Q&A Notes
1. What's my favourite thing to coach?
Honestly, the most satisfying thing to coach is behaviour change — not macros, not a spreadsheet. When someone goes from starting and stopping diets, guessing what to do, and beating themselves up about food, to finally understanding how to eat, how to train, how to manage phases of the year, and how to stay in control — that's the real win. The best transformations aren't the biggest scale drops; they're the people who never need to "start again". From a training angle, I love coaching strength development for grapplers — seeing someone get stronger and feel it on the mats is class.
2. What body fat should you cut to before a lean bulk?
For most men, 10-15% body fat — good insulin sensitivity, room to gain, minimal fat regain. Start a bulk at 18-20%+ and you usually just chase fat gain. During a lean bulk, realistically 50-70% of weight gained is lean mass plus glycogen and 30-50% fat. Anyone claiming pure muscle gains is lying or enhanced. The key is rate of gain — around 0.25-0.5% bodyweight per week. Slow and controlled wins.
3. Strength numbers for grapplers — when does carryover stop?
Strength helps grappling, but there's a point of diminishing returns. Rough guideline: bench 1.25-1.5x bodyweight, squat 1.75-2x, deadlift 2-2.25x. Once you're around those numbers, carryover to grappling gets smaller. At that point, time is better spent on skill, conditioning, mobility and injury resilience. For most grapplers the sweet spot is strong enough, not powerlifter strong.
4. How long should maintenance last before another diet phase?
Minimum 2 weeks, better 4-6 — especially if the previous phase was long or aggressive. Maintenance lets hormones stabilise, performance recover, hunger normalise and adherence reset. Diet for 12 weeks then immediately jump into another cut and you usually burn out. Maintenance isn't doing nothing — it's the foundation that makes the next phase work better.