Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 136: Beast Mode or Dumbass Mode?

Episode Date: August 24, 2015

Beast Mode. No Pain, No Gain. Pukie the Clown. Working out with ultra high intensity is all the rage. Sure building strength and muscle requires hard work in the gym, but do you have to beat the crap out of yourself in the process? Insane workouts play into the widespread belief that if a little is good a lot more is better. Sal, Adam and Justin expose the RAW TRUTH about beast mode and extreme intensity.

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. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Just a three of us... Start recording when I listen. And Dougy on the mark! Just a three of us girl you and I... Ding!

Yeah. That's what I call a mind pun so we started mind fellas gang bang we're on Adam get on bro yeah what are you concocting over there I told you I told you that to put a mirror in here dog nice to put things in anymore to not look at you starting now what

am I starting and I'm pushing this the fake stereotype oh yeah dude what he's also What what am I started? Am I pushing this the fake stereotype? Oh yeah, dude. He's so self-conscious now dude. I know. It's kind of fun, isn't it, Sal? A little bit. It's kind of fun to see him sperm a little bit like that.

I like it. Dude, this is really a pain in the ass right here. It's a matter of your, you're trying to fix your head. Yeah, your headphones. Yeah. Wait, what's your stomach doing right now? What do you mean? His bowel movements, oh, I can't stuff right? No, he's not eating right now. Okay. No, no, no, no, there we your stomach doing right now? What do you mean his bowel movements? Oh, I can't stuff right now

He's not eating right now. Okay. No, no, no, there go. It's better. All right. Good. Who is the guy in WWF that used to carry the mirror around and look at Himself? Mr. Perfect. Yes, Mr. Perfect. That's right. Mr. Perfect. I'm gonna get myself a little mirror like that It's a good idea. Okay. Hey, how you guys doing? Oh god, I look beautiful today I can't believe it. Look at him. Hey, how you guys doing? Oh, God, I look beautiful today. Yeah. There's gotta be an app like that.

Do you look at yourself in the mirror while you masturbate or do you look at porn? Oh, occasionally. Occasionally occasionally. Depends if I'm having a good hair day or not. Like today, I'm having a fantastic hair day. So, you know what? You have to band-and-road up.

Bro, your hair is, I I mean it's pretty fucking amazing Right it's it's it's it's what did you put in it it looks wet? Soul glow you didn't put soul glow. Yeah, is it really it's so good? No, that's how natural right you look a little bit like you came out of that What's that what's that one song god back in the was like that what's that what's that one song God back in the it was like uh uh Rico Swamy oh yeah that took a long time to drink it. What was the name Gerardo Gerardo Gerardo uh yeah Swam well yeah I kind of feel like I got to get it I can do things like this for

maybe I think I was looking this morning when I was putting my my So glad you're putting the whole the whole Yeah, I was putting the whole ensemble. Yeah, I'm going like well looks like I got about six more months before I have no hair I Gotta get out every cool hairstyle and cool little thing. I'm trying to I'm trying to picture you yeah, I'm trying to picture you bald Yeah, I'm waiting for the ponytail or what's the latest the man bun? It won't hurt. Bro, you know what? I think growing it out, it's too.

You won't look bad, Bald. Because if you keep the beard, bald, you're already fucking yacked. You're gonna look good. Just don't get fat. And then if you fat and bald, and forget about it. Yeah, buff guys, you shave heads. Yeah, it works. You'll still look all right, dude.

You won't look bad. Thanks, guys. It'll make it, it'll make it a little, me a little more competitive when I stand next to you because then people would be like, he's more handsome, he's got more hair. It's a toss up. It's a toss up. Yeah.

Speaking of tossing, let's talk about the cast. Let's toss it up. The t- You can't. They're covered by shorts. Bro, let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you what Adam did to me. This is what Adam did to me. So I've now unsuccessfully tried to compete with Adam a few times. The last competition, he's a fucking pro physique competitor.

Fuck you. We did a little calf competition because I'm like, you know what? I'm like, he's got small calves like me. Maybe I could do something, I compete. So I lost, according to the online judges. So I'm like, you know, I'm a- Do your filters couldn't save you, huh? So no, I couldn't filter it, because we were together.

If I filtered mine, I would have filtered his. So it wouldn't have worked. Oh, okay. Yeah, Photoshop, I'm not gonna do that. So just come on like a computer, I'll show you some tricks. So I'm like, I'm gonna go to my freaking, my one area that is my like, go to, like if I wanna like, beat someone at something, it's gonna be quads.

So luckily for me, his quads are not his best body part. My quads are my best body part. But Adam, fuck, the dude is as much shit as he talks. The dude is a workhorse and I don't want to like push him too hard because he might just go work out all the time and then his legs will grow and then I lose again, right? So I'm not saying anything, but I start talking shit a little bit because I can't help it. He's fucking hammering his legs. They're growing.

I never really hammer my legs because they're're big and then they'll get disproportionate. I'll look like a fucking turnip. Like I'll have big legs in a smaller butt. They're gonna get minute-tire. Yeah, so I just don't really do it, but he's been talking a lot of shit. So I'm like, you know, I'm gonna push it a little bit. And I haven't really, I mean,

I do squat heavy and all that stuff, but I don't really push it. So for the past, like, So, push it. Push it, push it. Yeah, I'm gonna roll right now. So I I did for the last two weeks, I pushed it a little bit, did a little occlusion for my upper legs. I swore to God, this is a true story, bro.

I have a pair of jeans that I wear all the time. I wore them two weeks ago, no problem. Put them on last night, couldn't fucking put them on, dude. No. I swore to God. My ass is so tight in those things now. I swore to God. My ass is so tight in those things now. I swore to God, bro. If I bend over a little bit,

they're gonna explode out of my pants. My leg, it looks like I'm wearing crazy skinny jeans now. And the bottom, the bottom is a little shorter now because I guess my quads and ass lift the fucking fabric. I don't know. You sound like an emo rocker. Yeah, dude. So. That look is in style You sound like an emo rocker. Yeah, dude. So that look is in style right now though.

You totally okay. But, but, but Adam, I'm not letting that stop me bro. You, you, you were, you were better not because I won't let that bro. You were walking the bro, you were on a walk in the fucking crack and bro. You know, I think the last recording, I thought, I think the last recording he saw me rolling my shorts up and flexing my quads right now. That's, that's my bonus. I did, I I saw my he saw me's I bought his tight measuring I don't know I think

I better do some occlusion this week as long as the pictures are just quads I don't want no fucking full body shit Just quads bro Just quad just crap about there. Hey, you know, I have something I want to talk about. I've been on my mind. Yourself? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

All right, that's it. Can we do the last time? Can we do a whole episode about me? Yeah. We probably will. We probably will. Yeah, another one. You already have a hundred and seven.

Kind of doubt that at all. No, no, no, what are we gonna say? No, I, you know, I like to troll around on a Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that. It's the best. And I'm just so, it's, you know, I think we've kind of mentioned this before, but it seems like it's getting more out of control is all these people that are

supposedly fitness experts. And it's like, and I don't want to say any names of companies like Shreds, but you've got athletes underneath there. These guys that they're considered athletes, because they work for the company or what that, and they're giving out meal plans and workout routes. They're inspiring magicians. Oh, it's like, and there's people, there's hundreds of thousands of people that are just like going right into all this stuff, and it's like, dude, the people that are designing

these programs like have no credibility whatsoever, but because, you know, and it seems to me, it's like, it's purely off of this like motivational, ra ra shishkinambab ol shit. I'm just going to put this out there. A professional or not competitive. Let's just say competitive. A competitive bikini competitor, figure competitor, bodybuilder, even fizzy competitor.

A competitor in those events is slightly more knowledgeable than someone who doesn't do shit to train anybody. I'm just gonna put it out there. Because you see someone on Instagram who's ripped and fit and is a competitor, they are not fitness professionals. I hate to break it to you, but this is 100% true. What they understand, what these people are experts at,

is how to get their body to look a certain way. Well, not even that, they're most of them are. And a lot of them are in the fucking, in the whole realm of, of like fitness and nutrition, mythology. Well, yeah, 100%. Of a majority of these guys leave their cell phones on when we're recording. And good job, Justin. Damn it.

The majority. Fopah. This is what got me into coaching for you, Good job, Justin. Damn it. But you're majority. Fopah, this is what got me into coaching for you. I had no desire to do any of that nor had I planned this until I got into the competing world. And I was just floored by how many of these ripped ass dudes in backstage with me absolutely had no fucking clue what they were doing. You know, and they all had coaches that were telling them and the best part about it is

they all had coaches telling them to do shit that they really didn't understand the science behind it. And then they because they got it just told themselves. Well, and then they turn around and then pass that knowledge down to other people that follow them because they see them get ripped and get on stage. And it's just like this. Now of course there's exceptions, like Johnny Sebastian. Johnny who's been on our show used to be a trainer. Yeah.

He actually understands training. And you know, as a personal trainer, somebody who's been in the industry for as long as I have, ask me how many, I've trained probably thousands of people, right? Ask me how many people I've ever trained who wanted to be on a stage and compete in a physique and type contest.

How many sales? Zero. 99.9% of you out there. Yeah. I had one. I have no desire to do any of that stuff. You just want to be more fit and healthy. And I would say 90% or more of these professional, you know, or non-professional, just competitive physique, you know, presentation type athletes

Their followers are just normal people who want to get, you know, in better shape And they're taking the advice of these people who are calling themselves fitness professionals. They're not fitness professionals No, at all and one of the biggest One of the biggest craziest things that I see them promote all the time day in and day out is this whole Beast mode mentality Mm-hmm. This whole mentality of beat the shit out of your soul is weakness leaving the body And that's how you're gonna get fit. Yeah, you if you don't throw up after a link on a poster fucking law after legs on a poster. Yeah. Spooky. La.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They all are like that, man. It really is. But I guess for, you know, Instagram and for video purposes and things like that, that's what's cool, right?

That's what's entertaining, you know, to talk about postural deviations and muscle imbalances and, you know, did breakdown by all mechanics and your body type. And, you know, that's not cool. That's not fun. You know what I'm saying? That's not really not cool. Yeah, it's not sexy. It's not sexy.

What sexy is, oh my God, looking at him with his shirt off and his six pack abs with those big ass tits hanging out of that bikini. And she looks so awesome or he looks so awesome. Oh my God, look how hard they train. They're so crazy. Chloe Kardashian. What is she doing for workouts? I'm doing it.

Yeah, oh my God. Celebrities are even more. Did you see that? Dude, there was this magazine. What brought that up is there's this magazine that was like somebody brought into the gym and it literally was Chloe Kardashian and then inside you'll see her workout

How she got lipos and sculpted to look how she looks It's fucking amazing You know what Jesus batteroops I would Batteroops. I would, I'm sorry. Oh, that's extreme. You know what, I would bet you a million dollars that the routines that they put in the magazines, that they say that celebrity's own, so and so.

They don't even do them. No, I bet they brought the celebrity in and they said, we're gonna put this workout out and it shows some of these exercises. You've done these before, right? Yeah, I've done them before. Cool, we're gonna say that this is your workout and we're gonna put it out there

and then people are gonna go, Quick, quick, quick, pretend you're doing a squat right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we gotta get a picture. Yeah, because these battle ropes are quick, we're gonna take a picture of this one. You know, I'm, Adam, because you're a professional and you see this in this industry, do you think, I mean, I would guess yes, but I don't know. Do you think that some of the workouts that these guys post or say that they do are padded? Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. I so I mean, he was like, I did 10 sets of squats 400 pounds.

Remember, remember our boy, Brendan Shepati, when he was on the episode, he sold somebody out. That's a big and I won't throw that person on the bus, but I mean, or Brendan, she should be thrown in the bus at some point. Yeah, but he, he definitely called out. That's right. This person has a quarter million followers. So it's huge. So huge following and was notorious for posting, taking pictures of like four plates under, you know, or whatever it was she

had on her back or like that to look like she was about to squat it and never squat at that. Right. It and done. Yeah. So, you know, how many of these people actually, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. You got to know that the people are and done. Yeah, so how many of these people actually, I wouldn't be surprised. You gotta know that the people are doing that. People are becoming savvy that these businesses are being created on Instagram. I mean, I just had this conversation literally yesterday with one of the owners of,

he owns three neutral shops and I was convincing down to one and I was just asking what's going on and we were talking about business and fitness and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, dude, everybody thinks that there are an entrepreneur now because they can start an Instagram account and they can get, you know, X amount of dollars and then they just start trying to sell shit to all their people. And I'm like, it's crazy how out of control it's getting, you know, all these people. So yeah, I'm sure a ton of that stuff is fluff, dude. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, you need to be careful.

If you're going on these accounts and looking for advice and whatnot, because someone looks a certain way, that's really, really poor criteria to determine whether or not that that's going to be good advice coming from someone. And are they going to be able to help you in your individual way? So trainers, I would say are better. Of course not all trainers are created the same. But let's talk about intensity because this is the prevailing theme. This is the theme that they like to push that

you need to grind and bust your ass and train until you can't walk anymore. And it's always about, oh my God, I worked out my legs yesterday and I couldn't move for three days. We've talked about this before, but we need to keep hammering it home because I see it so often. Well, and we just got a question. I meant to, I was going to tell you guys that I think that we should have addressed it, which we can do right now. I don't know if you guys

remember seeing this on the Mind Pump Q&A last week. Somebody asked about, you know, hey, I'm looking to purchase a personal trainer and what are some of the main things that you look for? Certifications, experience, what am I looking for that should be my number one focus? A lot of people don't know. They don't know what to look for. They don't know what a national certification is. They don't know how important it is that person has been training for five or 10 or 15 years or they need to look super fit. What if they're fat? They can't know what they're doing with their fat.

What is it we look for? One thing, it's really a hard thing to determine if you're talking about virtual training versus in person. For me, just talking about in person, what I would do is just, obviously you have to use Google and you've got to use the internet to kind of sift through. And if you're an awesome trainer and you're not easily, you know, found, then that's your own fault for not marketing yourself. You know, and that's a whole other side of the business that we have to do. But, I mean, I always suggest you

make multiple appointments, you meet different personalities. Obviously, you look and see if they're qualified, but they have to be able to gel with you. You have to have this where immediately you feel like they've taken ownership of what you want, like your goals and all these things, but they really talk to you in a way that you understand, and you feel instantly comfortable that you don't have to say another word, they're going to take you there. Well, there's two kinds of trainers you're going to find. When you do your assessment, or your first set, he always splits everything into. There's only two kinds of this guy. And there's this guy. Okay, and it's true.

Look, they're two general categories. You're gonna set up an assessment. You're gonna have your first session, your first workout, and most trainers will give you one for free, or a cheap one, or whatever to start with. And you'll have your trainer, it's gonna ask a lot of questions. That's gonna do an assessment.

It's gonna look at your posture. It's gonna look at muscle imbalances. It's gonna look at things to help them determine what the right approach is gonna be. The other trainer is gonna look at muscle imbalances, is gonna look at things to help them determine what the right approach is gonna be. The other trainer is gonna be- The blast of fuck outta you. It's gonna beat the shit outta you. So you're gonna meet with them

and they're gonna make you fucking sweat, sore, and almost puke. Don't pick that guy. As much as in your mind you're thinking, oh my God, that was such a hard workout. This is the person I should hire because I need that in order to get in shape. No, you don't need that.

And actually, you're actually doing that will not get you where you wanna go. Do the opposite. Go with the person, the guy or girl that's gonna ask you the questions, that's gonna take notes, that's gonna look at things like posture, how you walk, how you move in the session. The first session is an assessment, it is not a workout.

And when you do workout with a trainer, unless you're hiring a trainer and you're already a bad ass athlete, they should not train you with a high level of intensity. Well, so this was, before you said that, I was in a fall of Justin's statement. I think maybe what do you guys think

about it depends on what your goal is or what you want to get out of the trainer, I should say. So let's take this for example. So if maybe it is, you are looking to hire someone purely for intensity reasons. Maybe you're looking to hire someone purely for educational, I want to learn, you know, maybe you're looking for somebody who's going to take care of you the best way and you know, it's going to Set you up for long term now as trainers in our heads We we automatically think the ladder, right? We want to you want to hire a trainer who's going to set you up for life and take good care of your body and teach you all about you But in reality not everybody is looking for that right? Maybe maybe in reality, some people are like, you know what?

I just need somebody to motivate me to power, to take my intensity up. Otherwise, I'm going to sissy my way through a workout all the time. Right, but who, what kind of person would benefit from that? Yeah, what kind of person would benefit? In advance person, like myself, for sure. That's what made me think of that. I thought like, hey, if I would hire a trainer, or somebody's looking for that, right?

And then, you know, just by talking to them and really finding the core issue of like, you know, what they're trying to get out of it, you can explain to them in an intelligent way, like, this is really the process that's gonna get you there, and you get them to believe in that, or you do what I do sometimes, which is like, you know, we can try that for a minute. I 100% close everybody doing it the way

that I want them to do it. So it's like you might have a mindset of something you're going to experience, but guess what? You know, I'm the driver and so I'm taking you where I see. So, okay, that's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point because it's something I believe that I was really good at doing as a trainer was, you get somebody who stubborn comes in and says, I want this, I want that, right? You get that right. I deal with that all the time.

Right, we do. It's very common. It's very common if you're a trainer that you get a client who comes in and tells you what they need or what they want to do. You know, it's kind of, there's this fine line, right? Because you're obviously trying to sell them personal training. You don't want to be like, no, I won't provide that service for you.

You need to do this. And they go like, okay, yeah, I'll go buy a tool. I mean, you can when you're already successful, right? So I think this is, yeah, this is, if we're gonna speak for the general trainer, and you're hungry for business, and you haven't really specialized yourself or you haven't set yourself aside,

is like, I don't need to pick up a client right now necessarily, but here's where I'm at. You have to entertain all these crazy ass ideas people have coming in. So what I used to do, just as it goes, and it gives you listening to MindPump for a while now, you'll notice that I kind of have this pattern

of how I communicate to my clientele. And I always have this once again, overgeneralization, you know, talking to them, but I'm talking, I'm really, I'm talking about people in general, but I'm really talking specifically to this person. So when they come to me and they say, you know, I want to do this, Adam, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that. And I was like, okay, you know, if that's what you want to do, you know, but most people that come to me and they're like that and they want to, you know, want to do this out. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and I was like, okay, you know That's what you want to do, you know But most people that come to me and they're like that and they want to you know want to train this

They tell me to do this and we do that These are the problems they run into and then I educate them on the problems that they they run into and what happens And you know you kind of explain it's a good communication. Yeah, you explain to them that you know Hey, you know you do decide you want to come out the gate. Well, that's great You might lose your first three to five pounds in the next two weeks with me, but then when it happens, we hit this hard plateau, and then we really only have two choices to do

is either increase your intensity or increase your frequency in your days that you're coming in here. And we were already going five because you wanted to come out the gates right out the gate. So we're gonna come seven times a week now. And we're already in here for an hour,

you're gonna push it down an hour and a half. So, where do we go there? And you're already cutting calories down to this. So, you know, we most certainly can go there, but this is what we, you know, these people run into. Well, you know, something that just came up to me is that just popped on my head. Is Doug, Doug was in that situation.

Doug was a client. He came and he hired me as a trainer. Doug, let me ask if you don't mind, you't mind getting on. When you first came to me, what was your idea regarding exercise intensity? You had worked out before. You weren't like a complete new workout for years. Right. So, what was your ideas behind intensity and I need to work out more and all that stuff? What did you think before even meeting me and training with me? I thought I had to work out constantly and to failure every single time. Oh, good point.

A lot of people believe in the failure of my life. And so for me, it was like, you know, the reason I wasn't growing was I just wasn't doing it enough. I wasn't working out hard enough. Right. So you placed the blame on the fact that, oh, I need to do more. I'm just not working hard enough. I'm just not working hard enough, but I'd work out super hard.

I'd sometimes get to the point where I felt nauseous and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting results. What kind of programs did you follow before we met? You did body for life? I did body for life. I just not a bad one. When I was, yeah, I got some, I had some success with that.

Like in my 20s, I even subscribed to muscle and fitness because I wanted to grow. And so I got a lot of ideas from those magazines. I tried to splits. My chest day, I had my leg day, that type of thing. I was probably working out body parts maybe once or twice a week. Now this is completely opposite of what I would always

preach and talk about to clients. So I'm curious, Doug, what did, because you came when you first started with me, I said, you're gonna work out twice a week. Yeah, and my first thought was, I'm not sure that's gonna be enough. Yeah, because you were thinking five days a week, four days a week, maybe not.

Definitely, I thought I need to work out at least you know five days Okay, so what what did I say or what what was it that in our meeting that convinced you to You know throw away all this old knowledge or old ideas that you had about it obviously wasn't his calf size Was you know I feeder when he was representing this? No, he was in a t-shirt and he was wearing long sweat. So it was you need to do it. Had I seen his calves, I probably would have walked up. Yeah.

You got a bunch of dick. Oh my God. A bunch of dick. No, it's your turn this week, bro. Here's a de-squeered you. Okay, let me tell you what happened. I was referred to Sal from my chiropractor. I went in there because I had muscle imbalances and I had back issues, but underlying that I wanted to build muscle. In fact, I really was skeptical, but then I looked at him and I said,

this guy is serious. And then he kind of reminded me of Tony Robbins, which also looks kind of a sales point. He was very direct and very confident when he was saying. And so I basically surrendered to the process. I said, this guy obviously knows a lot. I'm just going to do what he says and see what happens. And that's when I got blown away because everything that I

believe before was being destroyed by what salad tells you, my parent, you've earned what you've earned. Yeah, my paradigm was shattered. My old paradigm was shattered. So I was working out twice a week. I was never going to failure and I was seeing results. And I said to myself, everything I've learned in the past must have been wrong. And it all made sense at that point. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, and the reason why I wanted to ask you wasn't to make myself sound awesome although you are.

Although it did, thank you. No, what it was, you said something, okay? And I wanted you to talk about your experience on here because trainers right now are like, well, fuck, how am I gonna get around? Like, how am I gonna talk to somebody who has these ideas in their head? Here's the deal. What Doug just said, I was confident

and I had conviction in what I was talking about. It's okay, don't be afraid to tell your client. Don't be afraid to tell them, do it my way, trust in the process and you, you're going to see what's going to happen. Be confident in with it because people are coming to you, they're confused, they're frustrated. Look, Doug had worked out for a long time before. I was extremely frustrated because I'd spent hours and hours in the gym and I did not

see the benefit. Right. And when someone tells you something that's, they're supposedly a professional, but they tell you with confidence and conviction, and you're already frustrated with what you've done before, you're gonna have a tendency, your clients can have a tendency. So you know what? I'm gonna trust this person. And then of course, the results speak for themselves, but you guys have no idea.

Doug literally thought he was a hard-gainer. He thought his whole life, I'm a hard-gainer, I'm just muscle, just not come easy to me. Now of course, if you look at him now, you think this guy's got good genes for lifting weights, he's 49, he's fucking built, and you know, he could lift all kinds of weight. But he had the impression that he was a hard gainer. I wonder how many people out there right now who've tried this over and over again, how many guys have gone out and lifted weights

and done the split and gone to failure and couldn't gain a freaking quarter inch on their arms or how many women who bust their ass doing cardio for 45 minutes a day, and you know, cut their tongue, bro. And they're just thinking to themselves, I'm just not made to do this. I don't have the genetics for it.

I'm just always gonna be fat. Fat is easy, just sticks to my body, or I'm just never going to build muscle. Think about that. It goes back to what we just, the way we started this podcast was talking about these trainers that out there that everybody preaches to the intensity, intensity, intensity, and that only goes so far.

Yeah. You know, and you can't beast mode every time. It's a tool to be used. Let me tell you some. I'm advanced, Adam is advanced, just as advanced. If the three of us starting today went to failure on every single set of every exercise we did, starting today by next week our bodies will stop progressing

and if we continued within a month or two, we would all regress. We'd all look worse. Eggs and veins are coming too. Yeah, I want to touch on that more because Doug did bring that up. And I think if there's, if there is one thing I can say, even with my education, with my experience, that really evolved me. And I guess it goes back to getting into competing, really getting into competing force me to, you know, I had

to step, obviously I'm getting on stage and I'm putting my physique next to somebody else like that. I mean, I had to be on my game. So it really forced me to use my knowledge and apply it. And I've always known that training to failures and I do it. Although I would say that's probably one of the things I was a victim of myself. I would come in, I like to train till I can't lift no more. I like to push the body. And I've been doing that for a long time,

even knowing better. And one of the best things I ever did was to stop doing that. It's one of my favorite things to teach another pro or teach another trainer or another person who knows what they're doing in the gym is, they'll hop in with a workout with me. And I'll be like, what kind of give me,

and I was asking what they've been training on lately. And all I'll do is just, you know, switch whatever phase they're kind of in. You know what I'm saying? If they're, if they're working in strength or power, I'm going to change that a little bit. And then I love the next thing to do is not train a failure. I call it two in the tank, you know, we're going to leave two in the tank the entire work. So you're going to make sure that every set that we do, you could squeeze out two more reps. And I don't want you to do two more reps. You want every exercise we do today, you're going to make sure that every set that we do, you could squeeze out two more reps, and I don't want you to do two more reps.

You want every exercise we do today, you're gonna make sure that you still got two more reps in you when you stop, and they always look at me like, all crazy, like, okay. And then everybody always comes after the work, I'm like, oh my God, that was like one of the best pumps and workouts I've ever had. I feel like you probably do it tomorrow.

Yeah. What? Yeah. Well? Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's, if you look at, if you want to talk about the science behind it, here's a deal. Failure does create excessive damage, but besides that, okay, because I can create a lot of damage without going to failure.

Shit, I do it sometimes myself. It's not necessarily the damage. It's the failing part that causes a switch in your body. And does that mean you should never go to failure? Look, if you advance, every once in a while you want to throw in a failure set, that's probably, yeah, absolutely. You can do it.

But for the most part, you shouldn't go to failure because what it does is it makes your body prioritize recovery. It just wants to recover and protect. It doesn't want to adapt. Whereas the other way around, if I leave two in the tank, two or three in the tank, like Adam's saying, your body starts to adapt, and that's what you want.

You want adaptation, you want growth, you want muscle growth, you want increased performance, you want fat loss. Who gives a shit? How hard you work out if you've got no results? Yeah. If you don't progress. And Adam said something interesting about liking the feeling

of beating himself up in the gym There's something we need to talk about here and that's the whole punishment mentality that a lot of us have in our minds And I hate to say it most of us that like to work out We have a little bit of a body image issue and we go in the gym and part of the workout is fucking punishment like god You know damn it. I don't look the way I want. I'm gonna beat myself. I'm gonna punish myself right now Because I'm gonna do a thousand crunches because I just you know got damn it. I don't look the way I want. I'm gonna beat myself. I'm gonna punish myself right now because I'm gonna do a thousand crunches because I just, you know, got a gut over the weekend. Right. I'm gonna punish myself. It doesn't work that way. The body does not respond and react that way. I don't know. Yeah, so, um, and you know what's funny? Strength athletes rarely ever go to failure.

Competitive strength athletes like power lifters and Olympic lifters. Well, what's so interesting in the athletic world is you're seeing this shift now. You're seeing this shift from that mentality of how you train athletes like very hard and very intense and trying to maximize the performance. It's all performance-based where now you're seeing things get introduced like HRV and ways of really understanding your heart rate and how much recovery is actually necessary after about of super high intensity, whether it's your practice, whether it's the workout or whatever, because the thing about sports is that at the end result, a lot of times, you know, they're not thinking about long-term damage of the body, right? So this is a very like, it should

be like a more of a small window. Whereas, um, and some of you over there just screwed up my thought. Dam you. Yeah. But I'd say with, when it comes to, you know, to exercise and when you look at some of the advice on social media, some of it, you know, some of it, if it just sounds fucking crazy and it doesn't really make that much sense, you know, you're, you're, you're reading this guy's telling you, okay, you want to build muscle. You need to eat two grams of protein per pound of body weight. So you're like, all right, let me do the math. I weigh 150 pounds.

I need to eat 300 grams of protein. Then you go to the math and they're like, holy shit, that's like 10 chicken breasts. If it sounds fucking insane to you, it's probably bullshit. It's probably not good advice. You know, and if the person you're taking advice from looks like an alien

because they look like something that you could never achieve, then they probably don't have very much in common with you. Yeah. Oh, I know what I was gonna say. I knew I'd bring it right. Yeah, yeah, thanks buddy. You're welcome. Yeah, because part of it was MMA,

like something I've noticed, a lot more fighters are coming out and saying that they're not really sparring as much as they used to, or they're not doing it at all for that matter. Once they get the skill there and they get the training, now they're just focusing on the strength and the conditioning element of it. So they come in super-conditioned, they come in stronger. Um, and so it's the same too. Like so, so with football, you know, there's, there's been some programs and

I know that anybody who's played on a team sport a lot of times, it varies when you go from one level to the next or you, or you, you switch schools or whatever it is. Somebody has a different type of programming where like some coaches I've had, like, I mean, you're banging, you're hitting, and hitting drills like all week, leading up to the game. And it's great. It's great.

Like, oh, out of the shoots, like, I mean, you're building the shell, I'm ready to go. You know, I'm, I'm smashing fools, but like, then you just start seeing everybody drop, like flies and injuries. It's so short-lived. The thing is, you have to trust that the skills there. It can't just be about always having to perform with your practice even. You have to focus on the

skill, the speed, the conditioning the prep you know the knowledge really the The program I was a part of that that set apart from everybody Was the one that we all were locked in a classroom and we studied film and that made me broke it down and we were way better than Everybody else off the line because we we picked up on all those little nuances, all those little cues and ticks, like the running back has a little twitch, everybody knew about it and we would shift and plug holes and that's just the kind of mentality

as an athlete you have to have. You have to preserve your body and then and and use that that throttle for game time. Why would you throttle all the way down during practice with what the hell is the use? You guys trained smarter. That's what you do. And you know what, you know, another thing too is because now we're seeing, you know, when I say Navy SEAL, everybody automatically thinks crazy hardcore training, right? Because they're getting popularized, you know, they have reality TV shows where you can see what they go through.

Here's why the, this is why the military trains them that way. It's not to get them into shape. When you go to be a SEAL, you're not, they're not beating the shit out of you because they need you to be. It's all mental. See if you'll break. As a matter of fact, everybody that enters that program and anybody who teaches it will tell you,

most of them have the fitness to pass through. It's the mental aspect because when you're in war, and the reason why I'm bringing this up, it's because people do boot camps and, oh, here's a workout designed by Navy SEALs. You don't, you don't, to get in shape, if you train like a Navy SEAL, you'll die. They know this, too. They do this to train like an Ava Seaheel, you'll die. They know this too.

They do this to train them for the mental toughness needed for war. You are not going to war. You don't need the mental toughness. That is not gonna be your weakest link. For you, you're looking to get fit, healthy, you wanna get ripped, whatever. You don't look at those kind of programs.

That balsa wall type of shit is not gonna benefit anybody. And you even brought up MMA. Look, MMA athletes, they always maintain fitness and they do what they do because they love it. But when they're training for a fight, it's like 12 weeks. It's a 12 week training for the fight. They don't train like that all the time. No, no, they would die.

Well, you would. And I've said this before, when you talk to people who train this way and promote this type of training, a modality only, is that, think of it this way, because it does work, right? There's proven athletes, there's proven people out there that are in crazy sports or train with crazy amounts of intensity and volume that look amazing, okay? Now, here's the thing though, and this is what I always tell people is, okay, so maybe you're that exception to that role also,

maybe you are a part of that small percentile that this is going to work for. The other shitty part about it is, guess what, you're signing up for that for the rest of your fucking life. You know what I'm saying? Because if you eat the same way, and you train that way to look like that, and you like like that physique and that's how you got it was that way.

Guess what? If you want to keep it, you're going to have to maintain that. And I don't know what you but fucking pound on the shit out of myself when I'm in my 70s does not sound cool at all, you know. I hope I can move and function and that's the thing too is if you're lucky enough to even get that far while you're pounding the shit out of the body for 20 years or whatever. But you know, that's what you have to keep in mind. I would much rather leave room for that. You know, I'd rather get as much results with as little that I have to do in order to do that.

And, you know, I really, it's crazy because I really noticed this now. And when I first started the fat to fit journey and was documenting everything, and this was kind of my thing that I spoke to a lot was, this is the big mistake that most people make. Here I am, I want to get in shape and I'm motivated to do it, but I got to be smart about it. I can't just come out the gates. I'm not cutting.

In fact, I was increasing my calorie intake and I was trying to just create activity, touch some weights. I wasn't going to the gym seven days a week. It wasn't spending an hour at a time. Sometimes they were 30, 40 minute workouts. Intensity was not crazy. You know, at this point, I'm just trying to get healthy, right? I'm trying to get healthy, get my metabolism working for itself. I've got plenty of room down the road to start increasing intensity. Well, you know, this has been now, November will be three years since I've been training hard at the, you know, professional men's physique level. And I've just, I've now reached a point where I do got to kind of train kind of crazy to keep that physique that I present on stage at that weight.

If I want to walk around 215 to 20 and low single digits, it's pretty intense to keep that up. It's not a realistic thing to keep up year round, year after year after year for the rest of my life because I'm working against my body. My body is more comfortable at like a low 200s or a high 190s where I don't have to really count all my calories to make sure I'm feeding enough to hold on that muscle mass. I'm not having to train the weight so hard

to make sure I keep all that muscle mass on that I don't atrophy. So, you know, I feel it now for the first time that to maintain that intensity level to try and just even keep the physique where I'm at now. So, you know, people don't realize that. They see these athletes or they see these guys that are super ripped and stuff and they see them training that way.

And they're so, you know, they're so far away from that physique and they're trying to train like that guy or girl is already training. And there's no need to train like that yet. There's a reason why there's an off season. You know, you ever watch bodybuilders, and I'm talking about bodybuilders who are on a lot of synthetic hormones and stuff like that. Recovery agents.

Yeah, that'll make a big difference. You ever see bodybuilders who compete too often? Oh yeah. You know, what ends up happening? They end up, their bodies, even though they're super assisted and they have phenomenal genetics, their body starts to decline. Their body, this doesn't look the same. They end up, their bodies, even though they're super assisted and they have phenomenal genetics, their body starts to decline. Their body doesn't look the same. They lose muscle. It's harder for them to

come in really shredded each competition. So then they have to take time off. They have to take a year off. And that's, and you're talking about somebody who's on the upper, you know, 0.1% of, you know, of people. So you talk about the average person, you know, it's gotta be something that you can maintain. And it's got, you have to look at, here's the deal. Here's what we're gonna say that really just breaks it down. Work with your body. Don't fight your body. If you fight your body, your body will win

that contest every single time. You will never win if you're gonna fight your body on your way to fitness, because eventually it's gonna either become ill, you're gonna, if you're gonna fight your body on your way to fitness because eventually It's gonna either become ill You're gonna or you're gonna get injured or you're gonna have a mental breakdown and I've seen all three many times and people who've done that Yeah, so if but now here's on the flip side if you work with your body It feels almost effortless just like Doug was saying he went from working out Five days a week five days a week,

six days a week, busting his ass, counting every calorie, frustrated his shit because it wasn't showing to working out twice a week with me in the gym. And all of a sudden strength was going up. He was building muscle. It was visible muscle on a, you know, every two or three week basis. It all a felt, it must have felt, Doug, it must have felt effortless to you at that point. Yeah, after every workout, I had lots of energy. It was very effortless and it was exciting because I was seeing the results. And for the first time in my life, I started looking into the mirror and saying, wow, I'm

actually growing. Yeah, so that's the feeling that each and wow, I'm actually growing. Yeah, so that's the feeling that each and every one of you can have. That's what you should look for. When you do your workouts, when you do your diet, yes, it's gonna be a challenge. Yes, it's gonna, it's a shift.

It's a change in your current lifestyle, but you should not feel like you're fricking, spinning your tires in the dirt, just busting your ass. I'm so tired. I wake up, I sleep 10 hours, I wake up and I'm tired and my body feels broken. And then I look in the mirror and I'm like,

my body's really not reflecting this incredible, ridiculous sacrifice I'm making. Something is wrong and it's not because you're not working hard enough. You're not working with your body. What do you guys think about this? So something that I think is important, and I used to tell my trainers, is when they do the client assessment or first time in the

trainer, is, you know, people are asking for this, I want this, I want that, or, you know, how long is it going to take me for this, or how long with this? And I feel like, or what's our program going to be, or what are you going to show me, or what do you do to me? And I know people get used to get frustrated with me when I first start off, but I think after I explain myself, I think they get it is, you know, keeping it almost vague and in utilizing the word depends because I feel like it really depends on your body and how it responds. Right. So if you get a trainer, so where I'm getting at this, I feel like if you get a trainer who tells you,

like you ask a specific question and he gives you direct answer all the time about you, your physique, your body, or what we're gonna be doing, I feel like that's really generic because if I don't know you and you're looking to hire me and we're talking about your body, your results, your eating, everything, all this stuff

that is so technical and you're asking me specific questions and I'm giving you like, oh yeah, that's the best for that or oh yeah, you're gonna do this or oh yeah, this is what we do. I feel like that is very, very generic, you know, if someone's answering that way because it each person depends on you. That's a great, great point. Absolutely. I think, you know, what I say to my clients a lot of times is they'll say, you know, well, Sal, you know, what do you think's gonna happen? What's gonna happen if I do this? And I'll say, well, it depends on how your body responds. We're gonna see how your body responds

and we're gonna adjust accordingly. I'm actually working with someone right now online who's doing this and her, she's freaked out because she works out like crazy, is eating low calories and is super frustrated because her body is not reflecting. Now, she's got classic, you know, adrenal fatigue or classic metabolic, you know, damage that we've talked about in the past.

And she's like, well, am I going to blow up? Am I going to gain all this body fat? Probably not. However, we're going to check in a week, see where your body, how your body is responding and take it from there. And I think that's right. That's probably the answer that a good trainer would tell you because it is very individual versus,

you know, very specific, like this was exactly what's gonna happen, not always, not always. So to wrap this up, I would say that, you know, for a measure, if you always have to have wrist wraps, if you always have to tape your shit, if you always have to tape your shit, if you always have to wear knee sleeves and you have to wear special shoes and you're doing it, you're doing it wrong. And you're taking it, you're doing it too hard.

Here's the easiest way to tell if you got a good trainer, a good trainer and I ask pump. There you go. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal, Adam, and Justin, visit us at www.mind pumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump.