The season is heading into its thick end, and a lot of athletes are sitting with a scoresheet and a decision to make.

This week Chris and Rachel work through the move from regionals to nationals: how to ask for feedback in a way you can actually use, why a judge's comment and a coach's plan are two different things, and why the same package can be read differently depending on the day, the lineup and the federation.

They also get into the small stuff that shifts a result more than people expect. Posing, tan, glaze, hair, how you carry a suit. The one percents that are either ignored completely or over-analysed into the ground.

Plus a Wellington posing workshop with a full back row of blokes, an orange wind warning, an earthquake, and a reminder that ghosting your posing coach after a regional win is a plan with a very predictable ending.

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Find us here:
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▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast
📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:
👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/
💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/
✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Kelly Hofmeester decided at 40 that she wanted to see what she was capable of on stage. Within a year she had won an IFBB Natural Figure Pro Card, signed the contract, and was on a plane to Toronto to make her pro debut.

This week Chris and Rachel sit down with Kelly for our first ever athlete interview, and it turns out the medal is the easy part. Kelly talks openly about the self doubt that came with winning a pro card at her second show, what it feels like when accepting the card means you can never compete amateur in New Zealand again, and why she nearly talked herself out of the whole thing.

We also get the full Toronto story: peak week spent playing tourist across LA, Hollywood and Niagara Falls, a tan booking made for the wrong show entirely, a 3am hair and makeup call, and a carb load that started eight hours late. Kelly is refreshingly honest about what she would do differently, and she is taking all of it into the New Zealand Pro Open in a few weeks.

Along the way: learning to swim as an adult and then getting lost in the chop at Akaroa, having Kate Carroll as your cousin and Frank Carroll as your coach, tall poppy syndrome and why New Zealand makes imposter syndrome worse, the reality of handing over the reins to a coach when you like control, and the poor suffering husband who copped a flying banana.

If you have ever wondered what happens after the pro card, this one is for you.

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Find us here:

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▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast

📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:

👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/

💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/

✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Chris and Rachel are back from Christchurch and they have got some things to say.

The ICN South Island Champs brought close to ninety individual athletes and somewhere north of three hundred crossovers to the Aurora Centre, and Chris and Rachel spent most of it backstage on stage mum and dad duty with three first timers who had never set foot on a bodybuilding stage before.

In this episode they run the classes division by division, and for the first time this season they go past "I could have had that the other way" and into a proper call out. Two classes in particular have Rachel reading the judging criteria straight off the ICN members portal and asking the obvious question: if three of the four scoring priorities are presentation, how does the athlete who swept them not take the class?

They also get into what happens when conditioning gets rewarded in one division and penalised in the next, the athletes who are competing in the wrong class and do not know it yet, and a genuinely worrying moment on stage that comes back to coach responsibility.

Plus a shout out to ICN for the live stream, why you should always buy your stage photos, runway dress malfunctions and how to avoid them, and a serious challenge to South Island athletes about supporting their own shows.

Four weeks to Nationals. Next week, a surprise professional guest.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academyhttps://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physiquehttps://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinishttps://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Clarification: in our recap of the swimsuit division we discussed an incident on stage and made a comment about coach responsibility. We were commenting only on what we could see from the auditorium and had no knowledge of the athlete's circumstances or of what happened backstage. Nothing we said was intended as a judgement on any individual coach. Where an athlete becomes unwell on stage, responsibility for recognising it and stepping in sits with the officials and the event team as well as the coach.

We're deep in the season now, which means the messages have started. I've blown up. I've lost all my muscle. I can't get a pump. My weight hasn't moved in a week.

Rachel and Chris go through what is actually going wrong in prep versus what just feels like it is, because there's a big difference and most of you are panicking about the wrong things.

They cover why the scale is one data point and not the whole story, why you look flat and feel weak right now, why small changes look enormous the leaner you get, and the things that genuinely are worth flagging with your coach. Plus the suits conversation, because if you're a week out with no suit, that one actually is a crisis.

Also discussed: prep goggles, why your body would rather burn anything except fat, why asking ChatGPT is not the move, and why the sky is not falling. And why pooping on show day is a win!

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.
Find us here:
🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify
📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast
▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast
📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:
👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy
https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/
💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique
https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/
✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis
https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Somewhere along the way, bodybuilding decided there was only one version of success.

Chris and Rachel dig into when the pro card became the ultimate goal, who actually decided that, and what it has cost the athletes who never wanted it in the first place.

They cover the marketing machine behind pro status, why a pro card has become the sport's version of a qualification, and the uncomfortable truth that for a lot of athletes, the day they win their pro card is the last time they ever win a show. Rachel talks about turning one down because she wanted to earn it properly, and Chris makes the case that amateurs are not the bottom rung of the ladder, they are the entire foundation the sport stands on.

Plus a challenge to New Zealand promoters on production value, why treating athletes well costs nothing, and the question worth asking instead of "when are you turning pro".

Also in this one: rhinestone season, the Tauranga posing workshop, a puppy stealing the show, and Chris surviving a six kilometre mud run.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.

Find us here:

🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify

📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast 📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:

👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/ 💪

Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/ ✨

Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Peak week has a reputation for being complicated. Chris and Rachel think that reputation is mostly nonsense.

This week they go through the most common peak week myths, water loading, sodium manipulation, depletion weeks, the backstage burger, the honey, the alcohol shot, all of it.

They talk about what actually changes a physique in the final week, what doesn't, and why the best peak weeks are usually the boring ones.

If your coach has ever told you to cut water, drop sodium, or do something "because that's just how it's done," this one's for you.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.

Find us here:

🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify

📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast

📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:

👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/

💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/

✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Chris and Rachel are running on four hours of sleep after a brutal back-to-back weekend in Palmerston North for the ICN North Island Classic, and it shows. This week they're breaking down a massive show: nearly ninety athletes, a five hundred plus crowd, and division after division of strong lineups from bodybuilding through to bikini.

Highlights include a real debate on classic physique posing (yes, the Arnold three-quarter pose discourse), the ongoing "wrong division" conversation, why novice bikini is somehow scarier than open, and a genuinely touching moment as the Shelley Bunce Memorial Trophy is presented on stage.

Plus the usual chaos: an actual earthquake, a donut delivery gone wrong, and judging calls Chris and Rachel are very happy to disagree with.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.

Find us here:
🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify
📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast
▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast
📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:
👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/
💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/
✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

This week Chris and Rachel ask the uncomfortable question: who is bodybuilding actually for anymore?

They kick off with a recap of the South Island APA posing workshop in Christchurch, the ICN open training and coaches symposium, and an update on the NZ Muscle CEO drama (Dave resigning after just seven days - yeah, we have thoughts).

Then they get into the real topic. Has the entry point to bodybuilding gotten so high that everyday people no longer see themselves in the sport? They talk through the Fit Model class and whether it solved a problem or just created a new revenue stream, the growing gap between amateur and pro physiques, whether natural federations are actually a priority for the big players or just an afterthought, and why elitism (and yeah, a bit of misogyny) still shapes who feels like they belong on stage.

Grab a coffee, this one gets a little spicy.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.

Find us here:

🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify

📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast

📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:

👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academyhttps://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/

💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physiquehttps://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/

✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinishttps://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

Prep season has officially hit, and everyone has their goggles on. Chris and Rach break down "prep goggles" - the circus-mirror distortion that hits when you're deep in contest prep - and why your check-in photo is lying to you.

They cover why unrealistic comparisons to pros wreck your headspace, the "do you trust your coach" flowchart for cutting through prep panic, why more cardio isn't always the answer, and how to stay grounded when the wheels start coming off.

Plus: an update on the NZ Muscle saga, Rach's missing car jack, and a preview of the Christchurch posing workshop.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think!

Find us here:
🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify
📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast
▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast
📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:
👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/
💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/
✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

One year into the Macro Lounge Podcast and Chris and Rachel are celebrating the only way they know how - by turning Rachel's wedding dress search into a full-blown prep breakdown.

Turns out choosing a wedding dress has more in common with picking a competition bikini than you'd think - the confidence question, the fit issues, the "is this the right shape for my physique" spiral, all of it.

Rachel shares what actually happened in the fitting rooms so far, the comments fitness women get told about their arms and shoulders on their big day, and why the goal was never to be the skinniest bride. Plus a Christchurch posing workshop is on the horizon, so stick around for that.

Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.

Find us here:

🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify

📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast

📩 Email: [email protected]

Work with us:

👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/

💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/

✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/