Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1455: Six Ways to Get a Better Pump

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the best ways to increase your pump when working out. Why everybody loves the pump. (2:46) Getting your clients to feel the pump. (7:25) Understanding the psychological components of fitness. (12:30) Six Ways to Get a Better Pump. #1 – Stay hydrated. (13:30) #2 – Eat carbohydrates. (18:23) #3 – Train with higher reps. (21:34) #4 – Play with shorter rest periods. (24:51) #5 – Perform isolation movements. (27:17) #6 – Supplements. (29:53) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** December Special: 3 MAPS Bundles for your level of fitness! The Pump: Ego Booster or Muscle Builder? - Mind Pump Blog Which Is Better: Low Reps Or High Reps? - Mind Pump Blog How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts – Mind Pump Blog Compound Exercises Vs. Isolation Exercises – Mind Pump Blog What To Do About Lagging Body Parts – Mind Pump Blog Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Pros and Cons of Creatine – Mind Pump Blog Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Stan "Rhino" Efferding - CSCS's (@stanefferding)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You're listening to the number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Now in today's episode, we talk about the pump. This is what a lot of people love when they work out in the gym. It's where blood engorges a muscle, makes it look full and round.

It helps you connect to the muscle. It also contributes to muscle growth and then indirectly to fat loss. So in today's episode, we actually give you six ways you can improve the pump that you get in the gym. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Paleo Valley. Paleo Valley makes some pretty awesome products, healthy products.

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that's P-A-L-E-O, valley.com forward slash Mind Pump, then use the code Mind Pump 15, that's Mind Pump 15 for 15% off any of their products. Also, this month, we've put together three workout bundles that help three different types of people. Each bundle includes nine months of exercise workout programming. So that means you have all your workouts planned out for you for the next nine plus months.

That includes exercise demos. We tell you how many reps, what workouts to do, what exercise to do, how many sets, everything. You need, there's no guesswork whatsoever. Here are the three bundles. The first one is for beginners. That's called the new-to-weight lifting bundle. The second one is for people with intermediate experience.

That's the body transformation bundle. And then the third one, it's for those of you that are advanced. People who've been consistent for a long period of time and want really, really good hard workouts. It's the new year extreme intensity bundle. All of these also come with one year of free access to our private forum. So you can ask people questions about training or nutrition or you can post videos of your exercises and get form critiques. There's

also funny memes that are shared on there, great debates. You can find myself, Adam and Justin on there daily. It's one year of access free, included with any of these bundles. And all the bundles come with a 30 day money back guarantee. That means you can sign up, try out the workouts, try out the programs. And if you are not blown away, if it doesn't satisfy you, return them for a full refund. You can find out more about all of these bundles

at mapsdysember.com. That's M-A-P-S, December.com. All right, guys, honesty time. Honesty time. What's one of your favorite feelings in the gym? When you're working out, what's one of the best feelings or things that you get? When a girl comes over and compliments my caps. That is the best feeling.

Is that what you were looking for? Nope. What's second? what's second? When I look in the mirror and I'm doing bicep curls and my hair looks full Stop what the fantasy stuff Things that are real All right, all right. I know what you want me to say. It's the pump, okay, it's the pump. The pump. Everybody loves the pump.

Everybody loves the pump, it's so special. Arnold especially. Yeah, and it's a great feeling and, you know, there's actually some value to it. A lot of people might not realize that there's value to the pump. It was, you know, from a scientific standpoint, or medical standpoint, I guess, the term for a pump is transient, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. All right, so that's what you would call it, and I guess, in a complicated way. But with that basically means transient, meaning not permanent.

Sarcoplasmic is, or sarcoplasm is all of the fluid and stuff that's inside your muscle that is not muscle fiber. Hypercherphe is growth, right? So, transient sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. A pump is the muscle becoming engorged with blood and fluid and feeling bigger and fuller. And a lot of people enjoy this feeling. I definitely know I do, but a lot of people don't know that there's a lot of value to getting a pump in the gym. Well muscle building value, right? I mean we know we obviously know what it feels like when you do it

but it's it belongs and everybody's routine regardless of what your goal really is. That's right and it tells you a lot too. In fact, you know, I didn't train a lot of bodybuilders. Most of my clients were everyday average people, normal people who just want to improve their fitness. But even with them, I would, you know, if it was appropriate, I would help them achieve a better pump in the gym or we'd seek it out. And one of the main reasons why I did this

was it was a great way to tell me that they were connecting to a muscle that we were working. Well, it's also a great way to tell they're not. Right. So if you have a client that's doing an exercise and you're targeting a specific muscle, but they're not working it to its fullest capacity and you've done three, four sets of 15, 20 reps, there should be plenty of fluid that's pumped into that muscle that it should have a pump.

And if it doesn't and they don't feel that muscle, there's a good chance that their form technique is often helping them become aware of that by going after the pump is a great technique. Yeah. In fact, in my experience with a client, their first time getting a pump, that was assigned to me as a trainer that the muscle was about to really start to develop. You know, when I would get a new client,

usually they don't get that feeling, right, for a little while. Oh, first thing you have to do is really establish that mind muscle connection. And so that's why I do like to kind of break it down to single joint type movements and to get that to respond and get a pump is definitely a signal that something's happening to them. And what exactly is it, Sal, that is causing it to build muscle? Like, you're

obviously, is it the fluid filling into the cells and the cells expanding to a new size? And because that they're growing in size, therefore, you can build more muscle. Yeah, that's part of it. The actual pump itself seems to cause a louder muscle building signal. Bodybuilders have known this for a long time. But then there's also the conditions that allow the pump to happen. And when the conditions are right and you get a good pump,

those are the same conditions that contribute to muscle growth, right? So your ability to get a pump oftentimes just tells you that you're in the right condition to build muscle. Now back to the client thing, here's something as a trainer that you learn, in fact, you're taught this in some certifications, but you learn this on your own as well.

And that is to get a client to feel a muscle. Sometimes you have to put, you have to touch it. So, hey, you need external feedback. Yeah, they need that feedback. So, say, here's squeeze your back and they're like, well, I'm trying to squeeze it, and then you put your, you need external feedback. Yeah, they need that feedback. So, it's like, here's squeeze your back and they're like, well, I'm trying to squeeze it, and you put your finger on the muscle, and you say squeeze right here,

and all of a sudden they can feel it. Well, a pump provides that as well. Once you kind of get a pump, and you can feel that muscle, let's kind of fill with blood, each subsequent rep and set becomes more and more connected than even the first ones. So, now, what is your thoughts on this?

Here's some bro science or some bodybuilding things that we used to do. And I don't know how to explain it really well, but I do know that from experience doing it myself and watching my peers do this, that it seemed to work really well. And one of the things that we would do like before you get on stage is whatever muscle

is your inferior muscle group. So like let's say you have a kind of a weaker chest in comparison to the other muscles, or let's say you have weaker shoulders, whatever muscle group. You would load up with carbohydrates in a little bit of water before you go on stage, and then you would pump up those specific muscle groups. Now, is that just the blood that I'm sending over there or am I actually getting some of those nutrients, carbs and fluids extra, fluids to fill into those muscle

bellies that I'm actually pumping up? Oh yeah, I mean, carbohydrates attract water. You ever try to get a pump on a zero-carb diet? You know, it's much more difficult. Right. To feel the muscles pumping up. Now, there's, I mean, you can't build muscle on a no-carb diet.

No, you can still build muscle. But again, we know that the pump itself also causes muscles to build. I mean, I remember it myself as a kid, right? When I first started working out, I had to kind of learn how to connect and feel muscles. And I remember for me, it was at first, and this is common for a lot of people,

it was hard to feel my back, right? So I do pull ups and I would do rows and I do all these movements, and I'd feel it in my arms, but it'd be really hard to kind of feel in my back. And my back kind of lagged a little bit. I believe as a result. And I remember one day reading, I was reading a book and the author of the book recommended that

you do a superset for your lats, do you like a dumbbell pullover, till pullup. So isolate the lats, then go do your pullup. And I did it. And it was the first time I'd ever felt a lats pump. From that day on, I could always connect to my back. From that day on, I could always feel where I'd want to work with my back and then my back progressed in terms of its development. And if you talk to a client or even if you're listening right now, the muscle that lags in you, like let's say you're trying to build your butt and you do squats and dead lifts and I was moving, you probably have a tough time getting a pump in the butt as well. Well, back especially I feel like, right? Back is one of those ones that,

I mean, think about all back exercises is either pulling weight towards you or your body towards the stationary thing, right? So you're pulling something into you and if you're naturally in this rounded position where the shoulders are forward, the default thing for you to do is to pull with your arms because you're in this protracted position.

And not to engage the lat. So getting a back pump is probably one of the hardest things for people to do. And that's a great way to teach, like you said, is to try and get them to get a pump in that position so they could feel how to engage those muscles. Totally. It actually tells you quite a bit, right? So in compound movements are excellent.

They build great muscle, they're great at fat burning, great at boosting metabolism, but compound movements work a lot of muscles. So if you're somebody, again, I'll go back to the butt thing. Let's say you wanna build your butt and you know the squats are great for your butt. And you do squats, like man, my quads get really pumped. I don't really feel it in my butt.

That's a signal. That's telling you that you're probably not activating the glutes as well as you could, especially if that's what you're trying to target. I know for me, for example, I could do a compound lift like a bench press, and by changing my feel, I could get more of a pump in my shoulders and triceps, or more of a pump in my chest.

And that tells me the muscle that is being worked more, which also tells me which one's gonna develop more. This took a while for me to really understand because I was more prone to doing compound lifts and really focusing on the movement and the technique. And it wasn't till later where I started to kind of break down due single joint type exercises a little more frequently. And really, I mean, it was like a searing burn.

I was not used to that. I felt like I was doing something wrong initially, but it was one of those things. It was a totally different way to train which has massive benefits on so. I also love too, like how the, you can chase a pump and not fatigue a muscle out. And so when I use it to teach a client how to fire a muscle group that I'm trying to get

to the fire, let's use Sal's example with somebody who wants to build their butt. They know squatting is one of the best ways to do that. But they just keep getting this quad pump. I take that client and before we go into squats, I do some like floor bridges or frog pumps, you know, real, just their body weights. And I'm going to do 15, 20 reps, couple sets of that just to get a nice pump in their butt so they can feel it there. Then take them over to squats. What's great is because it says body weight, they're just getting a pump, they're sitting fluid there. They

won't be fatigued, they'll still be able to squat, good weight. But feels like it's more involved. But now that the, the butt is pumped and they can feel it, they're more likely to activate it and use it more in that squad. Yeah, and we talk about this all the time in the show. I think a lot of fitness experts, they forget to address the psychological component of fitness. The psychological component of fitness is much more important than almost any other component. And there's a very strong, positive psychological connection to the pump when you work out.

Because here you are, you're trying to develop an area, you're trying to feel an area, and temporarily that area becomes engorged with blood. And you can see right now, you can see results in the mirror. I wanna make my shoulders look rounder, and if I do a good job, I get a results in the mirror. I want to make my shoulders look rounder, and if I do a good job, I get a pump in the shoulders. I can see in the mirror what my shoulders will look like. It's almost magic, like presto-changer.

All of a sudden I feel like bigger, I'm feeling my shirt up, all that stuff. Exactly, I can see in the mirror what's happening with my shoulders, I can feel it, if I want to build my butt or my hamstrings, I can feel it and I can see it, and although it's temporary, that psychological component,

it's very powerful, it's very encouraging and it gets people to want to do more workouts. So the very first one that you listed was hydration, right? So stay high. Most important. Now, I had to be honest, this really didn't completely come together for me until I was competing in my 30s. Sure, I knew, I understood the science of what water is and water is mostly what's in your

mouth. It's 70%. Yeah. Right. So I get, I got all that. I wasn't, I wasn't unfamiliar with that, but I didn't really realize what a massive difference this made until I started competing and I started tracking water. And I'd be carrying around my gallon jug, right? That's how I used to love the teesme about. But then when I was trying to get a gallon in for the day, a big portion of my water intake would be during this workout. And what I started to piece together is like, man, as I started pounding this water,

I would really start to notice that I would rapidly like grow, like in the workout. And so then I began to start to notice that I would rapidly grow in the workout. Then I began to set a goal that right before I go into my workout, I'm going to try and put down a quarter to a half gallon of water before I go in, and then also drink that quarter to half gallon while I'm in my workout. It made a massive difference in the size and how much I would get pumped up. And so one of the hardest things when you're competing as far as the mental side

is when you are cutting for a long period of time and you're in a calorie deficit, low carbohydrate, low calorie, and you're dieting for a long period of time to get really, really lean. Bodybuilders have this term they call it the flat. You have a flat look and that flat look is just your muscle bellies are deflated. They don't have a lot of fluid in them

because you're running low carb, you're in a deficit. They're never really totally filled up. And a lot of times it messes with your head. You're dieting to get shredded and look good for a stage, but you feel all sucked up and smaller and you feel like you're shrinking, shrinking. And it feels like you're losing muscle even though you're really not. And one of the strategies that I found worked really well for me was I would start to take, this is where I took creatine a lot, is I would take creatine and then I would water

load and then I would go in and it would give me this amazing pump and it helped with that psychological piece when I was cutting. Right, so you get the pump, you get a better pump from being hydrated, which then of course triggers more muscle growth, better adaptations, but also does hydration on its own affect your body's ability to adapt, build muscle to lubricate and move.

It definitely does. So through the hydration process of, which encourages this feeling of a pump, which is, we talked about the benefits, including the psychological benefits, the hydration itself also contributes to better adaptation to your body progressing faster. Hydration is by far the most important thing, by the way.

We're gonna go through a lot of different ways to enhance the pump, but if you're not hydrated, you could try all the other stuff you want. It'll be very difficult. Yeah, that takes a concerted effort too. So yeah, you really do have to put that at the forefront. You do. I work out first thing in the morning, and this one's for me, I can easily forget, because if I start my work at 6.30, I wake up at 5.30, it's really easy for me to go from waking up to, you know,

I'll get ready kind of whatever and go into my workout. And I've had no water, I've had no water all night and no water, you know, before the workout. And I can tell a big difference. Not only do I not get as good of a pump, I'm not as strong, I don't feel as energetic. So what I do now is I, when I wake up, the first thing I do is I go have two glasses of water. And then before my workout, I have another glass of water, makes all the

difference in the world. So, do you know any research to support this theory too? So, so I had, when this is back to my competing days when I was really pushing the weight and the volume of training, before I was really tracking and pushing water, I noticed when I lifted early in the morning, there's a couple of times I had this like pop in my quad and it felt like a muscle strain. And I've heard some people say that a lot of times that can be related to hydration.

And I remember I read that somewhere and then I began, okay, I'll never go into a workout without having that half gallon of water and it never happened to me. It was something that occurred on a fairly regular basis for me. And then completely eliminated when I started to feed that going into workouts like dry or whatever. I've heard the same thing.

Yeah. Oh, well, how about this? Absolutely. Yes, there is research to show that how many times have you guys noticed that you're stiff and this took me a long time to figure out because as a kid, I didn't piece it together. But later on, I realized, oh, I'm into hydrated, I'm not drinking, and then I start drinking more water, and next thing you know, I'm much more loose,

and remember, water makes up the lubrication of your body. It's the primary thing that makes up lubrication, so if you're not drinking enough, it's gonna affect your mobility, it's gonna affect how smooth your movements feel, and then of course it affects the pump. Now the next one, this one's also very important, and that's to eat carbohydrates.

If you've ever gone a low carb diet, you know that you start to notice a reduction in performance, and then if you're somebody that enjoys the pump, it kind of starts to disappear. And this is because carbohydrates attract water into the body. And what your muscle store, now your liver stores most of this energy, but your muscles also store a certain amount of glycogen. And glycogen is energy that's made from carbohydrates.

When you go low carb, your muscle store less glycogen, so does your liver. Therefore your muscles have less water within them, and the pumps are more difficult to achieve. I've done keto diets before for other reasons. Typically, it's for gut health reasons for me and I'll notice the pump start to kind of go away. Then when I'm able to reintroduce carbs again, it's like boom, huge difference even just the day after. This was another thing that got pieced together for me during competing days. I started to, I've read some, I can't remember where I read this. So to your point, Sal, that for every three grams of carbs that you consume, the body holds

three ounces of water. So if I went into a workout and let's say I'm, again, I'm dieting, I'm trying to get lean and I'm getting ready to go into a workout. If I started to schedule most of my carbohydrates around the workout, I notice I would get these massive pumps. So let's just say for arguments sake and everybody can do this with however many grams, they take on a normal basis. But let's say your daily intake of total carbs

falls somewhere around 200 to 300 grams. And you evenly distribute that over four, six meals throughout the day, you're getting average of 30 to 50 grams in every meal all day long. But if I were to hold back on eating a lot of carbohydrates in a majority of my meals and then put most of them around my workout, I noticed it enhanced my pump like crazy. So I would, in my first meal that I would eat in the day, I wouldn't have a lot of carbohydrates, but then I would shuttle like 50 to 75 grams of carbs

right before the workout, plus that water. And then again, it would just make these pumps an unbelievable. Right, now here's the other side of it. Besides the pump, carbohydrates do accelerate muscle growth. Okay, this is a fact. So I know there's a lot of low carb, you know, people out there by... Salads.

Yeah, but you will build more muscle by eating carbohydrates, studies will show this, and you're definitely gonna get stronger, and this is a big one, performance wise, you may get away with some low rep, you know, stuff with low carb, but when your reps start to get up a little higher, six, seven, eight, nine, 1010, 1112, or higher reps, then the carbohydrates make a big difference. Me personally, I always lose strength

and I do lose performance when my carbohydrates are low and the pumps, they just do. They just start to disappear. Yeah, I've found two, going more low carb too, a lot of times that also brings my overall calories down a bit and then like going into workouts and not having that same type of energy to pull from really affects the performance. Yeah. Now the next one this has more to do with your workout and that is to train with higher reps. If I'm trying to teach a client to connect to a muscle with an exercise,

it's way harder to do with low reps than it is to do with higher reps. Like if I'm trying to get someone to feel their butt and get a pump in their butt, it's harder to do with five or six reps than it would be with 16 reps or 20 reps. Now once they're connected, the lower reps can sometimes do just fine.

But before they have that ability to really connect and get a pump, higher reps is where you're gonna get this pump. And again, if you're training for the pump, which when you look at most of the maps programs, by the way, especially the bodybuilding focused maps programs, like maps aesthetic, maps split, and even maps in a ball deck, there's a phase

that is a higher rep phase. And the goal of that phase is to maximize the pump. Higher reps, they're just better overall for that feeling of getting more. This one speaks to me a lot because I would live. I love to live in the lower rep range and when I decide to transition into higher reps, I mean, it's punishing. It's a totally different experience and it's very much of an ego check because you can't lift the same amount of weights.

You really have to be, you know, bring it down quite a bit to get through all the reps and just the overall feeling and experience is completely different. Well, this is also like, I love to see some of our friends like our buddy Stan Efforting, like advocates for like 20 rep squats. And I remember he was a powerlifter. Right, right.

And so I love to see someone talking about that or sharing that because, you know, we know what all the research says, right? Everybody knows like that, between that five and 15 rep ranges, what most all the research is around that supports those rep ranges are best, but it doesn't mean you can't go a little lower or can't go a little higher.

And there's lots of benefits, especially when we're talking about hypertrophy, the pump chasing that with exceeding 15 reps. There's nothing wrong with 20 or 25 reps, especially when the goal of the workout is to chase the pump. Right. And that's when you're looking at programming, right? So if you look at the way we've laid out maps programs, there's always a phase that's dedicated to hypertrophy.

This is where you take advantage of these really high rep type of routines. This is where it's going to benefit you. That's the adaptation you're chasing. It's okay for you to go 15, 18, 20, maybe 25 reps on an exercise. And I tell you what, good luck doing a set of something and not getting a pump after doing 20 reps of it. Right. In fact, now there's studies that support.

They actually show that higher reps done with the high intensity build just as much muscle. But here's really the, this is really the thing about it. If it's new for you, it's going to do phenomenal. In fact, if you always train low reps, one of the best things you could do to build muscle is aim for a pump with higher reps. The plateau buster. Oh, I love strength. There was a body builder. I forgot his name and he wrote about doing sets of 15 to 20 reps and getting the pump and how much muscle he built. I said, I really got nothing to lose and I just exploded.

I got just great results right away from doing it. So especially if it's new, those higher reps will give you that crazy pump and will cause muscle growth. Now what goes along with that are shorter rest periods. In fact, they did a workout this morning with Adam where we were doing, you know, we worked at our back and then we went to biceps and we did cluster sets, which a cluster set is like four reps,

rest four seconds, four reps, rest four seconds, four reps, rest four seconds, four reps, rest four seconds. So that whole thing is considered a set, but each time you're doing four reps, you only have four seconds of rest in between. That gave me a gnarly bicep pump. It was incredible. Super sets are an example of this, right?

Where you take two exercises, do them back to back. Let's say you do two chest exercises or two leg exercises, and then watch what happens to the way you feel. The pump gets pretty intense with this. And this is where, you know, all of our programs we talk about, you know, giving people the flexibility to kind of adjust and do things. Like, I don't think there's, I don't think we have any program where we've written like a triset, right, where we're doing like three things, right back to back. But if I'm in a hurry and I'm in a phase that is hypertrophy is. So basically we're chasing the pump in that phase.

So these four weeks, most of all my exercises are minimum 12, 15 reps, and or super sets. The main adaptation goal that we're chasing right now is the pump is hypertrophy. And maybe I'm short on time. I may take all three or four exercises that I'm doing for that muscle groups, say, buys or tries and go back to back to back to back for them because that's the main goal is the pump in that. That wouldn't serve me as much if I was in the middle of a strength phase.

So if I'm running a strength phase and I'm running three to five reps and that's what my programming looks like because that's where I need to be. Then doing something like that is less advantageous. But if my programming is on point, I'm following something where this is what I'm trying to be, what I'm trying to do right now. There's a lot of ways that you can play with this with rest periods to get a pump with the exercise. Right.

Now, if you're doing straight sets, in other words, an exercise, you do a set and then you rest and you do a set and you rest, you're looking at 30 to 60 seconds. That's a good rep range, that shorter, that will give you a better pump. By the way, all of this stuff your body will get adapted to. Besides the hydrated carbs, you can do that all the time, so long as your calories are good. Hydration, you can always do that. But in terms of the workout stuff, the higher reps, and the shorter rest periods, they

will give you a massive pump, but if you do them all the time, and you never switch out of them, they'll start to give you diminishing returns. So everything we're communicating right now, very effective, but also should be phased, just like anything else. They have a shelf life.

Just like anything else we communicate. Now, the next one, this is where isolation movements really come in handy. Now, isolation movements, they don't build as much muscle as compound movements, they don't build as much muscle as compound movements. They don't build as much strength as compound movements. But the real value is in connecting to a muscle

and getting a better pump. If I have a client that has difficulty feeling getting a lap pump or getting a chest pump or a shoulder pump or a glute pump, I'm gonna search for isolation exercises to give them that. It's harder to give someone a chest pump who doesn't ever get a chest pump or a glute pump, I'm gonna search for isolation exercises to give them that. It's harder to give someone a chest pump who doesn't ever get a chest pump

to go do bench press and feel a pump in the chest. But I may use a band fly or a cable fly, isolation movement, squeeze high reps, and then I may be able to produce that pump that they're looking for. And this is true for all the other muscles I was talking about. So yeah, this is a great correctional strategy, to apply if you can't get your client

to actually like feel that muscle and have that mind muscle connection, but also to help to actually build and develop what they want because when they're coming in, a lot of times, you know, there's parts of their body where they're like, ah, I can never seem to build and develop and get that muscle definition

from my shoulders or from my glutes. This is how I would approach it is to really break it down and isolate so they can get a real good solid connection in that muscle. Well, we're talking about isolation right now, but I'm also going to throw in isometrics right here. All right. So, and we talked earlier about clients having a hard time being able to feel a muscle, right? And I alluded to, you know, before going to do squats with a client that can't feel their butt,

I might do some frog pumps. I also might do a just a floor bridge isometric hold where I have them in the bridge position and I have them squeeze as hard as they can and connect to that But it holds and do an isometric hold and then go into the high rep That's a phenomenal way to get a pump in a muscle that you already have a hard time or do a Trisip push down and hold in the flex position as hard as you can and then go into like skull crushers or something So if you have a muscle that you're really trying to connect to doing an isometric hold first to that and then going to the

high level. What a great point because I mean the half of it is being able to recruit enough muscle fibers in, you know, there's no other exercise that better than an isometric exercise to really drive in, you know, more muscle recruitment out of it. Yeah, especially in that contracted position, right? Yeah, fully squeezed. You get really stretch capacity out a lot more that way. Right. Now, the last one, we saved for last because it has the smallest impact. It does have an impact, but it has a smallest impact.

And most people think it has the biggest impact, but that's supplements. Now, I remember when the supplement industry really capitalized on the pump. The first time I really saw an effective ad for a product that really pushed or capitalized on the pump was, I think it was, I couldn't remember that it's super pump 250, that's what it was. Super, you guys remember that? It was one of the first like pre workouts

they hit the market right. But it was brilliant because in the marketing, what they did is they took a picture of a guy before his workout and after his workout and the guy got a great pump and it's like immediate results, right? When you get a really good pump, you look like a totally different person

and they were showing that, oh, this supplement does this. Now do supplements contribute to a better pump? A little bit, they do a little bit. There's a couple things you want to look for in a supplement to enhance blood flow, which may enhance the pump. One is something that's going to boost nitric oxide in the blood, and one of the most effective things

that does that is the amino acid citralline. Citralline in the body helps produce more nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a compound of the body that dilates blood vessels, and as the blood vessels dilate, you get better blood flow and you get an improved pump. So if you have a supplement that's supposed to help you with the pump, like a pre-workout, for example, citrallene is something that you want in there and you want a good amount of it, at least six grams, if not a little higher. I know the legion pulse pre-workout,

especially the bubble gum one, that's the one that we have with the mine pump. That one has more citrally, and it's got about eight grams of citrally in there. Then there's beta-align, beta-align in my experience, increases the feeling and the connection of the pump, and then creatine, okay? Creatine, you'll have to take for a couple of weeks

before you notice this, but creatine does draw water into the muscles. And so one of the first, I results people get from supplementing with creatine is they feel like their muscles just get pumped up more from taking the supplements. And a lot of people are afraid of that, especially my female clients, they would be afraid of that water retention, thinking that it's going to make them look bloated. It's different, it's totally different, right? It's not, you're not gonna get bloat from this, it's gonna go into the muscle, right?

We talk about the muscle having 70% of water, so all the creatine really is doing is volumizing the cells and drawing more water into your muscle belly. It's only going to, even if you're carrying extra body fat, you got 30 pounds you wanna lose, it's going to me, even if you're carrying extra body fat, you got 30 pounds you want to lose, it's going to still make your body look better because it's going to fill the muscle belly's up.

Right, right. So, bloat is water under the skin outside of the muscle. That's what makes you bloated. Water inside the muscle is what makes your muscles feel more sculpted or shaped or toned or built. So, even women who want wanna tone down and lose weight and all that stuff, if their muscles are more hydrated, it'll make them appear more defined and more toned. So it's not a bad thing,

creating does help provide that. Now, what are your thoughts on like beet juice? Okay, so beet juice and beet type supplements, increased nitric oxide can also increase the pump. Now, here's the thing with those. Beet juice has got. It's got calories if you if that works within your nutrition You can totally do that be juice is shown in studies to improve Performance and endurance athletes. I've messed with it. I enjoy it. I like it quite a bit Not everybody likes it though. You could try supplementing with

Flavored beat, you know kind of juice powders because beet juice itself, I don't know, do you guys like the taste of the... Organifies red juice is phenomenal. That's right. Yeah, and I forgot all about that. It tastes good and I feel it. I definitely feel the, and so why I'm asking you is, what are your thoughts on comparing that to like citrilline and beta-alley? You know, it depends on the person. The ones that contain citralline, beta-align tend to also have caffeine. So they tend to be more of the strong stimulant type pre-workouts.

Whereas the organifi red juice is a non-stimulant supplement. That's still gonna give you a little bit energy, but it's not that stimulant feeling. So it depends on the person. Some people like that stimulant feeling before the workout. Other people are too sensitive to it and don't know. Is there any research around which one of those

proves to give you a better pump? Do we know? No, that's funny. I'm glad you asked that. I don't know how they would do that. How would they do a study? It's so subjective. I feel more.

I feel like, how would you measure that? You have to have it very controlled water intake, carbohydrate intake, same person measurement like before after. Yeah, so I think it's really about performance. And in Citroën, beta-align creatine, beetroot, like all those things show an improvement in performance.

And then subjectively, those things are, lots of people like them because they improve the the pump and old school way was uh... viagra right well see is that still used yes some people do it's not where gym experience nitric oxide so it it what they do is they prevented the breakdown of nitric oxide that's what these these you know boner pills do and so people will take them before they work out prescription prescription drug yeah and i don't think it's that important. If you're trying to get a better pump,

I think you're better off with hydrating and carbs and all that stuff. That's a different kind of pump. Oh, like going back to the original. And I feel like we ordered these accordingly. Like I really think hydration and carbs, nothing will make a bigger difference than that. You take those two out of the equation,

you can exercise all day long and feel flat and never feel like you get a pump. You load up with water, you load up with carbohydrates, and you go train, and there's a good chance just from that alone, you'll feel an incredible pump. Exactly. Look, my pump is recorded on videos as well as audio, so you can come find us on YouTube, Mind Pump Podcast. You can also find all of us on social media. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Atom, Doug at Mind Pump Doug, and those are all at Instagram. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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