Stephan du Toit Nutrition

Men’s Physique is an unforgiving division. Not only do you have to be blessed with with the right structure for it, but when you develop your physique, you have to be so careful to not let one body part outgrow the rest. It’s not a bad thing in open for example to have good development everywhere but have a stand out feature like a very impressive chest - or imposing delts. Whereas in this division- that outstanding body part can count against you

I rediscovered some of Madiba’s quotes while my son was working on his school project.

Many of these wisdoms are so applicable to us in our athletic pursuits and life goals too.

I’ll post a few of them.

How brilliant?

I never lose. I win or I learn… I know it doesn’t feel like that in the moment when you face disappointment, but here is another little bit of wisdom for you: “You cant control placings or outcomes, but you can control your response to them.”

In your pursuit to greatness- make sure you’re agile and take those “L’s” as learning opportunities and get better.

It’s Georgia’s birthday tomorrow, and I know I don’t post often enough. So here is two birds with one stone.

For everyone who’s ever encountered her, I’m sure they will all say she’s about the kindest person you will meet.

Hope you have a brilliant birthday Georgia Nobre

It’s ⭕️lympia weekend!
Some of the Top Olympians I’ve had the great fortune of snapping a selfie with.

7x Mr Olympia champion Phil Heath - if you haven’t watched his doccie on Netflix - “Breaking Olympia” yet - goosebumps stuff- do it! Phil and I have the same birthdate - we are basically twins- he just aged way better than me and was slightly more successful in his bodybuilding career (🤏🏼)

Mike Sommerfeld, Mike is The stern favourite in almost any Classic Physique line up he enters. He’s a very inspiring guy, I love to see an insiders view of how him and his wife overcome obstacles and continue their campaign to win his first Olympia.

Ash and myself bumped into Mike in NY and Pittsburg

🇵🇭Maureen Blanquisco🇳🇴- The pure je ne sais quoi this lady has… Jaw dropping. When she’s on stage, all eyes are on her. She is so down to earth, we spoke about giraffes, Tanzania, South Africa and all sorts. She’s the embodiment of a champ

Is there anyone with more impressive lats than this man? Kai Greene - the pure muscularity is only surpassed by how down to earth and ready to teach, share and have a casual chat to a random guy back stage… the Phil and Kai rivalry is still the most exciting relationship in modern bodybuilding

Britain’s pride in this picture. Mr Olympia, Samson Dauda and his coach Marlena. Im sure these two are deep in the peaking process for Samson to reclaim his throne this weekend.

While we were backstage - waiting for 🌿M O N I Q U E _ BIKINI PRO🌿 to go onstage, Samson used our resistance bands and a couple other back stage tricks to get ready for his guest posing. I still use that band for my clients to get that champion juju when they get ready for their shows

One of the very first wellness super stars, ANGELA BORGES - it’s high time she comes back!

The talk of the show last year, Viktoria Csicsay IFBB PRO who managed to place in her very first Olympia last year - that’s so impressive- I see her climbing a bit this year!

What more can we say. This man cracked his invite and placed bloomin’ 7th in his first Olympia! Can’t wait for him to get back to Vegas to keep the dream alive for all@of us born in Southern Africa - go Muzi Maluleke

Michael

No idea who said it first.

But delayed gratification will take you places.
Work hard for something and don’t try and cash out too quickly.

Don’t live the same year over and over. Climb.

Coach out ✌️

I don’t know if the Average Joe can see the difference here, so allow me to explain…

On the left we have 🌿M O N I Q U E _ BIKINI PRO🌿 at her highest placing last year (3rd at Big Man Evolution) and on the right is a week ago prepping for her first shows of 2026.

We have worked on creating more width in her top line; the lat coming down with a cleaner, more pleasing angle, enhancing her hourglass, and adding to her glute projection with more muscle on her glutes overall so that she doesn’t have to lean into the hip to get the glute to pop, and so doing also give her a tighter waist when she’s going to be dieted down.

The name of the game in Pro Bikini is balance, and the more you work at it, the more refined the physique looks. I’m genuinely excited to see what’s she’s going to look like all carbed up, polished and bubbly, looking like Michelangelo himself chiseled her out of Italian marble

Keep an eye out for our adventures for her next set of pro shows when stage prep is done

Another transformation - this time not the usual “how do I get smaller” type. Sheva wanted to add a lot of muscle to her lower body for her division.

We strategically took cycles of a few months off upper body training to give her a better chance of growing legs rapidly, and also to maintain the upper body without growing it too much. Periodisation is important to make “gains” faster in strategic ways.

Transformations come in various forms- losing a lot of bodyfat is almost the easier type, whilst gaining a lot of muscle mass is a much more time reliant one.

So patience and doing the same things relentlessly (eating - sleeping - training ) all the time and not just for a quick 16 weeks… is something that requires a lot of perseverance and pushing through boredom and pain

You really have to make it a routine and not rely on external validation because you won’t get through a building cycle if you need to hear “good job” every week. It’s an internally focused process of getting it done without someone clapping for you often

As requested, I’ll do a few more before and afters.

For talented athletes, the word “potential” is often thrown around. But potential without action, means never reaching what you are capable of. Never putting your talents to good use. I almost can’t think of a worse tragedy. Even the Bible has a parable about being given a hand full of golden coins. Some people with one coin will go make that into two coins and some will bury their hand full of coins. It gets taken from them and given to the less talented ones who took action…

This exact scenario happens very often in our sport.

You have control over realising this often despised word, “potential”. Find those people around you that will help you turn your potential into action

Chené changed this much in ONE season, because she took her potential seriously.

The mad thing is, once that stone gets rolling, when potential turns kinetic… it will almost certainly not be stopped.

Ready to turn your silver medal into a ProCard ? Talk to us.

Andrew and I have been working together since the end of November. In that time he’s lost over 40 kilos, and built a solid amount of muscle too!

When we had a gap in our video chats for a while when he was doing major renovations on his house in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿- I had a shock at how much his face changed when we resumed video chats a couple weeks later.

What’s fun about working with Andrew is that he is an ex-chef, so how he interprets his meal plan daily is so delicious- he’s had exactly TWO plans from November till July, but he prides himself in his creativity to make good food for the whole family out of the meal options I gave him .

Structure and discipline with a little bit of freedom in interpretation, along with occasional treat, to me, is simply the quickest way to get to your goals. He snapped that very quickly, and the results are undeniable - great work