Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1802: Seven Surprising Benefits of Exercise

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss seven benefits of exercise that are often overlooked. Seven Surprising Benefits of Exercise. (1:46) #1 – Decreases cognitive decline. (2:12) #2 – Improves your relationship with pain. (12:40) #3 – Makes you happier. (21:22) #4 – Slows down your biological clock. (28:53) #5 – Helps you recover from major illnesses. (33:37) #6 – Improves your sex life. (36:43) #7 – Teaches you acceptance. (44:43) Related Links/Products Mentioned April Promotion: Get MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Prime and Prime Pro all for $99.99! Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The Resistance Training Revolution – Book by Sal Di Stefano Strength training can help protect the brain from degeneration Exercise promotes the expression of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) through the action of the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate Physical Exercise Increased Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Elderly Population with Depression Common Knee Surgery May Help No More Than A Fake Operation The “No Pain, No Gain” Fallacy – Mind Pump Blog Sore muscles…what does it mean? - Mind Pump Blog Physical activity and exercise for chronic pain in adults: an overview of Cochrane Reviews In Long Run, Antidepressants Don't Improve Quality of Life: Study Mind Pump #1792: The Secrets Of Happy People With Arthur C. Brooks Elon Musk: A future worth getting excited about | TED Talk Regular exercise changes the brain to improve memory, thinking skills Does Exercise Affect Telomere Length? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials Proper exercise can reverse damage from heart aging How Exercise Can Improve Your Sex Life – Sex Does Working Out Increase Your Sex Drive? Mind Pump #1540: How To Boost Your Sex Drive Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks)  Instagram Elon Musk (@elonmusk)  Twitter Tom Bilyeu (@tombilyeu)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, 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? Today's episode we talk about seven surprising benefits of exercise. These are benefits a lot of people are not familiar with and it's pretty cool.

We're gonna blow your mind in this episode. Also, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, LMNT. Now, they make electrolyte powder that actually has the appropriate levels of sodium. So for athletes and people in low carb diets, like this one works. Most electrolyte powders don't have enough sodium

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Once again, it's m-a-p-S-AAPRAL.com. Everybody knows that exercise makes you look good, but here's some surprising benefits of exercise. It's good for your brain. It improves your relationship with pain. Makes you happier, makes you age slower, helps you recover faster from major illnesses. It improves your sex life, and it teaches you acceptance. By the way, these are all backed by studies. All right, let's start. All those backed by studies? All of them.

Really? Every single one was the first one again? Well, let's start with the first one, right? Here's a big problem. As people age, one of the big problems with aging is that people's cognitive ability starts to decline. Things like dementia and Alzheimer's are becoming a big issue, especially now that we have such a large aging population.

And other parts of the world are aging population. People that would have higher risk of this are actually the largest segment of the population. In America, it's pretty big, but not the largest. Nonetheless, it's expensive and our treatments for it really don't work. Like, if you've ever watched somebody suffer from cognitive decline, there's not much you can do medically wise and it's really tough. It really accelerates if you're not moving and consciously being active with learning new skills

and really training your brain to stay sharp. Yeah, you know what, use it, you lose it. Yeah, true. And you know, it's funny. We don't think of the, this is interesting, because it's obvious, but we don't think of the brain as being part of the body, right? So we talk about improving health, the exercise. We think, oh, the heart, the joints, the muscles,

like the brain is a physical part of the body, and improving the health of the body. Which is kind of ironic considering it's like the main hub. Exactly, exactly. You know what really led me down to this point, or what got me to read a lot about this point, was when I was writing the resistance training revolution, I came across a study. This was out of Sydney, Australia. That showed that resistance training was the only non-medical intervention that's been

shown to stop. And by the way, at the end of the study, it started to reverse, but stop the progression of the beta-amoloid plaques that we know is a big, plays a big role in Alzheimer's. Up until now, there's nothing that we've seen that has really done that. And besides exercise, exercise actually, and again, in studies, it's been shown these, these, these progression of these beta-amloid plaques as part of what causes Alzheimer's or the symptoms of Alzheimer's And it's the only thing that stops it and again like I said in the study that I read it was trending like it was gonna start to reverse Now is that something that has been proven or is that a correlation that we've noticed that as this plaque builds up

We also notice a decline in cognitive function, or people tend to, if they have a lot of this in their brain, also not have great memory. Like, as of right now, it's the target for treatment, because we know that the beta amyloid plaques are what causes the Alzheimer's symptoms. So if we look at medications and research chemicals and drugs, that's the target.

How do we prevent these plaques from building up? And again, exercise is the only thing that's been shown to do that. There's a few theories as to why. One of them is, researchers, some researchers will refer to Alzheimer's or dementia as type three diabetes. I was gonna say, yeah, type three diabetes

is sort of classify that as. And that is that just due to the influx of constant glucose that we're consuming? It's the insulin resistance. Insulin resistance. Yeah, because so when you have someone who's like dementia or Alzheimer's and you have me to ketogenic diet, you see this kind of temporary improvement in cognitive ability or this improvement in cognitive ability. And it's because they're not running off of glucose but rather ketone, so whatever systems that use glucose for energy, as they start to become defunct,

it's like we move from one type of energy to another and then we start solving some of that problem. Now it's not a solution, it's kind of like a detour, right, to help, but what exercise, especially when you build muscle, is you improve insulin sensitivity. In fact, building muscle is one of the most effective ways to do this. There are studies on obese people where they have them build muscle and don't lose any weight. So they just haven't gained a little bit of muscle.

And we see these significant improvements in insulin sensitivity. And that's because muscle is really insulin sensitive itself. It also helps store glycogen, which comes from sugars and carbohydrates. So you have now more storage area for this kind of stuff. So that's one of the reasons. It also improves, so we know when you work out, like, what do you feel in your biceps and your two curls, right? You get a pump. You get more blood flow. You know what else gets more blood flow? Your brain. It's like a brain pump. When people are working out, we see this increase in blood flow. So to broadly say, working out like that, that's such a wide spectrum of what somebody would

define training or working out. And so does the research go into like how minimal, because I'd always rather go there first, like what's the least amount of work that I'd have to do training wise in order to help prevent this. Or, does that mean I have to do five days of an hour work consistently in order to get these benefits? What does that look like? There's a dose-dependent bell curve, meaning some is better than nothing. So, 10 minutes a day, you'll see some improvement. 30 minutes a day, you'll see more of an improvement.

And then there's a peak where you'll see maximum improvement. And then it starts to decline with over training and over work. Now I don't know off the top of my head what those numbers look like as a trainer, you know, obviously somebody who's worked with a lot of people for a long periods of time. I mean, we could give a general answer, but I know that this would be very individual. Well, yeah, I would imagine too, just based off of like your family's history and genetics and any kind of epigenetic factor there. Like you'd be even more motivated if there's like dimension your family, you know, Alzheimer's to make sure that you're doing everything you can to, you know, preventatively, you

know, going into age. So that way, you know, you're better equipped down the road. Yeah, but I asked that question for that exact reason, Justin, because I would be my one concern as a trainer, as a coach, I would think that I wouldn't want, if it was a client of mine who has potentially the epigenetics that could send them this direction, right? I also wouldn't want them to over train

thinking that more is better. Right, so the individual part that I think is so important is that, if some is good, more isn't necessarily better. So the individual part that I think is so important is that, if some is good, more isn't necessarily better. That's right. So because, and what you'd have to factor in with this person, yes, the genetic component, obviously. So if they already have a propensity for it,

then we wanna be trying to be stay ahead of it. But also recognizing, does this person have a very stressful life as it is? How is their sleep already? Good point. How is their diet already? And what's their fitness level? Right, and what's their fitness level? Right, and what's their fitness level?

It's like, again, I'm always gonna go back to my, I'm always looking to do the least amount of work to elicit the most amount of change, or benefit in this case. So what's the little bit of work that I can add into this person's life to start heading the right direction on the bell curve, but not think that, oh, just, oh, I don't want to get it.

Not being alarmist about it? Yes, sensible about your approach. Yeah, well, so far, based off of the studies, it seems like, and there's not a lot of studies on strength training and health in general, just mainly because over the last, it's only really been over the last 15 years, where we've looked at strength training and health,

and what we're finding is it's, not only incredible for health, but in many cases superior to other forms of exercise, but based on the current research, it seems like strength training is the best form of exercise for cognition, probably because the insulin sensitizing effects. There's the proprioceptive effects, right? When I'm doing like all these different exercises with dumbbells and barbells and machines in my body, there's lots of, I have to really focus on my mood. It's not repetitive like running,

where I'm just doing the same thing over again. I have to balance, I'm pressing this way, I'm pressing that way, I'm rowing, or I'm rotating. So it's using my brain a little bit differently. More neural connections. Yes, but all forms of exercise have shown this benefit. But again, you're right, it has to be the right dose because exercising for maximum performance

is not the same as exercising for longevity. That's right. Because you'll look at high performing athletes don't have a longer lifespan than ever. Sure, sure. Yeah, so you're right, you have to train appropriately. It's not like hammering yourself day in and day out and studies do show that that actually is terrible

for your health is beating yourself up. Right. And so what I think about is like, okay, somebody who is in this position where they have the genes, you know, putting them on a very restrictive diet and training five to seven days a week, you know, strength training. And then addition that also doing cardio

is like probably way more, not only than enough, but then potentially heading down the back part of the bell curve. And so, I mean, I think I would caution my client and just be like, listen, our goal isn't, this isn't to be shredded or to be super buff. Like the goal is for health and to prevent that. So the way we would train, I think, would be,

would be different. Both training and diet, I think would be more balanced approach. Now, here's what else is interesting with exercise is that it increases something called brain derived neurotropic factor, right? BDNF, which is like miracle grow for the brain. So like when your brain receives more of this protein, your neurons are healthier, your brain is less inflamed. I wrote some notes down because I actually looked this up and I thought was very fascinating.

So BDNF production and neuroplasticity, which is induced by exercise. So neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to adapt. So just like your muscles, your brain can change and adapt like a muscle can. So this has been known to delay Alzheimer's, Huntington's disease, it improves cognitive functioning overall, especially for older adults. And here's where researchers think why this happens. Like, is it making your body make more BDNF?

Is that what's happening? Or is it, or is it using it more effectively? Like what's going on? Here's what they think, this is the leading hypothesis. They think that exercise releases chemicals that prevent the inhibition of BDNF. So there are chemicals that will go up that will prevent the inhibition of BDNF. So in other words, it's like an adeptogen almost. It removes the break, right? So like your body will produce so much BDNF. It's really the governing there. Yes. and when you exercise, that limit is raised,

so now you produce more as a result of the exercise. Oh, that's true. Yeah, really, really cool. And I trained lots of people over the age of 65. At one point, this was like a majority of my clients. And the brain effects, they would comment on. They would come up and tell me, I feel sharper. Memory recalls, sharpness, focus.

It's just, yeah, there's a lot of factors there. Because like you said, it's connected to your body. I think we just don't give that enough weight that all the systems are affected by exercise in a positive way. Okay, so that's your first one, what's your next one? The second one was it improves your relationship to pain. This is a your next one. The second one was it improves your relationship to pain. This is a really interesting one. So I've told this story before,

but I remember the first time I trained a client and I observed this. I was training this woman. She'd never done really any exercise before, besides walking. She wasn't an athlete, ever, total newbie, decondition, typical decondition person. And we were doing tricep press downs.

And we had the rope, and I had like, no wait on the stack, I'm just getting her to form, and she starts doing reps, and then she suddenly let go of the rope, and slams down the, you know, there was no wait on the stack, luckily, but it's like, I'm like, what happened? She's like, I hurt, I think I hurt myself. She fell in a burn for the first time.

She never felt that kind of pain before. And I thought to myself like how strange, but make sense, if you've never felt that before, you probably think what's going on. That's an extreme example, but it did make me think a little deeper about this and that I've been working out now consistently for a long, I don't know, almost 30 years, okay?

And I feel no less pain when I exercise than a beginner. If anything, I feel more pain because I can push myself harder. The beginner, that pain, it turns them off. I'm scared of it. Oh my God, it's not tolerable. To me, because I have a relationship with that pain that's different, I actually enjoy it.

I like the way a heavy set feels or a burn or how my muscles feel while I'm working out because I've associated with the results and how I feel. And so now what it's done is it's changed my relationship to pain. Now, why is this important? Pain is super, super complicated. If you talk to anybody that treats pain, I talked to a doctor, a pain specialist, and they'll tell you it's one of the hardest things to deal with because. doctor, a pain specialist, and they'll tell you it's one of the hardest things to deal with because pain can be physical, it can also be emotional, it can also be your perception. You know, antidepressants can make people's back pain go away sometimes. If you're sad, you feel more pain, if you're happy, you feel less pain. There's people who get MRIs, you know, on their back and they feel like they've got tremendous, like, oh my god, my spine, or whatever they look at, they're like, everything looks fine.

I've had clients like that, everything looks fine. And they're like, but I have so much pain. There was a study done on, this one was really weird, on knee surgery, where they took a bunch of people, I don't know how the hell they got people sign up for this, but they did half the people, they just cut them and sew them back up.

And the other half, they actually messed up study. I know, yeah. The other half, they actually did the surgery. So one half, they just incisioned, sewed them back up. In the other half, they actually did the surgery. So one half, they just incisioned soda back up. So the person thought they had the surgery, similar reductions in knee pain from the people that thought they had it versus the people that did. How much did you find, right? Yes, even split, wasn't it?

It was. It just, I mean, that knee surgery is a waste of time. I think what it shows is how complicated pain is so changing relationship to pain through exercise, which is controlled, I think is super valuable. Yeah, I didn't really consider that workout, working out and exercise really provided that. Just trying to improve strength and build myself to be a better athlete was really my focus, but taking all those lessons you learn along the way and really being able to decipher what type of pain it was. Yes, that's good. It's really interesting because I like your experience with your client not really understanding

what that was initially because she's never been exposed to that before. There's been a lot of instances that I've had to describe even with young athletes that I'm coaching that, you know, that's muscular, that's nervous. Oh, that's true with the coaching. Yeah, that's joint pain, that's, you know, and they haven't had enough experience yet to really understand how to decipher

whether or not it's serious or it's something that, you know, is gonna work itself out. Well, if this is true, the opposite is also true then, which you have people with the opposite type of relationship with pain. You have one extreme, which you have talked about right now, which is the client is like, oh my God, what is this? Scared of it, they don't like it, it's uncomfortable,

and so they avoid it. And then you have the other end of the spectrum of people that chase that, that are punishing themselves, that, you know, feel like they need to feel pain or need to feel this feeling of what we would consider overtraining, or else they don't feel like they did enough or they did what they were supposed to. So it's really interesting when you think about that. Like if that is true, that, you know what? Exercise can really change the relationship with pain.

Well, it can also work the other way. Actually, I'll say this, I don't think it's two ends of the spectrum. I think it's the same side of the spectrum. It's unawareness on both. It's all still unawareness. Sure. So somebody who's so focused on their insecurity,

on the bottom of what I mean is how they perceive it. Yes, yes, right. It's the same thing. They're just, they're literally of it. Sure. So somebody who's so focused on their insecurity, on the bottom of the body, what I mean is how they perceive it. Yes, yes, right. It's the same thing. They're just, they're literally ignoring it. The relationship to pain still isn't good. If you, you know, here's the thing, if you follow, and I want to say this, this is also true. If you exercise long enough, you'll learn all these things or you'll figure these things

out, right? So you may ignore pain when you first start because you're so insecure, I want to lose weight, I don't care, I hate my body, whatever. Do it for 10 years. At some point, you figure out like this isn't working and I have to become more aware and really develop a different relationship. Well, I think there's a large portion of people

that chase it. I think I'm guilty of this at one point in my career. Oh, I was too. I think I believe that I had to feel super sore in order to, you know, for me to get great results. And the opposite is true. So I think there's, and then there's these, I mean, we've all had these clients, right? I remember having clients where I'd catch them in on a day that they weren't supposed to be training or an off day, and they'd be in the gym, and I'd see them over in the corner, and they're just balls of the wall, the cardio machine.

And I, what are you doing? Oh, yesterday I went out and had wine and they cheated on my diet. So they're in here, starving their body and then punishing themselves. Self-legilations. Yeah, and meanwhile, you know, thinking that they're doing the right thing or they feel good about it

because it's like, you know, I didn't just do nothing about it. I made a mistake and then I'm back in here and I'm burning it off. And so that's equally an unhealthy relationship with pain too. Yes, yes, yes. I think but if you do it long enough, right, you have to figure this out, right? But it provides you the opportunity to decipher between, you know, good pain and bad pain. Like I know pretty well because of exercise. And I know you guys too, if you feel pain, can you guys tell right away?

That's good. That's bad. Yeah. Like right away, right? Like, oh, my bad, imagine this. You work out real hard and your back hurts, but it's not bad pain. It hurts because you over train. So it's just super sore versus I heard it. You guys can decipher it immediately, right? Yeah. Lots of people have you ever had a client come to you after early on and they're like really sore. And they think they injured themselves and they can't move You heard them because they're so tight yes, but yeah, they're just sore I had my kids do that so I remember the first time I trained my daughter when she was young and you know

It's hard to judge how hard to train someone at first. I thought I was appropriate But apparently went a little too hard and the next morning she wakes up and she's calling me from bed Oh, but I go in there. What's the matter, honey? She's like, I hurt my legs when I was working out. And so I'm like, what do you mean your hurt your legs? Where does it hurt? She's like, oh, right here. So I like got her knee and I stretched it and said, does this thing? And I had to move her through and to figure out for her, like, okay, you're just sore. Yeah. This isn't that kind of, you know, the kind of bad pain. I have some notes here from another article. By the way, these will all be posted in the show notes,

but check this out. So this is from a website where they're talking about like the complexity of pain or whatever, and then they talked about exercise and they said, exercise is a proven intervention for treating pain regardless of its mechanism, okay? In fact, it's the only intervention shown to be effective for all pain mechanisms.

So it decreases no sea scepter activity. Okay, so no sea septers can perceive pain from a physical standpoint. It increases inhibitory systems. So inhibitory systems are systems that will promote pain killers. It increases endogenous opioids. So your body's own production of opioids, which makes you feel good. So exercise does that too. Of course, it also is serotonin levels and it restores normal movements to joint. So if your pain is a result of poor movement patterns, proper exercise makes you move more. That goes away as well. It impacts not only biological pain mechanisms, but also the contextual factors of the movement system and psychosocial mechanisms. In other words, all of the things that we've

identified that contribute to the complexity of pain or pain itself, exercise improves all of them. There's in a single treatment that does that. I mean, I always bring up bisometrics, but it has an LG-SIC effect. Totally, which is amazing, but yeah, there's just so much benefit there that is untapped if you're not doing it.

100%. All right, the next one makes you happier. You know, I read a study study so trip off this right I read a study that talked about the Life quality effects of antidepressants on people with mild to moderate depression, which is most common form, okay and so these are people who took SSRIs and So selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and selective noripinephrine, reuptake inhibitors, I think, is the most common antidepressants. And here's what they found.

Although all of the participants said they felt less symptoms of depression, they saw no improvements in quality of life compared to controls. Now, there's a bigger discussion here, I think is in the complexity of what improves quality of life, what happiness really is, is it just a feeling or is it, is there meaning and purpose? And, you know, we do.

The SSRI is pretty much dull that feeling. So, to where you're not feeling depressed, but you're not really improving your feeling. That's, that's what this is leading to. That's what it hints to, right? So what they'll do, like an SSRI, what it does is it prevents the reuptake of serotonin, so you get more circulating serotonin. So you get the feeling or less of a feeling of depression, but the quality of life in these people didn't really

improve compared to people who didn't take it. Now, exercise is different. Exercise, first off, in comparisons to SSRI drugs for mild to moderate depression is at least as effective at Reducing the feelings of depression now when you follow the studies long It actually starts to train better than SSRIs now. Here's another thing Exercise definitely improves quality of life definitely why because it doesn't just make you feel better But because it also provides all these lessons and growth and struggle and empowerment. That's my opinion at least in terms of that. Well, pretty much everything we're going to list off in this episode is on top of that, you know,

besides the fact that it helps with the depression. Well, without talking about United Presence, what about just in general, what does the, you know, kind of the curve look like for the average human? Like, do they get happier? Isn't there like a peak and then you come down? I think that's where our third page. Yeah, I think that there's a conversation in that and itself is that we get to a certain point

where we see kind of peak happiness and then it starts to decline. And a lot of, there's a, and they've obviously, they've pointed in the direction of things of just like losing purpose or what you're in there life. And so besides just talking about depression and antidepressant drugs and all the studies around that, but what about just the average person who just tends to get less happy as

they get older? And yet they probably have more things. And we've also seen that over time too, is like we have more today, right? Somebody who would be considered impoverty today has more than like, you know, somebody who'd be considered wealthy 100 years ago has yet were less happy as a society. So what does that tell you?

And then what does exercise provide for the trouble? That's special, right? Think about that, right? I bet you, if we created a pill that gave you all the physical benefits of exercise, it would still wouldn't equal the benefits of exercise. I actually think we'd have more depressed people.

So do I. It's just like what I think, I mean, I agree. So then that Elon Musk interviewed it, he just recently did. He says that there's a lot of experts that are calling this era that's coming up is the era of abundance. And really soon here, well, especially with

AI coming in this all this technology and stuff that and I remember I'll never forget the first time we met and hung out with Tom Bilyu. He said this and it stuck with me forever when he said that anything that can be free will be free in our lifetime. And so what does that mean is well, it means if we can create something where like a in AI robot can now replace a human from creating or making of it, literally the overhead becomes very, very minimal. So people who could not afford a lot of these things

will now be able to afford these things. But the thing that I think is most scary about that is that I predict that we won't be any happier as a society. In fact, I actually think we'll have the opposite that will happen, even though more people will be in abundance, more people will have, I actually think as a whole, we will start to study. The studies actually support that. The studies show that up to a certain point, having more helps. So like, if you don't have a home,

it helps to have a home. If you don't have food, it helps to have food, right? If you don't have water, it helps to have water. But past a certain point, you don't get any happier with more stuff. And I agree with you because I think what'll happen is people are gonna be so lost. I have everything. I take these pills that make me feel a particular way. I have as much sex as I want because I have a sex robot or whatever. I don't have to work.

That means I could paint and do our all day long or read or do nothing all day long. Like, have a spoon. Yeah, we're eliminating the opportunity to struggle. Yes, struggle is a major component in there that provides purpose. Yeah. And what does exercise include? It's lots of struggle.

Lots of struggle. It's basically the microcosm for the grander scale of what life you're living. So this is something that's controllable. You see growth in there and then growth is also that other factor that, you know, is we're growth and we're growth junkies at heart. Like people want to grow and to evolve and to have purpose. And once we start like pulling those opportunities away,

that's where I really see the decline. We're always doing one or the other. We are either growing or we're dying. And so, and when you are in the pursuit of bettering your health, you're moving in the direction. It's growth. Of growth.

A little bit more muscle, a little bit smarter and sharper, a little bit leaner, a little bit stronger, a little bit more mobility. That's a better health. These are all things in the growth direction. And so by completely deciding that, oh, I'm not going to be a workout or a fitness or a health person and just cutting that out of your life, you automatically are, I mean,

that's like a layup for growth. I mean, there's other aspects of your life where you can grow, but that's like there's so many aspects within trying to be healthier that provide that growing or that growth for you. And if you're not, you're going the other direction. Oh, I tell you what, you take somebody who struggled, learned, built a business, and earned $100 million versus someone who won the lottery and won $100 million. And you will see a stark difference in the value and purpose $100 million. And you will see a stark difference in the value and purpose behind both people.

Very, very different. And studies have shown this. People who won the lottery tend to lose it afterwards and they're right back to where their baseline was before versus when you struggle and grow and learn. So you take the struggle out of exercise, the growth process out of exercise and you just get the results, you're not gonna get,

you know what you'll end up with, an antidepressant pill, that's what you're gonna end up with. Because we know that exercise, proper exercise increases serotonin, dopamine, neuroponiferin, epinepin, all the chemicals that make us feel good, but if you remove the work that goes along with exercise, then you're just left with another antidepressant pill.

Here's some more interesting stuff on this, on happiness and the brain and exercise. So another great article, this is from Harvard Health. In people who are depressed, neuroscientists have noticed that the hippocampus of the brain, the region that helps regulate mood is smaller. Exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, improving nerve cell connections,

which help relieve depression. So you think exercise just builds your biceps, it also builds your hippocampus. Nerve gains. How cool is that, right? All right, here's another one, right? It actually, exercise actually makes you age slower. But like, on a chemical, biological level, you have an age, you also have a chronological age, so you could be 50, but then we can look at your cells and say, how old are they, biologically, and then we can

determine an age there, exercise actually slows that process down. So you guys are from with the telomeres that we always talk about, right? You find these. The length is what we're looking at of the telomeres. Yes, so we're looking at the length longer telomeres, typically younger, shorter, typically older, proper exercise is one of the most, if not the most effective way that we found, to maintain long telomeres. So it's like you get older chronologically,

but your cells stay young because of exercise. And I tell you what, like I'm gonna ask you guys this question, when you guys see people who work out consistently and do it right, how big of a difference is it between that person and their peers as they age? Oh yeah, it just keeps growing, is there? It's crazy.

Isn't there a simpler way to say that like, our bodies are always adapting in one way or the other. Either is adapting and it's pruning off things that we no longer need or use because it's trying to become more efficient as we age Right, or just adapting to what you like if you don't do anything. Well, then this is what we need Yeah, right exactly. It's it's pruning off things that everything from in your your cognitive side to your muscles It's like hey if we're never gonna move in that range of motion again We're gonna lose that range of motion. Yeah, so you're either you're always adapting

Are they're adapting in that direction where you're pruning off and losing skills and abilities or you're adapting in the direction of gaining new skills and abilities. And so by simply, just simply by exercising or training, right, you are trying to build muscle, increase range of motion or keep those things. So the body is adapting in a direction of growth, of improvement, simply not doing that. It's naturally going to adapt in the opposite direction and start pruning all these things. Yeah, I hate those easy examples with the car,

but like there's just so many parallels there that I see all the time mechanically speaking, even with cells, they need to optimally be used and constantly have work. Whereas an engine in a car, you know that if you're not constantly running through all the systems and getting the oil flowing, getting the gas through it,

getting everything working and moving, it just slowly dies, it rusts out. There's opportunities for disease basically to come in. We're built to move. So mechanically speaking, we are machines in that sense. You can look at us biologically, but we're still have a lot of mechanisms in there to consider.

Totally, managing gyms, it's really interesting. This is like, you start to notice this. It's, well, I mean, it becomes impossible not to notice. A 25 year old guy who works out is dedicated and eats right. The difference between a 25 year old that works out like that and one that doesn't is that the 25 year old guy who works out is dedicated and eats right. The difference between a 25 year old that works out like that and one that doesn't is that the 25 year old that works out can bench press three hundred pounds, could squat three hundred fifty pounds,

just got more muscle and leaner, and his coat is the person we're comparing him to, another 25 year old, can't do those things. That's the difference, right? He could bench three hundred, this guy could maybe bench a hundred and twenty. That's the difference. Take a He could bench 300. This guy could maybe bench 120. That's the difference. Take a 70 year old that exercises regularly.

That eats right. That's been doing it for years. And compare them to their counterpart. The difference is they're independent. They can walk up the stairs. They can take care of themselves. This person is in a care home. Has chronic diseases.

Is on 15 different medications. And can't stay, you know, can't take care of themselves. Like stark difference, dramatic difference. It makes a huge difference as you age to stay fit and it's because it literally slows down the biological aging process so that you don't get the same chronic diseases. You continue to stay mobile, you're sharp, you have sex,

you could do all this other stuff and the people, your peers are like dying, and they need help, it's really crazy. I feel like it's, you've ever seen those charts or graphs for like the stock market or a Roth IRA, where it's like if you start at this age, and every year you put away 2000, if you started at this age versus this age.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Compounding. Yeah, the compounding interest, I really feel like the same thing is with extra sizes. And as you age, that gap between you and the people that weren't investing becomes massive. At the beginning, it's only $2,000 a year. What's $2,000 a year?

Good point. But when you're 50, 60, 70, and you've consistently done that, you are now a millionaire in compared to your peers who chose, eh, it's not a big deal. I'll wait till I have to do it, or I'm not gonna do it at all. I mean, I think that's where it reminds me of that, right?

It has a very, very similar separation as you get older. This next one is pretty cool because this was a big, you turn from medical industry. It used to be, not that long ago, where if you had a major chronic disease, the advice from your doctor was to not exercise, don't move too much. Like we don't wanna stress your body.

Don't put more stress on your body. What we're finding now is that exercise improves, or helps you recover from major illnesses to the point now where it's protocol, or if you have protocol, heart disease, let me read this one to you. Regular exercise improves your heart health and studies have shown that it's tolerated well in people with heart disease and produces significant benefits.

In other words, if you exercise properly, when you have heart disease, forget about preventing it, obviously prevents chronic disease. But let's say you already got heart disease. Exercise helps you recover much better than not right diabetes Physical activity helps you control your weight boost your energy lower increase your insulin sensitivity and sometimes reverse diabetes asma I grew up with asthma as a kid resistance training cured it for me I don't get asthma anymore and I'm positive it was exercise that did it for me Pain chronic pain. Well as trainers. That's something that we solve all the time.

Arthritis, cancer, cancer. They show studies show that exercise, it lowers the risk of dying from killer types of cancers. Breast cancers, stage four, colon cancers, prostate cancers. So you have cancer if you exercise properly and you do same treatments as someone else, you're more likely to survive. What do you think is the biggest rocks from that art? Do you think it is the movement of blood and oxygen and nutrients?

Do you think it's the metabolism benefits of building muscle? Protective effects of muscle. Getting its protective effects of muscle both for the metabolism and for your bones and start like, what do think are all those things are true the keep you moving Which I know as you age a lot of times like Let's see you can't get out of your chair anymore like what that does in terms of your overall decline Yeah, I really rapid pace. So right have the mental the mental benefits of the having the purpose of it everything All those things probably help fight chronic disease.

Oh, I mean, if we had, if we invented exercise right now, we would be, we would all win the Nobel Peace Prize. By all the benefits that it provides, it would be insane. There's like almost nothing that it improves. And so, if you have a major illness, and by the way, this goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, just to be very clear, appropriate exercise. Yes, the right dose. Okay, the right dose, because if you have chronic disease and then you go over train, you're going to kill yourself.

You're going to make yourself much worse. If you do it appropriately and apply it appropriately, you're improving your health. Does that healthier version of you have a higher chance of surviving or recovering from chronic disease, absolutely, right? Across the board, yes. So that's what they show in the studies. And this, again, 50 years ago,

if you had heart disease or cancer or a stroke, doctor was like, don't do anything. Sit down, boy it is, all of a sudden. Sleep, relax. Now they're like, no, you gotta go in the opposite direction. All right, here's another one. It improves your sex life, okay. Ooh, yeah. So here's an interesting one. It improves your sex life. Okay.

Yeah. So here's an interesting one. It doesn't like that. I know. So check this out. I wrote this down from a cool article. So this was on exercise and sex. So this is quote, in man, regular exercise

appears to be a natural viagra. It's associated with the lower risk of erectile problems. In one study, sedentary middle-aged man assigned to participate in a vigorous exercise program for nine months reported more frequent sexual activity, improved sexual function, and greater satisfaction. Those whose fitness levels increased, who's increased the most, saw the biggest improvements in their sex lives.

Now with women, women who exercise or physical activity report greater sexual desire, arousal and satisfaction in comparison to women who are sedentary. The blood flow to the genitals, which we all think of the erection in a man, women also get a mini erection. They get their blood flow goes there as well and that's a part of their sexual satisfaction and whatnot. Exercise dramatically increases that.

So it's like you get, you know, you increase blood flow to your muscles, you get it to your genitals too. Do you think there's specific benefits that are unique to each sex from the exercise? Yeah, for example, like I have some feminine traits, I know that. One of the, I know that.

I like high-started that. So I recognize that. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I also recognize that. I like how you start with that. So I recognize that. And I, I, I, I, I, I've also recognize that I'm crushed because, you know, I've been teased before by my own wife saying that like, that's such a girl's trait for you to be like that. Where when I, no, I'm serious when, well, when I'm training, I'm working out and I feel sexy.

Oh, I see. I want to have more sex. And it's, it's very directly connected to that. And when I'm not consistent and I don't feel confident and I just, I feel sluggish and I don't look, I don't wanna have sex. It's self-confidence. Yeah, I don't wanna, I just not in the mood

as much but boy, when I'm, it's when I don't even look good naked. I mean, it seems obvious, right? But I also feel like that, there's probably more women right now that are listening like, oh, totally Adam, you know, that totally agree with that. And maybe, maybe less dudes,

you know, my boss is like, I don't give a shit, if I got a belly or not, I'm still looking. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm sure there's guys that think like that, but I'm totally not that. I bet you guys do the same thing. I think guys don't admit it. Well, I'm asking you guys,

are you noticed that about yourself? Yeah, totally. It's very obvious for me. If I feel strong and fit and just feel healthy, oh yeah, man, I mean, by the way, this makes perfect evolutionary sense. If you feel healthy and strong, your body's like, procreate,

you got what it takes to take care of this kid. You can work, you can move. I mean, you don't feel good. Why would you add into the mouth? So that's the only difference is the lights on, lights off for me. So. So that, so that there's a point right there. So maybe there are some extra benefits for, since women are the ones carrying the babies,

that it's even more important for them to feel healthy. That would because if their health is just slightly off, the likelihood of their body telling it that it wants to reproduce is much greater. We can be, we can really hammer the shit out of our bodies and our body still will say it wants to reproduce or can reproduce. But a woman's hormones, if they're off really bad or she's ill or sick, I would imagine that really shuts that stuff. Well speaking of hormones, right, when you're telling your body to build muscle, your body has to organize its hormones to do that. So the first step is send the signal to build muscle, your body has to organize its hormones to do that. So the first step is send the signal to build muscle. One of the next steps is your body says, all right, hormones, let's organize you in a

way to build muscle. What does that build muscle hormone profile look like? It's a youthful hormone profile. It's higher testosterone. It's testosterone. In both men and women, it's growth hormone levels that are more youthful. It's cortisol that's appropriate, right? It goes up in the morning, comes down at night.

It's estrogen and progesterone balance in women. It's insulin sensitivity. It's a youthful hormone profile. And of course, when you're more youthful or younger, you tend to have more sex drive because you're more fertile. So you're actually producing a fertility type hormone profile and that's gonna drive you to one-have, or at least especially enjoy your sex.

I think it also improves the quality of your sex. Totally. You know, I had a very funny thing that happened to me not that long ago with Chris. Not that long ago when I was kind of off of my training consistently. I was still training just for me the volume, right? So I know I share that all the podcasts,

like there's never, I don't ever go a month without lifting weights, at least once a week, right? But my volume was down. So my strength, my stamina, all that stuff had been declining, my diet was off, and I remember feeling winded. And that was the good point. That was the reason why we stopped.

Was it like, I mean, I would have loved it to continue on for another 20 or 30 minutes, but I was cramping up. I was tired. And so, and I know that way when I feel vibrant and strong, and I've got a lot of stamina, these hour sessions are more frequent because I can do it. You know, we're laughing. You know, that's funny.

When I was organizing this episode, I actually looked that up. That is a major thing. Well, think about, okay, I'm a 40 year old healthy man. Imagine being 50 and not healthy, that has to be, or if I could feel that, just a little bit of dip in my stamina from training and stuff like that, that it affected mine, how dramatic you think that is

for obese or you're just talking about a shape. You just laying down the whole time. That's fun. No, because you can't, not because you don't for obese or you're just taller than a shade. Yeah, you just laying down the whole time. You're right. No, because you can't, not because you don't want to or you wouldn't love to do it. Totally, because you can't perform for that long. That's 100%. You've got to make the case how it dramatically improves

the quality of your family. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. It's funny when you look at unhealthy older individuals, when they start, when Viagra first hit the market. So Viagra obviously was a breakthrough drug, you know, it gave men the ability to have erections when they couldn't have one before, you know, for a long time or whatever. They actually had to warn some of their patients because they were older and add a shape and they said, all right, here's a deal,

I'm going to give you Viagra, which by the way improves blood flow, but still they had to say, we got gotta be careful because you can give yourself a heart attack because you're out of shape. And now you can get a, you know, an erection, you're gonna go have sex, and you're so out of shape that we think you need to lose weight and get in shape before you.

For the one area, I actually see Barbara hip thrusts actually making a difference. Yeah. Well, by the way, these are all things that, I know this isn't the main direction of the episode, but I think an important note, because we talk a lot about this in the show, about helping clients connect the dots to other aspects of training that dramatically. Not just fat loss and botting.

There's a huge portion of the population right now that don't strengthen, because they think that it's for self-absorbed people, because they care so much about the way they look, or they want to be strong, they have insecurities about not having muscles. So there is a big portion of our population that stays away from it because they think that's what they look at the fitness space. And there are massive benefits

that have nothing to do with any of those things that you get from it. And I think it's important that even if your client is somewhat aware, is helping them connect their journey, their training, their dieting to these aspects, because if you wanted to continue forever and into old age, these are the things that will, it continue to get better effects. All these other areas are right. You're not going to continue to hit PRs most likely into your 50s, 60s, and 70s, okay? You're most likely not going to be in the best body fat percentage you've ever been in your 50s, 60s, and 70s. No. Okay. You're most likely not going to be in the best body fat percentage

you've ever been in your 50s, 60s, and 70s. But all these things that we're talking about, you absolutely continue to maintain or potentially even into old age. 100%. The primary, for me personally, the primary driver behind exercise was when I first started build muscle, how strong am I?

How do I look? Now, I still like those things, don't get me wrong, but they're not the prime drivers anymore. All the stuff we're talking about, especially the mental health for me, is the main driver. If I had some problem where I lost tons of muscle and strength and I couldn't really build that anymore

with exercise, it still work out. Because of all those other benefits. So I'm so glad you made that point. All right, here's the last one. I love this one. And that is that it teaches you acceptance. So people think, well, what do you mean acceptance with exercise? Well, I'm gonna tell you something right now. If you stick to exercise long enough, you will learn to accept your physical and genetic limitations. You will. Because you may at first be motivated by your insecurities and by your body image and you might look at a picture on Instagram and say, I want to look like that person right there.

That's the body I want. And then you stick to it long enough and then at some point you're like, I'm never going to look like that person. I don't have their genetics. I don't have their body structure. They're younger than me, whatever. But I'm going to keep doing this because I enjoy this and it's still giving me benefit. That type of acceptance is phenomenal

because it leads you to the next thing, which is that you realize that there are certain things you can control, so let's accept the stuff that we can. Let's focus on the stuff that we can. Like I get up and work out. I can do this exercise. I can challenge myself. I can improve my health personally.

I can do the best with the genetics that I was given with my circumstances. I could given, with my circumstances, I could improve upon them within myself. But that acceptance lesson is phenomenal. Another part of it is it takes time. Do you guys remember learning that when you first worked out? I think that's a big thing, a part of the acceptance is just understanding that not only that will it take a long time to probably reach certain goals, but that the goal is just keep the bar just keeps it getting moved. It reminds me of like chasing a financial number like, oh, I want to be a millionaire one day. It's like, well, if you ask any millionaire

when they reach a million, what happened? They want a two million. And it's like, so that will never end. So you, so the quicker you can figure that out, that, oh, I have this look, I would just be so happy if I had six pack abs and my arms were two more inches or you have this, and then you reach it, and then what happens is you still want more. And so that acceptance of understanding that these pursuits, they'll continue your entire life. So instead of being so focused on those pursuits,

more so learning to enjoy the journey and the process, and that's where the real magic is at. Yeah, we have these conversations all the time with clients because initially what pulls them in is a very specific target, a very specific goal, and then a lot of times from there, what's the next thing? What's the next big event I can sign myself up for

and achieve something on that level? When in fact, we're not paying attention to every workout that we're doing where we're getting all these benefits and we're really enjoying the process of getting to that goal. The goal starts to become insignificant because it starts focusing on those interactions and that feeling that we have as we're putting in the work. And by the way, 80% of people that get the results, that reach their goal, end up giving it all back.

80% of them. If they're in love with just the goal. The 20% of them that figured out, have something all in common. This is it, right? Yes. It's the journey. This is the piece is they've learned to make that switch

or else it's almost inevitable that you're eventually gonna give it back. You're gonna put the weight back on, you're gonna lose the strength, those things are gonna happen if that's all you were focused on. The people that are successful in this, they have figured out, and maybe they haven't figured out

to attach it to all these things we're talking about. They've learned to latch on to other aspects other than their belly fat or their muscle strength or their PR inside the gym, they've learned to attach it to other aspects that enhances their life and that's what keeps them going on and staying out of the 80% that go back. Yeah, 100% look, who's going to be more consistent for the rest of their life? The man that loves exercise, that man that loves eat healthy, or the man that loves to add

50 pounds to his bench press and lose 4% body fat, right? The person that enjoys the process and the journey goes a lot further, and if you stick to this long enough, you learn to enjoy the journey, because it's the only way to do this for a long period of time. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfreed.com and check out our guides.

We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at my pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at my pump Adam and you can only find me on Twitter at my pump cell. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy

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