The Drop Set with Darin Starr: Bodybuilding for the Masses
Jun 5, 2026 · 57 min · 9 segments
This week I’m covering what happens after the show — and why the post-show period is one of the most important and most neglected phases of the entire prep cycle. Reverse dieting isn’t just eating…
No entities detected.
So, um, there was an image circulating on social media in the bodybuilding circle lately, um, of some results from a couple of shows that happened recently, um, And it was a side-by-side comparison of Paula Ronta, I think, from the New York Pro, who won women's physique there, and Sarah Bradley, who won women's physique at the Optimum Classic in Shreveport, like, last weekend, I think it was.
Like, super, super impressive, complete packages, top to bottom, hard to find faults with either of them.
They're both at a level where it's like, if you only get there by putting 100% of everything you have every day into doing that, it's hard to find fault with that.
My fault, though, is that neither of them should be winning shows in women's physique.
And this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm standing by it because I'm looking at the rules right now.
Both of them are... more conditioned, more striated, more grainy than pretty much any women's bodybuilder I've ever seen in these.
So if that isn't not what women's physique is supposed to be, then we're just saying like, okay, there is no way that you can overdo it in women's physique.
If Paula and Sarah are going to be winning shows in women's physique, then all we're acknowledging there is that the current judging standards as they're written are not applied.
So, um, there was an image circulating on social media in the bodybuilding circle lately, um, of some results from a couple of shows that happened recently, um, And it was a side-by-side comparison of Paula Ronta, I think, from the New York Pro, who won women's physique there, and Sarah Bradley, who won women's physique at the Optimum Classic in Shreveport, like, last weekend, I think it was.
Like, super, super impressive, complete packages, top to bottom, hard to find faults with either of them.
They're both at a level where it's like, if you only get there by putting 100% of everything you have every day into doing that, it's hard to find fault with that.
My fault, though, is that neither of them should be winning shows in women's physique.
And this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm standing by it because I'm looking at the rules right now.
Both of them are... more conditioned, more striated, more grainy than pretty much any women's bodybuilder I've ever seen in these.
So if that isn't not what women's physique is supposed to be, then we're just saying like, okay, there is no way that you can overdo it in women's physique.
If Paula and Sarah are going to be winning shows in women's physique, then all we're acknowledging there is that the current judging standards as they're written are not applied.
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 9 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 24 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.
