Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1250: How to Stay Fit, Healthy & Well During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss how to maintain fitness when gyms are closed, bolster the immune system and maintain a positive state of mind during the stressful coronavirus pandemic. The Mind Pump way, being effective in scary times and not motivated by fear. (5:00) The negativity biases that are all-consuming. (7:45) The incredible opportunity to do good and rise above. (10:50) The power of the human spirit. (15:15) Things you can do for yourself that will help you stay fit, healthy and well. (18:00) Tips for at-home workouts. (22:40) How to approach nutrition for your physical and emotional body. (31:05) Tips to manage stress. (36:55) Related Links/Products Mentioned March Promotion: MAPS Powerlift ½ off! **Code “POWER50” at checkout** Special Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “WHITE50” at checkout** Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** Mind Pump 827: Bishop Barron- Using YouTube & Social Media to Demystify Christianity & God Video shows quarantined Italians singing together from their windows while country is on lockdown Prime Bundle | MAPS Fitness Products Improving mental health for inmates Mind Pump TV - YouTube Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we wanted to get positive. We wanted to inspire and motivate all of you right now who are stuck at home, not able to go to the gym because of what's going on. You know, we know our role in the fitness space is to help people get fit and healthy

and take care of themselves, and we've never been negative people. We know it's much more effective to be positive. So in this episode, we tell you what you can do. You've already been hearing in the news what you can't do and what you shouldn't do. So you've already got that down, but here's what you can do at home

to improve your health and wellness. So we covered three of the most important things. We talk about at home workouts. So just because you can't go to the gym doesn't mean you can't take care of your fitness. In fact, a lot of you will actually become more fit because you can do things at home that you might have been neglecting

because you've been going to the gym. We also talk about how to feed your body. We talk about the value of feeding your physical body properly, that means having the right amount of proteins, fats, and carbs and the right foods, but also how to feed your emotional body. Believe it or not, there is a role in comfort eating, especially right now, and we talk about how to manage that.

And then finally, the most important thing, managing stress, we talk about real, effective proven ways to help you manage your stress and how to implement them in your life. In that, we mentioned one of our partners called Brain FM. They have a meditation app. It actually guides you through meditation. Just go to brain.fm, forward slash mine pump,

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That's WHITE50, no space for the discount. Oh. I T E five zero no space for the discount. 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. You know, dude, I was thinking about this a lot yesterday and this morning, and I was thinking,

because we have a podcast, right? That reaches a lot of people. I'm like, what is our, what can we do during this situation? How can we help people? Yeah. And I thought, you know, right now what you hear a lot of is, you know, fear and what you need to prepare. Purchase negative nancies.

Yeah, like scared and, you know, and I get that. That's important. It's all important stuff, you know. It is real stuff going on. But I thought, okay, we're a fitness and health company. And what is our role? What is our role in the fitness space? And I thought to myself, way back,

when we first started Mind Pump, when we first started Mind Pump in the first space. Like our purpose for starting mind pump in the first place was to effectively communicate fitness and health to the masses and the way to do that effectively, the way to really do that is to be hopeful, positive, to not get, to prevent people from hating their bodies, to help people to love their bodies. And we learn this through training clients for two decades. You know, when you first become a trainer,

one of the things you do, and this is just no fault of your own, this is just what you think is effective, is you scare people. You tell people, if you don't lose this weight, you're gonna, you know, not gonna be healthy, you're gonna have a heart attack, eating these foods is gonna kill you.

And you start to learn if you really wanna help people and pay attention, and if you're humble enough to question your true effectiveness, you start to realize that that's not effective. That's how the fitness space is being communicating forever. It's been scaring people, making people feel ugly, making people feel insecure, you're fat, you're ugly, you're skinny, you know, you're not doing enough. You're not doing enough,

and what you end up learning through years and years of training clients, that doesn't work long term. You can only hate yourself so much, you can only be motivated by fear so much. And so then you start to change your message a little bit, and it becomes a message of self love, rather than self hate, taking care of yourself, rather than hating yourself. And so as I was thinking about that, I thought, you know what? Our job is the job we've always had, guys. This is the thing we've always learned as trainers.

It's to be proactive and positive, to get people to feel good through real honest information, not fluff, we're not into the fake hype and motivation. In fact, we hate those guys because that's also baloney, real to be real, but to also be truly effective. Well, do you feel like there's a lot of fear mongering going around right now, like with this, the, the coronavirus, right? I'll tell you what, bro. Absolutely. I think so, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, dismissing it. Yeah, I'm not dismissing it. I get, it plays a role. And humans have a, we have what's called a negativity bias that we evolved with, where if you hear good news, or you hear bad news, you're more likely to pay

attention to the bad news, you're going to remember it longer and it's going to impact you much more. And this makes sense when we evolved as hunter-gatherers, you know, small community. So you're traveling with a band of 15 people, 30 people max, and you hear from one of the warriors, you know, hey, there's a, there's another clan coming this way. Like, you gotta pay attention to the chat, that shit, and it's way more important than, you know, the other news you heard that morning that there's some awesome berries growing, you know,

a mile away, that makes sense. But it can also be, you know, it can also cause problems. And our news cycle is, it's run by consumers. We dictate what the news, networks focus on. And so if they post an article that's scary and negative, like I just saw an article today in New York Times, if you Google coronavirus, how bad can this really get? How many people are gonna die?

And those are all speculations. And again, I don't think it's not important information, but you could tell that's what people are clicking on. Well, I've been saying this since the beginning of all of this, that I'm more worried or concerned about the economical repercussions that we're going to pay for from freaking out than the actual virus itself. And I think that's the part that is alarming to me

is that what ends up happening, what do we see in grocery stores right now? It's like insane. People are buying out all the toilet paper, like you couldn't wash your ass on a shower. Everybody immediately goes to scarcity. Yeah, everyone is freaking out. And then the next thing that happens to

is people stop spending money because they don't know what's gonna happen and then everyone gets afraid. That type of stuff affects our economy. When you look at where the Fed was at, we've continued to, we've been in a bull market for the last four or five years plus right now. With unprecedented numbers, the economy has been crushing, the stock market has been crushing, and we kept that going by continuing to reduce the rates as far as, and that's normally what we use to jump start the economy.

So when things start to take a dip, normally what ends up happening is to encourage people to go borrow money, the Fed reduces those rates and they keep going lower to keep, but my concern is that we are at all time lows with interest rates, encouraging people to borrow money, and then we have something like this, and then everybody freaks out and gets scared, and then hoards and holds on. There's, it's important to be cautious, it's important to be objectively cautious, but it's also equally important to not let that

cause more problems for you, even internally, staying at home and freaking out all day long. It's easy for me to say that, right? It's harder to actually do, But I was thinking about all this. And then I started to remember the last time that the country really got this afraid, the last time this country was really shook. Now, I'm old enough to clearly remember September 11th. That was a very scary time. It was one of the first, we got attacked by terrorists. And we didn't really know what was going to happen. Are they going to bring, you know,

a dirty nuclear bomb? I remember all these fears. Remember, are they going to sneak in a bomb? Or a nuke? Are they going to? What other cities are next? Like, yeah, I was living in Chicago at the time, and it's like, you're thinking about every building that you're walking into now. Like, you just have this in the back of your mind where this fear has just like consumed you. Yes. And you just don't know, you know, what's in front of you anymore. Yes.

And then I remembered this quote from Fred Rogers, you know, was Mr. Rogers. And this guy is just brilliant. A great documentary. If you don't know much about this guy, he had a children's show on public television. And he was just so effective at communicating to kids. But he, this is his quote, he said, when I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. And then I remembered September 11th and how after people got scared, but people also banded and worked together

like we had never seen before. I felt a sense of unity in my neighborhood in California across the country with Americans, with other people that I had never felt before. Then I remembered a conversation I had with Bishop Baron and if you haven't listened to this This our interview with them. It's a really good one He's a he's a Catholic bishop and you know when we did the podcast Especially me. I was I used to be atheist and I was kind of questioning things

I thought what a great person to ask lots of hard questions and I asked him one of the most difficult questions I think and he actually admitted this is one of the most difficult questions I think, and he actually admitted, this is one of the more difficult questions he gets asked about, is there a God? And I said to him, if God really existed, why would he allow so much evil? And he said, first off, a lot of evil is done by men, but it also opens up the opportunity for good and for grace.

It's like when I talk about Superman, how he's not courageous because he went into a burning building. It's not gonna hurt him. The person who had the actual fear and could potentially die who went in, that's the courageous person. And so life, it's always had shitty stuff happen. Always since the beginning of time, horrible things have happened to humanity,

whether it's personal and local, you lost a family member, you yourself got sick, mental illness, or global pandemics, wars, terrible acts. And all these, this is going to, it's always going to happen. This is how life is. It's just inevitable, don't fight it. Of course we can prepare to prevent things, we can learn from our mistakes. But since the beginning of the time till now,

we haven't been able to solve every single hardship, stuff is going to happen. And so when that stuff happens, it's an incredible opportunity for us to do good and for us to rise above. And it's funny, Italy right now, right? They're at the center of the... I was just going to ask you that because right now, they're obviously ahead of us. What are we seeing?

Because there's so much stuff coming out, first of all. I'm in a thread with a couple of my buddies. And the irony is like, depending on what political side you're on, it tends to be the information you're getting, whether you're more optimistic or pessimistic, you know, whether you're trying to bash our leadership. And so therefore you're putting out all this, oh my God, this is so bad. And this is all Trump's fault, yeah, yeah, or the opposite side you're trying to protect him and say, oh no, this would have happened had he not done this.

And then we're seeing a lot of things that have happened over in Italy. And so rumors are that we are 10 to 14 days behind what's going on in Italy. And now they have pretty much shut almost everything down over there. Yeah. So the measures that they've taken that we're taking here now will probably drastically reduce amount of infections and all that stuff, but I don't want to necessarily talk about you know how hard it's going to be and all that kind of stuff. What I want to point out is human spirit

it turns process. Now if you look at Italy, Italy is of all the of the entire free world, right? They've actually suffered the most. They've had the most infections and deaths compared to any other free country, entire country on quarantine. I have family in Italy. I have my dad's families all there. Part of my mom's families there. I have family in Northern Italy

where this outbreak started. And then, so we talk to them. I see news articles, and here's what's happening. If you all around these towns, and this is what I love about the human spirit, we can only be scared, and we can only be pushed so far

until good starts to come out. In Italy, you go around shops, restaurants, buildings, and you see these drawings and paintings of sun shines and rainbows that children made. Children are making these pictures and paintings and pasting them everywhere and it's saying, doota bana, everything will be alright. You're seeing these all over the country of Italy. You know what else you're saying over there? And this, it makes me almost emotional to talk about. And you can go on YouTube right now and Google and find this, and this isn't making the top of the news

because it's good news, like I said before. But this is happening all over the country of Italy. A lot of the way the towns are designed in Italy is their buildings, and you live on a floor, and they'll have balconies. Okay, it's like this stereotypical town of Italy that you see where people on their balconies on set. And everybody has to stay inside.

They can't leave their houses unless they have a good reason. So now it, it's times have been quarantined in the north for a little while and the rest of Italy for a little less. But enough time now where people are like, fuck man, I can't, I can't see my friends, families, I can FaceTime people, that's it. Do you know what they're doing?

They're singing on their balconies together. Go on YouTube, you can find these videos. People are singing songs together in neighborhoods on their balconies, popular Italian songs, songs that kids learned growing up, songs that are popular on the radio, people are out there and they're doing this and it's incredible, it's incredible and very, very touching.

And again, it reminded me of September 11th and how people, especially in New York City, came together and worked together. You know, New York has that stereotype of, you know, people are rude, and they're bumping in and fuck you, and they're whatever. After September 11th, you ask anybody who was there, and they'll tell you that, you know,

the Muslim guy down the street from the Jewish guy was, they were fucking working together being friends at the black and white dude were helping each other, that men and women, and everybody was just coming together. And so, that really motivated me to wanna do this episode about things you can do for yourself that help you stay fit, healthy and well,

especially well, because I think the mental toll that this is taking on people right now is can be pretty bad. Well, I love the attitude of already, what I see in some of our own community, saw a post this morning from one of our trainers. Now, gyms are some gyms are shutting down in classes, and so a lot of trainers

are wondering, oh, what do I do? And you know, we saw a post already this morning of a trainer who already owned a prime and prime pro and just hadn't taken the time to really dive in it and go through all of it. So, well, I'm quarantined to home now because my gym is closed down. So, I'm going to bury myself and learn everything you guys teach in private prime pro. We got a great thank you message about that and just gonna up their game as a trainer. So learning to take something like this and then look for the silver lining and find ways to better yourself. So I'm excited to see that some of people in our community already started to do. I was definitely starting to see that. I was out of this park yesterday.

And I mean, it's already happening where all the schools are getting shut down and, you know, people are kind of trying to work from home. And so we just find ourselves all at the same time at this field. And I'm talking to like all these neighbors I would have normally just kept to myself and driven past and, you past and never interacted with. Just having that positive spirit that we're sharing between each other, it's one of those things where it helps you to slow down and appreciate life again for a minute.

That's something we're trying to focus more on that end of it versus, you know that this is a storm right now. This is a storm just like any other storm. Like it's a hurricane's come through and they decimate, and there's real repercussions that are gonna be there, but there's also that other side where it's like, you're one piece in the whole spectrum and to be able to connect to other people

that are in the passive. And it passes. And the storm passes. And it's also understanding the things that we're doing right now are precautions so it doesn't spread and get crazed. Exactly. So the part of what's happening that is unfortunate is the fear of all this is escalating the real actual fear of it. And it's like because we've never seen this right, we've never seen oh my god, you can't fly anywhere now. Oh, this is an NBA. Well, that's because we're, you're talking about places. That's why I like, I understood what happened with Arnold when it just, it made sense to me. You're talking about an area that's going to have a quarter million people under, and it's just

smart. It's just smart to take care of our people and to not allow it to spread exponentially. We're going to cancel things like this. It's not because we have to, we're gonna die and everyone's freaking out. It's just a smart maneuver. What was that? You were telling me, Sal about like, St. Louis and other cities with the Spanish flu and how they... Oh yeah, yeah, there's a good example of how...

Social isolation is one of the most effective ways to prevent the curve of infection from spiking so high. And there were two cities during the Spanish flu that they used this comparison. One was St. Louis. I can't remember the other one. One of them canceled these public events was ridiculed for doing so because people are like, oh, you're hurting businesses. And why don't we maintain, you know, keep doing what we're doing. One of the other cities, couldn't remember if those St. Louis and the other one said, screw it, we're going to continue with our big, I don't remember what it was, what holiday it was,

but parade, so there's huge parade. You compare the two cities in terms of infections and deaths, and the one that had the parade was like 10 times higher. So social isolation is the most effective, and we're seeing this in China, we're seeing this all over. It actually works, so it does work, but the other repercussions of this is this. You're at home, you're not going anywhere.

Your tendency is to continue to consume negative scary news. And look, one of the number one places that people are gonna stop going to, and that might get ordered to shut down, which probably will get ordered to shut down for time, are gyms? Gyms are public gatherings, people are sweating,

there's lots of germs, all that stuff, it's a big public gathering. They're gonna be shut down, but that doesn't mean that you can stop or should stop taking care of yourself. Like what do I do? Do I sit at home, get scared all day long, reading the news, watching TV,

not take care of myself? Like, you know, that also isn't good for you. It's not healthy for you. And then you may be one of those people that's just, you know, really motivated. Like, oh crap, what do I do? I can't work out at the gym. So let's talk about at home. Let's start out with the out at home workout tips because working at at home actually gives you an opportunity to change your workout for a short period of time, which actually is not a poor substitute. You know, it's funny. We have a program called Maps Anywhere, which is an at home or, you know, wherever you want workout program, doesn't require equipment, just your body and bands. And some people think, oh, that's a substitution. If I can't make it the gym, then that's a poor

substitution. It's actually not. It's a great different way to work out. We've talked on the show so many times about novelty and how changing things up gets your body to respond. Well, here's your opportunity. If you're married to the gym and the same workout, now you're not going because you can't. Now, you're at home. What a great opportunity to focus on things you haven't focused on before? Well, this is also, so I've been getting lots of messages from trainers right now too that are starting to also freak out because this is their main source of income is the training training clients, one-on-one in person and many clients even if the gyms aren't cancel yet, clients are canceling just in fear of being around that and you know, I've told a lot of them, this is a great opportunity for you to coach

virtually. And, you know, I've told a couple of trainers, I'm like, listen, use the Maps Anywhere program, use Maps Prime or Prime Pro, which are all things that can be done in like a living room and encourage clients to still keep their sessions one on one with you. It's beautiful nowadays with iPhones and Zoom. FaceTime them. Yes, FaceTime, FaceTime your appointments and work them through one-on-one virtually.

Totally. And even if you have to, this is a... People will appreciate. 100% even if you have to pivot that to a discounted rate to do that. You know, here's a great way to be able to accommodate these people that still want to train, still want to stay fit, but then are not able to go

inside the gym anymore. Great time to pivot to something like this. Take them through a maps anywhere. Take them through a prime or prime, prime, I mean, this is another thing. So anytime we do these live events, I get opportunities to talk to a lot of private trainers. I give this as something that I tell everybody that is a coach, that there's this huge opportunity right now for people to teach mobility work. And the reason for that is there's an explosion of these F-45s, orange theories, these high-impact, high-intensity type circuit-based classes that don't address mobility and corrective exercise very well.

And instead of trying to compete with those brands, I've been telling trainers there's a huge opportunity to compliment these brands. And maybe this is the jump start that you needed to take that advice into action, but I would 100% take the joint stuff that we have in Maps Prime Pro. I would take those movements, I would pick five to seven of them

and I would teach my clients virtually these things to do. Oh, I remember years ago, I used to grand open gyms for 24-Fitness, there were two clubs that I grand opened. And one of them, we opened up the cardio area, the pool first, and the rest of the gym, the free weights and machines, and all that stuff, we hadn't opened yet.

So it was just cardio and swimming pool. And I had trainers who were ready to start and everybody's freaking out What do I do? I got no equipment. I said body weight and band work. Let's have fun. Let's get creative You could do great workouts. You want to know it's funny? We had some of our best months and sales during those times because people loved it They love the variety. They love the different exercises People also got great results, so if you're listening right now,

and you can't go to the gym, you can still do some amazing workouts at home, and they may actually be more important today than they were before because of the stress and anxiety around what's going on right now. It helps you maintain mental sanity. When they do studies on... It's therapy, man.

Oh, it is, and when they do studies on prisoners, prisoners who are active, far, far better mental health because of the activity and they're locked in a cage and their freedom has been taken from that. What do you have power? What do you have control over right now? It's like being able to maintain your own health

by still applying healthy practices. And this is something that people should really then now use as an opportunity to really focus in on your health assess yourself. So here's some takeaways for at-home workouts. Frequency is king with body weight and band workouts. So when you're lifting with heavy weight, lots of tension, when you're doing your heavy exercises,

you're gonna wanna take time off in between, let the muscles recover or whatever. When you're working out at home, the tension isn't as high, you can actually work out every single day. Now that's also going to benefit your mental state anyway, because you're going to want to be active every single day. I work out like this often times when I'm on vacation, when I don't have access to a gym, I'll do a 30 to 40 minute full body, body weight, or band type workout, and when I come back,

actually a better performance in the gym. So that's tip number one, body weight exercises, do them every single day. Give yourself a 30 to 45 minute workout, and just do it every single day. If you're really advanced and your board is held, you can do two of those a day. No joke, you can do 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at night, and watch what happens to your

body's progress. This is also a great opportunity to incorporate high intensity interval training type circuits. Now these circuits, of course, if you rely on them and that's all you ever do forever, we talk about that on the show, just like doing anything forever, probably not good. But if you're at home for a month or two months or three months, what a great way to build up your stamina, your endurance, and your performance by doing these circuit-based bodyweight type workouts throughout the week. Yeah, and imagine too, if you're somebody like us that are indoors all day long, and like your job requires you to be sitting quite frequently. This this is a great opportunity depending on the weather, what not. You can be outside, you can be getting the sun.

Like I take my kettlebells out there, I'll do a nice circuit with the kettlebells and it's a completely different type of a stimulus that your body is just going to thrive in. So it's just like you got to find that opportunity and really like go in that direction. What can I do to benefit myself right now? My favorite bodyweight exercises are pushups and all of the pushup variations. You have your traditional pushups. You could change the tempo with your pushups so that you pause at the bottom, right when you hover above the floor.

You can also change your hand positioning from close to medium to wide. You could also do what are called dive bomber pushups, where you go chest first, and then kind of scrape the floor with your belly, chest up, and then get back into... And all of this isn't maps anyway. This is all there. You could do jumping pushups,

there's so many variety of pushups that are phenomenal for triceps, shoulders, and chest. If you have bands, rows to the cows come on. All kinds of different rows. One arm rows, rotating rotating rows both arm rows You could do pull ups if you have a pull up station like a chin up bar or if you have a two by four you can grab onto That's how I used to do push-ups as a kid I'd hang off of the edge of the yeah pull up

Excuse me I'd hang off the edge of my my parents, you know overhang or whatever Those are great for back and then lower body lungeses, side lunges, squats, jump squats, jump lunges, single leg toe touches. So many different exercises. You know, lateral training, I mean, a lot of times too, like this is where we talk every now and then of like having a period of just going into unilateral training,

right, like because of the benefits of that of being able to now stabilize on my joints again, which then, you know, transfers back when I get into the gym where I can really get after it because I'm even more supported. So there's that benefit to it as well. Yeah, and then what Adam was talking about was mobility work.

Mobility work, if you are like most people, including me, mobility work is probably, it's probably not always a priority, right? It's not as exciting as deadlifting a ton of weight, not as fun as getting a good pump, you know, for a lot of people. But here's your opportunity, and mobility work requires no equipment. It requires tension, intrinsic tension and intention, and, you know, okay, fine, let's look, let's say worst case scenario, you're hold up for a couple of months,

don't go to the gym for two months, but you place a heavy focus on mobility. That might be exactly what your body needed. And then you go to the gym, and then you get under the bar when everything's clear. Yeah, everything's moving so easily. You get deeper, your form is better, and we know what that turns into, better gains.

Yep. Let's talk about nutrition. That's the other part. Um, that, you know, we, we, we have some expertise on, um, you know, there's, there's a few different ways you can approach nutrition for health. There's the obvious one, which is, you know, good nutrition, right? Good macros, proteins, fats and carbs, you know, foods that are good for you physically. But there's also another side of food which is comfort. It makes you feel good. You're connecting with the people around you.

I'm not here to tell you to avoid comfort foods completely and to become this super hyper regimented diet or we never, we actually, we never promote that. I think what's important during a period of like this when you're at home Is to identify the true value of each and then being honest about which one you really need Do I really need to comfort myself with this comfort food or should I be feeding my my physical body and Usually I'm not gonna lie usually the answer is I need to take care of my physical body sometimes though glass of wine and a cheeseburger is just what you need. Well, what's your thoughts on people that up into this point, maybe the last week or

so with all the corona stuff, was on a calorie restricted diet to lose weight or body fat. What's your thoughts on that right now with talking about what are some of the things that you can do to protect yourself or to stay healthy in this time? Would you recommend living more in a maintenance to surplus calorie intake instead of being in a deficit where you're probably stressing the body more than you need to? I think if you are based off the studies that I've seen, if you are exposed to someone who's sick or you're sick yourself, you wanna eat adequately.

You don't wanna cut calories or fast. You wanna just eat adequately, worry about hydration. If nobody's sick and you're at home and you're not exposed to anybody that's sick, then you do whatever you want. You wanna diet, you wanna get cut, you wanna bulk, with your body weight workouts. Totally fine.

I just wouldn't push any specific goal if you're around sick people or if you're sick yourself. Well, that's right. I feel like if there was ever a time to live in a calorie maintenance surplus, if there was ever a time to work within, if there was ever a time to lay off the hard and tense type of training and work more mobility and just take care of the body.

Because really, it's really tough when all the information coming in from outside is this you know, making everybody scared and afraid and trying to stress you out. Because that in itself could be really detrimental to your health. That's a stress. If you are allowing all these things to freak you out, you're more vulnerable and susceptible to getting sick just because of that. So the opportunity right now for you to really focus within,

to focus on being positive, to maybe work more mobility, more meditation type stuff, feed your body adequately, make sure you're getting balanced diet in right now. I would think of all the times, this is probably one of the most important times for you to do. I totally agree. I was thinking that the whole time, because there's going to be a lot of people that want

to maintain this level of intensity and like this push that they were on such a good momentum ride with. But, you know, through these types of things, you're already being bombarded with all this information that is stressing you out and is a culmination of stress that may be higher than you realize, like that you're just walking around with naturally. So, to then kind of take it, maybe turn it down a notch and again, work on all these other things, we're kind of trying to bring up in terms of, you know, like really benefiting your body and looking at more from a health perspective

in terms of like looking from a performance, you know, advancement right now, I think would be a good shift for you. Yeah, I mean, it depends on the mindset too. Maybe you're, like me, like I can focus on things and my mind can run rampant. And sometimes a great distraction maybe your, like me, like I can focus on things and my mind can run rampant. And sometimes a great distraction that actually forces me to be present

is focusing on something else. Or an intense workout, you know? So if an intense workout may be what you need, which is okay, there's nothing wrong with that. You just have to be mindful of how. I think that's the real answer. The real answer is that just have to be mindful of how... I think that's the real answer. I think that's the real answer. The real answer is that you have to evaluate and assess yourself and how you react to it.

If you're somebody who tends to over-react and allow all these other things to freak you out and stretch you out more, the last thing you probably need is an over-intense workout. Now, if you're somebody who has the ability to kind of shut off all the white noise and turn it in a positive direction and turn it in a positive direction

and turn it in a positive direction and get after a workout and block out everything and internally focus on what you need to be doing than biomeans get after it. I tell you guys a story. I've told this in the past and on the podcast, but years ago I had someone very close to me get diagnosed with terminal cancer and I watched

them deteriorate and then finally die and I was very, very close to this person. They were a very important person in my life and among other things, exercise kept me healthy and sane and it allowed me to be strong enough to support them and the people around us during that period of time. And the way I used the workout was literally what you said, Adam. It was my way of being present. It was when I could kind of not think of those things and take care of myself enough so that I could take care of others.

That's the wonderful thing about exercises. You can use it like a tool. It's a multifaceted, it's like a Swiss army knife and it's effective at so many different things. So use it that way, which brings me to another one. You kind of, you know, you guys have been alluding to stress management. This is a very important time, you know, like I'll give you an example. If you're a high-level athlete and you are pushing your body to the absolute limit recovery and recovery protocols and sleep and massage and sauna and steam and cold bath Way more important than it is for the average person who just goes to the gym a couple days a week, right?

Way more important. Okay. We're in a very stressful time. We're bad news. We may be limited to what we can do in terms of travel, our normal avenues of leisure are cut off. You're not going out to eat as much. You're probably not seeing as many people or social animals so that can kind of hurt us.

You're not going to the movies, you're not going to gyms or whatever. So because it's a stressful time, just like the athletes who's pushing their body to limit, place more focus on the opposite end of that which is to manage stress. And there are things that are proven that help a lot with that. Now managing stress is not just a, I'm going to sit here and not think of stuff, you have to be active. Just like the athlete who's recovery is important. You have to be active, just like the athlete whose recovery is important.

They have to actively seek out good massage. They have to actively seek out, recovery-based nutrition and techniques to help them sleep and massage therapists. You have to actively work on managing your stress and there are things that are proven, scientifically proven to have a profound effect on your body and brain's ability to manage stress.

One of them is meditation. Now real meditation is hard work. Okay, so if you've never meditated before, two minutes of dedicated meditation is going to be very, very difficult. I'm really, there's many different ways to meditate, but the idea behind meditation is to be completely present. You know why you're talking about this. We don't ever really share this, but there is a lot of people that struggle with meditation.

I know you did with sitting still because you get antsy sitting still in a meeting. If you are, this is another thing that I love about brain FM. Brain FM has a guided meditation. It's like a trainer for them. Yeah, no, it's literally, you don't forget it's there, but it's so effective. No, very, very effective. So if you are somebody who needs that, there are apps like that, like BrainFM, which we use it for a lot of different reasons. That's another reason that you could use that app. And one of the reasons why I met it, you know,

people, there's a so popular to focus on your breath when you meditate is because by focusing on your breath, you can't focus on other things. And because you're breathing now, you end up focusing on the present. And it is a very effective way at giving your body a break from all the stress. Another very, very powerful method that's been proven in countless studies that it's done by people all over the world for thousands of years. If you're religious, prayer. Prayer is a very effective way to manage stress.

It's also an effective way to give meaning behind difficult times. Psychologists talk about this all the time that the people who get through the most difficult times are the ones that find meaning behind what's going on. Prayer has been proven to do that. So if you're religious or you're kind of religious but don't pray, prayer makes a huge difference at helping people, manage the stress, trust me, I've looked at all the studies.

So whether you're, you know, if you are a religious person, I would say utilize that. And then of course mindset. You know, I would say utilize that. And then of course mindset. Mindset is an active thing. It's not a passive thing. How do I change my mindset? Well, change all the things that affect your mind.

So that may mean instead of checking Google and the news every hour on updates, maybe allow yourself to check them once a day. I mean, it might be too difficult to not check it at all, right? You want to know what's going on. That's fine. But maybe just give yourself, have some structure. I'll check it at this time and this time. And for the rest of the day, I'm not going to check it at all.

Because here's a funny thing, you know. I live here in San Jose, California, right? It's a big city. If I didn't have the news, if I didn't have Google, if I don't have my phone, and I just walked around every day, here's what I would notice. It was a little bit less traffic. Well, that's weird. They're at a toilet paper. I wouldn't notice anything else.

There's really nothing else that I would see right in front of me that would cause me to kind of freak out. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware, but if you're constantly reminding yourself of what's going on and what are the updates and tell me what's happening around the world, your mindset is gonna be molded around that. And then your mindset's gonna be a mindset of panic and fear constantly.

So consider the things that are affecting your mind and modify them so that you have a better mindset. Another thing is sleep. Sleep is one of the most effective things you could do to positively impact your stress levels. And so we've talked about this on the podcast before. Set up a sleep routine. And I know some people, a lot of us, when we're a lot of things on our minds, it's very difficult to get a good night of rest. The prayer, meditation, mindset stuff, and the news. Time that are all around bedtime.

So in other words, if I'm gonna check the news, don't check it before you go to bed. That's a terrible time. Terrible time to check it. Maybe check it early in the day. If you're gonna meditate and pray, do it an hour before bed. Turn off your lights, you know, get dim, speak softly, drink chamomile tea where blue blocker glasses are used candlelight, get your body prepared

for sleep, and that will dramatically improve your ability to have deep and good sleep. And then the final thing is entertainment. This is funny, if you're in business, you probably already know this, but during times of, when people are scared and people are freaking out, there are certain things in the market that tend to do well and entertainment is one of them.

And typically things that are not so serious, things that ways people can escape. This is a great time to read a fiction. You know, a good time to read a book that has nothing to do with the real world, it's maybe fantasy or whatever, that you know, you get lost or watch comedies. That's another thing you do,

things that get you to laugh, play games with your family, oh. Mine pumps here for you. And mine pumps, that's right. I mean, we try. And we're gonna be here for you. So, and with that, go to minepumpfree.com and pump. I mean, we try. And we're going to be here for you. And with that, go to minepumpfree.com and download all of our guides and resources.

They're all totally free. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at mine pump Justin. You can find me at mine pump Sal and Adam at mine pump Adam. Thank you for listening to mine pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance.

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