LEE PRIEST has told competitive athletes: "If you're using your phone in the gym, you are not a serious bodybuilder."
Priest is currently in the UK as part of The Unholy Tour and recently told fans he thought current Mr Olympia Samson Dauda would not beat the likes of Paul Dillett or Flex Wheeler from the 90s era.
And he has had his say on the current gym habit of mobile phone usage, with some sitting on machines scrolling and working out their thumbs more than their muscles.
He said: "If you're serious about being a bodybuilder and you've got your phone in the gym, you're not fucking serious. Unless you're a heart surgeon on call. People say, 'Oh, but Lee, I use it for music'. If you have to use your phone for cardio, that's fine. Back in the day, people would talk to each other in the gym, help each other out. There was a comradeship in the gym. Now everyone's in their own little world with their fucking headphones in.
"Guys are training and I'm like, 'don't you talk and spot each other? You've both got your fucking headphones on in your own little world'. They're like, 'well I use it for music' and I'm like, 'there's music in the gym'. I couldn't even tell you what song was playing because I'm so focused on the training.
"It's like when people say, 'you've got to look at yourself in the mirror'. OK, when I squat seven plates I don't look at myself in the mirror and think, 'oh, Lee you're so strong'. You see an image there but you're so focused on the exercise, you're just going up and down. And I was the same with music.
"So I don't buy the excuses of 'I just want to listen to my music'. You go to pick a song, you look at your phone and you've got messages – 'I'll just have a look'. Whatever's on your phone, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, it's going to be there an hour or two later. That's why I love it when I go on a plane somewhere. It might just be an hour flight but, as soon as the plane lands, what do you hear? Ding, ding, ding. You're like, 'fuck, what did I miss'? People are so glued to their phones, it's just crazy. So just leave it out, you'll have a better workout without it.
"I'll go in the gym now and I'm not training crazy but sometimes I'll do two different exercises and one guy's only done two sets and I look over his shoulder and he's on YouTube or something. But they think you're just 'old fashioned' and blah, blah, blah. No, you're focused in the gym. What other sport would you see someone doing that? Mike Tyson, or any fighter, sparring, ding, ding, bell's gone and then they're sitting in the corner scrolling through their phone.
"Back in the day, you saw someone struggling you'd go over and just give them a spot. You don't see that any more. People are in their own little world. It's just stupid. As I said, phones and listening to music is good for cardio but if you're serious about your training that's just a distraction all the time."
In a previous interview, Priest revealed how he "hated competing" but still did at least 11 shows one season. But he also detailed how competing at the NABBA Universe in 2013 made him more nervous than any other show.
He said: "I remember getting ready for the Universe in 2013. I was kicked out of the IFBB, so I took seven years off. But I thought, 'if I make a comeback and don't look good, or even if I look good and don't do well, I don't want to read the internet the next day'.
"So when I started getting ready for that the pressure I was putting on myself was quite high. I was single and all I thought about was training, dieting and I was burning myself out mentally. Then I met a girl who had four kids and she moved in with me, but it was a good distraction because I could go to the gym and train and when I got home I'd take them to the beach and stuff, come home, have another meal, go to the gym.
"So it was good having that other thing on the side just to keep your mind off it, because if you're constantly talking about eating, talking about drugs, talking about training, you're just going to go crazy and it's going to drive people around you crazy. As long as you've got your training done and you're sticking to your meals, you can still go and do other stuff. Your muscles are not going to disappear."
Building those muscles came with mountains of food. Priest is known for blowing up in weight during his off-seasons back in the day. And he provided a little insight into how he ate.
"Generally, most days breakfast might have been scrambled eggs on toast. But then two hours later, McDonald's," he said. "Then after that I might have had steak and rice, then two hours later a big Chinese meal. It's almost like you're doing a clean diet but in between the clean diet I'm just throwing shit food in. So there might have been two and a half thousand calories of clean food and three thousand of shit food. Then when it comes time to diet, I just take the crap in between out.
"I still liked drinking full cream milk or half and half where it's like milk and half cream that sort of stuff, so I might just sit down and have a liter of milk, a loaf of bread and a whole load of chicken and stuff. In the off season, the biggest my waist became was 44 inches and when I dieted down it would be 29."
Pictures by Anthony Chia Bradley. Visit his website here.
More dates for Lee Priest, The Unholy Tour can be found here.
February 27 - March 2: IFBB Pro League Arnold Classic, Columbus Convention Center, Ohio.
March 22: FMC Scottish Fitness & Bodybuilding Championships, Stewarton Area Centre, Ayrshire.
March 23: BPA Scottish Grand Prix, Gardyne Theatre, Dundee.
March 30: PCA First Timers, Town Hall, Birmingham; IBFA Granite City Classic, Aberdeen Beach Ballroom, Scotland.
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