Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1297: 3 Ways to Know If Your Workout Is Not Right for You

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss three different ways to identify if your workout is no longer serving you and what to do about it. How to figure out if the workout you are doing is RIGHT for you. (3:30) The 3 gauges to identify if your workout is no longer serving you and what to do about it. (6:00) #1 - Are you getting results? (6:51) How body composition works. (9:55) The yo-yo dieting trap. (13:28) Are you getting stronger in the gym? (15:37) What to do if you are NOT seeing results. (19:36) #2 - How do you feel? (21:26) The breakdown recovery trap. (25:42) The differences between good and bad pain. (28:38) The importance of getting good sleep. (30:24) Are you enjoying your workouts? (34:38) #3 – Is your program sustainable? (36:28) Finding the right sweet spot for yourself. (44:54) How to assess what works best for YOU. (46:54) Related Links/Products Mentioned May Promotion: MAPS Starter ½ off! **Promo code “STARTER50” at checkout** Special Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “WHITE50” at checkout** Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Why The Scale Is Not Always The Best Way To Measure Progress – Mind Pump Blog Are You Spending Hours in the Gym and Still Not Putting on Muscle? - Mind Pump Blog Are You Strong? | T Nation Sore muscles…what does it mean? - Mind Pump Blog The Breakdown Recovery Trap, Why You Aren’t Progressing – Mind Pump Blog Great Sex…How optimized exercise and good health contribute to an awesome sex life – Mind Pump Blog 3 Other Benefits to Resistance Training – Mind Pump Blog How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts – Mind Pump Blog Exercise For More Than Just Aesthetics – Mind Pump Blog MAPS Prime Webinar 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, the world's top fitness, health, and entertainment podcast, we talk about workouts. Now a lot of you who listen to this podcast are currently either working out literally at this moment or following a workout program. And one of the hard things to figure out

is whether or not the workout has actually the best one for you. Like, is this the best possible workout I could be doing for my body, my goals, for what I'm looking to accomplish? So what we did is we broke it down. Okay, we give you three ways you can tell if your workout is right or wrong for you. So the things that we cover are results, how you feel, and whether or not the program that you're following is sustainable.

Of course, we go into detail and we break it down for you because the right workout for your body is one that gives you the best results, makes you feel the best, and is the one that you can stay the most consistent with. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor Zbiotics. We love Zbiotics. They make a probiotic supplement that is genetically engineered. That means that the probiotic that you get with Zbiotics, you can't find anywhere. Now, what are they genetically engineered this bacteria to do? Well, it produces an enzyme that breaks down the byproduct of drinking alcohol. It's called acetyl aldehyde.

Now, this compound, when it builds up in your system, causes a lot of the negative effects you feel when you drink alcohol, that crappy stomach feeling, the inflamed feeling, the foggy mind, you just kind of feel crummy. When you take Z-biotics before you drink alcohol, these probiotic bacteria produce the enzyme and breaks down a seat allowed to hide, you wake up the next day and you feel a lot better. Ladies and gentlemen, this product is literally a technological breakthrough. It will blow your mind. I promise you, try it for yourself.

Just an Adam and I tested this ourselves. We should have had a nasty, nasty hang over the next day. And we didn't. I tested it again. I tested it again. It worked every single time. Crazy stuff. Anyway, we have a massive discount for you. Go to zbiotics.com.

That's zbiotics.com forward slash mind pump. And you'll get 10% off any of their products. Also, before the episode starts, we want to let everybody know that this month, we've put one of our programs on 50% off. Maps starter. Now, Maps starter is a great at-home workout program. All you need is a

Physioball a resistance ball. Those are the big What they look like big bouncy balls that you sit on you do exercise on so you need that and you need dumbbells It's a full body workout. That's all the equipment that you need It's a great workout program for beginners It's a great workout program for people who've worked out for a long time who want to refocus on their form and technique. It's one of the workouts that I can honestly say is for pretty much everybody. Again, it's 50% off. Here's how you get the half off discount.

Go to mapsstarter.com that's MAPS, STARTER.com, and use the code starter50. That's STARTER five zero no space for the discount One of the hardest things for people to figure out I was thinking about this the other day Is believe or not so because a lot of people think that would be easy to realize It's actually not it's figuring out whether or not the workout that you're doing is actually Right for you. Yeah, it. It's working for you. I always found that one to be, especially when I first became a trainer, I found it to be very interesting that that would be a hard one to figure out, but then I think back

to when I worked out and how many times I followed workouts for long periods of time ignoring lots of signs and signals. So I think it'd be a good idea if we did, you know, episode on that. Well, I think it's, I think it's really difficult to judge because what we think is results sometimes are not the right results, if that makes sense. Like I think a lot of the things that we, or we as in people in general measure of the success of their workout are not the right indicators. And I also think that the space we are responsible for feeding into that.

And so the consumer gets stuck on a few metrics that they think is what tells them if they're doing well or not. And many times those metrics are not good for you to utilize as a good judge or indicator as if this workout is working well for me. Yeah, your average person just has a lot of assumptions of what their abilities, like what they can actually do,

and where they should start based off of what they see other people doing, and just in my own experience, it's really difficult to identify exactly what your body needs and what's going to benefit the most without like trial and error and really a lot of detective work. I'll give you an example. I mean, we've all heard the story now in the podcast. I was a skinny kid and I started lifting weights because I wanted to get bigger. So my goal was just gain size.

That was my number one goal, always gain size. So as long as the scale showed my weight going up, that meant that the workout was working. As long as my shirts felt tighter, even if my pants, my waist on my pants started getting tighter and I had to get bigger pants. It didn't matter because the scale was going up. Your mind can play incredible tricks on you.

Amazing tricks on you. To the point where if I had a client who gained a pound on the scale, but through body fat testing realized we got way leaner and just gained some muscle, the client would freak out. Oh my gosh, I'm so much bigger. What's going on?

Reality or actually not? Well, I feel like it's the mind, the mirror, and the scale. These are the three things that I think that most people use. And they all, three, I think, play serious tricks on you. And I mean, I'm just as guilty, right? I'm like you, Sal, had the, and a lot of times it's because we all have these deep rooted insecurities, like we talk about that drove us into the gym. And because mine was being a skinny guy trying to build muscle,

you know, I'm looking at the mirror more than it and the scale, you know, looking at those two things. Like, I want to be bigger. I want to be bigger. So if the weight is going up and I'm filling shirts out in the mirror, I'm on the right path. And like many things, there's some truth to that. But sometimes that can be really deceiving on how successful

you're programming or your diet really is. Totally, because, okay, so the first thing, and this one can be good and bad, okay, and it's obvious, right? Are you getting results? Are you getting results from your workout? That sounds objective. The problem is, that's not always objective, like we're talking about right now. I remember one time in particular, I went on this, you know, I was, I think I was probably The problem is, that's not always objective. Like we're talking about right now.

I remember one time in particular, I went on this, I think I was probably 18 or 19, and I was like, you know what, I'm pulling all the stops. I'm just, that's it. I'm gonna get big. I'm gonna force myself. My own means necessary. Yeah, I'm gonna eat 6,000 calories a day.

I'm gonna lift heavy. I'm gonna take all the supplements. I'm gonna do everything just to get big. And sure enough, the scale would go up and would go up. And at one point I think I reached, I was 230, maybe a little over 230 pounds, which is heavy for me. And I'm six feet tall, I don't have a massive frame. I weigh right now probably around 195 to 200, so 30 more pounds on my frame. And I was so proud of myself

because I had packed on all this weight and I'd gotten so much bigger. Then I got a body fat test. Now the body fat test was, boy, was that a disheartening situation? I literally got tested, saw that my body fat went up. First I didn't care. I was like, yeah, of course my body fat went up.

I'm a lot bigger. And I'm like, wait a minute, let me do the math real quick. I gained, I think during that period of time, something like 25 pounds. And I think out of that 25 pounds, I gained something like four or five pounds of lean body mass. I gained 15 to 20 pounds of body fat

to gain five pounds of muscle. And of course, when I went down in body fat, I lost everything. And I realized that I had been fooled. I had been totally tricked. I was getting results. The goal was to gain weight, but my mind had totally played tricks on me. This happens a lot, and this happens a lot with weight loss. I was just going to say it happens in the universe just as much if not more, where a client is losing weight. And so they think they're on the right path.

And then they go do a body fat test like that, or in a perfect world, they do it before they start their program. And they do it two months later. And find out that their body fat percentage went up. A lot of times too, this is when we would get trainers that would be arguing the method of the body fat test, like it's not accurate. Like, oh, there's no way.

This is to make them feel better. And we get that a lot even today, right? People always ask if these tools, like, you know, how accurate I've heard they could be off by this much and you start hanging on, oh, the fact that it could be inaccurate and therefore there's no way this is right because it's saying that I got fatter, but yet I lost, you know, 20 pounds off the scale.

It's not possible, but well, absolutely, it's impossible. Not only is it possible, it's actually more common than the other way. It's more common that I see somebody who loses 20 pounds that does it through just restricting food and increasing tons of movement or following some program that they bought, and then they get on the body fat test

and realize that, oh wow, even though I lost 20 pounds, I actually went up body fat percentage. And so I think before we go anymore, we have to really explain how is that possible and like how body composition works, like changing your body composition versus just losing weight or gaining weight. Right, so let's say you weigh 200 pounds, if you have 20 pounds of body fat on your body, you're 10% body fat. If you weigh 100 pounds with 20 pounds of body fat on your body, now you're 20% body fat.

Same amount of body fat pounds. Now the ratio has changed. It's your percentage went up. Obviously, my kids, my kid, is gonna have less total body fat on their bodies simply because there's so much smaller than I am. Although I may actually be leaner, percentage wise than my kid.

Does that make sense? So if you lost a bunch of weight on the scale and you did lose some fat, but you also lost some lean mass, you could very well go up and body fat percentage. Now why is that a bad thing? Because a high body fat percentage, regardless of your weight,

let's talk from the aesthetic standpoint first, high body fat percentage, regardless of weight, you look fatter, you look more flabby, you're not as sculpted or tight or toned. 20 pounds of body fat on a 100 pound person does not looked. 20 pounds of body fat on a 100 pound person does not look lean like 20 pounds of body fat on a 200 pound person would look. That would be somebody who's shredded

versus somebody that looks me, you know, kind of lean-ish, maybe not. It makes that big of a difference. So that's the aesthetic component, but let's take it a step further. If you lose muscle, body fat percentage goes up and you lost weight, now you're stuck with a slower metabolism.

Now to maintain your weight, you have to eat much less. And if you want to get even leaner or lighter, forget leaner. You want to get even lighter. You've got to cut your calories even more. Now, it's obvious that this is a failing approach because how low can you go? Right. How long can you sustain that plan? It's just not realistic. No, it's not. I've actually worked with people like this where they do, and I used to see this all time, someone will come to me and they're doing five or six days a week of cardio. They did some kind of diet, keto, low carb, paleo, whatever. So the calories are really low. They come, they see me and they say, hey, I've lost all the sweat and I start to look closer

at what they're doing and I'm like, wow, you're eating 1500 calories a day and you're doing five to six days a week of cardio. How do you feel about cutting your calories even more, working not even more? And of course, most of them are like, wow, that's a lot. I got to work out more. I got to eat less.

You know, they've put themselves in a really crappy situation. So results are an important indicator of whether or not a workout is working for you, but you've got to break the results down and you can't let your, you can't be fooled by yourself. You can't be fooled by the scale or the mirror, you have to get much more objective when you break things down. And a lot of times this is really driven

by the surge of momentum and this passion to get to a place and a goal and by all means necessary, like you're trying to gain all this weight, what's gonna get me there? The quickest, the fastest, the most efficient way possible, but you don't like realize the byproduct of that. What happens is a result of that, or even, you know, you look at the overall, like, oh my

god, I actually lost muscle by trying to lose weight and now I have to rebuild the muscle and now I'm like starting this whole new process when I could have been a lot more effective if I drew it out a little bit further. We have to speak to the people who don't care too. So I recently shared that the story about my brother-in-law who is dropped, about 25 pounds in last year, through all his cycling,

and then restricting his calories. And his response to me, when I initially told him that his body fat percentage probably stayed the same or actually went up even though he lost weight, it was like, I don't care. I'm down from where I was. So why should I care? And I know there's a lot of people like that. There's a lot of people that have 30, 40 pounds and it bugs them.

They're insecure about it. And then they do all this hard work and restricting calories and training to get it off, and they get it off, and they feel super excited and happy to be there, as they should, because they've disciplined themselves to follow a program and stick to it. But the thing with that is this, and this is what I explained to him.

Now, he rides really aggressively in the summertime, and then winter time comes around, and he's just, it's not possible. It's not possible to go on these three, four hour rides. He lives in an area where it's all snow and everything like that, so he's no longer, and even if he does other things like go out hiking, nothing compares to his mountain biking, his mountain biking, caloric expenditure.

So he just can't possibly keep that up. And what I was explaining to him is, you really set yourself up for this yo-yoing effect to happen. You no longer can keep up that movement, but then you're kind of eating the same. And even if you do kind of modify that a little bit, you're not burning anywhere nearly as much

as you were burning for. And like to Sal's point, you've now slowed your metabolism down. You've now told your body to be efficient with only that many calories that you're eating and expecting in that it needs to burn this much. So then when you stop the weight piles back on. So that's the the worst part about that. Even if you are satisfied because you're down two pounds set pant sizes and people are telling you, oh my God you look great because you've dropped all this weight down. your face is looking leaner, all these positive things that are giving you feedback that, oh, I must be doing

the right thing, but in reality, you have no idea that you're really setting yourself up for long-term failure. That's the big one. Now, one measure of results is usually, and I'm not gonna say always, because I'm gonna give you some examples of when it's not, but usually a good sign.

And that's if you get stronger. So if you get stronger in the gym, a performance increase or improvement like that is typically good news. Usually means something about your workout routine is working. Okay. Now, here's when you can even be fooled by that. I've actually seen this before. I've actually had people come up to me

and I've watched them in the gym and they tell me, oh my gosh, I added 30 pounds to my squat. And I know I watch them squat. I'm like, well, you're not squatting as deep as you used to and now you're wearing a belt knee wraps. Or, oh, I can bench press more. Well, your technique is better now. So that's why you're lifting more.

Not a bad thing, but you're not necessarily adding more muscle and getting stronger. You're just getting better, you're technique, or you're adding new aids to help you lift more weight. Or you could also be adding more fat, like your example that you gave with yourself. So you could be getting stronger, but then you're also adding fat at a higher rate, which puts you in the same similar predicament, I find that the strength results are better for somebody who is losing weight. Like, if I have a client who is losing weight and getting stronger, that's normally a really good indicator. If we're getting stronger and we're leaning out or losing weight on the scale, that's a pretty good sign that

we're probably, you know, hanging, at least hanging on to muscle mass, maybe even potentially building some. But if you're on the gain and you're trying to build and that's your mango and you see the strength go up a little bit, that always isn't a great indicator because if the ratio of fat that you're adding to the muscle you're adding is much higher, you're technically just getting fatter.

Right, and here's the one that you can look at. Look at your strength to weight ratio. Now, this isn't perfect. At some point, if you get big enough, your strength to weight ratio is not going to be as good as it was when you're lighter. But if you're, you know, if you gain, let's say you gain 20 pounds of weight

because you're trying to gain a bunch of mass. But your squat goes up five pounds. Okay. Yeah, you're stronger in your squat, but you're actually weaker as a percentage of your body weight. If your body weight went up 20 pounds, your squat should theoretically go up a little bit higher than that, but you only added about five pounds to the bar.

Same thing with your bench or anything else. Now, that's something you want to pay attention to. Just because you added weight to the bar, look at your overall body weight. Now, some people don't care too much about this, but being a certain strength, but also being really, really heavy, actually makes you weaker,

as a person moving around. It just makes you weaker. You might have gained 40 pounds, but now you can't do a single pull-up, or you can't do a single dip. So your fitness level really hasn't improved that much. This, by the way, is coming from again, personal experience, where I was just pushing weight on the bar

and weight on the scale so much. And I did get stronger, but my strength gains didn't match my weight gain. And so yes, I was, in fact, I'll tell you what, at my absolute heaviest body weight, I was not able to deadlift squat or bench press as much as I was able to later on when I figured this out at a lighter body weight. I was actually my PRs that I've ever hit my all-time PRs were not at 230 or 35 pounds. They were like at 205 and it's because I did

it the right way later on. Well, and to like, if you're adding just pure mass, like, I know a lot of people don't really care because they just wanna get big, you know? And this is something that they're just trying to get as big and massive as possible. But when you go into the doctor and they kind of assess your BMI and they tell you like, well, you're kind of at a higher risk for,

you know, these things, these diseases, these complications later on in know, these, these, these, these things, these diseases, these, these complications later on in life, these health problems, you know, it is something that you'd need to consider. If you're adding all this excess mass, what kind of mass is it that you're adding on top of everything? Now, we, we had to talk to you about what it looks like to see no results at all. Now, it seems obvious that if you're not seeing any results whatsoever, your program's not working for you, But I think it's deeper than that. Many times, when I thought I was seeing no results because I was

judging it through the three things we talked about before, the mind, the mirror, and the scale, I wasn't seeing anything happen. You weren't paying attention to other results. Exactly. I actually was actually on better progress than I was when I was seeing those things fluctuate the most. So that's the real tricky part about this is, and this is something that I remember coaching to clients a lot, you know, them telling me, I don't feel like my body's changing, my clothes are fitting about the same, my scale is about the same, but I know as a coach that if they're reporting to me correctly, like, that we're eating this way, I know I've got them on good programming,

I'm constantly having to reassure them that stay the process. And then I'm also asking other things. I'm asking them about their energy levels, I'm asking them about their sleep, I'm asking them about their mood, I'm asking. Yeah, pain, I'm asking about a lot of other things to help them make a connection

that your body is changing for the good. Sometimes when you're at the perfect place, it's got this beautiful ratio of, you'll lose about a pound of fat, you gain about a pound of muscle, and that takes weeks and months to do that. And so because you're not seeing this huge swing and the mere are huge swing on the scale,

your mind starts to play tricks on you and think, oh, what I'm doing is it working for me? And in reality, it could be working perfectly for you. Right. So results, although they sound objective, and I would say of the things that we're going to cover in this episode are one of the more objective things because they can be measured, they can still play tricks on you.

And it's not a 100% guarantee that your program is the right one for you that your workout is working for you. Now, the next one you just alluded to Adam is how you feel. Now, this is a big one. This one to me is one of the bigger ones because people have confused feeling crappy within effective workout versus feeling good. This one's hard. It's like, you know, when people are on this new routine that's beating them up and you

and they're like, oh my God, I'm doing this new workout and it's so great and I've lost weight and of course, you know, we don't know if it's fat or muscle and you know, I'll say, well, how do you feel about it? Oh man, I'm so sore. I can barely walk. Like I'm so sore and I'm, but when I get home from the gym, I could, all I do is I just lay on the couch

because I can't move because I just had the best workout. I'm like, holy cow, you have completely confused what an effective workout is supposed to feel like. You are doing the whole martyrship thing where it's how much I can withstand. How you feel is a very, very important metric, but you gotta fix that. You gotta fix how you think about how you feel. Your workouts should make you feel good Now I don't mean feel good like I feel good that I'm beat up. So that means I had a good workout

I mean literally you feel good. Oh, I remember the first time I made that shift personally To understanding that the you know hobbling out of the gym or Just destroyed, you know, it used to be connected for me as, oh, that was what was a good workout. When in reality, when I really honed in, you know, my programming, I realized that, no, when I had a perfect workout,

I actually left the gym feeling with more energy. Oh, God, that took me so long to figure out. I remember when I started to piece that together, it took me a long time. But, you know, the way I used to feel after my workouts when I was first started working out was exhausted, tired, lay on the couch. Didn't want to get up in the morning.

Yeah. And I'd be satisfied. I did it, I broke everything down. That's what I'm supposed to do or whatever. Well later on as I started to really figure this out and by the way, a lot of the stuff that I learned for myself, I learned through my clients. One by the way, a lot of the stuff that I learned for myself, I learned through my clients.

One of the wonderful things about being a trainer is that when I train other people, all my insecurities are, or most of them are gone. I'm not applying them to my client. I only apply them to myself. I'm much more objective. And trainers listening, no exactly what I'm talking about. You typically will train your clients better than you train

yourself. So I'd be watching my clients and I would see what would give them better results. I'd see how their energy levels were. I'd see what workouts worked best for them. Eventually I started to kind of put this together and apply to myself. And I remember it was years after I had been working out. I remember, wow, not only my building muscle getting stronger, staying lean, but also I have tons of energy. Like the workouts aren't kicking my butt, like I like too much.

I feel good. I would leave the gym feeling like I could do another workout, feeling like I want to talk to people, I want to hang out with people, I want to have a good time. I felt phenomenal. If your workout is making you feel crappy, that is the wrong workout. Also, let's also remember this. Most of you listening right now, don't just work out for a living, okay? Most of you have a normal life.

Your workout should complement your life. It should not take away from me. If your workouts beat you up so much that you come home, you don't have time for your kids, and you lay on the couch, I'm so sore I can't move Like it's not even if the workout was giving you results. What are you what are you trading? You're trading feeling crappy and ruining the rest of your life for this super intense workout? Well, I found to like training clients to to kind of talk about when you when you feel like you're not really moving the needle You're not you're not progressing

I'm not really losing weight right now. The most value I could provide, my clients was to highlight these things, to highlight how much better their sleep or how much more energy they had, how much better their movement was, sometimes like strength metrics for people that were losing weight, while we were still going through that process, it's just better to have all these other things that are still happening, and we're still moving you forward,

but you're not always gonna see those results just, one or the other result happening. It's usually, it shifts quite a bit. Well, the other thing too, when talking about feel, is also how you feel going into the next workout. Yeah. Another one that was really tough for me, took a long time to get through this was, you know, if you're training to get that sore feeling and then you go into the workout the next day

or two days later and it hinders the workout you're about to do. Like that's something that you have to pay attention to. We don't want that. Like I don't want to go into a workout after the previous one I just did. And, you know, I spend the first 20, 30 minutes, I have to really warm and prime and really get in just in the flow and warmed up because I'm so damn sore from the previous workout.

You'd like to get in a place where I can get, I can kind of pick up where I left off versus trying to recover still from the damage that I'd done just two days ago. And that's so important because, you know, we're sending a signal when we lift, but there's also the important factor of how we recover.

That's such a big piece to how you progress and see your results. And if you're constantly, I mean, you call this the recovery trap, right? If you're constantly hammering the body all the time, it's constantly trying to recover. You don't give it its chance to actually adapt and progress. That's right, because recovery and adaptation

is getting stronger, building muscle, burning body fat, improving endurance, all those different things. Recovery is healing, and oftentimes they happen simultaneously, but they are not the same thing. One is healing, one is super compensating, one is adapting. Well, if you beat your body up so much that all it could do is recover, it's not going to care because recovery is a priority.

If your body doesn't heal, you'll die. So, when I cut my hand before my body can think about building a callus over where I just cut, it needs to heal the cut. That's the priority. And if I keep cutting it over and over again, am I going to add a callus? Is it going to adapt by making my skin stronger? Of course not. I'm cutting it too often.

My body's only trying to heal. And that's what that recovery trap, this is what it feels like. This is what the recovery trap feels like. You beat yourself up in the gym, you get really, really sore, you go into the next workout, no improvements, you do the same thing, beat yourself up, get really, really sore, rinse and repeat the next workout, no improvements, you do the same thing, beat yourself up, get really, really sore, rinse and repeat. You just do this over and over.

It's like a hamster wheel of beat up recover, beat up recover without any real progress. It literally is like a hamster wheel. You're running, you're definitely running, but you ain't going anywhere, nothing's happening. You're driving a car, you're not getting traction, you're making a lot of smoke, but you're staying exactly the same place.

And ignoring these signs is going to be to your detriment. I mean, these things like pain, your body is telling you these things to address certain issues. And I know like training a lot of strength athletes personally, you know, a lot of it is, is we're always trying to push so far forward and trying to get PR lifts and try to maximize whatever we can in the gym, in spite of these indications of like pain. And so we're gonna put AIDS there to kind of suppress the pain

and move forward. Now in terms of a long-term strategy, you have to really think about what you're gonna be left with, in terms of joint function, in terms of like your overall performance, it's not gonna be what it used to be, even though you got certain numbers you're gonna be left with, you know, in terms of joint function, in terms of like your overall performance, it's not gonna be what it used to be, even though you got certain numbers you're looking for. Such a good point.

There's a good pain and there's a bad pain. What's a good pain? A little bit of soreness, a little bit. I'm being honest here, okay? So I'm a little sore. I worked out like, okay, I can feel like I did a little workout. By the way, no pain is fine too. If you're progressing, getting good results,

and you feel great, no pain at all, there's also an awesome thing. But a little bit of pain, perfectly fine. What's bad pain? Excessive soreness. It lasts for more than a day. It's sore to the touch. Oh, I hinders how you move.

Hinder's how you move. You know, Adam, you made a great point earlier. You go into your next workout and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sore from the previous workout. I don't know how I'm gonna do this next workout. You gotta be able to perform each time. Out joint pain, joint pain is terrible. If your workout is making your joints hurt and stiff,

like Justin said, a lot of people think, oh my knees started bothering me. So I think what I'm gonna do now is rubbing gay on it and then put a knee wrap around it. Oh cool, it doesn't hurt anymore. While I squat, let's just keep doing that. We know what's gonna happen. You keep pushing that, eventually,

you're gonna have a big problem. Your workouts should reduce pain. They should reduce that kind of pain, always. They should not increase that kind of pain. Now, this is, of course, if you're a high performing athlete and you compete in a sport, you go play a football game where you go run a marathon, you're fast to speed. Yeah, you're gonna have some bad pain afterwards,

understandable, you push yourself to the limit. But when you're training your body on a regular basis, when you're exercising, working out on a regular basis, when you're doing this, so you can have long term, forever results and success, 99% of the time you should not have lots of pain. There's another one, this one for me is a very big signal. For some people it's a big signal.

And that's sleep. I know when my sleep is crappy, that I'm pushing it too hard in the gym or that my workouts just not working for me. My workouts when they're good, always improve my sleep. They always get better sleep when I'm having really good effective workouts.

When my workouts are not effective, my sleep just isn't as workouts. Well, my workouts are not effective. My sleep just isn't as good. Well, that works both ways too, right? So sometimes you get the bad sleep first, right? So sometimes when you get that, learning to modify and change your workout. So maybe you're on a great workout plan. Maybe it is working for you,

but learning to connect that, the sleep and workout part, how much they work together, and knowing that, oh, I got a poor night's sleep today, even though I'm scheduled to get after squats or whatever, that maybe that's a day where you work more inward or do more mobility work or scale back the intensity, you've got to learn how to do that,

because real quick, you could take a good program and make it shitty because other aspects of your life are not in place. Like, if your nutrition is off big time, your sleep is off big time. And even though you have great programming, it'll look like poor program. That's a great point. Your workout, remember your workouts are moldable. You can, you can change them depending on the context of your life.

So a workout that may be effective for the healthy, well-rested version of you, maybe ineffective for the latin, that is healthy, not as well-rested version of you, maybe ineffective for the, not as healthy, not as well-rested version of you. There's a different workout or a different intensity that will be superior for you, depending on the context of what's going on, how you feel. And sleep is, I think it's so undervalued.

I think people just don't even realize how vital it is in terms of recovery. And like what, that does to balance your hormones, what that does to set you up for, you know, energy and, you know, repair like damaged cells and everything else. And, you know, in terms of that, like I know you guys have probably experienced this a lot

with your clients where when they're on a good path or getting good sleep, they're making good progress, like their libido goes up. I think the people that don't understand this are the young, right? If you don't have kids, it's, right? If you don't have kids, if you don't have kids in your 20s, you may not understand this.

But if you're 35 and you've had kids, you fucking understand this. There's no doubt in your mind that that morning would still there. Well, you know what, it's actually becoming much more common with younger people. Yeah, no, you're right.

libido is a big one. You should have a good workout should give you a healthy libido. It should feel, and what I mean by healthy is, and reason why I say healthy is of course there's the, there's dysfunction in the opposite side, right, where people are fanatical about, you know, sex or whatever. I'm not talking about that. What I mean is you should feel vibrant, you should feel a healthy libido, you should be able to have good sex,

good performance, good orgasm. By the way, these are a reflection of your hormones. Bad workouts tend to cause hormone imbalances and men we see drops in testosterone and women, we see estrogen and progesterone getting way out of balance. Bad workouts will start to do that. By the way, the way to fix that is not to take hormones. This is what I see a lot of people doing where I see a guy is like, oh, my testosterone level is low, just give me some testosterone. It's like, well, let's look at what's going on in your lifestyle.

It's actually a signal. It's low because you'll work out wrong or sleep is wrong or diet's wrong. Fix those and then see what happens. I never realized this as much as I did the last couple of years when I went through coming off the testosterone and my libido just taking a shit and my testosterone levels being flatlined and then coming back and the way I had a train was so different than what I was training just a year prior to that.

And understanding that, what I realized, now for me where I was at, now this is gonna be dependent on everybody, it's different, right? So where I was at, my levels were so low that if I went in the gym and I got it and what I thought was like a normal, pretty good workout, it was too much sometimes.

Sometimes the next day it would be terrible. I would end up having bad sleep, my sex drive would be down. And then sometimes I'd go in and be like, okay, I'm gonna be more mobility focused and then I'm just gonna get like a good squat session or a good deadlift session. And then I would see it within the next day or two,

I would feel that spike in my libido. It's amazing how the body will speak to you like that if you're paying attention to those signals. So I can't stress enough like how important that one is and to not ignore that as, as a good signal. The other thing that we talk a lot about too is just the importance of consistency. And one of the things that helps so much with consistency is enjoying what you're doing.

So, and what do you say, Sal, time you talk about a subpar workout done consistently is. It's better than a great workout done in consistency. Right, so you have to factor that in. And I'm always very cognizant of this when I'm speaking to a client that maybe I wish they were doing their programming a little more like this or I would, but they really enjoy what they're doing and it's working for them. You gotta try and find that balance. You want to have obviously the

most ideal programming for you and what you see the results. At the same time too, you also have to be enjoying it. Those go hand in hand. You can stretch yourself, but it can't always be a chore. You know, at a certain point, you have to be able to look forward to it and find elements in there that really excite you and try and maintain that and try and look for that constantly.

Otherwise, it's just not gonna be something you keep doing. I've always found this to be true. When a person is doing a workout, that makes them feel good, good energy, good libido. They feel mobile, no pain. They're getting results, maybe their strength is going up, their body composition is changing for the positive. Metalves seems to be faster.

They enjoy their workout, they enjoy it. I've noticed that, I don't care what kind of workout you're doing, for how fun it is for you. You're not getting good results. You got a lot of pain. You start to feel crappy. You're irritable. Your hormone levels may be off.

Your libido's down. You start, you stop enjoying it. Now you may, you may be one of those people that's like, I'm gonna do it no matter what. Then you just push and push and push. And I've seen this many, many times, and it causes a lot of damage. But so that becomes a good thing.

A good sign. Are you enjoying the process? Is this something you want to continue doing, which brings us to the next one. Is your workout sustainable? This is a big one because I think a lot of people don't consider that when they get into a workout. In fact, one of the number one comments I'll get from people is, okay, great, I build muscle and burn body fat, then what do what happens when I stop? It always surprised me when I would hear that, but I would hear it always. I still hear that from people.

What happens when I stop? Do my muscles turn to fat? That's just my body's guy. That's right. This is something that you have to do that's sustainable. So let's say right now you're doing this workout plan and it's having you work out six days a week and you're working out like crazy. You're getting good results, you feel good,

but you also have kids, a job, in order to work out six days a week, you are really carving out time, it's very difficult. You gotta be honest with yourself, is this sustainable? Because if it's not, then that may not be the right workout for you. Regardless, look, here's the thing, for a lot of people, they could get way better results if they had all the time in the world, but most people don't. So the best workout

for them, like we said earlier, that's going to keep them consistent, is one that'll be more sustainable. Now, this doesn't mean you can't stretch and push yourself, but you need to have an exit plan. Well, no, this is why if you look at this spectrum that we've built all the programs on you have maps and a ballac on one of the spectrum and then you have maps p ed at the other in the spectrum. We would never recommend the average person no matter what their goals were to start in p ed. The amount of volume and training that we're asking somebody to do. It's just time. Oh yeah, it's not a sustainable place. Now, if you are somebody who's gone through all the programs

and you've been consistent with no hiccups all the way through it, then maybe you are somebody who is ready for that volume of training and can handle that and maybe something that you could potentially sustain. Somebody else, that's a horrible place to start them because yeah, maybe even if they did that program right out the gates, they might see some great results, but it doesn't mean that it's sustainable for them long term.

And you have to factor that in, which is, I think we've talked all talked about this early in the career. I will used to try and close people on committing to, you know, three or four days a week in the gym and, you know, and when they tell me, like, well, I'm really busy and it's not, I only have a sitter for two days. You know, I'd be like, oh, you've got to find another day or could we, and I pushed them to commit more, which was such a bad idea as a trainer.

And I didn't realize how many people are setting up for failure versus, now I'm the opposite. Now someone goes like, oh Adam, I got all this, I got this time, I'm off of work right now and I've decided that I'm gonna focus hard core on my training and I've got five to seven days a week. Can you write a program for me? I go, well, you know what?

Have you been training it all in the previous month or six? No, not really, but I'm ready now. Okay, why don't we start off with something a little bit slower, like two days a week? Oh, no, no, but I got all this free time to this. Well, yeah, here's a thing though. Well, that lasts forever. Will you forever not have a job

or you forever have this open availability to always train five days a week? Why don't we build something first that's sustainable with less? And then from there you can start to add to that. And that's really hard for people to make that switch or that that decision when they are committed right now to make a change. And they've like mapped it out for themselves. And they've allotted, okay, I've got this time for me. Just because you have the time to do it right now, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea

for you to be doing that. That's right, it's because when you're motivated, you just wanna do everything and you think the more you do the faster you'll get there. Here's one of the wonderful things about asking yourself if something is sustainable and what is a realistic amount of time you can dedicate to exercise or working out forever.

One of the wonderful things about it is you learn how to become efficient. Okay. Some 3-day week workouts will give you far better results than other 6-day week workouts. In fact, I know that I could do this all day long. Oh, I remember when that happened to me. Oh, yeah. So what happens when you start to ask yourself these questions is you actually become more efficient. You actually become more effective even total because you know you only have a few days a week that you can make it to the gym. So the sustainability question that you need to ask yourself

isn't just about my time and how much I can fit. It actually oftentimes leads to more effective, more efficient, smarter workouts. Because if I'm going to the gym every single day, you know, I may be getting as many results with twice as much work. That's a waste of time. I have to share when that went off for me

as a trainer in my mid 20s. Because you know, there's somebody who's listening right now and they're like, you know what? I'll always have five to seven days. I love the gym. I'll always commit to that. But even if that is sustainable to your points out, sometimes it's not what's best for you.

That was really hard for me to get that because I was a young kid. I was athletic. I loved to move. I loved to train. I was in the gym always five to seven days a week. And one of the biggest plateau breakers that I ever did was taking my five to seven day workout

and dropping it down to three. Boy, was that a mental fuck? That was really hard for me to do that because I was so focused on building muscle and my thought process was the more I did, the more results I would get. But the reality of it was, one, I was stuck in that recovery trap,

two, I was moving and burning so much, I couldn't keep up with the amount of food that I needed to replenish myself because of how much I was burning. And I know there's somebody listening right now that is probably in the same place that I was because I was in that place for years and I was a trainer.

I should know better, but yet I still fell on that same trap because of my own insecurities of wanting to be bigger, wanting to train harder, thinking that that was the, what was gonna get me to more muscle on my body, but in reality, I packed on a good 10 pounds of muscle the first time I switched after being consistent with five to seven weeks back to a three day week program. You have to ask yourself, look, let's say you start a business

and you're working, you know, 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and you build it up to a certain point. At some point, you have to ask yourself, okay, we're doing fine. Am I gonna be able to do this every single day forever? I need to figure out how to make this sustainable. That's the thing that you need to ask yourself with your workout.

If your workout is not sustainable, regardless of all the other stuff we talked about, it's probably wrong for you. It's probably not right for you. Now also, I wanna talk to the people that have been consistent, that are in the gym, that are kind of like your typical person. You always see them and then gym doing like the same thing.

They're always, they got their routine down, they got their program down, they figured out the amount of days a week that they can commit to, but they're still hitting like a plateau. And you know, this is something too that I've found if you're, you know, in that sort of position where you've nailed down like your habits, like what works best for you and all this, found if you're in that sort of position where you've nailed down like your habits, like what works best for you and all that, but now you're hitting a wall. Now you're hitting a wall.

We've got to start really looking ahead about how we can add new stimulus and how we can look forward in the future to keep this going because this is something that you want to make sure that you keep moving forward. So how do we now shift little elements of the workout to then provide a whole new stimulus? Totally. And by the way, sustainability can also be this. Like, oh, I found this Zumba class. Oh my gosh, it's so fun.

This is keeping me consistent because it's so fun. Now you gotta ask yourself, am I gonna still be excited by the same Zumba class in three years? You might not be as excited about it. Am I kind of start you boring at some point. So you want to think to yourself downstream. Now, this doesn't mean you have to change the workout right now,

but you might want to have a bit of an exit strategy. One thing that I recommend always is to change the goals of your workouts and change the focus of your workouts. I mean, if you were to follow maps workout programs, you could follow one, which would take you for anywhere between 10 to 12 to 14 weeks. When that one's done, you move to a new program for another 12 to 14 weeks. When that one's done, you move to another program.

Now my experience, besides that being more effective for your body, besides that being better for the way you move and feel because the goals change a little bit, I've also found that to be superior for consistency because for 12 weeks I did a strength, heavy strength powerlifting type routine. And now for the next 12 weeks I'm doing more of an athletic mobility based routine. And now staying ahead of it that way. You're staying ahead of it that way. It gives you better results, but it also keeps things fun and exciting. And fun is part of sustainability. It's not all of it. Of course, discipline plays a big role

because you're not always gonna have fun when you work out, but you can definitely get really bored with the same thing over and over again. That can make it very difficult. Well, part of that sustainability too is learning to wear that sweet spot is for your body. I want to go back to talking about my experience with the five to seven day a week

and then dropping to three because that was an issue for a really long time. And it was really hard for me to even like, you know, put it together like, why is this working? I'm working less, but I'm seeing more results. And I think the analogy that someone gave me that thought was really good and they brought it to like a golf swing and anybody who's ever golf before may have experienced this right. I'll never forget trying to hit a golf ball as far as I could. And it's the funniest thing ever, the more you muscle it and the more you get after it, it goes less.

Where's it gets? Yeah, the worse it gets. And that's so weird, you think like, to go further, you'd have to hit harder, but it's not that way. In fact, hitting it lighter, and if I backed off, I'd end up hitting the ball sweeter and straighter and further. And that analogy, I think of that with

when it comes to training and diet and programming is when you learn just the right sweet spot for your body, it does, it just goes. The results come, it's consistent. It's fluid. Feel good. All the things we're talking about kind of comes together. It's not, and if you continue to try and push, thinking that more is better, it's fluid. Feel good, all the things we're talking about kind of comes together. It's not, and if you continue to try and push,

thinking that more is better, it's the same thing like the big muscle guy trying to muscle the ball further down the course. It's the same thing you want to find. What is that great balance for you? What sustainable long term? And you know what, what makes it sustainable back to your point, Salis?

You know what, when you do, it's hard, when you are, it's easy when you are feeling good, you're sleeping good, results are coming, most everybody does love that, just like when you're golfing, it's a lot of fun when it is fun. When you're staying on the course and you're moving forward and you're hitting par or birdies, like it makes the thing fun. Oh man, it's working! When you're slam in the ball and you're muscling all the time and you're constantly out, off the course and you're constantly chasing and losing balls, it's a shitty S-port, it's not fun to play. I don't care how hard you're hitting the damn thing. Totally true. Now, you know, back to, you know, feeling good and pain and how do I know the right exercises. You know, you can definitely assess your body. You can definitely do a self-assessment

to figure out what works best for your body. Now the problem with that is it can feel a little complex. In my experience, it's hard to teach that without actually coaching someone. So what we did is we put together a free class, a webinar online where Justin actually teaches you how to do a self-assessment. And through that, there's three movements. So it takes you through three movements. And through that self-assessmentessment you'll learn what are good Priming exercises for my body which can also lead you to what's gonna be a better workout for you It's a free class highly suggest that everybody take it assess your own body

This will help you figure out what workout is right for you or at least how to prime your workout properly Which is increases the odds that your workout is gonna be better for you and write one for you You can find that maps prime webinarimewebinar.com, sign up, again, it's totally free. You get free replays. If you go on there and you show up when we're putting it out live, Adam, Justin, and myself and Doug

will actually be on there answering questions live as well. So if you get on the live webinar, you'll be able to talk to us. If not, no worries, you'll still see the whole assessment on the replay. Again, free that maps prime webinar dot com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic.

Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Superbundle is like having sour, animal, 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 MindPump.