Here are the exciting Frequently Asked Questions that I get all the time from readers and clients:
ABOUT THE ASIAN WONDER
1. Where do you currently live and train?
I currently live in the 4th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. in a city called Dallas which is located in the state of Texas. I train and shoot all my training tutorials in my bad ass garage gym.
2. What do you do for a living?
I currently work as an Energy Advisor, selling commercial electricity at Live Energy. I also make money trading stocks and currencies in the forex market in addition to my internet marketing endeavors.
3. Are you single?
No, I have an awesome wife named Sasi and a son named Maximus.
4. What is your ethnicity?
I was born in south Vietnam but have spent most of my life in the U.S.
5. Do you still speak Vietnamese?
I read, write, and speak English, Spanish, and Vietnamese fluently.
6. Do you still train people anymore?
Now that I no longer work full time at a public gym, I only train people on special cases for competition, for research, or for my training tutorials.
7. Do you feel you will lose your skills as a personal trainer if you are not training folks on a regular basis?
Absolutely NOT. I have been training people for over 20 years now, so my training skills are not going to disappear any time soon. Plus, I still train my workout partners and the high school athletes in my neighborhood every week for non-profit just for fun.
ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS
1. What protein supplements do you recommend?
I DO NOT recommend any kind of protein powders because I have never seen any of it work in over 20 years of field testing. It is not how much protein you eat that is important but how much of it that gets absorbed into the body that makes the difference.
2. What muscle gain or weight gain supplements do you recommend?
I DO NOT recommend any kind of muscle gain or weight gain powders because I have never seen any of it work in over 20 years of field testing. Just eat real food and stop looking for bullshit “magical” powders.
ABOUT STEROIDS, GROWTH HORMONES, & PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS
1. Have you ever used or thought about using steroids or any performance enhancing drugs? And Why?
I have never used any type of drugs or even wasted time thinking about using any performance enhancing drugs because I do not need it to reach my fitness goals. Plus, it’s very expensive and there is no quality control and it screws up the natural hormones in your body. Plus, when you stop using them, you shrivel back up like prune, so what’s the point?
2. Are you against using steroids?
I did not say I was against using steroids, I just don’t see the need for it personally and for 99.99% of the hundreds of clients I have trained. There is a time and place for steroids but most people I know will not need it.
3. When should someone use steroids and other performance enhancing drugs?
There are 4 major places to use drugs 1) high level sports competition, 2) rehab and therapy, 3) terminal illnesses like cancer or AIDS, and 4) if you have extremely low testosterone levels.
You should use steroids if you are playing at any high level competition such as a big division 1A college, professional sports, the Olympics, UFC, etc. otherwise you will not be able to recover fast enough to compete with the other athletes who are using performance enhancing drugs.
The other instances of steroid or drug use is pretty much self-explanatory because people’s quality of life is dependent on it.
ABOUT TRAINING
1. Who are your biggest influences in personal training?
My biggest source of influence in personal training came from the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Dallas Cowboys, Westside Barbell, the hundreds of prisoners I researched and experimented on, and your basic biology textbook.
2. What is your basic training philosophy that makes you different from other personal trainers?
I practice the Chinese martial arts, Wu Chi Chuan (the grandfather of modern day Tai Chi) and Zen Buddhism. Therefore, I strongly believe in following nature and it’s natural principles of biology and physics. If it goes against what nature intended our mind and body to do, then I try to avoid it.
Furthermore, the nutrition and training material I share with everyone is based on the experience I had doing research and experiments on hundreds of prisoners for over a decade and paying clients at Gold’s Gym and not based on book theory, marketing bullshit from popular muscle magazines, hearsay on the internet, speculation, novice trainers, gym members, or just because a celebrity fitness guru or professional athlete said so. I only share the training and nutrition that I have personally seen proven to work with the majority of people that are training naturally and not using drugs. A lot of training principles work well with steroid users but they will not work with people training naturally. Unfortunately, the steroid users will never tell you that. Fortunately, I will!
ABOUT BODYBUILDING, POWERLIFTING, & OLYMPIC LIFTING
1. What are your thoughts on the sport of bodybuilding?
I don’t consider it a sport. All sports have a very distinct way of determining the winner and the loser. There is no way to do that in bodybuilding. I look at bodybuilding as just another beauty pageant or bikini competition.
2. So you don’t consider a bodybuilder an athlete?
Most athletes I know do not lose their athletic ability when they finish a competition or step off the field/court. If Mike Tyson can knock your ass out in the ring, he can still do it when he is out of the ring. Usaine Bolt will outrun you on the Olympic track and when he is done with his 100m dash, he can still outrun your ass even while running and waving his Jamaican flag. On the other hand, a bodybuilder will lift 500 lbs. in the gym but on the day of competition, his water and fat content is so low that he can barely lift 100 lbs. Every bodybuilder I have met looks like they are dying of AIDS or cancer during a show. It is a completely unhealthy, unnatural, and unrealistic way of using the human body therefore I don’t look at bodybuilders as a professional athlete.
3. What are your thoughts on powerlifting?
Powerlifting is a real sport with real athletes. They are strong inside and outside of competition. Plus, most powerlifters I have trained will have much more muscle then a typical bodybuilder with the same lifting experience, age, body weight, etc.
4. Aren’t most powerlifters “blocky” built and bulky looking?
Absolutely not. That’s just another bullshit fitness myth. The super heavy weights that you see in the media do not need to be lean for competition because they are competing in the heavy weight class, usually 220 lbs. and up. All the guys competing underneath heavyweight will have to keep very lean in order to remain competitive in their respective weight classes.
5. What are your thoughts on Olympic Lifting?
Olympic lifting which includes the snatch and the clean are very good exercises to develop power but they are really a waste of time and a high risk for injury for normal folks just lifting to stay in shape, look good, and feel good. I only use these exercises to train advance level athletes.