on his physique. I'm just looking at him.
Speaker 2:He was just these guys are, like, three-dimensional to me. I mean, I I was doing a national show at 62, £183, I mean, guys were 215, 220 that I was lining up next to. So, like yeah. So everyone was just humongous to me. And it was, like, to the point where after the show, like, I wasn't even mad at how I placed.
Speaker 2:Like, alright. This okay. So I was I had lost at the athletes meeting. Any any any groundwork that I had, I had lost at the athletes meeting. From there, I didn't even know why I was in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2:But either way, you know, I'm there. I gotta do the show. Backstage, the expediters back. They're giving us the rules, tell us the instructions, things to do, this and that. Right?
Speaker 2:On this list, I'm not paying attention. In my head, I was I just gotta get out of here. I gotta go home. This this is just but this is stupid. Why why am I here?
Speaker 2:I'm just kinda like an idiot. I, they've given us the rules before we go on stage. Didn't hear a word. So when we get up there, I'm the first person in line. I'm the first person to go out on stage.
Speaker 2:I go out. And now in the year before, how the shows go were the 2 shows that I've done, how the process was, you go out there, the judge tells you when to when to make your turns, when to make your rotations. When the expert expediters were backstage giving us information and I was zoned out already on the flight back to Arizona, they were telling us that when you go out there, you're gonna do your routine. You're gonna do your rotations on your own, and then you gotta come off the stage when the judges tell you to. I did everybody get that?
Speaker 2:I said yes. Did I get that, though? I did not. So we get out there, and I just, like, stood looking at the judge that sits facing the front waiting on them to tell me, you know, when to turn around. They were waiting on me to just turn around.
Speaker 2:So I stood there for about 30 seconds. The head judge is just like, alright. Thank you, contestant number whatever my number was. Thank you. And I walked off the stage, and I'm walking off the stage.
Speaker 2:As I'm walking off, I'm coming I'm looking back to see the other guy that's coming back to this that's coming on stage. I see him go out and do a whole routine where he's rotating around. I'm like, okay. So that's why, like, even at the end, like, I mean, there were I tell everybody all the time. I placed in in the top 10.
Speaker 2:Like, woah, man. That's man. And you made a mistake like that and still place in the top 10? Yep. Sure did out of 11.
Speaker 2:So I'm not sure what 11 did, like or maybe he didn't show up. But, yeah, I placed out 10 out of 11. But when I left, I had an understanding that I hadn't worked hard enough to put myself in position to do anything besides what happened when I was there. My my pops called me, when I was leaving the venue on my way back to the hotel, and I told him what happened and, you know, he asked me if I was upset, if I was okay. I was like, I'm fine.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just, you know, it's just one of those things. I I didn't work hard. You know, the other guys were really good. I just have to accept that if I want what I keep saying, then I have to work harder to get it. You know?
Speaker 2:It's, you know and my dad has always taught me to work hard for the things you want. You know, I had to get myself out of out of the headspace of, I'm just saying I want my pro card. I gotta actually put into groundwork. So a couple things happened that allowed me to switch it up a little bit. The coach that I had stopped coaching.
Speaker 2:I ended up having to get a new coach, and it was cool because the coach that I the new coach that I met, I'd actually met through a friend that was on the bodybuilding team that I was on. So it was, it was cool that way. When when I met the coach, you know, by now I had looked at some pro athletes, and I had seen I had in my mind what I needed to do. First of all, I was a £180 on the stage. I needed to be gaining weight.
Speaker 2:I needed to be bigger. Certain body parts needed to be better. My chest needed to be fuller. My back needed to be bigger. You know?
Speaker 2:I need to have better conditioning. These are things I had in my head already. Like, I'm looking at the pros. I know what I need. This is what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2:This is how I need to get there. So when I went into this coach and, you know, I'm asking her, she wanted the pictures of my last show. She's looking at me how I how, you know, my current physique, and she her her her game plan was exactly what what I had plan what I had vision. So right there, it was, we we locked. It was a sink.
Speaker 2:So it was cool. Man, couldn't have found a better trainer. Now for now that I've said in my head, alright, now I have someone that's gonna help, that's gonna give me the framework and the game plan to achieve my goal. You know, now I just gotta put myself in the work. I have to do the work.
Speaker 2:So, 2014, I think I did so 2012, I did my regional national show. 2013, I did a national show, the Pittsburgh show. In 2014, I wanted to in my original regional show, it was my first show. I didn't know anything about competing. I was told by my coach you know, and no fault of him, it was just, you know, I just took it the wrong way, that my placing would be top 3.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting 4th. 1st show ever, didn't even know anything about the sport. You know? When most people would have been excited, I was upset. So and I was visibly upset.
Speaker 2:So, in 2014, I wanted to revisit that amateur show and just be, you know, just be a good athlete regardless of the outcome. So I did that show, but we prepped. You know, we, I met Jill maybe right after I did the Pittsburgh show. She was my coach, my new coach, and that was in July. We probably started working in August or September for, like, 9 months.
Speaker 2:Let's see. Probably August. Yeah. And then for about 9 months, I I was on a calorie intake of a lot of people don't believe me, but it was I I remember I'll never forget this number. 9,978 calories a day.
Speaker 2:You know? Because I needed to get bigger, and it was like, the first thing we need to do is feed you. You gotta get bigger. So I was eating the food. We prepped and did the AZ Pro in 2014.
Speaker 2:I did that show. I believe in my opinion, I looked good. However, I didn't place well. Didn't let it concern me. Had a great time.
Speaker 2:Say congratulations to the winner. Now I did ask for some feedback. It was so odd, you know, because I asked, you know, like, alright. What do I need to do better to place better in these shows? In my head, knowing I was already gonna go back to the Pittsburgh show because once you've competed in it, you can compete again.
Speaker 2:So I was already going back there anyway, but I still wanted some feedback. And they told me a judge responded with, you know, your physique was really good. You would just do better placing against better competition, like, at the national shows or a pro a pro. But the thing is, these newer national shows are being pro I can't get to unless you place me higher in this show. So I can't whatever.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I I just took it with a brain assault. Basically, it's saying I look I look too good. That's that's how I'll take it. Fine.
Speaker 2:Whatever. Get back to training. I did one more show just to pretty much just to get my conditioning set. I did another show at the end of the year, like, in November. So I did that that AZ Pro in July.
Speaker 2:I did another show in November, just to sort of get my conditioning down from all the food that I had eaten, you know, throughout the beginning parts of the year, for the 1st 9 months or so. We get to 2015. The goal from there is only going back to Pittsburgh to do that national show. Now my training for that one, I had really set it in my head. I set my bar high.
Speaker 2:I set the bar high to the point where I am not if I don't get my pro card in this show, then I'm done. I'm not competing anymore. I'm not putting my because I'm not doing this anymore because I hate to lose. That's my thing. Like, I hate to lose more than I like winning.
Speaker 2:And And I was like, if all I'm gonna do is keep competing and losing, then I'm not gonna do this anymore. Like, I don't I'm not a fan of it. So even when I was training, like, the only in my head, my bar was high. So my bar was the 5 guys that had just competed at the Olympia in 2014. It was number 1 was Jeremy Bandia.
Speaker 2:Number 2 was Hadid Kacovic. Number 3 was Jason Poston. Number 4 was Matt Acton, and number 5 was Steve Cook. And I looked at these guys on YouTube when I was doing my cardio every day. I'm just watching their posing routines.
Speaker 2:That's where my bar was. My bar wasn't set at just being a pro. My bar was set at being placed next to the best of the best in the sport. That's how I was training. So while my on my regimen, my game plan was, one hour of cardio a day.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at these pros, these these top five guys. I'm looking at their conditioning, looking at their abs. I did 3 hours a day. I was working out definitely 2 a days, 7 days a week. Some days I would get a 3 day workout.
Speaker 2:You know, my first cardio session would start at 4 o'clock in the morning. I would sleep in my shorts, I will wake up, put my tank top on, grab a t shirt, everything was just set right by the door. Put my socks on on the bed, put on my shoes, walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth, walk out the house, go do my cardio, come back home, shower, eat breakfast, you know, get ready for the day. And that's how every single day went, as I was prepping for that show. Like, because in my head, like, this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2:My bar was set so high that other amateur athletes that I've been around that I'd seen, I had to in my mind, in my competitive nature, I had to outwork anything they'd ever seen because the way I saw it, if I worked out anywhere close to them, then I would always be them. You know, it's that thing where if you keep doing what you've always done, then that's all you're ever gonna do. And I was like, well, I don't wanna keep doing that. So I while they were doing 1 hour cardio, I'm doing 3. They're working out if they work out 2 a days, I'm doing 3.
Speaker 2:They work out once, I'm doing 2. And and everything came to fruition, and it came to the light at the end of the tunnel. I went to the show in Pittsburgh 2015, got my ProCard. It was such an exciting feeling and such a rush because I knew I set my bar high. Because you have to understand, I told friends that didn't know anything about the sport.
Speaker 2:I told other amateurs that didn't even know a pro athlete that this is what I'm gonna do, so they don't even really know what that means when I'm telling them this is what I'm gonna do. Like, that was my goal. You know, your goal has to look like it's never like, it can't happen to some people. It has to look crazy. You know?
Speaker 2:You you have to dream big. You gotta dream crazy. And, you know, coming from a a small frame guy to where I was to all of a sudden, like, yeah. I'm gonna be a professional in this sport in, bodybuilding, the men's physique division, it was crazy to some people, which is fine to me because I was gonna show them how crazy I could work. But and so I set that bar.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, when you're on your fitness journey is how it all comes back, set your bar high. If you're just going to the gym, go to the gym to see if you like the crowd. Go to the gym to see if you like that gym. Go check out the day care. Go check out the trainers.
Speaker 2:You know, just see, check out the drive it takes to to get to the gym. You know, every pro every part of it, every process of it of process has to help you grow. You know? And and so when you set your bar high, no matter what you're doing, you're always growing because you gotta get to that bar. So you have to keep growing to get there.
Speaker 2:So remember, set your bar high. Alright? Episode 3, the Make It Make Sense podcast. Coach Frank, have a great day. And y'all know the motto, be grinding or be nothing.
Speaker 2:Peace.