Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1807: Why All Moms Deserve Time for Self-Care

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the value of mothers and the need for them to prioritize taking time to care of themselves. What drives moms to hire personal trainers more than any other demographic? (2:14) You can’t pour from an empty cup. (5:50) The value of working out to increase productivity. (8:16) Learning from example. (12:17) The importance of taking time for yourself. (17:03) The #1 hurdle for this type of client. (19:37) How you can workout in a way that actually energizes you! (23:37) Strength feels attractive! (29:33) The health benefits of resistance training in speeding up your metabolism. (30:34) Train smarter, NOT harder. (31:57) Being the example for your kids. (33:59) The value in spending money for time. (37:06) The top 2 tips for workout efficiency in terms of results in the gym. (40:23) Why there is a hierarchy in exercise selection and programming. (42:57) Don’t be afraid to break up your workouts. (44:45) General, easy rules for strength training. (47:36) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: 60% OFF The Fit Mom Bundle, Bikini Bundle, Build Your Butt Bundle, or Fabulous 40's Bundle. **Promo code MOM60 at checkout** OFFER EXPIRES 11:59 pm SUNDAY MAY 8TH Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Employee wellness programs prod workers to adopt healthy lifestyles Mind Pump #1647: Ten Female Fitness Lies Mind Pump #1802: Seven Surprising Benefits Of Exercise Monkey see, monkey do: Model behavior in early childhood Effects of long versus short bout exercise on fitness and weight loss in overweight females Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

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 why moms deserve time for self-care. We talk about all the struggles of finding time to work out, how to make workouts most effective and efficient, and why it's so important to improve your health and fitness,

not just for yourself, but for your family. Now, because we're talking to moms in this episode and because this episode is for Mother's Day, we took our most popular workout bundles with women and we put them 60% off. So these are the bundles that a lot of our female listeners tend to enroll in, especially a lot of the moms that we have. They're listening to the show. We have a Fit Mom bundle. We have a Bikini bundle. We have a Build Your Butt Bundle and Fabulous 40s bundle. So all of them include multiple workout programs. You can follow one workout program, complete that one,

and move to the next. Bundles are always discounted, but what we're doing for Mother's Day is we're taking an additional 60% off. Okay, so every one of those bundles is an additional 60% off for Mother's Day. So if you're interested, you go to maps, fitnessproducts.com, and then use the code mom60, 60 mom 60 no space for that discount.

Now this episode is also brought to you by our sponsor Zbiotic. So Zbiotic is the world's first genetically modified probiotic drink designed to help mediate or excuse me help with the side effects of drinking alcohol. So in other words, you take this drink, Zibotics, you go enjoy some wine or some drinks with your friends, you feel way better the next day, and it really does work. Zibotics is actually remarkably effective

to the point where I'm hoping it isn't get people to drink more, that's how effective it is. But anyway, it's a remarkable company, it's patented, nobody else on the market like it. So go check them out, head over to mindpumppartners.com, click on Zbiotics and then use the code MindPump22 for 10% off your order. All right, here comes the show.

You know, one of the top topics, I should say, that used to come up as a trainer, training lots of regular people was just parents, not being able to find the time or make the time to take care of themselves, especially moms. I used to get this a lot with the moms that I would train. And I know that, I mean, you guys both train in similar environments.

I would say the majority of the clients that I trained were women and a majority of them were moms. So this is like a common thing that I would have to work through was being able to find the reason, the time, and then the motivation or the consistency around finding the time to take care of themselves. So I think we should talk about what this is all about. Real quick, what do you think that is? I totally agree.

I'd say somewhere between 65 and 75% of my clientele over two decades was Moms yeah And it wasn't just me and then the rest of my trainers had total different like it was pretty That was pretty common for most trainers. I would say a majority of personal training clients are women and then a majority of them are moms So it's more common. Yeah, so what do you think it is about moms that what drives them to actually look to hire a personal trainer versus any other demographic. What do you think that is? Well, I think in general, and we're going to make some generalizations here, but you know, the whole stereotype of the guy that doesn't ask for directions. So I think part of it is men are less than half right away. Right away, I think half of the reason is just

men are terrible at admitting that we need help or admitting we need direction. I think that's been proven already. So I think that's already half and then it's like okay, well then. So we already know that you're going to get mostly women just because of that. Okay, that we figured that piece out. But it did seem like I had a lot more mothers than I had like the and I did train quite a bit of very successful single women that were, you know, 25 to 35, too, but not as much as I trained my mom. Yeah, I think it's because, and we'll get to this, right? Because this would be a good, your topic.

But I think it's because when they get to the point where they're like, okay, it's important to make some time for myself. It's important I take care of my health and, and my fitness that they're like, I don't have a lot of time to waste. I'm not going to schedule this and be as efficient as possible and it's you see it's all the time It's like it's almost like the margardum syndrome where You just end up like caring about everybody else so much and like scheduling everything revolving around everybody else But now wait a minute. I'm burn out like I really need to look at what I'm doing And I would get a lot of moms like that coming in.

That just almost needed as an outlet. Yep, totally. Yeah. I think that, I remember multiple times where I'd sit down and kind of have like a mom sit down and prioritize like her day of all the things that she has to come. And it's crazy. They would always list all these things.

And never would you see themselves anymore in there. They take care of so much. And they themselves is like last. And I have it at an exercise where we would do that. We write down and be like, where are you? And many times, when we break down, like crying, and so I'm literally having a realization that like, man, I don't even prioritize myself at all.

And like trying to figure out how do I unpack this and fix this because for so long, I've been serving my kids or my husband or my household or all these other things that they are trying to manage and still not taking care of that. When they start to realize that if they prioritize themselves still first, which is really hard to get, I think, a mom to make that switch, that all those other things that are so important to them actually improve also. Yeah, they're more effective. Right.

Yeah, I know. I have a great mom. I love my mom. She's incredible. But she would, she had a tough time. She still does. Has a tough time taking care of herself when there's her kids, her grandkids, you know, my dad and all those other responsibilities. I mean, to the point where, you know,

we'll eat over at my parents' house once a week still. So, or almost once a week. So, let's say we go there for Sunday dinner. She'll get the food out, she did all the cooking or whatever, and then she's like, no, everybody start eating. And she's still doing stuff. And it's like, you know, momma, sit down, eat with us. And she's like, no, no, I gotta get this. I gotta do that.

And so it's like, she does it even with dinner. And I've had these conversations with her. And I hear from her what I used to hear from a lot of my clients, which was, I feel guilty taking time away and doing stuff. Especially when you have little kids, right? You have little kids that need a lot. And you're like, oh, I'm gonna go take an hour out when I could be doing something for my daughter or my son or for

their school. I'm going to go take time out to go for a walk or go exercise. That feels selfish. There's something so admirable about that at the same time. It comes from a good place. It really does, but really if you take a step back and you look at it, it actually makes you not effective. And then over time, the thing that you wanna do the most, which is take care of your family or take care of these responsibilities, you're not even able to do because you're fried

or because your health starts to suffer, you just feel bad about yourself because you're not doing these things. So it has to be a conscious kind of decision and it's a tough one. But if you, you know what's that saying? You can't pour from an empty cup. Yeah.

It's like you got to be able to kind of, you know, take care of you. And part of the problem is that a lot of the moms that I trained, my wife, my wife is like this, my mom was like this, is they're so resilient. Like they can keep, it's like they have this endless reserve of like, I'm just gonna keep, you know, beating this up up. Yeah, and keep going. And again, admirable.

It's, it's, you know, I look at my mom or my wife, I think, warrior. Like you're such a warrior for the family and for your kids, but we gotta, we to pause for a second. And, you know, it's like you have a car, you got to put gas in the tank and you got to, you know, take care of the engine, you got to change the oil, you can't just keep running the engine, eventually it's going to break down. No, I know we're talking about moms, but I also found a lot of parallels with the high performing CEO, male CEO even, right? So, and just in general, that mindset of having

to operate so many other things in life, it sometimes forces those people into thinking that themselves has to come last because there's so many other important things that they have to juggle. And I think the same realization happens for them when they, when they start to really take care of themselves and prioritize themselves that all those other things that they're juggling that is so important to them, they don't lose value. They don't lose any sort of time towards them. In fact, you somehow and they all end up finding this out like so crazy, I now dedicate X amount of hours a week to myself for improving myself.

And I feel like I'm actually getting more time in all these other things that I've been juggling for so long. But it's the transition or the bridge to get them there that is the hardest part or the job. I used to hear that from people all the time. And there's not a lot of studies on parents on this, besides maybe surveys and stuff. But there are actual studies when it comes to business. And I used to use these studies when I would go and approach corporations for corporate membership. So when I used to run gyms for people, no, right? So you manage gym and part of your responsibilities

is getting new members, right? And part of that strategy is going to large companies and doing what are called corporate membership. So like I would go to, let's say I go to Google and I'd say, hey, Google has their own gym and stuff now. But back in the day, a lot of these companies didn't, I'd go to these companies and say, hey,

you can get a corporate membership, it's a discounted rate. And then what it would do is it would cover the enrollment fee or maybe the entire fee of a gym membership and your employees would have access to our gym. And here's the statistics on the value that you get for every dollar that you spend doing that. And the statistics show that for every dollar

that a company would spend on their employees' health and fitness, they would get $2 back in productivity and reduced absenteeism so people would be less likely to show up to work late or or be sick or colon sick. They're more productive when they're not work. I said that so they for every dollar they get two dollars back in productivity and I'd show them these num- these statistics. There's actual data that shows this and that sometimes would work and then they'd sign up and then they would of course stick around because their employees would find value and they'd see that. There aren't studies on parents in this,

but it's just as true. I work out early in the morning, I do that for a reason because it's hard to get it done later on in the day when things can get the way. But I know when I work out, I'm a much calmer father, I'm a much more productive person here when we're doing the podcast. I feel healthier, I feel better about myself. I'm just much more productive person here when we're doing the podcast. I feel healthier, I feel better about myself.

I'm just more effective. Yeah. I'm just more effective so that so it's you know in advertising there's a phrase where you trade dimes for quarters so like oh you spend this much $10,000 in advertising but you get back $20,000 in revenue. Well that's worth it right? It's totally worth it. That's what's you know what we have with fitness.

But there are definitely some challenges, and there definitely are some stumbling blocks and things that get in the way of doing that. And there's also things to consider. When you don't have kids, when you don't have responsibilities, when you don't have lots of other things in your life, when you're just going to school and you live at home with mom and dad, you don't when you're just, you know, you're just going to school and you live at home

with mom and dad. You don't have a lot of, you have time, you know, and maybe you think you don't if you're listening and that's you, but you do. Trust me, one day you'll realize how much time you have. Where you can go to the gym, you can waste your time, you can do all this different things. When you're a parent or a mom, and by the way,

statistics will show this, data will show this, even working moms still do more work at home than dads do, so they just do a lot. You don't have all the time in the world, so there's some things that you have to consider when you say, okay, this is important, I take care of myself. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of stories of

growing up that my mom kind of shined and showed me an example of this, and she was really good at being consistently going to jazz or size and making a routine of movement and exercise. It was a really good model. That's why you like jazz or size. For me, for me. That's not the only reason.

It was very impressionable for me and my youth watching that. But going through people in the way, she brought me along and it was just like, it was like part of growing up. It's like, these are important things. Like I'm not gonna, you know, like, I'm not gonna to compromise this. This is something that's valuable for the way that I then can operate the rest of the day.

And so she was like very much modeling that to me that, you know, health was something that kept everything in balance and kept us all unified as a family. So that was definitely something I took away. Do you guys think there was a generational challenge here, though, too? Like, I see a major difference between this conversation, like I'm thinking about right now, my mom too, right? Like comparing my mom to Katrina, and it's way different. Yep, yeah.

And I think that the, like, the, it's more acceptable, quote unquote, now to take care of yourself and work out than it was before. I agree. I think that I think my mom's generation, that wasn't really, at least not till later in her life, would do that, start that conversation, start to happen more often, I feel like, where Katrina had that already, she already had that built in her when we met, almost

13 years ago now, and of course, being married to a trainer, I'm sure that it, there was things that I instilled in her that just really pushed that even further, where that wasn't a thing that, for my mom, my mom, you know, what I got from my mom is, from like the motherhood side is like her resiliency, her ability to handle all the stuff. Like my mom has gone through so much shit from childhood all the way to adulthood that I can't sometimes I forget, you know, there's times when I've been harsh or hard on my mom about things that I went through,

and I think back like, fuck, man, I think I had some things hard, like she had it twice as hard as I had, and so a lot of my resiliency comes from, you know, watching the way she did stuff, but unfortunately, I don't think she ever found that balance or found that ability to really prioritize herself and her health first.

And I don't think she ever got the opportunity to see what would happen to all the other things that she was managing and juggling had she first prioritized her own health. Yeah, my mom wasn't good at it. She still isn't. Like if I get up to, to, to, to, will he dinner and I'll get up and I'll start putting dishes away and stuff. She'll take him in my hands and try and do. And I have to like, I have to argue with her.

No, sit down and then the way I get her to stop is I figured out a trick when I was a kid. The way to get my mom to do something would be to hug her and kind of hold her and she'd get a little irritated but because she likes being hugged so much, she'll stop. So I'd like, she'll take the dish for me and I'll be like, I'll be like, I'll stop and I'll hug her and I'll be like, I'm not going to go and deal with you. Watch the dishes that she kind of gives in a little bit and let's me do it. But she feels weird even when I we get her to do certain things for herself.

Now later generations, you're right. They start to see the value in some of this. things for yourself. Now, later generations, you're right. They start to see the value in some of this. Like with Jessica, you know, I find way more value in paying for, let's say, a nanny three days a week to watch the baby so she could work out way more value in that than in saving the money from the nanny. So that she does there. And then what happens is she's not able to take care of herself. She's gonna be far more stressed. And I know what that feels like if I don't exercise. So it's very, it's very, very important.

But again, you gotta think of yourself like, you know, like a working machine. Like none of us would treat a machine that was important to our lives that way. Like if you had one car for your whole family, and it was crucial that you had this car. It's gotta take me to work, it's gotta take me home, it's gotta take the kids to car. It's gotta take me to work. It's gotta take me home.

It's gotta take the kids to school. It's the only way we can go grocery shopping. You would never ignore the engine. You would never not change the oil. You would never not fill it with gasoline. You would be like, we gotta take care of this vehicle because if we don't, we're screwed, right? So that's kind of the big message here.

So I get, and the So that's kind of the big message here. So I get in the way that I would appeal and the way that I've gotten my mom to work out in the past, as I've said exactly that, I've said, Mom, I know you do everything for everyone else. You'll be better at doing things for other people if you took care of yourself a little bit. And that's the only way I could get her to kind of make some of those, you know, some of those decisions. It's funny we're having this conversation. It was literally like two nights ago that Katrina and I were, I mean, we just came off of this like five day stretch of us having the flu and like, yeah, she poor her.

She was like managing everything. And we were laying there finally like the first night of like max falling asleep. I'm finally starting to feel a little better. And she's just like, man, she's like, I'm trying, I'm looking at our schedule. I'm looking at all the things that I got going on with work. I'm looking at us being behind right now. Like, Max, like, I can't, I'm looking at our schedule, I'm looking at all the things that I got going on with work,

I'm looking at us being behind right now, like Macs, I can't even take them to school right now. And then she's like, and then I'm trying to, and she's like looking at her fingernails, right? She's like, I just can't, I have no idea when I'm gonna take care of my nails, my hair, my face, and she's going through all these things. Like, and I said, honey, you know,

this is one of the things that I said, this is like a next level of where we're at in our relationship, in our life. And then also where we've reached like success wise, I said, you know, what's the point of working hard and like you are right now because you don't have to and making more money and not using that to buy time back? I said, you know, so many people, they chased these things that like monetary things like cars and jewelry and stuff like that. And if you're into that, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you express something like this,

that you've already made this connection that, you know how valuable those things are to you, like to take care of yourself, like your workout time is, you've already figured this out. You know that when you get three or four workouts in a week, like you are such a better version of yourself. When you go get your hair done, when you get your nails done, like, and I'm so pro all that.

So if you need to carve off money to have somebody support and take care of some other things around the house, around work, I'm all for all those things. And you should do that because you know that all the other things in your life that you're juggling only get enhanced when you do that. She's kind of sitting there like just staring off and still doing it like, I don't know why I'm not doing that. I have the ability to do that yet I'm still not doing it.

It is that selflessness I think that's kind of built in moms that even when you know like she knows, she's seen in a party, still it's not the natural instinct to still do that. That's to be like deliberately scheduled. Yeah. You know, I've had that same conversation with Courtney a whole time and she's getting better at it, but it's just, yeah, it's just always a constant.

Where do I need to take the kids? What do I need to do here? Like, how can I, you know, do all these things for the family? And I'm like, you gotta take time for yourself. You gotta go hang out with your friends. You gotta go, you know, do all these things for the family. And I'm like, you gotta take time for yourself. You gotta go hang out with your friends. You gotta go, you know, be yourself and really consider filling yourself back up. So you have that kind of energy and, you know,

stamina to just keep the thing going. Now, we're talking about our mothers and our wives, who I think all really get this right now. When I think about my clients, and when I think about probably people that are listening to this more, right? Which I think are closer to get this right now. When I think about my clients, and when I think about probably people that are listening to this more, which I think are closer to more like my clients, I think like the number one hurdle or challenge is I think they think they have to do so much more than what they

really need to do. And it just seems impossible. Because when you're someone like Katrina or any of our wives and they're looking at their day, if you thought you had to be in the gym every single day, for hours and a time, and you got to do all this meal prepping, and you do all these things to calculate the time, it's going to take you to get to your desired outcome, and all that. It would be impossible.

It would be impossible with all the things that they tend to manage. And so I think that's the number one hurdle for most people. Yeah, take a wide bother if I'm not gonna be able to do this every single day. That's right. Which hopefully, if you listen to our show, you know that's a total myth. You can be very effective with well planned

and structured workouts that are really targeting beneficial adaptations, meaning adaptations where your body changes and how those work for you. You can be super, super effective. I used to train, most of the clients I ever trained were everyday regular people who just wanted to improve their fitness and health.

They weren't trying to get shredded, but they did want to be relatively lean, strong and mobile. Most of them worked out with me twice a week, two days a week, that's it. So it was two hours out of the entire week, and then they would build in a little bit of activity throughout their normal days, like we've talked about before,

where maybe you go for a 10 minute walk after lunch, or you park further from the store, so you walk a little further, by the way, this all adds up and actually makes a big difference. That would yield it because of two workouts that we did were so good, think because I was their trainer

So I knew what I was doing that gave them phenomenal results and they were always blown away because we're always told that in order for fitness routines to be effective They have to be grueling and you have to do them all the time Every day and your whole life has to be dedicated to that and part of that comes from the and your whole life has to be dedicated to that. And part of that comes from the worship that we have over fitness celebrities and athletes, which that's their job. So, and number two, it's the marketing, dude.

We've been monitoring it too, to look a certain way. And when you hear a mom, like 90% of the time, they're not, I mean, you get some that are like, I wanna look like I looked like when I was in high school, very few, but most are just like, I just wanna feel better. Yeah, I just wanna be stronger. I just wanna be able to keep up with my kids.

I just wanna be. And when you think about those things, you don't have to have this set five to seven day a week type of routine. In fact, and you don't always have to have the same looking week, which I always try and remind my mom's too, is like because it can ebb and flow with these crazy weeks. Like, of course, the last five days,

there was no way Katrina was gonna be working out. She was taking care of all of us sick, like, that's okay. But it's learning how to ebb and flow with the diet and movement, and then also learning how to strengthen properly so you get to maximize. And it's unbelievable how healthy and strong that you can be, and how productive all those others will be, it's not about trying to have

this becky body all the time, and it doesn't mean that you can't chase that and get that also, but I think when you start to make the connection to how much it enhances all the other aspects, it gives you a little bit more flexibility of like, what is this training regimen? It's a quality of life enhancer and we think that the quality of life enhancement comes from looking perfect.

That's the, believe it or not, someone might not believe me, but you talk to anybody who's been working out for a long time, over 10 years I'll tell you this, of all the things that proper exercise does for you that improves the quality of your life, the way you look is at the bottom. It's true. It's the byproduct, really. It's, that's actually a side effect. Exactly.

It's how it changes your mental state. It's how it improves your metabolism, your health, your mobility, your strength. Here's another one that's huge. And this one was huge for a lot of clients that I trained. It's the one hour of quiet time that they get. It's true. You know, when you're a parent, like talking to another adult.

When you're a parent, and especially when you're a mom, and like I said, all the stuff that you do, getting an hour where, you know, look, my wife can't go to the bathroom without my son banging on the door or wants to sit in front of her and watch her go to the bathroom. Like she has no, he takes an app and she's like, oh my God, I get it.

There's no private time. There isn't. And so when you go and you work out for 45 minutes or an hour, you put your headphones on, you follow routine, listen to a podcast like Mind Pumper, you listen to music or whatever. And strength training is great for this, right? Cause strength training, resistance training,

you kind of have to be present while you're doing it cause the movements are different, you have to focus on your positioning. So you're like, you get like this period of time where you're not getting bothered by everybody, it's just you doing your thing. That alone gives you tremendous value. Then there's the mood enhancement effects from the chemicals that the chemical breakdown that happens in your body through exercise.

Proper exercise has been compared to antidepressants when it comes to low to moderate levels of depression and anxiety, and it's either as good or better for those things. It improves mental acuity. And I know the sounds counter, especially if you're listening right now and you're tired because you're overwhelmed

and there's a lot of stuff going on. like I don't have the energy to go exert myself If you do it right, that's the important thing here. So if it's appropriate You will get more energy out of it. So in other words it may seem like I don't have the energy to go do something Well, if you do it appropriately The energy you expend you get back twice as much. So you actually have more energy From putting some energy into exercise. So if part of your struggle is, God, I'm tired all the time.

How am I going to do this? Like, again, do it appropriately and properly. So there's a lot that goes into that. But you do it right. You'll come out of it and you'll be, you'll actually feel better at the end of your workout than you did going into it. And then you'll start to feel better over time and it's compounding to the point where

my, this is my favorite thing to hear from the moms that I would train is they'd say, this is after about three months of consistent exercise with me, maybe a couple days a week. And they'd be like, I, I don't drink nearly as much coffee and I just feel like way more energetic, like I just feel like I can do more, I feel up more often. Like I'm able to do more things. I don't feel like I'm dragging, you know, throughout the day or the afternoon.

She's like, it's so weird that expanding energy and exercise actually gives me more. And return. It's such a new concept for some people out there that you could work out in a way that actually energizes you instead of like depletes you of all of your energy.

And you know, this is something why we bring that up so often is that there's a different way to approach fitness and to look at what your workout can do for you instead of just trying to do the, apply the same martyr, sort of tactics into the workout and just, you know, take it all on and try and beat yourself up.

Beat yourself up through, through the workout. You know, no, this should, this can be literally like therapy and it can really lift you up and it can mentally, you know, benefit you as well. It's our fault, I think, that that's a relatively new concept because for so long, the fitness space has pushed the motivation hype and the martyr and the crush. Yes, what they're trying to do is they're trying to capture all these people who looked in the mirror and said,

that's it, I hate my body, I hate the way I look. It's time to work out. And then because they're through this motivated, self-hate kind of state of mind, the fitness space markets to it's time to work out. And then because they're through this motivated self hate kind of state of mind, the fitness space markets to it and captures it. And it says, oh come, we'll beat you up, don't worry. And then think how many moms are like disagreeing with what you said, like, oh no, I've tried this before

and it's exhausting. And then I, and then I, yeah. And that's exactly right. And that's because they're coming from the wrong place and they're attacking the gym and this idea of like, hey, I went from no training, no diet, anything. Now, I'm gonna do this thing and this thing is like intense and it's like so far from where they just were.

It's like, nah, I didn't get to be like that. You just sucked into that kind of group setting too and this is what I kind of bring that up a lot of times because it is fun and it's an experience, but at the same time, you just kind of bring that up a lot of times because it is fun and it's an experience, but at the same time, you just kind of get caught up in the momentum of everybody else around you and you do too much. And then yes, it's going to totally exhaust you and it's not going to benefit you like it would if you're a really studious and paying attention to your body's signal on your

own and moving at your pace. It has to be appropriate. Like, I'm going to say something that might sound controversial, but which is silly to me, but you should feel better if you exercise properly from day one to infinity. Okay, there is no period in that if you train appropriately, will you feel worse?

Now that doesn't mean it's not gonna be hard or challenging, but there's good challenge, and then there's inappropriate challenge. We all know what that feels like. I have had good workouts where I'm really pushing myself and I feel amazing. I've also had workouts where I trained inappropriately and I felt like I needed to take an app afterwards or like I was dead and I couldn't work or,

you know, I didn't have the energy to hang out with my kids. So you should feel good from day one to day infinity. That's one of the signs of appropriate exercise. Again, it doesn't mean it's not going to be challenging, but if it's appropriate, when I would get a new client, if they told me at the end of my first workout or second workout, when we first got started, oh my god, I'm dead. I'd be like, okay, we went whatever we did, I don't care what we did. Even we would do one set of, you know, sit down and stand up on the bench, it was too hard. It wasn't appropriate. You should not feel that way. The way you should feel at the end is,

and I still love hearing this, to be like, I feel better now after we worked out. That's how you should feel. You know, here's something else that isn't talked about, which is, especially when you're in new mom, and I, again, I've heard this from my wife, we have a one and a half year old, she's pregnant right now.

It's the, because your body's changing, and because you're maybe even if you were fit before, and now you can exercise, you're an exercise as much, you just don't feel as attractive. And I'm gonna tell you something right now, strength feels attractive. When you start to feel stronger, that makes you feel more confident

and starts to make you feel more attractive. And it's compounded with the empowering feeling or the empowering aspect of the fact that you are choosing to do this. You're doing this thing and it's improving your body and it makes you feel more attractive. And I would hear that from people, I would hear that from husbands

because I was always friends with husbands and they would always tell me like, dude, man, I love the fact. She feels amazing. You're out of confidence. Absolutely. Here's another thing. If you do this right, and we talk about this on the show all the time, if you do this right, proper exercise in particular, strength training or resistance training, speeds up

your metabolism. Now, how does that improve the quality of the rest of your life? You can eat more and drink more and stay leaner. When you're trying to improve your fitness, we can make it difficult sometimes if you do it wrong and you end up with a slower metabolism because let's say you lost muscle, you did it the wrong way. Now, hey, I'll have a weekend, I'm gonna go away with my husband, but I gain five pounds every time I do that,

because my metabolism just doesn't respond. Why is my body like it used to be? Now, if I eat one bag of chips, I can feel it. The next day, like, what's going on? If you do this right, you end up with a metabolism that's faster, which gives you more flexibility and leeway, it gives you a better cushion, a buffer, to everyday life, to everyday life.

And everyday life, when it comes to nutrition, is not perfect. You're busy. Sometimes you do have to grab something quick. Sometimes you do want to enjoy pizza with the kids, or you want to go out to dinner with your spouse. A faster metabolism gives you, it's like a get out of jail, free card, in essence, because you burn it off naturally. Muscle does that. proper exercise in this context

for what we're looking at here, which is limited time, maximizing results, build muscle. Boy, does that make a massive difference? Which leads us to this next thing, which is your time is limited. So one thing to consider, if this is you and you're listening to this episode, and you're like, that's totally me,

you're probably also like, I just don't have a lot of time. You don't have a lot of time to waste, is what you don't have. That means you don't have five days a week to just aimlessly exercise, pick exercises at random, or follow some social media celebrity workout program, which is really just designed to get your sword and make your sweat.

Yeah. You don't have time to do that. What you want to do is you want to train in a way that's maximally effective. By the way, that does not mean maximum intensity. Yeah, it just doesn't mean like use that old go harder every time and apply that same method over and over again. You get to find that right balance,

that right dose that's really gonna propel you forward and you're going to adapt and acquire new strength. Strength is definitely one of those metrics you want to pay attention to because it's going to tell you a whole lot about how effective things are. Training smarter, not harder. That's it. Look, I'm right-handed. So I could write an essay with my left hand and it'll be a lot harder, but I'm not going to write as fast or as effectively, right? So you want to train smart, meaning, and I've said this before, a well planned appropriate workout, well programmed workout done in 45 minutes is more valuable than a two and a half hour or three hour. Random aimless program or a program you just picked off the internet written by

somebody who again they think that the value of exercise is just how hard it is. Literally 45 minutes done right will give you better results than 2.5 hours done wrong. So one of the big keys here is train properly and appropriately so that you the two hours that you do spend in the gym every week or three hours You spend in the gym every week to yourself Really yields you tremendous return so you get the benefits that we're talking about and you're not just left with sore muscles And an hour of you know sweat, you know, there's one more thing I want to add It says we got Mother's Day coming up that I think is such a powerful thing that

Some of my moms I think when I trained didn't didn't fully grasp I had some moms too that I remember dropping their kids off That were overweight and then they would leave and go have McDonald's and didn't take care of themselves But they cared about their kids so much that they didn't want them to fall in the same traps They did it so they would pay for personal training And I think what they didn't realize and what I love is that Katrina sees this and recognizes is that one of the best ways that you guys can set your kids up is by by being that example. And so we make this something that there's always every week we have at least one day where it's a kind of family workout where we're in the garage and it's you, you know, we have a plan that we're following,

but it's like loosely as far as the time and we do it. Max has got his little table out and he's on there doing play-doh or what that. And Katrina does a set, and I do a set. And it's like, and all I want from that, and what I know will happen is that he just sees that this is a regular thing in our life. Like, it's fun time.

That's right. And I don't want to, I'm not going to I'm not gonna be the dad who tries to push his kid into weight training early, or I really wanted to do these things. It's the same approach that I had with the basketball thing. Just show up at the park. He sees dad playing basketball, mom playing basketball.

It's the same concept that we're having a good time. And it's part of our lifestyle. That's such a powerful thing that you can do as a parent. So if you have a hard time figuring this out to take care of yourself first and you still are that, because I know it's hard for a lot of moms that make that transition because they're loved for their child. It's unmatched. And so if you need to come from that place, think like that.

If you can't quite figure out yet for yourself, then do it for your kid and let them see you be consistent. So you can set them up for an easier time with probably the things that you struggle with. You know, studies show that too. They show that very clearly that. What you say to your kids is like, nowhere near as impactful as what they observe.

That's right. And your behaviors. It's like the smoking parent that tells your kid, don't smoke. Don't smoke, right? And the odds of a kid picking up smoking is really high just because, you know, Marmar Dad does it, for example. It's unbelievably powerful.

And, you know, and I know there's a lot of people that are moms now that grow up in the same kind of general, same error or generation as we did. And we didn't probably have the same kind of examples. It's why I brought up our moms. Didn't do that. And so, you know, I had a lot of bad eating habits. I had a lot of bad exercising habits.

And I struggled a long time through my teens and 20s of kind of figuring this all out. And, you know, and it's not to blame my mother and parents for that. But I do believe, you know, if I had a better example early on, I probably would have pieced a lot of these things together sooner and it wouldn't been as challenging as it was to get there. And so that resonates with you and you were someone that was like that also and you're

now a mother, like let that inspire you to lead the family like that. And to be the example, so in hopes that your child doesn't have the same challenges that you probably. Yeah, you know, something else you said earlier too was about spending money on time. When they do studies on the value that we get for the money that we spend on things, the value that we get from spending money

on improving ourselves, and the money that we spend on giving us more time is far more valuable than the money that we spend on things. So it goes something like money, I could get the streaming service or I could hire this person to do some of my paperwork so I have more time to do these other stuff for myself, right? And then experiences, that was the other one. So like spending money on experiences, so like a vacation is more valuable.

And then things is down at the bottom. So it's like, you know, I could spend money on these pair of shoes or this new electronic, or I could spend money on myself, bettering myself, or money to give myself more time. Studies show that that is so much more valuable. It's funny to talk about the other generation. So as a dad, I'll tell you it. So my dad is old school.

Old school poor, he grew up poor in Sicily. And for him, spending money on anything he can do himself is like blasphemy. Like, why would I spend money on having someone change my oil? Or why would I have anybody do my backyard? Or any of that stuff, right? So when he sees me do that stuff, it's hilarious because he'll tell me like, why don't you just

mow your mow your own on yourself? Why don't you just change your own oil? I said listen dad said I'd rather take the time First off I gave him the whole like you know business side of it I said I could spend money on the gardener Doing this or I could take two hours on my doing myself But really I could take those two hours and make more than that money back by bettering myself for my work and that kind of stuff or and two hours and make more than that money back by bettering myself from my work and that kind of stuff. Or, and I could spend that time with my kids, and I get to be with them more, and it's totally valuable. So I've had these conversations with my dad, and he kind of gets a little bit, but he's

from that generation. As well where he's like, well, I would just spend the, but studies show this, and it's very, very clear. So, and, you know, and it's interesting because as a trainer, I remember as a personal trainer, talking to clients about investing in personal training versus buying supplements or buying a new shirt or new pair of shoes or whatever. And I would talk to clients about this, and said, you know, one session with a trainer back then was something like 90 bucks.

I'd say, you know, like 90 bucks, I'd say, for 90 bucks, which you look like you're gonna spend $90 on a bunch of pills and I'm gonna do anything for you, a bunch of supplements, you can have a trainer, at least write up a workout for you and show you some exercises, way more valuable than what you were just about to buy. Or way more valuable, you spend money on efficiency.

Totally. And that's, I mean, that's how you got to look at it. It's like, how can I maximize my time doing this? So it moves the needle. And, you know, hiring a trainer is going to be one of the best investments you make, or, you know, really having an outlined plan that you're just not going to waste time.

You're going to really benefit from it immediately if you get on the right path. Yeah, here's the two, here are the two most important tips for workout efficiency in terms of results for the time that you spend in the gym or the time you spend working out. Number one is make strength training the cornerstone. So strength training, the goal of strength training is to build strength and build muscle.

The side effect of which is a faster metabolism. So that stays with you all day every day. So you're not in the gym, but you got a faster metabolism all day every day. So that means you can, it's easier to be lean. You can eat more and be lean, okay? Or leaner, right? Number two, it organizes your hormones in a way,

when you tell your body to build muscle and you feed your body appropriately, your body organizes its hormones to do so. So you also start to produce a more youthful hormone profile, which sticks with you every day as well. Okay. Number three, it sculpts and shapes your body. So if you want to see visible results, not just smaller, but rather shape and curve

and firmness and all the things that we want visually, building muscle does that. It puts things in the right places. It makes things tighter and firmer and feel better. So strength training should be the cornerstone. Number two, here's another thing that you should do. And we'll get back to strength training

and talk about how to make that effective. But the other part is, in terms of just being more active and burning more calories through activity, the most effective how to make that effective. But the other part is, in terms of just being more active and burning more calories through activity, the most effective way to do that is to inject a little bit of activity throughout the day in your daily activities and your daily day-to-day life, I should say. So rather than trying to carve out 30 minutes

or 45 minutes a day to walk on a treadmill or get on a stationary bike or something like that. What you wanna do is you wanna find five to 10 minute periods where you can be active. So you eat lunch, I have 10 minutes for a walk. Go do a walk for 10 minutes. Or I'm going to the mall, I'm not in that big of a hurry, I'm gonna park way at the end of the mall

and it's gonna take me 10 minutes to walk to the mall. And you do this throughout every day, it actually adds up to more activity consistently, studies will show this, then scheduling time. It also studies will also show this that a single bout of 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity is not as effective at fat loss and insulin sensitivity as three 10 minute sessions in the day,

or five, six minute sessions throughout the day. So it's actually more effective as well. Those two things right there will make a huge, huge impact. Now when it comes to strength training, there are exercises that are more effective than others. Here's a little tip. Train the way that strength athletes and bodybuilders tend to train. They pick the most effective exercises for a reason. Now, I'm not saying

you're trying to be a bodybuilder or a powerlifter, but the exercises that they pick are the most effective ones. So, don't, and generally speaking, although the markets are going to change a little bit, I'll say this to moms, stay away from workouts that are specifically, you know, targeting women specifically. Usually those aren't great. They usually pick exercises that aren't super effective. You're doing 50 reps of donkey kickbacks. You're doing exercises that burn,

you're, you know, burn fat away, they'll say, or. You may feel it, right? And that's like the allure of it is you're gonna feel a lot of the burning effect and the sweat and all that, but it's really not like moving the needle in terms of building muscle and shaping your physique like you're hoping for. Yeah, I would stick to barbell squats and presses

and rows and pull downs and rotation exercises that are traditional strength training exercises. Those give the biggest bang for your buck. Like a good barbell squat is more effective than five or six of those jazz or size type exercises that they tend to market to women. Literally, so you talk about time, right? A few sets of barbell squats might take you 15 minutes.

You could do a whole hour of, you know, butts and guts or whatever they call these classes, it's not gonna be as effective. So you really wanna try to build strength and muscle, that's the goal because that's what's gonna give you the side effect of that all day fat burning, that all day calorie burning, that's kinda what you wanna follow.

And if you have the means, higher a trainer, even if it's once a week, because they're worth the weight and goal for sure. I wanna add something to that, like the hack that Katrina really liked, because I remember when I gave her the permission, like absolutely, you could do that, it's actually better for you to do that.

And that is like, she took like, so we have a fit mom bundle that, you know, she followed obviously during, you know, having max in the afterwards. And, you know, she would look at the workout and sometimes she'd be like, oh, well, something he don't like sleeps for 20 minutes, or I only get a little break for this long.

I was like, dude, go do one exercise. Yeah. And then go back in the house, and go do things with max. And then when you get another break, do another one. And then if you get a little bit longer break, he's set out. Yeah.

If you have a pair of dumbbells, you can totally do that. Yes. And we've got to set up in the garage now Which is great and she has the luxury to do that and she's like, well, I don't feel like I'm getting as good of a work I said absolutely you are you're just said you're following the exact same thing because you've taken it Instead of you doing it all in 45-50 minutes and you've now broken it up over these you know three or four 10-minute Increments doesn't make it a lesser workout. It's just as effective, arguably even more. I know.

Yeah, you take out the fatigue. Yeah. And you're doing a much better job. That's the part that she, was it registering her? She comes from an athletic background, collegiate athlete, right? So used to sweating, pushing, hard, fatigue, falling over. Like, you know, so she's like, it's not hard that way. It's almost easier.

And like, once she started doing it, she's like, oh my God, I like to train this way better. So that's kind of, she actually takes the dumbbell from the garage to the kitchen, and she'll set the dumbbell and keep it open. And a lot of times she'll let Max play at his inside and she'll go and just do a set, then walk back in, check about what he's doing, go back out, do a set,

and the whole day will kind of look like this workout that really is only about a 45 minute workout that she's expanded through the entire day and her little five minute breaks. It's the same way that you do attack everything else with the house and laundry and things like that. I think take the same mindset towards your workout. We have this stigma idea that you have to do these workouts

in these 50 minute blocks or they're not effective. It's like bullshit. It's actually better if you break it up throughout the day. And if you actually are a mom, many times, that's more conducive than carving out an entire 50 minute of course. I had a lot of success with clients saying, who said, I don't have an hour.

And I'd say, do you have 20 minutes a few times a day, you know, like, you know, morning, afternoon, evening, I'd be like, well, yeah, actually, I could do in the morning, before I go to work, I like, well, yeah, actually I could do in the morning, before I go to work, I have 20 minutes after lunch, and I could definitely do 20 minutes after dinner. And so for them, it worked better. And physiologically speaking, you did say this,

it might actually be more effective. Now, I don't wanna talk people out of working out if they only have one block of time. It's all works, it all works. But it actually might actually be more physiologically effective. I've done that where I do all day workouts, where I do like a little bit every other hour. And I mean, I get great results. Yeah, she prefers to train that way now.

Yeah. Now, here's the challenge with strength training. It's more complex. It's not as easy as just going for a run or going for a bike ride, which by the way, that's fine. You can do that too. But like I said earlier in the episode, you want to build muscle, you want to do strength training because nothing's going to give you the bang for your buck or your time, I should say, like strength training. But

it is a little more complex. So here's some general easy to follow rules. In a workout, pick about four exercises. Make them compound type exercises, meaning you're moving the whole body, you're not just sitting in one place, moving one joint, but rather shoulder and elbow joint or knees and hips, or you're moving your whole body. So he's kind of big, what are called gross motor movements. Pick like four of them, do them in a workout. Don't train to failure, meaning you want to, you want some intensity, but don't train it. Don't do the exercise until you can't move anymore.

You want to stop short of that. You want to feel better at don't do the exercise until you can't move anymore. You wanna stop short of that. You wanna feel better at the end of your workout. So that's some general advice. If you want something more specific and more planned, we have programs, we have workouts that you could follow, the investment is actually quite small. In fact, because of Mother's Day, here's what we did in Doug's highlighting this for me.

We have the Fit Mom Bundle, which is several workout programs. We have a bikini bundle, a build your butt bundle, and a fabulous 40s bundle. Now, the reason why we picked all these is because we went through analytics. These are the bundles that women tend to buy the most of all of our programs.

Now, it really doesn't matter. You can follow any of our programs or appropriate for men or for women, but these are the most popular ones that women tend to enroll in. And so what we've done for Mother's Day is we've made all those bundles 60% off. So they're already discounted because they're bundles.

We've taken an additional 60% off. And the way you sign up for those is you go to mapsfitinistproducts.com. You click on one of those bundles. It's the FitMom bundle, Bikini bundle, Build your butt bundle, or Fabulous Forties bundle, and then use the code Mom60 for that 60% off discount. And then this offer expires Sunday, so Sunday the eighth, so Mother's Day is the last day for this particular promotion.

Also if you want free information, right? So if you just want to get free stuff and puts piece things together, you can go to mindpumpfree.com and we have a bunch of guides on there cost nothing and they can help you kind of put together programming and maybe some nutritional help. We have a lot of guides on there that can help you out

and they cost nothing. So if you don't want to invest anything, go to mindpumpfree.com, check out our guides. Also, if you want to find us on social media, learn some more. You can find Justin on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. You can find Adam on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Happy Mother's Day. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically

improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPSANabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Esthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at

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