Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 057: Favorite lifts, BCAAs, Cardio timing & Best time to work out

Episode Date: April 8, 2015

Q&A time once again! Every week Sal, Adam & Justin answer as many PumpHead questions as possible but they can never get to them all. If you have asked a question on Instagram (@Mindpump) and it hasn't been answered yet, keep asking! This week they answer questions about their favorite exercises, Branched Chain Amino Acids, the best time to do cardio and the best time to work out.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, please only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Welcome back to Mind Pump. This is the only podcast, band, and all 900 Planet Fitness gyms. Oh my! Look at Arm map bitch. You guys ready for some Q&A?

Yeah, Q&A. Questions and answers. Who are you here with? I'm here with Adam Schaefer. You looked at me crazy right now. Who am I who are you? You know why? Because I think we actually did two episodes.

We didn't introduce anybody. Fuck, no one's gonna know who I'm. Blue it. Hello new people. My name is Justin. We didn't introduce anybody. Fuck, no one's gonna know where we are. Blue it. Hello, new people. My name is Justin. This is Adam, and Sal. And I'm here too.

They don't even know our last names. No, they don't. They'll find us. Yep. Sal, or you can find me online as Salami's the bone. Salami's the bone. They can't spell. I don't think they can spell either one of our last names.

Yours is kind of easy though. You might be even. And I get, yeah. I get that like double a first name. Are you from the South? You get the double first name. Yeah, I guess you should have done NASCAR. Yeah.

I mean, I'm in perfect place. Ricky Bobby. Ricky Buffs. Girl, the name, Rue. All right, let's start with the question and answers. No, no, no, no. So if you go on our Instagram page at Mind Pump, we post once or twice a week where people can ask questions and then what we do is we answer them

So we're gonna do that right now the first question is pretty straightforward. The first question is from EPEDRO OW I don't know how to pronounce that EP drill. It Pedro. Hey Pedro. It's a say it was like a real like you know I think you get the role of the art. I think it's a role of the art. It Pedro. There you go. There you go. So, if it Pedro wants to know what our favorite lifts are.

Well, it's favorite muscle groups to work, favorite pump, favorite movement and, you know, ones that make us feel huge. Yeah. So, and favorite, you know what, what are our favorite things to do? The cock pump. I don't know. Catch me. Thanks for your help. ones that make us feel huge. So, and favorite, you know what, what were our favorite things to do? The cock pump. Like, catch me. Thanks for feeling you.

Dude, as he gets, as he gets leaner, he becomes more inappropriate. I know, as you're trying to steal my thunder brother, that's on the inappropriate guy. I thought so earlier, I was like, did you do the only way to combat all of Adam's cock jokes is to just start with them. So I was like, I'm taking it.

Tonight, I'm taking it, I'm taking it. I'm taking it all our minds. And then he said, all right, just say with I'm taking it I'm taking it I'm taking it off my mind I'm taking all the cock tonight No Damn it Why can't I do that to me again? Yeah again Alright, uh, favorite let's start Adam

Why don't we start with you? What is your favorite muscle group to pump? Oh wow You know what's crazy is um He's all my tibial Yeah, I love my shins feel It is changed. It's changed. Oh, we've we talked a little bit about our evolution of training for ourselves and you know I when I was 17 years old By sip and triso used to love do arm workouts. I would never miss an arm workout for anything

And I hated doing chest and legs But I've also gone through phase where chest became one of my favorite things to lift. Legs have now recently become one of my favorite things to lift. And honestly, for me, I get more now. Now being late 20s, early 30s, I started to get this way where I actually love to do my worst lifts. I actually get up,

because I like to see the improvement in the gains Where in the past when I was younger I used to lift what I like to lift because I was strong. I was strong in my arms I like to walk around with a calf pump. Yeah, well, yeah I mean, I mean that's the only way I can mentally get myself to actually train them three to four times a week You have to learn to like it, you know, so yeah, no, I enjoy you know, doing different exercises for my even my calves Because it is my weakest point probably for sure on my physique Yeah, no, I enjoy doing different exercises for even my calves because it is my weakest point, probably for sure, on my physique. And then also saying with my legs,

so I really got into deads and squatting this last probably two years. Before that, it was a rare lift for me, but I love to do it now. I absolutely loved it. But what makes you feel like the biggest? Like what muscle group do you pump and you walk around the gym?

My back, back, when I get aerodynamic, when my back gets aerodynamic, because then it blood's going into my arms too, so my body's in tries just naturally get in it, and then my delts get pumped from my back getting, I mean, and then I have a pretty wide back. So I grow, I don't say sell yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty, yeah. I did back to yourself. Yeah. Yeah. You don't exactly.

Yeah, I'm pretty, yeah. I did back to that. I felt like it was the whole. Yeah, I felt good. What about you, what about you, Justin? Uh, yeah, I don't really give a shit to be honest. You know what? It's true.

He doesn't. You've talked about this before, where you're like, I don't care if I get a pump. I really, the whole concept of the pump is kind of like, it doesn't resonate with me at all. If you don't like coming, I think coming. I mean, it's not like coming for me. Yeah, I see it's like coming for me.

You know what I get coming from is, I like to do like a real badass lift, like a clean and jerk or something really heavy and then just fucking slam the weight as hard as I can just because I could. And who's gonna say anything about it? But local arm. Yeah, I can just because I could. And who's going to say anything about it? But Lunkalarm. Yeah, I'll Lunk, I'll Lunk everybody's head.

Yeah. That's what I like. He's getting aggressive. So, yeah, okay, Clean and Jerk, is that one of your favorite? No, yeah, that's, I do like to do. I like power moves and I like actually when I was doing a Moitai, my favorite thing is just to kick the bag like as hard as I can. That's like one of my favorite things to do.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's got a lot of aggression. I can. That's like one of my favorite things to do. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's got a lot of aggression. He does. He's like, oh I did. Well that's the thing is I actually, I had a really, I struggled with that a lot like through junior high to high school.

I was like an angry-ass kid. Wow. Just very, very angry. It was a dick to everybody. It's exciting to know that if we all get, if we get into a fight, we know Justin is gonna do most of fighting for him. You know, that's not, that's like all behind me now.

Oh, shit. I'm pretty chilly. I'm pretty sure you'd be the one to start shit. Yeah, me and Adam would talk our ways out of it. Yeah, I don't know about that. We'd buy them a drink and listen to our buddy over here. He's aggressive. No, I just, I like to feel strong though, you know? Like anything, we talk over him on the radio show all the time.

He's like, I'm just doing mental notes. I'm like, yeah, you want to say that again? I'm still talking. See, for me, when my Dell, I get pretty round delts. And so when they get pumped, I look a lot bigger, but you guys are going to make fun of me. But at the end of my workout, when I'm done, when I'm all the way done with almost everything,

my arms are pumped because I do full body, then I do my forearm workout. And I walk around and I look in the mirror and I start to look like Popeye because my forearm's just blow up. You do like your, he's got a lot of selfies of him doing. I'm like, I was the other day you posted one and it had been like the fifth one I've seen in like two months.

I'm going like, you have to have the record for forearm exercises on Instagram because I don't know if I've ever seen anybody else show and then like write like a whole fucking bio on a bunch talking about how great this is for you like a stress ball. And just like a whole like this. Well, it's you know what it is. You know what it is?

You and I are going to play that game where you grab every play the game where you take the the hand gripper and hold the quarter. It will ever hold the quarter pinch the quarter between the two. Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah, it was sexist when I kick his ass at it. I've never do my forearm You do your forearms when you go online The difference between pink rubber pumpers all right next question this tech said we had to get off that subject We'll do a left-handed squeeze how's that sound?

First question a second question. This is from Stephen 1234. Let's Stephen with three E 11 12 now. It's just one two three four His question is about branch chain amino acids. What we think about them. Are they hype? Or do they actually do anything? This is a good question. Branchank chaining amino acids are up there with what I would consider your quote unquote, staple supplements. Now, now, I'm gonna back up for a second. If your diet is good and your workout is good,

if you eat like shit, you could take all the brancheting amino acids you want, you're not gonna do anything. And if your workout sucks, not gonna do anything. But if everything else is dialed, this is one of those supplements that you will notice some improvement. In particular, the harder you work out,

the more frequent you work out, the more you'll probably benefit from branch chaining no acids. So if you don't work out very intensely, if you're just an everyday average gym goer, you're probably not gonna get much out of branch ch in the glasses. But if you're training really hard and you're always teetering on the edge of overtraining and training enough, branching in the glasses can help keep you from that overtrain state. And I noticed a huge benefit from them when I used to train

and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because it was such such long grueling workouts. And I was trying to prevent myself from losing muscle. Branching amino acids made a big difference. So too, as far as the fastest state is concerned, I've heard people supplement branching amino acids in order to supplement for lean muscle. Yeah, so it prevents muscle breakdown. It reduces cortisol release. It reduces the stress response from

exercise. So you can work out hard. Take, by the way, if you take branching in the acids just throughout the day, it's not going to do much for you. You want to take it before, during and after you work out. Those are the times to take them. And you can overdo branching in the acids. Absolutely. Just like, you know, most people in supplement industry would like to tell you to take you know 10 times a recommended dose of their supplement because they want you to buy more bottles. Matter of fact, I've heard people buying these branching in my acid drinks and drinking them all day. I think it's gonna make them anabolic all day. If you take too many branching in my acids, you can't experience mental effects, depression being one of them.

Believe it or not, it could actually throw off serotonin in the brain. So if you're taking a shitload of branching in the glasses and you're wondering why you feel like an asshole, it's probably from the branching in the essence of my, you should be adjusting. Well, what about you? I'm hopped up on them right now. I'm not the biggest fan and what I, by fan, I don't mean that I disagree at all because 100% agree, I think exactly everything you said is so true.

But I've also ran them in and out of my diet and I haven't seen a huge difference. Probably, like you said, when I'm training really hard and that's hard to gauge, God, it's hard to measure that. But yeah, maybe enough, I've seen like a little bit faster recovery or able to power through and work out. We're normally gonna have to maybe take a day off sooner than when I had to. But we're talking so incremental, so a minimal amount.

And not enough for me to be like, that's a staple element that I make sure I always have. Like I run out of it, sometimes I'll be like, oh, should I have it in for like six months? Yeah. I order it when I get around to it or like that because I do believe in the science of it. And it's important, yeah, yeah be like, oh, should I have an had a for like six months? Yeah. Oh, already, when I get around to it or like that, because I do believe in the science of it, and it's important, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not

something that I could, here's the other thing too, amino acids are protein. I mean, when you, and we rotate a lot of our meats and foods and our sources of protein too, so we get a good balance of amino acids compared to the average person. So I, exactly, and I also think that a person who maybe doesn't get

enough and that that could be something that could really they might notice a huge difference. Maybe you're somebody who has a hard time getting your getting all your amino acids in and you have a you struggle with protein intake or whatever and maybe supplementing with that and adding that into your diet could help and maybe you would notice a bigger difference. Personally myself I've ran now multiple shows where I have allowed certain things in and out of my diet to see what the effects are. Like, okay, I'm running this diet like this and this time, I'm going to let Criatine and Branch Handling Acids and caffeine pills and these here are

some random things I'm going to throw in there and let's see how my body feels in comparison the last time I do this show or whatever. And you know, it's not one that was like, whoa, you know, I'll tell you what. It's not, it's not creating. I'm not gonna take it and be like, holy shit. I mean, creating energy level.

And you'll notice that at the time. Creating and caffeine. Creating and caffeine pills, I have felt more of a significant difference, immediate response or whatever than I ever have from any branch chanel amino acid or glutamine or any of those other recovery type. Well, by the way, branch chanel amino acids, we should specify what they are. They're loose scene, isolucine and valine.

And you'll see all these different blends of ranch immunosciences in terms of ratios. The ratio that's been studied the most and has the most positive studies supporting it is a two to one ratio of losing to both isolucine and valine. So if you have four grams of losing then having two grams of isolucine and valine is what, so you want something

that where you have twice as much losing is the other two, ranch immunosciences. But that being what, so you want something that where you have twice as much lucine as the other two, branch human acids. But that being said, if you're an endurance athlete, branch human acids make a big difference. So if you go and run a marathon, they actually did this study where they had people running marathons competitively. So when you're running a competitive marathon,

you're pushing yourself to the limit. And they had them supplement with branch human acids before, during and after. And they had them supplement with branching in the last days before, during and after. And the people that supplemented with them had like a, it was a significant reduction in illness, post workout illness. Well, think about what you're talking about. Now, you got somebody who is pushing the body at high intensity for longer than, we know that,

yeah, longer than 60 minutes. You start pushing longer than, I mean, you don't even have to be an endurance marathon, or you could be a basketball player, or somebody who, anyone who plays it, a sport like that that for yeah, and that's the point and that's the point I'm saying is if you're in that you're you're kind of at that line because you're working out a lot you're working out hard You know you're fasted or you're dieting Then you might you might notice a difference with branching in the last is if you're just the everyday regular person working out

You have adequate protein intake will you notice the difference with branching? I don't know, maybe, maybe probably not. I don't think so. I work out a lot, and I notice the difference when I take them, but it's just as Adam was saying, it's pretty my new. Yeah, and it's always one of those things I tell clients, like let's figure everything out, let's help first.

And then we can throw some rims on your car. You know what I'm saying? You know, there's no need to throw the rims on there if the engine ain't run right. Let's get the engine running right, tuned up, running cool. Yeah, don't put, you know, 5,000 all rims on your 82 Civic. Like let's get the car looking against your first. Yeah, yeah. So we put the spinners on it.

Definitely. All right, next question is from Decreative 1. It's a spell DA C R E 8 the number eight. That's a creative. That's a creative. Apparently she's creative. Oh, it's a girl. It's a girl.

This is the one that you were. Is the hot chick? This is the one you thought was hot. Yeah. So the creative one, Adam thought you were hot. Her question is when you're going to do cardio and lift weights in the same day, which one should you do first or for the same workout? Which one should you do first?

That's a good question. I like this question. It's a good question. It depends on your goal. If your goal is fat loss and endurance, excuse me, remove that, not fat loss. If your goal is endurance, you do cardio first. If your goal is strength, you lift weights first. If your goal is fat loss, you also lift weights first.

It's pretty, it's pretty black and white. So if your goal is fat loss and strength, then you want to lift first. But like I said, if you're in one of those endurance athletes and you're looking to train, you know, increase your VO2 max. The heart, the rate that you're working your heart, if you're doing cardio of pre workout, you're going to stay in that sort of state of high, your heart's going to work hard, that whole workout. Right. Right. Now, ideally, you'll probably want to separate them.

If you have to do hard cardio and hard weights, you're better off doing them separate times of the day, maybe come back and do that. We're healing and coming back. Yeah, you can play with all that kind of stuff. And I think there's definitely like room for individualized. Well, I was just, so what I want to, I think it's custom approaches to that. I think finding what works best for you is probably the most important. Because, and this goes back to keep recording. So I was probably the best code I ever said was the so par program being consistent is, you

know, if you, if like, let's say, for example, like I've played every, every, every way regardless of what my goal is and regardless of what, what's the science supports, what's the most ideal way to do it. So, so 100% correct. That's the way to do that. That's, that is the science. If you were starting from square one, you've never done anything. Here's your plan.

How you're going to draw it up. That's exactly how you should draw it up. Now, let's say you've been doing that for six months, six months, you've never done anything. Here's your plan, how you're gonna draw it up. That's exactly how you should draw it up. Now, let's say you've been doing that for six months. Six months, you always get up, you do your cardio for 30 minutes before, and then you do your training afterwards like that. And regardless of what your goal is, you simply throwing a curveball into your routine

and doing your cardio now, post is going to make a lot of things change. You're gonna have more energy now when you do your weight. So you might see some strength gains come up, which might in turn give you more fat loss and so in changing metabolism. So there's something to be said also about understanding that when we say something like that,

it doesn't mean like indefinitely this should always be in that order. And that's the best like what Salah is saying is, hey, if you are just starting your program, you're designing it, this is the most scientific way to approach this the best way starting off. But like I said, you've been going for a while, you know, and your, your body is mixed up, you'll probably, you'll see some change. Yeah. Right. Regardless of what it is, even if, whether you're performance, whether you're strength, whether you're somebody who's trying to do, if you've been doing this kind of

same routine of always doing that, your body your body is getting pretty adapted to doing that. And if the next best thing you could do to throw a little curveball, it is to switch gears. So yeah, excellent, excellent point. So the next question is from Oli Warren 44. Now the question is, what in terms of working out, what's the best time of day to optimize your circadian rhythm?

Is circadian or circadian rhythm? That's what I just was pronounced at circadian rhythm. So what is a circadian rhythm? This is the, I guess it's like your sleep cycle. So yeah, cycles that you go to sleep, you wake up, like your body gets adapted to the, that's why like if you don't have an alarm clock, a lot of times your body will wake up. Like almost like the same time, you know, that you always do, right?

It's adapted. It's adapted to that. So that's basically what they're talking about. This can be from an individual perspective, from individual to individual, it can be different. However, statistically speaking, most people, if they work out within an hour or two before going to bed, will have worse sleep.

So they say you wanna work out within an hour or two before going to bed, we'll have worse sleep. So they say, you know, they say you wanna work out at least two hours before you try to go to bed. Now, I've experienced this. If I train my butt off hard, even if I don't take a stimulant beforehand, and then I try to go to bed right afterwards, it kind of revved up. I'm revved up, it takes me like an hour or two

to kind of wind down. I can't live tonight, period. Period, after five o'clock, if I live to five o'clock, I'm having a restless night. I'm revved up. It takes me like an hour or two to kind of wind down. I can't lift a night period. Period. After five o'clock, if I lift it at five o'clock, I'm having a restless night. So it's really, yep. And it's for the exact reason. So you and that's another individual thing.

Exactly. For me, I can work out late at night, and then I just pass out. And I know we like that. Yeah, because it, you know, and for me, I would always argue that I'm depleting all the rest of my energy from the day. And then that's knocking me out and helping me sleep great.

But it's totally individual. Well, I think that if she really wanted to, she asked. So if she really wanted to find out, this is where you get one of those HRV tools, right? Exactly. I mean, if you really want to know that there's tools now that are out that you can purchase that will actually track your heart rate variance throughout the day and through the night and how you sleep and you could actually purchase that and test that yourself and say, oh, wow, look at this, when I work out at five.

I get the best quality of my sleep here versus the other time that I tested it doing it this way. And in my opinion, that would be the best way to answer this too, is to individualize it. Is to figure out what is best for you, because we all just share, and I think everybody's gonna have a difference opinion on their rest quality based on the work, and also to your performance. I mean, I know it's a difference in my performance.

I can't, I can get up if I have to and train at 6am. If I have to, if I have to train at can't, I've never, I can get up if I have to and train at 6 a.m. If I have to do, but if I have to train at 6 a.m. But dude, rarely ever, is it a great, yeah, rarely ever. I mean, I feel like the first 30 minutes of my workout is a warm up. Yeah. And then I only got 30 minutes left. And then it's like, you know what, I'm glad you brought that up because when they, when they do the studies on this, the average person's performance is best in the late morning, early afternoon. However, I will say this, the average person's performance is best in the late morning, early afternoon.

However, I will say this, if you're an athlete, if you're listening to the show right now, and you're an athlete, and you have a competition coming up, and you know you're going to have your game at noon, or you're going to have your game at 5 p.m., or whatever, then if you want to maximize your performance for that time, you should start training at that time. They've actually shown that if you train. So if you're going to make sure that you're doing it, so if you have a 7am, you know, wrestling match, then for at least five or six weeks beforehand, you should work out at 7am every day or when you work out at 7am because your body will learn to perform best at that time.

At a rotation machine, you're teaching it to get ready to get fired up at that time. Absolutely. I used to work out at 7am every single morning. at that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that time. At that. At that time. At that. At that. At that. At that. At that. At that. At that. At that time. At that time. At It was just painful for me to get up there and yeah, I would mean games like my performance was always best Around that time where I would play the game and so once I started training at like you know one o'clock Or something when I would have my games like I would feel energy surges. Yeah, so it's crazy But then all of that being said okay Don't get all technical with this if the only time of the day you can work out a 7 a.m., you gotta, yeah, not work out.

Then get off your ass and go work out a 7 a.m. Don't be like, other than nothing. Yeah, don't be like, mind pump said, the best time to work out. So I can't work out, obviously, it worked out today. Yeah, no. Yeah, I know. The best time to work out is the time you can work out.

Yeah, because, you know, you work, not everything, yeah. Please don't use us as a crutch for anything. Yeah. I think, not everybody has the luxury of working out, you know, I work not everything. Please don't use us as a crutch for anything. Yeah. I think not everybody has the luxury of working out. You know, I work out midday because, you know, I have clients the morning, clients at night. So I go midday and it's perfect.

I go to the gym, it's not as busy. Yeah. You know, right around noon, but most people can't do that. So I like five or six o'clock, but I mean, I'll train the middle of the day, but my best lifts are always at like five or six in the afternoon. So where are you lifting when you do it?

Oh, you're lifting at where you train. It's not It's not packing well. No, I won't lift there. I'll lift over either at Santa Cruz Power Fitness or the At that time is it packed? Yeah, it's I mean, it's I do too, but that's you know, you're used to it because I was used to it for a really long time I used to train after work for a while back in two four days and I tell you what like I've been used to it for a really long time as I used to train after work for a while back in two, four days. And I tell you what, like I've been so accustomed to working out like noon or one having the whole gym to myself. I feel like it's such a snob when I get in late at night because I'm like,

I know. These people doing it here, noxious. Yeah. And it's like, it reminds me of being a trainer again where I always had to be creative and I always had to be thinking of something else. I go find something else.

Where now it's like, like where now I like, I in my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm starting with dead lips. I have for sure when I do that. Then I wanna do this. Where now it's like, where now I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm starting with dead lips. I have for sure when I do that. And then I want to do this. And then when I get to her, like every rack suddenly. Fuck that.

Yeah, I'm like, what am I gonna do, right? I'm gonna start on that. And before when I was trying to- I was like, I'd be like, whatever, I would do something else and then figure it out. But when I'm like, right now, when I really, really wanna do something and then it's taking, I'm like-

Dude, that's happened to me twice at the gym where I go in all the racks you're taking. And I'm like the biggest asshole. I just hover. I just stand behind you with my back remember you got yeah No, no, I don't even say that I just stand there with my bag, you know Yeah, I'm watching to work out. I'll wait you've done like three or four sets and I'll be like, yeah How many do you have left like okay? It's time to get off bro the best is where they go seven like after three like yeah That's a 10 set day shit Of course the guy I asked.

Yeah, of course the guy I asked is on 10 set day fuck. This guy. Do more leg presses. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal, Adam and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is MindPump.