Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1800: How to Set Your Day Up for Success

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the importance of routines to provide structure and a higher probability of success to each day. Why your morning routine may be working against you. (1:43) Is there a hierarchy of morning routines? (3:30) The BIG myths surrounding routines. (6:07) The Mind Pump hacks that make their morning routines quick and effortless. (7:24) The magic of building a sleep routine. (21:41) The value of having a food routine. (40:34) The importance of setting the intention for your workout plan. (50:26) Why you don’t want to marry your routine. (58:52) Related Links/Products Mentioned April Promotion: Get MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Prime and Prime Pro all for $99.99! Visit Blinkist for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout** Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout* Philips SmartSleep HF3500/60 Wake-Up Light Therapy Alarm Clock with Sunrise Simulation, White Joe Rogan Experience #1208 - Jordan Peterson Conversation starters – Icebreaker Games | TableTopics Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump #1305: Five Steps To Intuitive Eating Mind Pump #1605: How To Get Jacked On A Budget MAPS Fitness Products Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks)  Instagram Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about routines

and the value of routines, how they can add more time and quality to your life. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Blinkist. Do you like to read and consume lots of information? You've got to try Blinkist. Here's what they do. They'll take a book and they'll summarize it with the most important parts for 10 to 15 minutes. You'll listen to that and you get the gist of the book. Now, you can decide to read the whole book after that or do what I do, which is go through lots and lots of different

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Go sign up, go to mapsaparl.com. Once again, it's mapsaparl.com. Most people's morning routines makes them weak, impulsive, and anxious. Ooh, yeah. Are we gonna take the counter on morning routines? Is that what you're gonna do here? Well, what it is is really it's a lack of routine.

But what, here's the thing, here's the funny thing. We're a creature habit though. Yes, so you have a lack of routine. What ends up happening is you end up creating a routine but it's really based off of being impulsive, being anxious, reactive rather than proactive. And if you talk to most people about their morning routine, you're asking, what's your morning routine?

They're like, oh, well, I get up and then I go to the bathroom and then I check social media. And then I kind of stumble around. I grab some coffee or some caffeine. And then I got a rush, get the kids ready. And what's happening is you're setting the stage to be reactive throughout the day. And there's a few reasons for this.

One is the social media. You're getting on, you're looking at social media is almost always negative slanted, right? It's all a bunch of fires and crazy stuff. And oh my God, see what happens. Yeah, and so you're already in kind of this reactive, negative type of state of mind. You also fail to set your intention for the day and you're not really planning anything. So you kind of set the stage for this, you know, to react to impulsive feelings and to

be reactive throughout the day. And one thing that's interesting, I was having this conversation with Jessica the other day because she goes, man, you always have the same routine in the morning. You have the same routine at night. You have this routine when you come home from work. And she goes, don't you feel like you're stuck in this regimen? I said, the reality is it creates more freedom for me because I have, I set the intention. It frees things up for me.

And I know what I'm trying to get myself to feel like or be like with that routine. I get to plan it beforehand, makes a big difference. Now, do you think there is a hierarchy of what is more important as far as the routines? Because I agree that I think routines are extremely valuable, but there's lots of different types of routines for different goals. So do you think that some are more important than others? Do you think that's a general thing

or do you think it's specific to the individual? I think it's pretty specific. It's like a workout routine, right? So if you were to ask, like what's the best workout routine I'd have to ask, well, what's the person's goals? What are their fitness history? How much time can they devote to the gym?

You know, all that stuff, right? Before I can give a good answer, I think you need to know what your goals are with the routine before you can sit down it. Now there's that stuff, right? Before I can give a good answer, I think you need to know what your goals are with the routine before you can sit down it. Now there's general stuff, right? So like getting some sunlight in the morning. We know that's kind of a good idea to set this circadian rhythm, for example.

Maybe not going on social media first thing. That's probably a good thing for most people. So I think there's some general answers, but I do think that it's much more individual. I think the key though is to plan it out. It's funny when you read about successful people, I used to be kind of like, I used to kind of scoff at it a little bit.

Like, oh, another billionaire telling us about his morning routine. Oh, another billionaire telling us about what he does right before he goes to bed. And it's competitive, like how early did they get up in the morning. I swear to God, I've heard so many TED talks on morning routines and like how to hack it

and how to like do. Nobody talks about your nighttime routine and getting better sleep and then- That's another one. You know, and also like the workouts and like what's gonna care you and keep you successful in terms of like keeping your body healthy and up keeping that.

So it's routines in general, we've got to talk about all of them. Yeah, no, I know. And it's funny because most of us will have at least some routine that we plan out for something that we consider important. Like, I've always had a workout routine or what I do before my work. Because I've always valued my workouts. And if you were to ask me, hey, so I'll get rid of all your routines and just,

we'll bring a bell and that means it's time to work out. And you just gotta get into your workout. But like, that's terrible. That's gonna be a terrible approach. I'm not gonna get the same results. It's not gonna feel the same. I need to set myself up. And it made sense there.

But if you had asked me when I was younger about a morning routine, I would have laughed. Like, morning routine, what do you mean? I get up, I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth and I get out. But it's the same thing, it's really setting the stage. And rather than scoffing, I had to kind of like, check myself a little bit and go, you know,

you're being a little arrogant. Here are all these very successful people, and they all have this thing in common that they all create these routines, that they value, and there's some planning involved. Maybe there's something to be learned from these. Well, it sounds like work always. And it always sounds like, you know,

the whole discipline side of it, I think it deters people sometimes because they're like, well, now I gotta add all these things. When in fact, it really just opens up more freedoms and more, once you get into these disciplines, you really start repeating them consistently, it just frees you up. So true. A big myth around routines is that they're restrictive and that they actually take up time. That it's not freeing. That somehow being free means having zero structure and just kind of floating around.

The opposite is actually true. It's actually more freeing to set the intention and kind of have a bit of a plan. Now this doesn't mean, and we'll get into this, this doesn't mean that you're so rigid that it decreases the quality of your life. We're like, we're going on vacation. Uh oh, I can't do my ammonia routine. Forget I'm not going to go or whatever, right? That's not what I'm saying at all. But a well planned routine used appropriately actually increases or improves your freedom because it's super, it's time efficient and it makes you more effective, right? So if you're more effective, that means you spend less time doing the things that you're trying to do.

It's like being more effective at work would mean that you can work less because the same result which increases your freedom, right, gives you more time to do other things. So I'm really curious to hear, including Doug, what you guys would consider your, because I'm listening, and I'm, you know, I don't know if I have a real morning routine. I think I have some rules that I give myself, right? That I think I try and to stick to,

on a kid, so maybe that constitutes a routine. I'm not sure. I don't feel like I'm that rigid about it, but there's a handful of things that I think that are valuable and to getting my day off to the right star. But I've never actually thought about and go like, oh, this is I do this and then this, and this is how I structure it. And I get up at this time for sure. It's like there's a lot of flexibility. My mornings are inconsistent with the times that I get up. Sometimes I'm up really early. Sometimes I'm up not long before we have to get here. But I'm curious to hear because I've never asked you guys what

your morning routine looks like. I would think just based off of us being together for so long, you probably have the most regimen morning routine because you train in the morning. So that probably requires and you also have the youngest child right now. So I'd imagine you probably have the strictest routine. Doug, you're pretty consistent with your mornings. Yes, Justin, what about you? What do you, what do you, yeah, I have to plan ahead of time for my mornings, because I'm, I used to go on the just,

chaotic, I don't have a lot of energy. My brain isn't completely fully working 100%. So I have to like plan it. So I have my clothes specifically laid out. I have to hit sort of every beat. So that way I'm ahead of being late for getting the kids ready and helping out with getting the dogs fed and then getting them taken out. And so I do have a lot of like things I have to accomplish before I'm out the door. And two, now I work with the high school football team in the morning. So those those morning shifts.

So I got to get up earlier and do a completely different routine to make sure I get ahead of it. But I set myself up ahead of time the night before with a lot of different, like even layout, my toothbrush. You know, I have my breakfast like out in the kitchen ready to go. Like I have a blender all set there. I've been making myself shakes. So I just, I have it ready. So all I got to do is hit a button and like literally pour milk in.

And that's just how my brain works. No, you, well, you just mentioned something that, okay, so here's something I do that I didn't, I guess I really didn't think that much about it, but I do remember it becoming like a hack was in a stupid as it may sound was, but just having my outfit for the next day picked out the night before, because I, what I caught myself doing, you remember figuring that out in school? It was when I was in school, I figured that out. Oh, it's better to have my clothes laid out the night before.

Well, otherwise you find yourself in that morning thing, oh, I want to listen to a piece of the ensembles missing. Yeah. Oh, shit, I don't have the keyboard. Or you waste the next 15 minutes. It's dirty here. Yeah, something's gone. So, okay, so that's something that I do consistently.

That makes a difference. I know that, and really, for me, it was like shaving time. I'm always trying to be as efficient as I can in the morning because I want to get as much sleep as I can and sleep as close to the time that I have to get up. And then I'm not rushed either, right? I don't want to get up and feel like I'm rushing it all. That what about you?

Maybe you have some hacks that I do also. Yeah, my routine is fairly consistent but it depends on the day, right? Every day is different. So some days I work out, I like to work out in the morning. So on those days, I do something a little bit different than the other days. Some days I have to take Brianna to school.

And so I have to plan around. Do you have two different routines then when you work out versus when you take your daughter to school? Yes, well, if it's a worked out day, then I have to factor that in as well. So that means I'm gonna take Brianna to the school and then I want to come here directly after I Drop off at school because I don't want to have to go back home and then change or do anything else I want to be ready to go here. So I have enough time. So yeah, I think the key with the morning routine before you create one is to

Just like with a workout routine is like, okay, what's my goal? What am I working with and And then what is that? Then you can start to kind of plan it out, right? For anybody watching, that would be the best way to set it up. Mine is very structured, Adam. And you're right, working on the morning plays a big role in that. Plus I have three kids, and so I'd have to figure all that stuff out. So what I did, and by the way, my morning routine now is something that's established and

that I've actually planned out. It's the last type of routine that I really set up. I set up a sleep routine way before I ever realized the morning routine was something that would make a lot of sense for me. So now I'm accolade out for it. Now I was like, I wake up and I try to wake up at the same time every single day. And the reason why I do that, even on weekends, the reason why I do that is I was reading about jet lag and how, you know, when people travel

and they go from one place to another is a two or three hour difference, which doesn't sound like a lot, they can take the body and the brain, at least two or three days to adjust to the change in time. And then I read about how people give themselves jet lag every weekend. So it's like they wake up at 6 a.m. Monday through Friday

and then Saturday and Sunday come along and they go to bed three hours later and try to sleep in. And then by the time Monday comes around, this is one of the reasons why people hate Monday so much, it's as if they're giving themselves jet lag. Well, I just adjusted my body to waking up at 8 a.m. Saturday and Sunday and going to bed much later.

Now it's Monday, I gotta go back to where I was before and you end up losing two or three days of productivity or sharpness or whatever, do that. So one thing I do now is no matter what, I wake up about 5.30. So regardless of Monday through, all the way through Sunday, I wake up at 5.30, which also means I go to bed

right around the same time every single night. Now this isn't super rigid. Obviously if I'm with family or on vacation all the way through Sunday, I wake up at 5.30, which also means I go to bed right around the same time every single night. Now this isn't super rigid, obviously if I'm with family or on vacation or something, then it's definitely worth it, just like sometimes I'll eat pizza or drink a beer. But for the most part, I'm 5.30 no matter what, my alarm is set and then that's it. When I get up, I'll go bathroom, of course,

I'll go, I have my gym bag set up already, ready to go, and my clothes set aside. I get dressed, I go downstairs, and that's when I have my pre-workout supplements. So this is where I'll have my, if I'm taking a pre-workout, it's Legion pulse, which has got caffeine in it. If it's not that, then I'll do the red juice from Organa 5,

if I'm getting myself off caffeine, and I'll drink that. I'll get my water filled up. And then I drive to the gym, which takes me about 25 minutes. On the way there, I've been picking materials to listen to that. Get me to step outside of my life

and look at everything from, as Arthur Brooks would say, 40,000 feet. So he made this recommendation. He said, you know, it's really important. You have a practice, whether it's spiritual or not, where you actually look at everything from a 40,000 foot view. And so right now, I'm listening to CS Lewis book, but before that, I was listening to a book

by Jordan Peterson. And so on the way to workout, I'm doing something that takes me out of that. And then I get to the gym. Now it's workout time. Do my workout. And then I get to the gym, now it's workout time, do my workout, and then on the way here, I open my sunroof because that's really the only time I get sunlight in the morning,

otherwise we're in this cave, now I'm getting sun, right? And then I'll come over here. And so that's kind of sets my intention and my intentions are to have a good workout, feel good, but really the main intention is to be good for the podcast. And so that's why I kind of organized it that way in that sense.

So I would say, you know, what is your goal? Is it like set the tone for the day? What are the intentions? Do I want to be positive? Do I want to be aggressive? Do I want to be compassionate? Whatever your days are gonna look like, and then plan accordingly and think to yourself, how can I set myself up to do these things that I want to be compassionate? Whatever your days are gonna look like, and then plan accordingly and think to yourself,

how can I set myself up to do these things that I wanna do during that day? And then that would be, I guess, the best routine. So we have some things similar. I listen to an audio book every single day, and that is to feed my brain, right? So I'm thinking, the Justin Hack of the clothes,

that's so I'm not anxious in the morning. So that's kind of like my be prepared in the morning. So I'm not anxious. The second one is probably make sure that every morning I either kiss Katrina or go see Max, that puts me in a place of gratitude. Why I do all this, and it sets kind of the tone for the day. So I make sure why I do all this, and it sets kind of the tone for the day. So I make sure that I always do that. And then feeding my brain, right? And part of feeding my brain is listening to something that is going to make me sharper on the podcast

or something I can learn about. And what comes with that is staying off of social media, at least until I get here. So I guess I don't really have this structure time, but those things are pretty consistent, and over time I've learned how. I figured out that that would. How, why they're so important, right?

Like the whole thing of not being anxious in the morning, well, one of the biggest hacks ever for me was as stupid as it may sound as having my clothes ready saved 15 to 20 minutes every single morning just because it was already handled. So I totally jump on board that. I definitely think that social media is full of negative bullshit or us comparing ourselves to others.

So if I'm going to take in anything, I want it to enhance my life, to grow me, to make me smarter, to help me on the podcast, to make me sharper. So I'm going to ingest things that are like that growth focus. Yeah. And then, uh, and then of course seeing the wife and kids, I mean, that to me, making sure I, that's, and that kind of kind of comes from Jordan Peterson talking about how you end your day, how I end and start my day is the family thing, right? Is remembering that like all the stuff that I do is, is for this. And so I think making sure that I, I start the day off like that, um, that's kind of how it looks, you know.

Yeah, there's a few things I probably left out. There was, I used to sleep in pure darkness, and I do sleep in pure darkness. However, I've started to open up, so I don't have blinds on one side of my room. So that way I let the sun come in in the morning on top of having an alarm clock that's not super obnoxious.

Cause I used to have an alarm clock that was really loud and when I would hear it, it would make me, like it would just create a response within my body. So true. Like I was, I was, Like in danger or something? Yeah, like danger, danger.

Like my whole body would freak out. And I did not like waking up like that. And so I found this alarm clock that does emulate the sun and it kind of just has that natural kind of light that comes through. How big of a difference does that make? Huge. Isn't that crazy for me?

Because I have to be gentle about how I wake up in the morning. Well, dude, okay, so I don't want to mean to cut you off, but this is so important. Have you ever heard the more. Well, dude, okay, so I don't want to mean to cut you off, but this is so important. Have you ever heard the sound that your alarm clock, the one that used to jolt you at a bed? Have you ever been awake during the day, heard that sound and had it still gives me the chills? And you get to see a alarm clock that it used to go up.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, when I was a kid. You just hear it now, right? Yeah, well, just give me the chills and I get to do it. What does that tell you? You're training a stress response in your body. Isn't that crazy? I remember that. That's why I got the same alarm clock

because I would hear that alarm sound that my phone would do. And I would just be, I'll be awake already. But I'd get that, you know, kind of feeling like, what am I doing myself? And then I would just ruin the, like you're talking about sitting the intent for the day. Like I already feel like, ah, like something,

like bad is gonna happen. Like my adrenaline's like super high. And so I just really try to like eliminate a lot of the stress in the beginning of the day. And so not looking on social media, not, you know, being concerned with the world's problems right away, at least like, give me the middle of the day where my, my brain can kind of like handle that kind of content. But yeah, like being able to do that and then having like sort of a meditative start to the day, I think was a huge part of that. And I would take my coffee, which was already preset

and all I had to do was hit a button or it would start if I had it on drip, it would already start. And I would take it outside while the dogs were eating and just try and breathe in the air and get some ice. So that's been like a huge start to my morning to keep everything sort of at a good balance. Yeah. Do you guys ever track the amount of time you spend on your phone tracks, how much time you spend on your phone or on apps or whatever?

You know what I found? This is really crazy. If I start the day with social media, I use more of it during the day. Sure. Then if I don't, if I start with good intentions, I'm less likely to, to impulsively check social media and want to see what's going on. Oh, this crazy thing's happening. What's today's, what am I supposed to be enraged and pissed about today or whatever?

Yeah. So I notice if I don't do it first thing in the morning, which now that's a big deal. Now I purposely do not check it as soon as I get up. I used to do all the time I'll check it. I end up using it less throughout the day. That setting the intention is such a big deal. It's, you're literally planning like, okay, how can I make myself be in the state of mind

that I want for my day? And then literally just in a morning routine, doesn't have to be like an hour long or a, it's literally, it can be 15 minutes. I have 15 minutes before I got to get in the car. What am I gonna do in that 15 minute period? This, this, and that. And that's it.

And just to say, I'm super short. That's why I'm not a big fan of like the people that try and, you know, brag about how early they get up. And, you know, it's like this whole hour, two hour thing before they even start their, their real day or whatever.

It's like, not me. I'm sleeping in as close as I can till the last minute I have to. I have to. Yeah, and again, I have these few things that over years of obviously getting up and starting my day, that I've put together that, oh wow, this makes a huge difference. And they're all short. It takes me two seconds to walk in and kiss my wife and child and say something to them before I go off. I'm literally drinking my coffee and listening to an audiobook on the drive on the way there. There's just those things

don't take a lot of time setting the clothes out the day before a few minutes. So it doesn't have to be, in my opinion, this long, crazy drawn out routine. It can be just little hacks that I think make a big impact on how your day is. Like anything, it's consistency, right? So if you set your set of routine, that's important, it kind of works for you. Do it consistently. It's more important.

What do we say about workouts, right? You have a bad workout done consistently, it's better than a great workout done in consistently. It's the same thing with a morning routine. We've all been talking or mentioning sleep routines or evening routines. I think that's something we all have made a big deal around, right? Because I think we all saw a huge impact on preparing ourselves for sleep. This is another important routine that I think we've all identified. I know all of us take it very seriously.

I think it's more important. And I think part of why I was not excited about this episode is because everybody talks about warning routines and and yes There's lots of plenty of research to support the benefits of of having that and we just went on and shared all of our stuff But I think that where the magic is is where most people aren't looking and there's not a lot of people that have Good sleep routines and we know how important good rest is for all the things that we talk about on the show all the time. And I just don't think there's a lot of conversations around like taking that seriously.

I think it's like an afterthought when in reality, I think it should be, I think you focus more on that and the other things will come together. Yeah, and the sleep routine is part of the evening routine. And I say evening routine because there's stuff that happens at night or that should happen, or maybe I guess if you know what you want your data and like and how to start the next day, it's part of the evening routine.

So again, you want to write down what your goals are. My goals with the evening routine are I want to have good, deep sleep. I want to tie up loose ends. One of the worst things that could for me at least with sleep is if I feel like there's like I didn't close a loop Right and ends up spinning in my head like whether it's an argument and finish with my wife or something that You know we didn't deal with that work or I wasn't able to write it down so I can forget it type of deal That'll really mess me up. So I'm like, okay

I want to have good sleep and I want to feel like the day is ended and I also want to set myself up for tomorrow I want to have tomorrow set up as well. So that's all part of the evening routine. So I'll go through some of mine. I'd love to hear your guys' stuff. One of mine is and I've talked about this often many times is about an hour before we make the house dark. So we turn the lights off, we go by candlelight would be great, but typically we use salt lamps. It's obviously you don't have to keep buying candles or whatever. It's so much darker or I'll wear blue light blocking glasses. And that's just to tell my brain, hey, we're going to be ready for sleep here in about

an hour. I'll get my food set up for the next day. So, and we'll get into that a little later, but I like to have my food set up so I know what I'm having for lunch and for maybe, you know, mid afternoon meal. So that's ready in the fridge. I'll make sure I have my, I talked earlier about how I'll have my supplements for my pre-workout. I'll have that set aside. So when I get up, I'm ready to go. I have everything I want. I'll have my gym bag put together. That's also part of my evening routine. I also added this. This is a big one and you guys, well maybe you soon just, we'll start to realize this.

My older kids now are basically teenagers. And one of the things about teenagers is, they don't wanna hang out with you anymore. They just don't. It's like you come home, they're gone. They're in the room, they're talking to their friends, they're texting or whatever.

And the only time I get to see him is dinner time. So I make a big deal about everybody here, dinner time, same time. Other than that, it's like, hey, you guys wanna watch a movie? Nah. Hey, you guys went nah. So I'm like, man, I don't ever see my kids.

So I added this new evening routine. And this is, you know, all this goes to my wife. Such a great suggestion. She said, you know, before we go, you know, put the baby down and, or right after we put the baby down, you and I are about to hang out. Let's go in the room, say good night, and then let's sit there for 10 minutes and just kind of hang out for a second. So now I spend about 7 to 10 minutes with each of my older kids in the room after I say good night to them. Like, oh,

Hey, we're gonna go upstairs. We're gonna watch TV. We put the baby down. Good night. And then I'll just hang out in there. And you know what happens? They start to talk to you a little bit. It's kind of cool. So now I'm starting to do that. So that's part of the evening routine. And then once I do all that, we're ready to go to sleep. We go to sleep. I get way better sleep,

and I'm set up. My intentions now are ready to be set for the following day. What do you guys do anything different? No, it's similar. I have made a similar attempt at that, especially with, you know, you think getting older now,

he is like just kind of taking off and doing his own thing in his room. And I definitely still read to Everett. And so that's part of the routine is we pick up a new book and we start the chapters off. And he loves to interact and read. And I have him read to me sometimes, sometimes I read to him.

And then I go from him to then Ethan and then what I do with Ethan is I pick either, I just pick a topic about school, what's happening. I want to be informed with his friends, like what are the friends doing? Like, you know, what house band going, like, like whatever the topic is, I want to just stick with that one thing and ask him about that and just see how, however long that goes, but I just wanna spend that time to catch up

and be involved in terms of like what's happening in his life. And then, and really that's it, because he's like, okay, he's trying to push me out. You know, already, which is fine. But it's, so it doesn't take a whole lot for him. You go to sleep anymore. But yeah, so I'll do that. And then like you said, start dimming the lights down a bit.

Courtney and I spend time together. And that's, we're very much night people. And so it's not, we don't go to bed very early, but we definitely keep it very low stress. And we're just really trying to, we try to do better about talking and not like interrupting that always with TV, but we do tend to like veg out some nights with that.

But I mean, I do, if I felt like we're not doing well in terms of interaction, we'll just cut that off. But look, we need to just talk and like sit here and chat and catch up. And so we do that. And then I'll go in and sometimes I'll take mellow if you know, if my sleep has been if he does help quite a bit call me down. And then I will, you know, do my whole thing before we go to sleep. I'll get the dogs out and then I'll journal actually.

And I started just implementing this. Three things to reflect on in terms of what I'm grateful for. And so that's something. When did you start doing that? That's interesting. I started doing that a couple months ago. What have you found from doing that? That's really interesting.

Yeah, it just helps you to reflect on more positive things which then kind of stops that negative feedback loop where you're spinning about your day about things that didn't go right or problems, bigger problems that you really shouldn't be concerned with or things in other parts of the country or politics, wherever the hell it is, it's just bringing it back to what's going really well.

Or what, I wanna focus on more about the family dynamic and what's really positive there, where I am. So anyways, just trying to kind of pull it back into more of a positive to end the day because everything, you could get so caught up in all of these different opinions and things going on throughout the day that can lead you in a negative thought process. So that has been helping because then I'm not as sympathetic and really like carrying that and really like, you know, carrying that stress into sleep, which interrupts my sleep.

And I've noticed that. And then, you know, staying ahead of making sure I eat a couple hours, like two hours. I forgot to say that same here. Before because I do have like digestive stuff I have to count for. So you cut it off at what, eight o'clock? Eight o'clock.

Yeah, that's typically, yeah, right? I'm 630. I'm 630 630. No food. Otherwise it's it's heartburn and it's all these different things on battling. So you know, that's definitely a big consideration I have to have and then make it sure I'm hydrated. I wish that I could stay consistent with the journaling thing. I've done I must have at least seven or eight journal books that I have started in my house that, you know, I'm good for a couple of weeks and then I fall off of it. I'm not very good for some reason.

It's never been able, I've never been able to build like real good consistency. But what I did do was, I've taken away like what is it doing and how's it impact my life and then how do I build it in? And I started doing this not long after we heard that Jordan Peterson with Joe Rogan interview. So I look at it like we have our morning routine, I have my workout routine, and then my evening routine

isn't necessarily the beginning of the evening because it sometimes starts at 3 a.m. or 4 o'clock if I get home early, right? So really, I look at my evening routine as when I transition from, you have morning, you transition into work, then you transition into workout, then you transition into home life. It's like the last third of a century or whatever. So I look at it like, maybe not so much evening because it could be two o'clock if we get home early

then that's, I'm now transitioning to the next phase of my day. And I found that advice that he gave on that episode was like life changing for me. And I actually take what you're doing at nighttime, and that's actually when I do this. So I'll be driving home, and I have a good commute. And when I get in the driveway,

I actually turn the car off and I sit there for a minute. I actually just sit in my driveway, and I don't go anywhere. And at that point is where I'm doing like a gratitude exercise. So I'm decompressing from all the, a lot of times I'm working while I'm driving, I'm on phone calls, making business deals, doing shit like that. Sometimes they're positive and good,

sometimes they're not, you know? And so I try and separate myself from all the work energy and detach for a second from all that. And then, and the way I do that is by getting my place in what I'm grateful for. Like, I'm so blessed, I live here, and I have a beautiful child and wife. And like, so I start doing that before I walk in the door.

That always sets the tone for how I interact with Katrina from the minute I come in. Adam, you have to say this is such a big deal because I was like, you, I saw, I heard what he said. And I was like, this makes a big difference. Talk about the difference between that and what you used to do, which is what everybody does, where you just walk in after doing business.

Yeah, well, what hit me was if you haven't seen the Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson conversation, he's talking about how we plan for vacations a year in advance and hours and hours of planning talking about how we plan for vacations, a year in advance, and hours and hours of planning where we're gonna go, where we're gonna eat, what hotels are gonna stay, all for this seven days of your life. Yet you come home and you interact with your spouse

every single day consistently for years, decades, you're basically your whole life. And the amount of time that adds up to is like way more than a week, right? Totally. Probably years worth of minutes, all compounded. Yet we put no effort into how you, how you do that. Totally. And so they just kind of reframe the way I look at that. Like, God, I've never really thought about like trying to put a practice in or think

about the transition from work into coming home. You know, it's like you, I think people just allow it to happen themselves. And when you have a good day at work, with your night with your wife or spouse is normally good because you're happy because things are well. And then a lot of times when that stuff isn't going well, it bleeds over to, I mean, how many,

how many couples have heard, like, oh, I bet you had a great day today or oh, what happened to you, right? Like the, the spouse saying to, and like, I wanted to eliminate that. Like, to eliminate that like I want to be able to come home and still have a a a good night even if my day was fucking upside down and terrible and you know if I don't set something like that like that that separates those those two times they they'll bleed into each other so by doing that it's it's allowed me to,

and that's when it's most important on the bad days. Like good days, it's not that hard. We just had a huge win, everything we could create a work, we're high-fiving, I walk in the door skipping, and it's fine, but that's not for those days. It's for the days where I just got off a phone call, we lost money in something, I'm frustrated, and even the way I'm putting the truck in gear before I get out

I'm like oh my god like Stop for a second take a deep breath, you know, I'll sit there do like a gratitude exercise and then I walk in the door So that's an evening I guess practice that I put in place for me. I have a two and a half year old. So I want to be a very consistent father with the time that I spend with him. And so literally I come in the house, Kisca Trina, smile, tell her something positive, whatever, go straight to the bathroom, wash my hands, go to the bathroom, and then I go write the max. And then I spend, you know, an hour or two hours, sometimes more, and that's my time to play with him. We're normally wrestling, we're reading, we're building, we're playing,

we're doing things together, teaching, whatever. But that's very, very consistent for me. And then the part that is probably flexible, but we have somewhat of a routine is after we put max down, we either watching television together or we're sitting in silence. I love to, I think we brought up the table topics game. We actually brought that back out the other day when we brought it up, like sometimes Katrina and I, because sometimes it's like, if you've been consistently watching your Benjing series

and stuff like that and you decide you wanna interrupt that and have dialogue to just like interrupt that is weird. So a nice transition is like, hey, let's pull that table topics game out and then we'll pull it out and once the first one's out and the conversation's going, we started using that too well. It's great, and I think it's such a great,

for someone who's trying to build this into their life, and they're like, where do I start? This is weird, I don't wanna make a big deal about sitting down and talking to my spouse. It's like, okay, well then just pull the card out, what I'm saying, and just, and just a subject. Yeah, exactly, and just let it go,

and then it'll normally have dialogue. It's stuff like, if you would never get caught, what crime would you do do or something like that? Yeah, they're really interesting conversations. I mean, Katrina and I have been together for almost 13 years and there are always, when we do that, a new story that I've never heard her tell about her childhood comes out of view that she has on something

that I didn't know that that's how she viewed things. So it just creates great dialogue. Or if we will do an audio book together. So that I didn't know that that's how she viewed things like so. It just creates great dialogue or we will do an audio boat together. So that's kind of like what that looks like. But and then as far as like preparing myself for good sleep, I've become very consistent once I went from mocking things like blue blockers. I've now become somebody who's fully adopted them.

I have several pairs that I keep throughout the house so there's never an excuse so I can't get grab one or one of them. And as soon as the sun's starting to go down, I just immediately put them on. Just because I know I'll be on and off my phone, I know I'll probably watch TV, I know I got fluorescent lights on in my house.

So that's become a consistent habit. Very similar to you guys, I try and limit to none if I can snacking past eight o'clock or so, like after I'm done with dinner I try and try and shut it down completely. I've now become very very consistent with mellow right before I go to bed. I mean it's been huge supplement for me obviously I was probably deficient in magnesium and then like no phones in bed like Katrina so a rule so again I'm more like we have these rules that we give ourselves right right? We don't have television in the room. That's like, that was like her thing

that she's been consistent with, and I think that there's a lot of stuff that they've done on television in the room and how it affects sex life and sleep and stuff like that, and so that's been a consistent rule of ours that we just know television in the bed. If you want to watch TV, stay up late, I don't care, but when we come to our room, that's for a consistent rule of ours that we just know television in the bed. If you want to watch TV, stay up late. I don't care. But when we come to our room, that's for sleeping in sex. That's what that place is. Something you do, too, that you didn't mention. And I'm sure you just forgot that you maintain is very sacred to you, Adam.

And because I've you've done this one more on business trips. You'll actually leave to do this because it's part of your evening routine. And it's sacred to you is to read to your son. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that's you read No matter where you are, it's like we'll have a meeting where at work, we're off doing something and he'll be like, you'll disappear.

What are you doing? What's he doing? He's reading to his son through FaceTime. Yeah, that's been, and that really is about, you know, I, I, I didn't really pick up reading until my mid 20s. Obviously I read through school like everybody did, but as soon as I've done school, I was done reading.

And then it, when I was about 25, I began through school like everybody did, but as soon as I was done, school was done reading. And then when I was about 25, I began reading more consistently, and it was obviously very impactful. And so I wanna implement that into my son's life, and I know better than to just tell my son, he needs to read, I need to do it with him. And so, and I believe that stuff starts, those things start even at his age, it is not.

In fact, I used to read to Katrina out loud when he was in her belly. So we've been consistent with it since she was pregnant. And then since then, it just become habit and routine. And I hope that when he starts to get to your guys' kids' age that we have stayed so consistent with that, that becomes kind of a family time. Everybody can go read whatever they want

or maybe we read together. Who knows what it looks like. But then I've built that into his routine that it's something that he looks forward to and consistently does. And we try and make it fun too. I don't wanna make it like, this is educational only son, you know, where I,

no, he enjoys it. Yeah, yeah, it's something that I think. I bet if you stopped, you would know what to do. Oh, yeah, no, I mean, it's so regimen that we, even if we're out somewhere else, we're at a hotel or anything like that, we still do that routine. We still get the books out and read before.

I think it really helps calm him down before bed. I think that's part of why he's such a great sleeper is I think we do all those little steps before. It sets him up, you know, it's funny. They teach you when you have a little kid and they're having sleep issues. What do they always teach you to do? Do like a routine before bed.

And what do they always say? Oh, turn the lights down, put lotion on them or whatever, like massage down, put lotion on them or whatever, like massage them, put on their little pajamas. And then they know their brain and their body knows, I'm, it's time for bed. And so now it's time to chill out. Imagine taking a little kid who's playing all excited

and then put him in bed. Good night. Like, but we do that to ourselves. I think it's important to contrast what we just said to what a lot of people do, which is they go, go, go, go, go. Oh crap, it's 11 o'clock. Turn the lights out and then you expect your brain and body to go into this parasympathetic recovery sleep process.

Now, a lot of people are like, oh, I go to sleep just fine. No, it's because you're so exhausted because your sleep is so bad, that is not the same thing. That's like, you know, that's like being so starving that you just feed yourself versus planning it out, which takes us to another one, which is a food routine. By the way, I wanna make a comment here. When you're creating your routine,

create the routine that you want, when you're not in the middle of needing to do it. Don't create your sleep routine or night routine. In at night. Don't gross your shop when you're hungry. Yeah, or it's like,'s one that every bill will get. Don't create your workout routine while you're about to workout.

Why? Because you're more likely to pick the stuff you wanna do and avoid the stuff you don't wanna do, right? Write your workout routine for tomorrow or the day after. When you're outside of it, you're more logical and smart, but I need to do mobility, so I'm gonna put that in my routine and yeah, I probably shouldn't have left because I've been doing that too much and it's hurt my back a little bit or whatever I need to work mobility, so I'm gonna put that in my routine. And yeah, I probably shouldn't deadlift because I've been doing that too much

and it's hurt my back a little bit or whatever I need to work on this flexibility. So create those routines when you're not doing the routine itself or we don't need to do it, it's an important thing. All right, let's talk about food routine. This one I understood early on as a trainer because even as an early trainer

I understood the importance of nutrition. And I knew that a big reason why my clients would eat poorly was because they didn't plan anything. They would, in the morning, I'm in a rush, grab something fast, so it was something frozen or on the way to work at the Starbucks or whatever, you know, caught their eye or skipped altogether.

And then lunch comes around and it's like, what did they bring in the office or what's nearby or what do I feel like eating? And then dinner, very similar. Oh, on the way home, I didn't prepare anything. I have nothing to cook or nothing ready to go. So I think I'll stop by the drive through or whatever. And so a huge, very effective strategy

is to tell my clients was, hey, plan your meals the day before. So just literally set aside what you want for breakfast. And again, you're doing the routine before you need it, right? So the day before, you'd be like, what you want for breakfast. And again, you're doing the routine before you need it, right? So the day before you'd be like, well, what should I eat tomorrow for breakfast? Probably not a frozen waffle. I'm going to set aside some eggs, maybe a glass of milk or some coffee. What am I have for lunch? Let me prepare that now. Now you have your lunch with you. Like, what is the intention of creating a food routine. You're less likely to act impulsively. You're less likely to eat foods that feed your impulse and more likely to eat foods that feed your

physical body or feed your health, right? It also allows you to eat on a schedule. How many times have you had a client who, you know, oh, it's three o'clock. Oh my God, I didn't have food for lunch, so I couldn't eat, but then I got busy and then, oh, now I got to break a three-clown starving. Now I lunch so I couldn't eat, but then I got busy, and now I got a break at three o'clock, now I'm starving, now I'm gonna go and eat, you know, whatever garbage I can get my hands on. Food routines are really, really important, and this one I am pretty good at right now, but I go through periods where I don't,

I'm not super good with it, wow, the difference. Oh, it's, I mean, I think the biggest difference between me looking aesthetically like I do right now, compared to what I looked like just three, four years ago competing and stuff like that is that part. So luckily we've been doing this for a very long time that I can intuitively eat and keep myself relatively fit and healthy always. It's not hard for me. I know I'm measured and weighed food for so long that I can eyeball something and know when I'm eating outside the boundaries or when I'm not right But setting myself up for success to like for a goal Like if I want to reduce body fat or build muscle and like I want to do it in a short period of time The number one thing was planning food and we used in fact it was I mean for four years there

We were so regiment about that, that was all Sunday, was about Sunday, was about going and getting all the groceries that we needed for the entire week. I was normally on the grill, Katrina was preparing all the carbs or veggies and stuff that would go with all the meals, and we were top-wearing it out.

And I mean, and when you do that, it's so much easier not to make bad choices. And it doesn't mean you have to do that to be really successful. But I mean, we're all guilty of waiting too long to eat at one period, or doing something that we're familiar to, and the cravings start kicking in. And now, not only do you have to be disciplined about making the right choice, but now you're also have to fight this craving off. And it's just by planning it all out and eliminating those excuses that I don't have something

ready for me to go, it just makes it that much easier to be successful. So not that I think that you have to be that way. But boy, if you're somebody who's listening right now and you really struggle or you're not consistent with your weight loss journey or muscle building, whatever it is that you're trying to do, whatever you're trying to change, and you haven't made the food routine, or you haven't ever made like a day of like, this is when I grocery shop, this is when I prep,

this is when I think about what I'm gonna eat for the whole week, like it's stewed night and day different. You know what's a big one about this? As a dad, you know, I've got three kids, and I got a, you know, I got to pay your rent or your mortgage, and so you start, you worry about things differently than when you're in the 20s.

You don't really care about this kind of stuff. But now that I'm older, budget is a big deal, right? You gotta look at how much I'm spending and whatever. Food, prep, or food routine saves a ton of money. A ton of money. Like one of the grocery store and buying, yeah, it's your healthier, you're more fit,

you eat better for your body, you have more energy, you also save a ton of money. Like if you just, you don't plan and you're like, well, I'll just grab lunch, I'll just grab dinner, I'll just grab, you spend not a little bit more, thousands of dollars more, and that's something I even think about when I was younger, but I was always the biggest pull for us.

I mean, I was better at doling that advice to clients. I was very good about that and helping them through that. And then, you know, I go back and forth about being flexible and intuitively eating. And really, for me, I would always get behind when it came to eating breakfast. And so that was something I had to get ahead of that and really plan the night before, like how I was going to be able to do that because otherwise it was just a super quick option or nothing at all. I would go way too long without every eating breakfast

which then started to affect me negatively in terms of metabolism and just how my body was responding. So this is something that has now the intent for me like getting ahead of that and planning it, really helps for the rest of my day in terms of like how I'm making choices and eating as well. It's that effect that kind of carries with you

throughout the rest of the day. Totally. The other thing too is when you have, here's the other thing I know, again, and we'll get into this when it's going off routine because routines are there to make life better and not make life worse. So you can make anything,

anything can be so obsessive that it can be worse. But I love having food ready. I prepped it the day before and then somebody says, Hey, you wanna grab lunch? Now I have two options. I'm not stuck in a position where I don't have food if I don't go to lunch and I'm starving.

I'm gonna go with, I can say, yeah, I'll eat the food that I made. It's better, it's healthy. Or I can be like, yeah, actually, you know what? I'll save that and I'm starving, I'm gonna go with it. I can say, yeah, I'll eat the food that I made. It's better, it's healthier, or I can be like, yeah, actually, you know what? I'll save that and I'll eat that meal later or tomorrow, let's go enjoy some lunch. I think it's so paramount to your success that I would use that, a client that would tell me

that they really, really wanted to change or they really, really wanted to lose weight about, and they couldn't, they couldn't put this together. To me, I would put a back on them, you're not that serious. If you're not willing just to plan out, the bad, and they couldn't, they couldn't put this together. To me, I would put a back on them, you're not that serious. If you're not willing just to plan out, which literally, it takes, you gotta go grocery shopping anyways,

you gotta make, you gotta eat. So it's not like you're really going way out of your way. You're really, all you're saying is that, hey, for a day, I'm gonna really care about this and set myself up for success for a week. And so if you're sitting here telling me, when I see you on Monday for your workout, that you didn't do any of that, but yet you get really bad and you really, really want to lose the weight. No, you don't. No, you don't. You don't want it that bad.

Not if you're not willing to spend a little time on setting yourself up for success. When I'm trying to tell you that this probably one of the single most important things you can do for success when it comes to macros and calories and figuring all that out while we're learning all this stuff. And you're not willing to do that, then you don't really want it that bad. Plus, there's a huge myth that that meal prepping or food routine or preparing my food takes more time. Here's the myth. Number one, it actually saves time for two reasons.

One, thinking about what I need to eat, waiting in line, waiting for the food. That saves a lot of time. Two way more time. And here's a statement that is true. Time is money. Time is money. If you're spending hundreds or thousands, in my case, dollars more because you're eating out all the time, could I use that saved money to buy me time in other ways? That's far more valuable? Absolutely. It's like when people say, oh, you know, working out takes up a lot of time and, you know, I don't like to do it.

How much, you're actually adding time to the hourglass because you're gonna live longer and you're more efficient and they've done studies on companies that invest in fitness for their employees. Employees that take an hour of the workday out to work out are more productive than people that don't take that hour out. In other words, they produce more for the company

in less time because they're fit and healthy. So it's an illusion that taking time aside to prepare your food actually takes up more time. It actually saves you time. Say it way, it's not even close to cook, you know, six cups of rice and 20 pieces of barbecue chicken in one shot is much easier than doing that five times throughout the week, two chicken breasts at a time

or two, whatever you're eating, right? That takes way more time to do that. So, and I think people overcomplicate it, like they think of like this, they think of the meal they want, and they're like, okay, well that's one meal, but I need to think of, it's like, no, just things like rice are great, you can, huge thing of rice I always do,

and then a bunch of chicken thighs, or a bunch of steak, and I cook it on a little bit on the rare side, because I know I'm gonna have to heat it back up, or throw it back on the grill, the oven real quick, so I wanna cook it a little bit, and then I just have all this meat, and all this rice. And then the veggies I can either eat, raw and fresh, grill, the oven real quick. So I want to cook it a little bit, and then I just have all this meat and all this rice. And then the veggies I can either eat raw and fresh or cook veggies up really quick.

So you could steam them that day. So even for us, we figured out that if we can plan the week by what protein that we were highlighting. So if it was a steak or it was a chicken or it was a ground meat or whatever it was, like we would build the meal around, especially for dinner. And so it was like having that plan throughout the week and available made that so much better for us just in terms of like the chaos that happens, especially at the end of the day. Yeah, and by the way, that's how I do a variety.

People are like, oh, you prepare your food, you must eat the same thing all the time. Not really, I do it week by week. So this week, it's a lot of chicken. It's chicken rice and broccoli or asparagus. Next week, it may be salmon, and it may be potatoes, or it may be quinoa, or it may be something else. And I'll solve, do it on the week by week, or maybe like half the week kind of basis. And again, it makes a tremendous, tremendous difference.

All right, let's talk about workouts for a second. I remember as a trainer being blown away, obviously I was a fitness fanatic real young, 14 years old, and I started working in the gyms at 18. So four years of me working out and being a fanatic, I walk into a gym and I am shocked that people would come in and I'd ask them, I used to check people out at the front desk,

it was a great way to meet people. What are you working on today? Yeah, what are you doing today? What's your work on? I don't know, but I don't know. You don't know. What do you mean you don't know? Like, oh, I just kind of do what I feel like and whatever.

And I get that moving is better than not moving. But I remember at that young age thinking, you don't have a plan. Like you are, that's like, if on a scale of one to 10, the 10 is like super effective workout, not having a plan knocks eight points off that. I don't care how great you are with guessing

or figuring things out, you're gonna get maybe a two. Now there are some people I can get away with this a little bit, but that's, and I wanna speak to this for a second, the whole intuitive eating, intuitive workout type of deal, you have to have a tremendous amount of understanding, knowledge and awareness in order to do that properly. Otherwise, your intuition is not reliable. Okay. So if I take someone off the street and tell them to intuitively work out, it's based off of their minimal knowledge about exercise. Also, people who intuitively work out, it's a bit of a lie because if you

ask somebody, what are you going to do in your workout today? Well, I don't work out intuitively. Well, what body parts are training? Oh, and they'll tell you, oh, I'm working chest shoulders and triceps, or I'm gonna do some pulling movements. So there is a loose structure there. It's not as intuitive as that. Well, I think it really depends on your goal, right? So if someone comes to me and says they have a goal,

then I say you have to train for the goal. If you come to me and you just want to exercise, that's different, right? So there's training and there's exercise. If you, you can come in and just do random stuff and burn in calories and stay healthy and fit, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you say you have a goal,

you're trying to make a change, body composition wise, build muscle, burn body fat, increase mobility, you have a goal specific, you need to be training. So, and you coming in with no plan, you're not training, you're just exercising. So it's that simple. And no plan, you're not training, you're just exercising. So, it's that simple. And it's not to demonize exercising, that's completely fine.

If you're a client of mine that says, Adam, I don't want to change anything. I feel great, I'm mobile, I'm strong, I'm fit, I look good, all the things I want, I just love coming to gym. Then by all means, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do me and you say, hey, you have a goal, you have fat, you want to lose, you have muscle, you want to build, you have body parts, you want to shape or change, like, then you have to be training. Well, it's the difference of being somewhat effective versus being like very effective.

And very effective, you have a very specific plan. And so you're coming in with a plan and you're sticking with this plan and everything is kind of outlined. So that way, you don't really have to spend a lot of wasted time trying to think about this because I've seen this more often than not, just aimlessly walking around the gym and then finding their self right back where their strengths are. Like always back to where their strengths are. And nothing's really challenging them in a way

that's stimulating growth in a different direction. That takes planning because otherwise your body is just gonna trick you and it's gonna pull you right back. Here's a deal, okay. You put a piano in front of me and I hit a bunch of random notes. Am I making music? It's a bunch of noise.

There's no rhythm, there's no music. What makes music music? There's a pattern, there's no music. What makes music music? There's a pattern of notes that work together in a sequence that creates something that's melodical, something that we listen to and we enjoy listening to and it makes sense to us. I could take a bunch of letters and throw them on a piece of paper

and have I written a story? No, it's just a bunch of letters. It's organizing them and putting them in a way with a direction, with a goal, that creates something meaningful. This is true for your morning routine. This is true for your evening routine, your food. It's especially true with your workouts.

You can do a bunch of exercises, but all you're doing is a bunch of exercises. You're not, as Adam said, training your body. You're not moving in the direction that you can move and you nailed it on the head, Justin. Nine out of 10 times when someone doesn't have a routine and they go to workout, they will navigate towards the stuff that they enjoy and they end up doing

the same thing over and over. I managed gyms for years. I know you guys did too. When you would see your regulars coming in that really didn't understand workouts but they showed up regularly anyway, could you almost preach to the letter, no exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, he does a stair master. He does the preacher curl. That's the thing. He does the hamstring curl and then he goes and he leaves. And it's the same thing every single time where he does a chest press, he does a machine row, and then he's out and that's where he does every single time, right? Yeah.

There's no value to doing something or or very little, I should say value. I don't want to say no value. It's better than sitting on the couch, but there's very, very little value to it. And there's so much you can derive from a workout in a short period of time. Again, here's what we're talking about wasting time and being efficient. A routine that's effective will give you way more than 30 minutes and five hours of aimless exercises and random stuff. 30 minutes versus five hours. I'll bet and random stuff. 30 minutes versus five hours.

I'll bet all day long, I'll bet any amount of money on that. So it makes a tremendous difference. So what does your routine look like with your workout? Well, you want to plan setting up your workout. So what's my intention? Do I want to be aggressive? Do I want to be relaxed and calm? Do I want to work on mobility?

Am I trying to go for PRs? Do I need stamina and endurance? Those are all different intentions. Now, for me, purpose, you know, for me, I know I'm gonna be aggressive in this workout. So I have a different kind of mentality going in, different setup, different priming, different music I even listened to to set myself up.

Then you have your routine in the workout. Now, why is a workout routine so important? Because it gets you to do what you know is best for your body, not just what you feel like in the workout. Now, why is a workout routine so important? Because it gets you to do what you know is best for your body, not just what you feel like in the moment. When I have a routine, I'm more likely to do the mobility work that I always tend to avoid. I'm more likely to do you in lateral work where I like to do bilateral heavy stuff all the time.

I'm more likely to do the things that I know are better for my body. And then after my workout, what's my intention? Well, I tend to come to work after my workout. So I'll make sure that I do a little rest of recovery, but also something that's gonna wake me up a little bit, so I have my cold rinse, and then I come to work. But maybe it's different for you watching right now.

And again, back to the whole like floating around thing, you know who can play music intuitively? Master musicians. Like, I don't trust anybody who doesn't play the piano backwards upside down and without any You know, I nobody's even able to play music or just create music out of nowhere unless they've somewhat become a Master of it right so routines are extremely important and this is this isn't the whole reason But this is one of the reasons why you know we write workout routines and people get phenomenal results. One of them is the well program.

That makes a big difference. But the second is, they follow a plan. Because without the plan, then what, they plan to fail. And it doesn't really work that well. Well, we talked about this off air the other day. I even to this day, I know that if I wanted to accelerate my results, right? Like, right, like, where I'm at in my life, like my goals are much different than what they were

in my 20s. Like, if I really cared about hitting increasing strength right now, or hitting PRs, or me building a muscle, or looking a certain way, getting reducing body fat, even with all my experience, I know that following one of our programs, I'll get better results.

And even me off the cuff, deciding what I'm going to do every single workout, even though I can do that. And I like to think that I'm a master at programming and working out. Like I think that I've done that for a long enough period of time that I could technically walk in the gym with no plan and still have a phenomenal workout. But I still won't have as good of a workout as if I have planned it all out. Because like you said, when I'm sitting in, I'm creating space to plan this routine, I'm

thinking of all the things that I haven't been doing. I'm thinking of the things that I should be doing. I'm thinking about sets and volume. I'm thinking about a lot of things that I'm not thinking about when I go, hey, I'm going to get a workout in right now. So even I think as even being an advanced person when it comes to programming and lifting, I still think there's tremendous value.

Again, especially when you have a goal. I guess I'm less strict or hard about this with clients when they tell me things like they're completely happy where they're at, then there's a lot of flexibility and it's not that big of a deal if we don't plan or program certain things. Whereas if you say you have goals, you're trying to make changes, then this is just another piece of the puzzle.

Well, now that we've really sold the value of routines, I think it is important to also say that you don't want to marry routines because that can also decrease the quality of your life, right? If you're so regimented with your morning routine and something happens, let's say you have kids, because I'm gonna tell you something right now, nothing will throw you off a routine like having kids. Kid wakes up, they throw up or the baby doesn't sleep good or whatever or someone sick.

And now you're so stressed out because you missed your routine, that now becomes a problem, right? Or let's say you have your workout routine, but your kids are going to play their softball game and you're like stressed out. Ah, I can't miss my routine. Well, now that becomes a bit of an issue. Or you're with your friends and you're hanging out and you have a really good conversation. And you know, you've got your meal prepped, but they're like, Hey, let's go to the new restaurant down the street. Let's have a really good conversation and you know you've got your meal prepped But they're like hey, let's go to the new restaurant down the street. Let's have a glass of wine Let's all hang out. We haven't seen each other while well. That's that's okay to go off the routine So it's also important to know when to go off routines and when there's value in that and I will say this generally speaking

Being on routines for important parts of your life more often than not is probably the best way to go But not always it's not a hundred percent there are than not, it's probably the best way to go, but not always, it's not 100%. There are definitely times when it's okay to go off. Nonetheless, establish those routines so you have something that you know your home base. And then you can venture out and have flexibility and enjoy life, but at least you have your home base,

you can always fall back to it. There you have it. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness or health goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at MindPump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at MindPump.com and you can find me on Twitter at MindPump.com.

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