EXCLUSIVE: Michael Jai White Interviews World Champion Bodybuilder, Troy Alves

we're talking about bodybuilding and um my oldest friend in the world happens to be one of the top bodybuilders in the world everybody meet troy alves thank you mike we've been friends since we were next door neighbors when we were seven years old yes sir yeah and just so happens he's been in how many mr olympia's uh eight mr olympias and the top policing was uh top tie for seventh in the world yeah yes sir troy not only is my oldest friend but his i mean he's taught me a lot in in as far as bodybuilding i've followed his career throughout i mean we we go way back and wait i get to tell you about the story when we both started karate together he actually started before me yes and i actually had to learn from him and his brother first i hold that up yes absolutely absolutely he he used he and his brother were going to they were taking karate lessons but my mother wouldn't let me take it right and but i used to go with them to his karate class yes rex lee yes yeah rex lee back in those days um and so i would watch their class and we'd get home and we'd practice and i would practice so much that i got a little bit ahead of he and his brother yes yeah because i would watch the the uh advanced class and then one time uh they were they were training and they came to me because i kind of knew all the other stuff and rex lee asked well why are you going to ask that kid and you know and you said you were like well he knows those bits yeah yes sir and so basically rex said well how does he know it and basically i said well you know who you know he said who taught you i said well you did i i was watching so he he gave me a little uh test and from that point on i was um i was uh passed us yeah he passed us well i was he gave me free lessons yes yeah so it was all due to this guy uh that you know i got to start it yeah so i feel proud that we're the ones that started before him so yeah that needless to say he's the champ of all champs now but i got got something i could hold over his head that you only started because of me right but uh but he he made his mark in bodybuilding i mean we we were i mean i know i popped back up on you you guys when i was uh you know well he moved away you guys moved away when when i was uh nine nine and a half yeah yeah he he moved back to arizona and i popped back up on him like when uh when i was 15 i've been on my own since i was 14. when i'm 15 i took a greyhound across the country across cross country and popped up on their doorstep because i had his his address and so you know you could you know shocked by by all means shocked and this is the thought of michael was always the independent man anyway you know and but the fact that he would just get on a greyhound bus and travel cross country by himself and then just now he just had an address and just show up in arizona we all were just looking like michael we just couldn't believe that he actually was no big deal like it was just spared a moment like hi everybody and uh so needless to say we're shocked and that was our come back story from seven years basically from the last time we had seen each other and uh we got to get reacquainted and went and did some kind of crazy stuff in arizona where uh you can tell a story about our little uh uh you baseball thing where you came from yeah well i um you had just started you i went with you to the gym one time when you were you were playing baseball for your high school yes sir and uh and i oh i just remembered this i was showing you how to lift weights wait a minute no no i'm dead serious because you know i was i was always a lot bigger a lot bigger okay that's true okay you you grew in i didn't start growing till you're right i just was sophomore years when i grew so i was a little tiny tot all the way up to a freshman so so probably my dream sophomore junior year right i went with you to the to the weight room and i was kind of helping you and showing you how to bench crack yes only like what three four years later you couldn't recognize this dude this dude dwarfed me as far as muscle it was it was ridiculous it was like your genetics was like insane one thing i remember is like even when you were a little kid we used to always joke and say if somebody cut you you bleed because you'd see all his veins was just on the outside of his body he was skinny like you said like you were 4-11 until high school yes sir freshman high school 411 100 pounds right and then then grew massively i think i don't know must have been something something about how that because you would stay vascular throughout your bodybuilding career and you didn't really need to diet very much that's just that's god's gift right there because my skin was always paper thin like that was one thing people admired about me that is superficial and then in the bodybuilding world that's what you trying to create to get on stage is try to get the thinnest skin possible so you can see uh the interior the the definition and the detail of the muscle and the fibers so i was fortunate and blessed to have that from an early age never really had to work for it so don't get mad at me but uh that's that's his fault but anyway uh yeah so i was fortunate in that regard that uh i always had thin skin and that was my body i do recall that he did show me weights i just think about where i'm at today so i forget about where i am right right i just remember i i'm so glad i remember that so he got one up on me right now yeah yeah you taught me karate and i and i taught you some weight but i mean you know uh but it it's it's kind of a funny switch but um of course he what he did in the with the bodybuilding and why they wouldn't hold it hold up yeah we kind of switched past there but from day one uh troy's been just my my biggest influence with bodybuilding and learning the science of it because troy really is the true essence of a bodybuilder he sculpted himself and you look at you know looking at the picture i guess we could flash up the picture of a 10-year difference between your quality uh when you are 37 yeah and then the picture 47. yes sir and just the the way you never you never sold out to uh just getting bulky for bulky's sake there was there's been a there was a time in bodybuilding where they were just celebrating the freak and no longer were were uh aesthetics yeah aesthetics were not you know yeah it started started and then arnold actually has been speaking a lot about arnold schwarzenegger has been speaking against this a lot lately he's saying that because back in arnold's day there was frank zane they were arnold there was um serge in the braves classic both of them yeah yeah you know that was our um our hero yes sir um but like you when you want to sculpt the muscle you want to have a you know smaller waist and you know big shoulders and round chest sweeping quads uh that's that's the art of bodybuilding and from an early age i looked at some of the magazines i and i just looked at the pure aesthetics and like the the greek sculpture of of the what the physique is supposed to be about i never got caught up in like let me see how big i can get yeah you know and mike was always like that too we always looked at trying to be as pretty a physique as possible so i always like to try to see if i can get my make my weights as small as it could be i want to be an illusionist and that's what bodybuilding is it's all about illusion so i want to be the smaller the waist the wider the shoulders the smaller joints the illusion that you create so i could stand next to a guy that can outweigh me by 40-50 pounds and then you see me when we first stand there he's like oh he's way bigger but then when you see me pose my body comes alive because of the illusion factor the round muscle abilities the small joints and the big bulky guy once you see what you see is what you get as soon as he hits the shot nothing changes so i learned at an early age that that's the art of bodybuilding that's what i wanted to create and that's what what i became known for is my aesthetics and just uh the modern day frank zane is what i was known as one way is if you a lot of the bodybuilders that you see in competitions they look like that on the day of the competition but a week later they look nothing like that and a lot of it is due to other stuff we won't get into of course you know some of the other stuff but troy would look the same way weeks months before after he looked the same way it's because he didn't take his body to some kind of crazy place where he's just you know trying to be just massive and competing against even though those guys they were they were rewarding him they were giving them the first prizes but he held out for the quality of the true art of bodybuilding yes sir and that that's why you're one of the most respected bodybuilders ever i'll tell you this great compliment thank you i mean that but that's the truth that's that's the truth nobody could deny that uh it doesn't matter if the business goes one direction we know what true bodybuilding is and uh one of the things that brings us you know full circle to what we're talking about is you don't get there without having the respect for the technique the proper technique is what you know one of the reasons why i'm even doing this uh just like with martial arts there's a technique to things there's you know a lot of people i mean we may get into it for our various reasons it could be to make us more secure maybe we're you know we we want to i don't know we have a lot of different reasons why we're doing stuff but um to not be a slave to your ego and do it for the right reasons and so with with bodybuilding you know troy would you know a lot of times when i you know i'm being in front of camera i'd i'd train with troy sometimes uh i'd go to arizona and he'd come out here and we really refined uh the techniques and since he was a bodybuilder i know with common sense if i'm going to shape my body i'm going to listen to him because that's his that's his forte yeah that's his forte that's that's his business and uh i would learn so much training with you you and sometimes i mean he he would have all like major like four champions living in your house yes sir getting ready for the olympia together yes sir yeah yeah and i would and be a flyer on the wall i train with them and i learn all these you know intricate things of how to be effective in the gym with with technique and everything but um but yeah it's it's really one thing that they all had was technique and because the difference between like a half inch on your rear delt or just filling out a muscle the bicep yeah or something like that or a muscle belly they work on one specific part that's an art yes and so you don't get there without really knowing the art of it and the technique you have to approach bodybuilding is just as it is that's what you're building your body you're uh and the way i looked at it was more of a silhouette you know when you look at your physique you know do i just want you you go based on your genetic makeup too so you know some people might be not as genetically gifted as us with the small wrist and the rounder muscle belly so but you have to live with your makeup as regardless it's still about bodybuilding so what i always try to envision is where my weakness and my strengths were how i can make my weaknesses and to balance out my strengths and not exceed my strengths to make them even more over the top from where my weaknesses were so a lot of people get caught up with big arms you're like whoa i got big arms so they keep pressing those arms they just keep going and their arms start to go out do the rest of their body even though the weaker body part is catching up but it still throws their body off because they keep pushing that other part and not the ego like you talk about gets the best of them and they won't settle down to say let me balance all this out before i try to exceed that because that's my gift and that's what i always approach because i was one of those genetic guys when my arms grew really fast and they grew really easy but at the same time i noticed early in my career i was like damn my biceps are getting really big but my triceps are not quite there so what i did was just take i'd still work my biceps but i put more time into my triceps i wanted that illusion and that balance to my physique and that's how people and i try to teach is approaching that way is to balance out the little small details that you can make you look like you gain 10 pounds we only gain a pound half to 2 pounds but if you put it in the right places that what we talked about to begin is illusion that illusion factor comes out and it stands out absolutely that's the art yeah i always say if you have big arms that all that means is the rest of your body isn't in comparison to it okay if you have a big head that means the rest of your body looks small in comparison you know that's really what it comes down to so you got to like build the rest of your body and catch up with your head traps good it's all that illusion that he's doing yes sir but yeah but that that that's exactly right and um and uh you know myself i never wanted to so against my bodybuilding friends uh best wishes they always wanted me to really bodybuild and i'm like no he's a genetic freak no could have done it easily no yeah i you know and for me being an actor uh i was already on the large side uh so i never ever wanted to get any bigger and these guys would go no come on man i'm like no i'm not gonna try i'm not trying to get like you guys i gotta jump move and run punch and all the yeah that other stuff so for for for me even though i was uh i was a natural gainer my whole thing was to trim down trim down trim down do the quality you know try to you know keep certain muscle bellies there but i'm always trying to be lighter so for me i was always like a a fighter getting ready for for a fight yeah so i i'm always trying to lean down yeah and so you know uh there was there was there was one one role that it was like kind of like a role that i could get big for yes yes yes and when i did that night you know i said okay i'll i'll i'll work out with you guys but but but even big for me is like i got up to two [Music] 247 yes but that was too damn big for me i never wanted but it looked good on camera and it looked good in person but he just felt heavy i remember complaining about like i just feel like i can't move i slow i'm slow now and everything you just complain about it but for us as fans that's a great looking physique because that's kind of what we all saw that he could do how big he could actually get he could even got bigger too he could have got up to 260 with no problem still had abs and still been in great shape but he never liked that feeling of being heavy to have the quickness yeah unlike me i was i love that feeling of just being as big as possible and sluggish as possible with aesthetics though with the studies man i i could not i realized i could not touch my own shoulder and i couldn't i couldn't do i couldn't i got this tense part of my neck and i couldn't touch it because i was doing this i i can't i can't live that way but for somebody my height i'm six one and a half six two maybe i shrank a bit i don't know but for me to step on a stage to bodybuild do you realize i'd have to be 300 pounds yeah i'd have to be 300 lean i mean ronnie coleman was he's he's 511 yes and he was 300 pounds imagine somebody my height so no that i'd have that's that's a me and a 12 year old you know so so i i'm not going to gain that much weight for anything but but so you know just you know so you guys can kind of kind of figure out how you know the differences are because i know people think that i'm a lot bigger because it's that illusion he's talking about i i appear sometimes on screen when i lose weight i look like i'm even bigger 260 or less yeah and and just so happens that that role that i you know that i got up to 240 247 we never shot that movie so no and it took me about six months to lose that damn weight it took me six months to get down to 235. no that's that that that was that was torture but um but yeah man oh i real quick i want you to cover a bit of the technique okay like what you were you were telling eddie but yeah yeah so can you share some of that well with lifting it's all about it is all about technique i've been around the gyms for i'm forget i'm going to tell you my age but i've been on the gyms for about 40 years or so they know my age so they know okay yeah so about over 40 about 40 years so um what i established early in my career like without even thinking about before i was even remotely close to a bodybuilder i would watch people in the gym just lift the weight for sake of lifting weight and um and that just didn't look right to me i never got caught up in it so i just saw i knew that that doesn't look right they look like they're doing more damage than good so i learned from an early age that i wanted to concentrate on technique and we talked about earlier that mind muscle connection and when you take that and put that in the forward front of your brain then you're going to not try to just lift weight for the sake of lifting weight so when you connect to the muscle was you take down whatever it could be doing it could be a simple thing as a dumbbell press what i see in the gym on a regular basis is they'll take away from here and they'll go like this and they'll lift the weight yeah they'll feel there's some blood that's going to come in the chest but you're not actually working your chest it's you're getting more out of your shoulders than you're doing anything else so it's just like a rotating motion just back and forth but the ideal way for a simple exercise like this that they make difficult is you it's all about that connection so look right here i'm expanded already my chest is already full and so where do i have to go from here this is full range right here and watch my chest lead out that's what it's all about that simple move is here to here and i don't do this when i come down and push up i stay here and i push so that's all chess right there if if you can establish that early on and not let your ego because you're not going to be as strong initially with that because it's like so dynamic and you have to be perform it perfectly but if you can let that go out of your brain and just think about that connection of the muscle and you want to build then you'll get much faster results and the strength will eventually come to the same if you exceed what these others are doing in the gym as i did in my career i understood one thing one thing i always borrow from you there's something that you told me one time when you were training me you said the mind muscle connection i always say that uh and especially in when you're using your back when you're using muscles that you can't see you have to really think and flex from that muscle and as long as you can feel it you can use it okay and i always say well just use the machine to help you flex hard and so even when i was trying to point out that is that a lot of people's mistake is to use their shoulders and doing this that's why a lot of people look like that yes and that's what i used to look like yes yes dominate right yeah i used to look like this but then for years i did back work to pull my my shoulders back yes sir and that that balanced out everything i moved better because you know i was more was online yeah my core is online and so that that's one of those things that um and learning the proper technique and not just doing it from ego speaking of ego okay just really quick i remember the first time charles glass trained me mm-hmm and you know charles trained he trained troy he's he's like the bill belichick of bodybuilders yes he is everybody from all over the world were training with charles glass yes so you know i went to go train with him and he had the gunther gunther was with us and i believe it was uh dexter it was a bunch of i was training with like top bodybuilders at gold's gym so i was like okay and you know we're doing chess and and you know they were grabbing like these these 80s and 70s i'm going what i was doing like 150s each hand so i was like are we doing like lightweight baby weight baby yeah baby weight or something i'm like oh shoot okay well there was that ego going in i'm like i'm stronger than these dudes what's up well you know he gave me a 60. charles gave me you know 60. i'm like 60 like like i'm a pole but but he had me do do it correctly where i'm flexing my chest each time and i swear i had a smirk on my face for okay how many you want me okay you know so then i did up to 15 normally i would do 10. yeah yeah 15. but he made sure i did it strict and i was like it was something between 12 and 15 was like that smirk just kind of came to reality yeah i was like whoa okay that next set i was like yo i'm on fire yes sir and that smirk transferred to his face yes sir then i started to really learn what it's all about what it's all about it wasn't like an ego i was so i was so proud of myself lifting a whole bunch of weight i didn't know what the hell i was doing those people in gmr that's how they lift that's exactly what they're doing at least you're aware enough to catch that and just grasp it and move forward yeah and develop from that point on yeah it's about what you're doing to the muscle i use you know i mean my my joints would ache a little bit i get tired but i'm not on fire but when i learn to get put on fire with that pump yes sir lights out yeah lights out that that that's when everything changed i actually had to slow up because my muscles started growing so fast yeah my my response to my muscle really hit in and that's that's about being with people who really know what they're doing they make a living doing what they're doing yes sir a lot of personal trainers make a living selling memberships and and babysitting folks not to be on them but you know but this is just the truth okay a lot of personal trainers they come from you know i mean hey my good friend you know bob goldman he he started the whole industry of personal training uh but you know he's not responsible to where it's gone now yes sir it's a gig for a lot of people and bless them but the gig for bodybuilders is learning how to build their body it's about muscle and what i'm i'm doing you know i'm spending my time doing this i'm not coming from some kind of place this is just real yes i'm not gonna waste my time or your time so i'm going to speak about what's real and i got real people to do that with me yes sir i appreciate you having me and talk about it because i if we can get that out to everybody to learn to do things the right way and just take the ego out of it you know if anybody's like in our position we could act have an ego but it's like when we let that stuff go and we know who we are as people and we just concentrate on what we're trying to achieve and don't let any of the so-called word gonna top bodybuilder that never affected my brain i still stayed true to where i am as you are that's why we have so much respect and we've been friends for so long because we're real people yeah and we want you to understand and do it the correct way as we have done to get our bodies and the places we are in our in our lives right now yeah i mean i think maybe because we started out in the martial arts and it's about the tradition about it is being disciplined that's right and troy's always been the most humble person that's why you've been a leader among bodybuilders that's why that's why you know you've been like you're a big brother to the entire bodybuilding industry and you have so much respect from that that's a great compliment i appreciate that very much yeah well well well i want you to basically if there's any um your your you know email what not emails what do you call this those like social media yeah yeah yeah well you could see me you catch me on uh just troy obs off of instagram um and then on facebook i'm on the trails and i have the fan page and then the regular page and uh i'm looking forward to that's why we talk about this stuff i'm going to be doing a a website where i'm going to be teaching on a regular basis the instruction of how to do every type of exercise there is so if you're learning want to learn how to do exercises correctly you can always come up to my website it would be a teal and uh that will be coming out soon you'll be able to get all that information off of my instagram page uh trails all right all right well ed thanks brother thank you much appreciate you joining me always over all right and so and we'll get back to you guys on on the flip and thanks for joining us

Channel: Real Michael Jai White

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Rating: 4.9385829 out of 5

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Id: rLbtz8tCcZw

Length: 26min 50sec (1610 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021