Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2310: Don’t Let Your Age Stop You From Getting in the Best Shape of Your Life

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

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body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Now in this episode, by the way, we talk about training over the age of 40. We have a program called Maps 40 Plus,

and we're gonna make it 50% off for this episode only. So it's maps40plus.com. The discount code is AGE50 for the discount. This episode is also brought to you by sponsor LMNT, an electrolyte powder you add to your water. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar, no calories. Go check them out. Go to drink LMNT.com forward slash mind pump. Alright here comes the show. If you're 40 or over, don't let your age stop you from getting in the best shape of your life. In today's episode, we're going to talk about all the factors that they can contribute to

those of you over the age of 40 to improve your fitness and your health. By the way, we have a program that maps all of this out. It's called Maps 40 Plus. You can get this at mapsfitnessproducts.com. It's half off for this episode. The code is age 50 for the discount. But in today's episode, we're gonna educate you and give you a lot for free, so check this out. We all qualified for this.

We are. We're all over 40, so. That's what we're all qualified for. Very authentic podcast. First thing I wanna do is open up with, there was a study that I had talked about, um, maybe a month ago on the podcast where they looked at people over the age of 70. So we're like, now we're talking, you know, we'll be considered advanced

age people over the age of 70 and the amount of muscle and strength that they built with very minimal strength training. And it was significant. I remember what the numbers were, but it was way more than what most people would anticipate. Now I've a lot of experience with this. I used to train a lot of people in advanced age and most of our clients were over 40. I'd say the average personal training client is typically over 40. Those are the best clients for me.

And they all got significant results. And I remember that question would always pop up. They would always say, you know, am I too old for this? Is my body still going to respond? And yeah, your body never loses the ability to adapt. There may be like a limit to your ultimate potential as you get older, but the ability to adapt to exercise when it's applied appropriately, like that doesn't go away until you pass away.

Your body can still build muscle, build strength, get leaner, improve its fitness, its endurance, all that stuff. I have a similar experience. I actually thought too, like I didn't want to like over promote it because I had a client that was like over 70, he was like 75 and was asking me the same thing. Well, how much can I really expect, you know, in terms of like, can I still build muscle? Like I really, like, I didn't know, but I'm like, Oh sure.

Yeah, you can build muscle. I'm like, I don't know. And it would surprise me. It was actually pretty crazy. It was like at least 10 pounds of, of lean muscle that over a course of like, you know, year or two that we worked together and it was like, just, I don't know, I guess I was just like in that, in that thought process, once you get older, like a lot of things sort of down regulate and like

Yeah, like that was like a signal that was gonna be really hard to achieve Growth well, we we've actually talked about this several times and I was thinking about it right now when you guys were talking I'm like, you know Most of my clients that I trained over 40 if not all I got in the best shape of their life Yeah if not all, I got in the best shape of their life. Because I didn't really train very many people who were like ex-bodybuilders or people who got in phenomenal shape in their 20s and 30s and then they wanted me to get them back

in that phenomenal shape. These are a lot of everyday people. Yeah, most people I got were just everyday people. They had normal lives. If they were active or had activity in their life at all, it was when they were much younger, it was normally playing a sport or some leisurely activity that they did.

Maybe they skied or snowboard or did something like that for years. And then they didn't do it anymore. I didn't have a lot of people that understood how to build muscle, how to burn body fat, how to sculpt a physique. And so I'd say no matter how old my client was, we probably were in the best shape of their lives when they were with me, even at 50, 60, 70 years old. Because the reason why there's that belief is that we're reading the signals that we probably were in the best shape of their lives when they were with me, even at 50, 60, 70 years old. Because. I think the reason why there's that belief

is that we're reading the signals that we see in everyday life wrong, right? So you see the average 45 year old, 55 year old, 65 year old, and what you see is someone who is now more likely to be overweight, less likely to have good mobility, not going to be as strong. You tend to see this in the everyday world in comparison to a 25 or 35 year old, right? And so what you think

is, oh man, when you get older, like it just goes downhill real fast. The truth is that's not really a good or accurate representation. What you want to look at is what does a fit and healthy person at that age look and move like versus the average? And what you actually see is there's a, if we were to graph this out and you were to compare fit and healthy versus sedentary and eat whatever you want, that graph as people get older starts to really diverge, it starts to really separate. In other words, a 20 year old that works out is definitely more fit and healthy than the typical 20 year old that doesn't, right? But it's not a huge difference.

When they get to 30, that gap grows. When it gets to 40, the gap grows even more. And the gap just continues to grow between somebody who exercises appropriately and eats good in a healthy way versus their peers. So the truth is that the potential, now your ultimate max potential may change, right? You might not be able to lift as much weight as you could have at 25 doing

everything perfect when you were 55. But the truth is in comparison to where you would be if you didn't do those things is massive. It's a huge chasm. The difference between fit and unfit and healthy and unhealthy as you get older gets so big it's incredible. I also think that the rules really don't change. They just become more important. So like when you're in your 20s you can get away with somewhat of a crappy diet. You can get away with poor sleep. A lot of times you can get away with a lot of things and still see these results that people think.

And so I think that that's part of the misconception is that the things that maybe you did when you were 20, that kept you in okay or good shape, no longer apply because you're older. And so then we default to like, Oh, it's because I'm older. Well, not necessarily. You just got away with more. Yeah. When you were younger, you weren't approaching it the best way. Otherwise, just you were more resilient. And so you could get away with doing things less optimally and

still see some sort of results. Whereas I think when we get older, you have to have some things more and different things take more of a priority. and you have to have a much better balance of understanding stress with nutrition, with all those things matter even more so than they do when they were in your 20s. Yeah, I think there's a few factors at play here. One of them's age. Although age doesn't play as big of a role as people think, at least not until people start to hit late 50s, early 60s, that's where you start to see age play a bigger role.

But what you have really is cumulative stress. That's a big one, right? You take your typical 45 year old and you compare them to your typical 25 year old. And a 45 year old has more cumulative stress. They probably have a job, they have to support a family, they have kids, they have a mortgage. Whereas a 25-year-old doesn't necessarily have those people depending on them and have those types of responsibilities. These behavioral patterns you've established over decades are much more ingrained, they're much more hardwired into your method of operation versus somebody a bit younger too that that's like sort of still kind of developing

these behaviors and these patterns and things could maybe be a little bit more flexible and adjust. It does take a lot more intentional, purposeful type of structure and programming to be able to get the results you got when you're younger for sure. Yeah. I mean, and that's the first point, right? And probably the one you got away the most with when you're younger, which was like lifting weights appropriately. I think when you're in your twenties, you can get away with these seven day a week and hammering the body, poor sleep, where I think when we get to advanced age or you get 40 plus, having the appropriate balance. And that took me a while to kind of to transition it and fix that because I had this kind of

addictive behaviors around training inside the gym for my 20s that I didn't realize like, what little stimulus I needed to have in the gym in order to produce more muscle on my body or to stay healthy. It's really not as crazy as you think it is. Yeah. And the reason why, so, and the reason why, number one is to lift weights appropriately, is because on a time for time basis,

when you look at all the different forms of exercise that you can engage in, which by the way, all forms of activity, so long as they're applied appropriately, will have a benefit, okay? Appropriately, that's the key word here, because you can overdo something, or do the wrong type of exercise for your body that your body can't necessarily handle. But if it's appropriate, all movement is good for you. However, they're not all equal. Some are better for you on a time per time comparison than

others. Strength training is in another universe in terms of the type of results that you get. Nothing comes close to its ability to affect your blood sugar. Nothing comes close to its ability to affect your hormones, your metabolism in a positive way in the sense that speeding up your metabolism makes it a lot easier to live in a world with lots of food. Nothing will positively affect your mobility like strength training appropriately. affect your mobility like strength training appropriately. Nothing will impact your body's ability to deal with stress or even sedentary lifestyle like strength training will.

In other words, strength training is when you look at all the forms of exercise as you get older, if you only had to pick one, that would be the one to pick because it's going to give you by far the most bang for your buck. But now I'm at the key here is to do it appropriately. I would say one of the challenges with strength training is there's a lot of exercises, right? It's not like running, although I'll make the argument that all exercise, you have to have good technique and skill.

Otherwise you'll hurt yourself. But on the surface, running or riding a bike is the same thing. You just get on a bike, you ride it and oh, oh look, I'm, I'm working out. Strength training. I mean, there's hundreds of exercises to choose from. Which ones do I do? How do I put them together? How many reps do I do rest period?

Is that important or not important? Like what's the deal? So there's a little bit more involved with strength training, but if you do it right, you do it appropriately. If you follow a good program, which is what we recommend follow one that's written out, uh, you know, like, like the one that we have, um, and you do it appropriately. If you follow a good program, which is what we recommend, follow one that's written out like the one that we have, and you do it appropriately, then what you'll get is for an hour a week or two hours a week of strength training, tremendous, incredible benefits across the board. You even have data now that shows that strength training

is the best form of exercise for the brain, which as you start to get into later years becomes very important. What do you think are the biggest mistakes that people over 40 make when putting together a routine with lift? What do you think, what are the most common things that you see they do wrong? I think that, well, you know, form and technique is at the top. I just don't think that a lot of people realize, they say, oh that exercise works this, I'll do a little of that, I and technique is at the top. I just don't think that a lot of people realize, they say, oh, that exercise works this. I'll do a little of that. I'll do a little of this.

I don't think they realize the importance of, you know, what coaches would refer to as programming. Yeah. Do you think they're adding like too much volume or intensity? Like which one did you think? Probably intensity. So I wanted to hear what you guys, I had two and I actually think they're different per sex. So my 40 plus clients that are female,

my 40 plus clients that are male made different mistakes. And obviously there's always an individual variance, but if I had to categorize this in two categories of people that I saw over 40 that put together their own programming, my women, they would do things like they had this video or routine that they've been following or they went back to that their friend did and they have a set weight they do. They do this, this, this, and this. They always grab-

In fact, if you ask them, they'll tell you, are you using 10 pound dumbbells? Yes. Yes. And so they would just, there's no progressive overload. We're not doing any of the big compound lifts. It's like these real basic, you know, arm exercises, maybe a lower body movement here or there. But I mean, they've been doing the same weight, same set, same reps of whatever it is forever or plan to do that same thing that they did in the past. And then my guys were like the ones that like referred back to when they played football back in high school or like that,

and are like maxing out on everything and just trying to lift as much weight as they possibly can, ego lifting. So that's what I saw or just bench pressing, you know, because everybody bench pressed back in the day. So it was just like the everything was centered around the bench press. And so when I think of that, and of course I'm being general, right? Cause there's exceptions to every rule. I think that they fell into those two categories of most when I looked at the, the flaws in their program.

And the other big misconception is that you have to do a lot of it to yield results. The average person, two days a week of traditional, good, appropriate strength training is not just enough, it's more than enough for the vast majority of people who are just looking to improve their health, fitness, get leaner, and shape and sculpt their body. It's more than enough, but a lot of people don't realize that. They think they have to go every single day and do something that's not true. One or two days a week of strength training and then just staying active in your everyday life when it comes to exercise is the prescription.

It makes a profound impact on your body's ability to burn body fat, your mobility, your health, your health. By the way, this is good news for people listening in these age categories, because one of the other factors that tends to get in the way as you get older is time. You know, we were talking earlier about the 25 year old, you got a lot of time. You can wake up late one day and I'll work out tomorrow. You know, how many 20 year olds are here? I'll work out on Thursday. When you work out, when I find time.

You know, when you have kids and a job, it's like. You've got a window. You schedule it. Like, or you don't, it doesn't happen. So you just don't have a lot of time to waste. This is one of the beauties of strength training is that you don't need a lot of it to give you a tremendous amount of results.

Part of the reason is what you're training for is the adaptation that the strength training triggers or elicits. What you're not training for is this calorie burn, which we'll get to more later in the episode, but the value of exercise is not the calories you burn while you do it. It's how it gets your body to adapt. What strength training tells the body is we need more strength, we need more mobility, we need more muscle. A side effect of that is we need to organize our hormones in a way to do so. You see testosterone responding positively, estrogen and progesterone

responding positively, growth hormone and insulin responding positively. And then the side effect of that being you burn more body fat, just that rest. So number one, for sure, a hundred percent across the board, lift weights appropriately. All right. Number two is to get good sleep. Now, you know,, when we're talking about people over the age of 40, I think when you say get good sleep, I think all of them are like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, we realize that now. I think that makes a lot of sense.

Now the challenge is I don't think a lot of people realize how little of things they can do on a consistent basis that will actually have a big impact on their sleep. One of them is to have a bedtime routine and to go to bed at the same time every night, wake up at the same time every morning. Crucial. That's it. If you do those two things for most people, they'll have a significant impact, a positive impact on their sleep.

So we'll go to bed and waking up at the same time every day. The reason why that's so important is because what people tend to do is Friday night, Saturday night, they tend to go to bed late thinking they're going to sleep in the next day. By the time Monday comes around, their circadian rhythms actually shifted a little bit. Yeah. And then they're jet lagged. And by the way, look up, people can look this up, the data on jet lag and its negative effects on health, you are giving yourself minor case of jet lag every single week by going to bed later on Friday and

Saturday and trying to sleep in Saturday morning and Sunday morning. So simply going to bed and waking up at the same time, you get rid of that and you get that out of the way. Yeah this is one that I mean I like discussing because this is an area where I'm still trying to improve because I ignored this for so long. And even when I became aware of it, you realize that, you know, and I think this is like society in general, like nobody has to tell you like, like everybody has like a morning routine, like you have to get up, shower, brush your teeth, get ready for work, get ready for school, get whatever it's like, and there's this set structure and time under that.

It's really interesting how as a society, we've never implemented like a night routine. Like it's never been a thing. Like there's nothing really built around getting ready for bed. And so you really have to create that. You know, it's funny about this. I was just, I just realized this as a parent. I don't know any parent that doesn't have a bedtime routine for their kids. I know. Yeah, We did that with our kids and made sure that was like a firm routine. We didn't mess up. Yeah. Cause it's a disaster. You knew what happened as a result.

It's a disaster. Now you might not. Maybe it's because we failed the way we communicated as parents. Like maybe that's why. And maybe this is what we all did. I'm just me speaking or like, maybe our parents didn't do it. Well, or they did it for some, because I know my mom did for a little, but we rebelled as we got older

because we wanted to break free of it versus communicating to us on why there was this routine in place. Why do we do these things to get ready for bed and how important it is to be healthy and strong and all these things instead of thinking like, oh, the reason why I thought I had to go to bed at eight o'clock was because my mom told me so.

You know what I'm saying? Like that, and so you better believe go to bed at eight o'clock is my mom told me so. Like that. And so you better believe when I was at an age where my mom can't tell me anymore, I was like, fuck dad, I'm staying up till 10 versus me understanding that, oh, wow, this actually has an impact on how, uh, how aware I am the next day, my energy, my mood, all these other things, how much muscle I potentially could build. Sleep has a profound impact on health, uh, hormones, health, fat loss, muscle gain. I mean, they did a study where they had people sleep, I think it was five and a half hours versus seven and a half or eight hours. They had them lose weight and the group that had

the less sleep, 50% more muscle they lost during that period of time. In other words, they lost the same amount of weight, except they lost muscle. So profound impact. That's where everything gets baked in. Now, my point with this is that we realize this with our kids. I think every parent knows this. We have a sleep routine because if we don't do the sleep routine, it's going to be a nightmare to go to bed, right? Now, as adults, we don't cry and get cranky like kids do. But what we do is we just hit the pillow and think we're going to fall asleep. Some do. And the truth, maybe. But the truth is your brain thinks it's daytime

when the lights are on and you're doing stuff and then you decide you're going to go to bed, you turn out the lights. It takes your brain a bit to register that the lights are out and it's time to go to sleep. So you go to bed and you're like, oh, I get, you know, seven and a half hours. No, you actually get six, six and a half

because it takes an hour for your brain to adjust. So a sleep routine would look something like the three, two, one method that you know, you've brought up before, which is three hours before, no food, two hours before, no liquid, one hour before, no electronics or go with really low, low lighting. If you do that and go to bed and wake up the same

time every single day, most people will see significant improvement in their sleep quality and then the side effects of that, which are, I mean, typically fat loss, less cravings, better mood, all that stuff, better adaptation from your- Just makes the whole process that much easier. Totally.

Next up, and this is really one of the only diet things you're gonna hear us talk about in today's episode, which is to hit your protein targets and make sure it comes from whole natural foods. I mean, we've really reduced a lot of our messaging around nutrition to this fact right here. This covers, because what you'll find when you do

this, by the way, what is your protein target? It's your target body weight in grams of protein. So if you want to weigh 140 pounds, eat 140 grams of protein, make it come from whole natural foods. The reason why we've boiled it down to this is when you just do this, you will consistently be about 85 to 90% of way there with your diet, which is better, which is better than when people try to tackle everything all at once,

which typically results in I don't do any of it or I fail completely. Yeah, I think we have, which is to Justin's point, why we've distilled this down to this has been mainly what we communicate is that I think we've really overcomplicated the nutrition and the diet part. I think there's a ton of fear mongering going on behind each camp, whether that's the carnivore, vegan, paleo,

like you name it, there's a camp that is constantly bashing the other one. And it's like, meanwhile, the majority are getting lost in the weeds. Like the majority of people that are eating the average American diet, which is worse than all of those diets and any of those diets would be a better diet than them is confused on which one do they do. and if they do follow one of them, what are the rules?

And it's just like, listen, it's like literally just go hit that. Go hit your protein intake in whole foods and watch how much of everything else starts to fall in place. Here's what it does. Protein of all the macronutrients, proteins, fats, and carbs. By far, protein produces the most satiety. So what does that mean? That means that your appetite will get crushed. You are far less likely to overeat when you hit your protein targets. Number two, hitting those protein targets makes you far more likely, in combination with strength training, to build muscle. That's a good thing. That speeds up your metabolism, shapes and sculpts your body, and from a health perspective has profound impacts on blood glucose levels and insulin, insulin sensitivity in particular, which is very important as you get older because that's been tied to all

kinds of different chronic diseases from diabetes to dementia, Alzheimer's, and even heart disease. Right? So it does that. It also, when calories are controlled for in studies, when they've taken studies and had people eat the same calories, one group is high protein though and the other group is not high protein, the high protein group loses more body fat and builds more muscle. So when you hit your protein targets, by the way, you're going to want to eat this first in your meal. So when you put your meal together and you got 40 grams of protein sitting in front of you, so what is that? Like seven ounces of meat. And then you've got your carbs and your fiber or whatever. It doesn't matter.

If you eat that protein first, you're less likely to overeat the other stuff as well. So this alone, like I said, 85 to 90% of your diet will get taken care of. If you eat your protein targets consistently from whole natural foods. All right. Next up is to track, meaning pay attention to, and I like people to either log this in a journal or keep track of it on their phone. Track your energy, your libido, your sleep quality,

and your mood. Also track things like digestion, skin, hair, all, and here's why that's important. You want to pay attention to all these because if you don't, what tends to happen is people tend to just look at the scale. These are all signals that your body's providing you. That's right.

This is just building awareness so you know how, basically what your body is trying to communicate to you and where you need to make little adjustments. That will go a lot further in your progress. And the beauty of this is that as you start to teach yourself how to cue in on all these different signals, the diet and exercise part gets easier. You start to learn, and that's the idea of all of this.

And it's always the ideal goal for all my clients. It was not to have to have me as their trainer for the rest of their life. It was for them to be able to figure this out for themselves and to read what their body is already naturally telling them that they should do. And then to respond to that through exercise, diet, sleep, and things like that. Yes.

Because if you look at your workouts and you look at your nutrition and you tie it only to the reflection of the mirror or the scale, the odds that you're going to value that exercise and diet enough to maintain it for the rest of your life are very low. Now, if you start to tie it to all the things that we mentioned, libido, energy, mood, sleep quality, digestion, if you start to tie it to all those things, because all those things, when you exercise properly, you write improve, when you really start to pay attention to those, now you start

to become aware of and accept the total and true value of becoming healthier. Now when the scale doesn't move because it doesn't always move and sometimes it takes a while to get things to move in the right direction now it's okay because you notice you know what I know I don't lose any weight this week but you know I feel better I feel really good my libido is really good and I'm sleeping really good by the way people who are who are listening to this are like, why do you need to like write this down?

I'll just know. No, you won't. Actually you won't. People don't even notice these things because they're so hyper-focused on the scale. In fact, one of my jobs as a trainer, one of the things that I realized halfway through my career was one of my jobs is to help my client connect the dots. When I do this and people would, it was funny,

they'd come in and we'd be talking, it's a, how's it going? Oh, I'm good. And I'd say, well, how was your sleep? And they'd go, you know, actually I've been sleeping really good. How's your energy? I think it's the same.

Are you drinking the same amount of coffee? Actually, no, I only had one cup. I've only had one cup all week. It was like they were making these connections and having these aha moments. Like, oh my God, like this is really having a really good effect on my quality of life. When you can do that and you start to piece that together, now the odds that you're going to continue doing this and maintaining this for the rest of your

life, they go through the roof. I like to bring up that one study that you'll see in psychology classes sometimes where the people are passing the basketball back and forth and you're supposed to count. There's like a group of five. The monkey comes in. Yeah. It was like a group of eight people that pass the basketball. And you got to count how many times the basketball gets passed. And at the end they ask you, did you see the guy walk through the group wearing a monkey

suit? And you're like, no. And then they rewind the video and literally a guy in a monkey suit walks through the group and you don't even notice it because you're hyper-focused rewind the video. And literally, a guy in a monkey suit walks through the group and you don't even notice it because you're hyper-focused on the basketball. This is what happens when you hyper-focus on the scale and the mirror and you don't consciously become aware of all of the other values that exercise and diet provide. But if you do this, you start to develop a relationship with it where you want to maintain

it. Even though this isn't part of the protocol in today's episode, this is where I do like tools like trackers. I mean, sure. This is where this becomes, especially when you're in the middle of this process of trying to become more aware, having something that you can reference, an aura ring or you know, a FitBeta tool that look, you can see like how you feel and then it correlates with... Automatically collects it. Yeah and then it cor... Or like a CGM even. Yeah, like any of those or these are all, this is what these are really for in my opinion is like to be able to get to this level of awareness because you're already learning to pay attention maybe write some things down and then now you're going back and you're like oh wow it is I did show that I scored 85 on my sleep last lesson and I do notice that I feel a big difference like and I did notice that I did X Y and, and Z before I went to bed. It's like, oh, that makes a big difference.

Or, oh, wow, I made that extra effort to go for a walk twice that day and I got 10,000 steps and man, my energy was better and I slept better that night. It just really helps you to start to piece a lot of these things together. And then it just makes it that much easier to be consistent with it when you become aware of how it's positively affecting your life. Right. All right. Next up, another form of exercise that we're going to recommend that we all think is valuable, but most people don't value it for its true value.

Most people value it for something it's terrible at. And that's cardio, cardiovascular activity, walking, swimming, running, biking. It's great for health. It's great to improve the quality of your life. It's terrible for fat loss. It's not an effective form of exercise for fat loss. So what happens is people do cardio for the thing that it's terrible for, and they end up not getting great results and they end up developing a relationship

with cardio where it's like it doesn't work. And then they loathe it. No, no, no. Do cardio, but do it just to feel good. Do it just for your health. The best form of cardio across the board, in my opinion, is walking. I like walking because most people can walk with good form. So getting the average 40 something year old or 50 something year old to start

running all of a sudden, well, we got to really work on your biomechanics and technique and mobility because otherwise we're going to develop injuries. But most people can still walk okay. Walk for 10 minutes after every meal. That's a 30 minute walk every single day. And that will, that will improve your health. Will improve energy and your health. Walking is number one for me.

It's the most, it's the easiest to stay consistent with. And then second would be, uh, something that you love doing, right? So maybe you love to, you know, go hiking, like up mountains and do things like that. That's great. Maybe you, maybe you used to play basketball and so the pickup game occasionally is something that you like to do, or you have some sort of physical activity. Riding your bike.

Yeah, riding your bike. Like I love when you choose a piece of cardio that you love doing, because it's more likely you're gonna sustain it for forever or as a lifestyle versus using it as a modality of, oh, I hope if I do this for another half hour, I should burn another pound of fat and doing that

because that's not sustainable and it's not realistic, not to mention it's not even the most effective way to go about that process. So walking, number one for me, which is I think across the board, everybody I'm recommending that to. And then second, if I have a client that has some sort of a physical activity

that they enjoy doing, I'm gonna integrate that into their training of a physical activity that they enjoy doing, I'm going to integrate that into their training. And then there's some lifestyle hacks. And I hate using that word because it sounds like a shortcut, right? Hack sounds like a, ooh, I could get all the results with this one little thing. No, no, no. What we're about to talk about don't have a major impact like exercising properly, getting good sleep and eating right.

But they're small things. They don't take up a lot of time, that can improve the quality of your life and improve the odds that you're going to be consistent with your workouts and diet. For example, one of them is to, in the morning when you take your shower, and this is appropriate for most people, unless you're overstressed, I wouldn't do this, but for most people, a 10 to 30 second, maybe 60 second cold rinse at the end of your shower. This has been shown to improve the production or increase the production of catecholamines, epinephrine, norepinephrine.

It's a natural energy booster. It also has some proimmune boosting and anti-inflammatory effects. Now you can go real hardcore and do like a cold dip, but just the cold shower for most people in the morning will tend to produce these types of results. Another one would be sauna, sauna use. It's relaxing, it's contemplative. Most people don't bring their phone in there so they can just sit there and be kind of chill.

And the data on sauna use is pretty good for longevity. It does show a reduction in all-cause mortality, a pretty significant one when people use these on a regular basis. There's other hacks too that we have in there like in our program. I know we put this in there, like getting ready for bed. One of the hardest transitions for me to improve my sleep at night was taking myself from a state of excitement from work or doing something to like calming down. And so box breathing, it was like, it was one of the best hacks that we ever found. And to this day, Katrina has this crazy sixth sense with me where she can just

tell when I'm in my brain and I'm thinking about a bunch of stuff and she'll elbow me and she'll make me box breathe with her and it never fails. Like that instantly calms me down and makes it easier for me to fall into sleep. Another one that I started doing back when I did my mobility kick. One of the other things I started to do because I never did this as a kid or as a teenager is just getting my shoes off. Like I started to get to a point where I wore shoes to places in public and when I needed to, but then when I'm at home, like I get barefoot right away,

try and walk out on my grass and get connected to the ground. I just, you don't realize how many nerve endings that we have in our feet. We have more nerve endings in our feet than anywhere else in our bodies, like over like 7,000 nerve endings and we put them in these socks and shoes all day long.

So it's like- We mute our body. And there's so much, I mean, I remember when we first had that experience with Dr. Brink and even after 10 plus years of being a personal trainer, how enlightening it was for me to see how much dysfunction throughout my kinetic chain there were and how much of it stemmed all from my feet and just simply getting a better connection to my feet and exercising and strength training them, how much that alleviated a lot of the other pain.

And people don't realize that they can have hip pain and have no idea it's stimming all the way from your feet. Oh, you can get shoulder pain. Yes. And it's wild how much of a difference that makes and a simple hack of getting comfortable with being barefoot more often and then eventually maybe working to a time where we actually strength train sometimes. Yeah, and just putting boundaries around your phone usage and that's one barefoot more often and then eventually maybe working to a time where we actually strength train sometimes. Yeah, and just putting boundaries around your phone usage and that's one thing that I've

implemented that has made a massive impact in terms of being better with structure of time, being on the electronics and even 90 minutes before bed, making sure all the electronics are kind of off and dimmed down at least. So it sets the precedent that it's time to really calm everybody down and get ready and get in that mode for bed. Yeah. Another one is to drink half a gallon to a gallon of water a day. This sounds like a trivial thing, but it tends to result in a reduction in calories.

It tends to result in lowered inflammation and more energy. In fact, I've had numerous clients. I mean, I can't tell how many times I would get a client who wasn't drinking that much water to get that, to drink that much water, who then would tell me they needed less coffee because they had more energy just from being hydrated. I'm glad you brought up water

because you just reminded me of another hack that I know that we have inside the program too, which is adding like a pinch of salt or if you Yes, just because a lot of times when you go into this transition You were go over into Whole Foods if you were eating a lot of processed foods You were getting a ton of sodium already and then you switch to these Whole Foods Even if you're salting your food, you'd be surprised how low you are on your sodium intake So you know low sodium is gonna make you feel on your sodium intake. So, you know,

and low sodium is going to make you feel like crap. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people will be like, Oh, I changed my diet. I'm detoxing. No, no, no. It's cause your sodium is too low. So you have headaches, low energy. Um, you just don't feel strong in your workouts. Oftentimes adding some salt, uh, or adding some electrolyte powder to your water will make a big difference. The program can be found at maps40plus.com. So this program is designed specifically for people over the age of 40. maps40plus.com and the code to get 50% off is age 50.

So it's A-G-E-50. That'll give you half off. You can find us on social media, by the way. Justin is on Instagram at mind pump Justin. I'm on at Mindpump DeStefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mindpump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mindpump. 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 Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

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 and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a 5-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.