Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1217: Five Surprising Benefits of Weight Training

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin go over five benefits of weight training that are often overlooked. The unexpected value of resistance training. (2:07) #1 – Promotes a better functioning brain. (6:20) Proprioceptive learning. (10:06) Central Nervous System (CNS) adaption. (16:05) #2 – The positive effect on your libido and hormone levels. (18:04) #3 – The clear changes in your mood. (25:36) #4 – Improves your ability to fight off illness. (36:34) #5 – Empowers your independence and confidence. (43:46) Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** Weight training may boost brain power An investigation of the relationship between physical fitness, self-concept, and sexual functioning Effects of progressive resistance training on growth hormone and testosterone levels in young and elderly subjects. Mind Pump 1215: Dr. Becky Campbell on Thyroid Disease, Autoimmune Disease & Histamine Intolerance Strengthen your mood with weight training Lifting Weights May Help With Depression How Exercise May Help Us Fight Off Colds Strength training: Get stronger, leaner, healthier Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health Strength training builds more than muscles Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink)  Instagram Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell)  Instagram

If you want to pump your if you start lifting weights, you're gonna build muscle, you're gonna burn more body fat, you're gonna look more sculpted, you'll be able to move better, build more strength. But a lot of you may not know that there are other huge, massive glaring benefits that you can get that have nothing to do with building muscle, getting stronger and burning body fat.

So we cover those. We actually cover five of them. We talk about the effects on your brain and your ability to think, the effects on your libido, your healthy sex drive. We talk about your mood and how resistance training affects your mood and the studies that support that. We talk about how it impacts your ability to fight off illness and then we talk about the empowering effects of resistance training.

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Here's how you get that discount. Go to mapshit.com. That's M-A-P-S-H-I-T. Dotcom and use the code hit50 for the discount. That's H-I-T50. Remember, you have 48 hours as of the day of the dropping of this episode. So, you know, I was thinking about something the other day. I was thinking about when I would train clients in the early days. And, you know, obviously, as a personal trainer,

especially when you first start, you think your job is, I'm going to get this person to lose fat, I'm going to get them to build muscle and look better, and get them fit, right? And that is a large part of what you do as a trainer, but always, especially when I first became a trainer, I would always get blown away by the other types of benefits that I would observe on my clients, or that they would observe themselves

from what, strain training? From strain training. Like, you expect them to say things like, oh, my arms look more defined or stronger. I'm stronger, but they would come to me oftentimes and they would say things that I didn't start to put together until I heard it a lot. Like, is it normal for me to be more horny?

That's a great example. That's a great example. That's a great example. You know, where you're going with this, I really like because it also reminds me of the evolution of my coaching. So when I first started training, you speak to the scale, you speak to the body fat percentage, you speak to the way they look, almost always.

That's all you're, as a new trainer. Because that's what they're coming in for. Right. Exactly. To the defense of the young trainer or early years, is that it's, you know, your client comes in and they say, hey, I want this. And that's, and so, okay, so you continue to speak to that.

But it wasn't until years later, probably a decade later, did I actually start to like, almost, okay, like, okay, yeah, we'll definitely lose that way. Yeah, we'll do this. But then as we would, after you would sign with me for, you know, months ahead, I know yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll definitely lose that way. Yeah, we'll do this. But then as we would, after you would sign with me for months ahead, I know I had you, the conversation would quickly change to all the other things.

And the reason why I found so much value in that is what I realized is when people could start to connect the other parts, the other benefits that they would get, the ones that they wouldn't expect from strength training, did it become easier for them to make it more of a habit of their life? Because then it wasn't just about the way they looked or just the scale up and down.

They were starting to connect what they were doing with so many other aspects of their life. Oh, it's funny because later on, that was how I really sold the value of resistance training. And the reality is, it's all of the burning body fat, burning body fat building muscle getting stronger. Great, that's excellent, amazing direct results from resistance training.

But believe it or not, they're not, they're almost not as value as the other surprising benefits. And this is what my clients would find, the ones that trained me long-term, they liked that stuff, but all the other benefits that they were getting was what kept them going. Agreed.

It was the stuff that really dramatically improved its value because the truth is, as you're working out, you know, aside from being obese and all that stuff, like, yeah, you know, if I'm 15 pounds, you know, one way or another, not that big of a deal, I'm in yeah, you know, if I'm 15 pounds, you know, one way or another Not that big of a deal. I'm in my you know, if I'm in my 40s or 50s or whatever But whoa all these other benefits these are things that I want well This is also what would encourage this type of client I mean I would get clients that would come in

And their doctors said they have to come in all Right. And they were not motivated to work out. They don't, in fact, they even have, they're like, I have to be here. They have some disdain, even for exercise people. You know, like, oh, I'm not that vain. I don't care about all those things, but I'm here because for my health. Right, exactly, because I have to be,

but then when you help them, when you help them make that connection connection and it reminds me the same thing the evolution for me as a coach for nutrition too. When you speak to just the weight loss build muscle, the way you look with nutrition, that only lasts so long, but when you start to help them make that connection with all the other aspects that it improves in their life, then people start going like, oh shit, like, who cares if I'm up or down on the scale so much, I'm noticing it bleed into my work,

my relationships, my everyday activities, like, okay, now I'm- And the cool thing is we now have science to support a lot of this. So, the first one that I'm gonna cover was, blew my mind initially, and it didn't, at first I didn't blow my mind, because I'd hear it from one person,

I hear it from another person. But after you hear it from 15, 20, 30 people, then you start to go, huh, there may be some truth to this, then you look up the science and you find that it is supported. This first one, in particular, was interesting because it countered a common myth. And the myth was of, and we've all heard of this, the dumb jock. You know, the smart nerd who's got bad fitness, you know, weak frail, but very very smart. And then the jock who's buffed and fit and mobile, who's an idiot.

Nothing can be further further from the truth. One of the number one things I would hear from my clients when I would start training with them with resistance training is that they could think better. They're sharper. Their minds are sharper. They had less brain fog. They felt they had better memory recall, better language.

I mean, I would train kids, they would notice this. I would train I would train kids, they would notice this. I would train middle-aged people, they would notice this. I would train old people, and they would notice this. And the science supports this quite strongly. Exercise, all exercise raises a chemical in the brain called BDNF, brain-derived, neurotropic factor, which is like miracle grow for the neurons in the brain. Resistance training does this as well.

Resistance training and exercise has been shown to accelerate learning. They know this now with kids. For a long time there in schools, they started to cut funding from education. The first places they cut it from were like physical education, PE and that kind of stuff, structured play, structured exercise. And they thought, well, we gotta spend more money on math and science or save the money for those types of things. Studies are showing now that that was doing the kids

at disservice, not just for the physicality, and the fact that kids are not in good shape, but it actually being physical and active, improved a kids' ability to learn. And this actually has been shown in all ranges of age. There's still a lot of work in that direction. The education needs to go into that, the understanding that moving around definitely promotes

this accelerated learning. It fosters better cognitive abilities. And this is all proven now. And it's like, it's so crazy that used to be a myth is that you would spend your time better reading more to develop your brain, whereas like really the combination of the both is even more powerful.

Well, do you guys think, what do you think it's mostly from? Do you think it's the proprioception side? Do you think it's more like neurological? Do you think it's more blood oxygen, nutrients, the usage of glucose, better. All of those things. So, as functions better.

So I think we forget that our mind, our mind and our brain, we can separate that too. The brain is the physical organ that you have in your head. The mind is the concepts and the consciousness that the brain produces. But we forget that that is derived from this physical machine called your brain. If a healthy brain is going to be able to do that stuff

better than a sick brain. So in extreme examples, a brain with Alzheimer's or a brain with dementia is just a sick brain, just like a sick heart or a muscle that's weak. And when you keep your body healthy, your brain, the physical brain, is part of your body. So having poor health, physically also will affect the structural components and parts of the brain.

So that's number one, exercise and resistance training keeps you healthy, balances out your hormones. So that's number one. But number two, and this is what's specific to resistance training keeps you healthy, balances out your hormones. So that's number one. But number two, and this is what's specific to resistance training. This is one thing that I love about resistance training more than other forms of general forms of exercise. Because there are other types of activities that are really good at this,

but they're not as individualizable as resistance training. Is that proprioceptive learning? So what is proprioception? It's your ability to know where your body is in space. So an extreme example would be like an Olympic diver. You watch them spin in the air, and it's like how do they know when to point straight down so that they make the smallest splash possible?

It's extreme proprioceptive ability. Now you don't need to go and train that, you can, but simply lifting weights, and the reason why weights does this better than other forms of exercise is because if you're running or cycling or swimming, you're kind of in the straight line repetitive motion over and over again. Resistance training, I can name a thousand exercises,

and I can name a thousand varieties and versions of each of those exercises. I can name exercises that are better for certain things and others that are better for other things. So constantly challenging your body with a lunge, a side lunge, an overhead press, a windmill, a row, you are really strengthening that proprioceptive ability of your brain, and they find that when you don't do something, it's okay, just like if you don't use your bicep,

the bicep muscle starts to atrophy and it starts to shrink because your body's always getting rid of what it doesn't need. Your body's always trying to be as efficient as possible. Pruning always. Always pruning, so the parts of your brain that aren't being utilized start to shrink and atrophy, they start to become weaker. And resistance training works so well on that proprioceptive ability, which actually affects

the entire brain. Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't really consider the nervous system in that entire equation and how many different systems work together. So, you know, if you're not doing something, now your body sort of unlearns that in order to prioritize what you need for the most part. So to be able to keep doing things in functioning your body in a certain way is crucial to then also maintaining those abilities.

You brought up such a great point. So if you never, let's say you never squat, never, never, never squat, and then you go and you try to squat, or let's say you squat a lot when you're a kid and then you stop for 15 years. You would have a very difficult time squatting. You may even have an inability to squat.

Is that an ability due to weak muscles necessarily? Just doing one squat? Maybe not. It might be just the fact that you just... Unfamiliar. Yeah, you've literally forgot that skill. The brain... And it pruned it off.

It pruned. You haven't been using me for 15 years. This is a useless tool for my brain. I'm moving on from it. I'll tell you what, the initial strength gains you get when you first start lifting weights is less from the fact that your muscles are actually bigger and stronger. And more from the fact that your central nervous system, which includes your brain, is operating better. It's building. You build your brain when you build your muscles.

Well, a good example of this. And we've talked about this on the show before. And you know, you mean, when I think of the most recent experience of this, uh, was when we were with Dr. Brink. And we were doing like hip mobility drills within the 90 90. And when we tried to lift our heel up off the ground in the 90-90 position, none of us at the first time could even really move it. And then you think, oh, I don't have the flexibility. And he walks over and he picks your leg up and he moves it all the way up.

It brings your foot next to your head. Right. And it's like, no, you have the flexibility there. You've lost that connection. You've lost that ability to do it because you stopped rotating the hips that far as you've lost that connection. Right. You've lost that ability to do it, because you stopped rotating the hips that far as you've aged, and so you've just lost that connection. But you can reestablish that.

They've done studies and shown that when people are, like specialized at a particular thing, the parts of the brain that are associated with that skill tend to be larger and more densely connected. So like the parts of the brain that, let's say, are associated with, let's cite, and you would take a sniper or someone who really, really worked on that ability, you'd find the parts of the brain associated that to be more developed. Now scientists in the past thought, oh, they were born with these parts of the brain this

way, and that's what makes them better at it. Now we know there's definitely a genetic component but the other component which is much larger is that you're developing the brain through these skills and resistance training, you can get way more complex with it than you can with other forms of exercise. This is one of the reasons why besides the fact that you're obviously much healthier, which we talked about earlier, one of the reasons why I would always get clients, and I noticed this most in two categories of clients,

the kids that I trained, and the older people that I trained. Now, I think the reason for that is that the kids, I would notice kids, their parents would tell me. So I'd start lifting weights with kids, and I'm talking about when I say kids, I mean like 12, 13, 14. So not super young, just because parents

typically have a higher trainer for kids younger than that. And they'd come and tell me, my son's doing better at math, or my daughter's doing better in school, and I talked to the kid about it, and I'd say, hey, your mom told me that you're doing better in school, what do you think is going on?

I'm like, oh, I just feel like I can think better. I feel like I can sit down and focus longer. And then my older clients will be like, oh, my memory's better. I'm starting to remember things all of a sudden, which is phenomenal. I used to get that all the time, which is great, the productivity, that side of things,

like even at the workplace, when you're out there exercising, like how that actually promotes just a better functioning brain, like you think more clearly and then you're able to maintain that focus. A lot of times, like you get the brain fog towards the middle of the day, or like when you're at your job,

and you're just staring at the same thing all the time, this kind of promotes this new energy that's usable. Well, you guys are, you're going, you know, the younger route. I wanna go the other direction with, like advanced age, which you love to talk about, Sal, and I'm thinking about someone in particular right now, my father, my stepdad's wife is about to get hip surgery and one of the things that I'm stressing to her and she's in her 60s.

And what I'm trying to stress to her is that listen, when you get done with that hip surgery, you're going to feel amazing. And if you just keep going about your normal day and you don't do anything, you don't train your hips to continue to move through full range of motion because you just keep going about your normal day and you don't do anything, you don't train your hips to continue to move through full range of motion because you now are going to have that ability to take them through, which you can't, because of pain right now, what'll end up happening

is you'll still end up losing that and you'll end up having to have surgery 10, 15 years again because the pain will come back. You have a new piece of equipment, but you're not changing the computer. You're not changing the hardware of software. Exactly. And so it's so important that as soon as you,

and so I'm thinking of everyone who might have a family member, a friend who's had recent shoulder surgery or hip surgery, and they did it because they had this unbelievable chronic pain that built up to the point where they eventually had to have this surgery, and then they just feel better because they've had it and they don't do anything about it. How important is that for this person to be strength training and working those muscles through full range of motion to support?

You're working your central nervous system. You're working and training your brain. It's actually, that's the more important part. I know, and I know it's not as obvious because when you lift weights and you do it for a long time, the obvious changes your muscles. You can see muscles in definition and you know, oh wow you look good and all that stuff. What you don't see are the changes that happen to the brain. But you are, make no mistake, you are developing your brain more than you are your muscle.

Even more, the changes that happen in the brain, your ability to move in ways that you couldn't do before has more to do with your central nervous system adapting, meaning same thing, when muscles adapt, there's things that are adding and growing and becoming more efficient, that has more to do with that than it does the actual muscles themselves getting bigger and stronger. It's a very, very big piece of the pie, and it was always something that surprised me. Now, I got one more for you. I got another one for you that initially, when I would hear this, I'd kind of like, I'd get embarrassed and I'd shrug it off,

like, okay, well, you know, whatever. But as I continue training people, I just kept hearing it more and more and more. And then I realized, oh, this is a side effect or a direct effect, I should say, of resistance training. And I remember the first time I heard it. It was the very first time I trained somebody over the age of 65. I was, I wanna say I was 19 years old,

so I was only, I'd only been training for about maybe six months or so. Train an older woman, she was in her late 60s, and we started working out, started doing strength training. And it was maybe, I wanna say a couple months into our relationship as trainer and client, and she brought it up kind of funny, I think she was kind of a barris, but we talk a lot about fitness and health,

and she was a widow, where I was been had died years before, and she said, I'm noticing some other effects from working out. I'm like, oh, like more energy, well yeah, I got more energy,, like, like, more energy. Well, yeah, I got more energy, but, you know, like, more, like, more, like, bigger. I'm like, oh, like, more. Bigger. Yeah, like, you're just wake up more, you know, energetic in the morning. And he's like, well, kind of. She's like, I'm a little bit more, you know, like, funky. Yeah, she's like, I'm noticing, I'm noticing, like,

I'm having lots of dreams about you, but you're not wearing pants. Yeah. It's getting hot in certain regions. So I got, so she told me her libido. She's like, I haven't felt my libido like this in a very long time, is that a normal response from exercise? And I thought, well, I think it is, yeah, maybe whatever I was a little embarrassed, but then I kept hearing it from client after client,

male clients, female clients, older clients, clients in the middle age, resistance training, an exercise in general, resistance training specific, phenomenal, phenomenal for libido. It's got to be one of the best things you could do, if you got to do it right, of course, with appropriate training for your sexual vitality. Well, I think this is partially dual prong, too. I think there's something that's happening hormonally, physiologically in your body. And then I also think there's something to the mental and brain talk we just had,

is also to the confidence side of what happens. Like when you get somebody who's, because this was common for me, or I'd be training a client, and they would just, they would just tell me how much better they're related. Their sexual relationship is with their partner. Just, you know, we're having so much more sex,

and, you know, they're trying to put it together like, you know, I feel good. I feel better about myself, but it's just why. It's not just, so I think it's a combination of both feeling better about your certain hormones. You needed to balancing it out, but also, yeah, that self-confidence of your improving yourself and that's something that like exudes now,

like to your partner and your partner, you know, takes like wind of that and it becomes a thing. Oh, I mean, just speaking about hormones, there isn't one single thing aside from taking testosterone or taking a testosterone-releasing drug, like, you know, HCG or something like that. There isn't a single thing you can do, a man can do, that won't have as strong of a direct,

positive effect on their testosterone, like resistance training. By itself, you can compare it against anything else. as strong of a direct positive effect on their testosterone, like resistance training. By itself, you can compare it against anything else. You can compare it to diet and supplements and all the stuff. Nothing causes a direct, strong effect on testosterone as much as lifting weights. Well, and until you've dealt with lower than normal for you testosterone levels, you don't realize how much how important this is.

As for me, like, okay, libido is important and testosterone directly affects that for a male, right? But it's also all the other things that like just having testosterone, my energy levels throughout the day, my mood to get things done, my interactions with people, like all that stuff I feel like is affected from my hormones. And when they're balanced and they're well, it totally affects all those other aspects too. I remember when you were going through your process

of trying to get your hormone levels back up and I had you taking supplements, herbs that are test that have been shown, clinical studies that have positive effect, dietary dietary you were doing things with Red light therapy and and I remember you you you went you hadn't worked out for a little while Because you weren't feeling good and I remember you came to work and you're like dude I left I did squats yesterday I did 20 minutes of squats. I felt a bigger boost from that than anything else than anything else that you were doing Yeah, it's studies show for men,

you're gonna get like a 15 to 25% increase on average in your testosterone levels from lifting weights. That's a lot. That's a big, that's again, there isn't, and by the way, some supplements, when they raise testosterone, if you have low testosterone, it's not a permanent raise. So let's say you take an herb that has been shown

to raise testosterone and men with low testosterone. Keep taking it and eventually your body starts to adapt and you stop and I notice this, you'll notice this, if you take some of these things, you feel it for about 30, 60 days and then it stops. Resistance training's permanent. It raises testosterone and stays there. As long as you keep lifting weights

and if anything it starts to raise it even higher. It also lowers the binding hormone that binds to free testosterone, which makes it basically worthless. So, in men, you could have free, you have total testosterone, but it's the free testosterone that's active. And what makes something freeze, it's not bound by another hormone or another chemical in the body to stop when you lift weights, you lower that. So you actually free up more testosterone.

You also open up more to androgen receptors in the body. These are the receptors that testosterone attaches to. So there's like three or four different ways that lifting weights makes you, makes your testosterone, not just go up, but become more free and also become more effective. It's like a compounding effect. It is.

Now, when women lifting weights has other hormonal profound effects, when you work with, like we just had Dr. Becky Campbell on, who's a functional medicine practitioner. When you talk to functional medicine practitioners, you ask them, what form of exercise do you recommend the most to women who are trying to balance their hormones? They're a progesterone to estrogen balance. The most common answer you're going to get is

going to be appropriate resistance training, appropriate being, of course, operative word. For some people, it's going to be lower intense than others, higher intensity and all stuff. But resistance training is just so moldable, and so it's such a pro tissue type of exercise. Like it's, because when you're lifting weights, you're telling the body to build muscle, it's pro active tissue. In order for your body to build muscle,

it needs to have balanced, optimal levels of hormones, and nothing does that resistance training. Now the side effect of that, you have a healthier libido. Libido is a very, very good indicator. It's not the only indicator because you want to look at the whole picture. But your libido, when you have a sudden drop in libido or you don't have a very strong libido in comparison to before, that's a decent sign that your health isn't doing so well. Your body does not want to procreate. Right. If it's probably one of the first things, would you say a lot of times?

It is. If you eat too little or your diet's really bad or you lack lots of sleep or you're stressed, one of the first things to go away when you're stressed is libido. So it is one of those gauges and resistance training will boost your libido and this is based off my own anecdote training clients more than any of the form of exercise. If you wanna get horny and you wanna find a form of exercise that I'll help you do that,

lift weights, nothing does it better than that. Well, that also feeds in to sort of the next one, right? About like how it affects your moods and how it's like anti-depression and, you know, working through and working these things out with your body is such a great outlet for you to deal with your mood. I feel like that's, it seems like that's such an obvious one,

but I don't think people make the connection enough. If you're a, if you love fitness, right? And you're like a hardcore gym goer, then you've probably made this connection. But I'm talking about the average person. Like the average person doesn't normally go into the gym or somebody who's not really excited about working out isn't thinking like, I'm gonna do this

to make me have a better mood. Most of them were like, I need to go do this. But if you were to make that connection and really start to pay attention to how the rest of your day goes when you make those workouts, it's, I think a lot of people connect that to thinking that it's, oh, because I did my workout. Therefore, I have a better mood

because I accomplished my workout, but they don't really realize that there's actually something physiologically that's happening to them that's actually improving their diet. Well, it's the same thing as paying attention, just like with eating and like how it's affecting you, like working out and like the different types of workouts. If you do it right, you give the right a dose,

so you're not going to intense to overboard. It should really charge you up and give you a great energy boost. Yeah, exercise, in terms of mood, this is the one that actually kept my clients working out forever, the longest, was this one effect, just the effect that has on your overall mood. Now, this is backed pretty well by science. In fact, they're considering

making exercise a first-line treatment for mild to moderate forms of depression. So when you go to your doctor and you depress rather than the first thing that they say is, okay, here's an antidepressant, they're going to start saying we want you to to exercise why? Because studies are showing that exercise is as effective as A lot of these drugs for for mild to moderate forms of depression Which is the most the most the vast majority of the types of depression that people suffer from it's it's far more rare to have crushing type of depression It's been shown in studies be as effective in the short term and probably more effective in the long term.

So when you compare in the short term, people like, oh wow, I'm getting great effects. The longer they do it, the better the effects. Now that 100% sure why this happens, we do know that the exercise releases chemicals and endorphins, serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, all the same chemicals that antidepressant drugs will target. Exercise naturally releases those. Not just while you're exercising, but we know now that your baseline has more of these

feel good chemicals. So when you first start working out, you just get a boost while you work out as you do it on a long-term basis. It raises the capacity for it. It just, your baseline is much higher. And then earlier now we talked about how it was great for the brain. Well, neuroscientists notice a little while ago that the hippocampus of the brain in people

who tend to have depression and anxiety, tends to be smaller. So they noticed that people who were depressed, they did the brain scans and their hippocampus was smaller. Exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus and has been shown to cause growth in that same area. So let's say your, and either the shrink, the small hippocampus is causing

or part of the depression, or it's like this negative feedback loop, you're feeling bad, therefore this part of the brain starts to shrink because you're doing less stuff or whatever, and vice versa, doesn't matter, nonetheless, exercise has been shown to stimulate growth

of that region of the brain and others that has been connected to depression. So not only does it just, it literally will start to change, again, change your hardware so that you're less prone to depression. It's one of the best things you could do. I feel like Katrina and I have made this connection so much

with exercise that we tend to like pre-apologize to each other when one has like kind of missed their work out. Or, yeah, no, I'm not aware of how different of a mood I have when I'm on my exercise routine versus when I've missed days. And I've heard I both know, to like you pre-apologize to a part of the day, hey, just, you know, I had planned to do my workout and get it in today.

I'm a little frustrated whatever about that just so you know, I'm sorry if I seem irritable or short. Like it's, I've put, I've noticed multiple times in the past where I've caught myself irritable, short or whatever. And then when I like unpack it after the fact, right, after I've already blown up or after I've already said something I probably shouldn't have said, reflecting on the day going like, fuck, of course, it's a day that I plan to work out. I didn't get my workout and stuff I'd take to my moon.

Oh, I use, so for me, what motivates me my workout and stuff like that. I completely affected my mood. So for me, what motivates me now to Lefoyte's consistently is the mood part, more than the physical part, way, way more. If I know I'm going to have a big podcast, or I'm going to be a guest on a big show, or I have to produce a piece of content that's really important for the business, I will purposely schedule it and structure it

so that it happens right after a workout. In fact, I have purposely schedule it and structure it so that it happens after, right after a workout. In fact, I have an interview coming up this week and I told, and there's a bigger one, I told Katrina, make sure you book it on this day or these days at this time, knowing I'd be coming here right after my workout. I'm always my absolute best. If I gain an argument or a fight with somebody, this is something that I've developed now into a habit. And I started this years ago, is I'll leave the situation and I'll go

do my workout and my post workout, mental clarity and ability to process. Difficult shit is like, it's so funny. You guys, I totally can see that with my irritation levels on the road. I'm driving home in traffic and, you know, for the most part, pretty chill. If I got my workout in, everything's great. Like all that, unused, that energy's been used, you know, and so I'm pretty much in a calm state at that point versus like just being wound up.

You just find yourself like thinking differently. You're just, ooh, like that, I'm such a better person for working out. Well, so, you know, think about your mood for a second. Your mood is literally the filter that you see, you receive information and you put information out. So you have this filter.

So imagine red is the color of your filter. Everything you see coming in, it looks red and everything you put out to the world looks red. So that's your mood. Exercise changes your filter, both in the short term, like I just talked about, you have your workout, and I have this different filter, so I can think clear, smarter,

I don't react as emotionally or as strong to certain things, I feel more grateful for my life, and for the, I just think it's a different, better filter. But also, articles have talked about how it changes your permanent filter, not just the post workout or the day after, but your baseline. So your baseline then starts to change a little bit.

And now, how much do you think your mood will affect your whole life? It affects your whole life tremendously. That's why this one right here is the most important. This is the one that has gotten all my clients, more than any other thing, more than fat loss, most of them anything, it's the change in mood that keeps them doing, it's the one that keeps me doing

and it's when I know why I'll keep doing this to the day I've done. And this is also what gives people a little more freedom with choosing their workout, right? Like, you know, our space sometimes we get in this where we're always who's smarter, who's ways better this and what's the newest, latest, greatest thing that burns the moat. It's like, forget all that stuff sometimes. Sometimes just go into the gym to move.

And then it doesn't matter how you're moving, just doing that for those reasons. Then what exactly you're doing in there to maximize bench press or the squad or fat burning. Like, does it really become that important? And that took me even a long time for myself to kind of let go of that, because I was so caught up in the results of training and I was always trying to build muscle and I was so driven by the insecurity versus all the other

things that it does for my life. Once I learned to change that thought process of like, sometimes when I go into the gym I'm even thinking that it's only to change my mood. I don't care that I'm not gonna get the most games Most important aspect right I'm not gonna get the most games for this We're gonna could I do something else that would be more yeah, I don't give a shit I'm gonna refine it down the road I mean you can keep improving the more frequent year there

It's the consistency factor and we always talk to this because of that fact It's like we want to get you in there because like you just doing anything at that point is gonna elevate now more frequent year there, it's the consistency factor. We always talk to this because of that fact. It's like, we want to get you in there because like you just doing anything at that point is gonna elevate you. Now here's the thing about that makes resistance training unique to other forms of exercise in regards to mood.

Now we know, and this is pretty proven that being able to be present really is a good thing for us. It's really a good thing to be in the moment, not all the time, but every once in a while, so that you're not thinking about what I gotta do tomorrow, what's happening yesterday. Oh my God, that embarrassing thing I said or whatever. Okay, resistance training, it's harder to be distracted

when you're lifting weights than when you're doing other forms of extra training. Get under treadmill and walk. I guarantee you within 10 minutes, you're not thinking about walking. You're thinking about all kinds of other stuff in your mind. You can do this on a stationary bike. You can do this on lots of different forms of exercise.

Resistance training, if you're lifting weights, you're in the weights. You're lifting. Maybe in between sets, you can let your mind wander. But when you're doing a set of squats or deadlifts or curls, it's not the same kind. Can you be distracted while you lift weights? Yes, it's possible. I highly, you're probably going to hurt yourself if you are, but it's not the same cut. Can you be distracted while you lift weights? Yes, it's possible. I highly, you're probably gonna hurt yourself if you are, but it's possible.

But it's far less likely. You're much more likely to be present because you have to focus on balancing the bar, doing this lift, I'm doing a new exercise, I have to twist, I have to focus on the muscle. It's one of the best present training type of exercises you could do. And that's what speaks to the brain part we talked about, right?

And I think that's where all those benefits come from, because there's other forms of exercises that are great, but it really challenges the brain in part of the banding. Right, part of that is being super present. And then there's the productivity aspect of all of this, it kind of combines the mood in the brain part, but I would have a lot of clients that would, they would be afraid that taking an hour outside of exercise

would be taking an hour away from their important business or whatever, and every single time they come back and tell me, I'm doing more work for sure. And less time. Always. I'm way more productive. Well, of course, you feel good. You're thinking more sharply.

Of course, you're gonna be more productive in a shorter period of time. Wouldn't we all like that? You just move faster all day. You know, how many times have you felt that where you haven't got to work out in for a couple of days and then you just feel lethargic and slow and you're tired and everything is like compounding in that way? Where you get your workout in, it's like you're on to the next thing, on to the next thing, on the next thing. Before you know it, you're like, man, I accomplished three, four times what I would have. And I dedicated a whole hour of not working on other

things, just working on myself, working out and look at the way it impacted every other of actually. Totally. Now, this next one is related to the muscle building aspects of resistance training, but not in the way that you would think. One of the best insurance policies you can have against chronic disease, especially the types of chronic disease that we suffer from in modern society. So like what's killing people in modern societies, right? Type two diabetes, that's a chronic disease,

heart disease, that's a very common one, Alzheimer's. How about as you get older, osteoporosis, that's a very bad one, right? You break a bone, now you're really screwed. More brittle now. Yeah, or just getting sick when you're older and then going to the hospital. If you're a 30-year-old and you have to be hospitalized

for your appendix for a few days, not as big of a deal. You're a 60 or 70-year-old and you have to do that for three days. Oh my gosh, a lot of times we see people getting all kinds of crazy. Well, isn't that, isn't that, isn't that really common? Like where it's, it's a lot of times somebody passes and that when you get into advanced age, they went in for something that is kind of a routine-ish type of surgery, but because their body can't handle, because how weak they and frail they are, they end up dying from that, right?

There's a saying that my doctor clients used to tell me, which was you break a hip and then you dive pneumonia. Because these people would go in there. Yeah, fall and break your hip, dive pneumonia. Yeah, because they have no muscle, they have no strength. Muscle is one of the best insurance policies you can have against all these chronic diseases, starting with diabetes.

Okay, muscle is a very glycogen sugar insulin-sensitive tissue. If you want to improve your insulin sensitivity, have more muscle. Muscle suck up glycogen. They're able to utilize it through expressing energy and strength. We know this, athletes typically will, they have to consume a certain amount of carbohydrates

for maximum performance. Your body becomes more sensitive to insulin, so you don't need as much of it to do the same kind of job. It also means too in layman's term for people that you get more flexibility in your diet and it doesn't hurt you. Totally. Somebody who enjoys that glass of wine every once in a while

or their favorite piece of pie, the more muscle you have on your body, the less that negatively affects you. Because you could burn it. Because you could burn it. If you have two people, and one of them's got, let's say they both weigh the same amount, you got two men, 180 pounds,

one guy's 12% body fat at 180 pounds. You have the guy's 25% body fat at 180 pounds. This is a large lean body mass difference. They both weigh the same amount. There's also gonna be a large calorie burn difference. Even if they had the same level of activity throughout the day, the person with more muscle has just got more calorie burning machinery on their body.

Forget the fact that they look a lot better. They're just burning a lot more calories. Now, what does this mean for the average person? Means you can eat more and still not eat too much. Right. You know how great is that? Because what you'll find with nutrition is, you know, sugar can be bad, certain kinds of fats can be bad,

certain kinds of foods can be bad, but context makes a big difference. If your calories are low, they're not as nearly as bad. Right. Is if you're, like you have a high sugar diet, that's also really high in calories. Way, way, way terrible for you in comparison to a high sugar calorie diet that, or a high sugar diet, that's also really high in calories. Way, way, way terrible for you in comparison to a high sugar calorie diet

or a high sugar diet, that's low in calories. Still not great, but weight not nearly as bad as a high calorie diet. And having a fast metabolism allows you to do this because you've got more muscle. Same thing with heart disease. Osteoporosis, this one's an obvious one. As you strengthen bone, excuse me, muscle,

you also strengthen bone, nothing will strengthen your bone more than lifting weights, nothing. And lifting weights is targeted, by the way. So if you're, let's say you'd like to do a lot of walking or cycling, you'll notice a lot of maybe some bone strengthening in the lower parts of the body, less so in the hands and the wrist. And do you attribute most of that to the stress

that you're putting on the bones because you're carrying weights and you're lifting weights or is it because of the, it promotes oxygen, blood flow, nutrients, getting through there? Well, all of them, but mainly it's the muscles anchor at, tendons and the tendons anchor at bones.

And when they pull harder on the bone or when you load the bone, bone adapts. Right, you stress it, you stress it so it adapts, it gets used to that. Oh, in extreme example, it's sensitive to the forced demand that you place them. Oh, if you break, if you're healthy and you break a bone and it heals, it's stronger at the break than it was initially. The way the body adapts is get stronger. Martial artists used to practice like old-school karate, practitioners were practiced, punching hard objects

And what would happen is they create these micro fractures in the bone and the bones would heal stronger and they keep doing it over and over and they get these incredibly Dance like if you look at bone under if you guys have seen the pictures of like a osteoporosis bone versus a normal bone No, on the outside they look the same. It's when you look inside and you know the spaces in between the bone It looks like bubbles or whatever. There's there's more of them. It's when you look inside and you know the spaces in between the bone, it looks like bubbles or whatever. There's more of them. There's more space. It's not a spongy mesh. Yes, it's not as dense. When you do resistance training and strength training, it's not like your bones necessarily grow and I can get a wider, you know, femur, necessarily adapt to become more solid because they're getting stressed all the time. On the inside, they get much more dense, you're far less likely to break that bone.

And this is because you're strengthening the tendons and the muscles around it, resistance training, just I had a client once who actually they did a case study on her, she had bone loss, osteopenia, which is kind of like when you're on your way to osteoporosis. And they couldn't figure out, you know, she would do the calcium, she was walking, she wasn't overweight, they were trying to figure out what can we do to help strengthen her bone.

Dr recommended, let's go have you lift some weights and see what happens. So she started lifting weights of me twice a week. That was it. Two days a week, we were lifting weights and the not only did we reverse the osteopenia, but it was at such a pace that the doctor, I got on the phone with the doctor several times, and they made her a case study. So they could use it to present other doctors and say, hey, if you have aging clients with osteoporosis, the form of exercise, you need to, the one thing you need to recommend to all of them

is lifting weights. Have them lift weights because what we're seeing here is pretty crazy. So definitely your resilience and your ability to fight illness from resistance strength, like if you, here's another example, let's say you get really sick, you get the flu, flu is nasty and it can knock people down for a week or two. Let's say you get it and you get pneumonia and you're in the hospital and you're in there for five days. If you've got a lot of muscle on your body, you're going to come out of it. You're still not going to feel very good when you come out of there, but you got more insurance. You're going to your body, you're still not gonna feel very good

when you come out of there, but you got more insurance. You're gonna come out and you're not gonna be nearly as frail and as weak as if you went in there without a lot of muscle on your body. Well another example is that is when you tear ligaments and stuff, because your muscles too are supporting all that. So I remember when I tore my ACLM,

and the doctor was so impressed with my ability still to walk. And he tributes that to all the muscle mass that was supporting the knees. And man, if you were another client who had very little muscle muscle in both your calves and your quads, you would never be able to support yourself the way you are right now, which is, I mean, think of it like that too for injuries as you start to age. Totally, totally. The last one that I can think about, which for me, I always thought was really, really cool, was how empowering being stronger is.

Now, there's the obvious, like the person who gains or regains independence. So like, I wasn't able to carry my groceries in the house all the way up the stairs or I wasn't able to sit down and get up or whatever, so now I'm stronger, I can do those things. That's pretty obvious, but there's one that's a little less obvious, and I noticed this more with women. And it was like, I feel strong now, and that strength makes you feel confident. Just lifting my luggage in the overhead compartment or just feeling confident walking around with good posture, feeling strong enough to, if I need to, to get away or to defend myself,

that was a huge one. And I would hear that all the time from my female clients. Yeah, I noticed that a lot with my female clients and I think it's mainly because, I mean, it wasn't promoted enough that, you know, women like are very much just as capable of lifting heavy weights just like guys.

It's like this thought that it's going to make you bulky and you're training to be a football player and all this kind of stuff was perpetuated out there. And so it was all about like as many reps as possible and shaping and sculpting their bodies through just like multiple reps. But once you get them to lift heavy heavy weights really focus it on that like completely, it was just like a transformation right away. I also think that strength training gives you the formula for life.

Right, when you learn, when you learn to strength train and you lift weights properly with the intent to build muscle, burn body fat, what you end up piecing together is the formula that applies to almost everything else in your life. It takes hard work. There's going to be setbacks along the way. You get back up.

Consistency is one of the number one most important things. You start to re- when you've accomplished something through weight training and you know what it takes to do that, to really move the needle and be consistent and see a difference in your physique and all the things that we're talking about, even the things that you're not used to. When you start to connect that, you start to learn that, oh wow, this is crazy how this same formula applies to other aspects of my life. Almost everything. Right.

Because it involves you. It's self-improvement. It's how you can better yourself. And of course, that's going to translate into any direction you want to go. So that's where I think that's one of the most empowering pieces of. Oh yeah, I mean, you go to the gym and you did

five pushups this week and then you are able to do six one in the next. And you're working hard and you're consistent. And next thing you know, you could do 20 pushups. Like, you can't tell me that that lesson, that confidence that you build isn't gonna bleed over into the rest of your life. Well, you can literally train yourself

into a more extreme example of to do something you never could do before, right? Hey, when I first got into lifting weights, I couldn't even put 45 pounds on each side of the bench press for years. But then I look back now and moving to 25 is relatively easy for me and to think that, whoa, if I could think back to that mindset that I had then of like, that seems so far away, that didn't seem possible.

It just reps. But I did something that I would have guessed is impossible for me to do. Holy shit, where else can I apply the same? It gives you that thought, because I know we're talking about this, even with podcasting or anything else you're doing that's completely new. Like we were like, dude, this is just like fitness,

this is reps. Yes. We will get better. The more we just sit and work on it. The more we practice. The more practice, like every, and it is just a time-tested fact. If you have that mentality going into something.

And it's slow, so it forces you to learn that lesson. Oh, totally. There is no shortcut. There is no... You're not gonna lift weights and then tomorrow wake up and you're all right, expert at it. Right, and that's why that, it's so important, right? You can't, even cheating, right? So it would be, oh, steroids, isn't that?

Even if you've been in so long time. Still things, and that's why. It's still that fucking hard. You learn to take that applied to everything else. I had, you know, I used to hear this more from female clients, but now you're starting to hear it also from men. And that's the, like, how many times did you train a client?

Usually this was a female client that was afraid of weight. They were afraid of weight because they never, they didn't know how to exert themselves in that way. They didn't know how to lift something really heavy with confidence. They don't know how to get under a bar that felt heavy and And it's like they didn't even know their capability right they would get on the oh my god That's too heavy and I'm I'm tell I would tell them look I'm watching your form you can actually lift enough the 30 pounds I know this for a fact I've been doing this for a year

It's also one of the most rewarding things as a trainer to give to a client, right? How long have you guys had that? Where a client is like, I can't believe I did this. Right, yeah. I mean, that is so- Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh pick it up, I mean, look, you know, let's say my max deadlift is 500 pounds. 400 pounds still feels really heavy. It's not like it's 100 pounds less, but it's like I get under 400 pounds off the ground and it feels like a piece of cake. It feels really heavy, but because I've trained myself and understand how to really drive

and struggle, I can tell that I can lift into the hundred pounds. Now, a lot of people never trained this. Now, in the past, I would hear this more from female clients, but nowadays I'm starting to hear from guys, too, mainly because we're just far less physical. We've never exerted ourselves that way. Now, that's a skill. It's actually a skill when you learn how to get under a bar and you get under a squat bar, whatever, and you drive up and you lift it and you feel it, all of a sudden other challenges don't feel nearly as challenging. You walk out of the gym, lifting away that you feel it, all of a sudden other challenges don't feel nearly as challenging.

You walk out of the gym, lifting away that you're like, the way that felt, I don't think I could do this, this is one of the inspiring things about personal trainers, because I'm sitting over here going, no, you can lift it, I'm watching your form. You can lift it, let's try it again, let's try it. And then they do it and they're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it.

And then everything else seems a little bit easier. That's so, it's such an empowering feeling and Resistance training in particular especially because of the challenge aspect of it the fact that there's so much Potential variety with what you're doing you can get really good at one exercise And I could throw one at you that you've never done before and all of a sudden it's super challenging all over again Boy, what a great feeling going through that process I and I really believe to kind of bringing this all together too, the coaches that are listening like,

this is what takes you to the next level as a coach is when you learn to speak to these types of points to your, your everyday clients. Absolutely. Like when you can make this connect, you got to remember that 90% of the people that you train in you coach are not like you. They don't love, they didn't get up loving to go to the gym and they found, they love it so much they've made a career out of it. They're not like you. Most people do it because of the few things that they know that are important about it

and that's enough to get them in the gym to start exercising. When you help them make the connection to these other things that really start to impact their life, that has nothing to do with the obvious ones of what probably drove them in the gym, which is scale on the weight, body fat percentage, muscle building. Once you learn to make that switch over to this side, that's where you get life or client. That's where you change people's lives.

Yeah, really cemented for them. Absolutely. And with that, go to minepumpfree.com and download all of our free guides and resources. If you're a trainer, actually, we have a free personal training guide there as well, but we have guides on squatting, guides on building your arms, working on your midsection, fat loss, muscle building. Again, it's MindPumpFree.com.

You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin. You can find me at MindPump Salon 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 You can find me at Mind Pump Salon at Mind Pump Adam. 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 Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back 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 Mind Pump.