The Ripped Body® Podcast

Jon has been training for 15 years.

He tracks his calories, hits his protein, plans his cuts, and sticks to the plan.

And yet he's still never been able to get as lean as he wants...

Which means he's always stopped his bulks short of the time needed to grow enough muscle to make a difference.

Sound familiar?

In this week’s episode, we dig into why.

Because this isn’t a motivation problem, nor a knowledge problem either, it’s what happens when you’re doing almost everything right, but missing a few key pieces that are holding you back.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

This week’s podcast is about a frustrating place many people eventually reach.

Ryan, 47, a father of four, is on a mission he calls Project 50.

He started strength training three years ago and has done an incredible job transforming his health, dropping 30 lbs — which I'd estimate means 40 lbs of fat loss and 10 lbs of muscle gain. Bravo!

But now he’s stuck.

Not because he doesn’t know what to do, but arguably, because he knows (and consumes) too much, and he can't decide.

Should he keep cutting? Start a lean bulk? Take a break?

Every option seems right… and wrong… at the same time.

In this episode, I help Ryan move forward from his decision paralysis.

We talk about:

• Is it time to purge his algorithm of fitness content?
• How to decide between cutting and bulking (without overthinking it).
• Why the feelings about your body will never fully line up.
• The mistake that causes most people to spin their wheels for months or years.
• And how to make a decision he's actually stick to.

If you’ve ever felt stuck and unable to pick a direction, this episode is for you.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

This week’s podcast covers situations that I am sure many busy working dads will recognize in themselves.

Today's guest, Sayer, is now fit, lean, and athletic. He lifts, rock climbs, officiates high-level sports, works a demanding remote IT job, and shuttles two very active kids between practices and games. From the outside, there’s nothing "wrong."

In the last three years, he has escaped the skinny fat trap by cutting and dropping 20 lbs of fat, and then successfully bulking for 14 months after that. But he now finds himself gaining and losing the same 5–10 lbs, struggling for motivation, and wondering whether to push forward, pull back, or simply protect what he’s built.

Instead of forcing another bulk or cut, we explore a different idea:

What if we turn his next phase into a 6-month experiment to find how little he can do while maintaining his physique?

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

This week’s podcast is one of my favorite kinds of conversations.

Shelby, 41 from Oklahoma, describes himself as a "regular guy with regular guy problems." In reality, he’s a single dad of four boys who’s lost close to 90 pounds, rebuilt his health, and designed his life so progress happens by default — not through white-knuckle discipline.

This isn’t a transformation story driven by obsession. It’s about preventing bad decisions before they happen, making workouts unavoidable, and redefining success as the ability to say yes when life offers something physical.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why environment beats willpower every time.
• How Shelby trains seven days a week without burning out.
• The power of "non-negotiable" routines.
• Why food rules can work better than food restraint.
• And how long-term fitness is really about capability, not leanness.

Let’s get into it.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today I’m joined by Paul. He is 50, lives in Switzerland, has a demanding corporate job, and is an avid alpine skier. He’s also someone who’s stayed naturally lean most of his life — abs included — without much effort.

This conversation is about what happens when that natural leanness becomes the thing holding you back. We talk about rebuilding after repeated injuries, training for robustness rather than aesthetics, and why deliberately gaining weight — even losing your abs — can be a smart investment if your real goal is staying strong, athletic, and injury-free for the next 10 to 15 years.

Let’s get into it.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today’s conversation is with Don Selkirk. Don is 52, has trained consistently for decades, and has a physique most people would be more than happy with. But like many experienced trainees, a small visual cue in the mirror was enough to trigger a familiar thought: “I should probably tighten this up before it gets away from me.”

In this episode, I help Don plan his cut to trim the 15 lbs of fat he’s slowly gained over the past year, and then return to maintenance in a way that minimizes intrusions into his life, so he can maintain it forever.

Let’s get into it.

Relevant links:

https://rippedbody.com/finding-calorie-maintenance/

https://rippedbody.com/diet-break

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

This week’s podcast is for the people who already know what to do, but can’t seem to make it stick.

Nico (42), originally from Venice, Italy, but now living in Austin, has a demanding career, trains regularly, eats well, and stays lean year-round. From the outside, he’s doing everything "right."

Yet for the last five years, he’s felt quietly stuck — unable to push past the same plateau, unable to regain the muscle he once had, and slowly losing motivation despite having all the knowledge.

This wasn’t a conversation about macros or programming. It was about why progress stalls when life gets full — travel, work, relationships, comfort — and how losing momentum often has less to do with discipline and more to do with belief, tracking, and commitment.

If you’ve ever thought, "I should be further along than this," this one will hit close to home.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today, I’m speaking with Jon. He’s a Brit who used to be ripped at 50. — That was when he lived in Australia.

But for the past 7 years, he’s been back in the UK, and his fitness has gone downhill.

He’s heavier than ever, and coming off a knee replacement, a fused foot, and months of disrupted training. The gap between what he remembers and what he sees in the mirror is messing with his head.

In this episode, we unpack a problem I see all the time in experienced trainees:

When your past best physique becomes your worst comparison point.

Jon’s notunfit. He’s disciplined, consistent, and still training hard. But clinging to the idea that he should look the same at 55 as he did at 50 has sapped his motivation.

We talk through how to reset expectations without lowering standards, why rushing to get his abs back is the wrong move, and how leaning out first will make everything else easier — from joint health to cardio to long-term consistency.

Links mentioned:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-metabolic-rate/

https://rippedbody.com/diet-progress-tracking

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

2026 has arrived, which means you’ve probably been bombarded with all sorts of fitness advice, hacks, and shortcuts. We know it can be hard to sort through the noise, and we want to help you avoid the most common fitness mistakes we see as people are making New Year’s resolutions.

In this episode, Ripped Body coaches Sam and Matt go over the most common mistakes, and how to avoid them, to make sure you start the year on the right foot. They also share a few of their own resolutions for the year, discussing goals both in and out of the gym.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

If fitness feels more confusing now than it did five or ten years ago, you’re not imagining it.

This week on the podcast, I’m joined by **Dr. Eric Helms** to talk about *why* we wrote the Muscle & Strength Pyramid books in the first place, and why, a decade later, we decided to completely rewrite them for the third editions.

This isn’t a marketing episode. It’s a conversation about information overload, false precision, and why most people aren’t stuck because they lack effort — they’re stuck because they’re trying to do too many things at once.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why fitness advice has become noisier, not clearer.
- How the Pyramid frameworks help you filter what matters from what doesn’t.
- Why flexibility done right *improves* results instead of watering them down.
- The difference between “progressive overload” and actual progression.
- How to train, eat, and live without sacrificing relationships or sanity.

We also walk through what’s new in the third editions.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by fitness content, this episode will help you zoom out, calm down, and focus on the levers that actually move the needle.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle (https://rippedbody.com/)

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)