Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 170: Advanced Smart Training Techniques

Episode Date: October 22, 2015

Justin is out of town so Sal and Adam take advantage of his absence to talk about body building and training for aesthetics. They start with a follow up to yesterday's episode with Joe Donnelly and then go into depth on advanced training techniques and how to train smart for maximum results. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, pop, mind, pop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Welcome to the Salad Adam Show. Whoa! Whoa! This is... No Justin.

Now we can talk about cool stuff. Yeah, we talk about Matt Shuston's not here. We're talking about macros for an hour. I hope everybody's ready. Bro, how did you feel after, so I don't think it's coincidence that the day after I took you through those dead lifts with the bands that you had such a heavy squat session,

I feel like following my routine. You wanna take credit for it? Maybe stronger. I tell you what, a couple of things that I will attribute to this to you. This is one of the parts I love about all of us hanging out together. It doesn't even, even a guy like me, and I don't know if you can, you can admit to this or maybe you've had a similar situation, but there's a lot of things sometimes that even when you know, you know the science, you know what you're supposed to do, you still have

a habit of doing. Of course you get stuck. You get stuck in your own. And being around you and Justin, and doing mind pump for as long as we've been doing now for and hanging out together and just talking about program design and the importance of training, I have never squatted and deadlifted so much in my life.

I've squatted and deadlifted more in the last three years than I have in the 15 previous years. Total combined, I mean, literally. And you look a lot different. I mean, I was telling you this when we were working out. The thickness in the middle of your back, you now have depth to it. Whereas before you really wide,

now you've got all this depth to your back. Of course, your legs are growing. And guess what's not growing, you're waste. Yeah. You know that whole myth about, it's not. And you're a lot stronger in your deadlift. I mean, you pulled, we did what, 545 the day, which is a PR for you.

Yeah. I mean, before that, the heaviest you would ever go up to would be 400, but you never even really deadlifted that much. No, no, not at all. Not at all. I mean, it's been fun. And you know, when I was doing the whole competing thing, I was so focused on aesthetics aesthetics. This whole shit talking between you and I has gotten me back into like, you know, focus

on strength. And I've enjoyed it. It's been a blast. And a lot of people keep asking me, like, are you going to compete again? Are you going to do classics? When's your next show? Yeah, what's the deal? Well, I haven't committed to anything yet,

and I won't, I won't yet, because I'm enjoying where I'm at right now. Because they have the new organization that's coming out. Was it NPC global? Yeah, there's a lot of, oh, much shit going on. And there's a lot of like,

there's like a war between them and the IFB right now. I was trying to think of an analogy to give our listeners to like what's going on. And when we say war, like ladies and gentlemen, I don't mean just a regular competitive war. No, I mean personal. That people are talking shit on a personal level. Well, I was trying to think of a an analogy that would give that we've had in,

you know, America and business, or with that in the last 20 to 30 years of two companies that were like literally going after each other's throats. I can't think of something like this. No, it's like politics. This is like, you know when politicians start ripping each other, mudslinging, I mean, they're getting to that point and it's ugly, but there's a lot of, it seems to me like there's a lot of resentment and a lot of anger that's underneath. You know what I mean?

It's like, it's like you work for someone for so long and you fucking hate them, but you don't say anything for a long time. And then you finally leave and? It's like, it's like you work for someone for so long and you fucking hate him, but you don't say anything for a long time. Yeah. And then you finally leave. And then you're like, I'm free now. And now I can say what I really feel. It feels like that to me.

I don't know the whole deal, but that's what it feels like. Well, you know, we recently had, you know, Joe on our show. And, you know, unfortunately, we had a cut all this stuff that was inside the episode because he revealed so much stuff behind the scenes. And since I don't really give a shit about getting sued by IFB or anybody like that, I'll go and talk about some of the stuff and some of the things that are going on,

like you said, is you have a guy, Lee Thompson, who used to be executive and a part of the IFBB. And he was in charge of the Texas area. And during the time that he had a hold of Texas, he made it one of the most profitable areas. I think it was the, I think they had the best shows. Yes, instead of like terms of attendance. Yeah, revenue and attendance.

And, you know, so, and he actually kind of branded that area as himself, even though he was under IFBB, he kind of branded it under himself in Texas as his shows. And what I don't know, like Joe knows, obviously those guys more on a personal level, I do know that something has caused some serious animosity between the two. Well, something that stands out to me,

and I'm gonna preface this by saying, nobody has said anything to me. So I don't know, but I'm just talking from an outsider looking in. One of the things that they're doing in the new organization is they're putting the judging up on, I guess, like big screens for the audience to see while it's going on. Now what that tells me as a spectator, as a person who used to really follow the sport is that there must have been some major corruption going on in the judging for them to make that such a big deal.

I mean, this is one of our signature differences is that we're putting the judging up on these big screens while we're doing it. And that means it must have been horrible before. And you hear rumors, you talk to competitors, I'm not gonna name anybody, but they would tell about how judging would get changed last minute, or if this guy said the right thing, we want that guy to support our products and our supplements, we're going to make sure

he wins. And there's a lot of shows like that where you see the winner and you're like, that guy, it's not really even close, like he shouldn't have won, you know? Yeah, and that's, and I have a lot of buddies that have, that have competed and have shared very similar stories to me where, you know, they'd be on stage and, you know, they see, they see a judge like, you know, somebody lean in their ear and whisper in their ear when somebody come, somebody comes up on stage, you know, and they're, and they're leaning back.

Like that's the guy. Yeah, you know, and, and then all of a sudden, you know, sure, shit, that person's in the top five if not number one. And, you know, a lot of these guys all tend to have similar coaches sponsored by similar companies that happen to be sponsoring the show also. So there's a lot of stuff like that. And I have to admit that when I first came into the league,

I was on a mission to prove otherwise because it's just not my mentality. If those are all rumors, I haven't gone through it myself. So when I get into the league, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna prove that if I bring my A game and I'm better than everybody else, and it's undeniable that I am, that I'll be rewarded for. Well, that's, see, now that's a very logical way to go into it

because it's easy to think, well, these people talking shit, they just must be sword losers. You know what I mean? They're just making excuses, right? That's kind of the mentality I would go in with as well. What did you find? Well, so when I went in, and this is what I did, so when I first, before I hopped on stage very first time, because I had buddies that were already pros,

I looked at them and I said, okay, I'm gonna build a pro physique. I'm gonna build my physique until I, and I'm not gonna get on stage physique. I'm going to build my physique until I, and I'm not going to get on stage, even at the amateur level, until I feel like I could stand next to a pro buddy of mine, and I could say I have a comparable physique. I may not have a better physique, aesthetic-wise, or conditioning-wise,

but if I could say that I could at least compete with them, I should be able to run through the amateur, right? So that was my mentality, and that's what I did. I kept training and training and training and I would do my little mini bulk and then I would cut down and then assess my physique and then I'd go back to a little bit of bulk again and then go back to my cut and then assess my,

and I kept doing this and assessing my weaknesses and trying to build this physique. And then when I finally thought, okay, I'm here. I've arrived to where I'm proud enough of my physique that I should be able to get on stage and present. And then of course, you have your presence, your hair, your tan, your shorts, those things matter too. It's not like you just gotta have the best physique.

You gotta have some presence. And so I figured, okay, if I now brought one of the best physiques to stage, as long as I have decent posing, you know, I should be able to hang in the top five. And my very first show, I'll never forget this because everybody that had seen me, like everybody already on social media was tagging me and saying like, oh, this is the number one guy.

This is guy who's going to win this show. It's amateur, amateur show. And I had, like I said, I brought a pretty sick physique for an amateur. And everyone's tagging me and saying that the coaches are all, yeah, the Adam this, Adam, that I got to the place. And I'm not letting that, none of that get in my head. I'm still competing. I'm still, you know, hey, I got to bring my shit. I got to be on my A game. I get there and I get backstage and we're getting ready and all the competitors are walking up to me and they're like, hey, who's your coach? What do you, who does this? Who does that? I'm like, oh, I do all my own stuff. It's

not like, man, how long you've been training for this and that? They're like, man, well, I hope I make top five. You're for sure going to get first. You're for all the, all the competitors are about to compete against. And you're looking at them too. And you're probably thinking, I mean, what, how do they look? I mean, some of them look decent, you know, and there was probably a couple guys for sure there that I thought, you know, we comparable. And now that sounds really probably arrogant to the average list.

Well, I don't think well, a lot of people don't realize is that the difference between, when you go to an amateur show, you could have a lot of people that don't, that don't really look, you know, that awesome on stage. Now, when you go to a pro show, everybody looks awesome. Yes. But when you're an amateur,

because I've been to amateur bodybuilding shows and there might be one guy up there that when you're like, wow, that looks really good and everybody else kind of looks like, it's their first time, they work out, they just guys in the gym that work out and they're gonna try and get on stage. Some people show up there and we have abs,

you know, you see that. Oh, exactly, exactly. At an amateur show, that's a bulk of what you see because if you have a pro type physique or you have a badass physique, you have no business at the amateur show, you're either at a national show or you've already made it to the pro level. So, you know, and because that's my mentality was I'm going to build

a pro physique before I even hit the first stage. I thought, okay, I'm going to kill it, you know, I'm going to do really well as long as I said as long as I get the posing out. And by far, when I first hit there, my posing was subpar for sure. I was not a great poser whatsoever. I made a mistake on my lap pose when I turned around. I squeezed my shoulder blades together and it looks terrible for pictures and in stage and that matters. I've sure I got dock points for that. But what happened was, I'm looking at the guys

and I'm thinking like, okay, maybe I gotta be at least top three. But maybe if I'm lucky, I get first place because and then I come up on stage and they call us all out. And the way they do, they call you all out, they look at everybody and then after they've looked at everybody, then they call out the next, the top five. And what they, they just call out. Yeah, first call outs with a call out.

And it's not for sure yet, but that's the head judge is basically saying, this is what he or she thinks is the top five. And then from there, they kind of, you know, decipher on who's gonna be first, second, or third, or fifth, right? So I don't even get called out top five. And I'm sitting off the side.

I'm like, and I'm looking at guys, the guys who is in the fourth and fifth position. And did you couldn't see any abs? They are just, they had like little boy physics. And I'm like, and in my head,, it's because I'm not the type of person to think that the politics, I mean, like that, I came in with that mentality, I'm sticking with that mentality that I can control this if I come in badass.

I'm looking at these two guys and they're posing as horrible because then I thought, okay, I know I'm not a great poser. So that could probably hurt me. And I'm thinking, well, maybe it hurt me so bad. I didn't even crack the top five, my posing. But then I'm looking at these two guys, not only are they're physics terrible, but they're also posing worse than me, like worse, just, just not being able to hold themselves right at all and just looked at and I'm like, what the fuck?

So what happened? Well, then we go, that was the morning, right, the pre-judging. So I'm pretty bummed out. And the way it works too. So if top three, first, second and third are qualified for nationals, you are now, you graduate from the amateur level and you get to go to a national levels show because you can't become pro until you go to a national show. Yeah, the win that. And then you become pro. Yes. So I'm like all frustrated. Why have a buddy of mine who works for, works for one of the company who, and I won't put his name or any company's other, if I'm like all frustrated. Well, I have a buddy of mine who works for one of the company who and I won't put his name or any company's other

because I don't want for it to protect him. And he leans over to me right before I walk on stage and I show him I'm all in a bad mood and he goes, hey, you got fourth. And I go, what? I wasn't even in first call outs. He's like, yeah, yeah, no, you got fourth before I even hit stage.

So they changed it. Yeah, they changed it. And, you know, after that all happened,, you got fourth before I even hit stage. So they changed it. Yeah, they changed it. And you know, after that all happened, I got my four, I was happy. See now if they showed the judging up on the screen the whole time, then people would know what just happened. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows. And even I don't know.

The only thing I can speculate is this is the political side of who should be where was probably all placed where they're supposed to. And I'm pretty sure because my physique was that- They said we gotta put them at least here. Exactly, we gotta at least put them up in the top five. And what do they do? They put me fourth place. Not even fifth.

Yeah, which keeps me from- Going to the national. For keeps me from going national, which means I have to do another amateur show before I can even get qualified. And so I was like, okay. So that was like my first experience with it. But then like I said, I still have the attitude that I'm going to, you know, keep bringing it in. And I went to the judges afterwards and I asked what they thought. And they were like, oh, well, you know, you need to work on your posing this

now. I was like, okay, I knew that was coming, you know, so I get better at my posing. Got it. What else? Oh, you know, you're, you're kind of big, you're kind of big. Listen to that, I'm like, kind of big. Fuzz, I'm tiny right now. I'm six, three, 201 pounds, dude. Like, and I actually was probably less than that because I weighed 201 pounds three days before I took off the Sacramento,

before I pulled a bunch of water. So it was probably about 190, 796 pounds when I hit stage. For me, that's super skinny. Right. And I was like, what? And I was, you know, so I'm like kind of frustrated. One of the other judges walks behind me, puts his hand on my back and he says,

hey man, you looked awesome out there. I said, well, I wish all the other judges agreed with you. And he goes, what did they say to you? And I said, well, they told me I was too big. And then he goes, you're not too big. He says, you already have a pro physique right now. Just come back. Just get to another show, you'll be fine.

And he tells me that. And I was like, okay. And so that was. So you're starting to see that there's a little bit of a game. Yeah, you know, and so that's my personal experience. Now I don't have any proof on what exactly happened behind the scenes or this or that. Oh, there's enough rumors you hear from enough people

where you know that there's some, there's at least some level of that that seems to be going on. Yeah. And if it wasn't, then why would they make such a big deal about this new organization, one of the big pluses about it,

the one that they're advertising is that we're gonna put judging up on the screen for everybody to see. And that was for the spectators, but I think it was also for the hardcore, the hardcore spectators, but also for the competitors. I think the competitors have complained enough to where, you know, Lee is like, I'm going to start this new organization and guess what, guys, we're going to have the judging at

the whole time. So you see what's going on. You know what I'm saying? Which I think is so awesome. Smart. It takes away that factor, you know, whether, yeah, if it's true or not, right? Exactly. Whether it's true or not, it just takes that away right away know, whether, yeah, if it's true or not, right? Exactly. Whether it's true or not,

it just takes that away right away. That, hey, you are seeing the live judging right now. It is what it is. You know, they're putting it up there. So, well, let me, let me ask you this. So we don't know all the details of this new organization.

But I will ask you, let me ask you this, Adam, since you compete in your, you know, you've competed as a pro in the IFBB, what changes would you like to see that maybe they would do in this new organization? And maybe to judging, or one thing I've always heard a lot of, people kind of complain about or talk about

is the board shorts. That it doesn't get somebody who's got developed legs that even show them at all. Maybe to shift to shorter board shorts or, you know, short, you know, well, it's going to tie it up in the defense of the IFBB. I mean, I don't know if this is a tactic on their part because they, because this whole split and now the newly coming and maybe this is their way, because originally, so I have a personal friend of mine who has emailed the president of IFBB and communicated

with a bunch of IFBB and communicated with a bunch of the judges and stuff about that. I K, you know, what about us, men's physique guys at trainer legs? Are you guys ever thinking about creating a division where we show our legs and that? And they all told them, no, no, no, the whole reason why we created men's physique was to separate it from bodybuilding. That's too much like bodybuilding. We're never going that direction.

So this is like emails and he showed me this stuff. This is like maybe eight months to a year ago when he was asking this when men's physique was going on because he was getting told he was getting too big for men's physique. So he tells me all this and I'm like, okay, it looks like IFBB is never doing that. Well, all of a sudden, this whole division between the, you know, NPC global, the new division that's or the new company that's starting. And now Austin, IFB, rolls out with this classic physique. And now the classic physique is designed. It's supposed to be in between physique and bodybuilding. And they wear these little tiny shorts,

let's show the quads off. You know what's interesting to me? Part of it, okay, when you see really muscular legs, that looks more like bodybuilding. I guess, I mean, but physique guys, upper bodies look like fucking bodybuilders. But here's the other part. When you start squatting heavy to build your legs, your upper body starts to grow a little bit too.

You start to look stronger. And more like, you know, like someone who can move some weight. Oh yeah. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I've definitely, if you were to like measure inches and stuff on like my arms and forms and... You're bigger, dude. You're bigger now than when I first met you.

See I think I look bigger but technically I'm really not, you know, I'm really uh, it's I'm dancer so I'm heavier and I look bigger. I get, you know what the term might be to use? You look stronger. Yeah. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, no, absolutely. When I look, we talked about Joe.

When you look at Joe, when he was hanging out with us. Yeah, you could tell he's strong. Yeah, you can always tell when some, but you can not always, I can't, I'm not gonna say that. I'll tell you why. Years ago at the Arnold Classic, there was this, I went to the Arnold Classic Festival. There was this, I don't know who it was,

professional arm wrestler, little skinny black dude. I swore to God, he probably weighed 150 pounds. There was a line of people lined up arm wrestling him, and he was just, and they were all bodybuilders, and you were just one after another. No way. Yeah, so you can't always tell when somebody's really strong.

But a lot of the times you could tell. And, you know, especially when somebody doesn't deadlift and squat, somebody who wants to build muscle, you can kind of tell. And your body has changed, I think, for the more. Oh, I mean, that goes back to kind of what we first start talking about.

And if I could attribute anything to my gains and growth for the couple of years, it's been building our programs around the squatting and delithing, which is what I love about maps. I mean, I can't stress that enough. Well, the other thing too is the one thing that you didn't do before was utilize multiple sets of low, low, low reps, two, three, four reps, not going to failure.

What have you noticed from that? Huge gains, especially strength gains. I mean, that's how I built my squats up because in the past, I would squat like 10, 15 reps and my low back would be on fire and I couldn't even get up very heavy weight. I wasn't comfortable in sitting in the hole and that's why I didn't do it a lot. You know, it was like every time I did it was so taxing on my body and I felt it.

Yeah, my legs got sore but she is so to my low back and I felt I felt just war down. It would gas me like crazy and it was so something I just stayed away from for so long and you know, training to fatigue on squats is just like, oh, yeah, it's a nightmare dude. I want to, every time I, leg day for me was like, you know, it was throw up day too. It was like, you know, so who wants to throw up? Like two, three times a week.

So I was always, you know, the guy who, he would find every other exercise I could do before, I would squat or deadlift or do any of those big compound movements. And it was partly because I still had that also that mentality of training to failure and all of that. And pushing higher reps. Yeah.

When I started to drop down and start doing sets of three to five and just control. And you do three sets of heavy squats. You're not gassed. No. Energy wise. You feel that the massive pump and you feel it in your legs and so on. But you don't, I'm not like, right, right, right, right, you know, huffing and puffing afterwards, which is like, okay, I could do this, you know, and give myself adequate rest.

And then it was amazing to see my body, because I didn't think that it was, I was hitting it hard enough for my body to respond. And it actually responded better that way, because I wasn't so, my legs weren't so dead, because that's the other thing too, is I would, I would train my legs so hard, 2024 sets of something. And then the next three to four days, I didn't want to move, dude. I didn't want to touch them. Where now I'm coming back and I'm hitting my legs,

my legs are getting hit every two to three days. Like I'm hitting my legs, a bad week for me is two legs sessions. Typically I'm hitting legs three times a week. And dead lifting and I'm getting deads, deads they're at least once a week if not twice a week. So and now and never training to failure. Always, always leaving like two in the tank. And it doesn't matter if I'm lifting super heavy or I'm wrapping out eight to twelve reps, I'm always still living two in the tank. So as somebody who competes on stage, you know, you're very, because I'm

very in tune with my body. Anybody who works out a long time, who takes the series as we do, is in tune with their body. But you, because you compete on stage, you look at yourself a little bit differently. You, you know, you'll critique yourself from a cosmetic standpoint. So, whereas for me, just giving an example,

I do that as well. However, a lot of how I determine, you know determine how I work out is based how I feel, not necessarily just how I look, right? Because I notice there's a different feel when I lift to certain weight versus other ways. But from a cosmetic standpoint, because in the maps program we have the three different phases. One is the kind of heavy, low rep, multiple sets.

Then there's the more bodybuilding-ish phase and then the supersets with the pump and stuff. What do you notice in terms of how your body looks between the different phases? That's such a great question. And the reason why I'm so excited about us creating the evolution of maps, because I use this as an analogy.

Think about us building the ultimate physique. And I don't care what your goal is. Does it matter if you're a female trying to be, you know, super lean and sexy or your guy trying to be big and muscular or just you want to be aesthetic. It doesn't matter. Just think of the physique as the your ultimate dream home, your ultimate dream house. And everybody wants to talk about, you know, the big picture window. It's two stories. I want to have, you know, this beautiful French doors over here. They want to talk about all the aesthetics and the amenities and the inside of the house, but nobody talks about the foundation.

Nobody talks about what that house is built on. And I feel like our maps program is the most solid foundation you could ever build. And for me, just doing that alone is gonna get you so much further than, you know, 90% of the population are there. But now for the physique that I have to bring to stage, there's also an aesthetic side to it. And I feel like I have this really solid dense physique right now,

which to the average person would look at it and be like, hey, it looks great. But I also think that there, when I get ready to get ready for a show, that's when I start incorporating other things, other movements, and start adding, adding to our foundation. And because I did it a while there, where I only ran just our maps.

And like I said, to the average person, they're like, oh my god, he looks great, blah, blah, blah. But for me, knowing that I'm presenting on stage, and I have to have these bubbly-looking muscles, and I gotta have this V-taper, and looks great, blah, blah, blah. But for me, in knowing that I'm presenting on stage and I have to have these bubbly looking muscles, I gotta have this V taper and I have this look, that becomes the more the crafting and the shaping, which honestly is a lot less work than the building the foundation.

Well, the truth is, we've always, from the very, very beginning, I've always encouraged experimentation. You need to have a solid foundation, you need to have something with solid principles and concepts that work. And then from there, as you start to get to know your body, because the thing is Adam knows his body. Adam knows his body very, very well. So he can train a certain way and then start to modify and change things because it's very, very in touch with his body. However,

the foundation is always there, like you're saying. And so we've always encouraged that. That's why when people first do the program, they're like, you know, hey, South, can I start modifying it? Well, why don't you go through one or two cycles at first and then as you start to figure your body out? Because I have people who tell me, look, I like to do good mornings. I've got people who say, I don't like good mornings. I like to do stiff like a deadlift. Well, then do stiff like a deadlift. They're very similar. You're starting to know your body, pick the exercise that works better for you.

I personally operate, it was certain exercises operate very well in a phase one capacity for me, dead lifts. I almost always apply a phase one capacity to dead lifts because it just works well with that exercise for me. So that's kind of one of my modifications. So, but yeah, in terms of your body, you know, what did you notice with your body with the heavier lifting versus

the more superset pump stuff? Is it as advertised, did you notice the density versus the bubble? Oh, yeah, no, I do. It's just like you just said, it's more of a dense hard look to me, which I think when you see me and you look at me, you think like more of a dense, hard look to me, which I think when you see me and you look at me, you think like a, you know, I look stronger to you. And maybe that's the look that maybe to the out, out the person outside looking in. For me, it doesn't have the, as much of a three dimensional look. And I think that's what the problem with a lot of men's physique guys is they have that great three dimensional look because they're constantly focused on that, but they're core in their foundation is weak.

They're strong. They're strong. They're a bunch of pussies. I'm just going to put it out there. There's only a handful of dudes that I know that are in men's physique that can hang when it comes to lifting. And I guess the goal is to have that balance. Well, you know what's interesting.

So, especially nowadays with the ability to promote yourself through social media and that necessarily needing to place high in contest to be successful. Strength and performance, I feel like, they've always played a big role. Like if you go back even in the 90s when I was really a big fan of bodybuilding, certain bodybuilders got a lot more fame

because they were really strong in the gym. And I think that's even more so now. So even though you might not win a contest, if you can perform well, put up some clips and videos on your Instagram or whatever, you'll probably get more followers, I would think. Well, it's actually part of the reason why I started doing that again.

I started actually. You want to be able to show. Yeah, I want to be able to say that like, hey, you know, a lot of guys think that just because we're men's physique guys, you know, that you don't train legs, you don't do stuff like that. And I'm like, no, for me, I am first a body builder first,

men's physique guys second. Men's physique, I feel like fits my category or whatever. And maybe I don't even fit in that anymore. So at the end of the day, like, I'm always trying to build the ultimate physique for me. What I think I want, what I like, and what comes with that is training fucking legs hard, training compound movements,

doing things that are essential to overall strength and that overall look that I want. I'm not gonna sacrifice that to try and fit into a mold. And I think part of that's why I show more of that stuff now. I don't wanna be the guy who just looks like he's pretty up on stage. I wanna be able to perform too. And I know that I preach a lot about, you know, I'm all aesthetics because out of the three of us, I believe that I am a more aesthetically focused person.

That's what I care about more. But I also care about that other side too, you know. And now that I've done the whole, you know, going to the pro level and doing that shit and proving that I can work my way up the, you know, the amateur national and then professional level and competing, you know, going to the pro level and doing that shit improving that I can, I can work my way up the, you know, the amateur national and professional level and competing. You know, I have enjoyed getting back to training with like Justin and you and that because honestly, training like that and incorporating my functional movements and things like that, I feel better. I'm stronger. I feel, but it's a different feel, right? Oh, absolutely. I can tell when I grab, you know, when I, when I state, when I move away, because I like bodybuilding too, that's, that was my first love when it came to working out.

I really got into the old school bodybuilders later on, and they were so focused on strength that I started to really enjoy that as well. But in the very beginning, it was all about just modern bodybuilding. But I can tell when I move away from those principles, I just grab a weight and I don't feel as like solid. When I'm really, when I'm feeling strong,

even if I'm doing isolation movements, I just feel like I could take the bar, bend it in half and freaking eat it and shit out, you know what I'm saying? Like I just feel, there's a different feel to your body. And when you're walking around, you just feel really, like I feel like I could walk through a wall, you know what I mean?

So anybody who works out has got to enjoy that feeling. You know, regardless of how you look, it just feels right. You know what I try about it on too, you know when you asked about things that I noticed that are different is there's been a handful of times now where I've kind of stopped and like evaluated my program and go like, holy shit, like I've literally only really done squatting overhead presses,

deadlifts, and bench as my main movements, and that's it. Quite some time right now. You start to fall in love with them, dude. Yeah, because I start the bang for your buck, dude. It's crazy. It's like just doing those staple movements, I can go in and do five to eight sets of one of those exercises and call it a pretty

fucking effective workout. It's for, can you even do a back workout now without deadlifts thing? No. That's the same, right? No, because I will do, doesn't count. No, it's tough.

And it's crazy because I'll do, and I'll do some heavy ass rows, I'll do some good lap pull downs, some seated row, and none of them will give me the same pump that I get if I just start my workout with deadless. If I start my workout with deadless and I go do anything else that, my back just feels massive.

Yeah, the other thing too is incorporating some of these advanced training techniques like progressive resistance. That's why we worked out together. So, for the listeners, we worked out together Friday and the previous week, we had lifted pretty heavy when we worked out with Justin. And so then that following week, I wanted to go lie, Adam wanted to go lie, our bodies were hurting a little bit. So he was coming down, he's gonna work out at the gym,

I used to own, and we both decided, hey, let's kinda go easy. And so I said, this is a great time to use progressive resistance. So rather than deadlifting 500 plus pounds, we had 315 pounds on the bar, and I attached a band around it, a really strong black band, and I attached a band around it, really strong black band,

and I attached it away from us. So it's down in a way. So when you pull the bar up, not only are you getting that progressive resistance where it's harder and harder as you pull the bar up because that's what a band does, but you also have to kind of pull the bar into yourself and lean back,

because it's gonna pull you up on your toes. So we did like, what would you do? Like five sets of five reps, real fast, just fast reps, easy, just explosive. Then we put four plates on, cause I wanna, and this wasn't really even supposed to be part of the workout, but I just wanna show Adam what it felt like.

How did that four plate deadlift felt? You'll actually be with that. Well, it was a trip because just like the band, when you first pull it off the ground, you don't notice a huge difference, but then when you get about 50% to the lift and the lockout, you almost shoot back. It also in the weight feels like it's so much.

You want to almost fill backwards. Yeah, yeah. So it was great. And you know, something else that we did and I think it's so important to explain to people too, when you're working on something like that, like a power movement and thinking that way, so much of that is mental.

A lot of people think that doing something like a power exercise like that, you just, you have to concentrate on, when you first- Getting your form and- Yes, exploding out. And firing correctly, like that. If you want it to be effective and where,

it's not just power, does it mean you just lift a heavy weight? No, and it's anything, so strength is a heavy weight. Power is actually a lighter weight. You actually grab a lighter weight. We have three, 15. Exactly, and no, and it's if anything, so strength is a heavy weight. Power is actually a lighter weight. You actually grab a lighter weight. We had three, 15, exactly. Exactly. It's something we were going to want. And which is, you know, normally if I'm doing five reps, I could go up to, I could go as heavy as 500 pounds. So three, 15 is a lot lower. We have a band attached to it. So it's a little heavier, but not really. And it's light

because we're focusing on the speed that boom off the, off the ground and bring it down real tight and speed, the boom off the ground and bring it down real tight and control, the boom off the ground and bring it down nice and controlled. And you don't get taxed, you don't feel like you're, you know, we don't feel like we jacked our backs up or got super, but you could tell the next day, you could tell like, oh yeah, I feel good. And wouldn't you say to the, and here's the,

you know, we talked a little bit about this before, the debate on mind muscle connection. And this is where I feel like this is where that mind muscle connection comes in, is that by concentrating like that and focusing, you now are gonna, you're gonna activate and recruit different fibers that you probably wouldn't have done

for just ripping it up and not paying attention. Totally, you know, so. Totally, totally. Yeah, so I feel like those kinds of techniques can be utilized by physique, you know, figure, you know, people on stage competitors. Everything from chains and bands, I predict we're going to see much more of that being used with presentation athletes.

Different variations of certain lifts, like we know the barbell squats great, but there's bottom position squats where you could start the squat from the bottom with the rack, you could do negatives, you could do rack squats, you could do box squats, all these different variations that were typically reserved for strength athletes, but they build so much muscle. We're just start to see this kind of shit. It's such a great, you know, I'm glad you pointed that out because it reminds me of what I've been all fired up

about lately is when I scroll through my Instagram feed feed and I look at all my the other my peers all the other pro men's physique guys out there and in bodybuilders too Everybody preaches to fucking intensity and it drives me nuts dude It's and I and it used because it's because you have all these kids that are coming up You know whether you're in your teens early 20s or even mid 20s or whatever And you're really getting into training and you see all these guys that you look up to, and it's just all they're post and everything they show is just crazy intensity. It's just how hard can you go?

So when you see that, you can't help but as a kid think that that's the answer, I just don't train hard enough. God, he trains so hard. Oh man, and you're going into these workouts, like trying to, to mirror that, you know, like to try and replicate what these guys are doing. And it doesn't have to. I hate, you know what?

I hate to break this to everybody who's listening right now. But if it was as easy as just training hard, a lot more people would look amazing. If it was, if that's all it was, if all it was was just go bust your ass and you'll get great results, then you would see a lot more fit people because a lot of people go to the gym and sure, there's a lot of people that don't work out hard at all. I'm talking about the gym rats.

I'm talking about the people who want to look muscular, who really want to change their bodies. A lot of them over apply intensity. I, you know, and I fell for the same shit as a kid. I know Adam. You do the same thing. I think if the way you need to look at your workout is look at it like a project. Like, okay, how am I gonna make this effective? How's my body responding? What am I gonna do next week? Approach it with that kind of intellectual approach.

And then of course when you go on your workouts and you need to go hard, go hard, and watch what happens to your body rather than just going and hamming the shit yourself every time. Well, I think of it the same analogy I go back to the house. I mean, think about putting the , anybody that's ever watched the house get built or if you've been around it, putting a house up and you forget the framing and you're doing that. If you're fucking rush it and you're slam a nail and really quick and you're slapping the walls up to try and get through it as quick as you possibly can, put the roof on it as quick as you can, so you can move into it as fast as you can.

You can have a shit house, take your time. Put it frame it right. Exactly. Put the nails in correctly, taking on saying like, I've had more than a few people who've hired me in the past who were advanced. And when I say advanced, I mean, these people work in out five, six days a week

for years, had great looking bodies, great performance in the gym, would come in, would hire me for one or two workouts, just give them advice. And this is what I would say to them, don't go to failure anymore. And they'd look at me like I was crazy, just don't do that, just do that for now and watch what happens. Sure enough, every single one would stop going to failure, strengthen, start climbing, and they start building muscle every single time.

Well, let's talk about what happens. When you do that, look so like some guys do, let's say the average gym rat that goes in and they do the body, typical body parts split and it's chest day. And they're going to do four to five exercises, the chest, three to five sets per one or per exercise. And by the first exercise, they're already taking the chest to failure. By their second and third exercise, they're lifted taking the chest to failure. By their second and third exercise, they're lifted probably 50% of the weight they would have

if they would have taken the previous exercise to two in the tank, always, and never going to failure. And when you think about it from a volume perspective, like volume is set's reps and weight over that time. So if you look at, after you get done with your 15 sets that you did have chest, if the back half of them were done and your central nervous system is fried and you're trying to let's as well.

That's the big thing, the central nervous system, because I notice when I go to failure, it taxes my central nervous system way more than my muscles. Because I can hammer, I can actually hammer my muscles harder, not going to failure, by doing different exercises and doing different techniques and sets, but the central nervous system gets so fucking fried. And I know this because after I'm done, I feel like crawling into bed.

Simple way I test somebody on this is I go, okay, pick an exercise. You kind of know your strength on like, and like, let's say it's dumbbell presses. And I go, or tell me an exercise that you do to finish finish off your last exercise you did the last time you did chest and someone says okay, I finish up on on chest flies or dumbbell flies or chest presses whatever it is. And I go okay, well, what do you typically do weight-wise? Oh, somewhere between this because you know, it's the end of my exercise and I'm concentrating on form or whatever reason they say they're doing that. And I go okay, now I want you to do all the same shit you did like you did last week,

but save two in the tank on every single set. Do not go to failure on any of them and then tell me how much weight. And then try and go to your failure on your last one on your very last exercise and tell me how much weight you push. And they always can push way more weight than what they normally could because they're normally fried by the time they get to that. That's a big one. Yeah, and then it's all like I said, it's all math.

It doesn't, if you're fried by that and you're lifting 20% less weight, well, if you would have just saved that 20% earlier on in your workout, you're gonna push 30, 40% more weight towards you. So let me ask you this, Adam, if you do decide to compete, would it be in the IFB,

or would you go to the NPC Global, or you can't answer, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I would say I can't answer right now. And the reason why I can't answer, I have no loyalty anywhere. So that's not me. You just gotta look and see. That's another noise the shit out of me right now.

You see all these guys that are posting on there like I'm loyal to the IFB. Well, IFB has given me shit. They gave me a contract that I fucking paid for. So I don't have any. I think a lot of them say that because they were told to. Yeah, I have a feeling that they had the same thing too. I think it's, it's, it shows the immaturity on their part to post some shit like that

because what do you, what do you know about the league that's coming and that's about to open? I have no, I don't know that much. I know, I probably know a lot more than the average person. I still don't know enough. But if that guy is going to off, if that league opens up and they offer me a contract where I actually get paid, you know, just to be have a contract with you or I get paid for shows no matter what, just for showing up like, I'm going to be very interested. I'm going to listen. I want to know, I want to know more about it. So, you know, that makes you what smart.

Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, subscribe to Mind Pump and please do not forget to rate and review us. Love you guys. Love it. 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.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump. This is MindPom.