Today Cliff Wilson is back on Coach's Corner, joined by IFPA Pro Natural Bodybuilding Champion to discuss the differences between new competitive bodybuilders and seasoned vets. It is important to tease out these difference so all competitors can gain a better understanding of what it takes to be healthy and competitive for many years should they desire to pursue competitive bodybuilding as a lifestyle.

Ron Williams has won over 200 natural bodybuilding titles including multiple overalls at the Natural Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe. Ron also invented the Iron Chestmaster which adds lateral resistance to make an ordinary pushup more effective. As an author and pastor, Ron offers unique points of view from his year's of experience in this new episode of the Barbell 1 Show. To see the video interview filmed on location at Dialed in Fitness in Sandy Utah, check out the video above.

Philip Ricardo Jr. returned to the natural bodybuilding stage and took home the Natural Olympia title in convincing fashion this November! I was there to see it live - be on the lookout for video footage coming soon. Today I sit down with the champ for a little over an hour to discuss many interesting topics - money in natural bodybuilding, how he prepped, and his tips for having a healthy family life and spousal relationship while pursuing bodybuilding at such a high level.

Today's special guest is the only natural bodybuilder to win these two prestigious world titles in the same year! Tune in to hear about Brian's training, nutrition, lifestyle, and more! Thank you Brian for joining us!

It seems nowadays everyone who likes to train with weights hates doing cardiovascular exercise. With this has come an emergence of creative forms of resistance training and interval training that more closely resemble the weights we love and the cardio machines many of us hate. We discuss a research study looking at just how many calories weight training burns and discuss pros and cons of doing more weights, less cardio, or keeping some more traditional cardio in our training split. John always reviews the full-text of every article, but you may view the free abstract by clicking here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26314086 .

It seems nowadays everyone who likes to train with weights hates doing cardiovascular exercise. With this has come an emergence of creative forms of resistance training and interval training that more closely resemble the weights we love and the cardio machines many of us hate. We discuss a research study looking at just how many calories weight training burns and discuss pros and cons of doing more weights, less cardio, or keeping some more traditional cardio in our training split. John always reviews the full-text of every article, but you may view the free abstract by clicking here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26466137.

Gabriel Wilson, PhD, brother of Jake Wilson and Head of Science and Innovation for MHP joins me as we give a guest lecture/Q&A to a university class of IFPA Pro Bodybuilder James Perez. We discuss degree programs, getting opportunities for internships and careers and more. Oh and it's the 500th episode of the Barbell 1 Show!

While some people continue to bi**h about high protein diets, others just keep on getting results from them – we discuss another high protein diet study on today’s show. John always reviews the full-text of every article, but you may view the free abstract by clicking here: http://www.jissn.com/content/pdf/s12970-015-0100-0.pdf .

In an earlier episode I mentioned a tactic called CEO Workouts to allow a good volume and quality of weight training in a short period of time. When life gets crazy and normal workout don't fit you can usually get a CEO Workout in.

Oftentimes studies comparing different numbers of sets to gauge their effectiveness look at say 1 vs 3 sets. Very few studies go to the extreme and look at something like 8 sets of an exercise. Today’s study does with the squat and so we review and discuss. John always reviews the full-text of every article, but you may view the free abstract by clicking here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22158142 .

So although the debate over whether or not just a set or two done with high intensity is just as good as being a volume junky doing tons of sets is largely over – most research seems to indicate more is better to a degree – there are still some that hang onto the idea that volume may in fact be overrated for some people. Again volume means weight times reps times sets or the total amount of work you do in a training session. As I’ve discussed on the show before there is some research that show some people just continue to activate or turn on more and more muscle the more the keep hitting it, while for others it seems more muscle mass only gets activated during training up to a certain point after which more seems to be perhaps overkill. The tricky part of so many studies which call into question the importance of training volume is that they’re typically done on relatively untrained participants and so we are always left with the reality that those result probably apply to people not very trained – of course it doesn’t take much to create a response when the body is used to no or minimal training – but what about in advanced lifters who train hard and often – clearly they must need more of a stimulus. Well that was what intrigued me to review today’s study on 79 men and women – the participants had been weight training for 4 years on average. We discuss the study and further thoughts on manipulation of resistance training variables. John always reviews the full-text of every article, but you may view the free abstract by clicking here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Steele4/publication/266746184_The_effects_of_low_volume_resistance_training_with_and_without_advanced_techniques_in_trained_participants/links/546b0bc10cf2397f783039b1.pdf .