Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1067: The 5 Biggest Lies in Fitness

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin pull back the curtain on the fitness industry and reveal five of the biggest lies in fitness promoted by social media influencers, bodybuilders and supplement companies. The cultural phenomena of old media. (2:13) The Biggest Myths and Lies in Fitness. (5:05) #1 – The romantic notion of ‘beast mode’. (7:01) #2 – How all exercises are NOT created equal. (27:20) #3 – The meal frequency myth. (39:20) #4 – How we have been OVERSOLD on the health benefits of supplements. (50:30) #5 – Because someone looks the part, they have the knowledge and wisdom. (1:01:00) Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “ANYWHERE50” at checkout** Overtraining Is KILLING Your Gains! (How Much Is Too Much?) | Mind Pump TV How Often Should I Go to the Gym? Exercises That You Probably Aren’t Doing That You Should Be Doing For Maximum Muscle Gain International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: meal frequency The Meal Frequency Myth Bulking, Meal Timing, and Gains!! (QUAH # 1) | MIND PUMP 'Take portion sizes back to the 1950s to beat obesity,' say scientists who warn servings have ballooned Not All Protein Is Created Equal (PROTEIN POWDER GUIDE) Are Any Supplements Worth The Cost? Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Oh boy, this episode has to be one of my favorites. I love it. We get into the five biggest lies. You're just like wrestling feathers. Oh, it's a good time.

It's old school mind-pum style. We talk about the following five lies and fitness that are causing the most damage. There's the whole beast mode intensity lie. There's the do all these weird, stupid exercises lie. There's the meal frequency lie. There's the supplements make the biggest impact out of everything lie. And then of course, our our favorite the lie that somebody Somebody just because someone shredded and they look good that they know what they're talking about

So in this episode we go into all of those lies and then we give you the answers We talk about why their lies why they exist and then we give you the answers To help you get to your fitness goals faster also before we get into get into that episode, this month, Maps Anywhere is 50% off. Now, Maps Anywhere is the program that requires no gym access. So it's different. If you're constantly working out with dumbbells and barbells, this program is different.

It's mostly body weight and bands. It's still extremely effective. It is suitable for beginners, all the way up to advanced people. It is scalable in terms of its intensity. Very effective. It's also great for travel and it's great to mix things up. If you've been working out a particular way for a long time, do four weeks of maps anywhere and watch your progress skyrocket.

A lot of movements are closed chain movements. They help with body awareness. They help with building muscles, sculpting and shaping the body and the core. Lots of core activation when you do a lot of these movements. It's 50% off. Here's what you do to get the discount. Go to maps white.com. That's M-A-P-S-W-H-I-T-E.com and use the code anywhere 50 A and Y-W-H-E-R-E-5-0 for the discount. And so that's it without any further ado, here we are talking about the five biggest lies in fitness.

Torest you radio. Hey, are we listening to fucking radio a long time? Radio. Yeah, too many commercials. You mean like regular radio? Like regular radio. I listen every morning. Do you?

Yeah, but like sports or yeah, sports talk. Yeah, so I listen to my regular radio. I listen every morning. Do you? Yeah, but like sports. Yeah, sports talk. Yeah, so I listen to my regular radio is hilarious. I don't think anybody really listens to like regular it be it's annoying Yeah, you think nobody you think nobody listens to it, but it's still it's still yeah, it's still the numbers Yeah, it's still consumed at very very high levels. I don't I don't think so No, I don't think so at I, no, I don't think so at all, actually, that, especially now with like a Spotify and every other sound cloud, you have the ability, like, let's say you like a song that you found on the radio, okay? You, you can make a station all around that.

And it just did, oh, no, no doubt, no doubt. New media is better across the board, but lazy old people. But they're still, like for example, it's like bodybuilding.com, bro. Yeah. It still exists. It still exists. People are coming to the book.

Yeah, that's the, just hold on by a thread. Yeah, exactly. It's the, you know, they're trying to, it's too relevant. I mean, most of these, most of these DJs, they have, they started their own podcast now or,

they convert the show to a podcast format. Yeah, that's because we know they know the direction it's going. But today, for example, a majority of Americans consume their news from mainstream news networks. Majority of Americans watch TV networks. So they're still in the lead, but it's shrinking. Oh, I'm getting pissed. There's still, you know why?

There's still a lot of 80-year-olds alive, that's why. Yeah. You say like, a lot of truckers, a lot of that. Yeah, give it 20 more years, dude. Well, think about it. 20 more years, obsolete. Well, think about the, it's, remember, it's cold, watch out there.

Just, think about culture. That's cold. It's a cultural phenomenon, right? Media is kind of what shaped, it's part of the modern society. And so if everybody for a long time has been consuming media a certain way, it takes a second for it to switch over,

but it's happening fast, very, very quickly. I mean, we're talking like five to 10 years, it'll be completely, it'll be like newspapers. Remember, newspapers were how people consumed most of their news and written form for a long time. And then it went from there to, like, do you know anybody that reads newspapers? They're almost all gone.

I mean, I use it for kindling. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys remember the San Jose Mercury news? It was one of the number one newspapers in America. And it used to be thick, it was huge. I don't even know if it doesn't even exist anymore. I think it does.

It's like five pages of ads. The most annoying part of radio or TV, you go back now to all these commercials. I can't even sit through it. I'll mute it, I'll leave the room. It's crazy, like how intolerant you are towards it now. Well speaking of media, this actually leads to an awesome topic because when we were growing up and first getting into working out,

all of us grew up mainly in working out, I'd say, in the 90s. We, the main source of information through media for fitness was different than it is today, right? Like most of the places I got my information from were muscle building magazines, flex, muscle and fitness, Iron Man, muscle media 2000, muscle mag, I mean, I can name them all. And I used to buy them every single time they came out. And books also.

Especially our space, because it wasn't big enough for popular enough to make mainstream TV. No, no. You weren't getting any information regarding fitness like from a TV at all. No, if you did, it was because you bought a workout video. Right.

That told you how to work out or whatever. And so that's where we got all of our information. And a lot of it was terrible. A lot of it was bad information. And so the promise with new media is that because new media's, you can communicate so much more information and you can hear from so many more people, the promises that we're gonna get,

access to better information. But there's a double-sided that too, which is lots of misinformation. Lots of misinformation. And I'm surprised at how the same myths that we grew up believing that we realized were false are the same lies and myths that are still continue to be promoted. Yeah, well, it works once. You know, like that's something that you can always go back to and like all these old tricks and gimmicks that marketers have figured out, wow, we got a lot more clicks because we showed this crazy transformation that's almost

unreal and we just slap our supplement right next to it and it's sold like crazy. And if that still works today, it's unfortunate. Let's cover what we think is the biggest lies in the space. Like the ones that just people believe, the ones that are most damaging, the ones that we had, that we ourselves believe for a long time. Let's cover those because those are the ones

that are really insidious, the ones that still won't die. I know for me one of the biggest myths and lies that I unraveled, which took me years, maybe even a decade of extra training my body and training other people, was the whole myths surrounding intensity and how hard you train and how that was it. That was everything, like it was all about beast mode,

it was all about just training hard. And if you did that, you get great results. Well, I like you starting there because I feel like of all the lies that come to mind for me, that one probably stuck with me the longest. That one, I probably did the longest and fell into that trap myself. And I also remember my first experience

of coming into using platforms like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. I didn't use any of that before. Like I wasn't into that. And when I got into using it for building a business purposes, and I started, you know, right away, I start following a bunch of fitness accounts. I realized really quick, like, whoa, this is bad. Now, by that time I've now figured out that's not the answer, but it took me years of falling

into that trap from all the, like you said, all the magazines and the hype videos. Like, I mean, I for sure would, you know, YouTube and watch it running Coleman workout or back then I had DVDs and even probably some cassettes if I go far enough back in my collection of these workout videos. back then I had DVDs and even probably some cassettes if I go far enough back in my collection of these workout videos of guys just crushing it and I'd watch that get hyped up and go to the gym and just crush yourself. Yeah, no, it was, I mean we used to train like my buddy is an eye when we were in our early 20s and until you threw up like if you didn't train that hard then you weren't going to see the results that these guys on these magazines and these videos

were that's what separated them for me. Was that their level of intensity? It was a super hard one for me. Especially in that athletic world, this plays, this praise off of that mentality that you're always trying to do the hardest workout you possibly could do, because you think that's what makes it the best,

and that's what's gonna make me the most resilient and strongest, and that's still. Like that was one of those things where, that followed me throughout my career of training even. What makes this particular lie so insidious and so pervasive is that it's romantic, right? It's a romantic notion. Like, if I could just, it's like heroic.

If I could just train hard enough, if I had the guts to go in the gym and beat myself up hard enough, then then I would deserve, and for sure I would deserve and get all the results and progress that I ever wanted. And it's romantic to watch videos of people beating themselves up in the gym and hearing their struggles.

It's like any other story that you hear. It just invokes this inspiration. And here's the problem with it. There's a little bit of truth in there. I was just gonna say, I was gonna interrupt you and say, there is though, that what makes it dangerous or tough to combat, and I think of that with at least.

This is with all the lies that I'm gonna put in. I'm going through all the lies in my head that come to mind and like for the most part, most of them have some validity to them because there's some science to support the benefits of it. And that's what the fitness industry's been notorious for doing, which is taking a little bit of science, taking a little bit of truth and information, and then expanding on it, and then just bastardizing it.

And that's what I feel like we've done with beast mode and all-out and intensity-driven type workouts, is it's turning you into a martyr and it's like who can train the hardest gets the most results. And they back it up with showing these cases of, so if you took a workout, a single workout, and compared somebody who went low to moderate level intensity and we measured all their markers and then you measured somebody who got after it. Well, there's a lot of things that would happen. The person who got after it intensely wise, more than likely is going to have more volume, get a burn more calories. And in a short term study, which show like, obviously, this person who worked much harder for this workout compared to the other one, burn more calories, potentially burn more fat,

potentially burn more muscle. And in a very small study, which show, well, that must make it, I mean, it's better. It's easier for people to understand like the stark contrast of like, that was too easier, this is too hard. And like to be able to kind of like understand that there's a smarter process to it, there's a gray zone, there's like a threshold of, you know, where you're not going to see as much gains from that instead of just like going all in or all, are not going all in. Like it's almost easier psychologically for you to be like, well, I'm just gonna press as hard as I can

or I'm just not gonna do it. Well, because the problem is that people don't realize that the process by which your body burns, body fat, builds muscle, improves its performance is an adaptation process. And with that adaptation process are limiting factors. Now, if we were super humans and there were no limiting factors and our adaptation, aka our body's ability to build muscle and bar body fat, was directly tied to just how hard and long we worked out

and there were no limiting factors, then the sky would be the limit. The harder you worked out, the longer you worked out, the more results you would get the better you would adapt. Unfortunately, our bodies have natural limiting factors, which are quite individual. They depend on your genetics, they depend on your current level of fitness, they depend on your nutrition, your ability to sleep, how well you sleep, all those things,

determine these limiting factors. And if you surpass your body's ability to cope with the intensity to adapt to the intensity by surpassing those limiting factors, not only will your body fail to adapt in the way that you wanted to, but it may actually start to regress because now you're creating too much, so much damage and so much problems for your body that you're not going to progress at all. And the problem with this is that for the people who are, again, I talk about this because it's a sexy message, just train harder and you'll get better results. But it also feeds into this self punishment attitude that we tend to get when we're disgusted with ourselves Mm-hmm. If you're listening and you're somebody who you're overweight, you're out of shape

You're you're looking the mirror. You're like that's it. I can't stand anymore. I got to do something about this You're kind of sick of yourself, right? You're a little bit like irritated like that's it I got to go do something about this and so part of this beast mode mentality also feeds into that punishment I'm in the gym and I'm beating myself up. You know what I deserve it. I haven't worked out in so long. I've eaten terribly for years. I'm 40 pounds overweight.

I deserve all this pain. And so it feeds into that. And it actually makes you kind of feel better. In the moment, it makes you feel better because you're like, yeah, I just punished myself for all that bad shit that I did. Oh, and also, I've heard that training real hard and the harder I train, the better results I'm gonna get.

So this is a good thing. It's not. This is one of the biggest lies in fitness, but it's also the one that I think is prevented people from progressing consistently long-term, almost more than any of the time that I can think of. Well, I also think too that what's tied into this process

is the fact that you get sore. You get sore after a hard workout or something you haven't done for a while. And that feeling of sore feels like you've accomplished. Like you've accomplished it. Like this is what you have to feel every time you do a workout. And so when people don't feel sore, it feels like a problem.

And it feels like, you know, this is something that's like roped in and integrated with training. Yeah, I would say, here's the thing that people need to understand when it comes to intensity, okay? It's very, very individual. And to get your body to progress,

all you have to do is train your body just beyond what it's typically used to. Just beyond. That's about as far as you need to go. So if I take somebody, just to give you an extreme example, who, let's say I had somebody who has been bed ridden for a year, they've been in bed for a full year, haven't been able to walk, just getting that person to step outside the bed, stand up, take a few steps, and then get back into bed. That movement alone is far more than their bodies used to.

That movement will cause the body to want to adapt by getting stronger. Now, as they get stronger, that means that the movement's gonna have to now match their current level, and it's gonna have to, I'm gonna have to move it up to move it up i'm have to amplify which is why when you see somebody who's super fit super dialed in incredible genetics maybe even on anabolic steroids and they're training at an intensity that's just unfathomable well the reason why they're trained at that intensity is that's now what what their body may be requires to get them

to respond even more well i love to give people the analogy when I'm trying to explain how we should or should not use intensity, like comparing it to like an ultra marathon, because your fitness journey is more like an ultra marathon than it is like a sprint. And if you treat the ultra marathon like a sprint and you come out the gates as hard as you can, like you know, you would in a sprint because you're trying to get to point eight to point B as queries you can and it's a short distance. He's going to about a mile.

Right. You get about a mile and then you're gas and then you're probably, you're going to be walking. If you give it all you got for, you know, a mile or two or however long you got in that gassing, eventually you die out. You will not get through an ultra marathon running your hardest right out the gates. Well, the same thing applies when we're trying to build muscle or burn body fat. If you come out the gates and you throw

the whole kitchen sink at your body, right out the gates, sure, the first mile, the first week or two, you're gonna see more results than you would if you just got up and started walking around like to your point. Sure, in that short term, but that unfortunately our health and fitness goals are not short-term goals. They're long-term goals, and therefore they're a long journey, and it takes you a while

to get there. So you should approach it in the same manner. My goal is to actually, again, and I say this in the show all the time, I'm always trying to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. I wanna give my body just, like you're saying, Sal, if I've been laying in bed, getting up and walking around is going to send a signal for my body to adapt.

Well, translate that into weight training and exercise. If you haven't done any exercise whatsoever, just use showing up with a gym and doing some really lightweight or bodyweight type of exercises. That's perfect. It's perfect. It's more than enough because it's way outside

of what you were doing just the week before. And then you slowly build on top of that. And it has to be one of the number one mistakes that I see still today. And I feel it's increasing when we see things like F-45, orange, theory, crossfit, because they all feed into that beast mode intensity mentality of getting into these classes that are circuit based and train as hard as you possibly can

every day you hit the workout. And sure, for about four to six weeks, and that depends on the body, because everybody's different, but typically four to six weeks, people see pretty good results. But it's inevitable that eventually the body adapts to that level of intensity, that type of training, and then you have to ask yourself, do you got more in the tank? Can you add more days, more intensity, more time, and eventually you run out of those things?

And it's not only that, but the risk of injury and then overcoming your body's ability to adapt to become real risks when you over apply intensity. If you take somebody and you just train them way beyond the amount of intensity that their body needs to start to change and get stronger and build muscle and burn body fat. If you train them too hard, you overcome their body's ability to adapt because they can't recover from it.

They just can't do it and they end up regressing because you keep breaking muscle down, you keep causing more and more damage. The other thing is this is that with intensity, we tend to think that we value intensity so much that we negate other aspects of exercise that are also very important. For example, if you practice exercises daily at sub, you know, maximum intensities, at moderate or even low intensities, does that mean you're not going to get any benefit? No, you can still get tremendous benefit. If I go to the gym and I do barbell squats at, you know, 40% intensity, but I practice perfect form and I do them every single day, that will

also cause my body to build muscle. That will also cause me to get better at squatting. So it's not, there isn't a one-size-fits-all, there isn't a, just go to the gym, hammer yourself, it's hard as you possibly can and that's what's gonna cause body to change. No, you can lower the intensity, increase the frequency of training.

Yeah, I thought of this. I started to think of this more as like, there's an actual dose that's right. You know, every time I go into the gym that I need to try and like shoot for. And I was thinking about it because when I was playing baseball and you know, I was pitching at the time, like duh, it makes perfect sense.

If I'm gonna try and throw as hard as I can every single ball, like I'm during practice. If I'm practicing and I'm trying to throw a fastball every single time, like how long would I last with my arm? My arm would not last that long. And I'm doing the same thing in the gym. Like I was going that hard every time I was doing a workout,

and then it just dawned on me. It's like I have to treat this more like practice. This is practice. I'm building upon something. Every now and then I can test myself. Well, this is fine. This is also the reason why we don't work out together. It's rare that the three of us, it's rare that the three of us

are in the exact same place with the same goals and same levels of intensity and volume that we should all be at. And just to your point, Justin, I know I've been doing this long enough now, and I still don't have this perfected, but I have a pretty good idea of today's workout when I go in the gym about how much I need to give it. And anything over that is, in my opinion, wasted.

There's no reason for me to go beyond that, because if anything, what that ends up doing is making me too sore, which I know is then going to hinder tomorrow's workout, which then sets me back on my progression that I want to make week over week. So my goal is to, again, go into the gym and do just what I need to do. I don't want to do what Justin needs to do today or what Sal needs to do today. I want to do what I need to do for myself because I want, if I'm going to be spending my time in the gym working out, I want the maximum results that I can get from it. I'm not into ego lifting.

I don't want to go there and prove that I can hang with Justin or I can outlive Sal, like, I don't give a shit about that. I give a shit about my results. And if that means that I'm in a different place than the two of you right now, whether that be way less volume and intensity or way more volume intensity, I want to train accordingly. This is also why I just, I'm not really a big fan of training partners for that reason. It's just rare that two people need the same dosage

of training at the same time, unless they were following the same program. A lot of things very similar than maybe they can get away with it a little bit. But for the most part, you should be doing what your body needs and right to that limit, not trying to go beyond that because the more you go beyond that, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get more results.

I learned this lesson. It took me probably about 10 to maybe 12, 13 years of training my body and then training clients to really learn this. I learned this lesson for my clients early. Early on, I learned this as a trainer where, wow, if I train Mrs. Johnson too hard, she just doesn't progress. And I need to train her appropriately. And I learned that real fast.

But for whatever reason, and trainers listening right now know exactly what I'm talking about, you always apply the truth to yourself last for whatever reason you think that you're different than your clients, maybe because you think you're genetically gifted or whatever, you whatever, or I'm more hardcore. It took me years to apply this to myself, but I remember like it was yesterday when I finally did this, I was reading articles on studies on lifting to failure.

Now lifting to failure is when you lift a weight until you can't lift it anymore. So if I do 10 reps in a bench press, that 10th rep is the last rep and I fail at it and then I'm done with the set. And I always thought that you had to lift to failure to maximize progress. That was the level of intensity. That was the minimum level of intensity you needed

to cause the body to really build a lot of muscle. Well, I remember reading the study and in the study it compared lifting to failure to not lifting to failure. And what in the study it compared lifting to failure to not lifting to failure. And what it found was that not lifting to failure actually built more muscle in this particular study. And I thought, this is kind of crazy.

And then I read some more articles with bodybuilders talking about why they don't lift to failure. And I said, well, maybe that's, this is something I should try. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I did my normal workout. And instead of going to failure and every set like I always did, I stopped about one or two reps short of it. And by this point, I'd been working out so long that I could tell, you know, you guys know this, right?

Where you do a workout and you get something new and you could tell right away like, oh, this is something that's effective. That workout alone, I did it and I felt like so different, a better pump, better connection. The next workout, I was stronger, the next workout, I was stronger, and then that was it. I realized at that point that intensity

can be overdone, oftentimes I was overdoing it, and dropping the intensity allowed me to do more exercises, more volume, more frequency, which then allowed my body to progress even faster. It was one of the greatest lessons I'd ever learned. Now, for the science nerds that are listening right now, they're going, that, well, I've read studies that show the benefits of going to failure and training

with intensity and how important is, absolutely. But the analogy that I give to somebody like this is think of it like nitrous for your engine. And anybody that understands how NOS works, how it shoots coal there into your engine, and it's super, super strong. And you get understands how NOS works, how it shoots cold air into your engine, and it's super, super strong. And you get this crazy rush of horsepower, horsepower out of nowhere in your car speeds up

and accelerates faster than it would without it. That's kind of like what happens when you decide to go to failure or if you decide to train at your highest level of intensity for that workout. Hell yeah, there's some benefits to doing that. But if you were to hit NOS every single time you're driving all over the place you eventually would blow the engine and your body is the same way too if you train every time by pushing the limits like that it will it will revolt it will push back on you

and it goes into survival most is this motherfucker's pound in the shit out of me I don't want it to explode so if you won't see the same results so you it's it's not that we're saying that you don't use intensity or you don't ever go to failure. It just needs to be appropriate. Yeah, you use it judiciously. There's a way that you apply it in your programming and it's another tool in your tool belt.

It's not something that should be done almost every single workout. And I think that was something that I was definitely guilty of doing is every single workout trying And I think that was something that I was definitely guilty of doing is every single workout trying to bring you. Oh yeah, you mix hard work ethic with some body image issues and you put them in the gym and you're going to get someone's going to beat them. That's it. I mean, here's the bottom line. The bottom line with this particular lie is this, be honest and consider your current level of fitness and your current lifestyle.

How is your sleep? How is your nutrition? And have you been working out consistently and how fit are you truly? Now how much damage and punishment you can take, but how fit are you at this moment? And then apply intensity appropriately. It's got to be appropriate for your body. If you do this, your body will progress faster, you'll build more muscle, you'll burn more body fat, and you'll gain better health

with the appropriate application of intensity. In other words, more intensity is not always better, and oftentimes it isn't better for most people. The other lie that I think in this tie is right into this, and I think this is worse today than it was way worse today than it was when we were working out is the whole it's some of the stupid exercises that I see people doing on social media. We could take the Instagram for that. It's like the it's like times a million. It's so much worse today than it was when we first started working out. I mean when we first started working out. I mean, when I first started working out, and I was reading bodybuilding magazines, you

did see certain cable exercises and techniques and finishing movements, if you will, that were for bicep peak, which is not true, squeezing the quad, developing the teardrop of the quad or whatever. And they were exercises that were not effective as the big, most effective exercises. But at least when I was reading about them in these muscle building magazines, they were exercises that were not effective as the big most effective exercises. But at least when I was reading about them in these muscle building magazines, they said things like these are advanced techniques, do this at the end of your workout,

make sure you still do your core lifts. Today, I think it's gotten way worse. Well, I also think that, and I think, I also think that it's partially for like us trainers, I remember that it used to be a thing to when you had a new client who came in, you would throw the most creative workout you possibly could have.

Oh, it was always. Yes. And I know that part of that was just my insecurity as a training to not understand programming that well and know what my client needs. Instead trying to impress them with teaching them something new that they didn't know what to do needs, instead trying to impress them with teaching them something new that they didn't know what to do.

And so they would come in the gym and I'm like, well, I can't just show them a squat and a bench press and an overhead press. Everybody knows what that is. I've got to do this lying side cable kickback balancing thing on a Bosu ball because they've never seen that before. It looks awesome.

Every lunge, every squat involved and involve the curl or red press. Right. Right? Yeah. You've got to throw in some upper body stuff. Right, right. And so, maximize. I do believe that a lot of this is our fault.

You know, I feel guilt. This is one of the things that motivates me about Mind Pump every day is, because I know it's a lot of the passion behind everything that we do is this to correct part of the problem that I think that we helped promote. And this is one of them. And I remember this having trainers that worked for me that the whole staff was like this. Everybody was who could come up with the most clever, ridiculous workout.

And it wasn't like we went into thinking that way. It wasn't like I was writing like, oh, this is going to be ridiculous. I was like, they're never gonna know what this is. Or this is gonna be so new, and this is gonna blow their mind. I just learned this exercise last week. Right. That was what I thought.

Right, and so I think that, and we still, and we see this to the 10th degree, now with Instagram, right? Like everyone, it's accelerated, like crazy. Oh, it's unreal how much is it so? It's terrible. Here's the bottom line. Not all exercises are created equal. Hands down. Some exercises are just vastly superior in all aspects. Some exercises

are phenomenal at building functional strength, at building muscle, burning body fat, speeding up the metabolism, strengthening your joints, giving you better mobility, all those things, and some exercises are terrible at those things. Some exercises have a high risk versus reward ratio. Others have a lower one. Some movements, you can get good reward from doing them, but the risk is so high that they're not exercises that you would really ever apply to most people.

Some exercises, the risk is very, very low, and the reward is high enough to where you have most people do these exercises. So at the end of the day, and I think people know this intuitively, I think people know that all exercises are not created equal. So it's so understanding that it's crazy how so many, especially in social media, they sell movements that are largely ineffective when you compare those movements to other movements. Now here's the problem, and this is why

there's some truth to this. Again, like we talked about, why this one is such an insidious lie, is that all exercises, or if you're doing them right, not hurting yourself, are better than no exercises. I mean, that's true. Like if you want to them right, not hurting yourself, are better than no exercises. I mean, that's true. Like, if you want to build a, you want to work on building your butt and you go to the gym

and you do a bunch of donkey kickbacks and hip-hip-hip-up duck chin and, you know, glute squeezes with the band and you're doing a million reps, better than sitting at home on the couch and watch a TV. Yes, definitely. But if you compare it to like, barbell squat, hip thrust, deadlift, not in the same galaxy, TV. Yes, definitely. But if you compare it to like, Barbell Squat, hit the rust, deadlift,

not in the same galaxy, not in the same universe. Not even close to that. And I like talking about this one because this is partially how we really got connected. And what I mean by that is, I was really just really, really figuring this out when you and I first started talking. And it's what really turned me on about what you were doing with Doug with maps and

a ball. And I had really just started because I definitely came from that camp of the guy who just threw everything at the kitchen sink. I used to, in fact, I used to say this. I used to pride myself on, no, I never repeated a workout. I would never do the same workout again. I was the muscle confusion idea, always throwing different things at the body,

thinking that that was the ideal way for change in my physique to confuse the shit out of it by doing different exercises. And it wasn't long before, when you and I got connected, that I really start getting back to like traditional compound lifts. And what I had just pieced together myself before we met was,

holy shit, I was working out less, doing way less exercises, way less time in the gym, and my body was seeing more results than seven days in the week, throwing 12, 15 different exercises in a workout, and it had blown my own mind. And it's like one of those things that I knew better, but I hadn't, again, I was applying it to clients, but I hadn't applied it to myself yet.

And I had just started applying it to myself and saw what a huge difference it was. And then here you and I get connected on Facebook, we start talking, you send over the first promo video that you had done with Doug, I looked over the program, and I'm like, oh my God, this is the message that everybody needs to hear right now.

Get back to the basics. I mean, you're spinning your wheels when you have that mentality, that muscle confusion. It's like, you never allow yourself to fully get good at an exercise. And that's really what the training is about. Like we're trying to train our body to master these types of movements that are very effective in muscle building.

And so allow your body to get good at it and be measurable about it. Well, look at, look at sports. Look at all sports. We can even talk about martial arts, okay? You could take somebody who goes and studies, you know, kung fu at some McDojo, you know, school in America and learns, who McDojo? Yeah, learns, you know, 2000 varieties of kicks and punches and this and that. And you put them in a ring with somebody who's been just boxing, it learns, you know, 2,000 varieties of kicks and punches and this and that. And you put them in a ring with somebody who has been just boxing, American boxing for

a couple years. And American boxing teaches you like four punches. What is it? A jab, a straight, a hook, and an uppercut. I mean, that's it. But the way that you execute those punches and the combinations is really what makes it beautiful. And this is why boxers are such effective fighters in comparison to people

who learn 50 million different punches and kicks but never really master any of them. It's very similar to this is all sports. Look at the best athletes in the world, the best teams in the world are they the fanciest or are they the ones that master the basics. This is true with exercise. You go to the gym and you master the basics, you're gonna build more muscle, you're going to burn more body fat, you're gonna get far better results. The guy or girl who goes to the gym and practices barbell squats, maybe some kind of a lunge and a Romanian deadlift and just perfects those,

is gonna get far better results than the person who goes to the gym and does 50 different leg machines, leg extension, leg curls, lying down, sitting up, you know, all the different varieties of isolation movements. They're going to get far better results and they'll be more functional. I love the fact that you compare it to sports too because like sports, learning the fundamentals and drilling the fundamentals can be boring. And I know that's what drives people to try new as human, it's way through to that clients

through all the different exercises. As humans, we gravitate towards novelty, right? It's just, we know that. And so throwing new exercises, like, oh cool, new thing for me to learn. I'm excited about it. Oh, squats again. I did squats last week.

You know, oh, bench press again. I did that last week also. But mastering those fundamentals. It takes a long time. That's what will make you a champion. It is. And that's why I love that you use the analogy with sports because it is true.

It's, you could see that when all the greatest sports stories, when you hear of these great incredible teams, it's a collection and a group of players that understood this, that understood that they were going to execute the fundamentals better than everybody else and then build upon that versus trying to learn all this new fancy stuff and implement new systems and try to get fair shoots and rubber bands

and all this other shit that they're adding in. It's like, no, let's get to really what works and just focus on that and do the tedious stuff that's gonna build us and on our strength and make us better athletes. Right, it's like, look, it would be like, I used to use this example to clients all the time. It's like someone tells you to go dig a hundred-foot hole

and you have the option between a spoon, a shovel, and a backhoe. And now, obviously, you're gonna pick the backhoe because the backhoe is gonna pick up the most dirt each time. But what if I went over and I said, you know what, I'm gonna use a spoon, but I'm gonna perfect the spoon. I'm gonna pick up the most dirt each time. But what if I went over and I said, you know what, I'm gonna use a spoon, but I'm gonna perfect the spoon.

I'm gonna do all the different techniques with this. Good job, that's great. But at the end of the day, the backhoe just picks up more dirt. At the end of the day, a barbell squat, a deadlift, an overhead press, bench presses, rows, split stance squats. At the end of the day, they move the most dirt. There is no exercise, there are no other exercises

that can compare to those movements in terms of sheer amount of results. So you can do all these sideways chest presses on your hammer strength machines and cable twisting movements and ankle lifting movements with the cables and squeeze the small area here and squeeze that and squeeze it. You can do all that. And there is some value to doing these to help you with connection, maybe adding more volume and frequency, but please do not get confused. They do not come close to those big basic movements

in terms of results. In fact, if you go to the gym and you only have three days a week to go to the gym, stop wasting your time with all those silly exercises because you are literally wasting time that you could be spending on movements and exercises that are gonna give you far better results. I mean, if I take, again, we can use sports.

If I take an athlete and I get them really, really good at squats, they're gonna run faster and stronger and be more explosive than someone who masters, I don't know, leg extensions, hip abduction, one leg of leg curls, and all these other exercises that just don't even compare. I mean, to take it even further, I could take one of these big, basic fundamental movements, and you can pick 10 silly, small, you know,

weird movements, and they're not gonna compare to that one. It's true. I could do 10 sets of barbell squats, and I'll get better results than if you did, you know, 10 sets of 10 other of these small machine type exercises. For most people, that's literally how effective they are. And so if you're, if you're the kind, look, if you're the kind of pur, if you got, if you can throw tons of volume at your body, you've been training for a long time, you've just got time to waste and you need more volume and frequency in your workouts and you want to throw a bunch of weird stuff at yourself.

By all means, do it and you may actually even benefit. But if you're like, if you're the average person, you're like, look, I can work out three to five days a week. I want to maximize my time in the gym, which means I want to build muscle, speed up on my metabolism, burn body fat, just look the best. I have an hour to spend in the gym, like pick from the list of movements that are truly the most effective ones, and most of them are these compound barbell dumbbell type movements. Now, these are some of the biggest lies that we remember being a part of

and we still see today involving, you know, exercise and inside the gym. But what about stuff that's related to like nutrition, like eating? And the first thing that comes to mind when I think of that is a thing that I did for a very long time, which was falling into the trap of believing that, you know, eating frequent meals would speed my metabolism. Oh gosh, I did that one forever. Long time.

Forever. I used to literally bring, when I owned my wellness facility, I would come to work and I'd have seven meals with me. Literally, would have seven Tupperwares with, yeah, ground beef and rice or tilapian rice and broccoli and they all were like photocopies of themselves because who the hell makes seven different meals. And I remember, I would train 10 clients a day.

So I would literally train a client or two, then the next person would come in and warm up for five minutes or from over, I'd go in the back and shovel in my, you know, one of my meals. And it was every other hour. And that's because I believe this myth so hard. Like I was so bought in,

when I finally realized that this was a myth and it was a lie, it was probably gosh, it's like the Wizard of Oz. You know, when you watch the Wizard of Oz, the original one and they pull the sheep back and there's a dude operating the big wizard. And everybody's like, like the whole life was a lie. What?

That's exactly what I felt like. Now there are, here's the problem with this, just like the other ones. There's a little bit of science. 100% To support it. 100% For example, every time you eat, there's something eat, there's something known as a thermic effect.

So every time you eat food, your body's metabolism speeds up a little bit. The reason why this is happening is because your body has to wake up, your digestive system is digesting food, processing it. So you're burning some more calories, you get a bit of what's called a thermic effect. So then the theory is, well, cool, if we get a thermic effect when we eat, we'll just eat all day and that means we're gonna burn lots of more calories.

Well, this isn't true because the thermic effect matches the amount of food and digestion that has to happen with your food. So in other words, if I eat six small meals, I get six small thermic effects. If I eat two large meals, I get two large thermic effects. And if the total amount of calories and everything is equal, the thermic effects are essentially the same.

There is no benefit to eating more frequently, smaller meals versus eating less frequently, larger meals in that particular sense. Now there's some people that are probably listening that are like, well, I felt like every time I do the small meal thing, I see better results and this and that. Now there's some people that are probably listening that are like, well, I felt like every time I do the small meal thing, I see better results and this, so there is some value to it. And so even though I learned this myth, there were still times where I had somebody portion that out.

And there's value to it in this sense where teaching people portion control. We live now in a place where, and I used to love the infographic or meme you've seen before of like what a cheeseburger and a french fry and a coke used to look like in the 50s, in the 70s. Oh, it's so different. Yeah, and it's our portion size today

as an American is ridiculous. I mean, anywhere you eat, it's literally like three portions or more per plate that you get. You ever look at the calories at a cheesecake factory? Oh, it's like, oh, you're just in the salads. Well, the salads are like almost two thousand calories. And not only that, a lot of people don't know that those can be 30% off. And you better believe that they're all rounding down. You know, saying a restaurant's not going to be like, oh, let's let people think that we're gonna make them real fat

and they're gonna round their calories down. So most all places you eat, you gotta buffer another 30% of calories on top of that. So I did love breaking the meals up in a day so I could show a client who, let's say, I'm having a client following about a 2,500 calorie diet to show them what 500 calorie meals should look like and teach them to, you know, hey, once you've eaten that to learn to shut

down and not just keep gorging and keep eating. Like, so I do see value in separating small meals today for those purposes or like my example that I use on the show a lot, which was when I was competing and I was 230 something pounds and I was training like crazy, I was moving like crazy and my body needed 5,000 plus calories a day just to maintain my size. Well, fuck, try getting that into meals. You know what I'm saying? So then it makes sense to to break it up. So because of things like that that have shown people great results, like of course a guy like me that size, I had to break them all up or a person that does have no idea about

portion control, lots of value in teaching that. And so because people have seen good results from it, we think that we still fall back into the old myth of thinking like, oh, it must be because my metabolism is moving faster. And I think to like people saw results from it because it's like you're disciplined. You know, you're paying attention to every single thing that you're consuming now. And so people will prep themselves ahead of time

and like go through that process where it's like, okay, I know exactly what I'm gonna eat. And I'm gonna be scheduled with my eating habits and all that. Meanwhile, like there's also, there's a better way to do it. And so I think I think it's tough because they've seen really good results from it And taking that away from somebody when they've already seen good results is always tough self Well, yeah, I mean on that point like somebody who takes the time to prep their food bring their food to work has four or five

Tupperware containers with food. They're doing well They're gonna do very well, but it's not because of the small meals, it's because they took a lot of time and energy in looking and prepping their food. You can do this by eating two or three meals as well. Now here's the problem, they've sold this meal frequency myth so hard, and the reason why they sell this myth is for the following. They sell it hard and they know that the average person

is not going to prep and put together four or five meals. They know what the average person is not going to prep and put together four or five meals. They know what the average person is going to do, which is a breakfast lunch and dinner, and I need to eat two or three more meals. Thank God for these convenient supplements. Yeah, supplements, meal replacement powders, bars, drinks, or whatever. And so the supplement companies and the fitness industry, which is driven by the supplement companies, knows that they're going gonna sell more protein powders, meal replacements, and bars if they continue to push the myth of small meals.

And in fact, this is actually what happened. Meal replacement powders and protein shakes and bars went from the hardcore bodybuilding space to the mainstream. I remember when this happened. I remember when I went into Nob Hill or Lucky's grocery store and there's a frickin' metrics, meal replacement shake or what was the other one that was the body for life one?

What was that one? Oh, myoplex. Myoplex shakes, muscle milk shakes, at the grocery store. I was like, what is going on? What would happen is this myth got, whether it's so effective at selling this myth, that the average person was like, oh cool. I know I need to eat throughout the whole day

to keep my metabolism boosted, but I didn't prep any food, because it takes a lot of time and effort. So I'll just buy these shakes and I'll just drink these in between. And in fact, what happened is a lot of people just added extra calories. They ate their breakfast luncheon, and then three extra calories on. And in fact, what happened is a lot of people just added extra calories. They ate their breakfast luncheon and then three extra calories

on and of course these are highly processed meals which aren't necessarily ideal. The other part of the Smith is that your body muscles build with protein. All tissues in your body build with protein. And so the idea is, well, if we keep protein intake consistent throughout the day, thus keeping amino acid concentrations in your blood high throughout the day, thus keeping amino acid concentrations

in your blood high throughout the day. It's the perfect environment to build muscle. And if we let that drop, if you don't eat protein, then your body needs those amino acids and what's it gonna do? It's gonna leach it from muscle. And boy, does this sound logical? Like, wow, that makes a lot of sense.

This is not at all how the body works, at all. Your body doesn't burn muscle for a long time without food. It takes you days without food before your body starts to tap into muscle. And as far as muscle building is concerned, studies actually show that eating every four to five hours is about, as we're gonna maximize muscle protein synthesis. More than that, there's actually some evidence that shows

that you may actually reduce your body's efficiency at using protein. So it's actually more effective to have some time in between meals than it is to have shorter time in between meals. Not to mention, we're always better off getting real-whole foods than we are getting a process powder. I mean, it's great as a tool in a case of emergency,

but I remember the first time that Katrina heard me explaining to somebody that, well, the protein powder is not an ideal food for you to have, and she was like, wait a second, I thought it was like a health food. I'm like, no, it's not at all that way. It's a better choice than you driving through fucking McDonald's.

I said, but it's not better than real food. And she's like, oh, I've been packaging and prepping my three meals and then knowing to have the fourth of shake. And that was like a scheduled thing. And she's like, well, what would I do instead? I'm gonna be like, okay, well, tell me your three meals. Okay, she had chicken, fish, and steak,

I go, well, how many ounces do you have each of that? Well, I have six ounces. I go, have eight ounces of your three meats. And she's like, really? I can do, yeah, I was like, right. But you know how many people that I've dropped that on and they're just like, really? I can do, yeah, let's say. But you know how many people that I've dropped that on and they're just like, oh, I didn't, I didn't think I should have more than six ounces of meat. I'm like, why not? You're way better off getting two more ounces of meat and every single meal than you are adding a protein shake into your

meal that's got processed, processed, and it's got probably artificial sweeteners and shit in it. It's just not, it's been officially. It's always baffling to me because like, people would make room for these bars and shakes. And it's like, you're eating candy bars or you're having a milkshake. Well, that's the same macro profile. That's how well the supplement industry did

it's selling it though. I mean, kudos to them for doing such a great job of convincing everybody that it's a,'s a a healthy and that you I mean I remember getting clients and you know they would they would come in and they're like you know They bought their training they're ready to go they got their workout gear their headset They're ready, you know and they're like and I bought Adam and they show me I bought the beast belt Yeah, and they and they just automatically buy bars and shakes like that's just part of getting ready to get I heard I have to eat every other hour right and they just they just bring it into, like I should start eating this.

And I'm like, well, no, I mean, I'm glad you got it. So in case we need this, but this is not ideal. We're not trying to put this into your diet. No. And in fact, in some cases, it's better to eat less frequently. For example, if you have gut issues or inflammatory type issues, studies show that having longer periods without eating works better for you. There are studies that show that, obviously, lots of studies that show support that fasting is a wonderful practice for overall health. And for some people improving their health through fasting will help them build more muscle, burn, more body, just through the improvements in their health. So meal frequency, by itself, here's what it's regulated to.

It's 100% preference. That's pretty much it. You like to eat five meals a day? Fine, take your calories, your total calories, proteins, fats, carbs, break it up into five meals. Oh, you're busy all day and you prefer to eat just two meals. Fine, do that. It really doesn't matter otherwise.

It doesn't make a difference either way. But I think we should move into the next logical lie, which we're kind of talking about anyway, which is supplements. Oh yeah, I mean, magical pills. If you were to pick one of these that are probably the most expensive or easily, supplements is costed way more. I mean, I remember when we first started Mind Pump

that we did the whole Mind Pump Mafia thing and we were pouring out shakes and throwing away supplements. And that was kind of like our mission was to teach people that, listen, if we can teach you how to train better and eat better and program better, it will nullify any and all of the best supplements you could

ever purchase and take in your life. And this was something that I love that we were all very passionate about, that I didn't know until we all got together, you know. And it was something that it annoyed me because I felt another one of these ones that I fell into. I 100% name a supplement. I for sure have taken it. I have for sure taken it. And I have cycled it multiple times.

And as a kid, I remember not even having that much money, but spending three, $400, sometimes more of that of my money every month on supplements, on bars, on shakes, on creatine, on, you know, testosterone boosters, on, you know, BCA's, glutamine. I mean, you name it. I had it. And I was taking all of it. And for me, this was before social media. This was coming from these magazines. You know, I open up these magazines and I see these massive bodybuilders and they're taking the nox load and they're taking their branch, chain amino acids. And so if I wanna look like that,

I've gotta do this. And that could not be further from the truth and the difference that supplements make, and I love to use the analogy with this, it's literally like throwing a spoiler on a Honda. I mean, you are not gonna get in that car and because you threw a spoiler on that fucking car, notice any sort of difference in the performance.

And really is like that. No, we've been completely 100% and utterly oversold on the value and impact of supplements on our fitness, on our muscle building ability, on our fat burning ability. We've been totally, totally oversold. Now you have to wonder why. Like, why has this live been sold to us so hard? Well here it is, okay.

All industries in order to continue to exist need to profit. They have to profit. That's just the nature of business. If they don't profit, then there is no fitness industry. There is nobody in the industry that's teaching you anything about health and fitness. And when you look at all the ways you can make money in the health and fitness industry, you look at things like workout programming. I could teach people how to work out better.

You look at nutrition. I could talk to people about nutrition. I could teach people better sleep techniques and do a better exercise technique. or I could sell a consumable product. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at all those categories and look at the one that's got the highest capability of profit, it's the consumable products. If I give you a workout program and I teach you how to work out really well

and you do a good job, that's it. See you later, you follow my program. We're totally done now. If I sell you a supplement and I do a good job making you believe that this supplement is the key to your success and you make it a part of your routine, guess when you're buying it? All the time. Every month. Every month. As soon as you're done, you take it. You buy it again. When it's done a month, you buy it again. And I'm making tremendous profits. And so supplements are the biggest

profits of all of the entire fitness and health industry. And this is the reason why they're oversold. They are literally the things that are continuously being sold. But if you look at all the things that impact your health and fitness and your progress, supplements are way, way down the list. There's so far down the list that when I think of water, walking, sleeping, teaching program designs, teaching better exercise, nutrition, nutrition, mobility, all the things that I've taught clients

that were, and I have an example for all of those where I gave this person that one piece of advice and it was all they needed to put the puzzle together. Like, oh my God, Adam, I just started getting the right sleep forever changed my health and fitness journey. Muscle started coming on, felt amazing. You taught somebody something about nutrition that they were completely blank on. They didn't understand, boom, completely altered the way they looked, the way they felt

the rest of their life. I have fucking never, ever showed somebody or put somebody on a supplement stack and it altered and changed their health and fitness journey ever. Ever, it's never happened. It's never, no one's ever came back to me, and he said, holy shit out of one supplement. Those watermelon BCAs changed my life. Yeah, yeah.

They just don't matter that much. And in fact, the supplements that have the most value are actually the ones that we don't discuss very much, and the ones that are so individualized. It's the ones that, oh, you're lacking. For example, there's a supplement I take every single day. It's called Vitamin D. It's because I don't get enough fucking sun all day long and I have psoriasis and I have, and I'm just constantly, even when I was taking 500 I use, I still wasn't getting enough. So I'm like constantly in front of my red light. I'm trying to get out in the sun as much as I can, but I know that I'm under these fluorescent lights all day long in this box. So I'm like constantly in front of my red light. I'm trying to get out in the sun as much as I can, but I know that I'm under these fluorescent lights all day

long in this box. So I just don't get enough of it. So I supplement some of that. And when I do huge difference on my skin, night and day different, that's because you were lacking an essential micronutrient. Right. And that's where supplements can shine. If you're, let's say you're a vegan and you're having a tough time getting your B vitamins or maybe your body's not utilizing iron effectively or you're not getting any creatine in your diet because you're not having animal products. Well, supplementing with those things can become quite important and actually can make a big difference.

But even then, does it compare to just having a better diet, good exercise program, and good sleep? No, it doesn't. And this is the problem. Supplements have some value. They do. But their value has been just grossly overstated. Where if you're just getting into a fitness program, master your training, master your diet, master your sleep. And then when you've done all those things, you can start to look at supplements. Unfortunately, it's been flipped upside down. Somebody gets into fitness,

and the first thing that they're sold is supplements. That's the, oh, I want to get in shape. I want to burn body fat. What should I do first? All right, well, here's a fat burner, and then take this before you workout, and take this after you workout. And this person just started working out,

or somebody who's not even consistent with the workouts or somebody who has a bad diet and they're like, hey, I wanna get leaner, what should I do? Well, the real answer is, the right answer is, let's fix your diet. Instead, what they get is, here, take this fat burner, this is gonna burn some. Well, they're praying off people because they want that.

They want a pill that's gonna be able to magically work and just like disintegrate fat from the inside without all the work and all the education and all the, you know, time in between to actually make that happen. That process happened. And we're sold this on all kinds of like, you know, from the pharmaceutical companies. So they're just taking right out of the playbook of pharmaceutical companies and applying it to fitness practice. Look, if I were to take the most supported by studies, supplements in the world, if I were to take the top two supplements that were just supported by hundreds and hundreds of studies that they have an effect that they do have some genuine benefits, those two supplements would be creatine and caffeine. Both supplements like caffeine,

most of you listening right now, know exactly what I'm talking about, you drink coffee, you feel it. Caffeine does something. Crateen also does something. Now, if I were to compare, let's say you're somebody that wants to burn fat, have harder workouts, have more energy, and so you're drinking caffeine. If I were to take your diet and your sleep and perfect that, it would blow caffeine out of the water. It wouldn't even come close. It wouldn't even come close to the benefits that you get from just changing your lifestyle. If you're trying to build muscle and you take creatine, creatine does help people build

muscle. It does through a process of increasing ATP in muscles. It gives it more muscle energy. It hydrates muscles, self-volulization. All these terms I'm using, basically, it does help build muscle. But if I were to take that person taking creatine and perfect their workout and their diet,

it would blow creatine out of the water. Completely, would not even just blow, it not even just perfect that. You could go take somebody's workout who falls back in the category that we were talking about who's doing a bunch of random extra side bullshit exercises, change a couple exercises. Still, it will blow creativity.

It will blow creativity now the water. Take somebody who's just been afraid to squat for most of their life and leg press all time and leg extension, get them squatting, and they'll build more muscle than any supplement on the market stacked up there. So it doesn't even have, I mean, saying perfecting the diet is, I think, an overstate.

You're right. You just gotta go, you could go change one little factor about their diet, one little factor about their training program, one little factor about their exercising, and that will blow creatinine. That's how minimal these things are. And those are the most effective supplements.

Right. There are no supplements that compare in terms of those two that most effective supplements. Right. Yeah. By far, there are no supplements that compare in terms of those two that I just named with benefits. So there are some applications and benefits to supplements. And if you like to take them and they help you with your routine and you get money to burn. And they eat you got money and they contribute to your health.

You feel like you know whatever. And I look like I'm a supplement, a holic. I like taking them. I like having fun with them and trying different things out. But I'm not fooling myself. I know if I really want to make changes, I look at the most important things which are sleep, exercise, diet, and lifestyle. And if I were to list all the things that affected my progress,

supplements would be number 10, 11, 12, or somewhere down. Well, I'll tell you how I like to play because we all agree that we utilize them and play with them and stuff like that. But I do it as like a reward system for me. For example, I just introduced Criatine yesterday. So it's funny, we're talking about this topic. But that was after I had strung like four weeks of very consistent dieting and training and dialing all the other things in that I know

are so much more important. And it's like, okay, cool, I've been doing all these things. Now let's see if I can get a little extra bump in my workout by taking a little bit of Criatine. That's how I use some of that. To get in there and start right out the gates, there's so many other rocks that you should take care of big rocks that you should take over first

before you're trying to add something like that. And last again, you've got money to burn and just don't give two shit. That's it. Now, the biggest lie, probably the number one big lie, the one that contributes to all the other lies. This is what we're fighting every day now. Yeah, it contributes to all the other lies

that we just covered right now, is that somebody who's shredded, somebody who's muscular, somebody that looks the part. Somebody's done enough cover of a magazine. The cover of the magazine has got, you know, half a million followers on Instagram, looks phenomenal.

IFBB Pro. That person knows what they're talking about, knows the right, how to teach you how to exercise properly, is gonna give you good nutrition advice. In other words, because they looked apart, we believe that, yes, they have the knowledge and they have the wisdom. That is the lie that contributes to all the other ones.

Because when I was a kid, and I saw Mr. Buff Dude in the magazine with veins coming out of his eyeballs talking about, you know, you got to train to failure and go super intense all the time. You got to do all these silly exercises. You got to, you know, eat every hour. You got to take all these crazy supplements. I'm in water and just eat vitamins. I'm looking at him and I'm like, oh yeah, he's, obviously he looks the way he does. So he must know what he's talking about. Huge myth, huge huge myth, and it's worse today

than ever before thanks to social media. I see more false fitness profits today than I ever did growing up and working in fitness. I mean, I could scroll through Instagram and it's just, you know, advice after advice after advice that I shake my hand and go, wow, that is terrible, terrible advice that this person is giving out. Now, we should talk about why this is a lie. Like, obviously, if somebody's ripped and muscular, well, they got themselves that

way. Why don't they know who's working? Yeah, why don't they know all the stuff that they should know? Well, there's a big difference in figuring out a way or being so disciplined and committed to and sacrificing for a extended period of time to get yourself in shape, then teaching others, right? And I just talked about this on an interview that I did. And I was talking about, I've shared it on this show

many of times, my experience of working my way up from the amateur to the professional level and competing and just being baffled by the level of knowledge when it came to nutrition and exercise. I was just blown away by all my peers. I thought for sure that, man, if they're all here, we're all here and we're all in good, really good shape. We, I would think that most of us knew what we were talking about, but it was quite the opposite of like,

so what I found was people that were able to do crazy shit. People that could eat tuna out of a can with mustard for fucking every meal for seven to eight weeks. And could do cardio for two hours a day every day. They had some of the most unbelievable discipline that I'd ever met in anybody before. And I consider myself a very disciplined person. And so what you find is you find these people with these weird,

crazy extreme relationships with exercise and nutrition that have the ability to like just not eat, to train the body like crazy. And this, this this the Physique that they're presenting is quite the facade for what's really going on inside these people are not as healthy And as not as fit and is not as smart as they look like they are they've all they've really done is just proven that they can Sacrifice a ton for a extended period of time, more than most people. They are the one percent for a reason. They're a one percent because most other people give a fuck about every other aspect of their life and are not interested in eating out of a can of tuna

every single day, five times a day for extended periods of time and then also on top of that, training like a madman like crazy every single worker. And then you mix in with that really, really good genetics. Genetics, right, or steroids. And anabolic steroids. And yes, those people can achieve a particular look at a particular time.

But does that mean that they have the knowledge and information and wisdom to share fitness tips, to share exercise technique, best workouts and nutrition? No, absolutely not. In fact, some of the worst advice I ever see on social media comes from those people. It comes from those people. That guy or girl like you're talking about Adam,

they may say to you, hey, you want to get shredded, try the Tunefician Mustard diet, it totally got me shredded. And people are like, oh cool, that's what works. So then I'm gonna do that. Not realizing this, I mean, I'm using an extreme So then I'm going to do that. Not realizing this. I mean, I'm using extreme example.

I think most people would realize that that's crazy. But I read things like the celery juice diet. I read things like crazy workouts that are just super ineffective or balls of the wall all the time or taking ridiculous amounts of supplements. And it's like, no, those things are not important. And they just don't work. The people that you should listen to or the people you should follow the advice from are

people who've worked with lots and lots and lots of people and or have some education behind them, people who make it their living to work with and train people, not people who just look good. Well, the brain, the gut, the metabolism are three of the most complex things in this entire universe. And all of ours are extremely individualized. And so just because you figured it out for yourself, even if it wasn't the most ideal way to get there, does not qualify you to figure it out for hundreds and potentially thousands

of other people. I mean, it's why I love this job because it's never redundant. I never get a client, I never get a person, I never get a problem. Even if it's the same problem I've heard, like, oh, I've heard that before, the answer is never the same. It rarely ever is even similar.

It's so different and we're all so unique. And so just because somebody is maybe mastered or figured something out for themselves, it most certainly does not qualify them to help hundreds of other people that they've never, never worked with. I learned this quickly coming in and being a trainer and thinking that I could apply the same techniques that, you know, I applied to myself as an athlete that that was going to work well with your average person, your average gym-going person that's coming in for me, for help, and to get strong. And it was very humbling.

It was very humbling to understand that people coming in have so many different variables, so many different life experiences and genetics and all these different factors that are completely different than mine, and that I have to work with that. And so I started to look at it more as like, I'm gonna detect it. I'm trying to get all the clues, the facts, everything lined up so I could stack it accordingly so it's actually gonna work out to their benefit.

So to be able to just put out like a blanket statement of this is how it's gonna work for everybody is just assing in to me. Yeah, it's crazy. I've worked with quite a bit of people at very high levels of physical achievement. I've had clients that had competed in body building or bikini or physique.

And it's funny because I'm working with very disciplined people, just like you said, on one hand they're great to work with because you tell them to do something they just do it On the other hand, there's some challenges sometimes because they want to overdo everything But it's funny. I would get these people and I Basic stuff I'd watch them do a squat and I'd be like, oh here Let's have you tweak your form a little bit here and try this priming movement and they'd come back and be like holy cow My body's responding like just with that small technique like my body's responding like crazy

Or I'd look at the routine and be like, okay, let's try a full body routine. You'd be doing a body part split for a long time. Are you sure full body? I don't know, that's not what the body will try it out and see what happens. They come back and be like, I put on five pounds of muscle, I can't even believe that.

Or they show me their diet and it'd be, you know, tilapia, rice, and broccoli all day long. And it'd say, well, why are you beating that? Well, I heard tilapia thins the skin or some other baloney myth that they heard from another bodybuilder. I'm like, no, that's actually not true. Let's try some variety.

So you get some different nutrients and you can eat some different food and throw in some steaks. You have a little bit more natural protein. Let's see what happens. And it would blow people away. So no, they know how to get themselves to look a particular way, but they do not know

how to give you the right information for your body but they do not know how to give you the right information for your body. They do not know what works for most people. They do not know good exercise technique. They don't understand nutrition at a high level. Their understanding of nutrition is I'm gonna eat these calories, I need these macros,

and here's what proteins, fats, and carbs are. So unfortunately, through social media, because the barrier enters so low, fortunately and unfortunately, fats, and carbs are. So unfortunately, through social media, because the barrier to enter is so low, fortunately and unfortunately, fortunately because we have way more access to information, unfortunately, because that floodgate includes a lot of this baloney and crap that we're just, we're inundated with it.

A good way to spot these type of people is they lean on these four, these four lies that we're talking about. Oh yeah, yeah. That's a great way to spot them is they lean on these four, these four lies that we're talking about. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, that's a great way to spot them is they, they tend to be the same ones that preach all hype and motivation and beast mode, you know, it's all about that. It's all about pushing and working hard and they throw music videos behind their workout

and they try and hype you up on Instagram. Like, that's their way of doing it. Or they're talking about what supplements they're drinking or using or taking like those affiliated. Yeah, right, yeah. And that's the other thing that drives me crazy about the people that get traction on social media right now because they have great physiques

is they get a few thousand followers and the supplement companies are brilliant. They go out and they find all these micro influencers and they give them a commission deal where they don't even get paid for this. They get a commission deal for they don't get paid for this to get a commission deal for peddling their shit. And so now all of a sudden you get this super fit person who every other post or Insta story is them taking their pre workout or them taking their protein shake or them taking their vitamins and supplements. And they're they're presenting it like this is part of

me. Right. This is what got me to this physique, even if they don't say that by them posting it and promoting it and talking about all times, they're leading people on who don't know any better still that still fall into believing all these lies. And so it just, it gets perpetuated. Yeah, and then the stupid, the dumb exercises, that's another one, you'll see them being like,

oh, look at this new movement that I invented. Right. I like to do a one-legged leg press, sitting sideways or upside down, or I like to do, I've seen this actually before. A shoulder press on a leg press for, I don't know why. But then people were like, oh, that's the secret to as big bolder shoulders or whatever. No, no, no.

Stop listening to those people. I would say, if you want to listen to anybody, how many people has that person actually trained and worked with? How long have they been working with everyday people? Do they have some education behind them as well? Neither one of those are perfect, but they're far better than that person looks ripped. Therefore, I'm just going to listen to their advice and do what they tell me. And with that, go to MindPumpFree.com and download our guides.

We have a ton and they're all absolutely free. You can also find us all on social media. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin. You can find me at MindPump Sal and you can find Adam at MindPump Adam. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance and maps aesthetic.

Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and a Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is

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