The Macro Lounge Podcast

Chris Bold and Rachel Mead
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Health & Fitness
  • Updated Weekly

🎙️ Welcome to The Macro Lounge Podcast Your backstage pass to the world of bodybuilding and bikini competition. Hosted by Chris Bold, Head coach of Team Bold Physique and Rachel Mead of Accentuate Bikinis, this podcast dives deep into everything from prep and posing to post-show rebounds.
 Whether you're a seasoned athlete, first-time competitor, coach, or just curious about what goes on beyond the tan. 💪 Real talk about training, nutrition, mindset & stage prep and suits
 🔥 Tips, Q&As and hot takes
 Subscribe and join us as we flex, learn, and laugh our way through the sport we love.

  1. 1d ago

    Ep 36: ICN Nationals Recap - The Most Competitive Nationals We've Seen

    What a weekend! While the Olympia crowned a new Bikini Miss Olympia in Las Vegas, New Zealand had three shows running at once. Chris and Rach were backstage at the Bruce Mason Theatre for the ICN Nationals and Aotearoa South Pacific Pro Am, and they're calling it one of the most competitive nationals they've ever been to. They go class by class through figure, classic figure, women's bodybuilding, the new bodybuilding gold class, swimsuit, wellness, runway, fitness model, bikini and sports model. Along the way: why the age categories keep getting more jacked, what separates controlled elegance from pure stage sparkle, why posing can be the difference in a tight lineup, and the first ever Accentuate Posing Academy Poser of the Year award! Plus, a message for the pros: the next generation is coming, and 2027 is already looking stacked. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  2. Sep 27

    It's a Pose, Not a Dance: What Actually Matters on Show Day | Ep 35

    With ICN Nationals, the South Pacific Pro Am, the IFBB season opener and WFF all landing on the same weekend, Chris and Rach are talking priorities. There's a lot of show day advice out there. Some of it matters and a lot of it is one percent stuff. This week, the hosts rank the things competitors stress about, from what actually moves the needle to what the judges won't even notice. In this episode: Why the fundamentals beat the one percenters every timeProtecting your tan, and the quick fix for smudges backstageGlaze, oil, and a genuine safety request for backstage floorsMakeup: why it's about being seen, not looking prettyHair, heels and jewellery, and how much they really matterHow the way you wear your suit can change your whole lookPosing: nail your mandatories and skip the dance movesIf you're stepping on stage this season, this one's for you. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here: 🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us: 👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  3. Sep 20

    How Many Pro Cards Is Too Many? Episode 34

    A big weekend of shows across New Zealand and Australia leads Chris and Rachel into the conversation nobody in the industry really wants to have out loud: how many pro cards should one show actually hand out? They open with the FMG New Zealand Pro Am at the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre and the INBA PNBA Pan Pacific Pro Am in Papakura, plus the Kiwi girls holding their own on US pro stages. Then it turns into the bigger question. When a show has around 50 athletes and around 30 pro cards, what happens to the amateur line-ups the following year? Is pro status still a title, or has it quietly become a qualification for an Instagram bio? To be very clear, this one is aimed at the federations, not the athletes. Every single person who earned their status this weekend earned it, and Chris and Rachel say so repeatedly. They also get into why smaller federations may be better off building world class amateurs instead of copying the IFBB pro league model, why fewer pro shows could actually make pro titles mean more, and what the Olympics got right that bodybuilding may have got wrong. ICN Nationals are a week out and the IFBB Pro League NPC New Zealand season is about to kick off. If you are deep in it right now, the closing few minutes are for you. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  4. Sep 13

    Regionals to Nationals: What Judges' Feedback Actually Means - Ep 33

    The season is heading into its thick end, and a lot of athletes are sitting with a scoresheet and a decision to make. This week Chris and Rachel work through the move from regionals to nationals: how to ask for feedback in a way you can actually use, why a judge's comment and a coach's plan are two different things, and why the same package can be read differently depending on the day, the lineup and the federation. They also get into the small stuff that shifts a result more than people expect. Posing, tan, glaze, hair, how you carry a suit. The one percents that are either ignored completely or over-analysed into the ground. Plus a Wellington posing workshop with a full back row of blokes, an orange wind warning, an earthquake, and a reminder that ghosting your posing coach after a regional win is a plan with a very predictable ending. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  5. Sep 6

    Ep 32: Pro Card in a Year - Kelly Hofmeester on Turning Pro Before You Feel Ready

    Kelly Hofmeester decided at 40 that she wanted to see what she was capable of on stage. Within a year she had won an IFBB Natural Figure Pro Card, signed the contract, and was on a plane to Toronto to make her pro debut. This week Chris and Rachel sit down with Kelly for our first ever athlete interview, and it turns out the medal is the easy part. Kelly talks openly about the self doubt that came with winning a pro card at her second show, what it feels like when accepting the card means you can never compete amateur in New Zealand again, and why she nearly talked herself out of the whole thing. We also get the full Toronto story: peak week spent playing tourist across LA, Hollywood and Niagara Falls, a tan booking made for the wrong show entirely, a 3am hair and makeup call, and a carb load that started eight hours late. Kelly is refreshingly honest about what she would do differently, and she is taking all of it into the New Zealand Pro Open in a few weeks. Along the way: learning to swim as an adult and then getting lost in the chop at Akaroa, having Kate Carroll as your cousin and Frank Carroll as your coach, tall poppy syndrome and why New Zealand makes imposter syndrome worse, the reality of handing over the reins to a coach when you like control, and the poor suffering husband who copped a flying banana. If you have ever wondered what happens after the pro card, this one is for you. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here: 🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify 📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast 📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us: 👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/ 💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/ ✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  6. Aug 30

    Ep 31: ICN South Island Champs Recap

    Chris and Rachel are back from Christchurch and they have got some things to say. The ICN South Island Champs brought close to ninety individual athletes and somewhere north of three hundred crossovers to the Aurora Centre, and Chris and Rachel spent most of it backstage on stage mum and dad duty with three first timers who had never set foot on a bodybuilding stage before. In this episode they run the classes division by division, and for the first time this season they go past "I could have had that the other way" and into a proper call out. Two classes in particular have Rachel reading the judging criteria straight off the ICN members portal and asking the obvious question: if three of the four scoring priorities are presentation, how does the athlete who swept them not take the class? They also get into what happens when conditioning gets rewarded in one division and penalised in the next, the athletes who are competing in the wrong class and do not know it yet, and a genuinely worrying moment on stage that comes back to coach responsibility. Plus a shout out to ICN for the live stream, why you should always buy your stage photos, runway dress malfunctions and how to avoid them, and a serious challenge to South Island athletes about supporting their own shows. Four weeks to Nationals. Next week, a surprise professional guest. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academyhttps://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physiquehttps://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinishttps://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/ Clarification: in our recap of the swimsuit division we discussed an incident on stage and made a comment about coach responsibility. We were commenting only on what we could see from the auditorium and had no knowledge of the athlete's circumstances or of what happened backstage. Nothing we said was intended as a judgement on any individual coach. Where an athlete becomes unwell on stage, responsibility for recognising it and stepping in sits with the officials and the event team as well as the coach.

  7. Aug 23

    Prep Panic: What's Actually Going Wrong (And What Isn't) - Ep 30

    We're deep in the season now, which means the messages have started. I've blown up. I've lost all my muscle. I can't get a pump. My weight hasn't moved in a week. Rachel and Chris go through what is actually going wrong in prep versus what just feels like it is, because there's a big difference and most of you are panicking about the wrong things. They cover why the scale is one data point and not the whole story, why you look flat and feel weak right now, why small changes look enormous the leaner you get, and the things that genuinely are worth flagging with your coach. Plus the suits conversation, because if you're a week out with no suit, that one actually is a crisis. Also discussed: prep goggles, why your body would rather burn anything except fat, why asking ChatGPT is not the move, and why the sky is not falling. And why pooping on show day is a win! Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think.Find us here:🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us:👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academyhttps://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physiquehttps://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinishttps://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

  8. Aug 16

    When Did a Pro Card Become the Only Success Story? Ep 29

    Somewhere along the way, bodybuilding decided there was only one version of success. Chris and Rachel dig into when the pro card became the ultimate goal, who actually decided that, and what it has cost the athletes who never wanted it in the first place. They cover the marketing machine behind pro status, why a pro card has become the sport's version of a qualification, and the uncomfortable truth that for a lot of athletes, the day they win their pro card is the last time they ever win a show. Rachel talks about turning one down because she wanted to earn it properly, and Chris makes the case that amateurs are not the bottom rung of the ladder, they are the entire foundation the sport stands on. Plus a challenge to New Zealand promoters on production value, why treating athletes well costs nothing, and the question worth asking instead of "when are you turning pro". Also in this one: rhinestone season, the Tauranga posing workshop, a puppy stealing the show, and Chris surviving a six kilometre mud run. Like and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube - it helps more than you'd think. Find us here: 🎧 Follow The Macro Lounge on Spotify 📸 Instagram: @macro_lounge_podcast ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMacroLoungePodcast 📩 Email: hello@boldphysique.com Work with us: 👙 Posing School: Accentuate Posing Academy https://www.instagram.com/accentuate_posing_academy/ 💪 Coaching with Chris: Team Bold Physique https://www.instagram.com/teamboldphysique/ ✨ Competition Bikinis with Rachel: Accentuate Bikinis https://www.instagram.com/accentuatebikinis/

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About

🎙️ Welcome to The Macro Lounge Podcast Your backstage pass to the world of bodybuilding and bikini competition. Hosted by Chris Bold, Head coach of Team Bold Physique and Rachel Mead of Accentuate Bikinis, this podcast dives deep into everything from prep and posing to post-show rebounds.
 Whether you're a seasoned athlete, first-time competitor, coach, or just curious about what goes on beyond the tan. 💪 Real talk about training, nutrition, mindset & stage prep and suits
 🔥 Tips, Q&As and hot takes
 Subscribe and join us as we flex, learn, and laugh our way through the sport we love.

Information

  • Creator
    Chris Bold and Rachel Mead
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    63
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Chris Bold and Rachel Mead
  • Show Website
    The Macro Lounge Podcast

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