Honza Turek is a new member of the Extrifit team!
Author: Slavoj Bednář, Vojta Koritenský, Tomáš Kašpar or Karlos "Terminator" Vémola. These are just some of the famous names that Extrifit has in its team, which is certainly the largest manufacturer of sports nutrition in the Czech Republic!
These days, another no less sonorous name has been added to this select company, namely Honza Turek!
Earlier this month, Honza shone in front of his home crowd when he won a very respectable sixth place at the eighth edition of the prestigious EVLS Prague Pro competition.
A week later in Romania, where he had to settle for a tied 16th place.
His original plan was to end this year's competition season and start preparing for the upcoming one, in which he was to compete again on home soil in the ninth edition of EVLS. However, he reconsidered his decision at the last minute, and decided to make one more competitive start, at the Bigman Weekend Pro 2021, which will take place on Sunday 28 November in Alicante, Spain.
Below you can watch Honz's latest video in which he introduces us to his new sponsor, tells us what supplements he will be using and why, and then takes us to the gym for a back workout. All this seven days before the aforementioned Spanish competition.
You can also read the interview that Pavel Vacek conducted with his new teammate.
Fans of the Extrifit brand will not have missed yesterday's announcement of the arrival of a new member of the Extrifit team, Jan Turek, posted on our social media profiles, which generated very positive reactions. So let's get to know Jan a little bit.
Hi Honza, let's start from the very beginning. When did you start training and where did the desire to be a bodybuilder come from?
I started working out in Nový Jičín, where I come from, around the time I went from primary to secondary school. So I was about 15 years old and I was brought to the gym by the guys from high school. I would be like that from the beginning, I tried to do it right away, honestly, I started preparing my food and stuff like that. The guys would laugh at me, what am I doing, why am I eating like this etc.. because they didn't give a shit. As time went on, they started dropping out, and eventually I was the only one of the original bunch left. Right from the beginning I was counting on racing and of course I wanted to succeed, but at that time there was no proper coach in Moravia, or at least I didn't know about him. It wasn't like today, you know who to approach. Eventually I moved to another town, to another gym and started competing.
How did you even think in your early days that diet was important? Most beginners don't really think about it. They'll go work out, but then they'll have whatever they want and they don't put much importance on diet. At least in the beginning.
As soon as I started working out, I was buying magazines at the same time. Muscle&Fitness, World of Bodybuilding, and that's where I got my information from and read the diets and workouts of the guys, Cutler, Coleman, whatever. And from that I quickly understood how important diet is.
It's often written that as a beginner you shouldn't copy the workouts and diets of, say, Cutler and the pros in general. Do you agree with that, or do you see it differently after time with your experience?
Partly yes, but at the same time you learn from them the scheme, when to have protein, when to have carbs, in what rough ratio, etc... I then recalculated it to my weight and followed it. So mindless copying is probably wrong, but otherwise you can learn a lot from them.
What was your first race and how did you do?
My first competition was the Moravian Junior Championships over 77 kg in 2012 and I was fifth. Out of five. (laughs)
Someone is immediately broken by such a result, you obviously weren't, what happened next?
I bit myself right after the competitions, I found a coach, Honza Sobeslav from Karviná and the next year I won the Moravian Championship and the Czech Championship at the same time. Absolutely too. Then it was on. I got the Elite Pro card, won the Prague Pro in Elite and a week later I won the NPC qualifier and got the IFBB Pro card.
What motivated you to switch from Elite Pro to Ifbb Pro?
It's the desire to race at Mr. Olympia. I think that's every competitive bodybuilder's dream. It's a huge motivation for me to get up there one day.
You've been coaching in Prague for a while now. You came to Prague for bodybuilding?
No. It's my Monika's fault. Even though we lived about 3 villages apart in Moravia, we kind of knew about each other, she had already been living in Prague for about 7 years. And when I used to go abroad after competitions, when I was still an amateur, I started staying with her when I needed to fly somewhere. So it turned out that I stayed there even after I arrived and more and more often, until I moved to her place.
Monika (Kozdonova) was racing, wasn't she? So you knew each other from that background?
Well, we knew each other, but we got to know each other much more in Prague, certainly not from Moravia.
You have two small children, two boys, don't family responsibilities limit you somehow?
No, not at all. Of course I understand that it can limit some people, but because Monika has a great attitude to my racing, she knows what it takes, she knows the environment, so she motivates me and supports me a lot. So I have the best conditions I can have, I think. My results are also a huge credit to her.
Apart from the fact that you have great results as a competitor, you also have quite a large group of competitors that you prepare as a coach. Does your own career help you in that you are approached by clients asking to work with you?
Definitely. There's a lot of interest in working together, but I can't take on everyone because I wouldn't be able to keep up. I do online coaching as well, but of course I prefer to see the athletes in person.
I'm going to ask you a bit of a tricky question. Why do good athletes and coaches, like yourself, seek out other coaches for themselves? Doesn't that send a signal to their clients, like they don't really understand it that much, when they look for someone else for themselves?
I've answered this more than once, because you're not the only one asking something like this. I'm often accused of changing these trainers like socks. It's just that the main reason I've changed multiple trainers is because I want to get (buy) some information, advice, techniques from them that I can then use for myself and my clients. Each of those coaches passed something on to me and I took something from each of them that I can use and pass on again for the other guys.
How does this kind of remote collaboration with a foreign coach actually work? And what do you use to choose who you want to contact?
Well, of course I follow them on social media and depending on what style of training they follow, what results they have with their charges, what form they have in competition, I then write to them through some of those contact details. My first international coach was Jordan Peters, who I clicked with perfectly and we parted ways there just because he didn't have time because he was starting his own supplements, clothing and didn't have time for me. It worked normally over the phone, I sent him photos via whats up and he's one of those guys who can tell from a photo. He's got a great eye for it. The collaboration worked great, and I learned the online coaching through him as well. Of course the guy can't lie by sending some filtered pics etc. The photos are taken at the same time, in the same place, in the morning on an empty stomach, otherwise there is no point.
You've had a whole series of races now, your best result was 6th place at Evls. How did you enjoy the races?
Great. Those were the best races of my life. Thanks to our fans, because that hall almost fell down. That was an amazing experience.
What's it like racing against some pretty big names, Mr. Olympia participants? Did you look up to anybody there, or did you have any undue respect?
Yeah, but it's more in hindsight. I'm a competitor at the competition and I don't worry about it there. I don't look at whether it's DeAsha or Winklaar and I don't shake in fear. That wouldn't even be possible at this level. So I focus on myself and after the races I realize... Shit, I raced so and so..., that's a blast.
Do you analyze after the races, what you need to improve, where you fell short, what you need to work on to get to the top?
I analyze all the time. Everything, all the time. (laughs). This year I focused on my hands, and I think it's gotten a little bit better. It's looking a little better in the poses now, and I'm not getting so lost in the stances. Now I have to concentrate mostly on my legs. I need to get both volume and depth. Even though I have strength in them, the volume is lagging behind my opponents.
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Do you have a training technique that works for you in the long run, or do you keep changing it?
The year before I did leg workouts where I alternated low and high reps. This year I've been doing a lot of strength work and now I'm going to aim for a higher rep count. I'm basing it on my observations and notes. I write down every workout, I know how many reps I did, with what weight, when it was, at what weight, etc... I always go back over that, like I said first, I analyze it and now I've come to the conclusion that high rep counts might yield results. Chili, there will be that strength base in the form of heavy squats in multipress for 6-10 reps and the other exercises will be quiet after 20-40 reps. That's what I want to try and I believe it will work.
You're a week away from the competition in Spain and you've still been taking quite a few post-workout supplements(you'll see today on ronnie.com in the video). A lot of racers don't take supplements this close to races anymore due to water retention or other reasons. How do you feel about this?
Yes, a lot of people ask me why I don't eliminate sweeteners and such. I don't take supplements until the second to last day before a competition. That is, until Friday if I'm competing on Sunday. Water isn't addressed until the last day before the competition, where I still use pure glutamine, pure creatine, and unflavored stuff. Otherwise, I use classic supplements until the last minute. He overestimates the effect of sweeteners on water retention a lot, I think. Not to mention that there aren't even any downright bad sweeteners in those supplements.
What supplement would you recommend for a young kid with no money to spare? Some kind of basic.
Of course, he's got to have his diet sorted. He doesn't need protein, protein can be provided by diet, if he doesn't have too many pounds. So I'd recommend a good multimineral, a good multivitamin for proper body function and a good creatine monohydrate that offers a ton of benefits for a few bucks.
Do you still have a pattern?
Of course, it used to be Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman. Nowadays, I'm more watching some guys do it than having a role model. Who I think is doing it best at the moment, in terms of marketing around bodybuilding, how he's pushing himself performance-wise and also getting the attention of the general public, is Regan Grimes. So that's who I'm trying to emulate a little bit.
Well, in Prague, you stood next to him and bumped into him in the comparison room. Thank you Honza for the interview, I'm sure it was not the last one and we welcome you to our Team and we believe that you will be a valuable addition...
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