Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2330: Nine Signs You Have an Unhealthy Relationship With Exercise

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Properly applied exercise will change your life in PROFOUND ways, and vice versa with improperly applied exercise. (2:46) Speculating on why this is more common with people who have chosen fitness as a profession. (3:39) Nine Signs You Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Exercise #1 - Your friends or family tell you you’re too obsessed. (6:17) #2 - When sick, injured, or run down you don’t take time off. (9:02) #3 - Doing less in the gym with equal results is less appealing to you. (11:22) #4 - Missing a day in the gym causes stress in your life. (13:55) #5 - You feel stronger when returning from forced time off. (16:32) #6 - You aren’t healthy. (22:18) #7 - You allow the mirror or scale to drive your gym routine or choice of exercise. (25:05) #8 - You take grey market substances to try and accelerate results. (28:00) #9 - You leave your workout feeling sick or having a headache. (33:05) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off your first order (new customers) and double rewards points for existing customers. ** May Promotion: MAPS Strong | MAPS Powerlift 50% off! ** Code MAY50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #2275: The 8 People Most Likely To Overtrain Mind Pump #1707: The Top 5 Reasons You Are Not Recovering Mind Pump #2315: Five Signs You’re Doing The Wrong Workout Mind Pump #2320: Throw Away The Scale! Mind Pump #1235: The 5 Most Overrated Supplements 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 pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Right in today's episode, we talk about the nine signs you have an unhealthy relationship with exercise. Now, this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Legion. They make high performance supplements to

help with strength, recovery, sleep, and more. Check them out. Go to buylegion.com that's B-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com forward slash mind pump, use the code mind pump, get yourself a discount or double rewards points. Also, new sale this month for workout programs. Check this out. Two very popular programs, Map Strong and Maps Powerlift. Both 50% off this month only. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY50 for the discount. Here comes the show. Exercise. It could be good for you, or it could be terrible for you, no joke. In today's episode, we talk about the nine signs

you have an unhealthy relationship with exercise. I feel like you're targeting me with this one. No, no, no, no, no, no. I do feel like I've been going on a little bit on that for the last couple of months. Actually, what prompted this was we did talk, we had a conversation somewhat around this, like just in one of our quads.

I happened to be going through some of the YouTube comments and I saw actually a handful of comments of people that recognize that they have an unhealthy relationship with exercise and that they're trying to work on it. They were actually asking straight up, like, you know, I'm trying to become more aware of some of those signs. I thought, oh, you know what? That's actually a really good single topic.

Because obviously we've talked about them, I think, throughout different shows, but actually formulating a single topic episode that is, let's go through all the things that we can think of when we had clients of like, oh, that could be a sign, right? Because sometimes you have a client and they're seeing good results as far as like the scales moving or they're getting stronger in the gym,

but you don't know about their obsessions yet. You haven't seen, you don't get to see them at home obsessing over the scale or the mirror. You don't know if they're canceling events to do some of the family because they can't miss their gym. So these are all things that, or they're weighing and tracking their food like crazy. And if they don't eat other food, they freak out and they cause a fight with their family.

There's a lot of things that over time we've learned that, oh, wow, if a client is showing some of these signs and behaviors, they have an unhealthy relationship with exercise and it's part of my job to also solve that. And so let's also solve that. And so let's talk about that. Totally. Cause you know, properly applied exercise, I mean, it'll profoundly affect your life in a positive way, but improperly applied exercise also will impact you profoundly in a negative way.

That's why this is so important. You can lengthen your life or shorten your life. You can improve the quality of your life or decrease the quality of your life. You could encourage relationships to flourish or destroy them depending on how you use exercise. And we have a lot of experience with this because we worked in the fitness industry and we worked in gyms. And especially with people who work in the fitness space, this is actually more common than not. More common than not will you see people who are trainers and coaches who are on the side of maybe an unhealthy relationship with exercise

versus one that's healthy. So this one is, you know, I've seen personally many times and I've also battled this with myself. I would say, go ahead. Oh, I just, before we get into the things that we see, I was gonna ask you guys just to speculate a little bit on You know, why why do you think that is like? Why do you think that? This is probably more common with people that have chosen this as a profession. Yeah, then they are

I think it's more like you become obsessed with something So then you want to make everything around your life revolver on it So then you get into fitness type of deal. That might be the case in my opinion. Yeah, I think you just get so passionate about like, you mistake it for passion, obsession and passion, where you dive all in like, this makes a lot of sense. I should also train people's because I'm already at the gym anyways, and it sort of fits with that mold for them and their thought process. And then you're surrounded by your peers and it can really start to feed this.

I think the saving grace, especially for trainers, are if you do it long enough and you care about clients enough, then that can kind of pull you out of it. Yeah. It's interesting because I can't help but think about professional sports and how much we celebrate these athletes and actors, I would throw them in the category too, actors and actresses that are obsessed with being the greatest basketball player ever or being the best actor ever. And many of them are, or are considered one of the best ever. And we, oh my gosh, we praise them and this sort of, but then what's going on inside, what caused them to be so obsessive about this, their profession, has caused all kinds of

out of balance behaviors in the rest of their life. Yeah, you don't see the rest of their life. Uh-huh. And so it's kind of like that, like you've got this crazy obsession, which sometimes might make you a decent trainer or maybe at least you had success in the field, and so a lot of times you don't see it

because from the outside looking in, oh my God, they're shredded. Oh, they've got a million followers and they got all these clients and they must be awesome and they must be so good at what they do. Meanwhile, inside they're tortured because they have a really out of balance life and unhealthy relationship.

Right, any extreme pursuit tends to be unbalanced. I mean, that's outside of fitness even. Anytime you see someone who accomplishes something at a very, very high level, there's a lot of things that are lacking in their life because you can't do everything. You can't do everything all the time. And what happens, we tend to glorify that high

achievement to the point where we ignore or are blind to, like, it's like rock stars that we glorify that committed suicide in their 20s or died of drug overdoses, but we glorify them rather than saying, wow, that's a travesty. That's a travesty that they were so tormented type of deal. All right, so the first one,

this one's important because those of us in fitness will easily dismiss this because exercising consistently is not what the average person does. So if you have friends or family members, and now it's important is that these are people you trust. Okay, so it's not like your acquaintances or the guy at work that you know

can kind of be jealous or whatever. These are people you know who you trust. You trust them with your kids. You trust them with your life or your bank account. You know that they have your best intentions. If you were to just be objective, you know like, oh, my best friend, this person definitely cares about me. Well, if that person is telling you you're too obsessed about your workouts,

you should probably listen to them. You should probably pay attention. Now, it's easy to dismiss because most people don't work out consistently. And I know I do this all the time. Well you're too obsessed and I think to myself, well you don't, that's because. Yeah, you don't care enough. That's right, that's right.

This is a fun one to talk about because there's a saying in the fitness space that's very popular and I think it goes, people, lazy people could say that people with discipline are obsessed or something like that. So there's a popular fitness saying that, fitness fanatics tout all the time, that lazy people tell people that are disciplined that they're obsessed. And so how do you filter that out? And I think you preface this the right way,

which is like, it needs to come from somebody who cares about you, right? Like there's obviously- Like you know those people in your life. There's obviously lazy haters. Yeah, don't listen to them. Lazy haters that are jealous of you that are gonna say things to you that you're obsessed

because they just wanna tear you down. But then there's people, and many times this is your mother, your spouse, your best friend that's been with you for your whole life, like somebody who has celebrated all your other successes in life. They're happy for you when you make more money, they're happy for you when you get a new job, they're happy for you when you find love,

that person is probably the same person who's happy for you when you're really healthy, and then they're probably also the same person who's gonna say something to you when maybe you're a little bit obsessed. It's probably not the person who's ultra competitive with you, wants to see you fail, or is putting you down, like that's not the person that I'm listening with you, wants to see you fail or is putting you down.

That's not the person that I'm listening to that's telling me that. All of us should have somebody in our life who we trust their opinion and if that person is telling you- Even if it's a different from what you think, this is such a self-awareness hack, by the way, is when somebody you're close to that you trust tells you something, even if you disagree with it, like, I don't know what they're talking about. Like pause for a second. Be like, I trust that person and they're saying that and I know I'm not aware of everything

that I do and how I am. Maybe I should consider that. It's just like a self-awareness tool across the board. So, you know, you've got close friends or family members telling you like you're too obsessed about exercise. You probably are, probably are.

So you should listen to them. Next is when you're sick or injured or run down, you don't take time off. You never take time off. You go to the gym, unless you're completely bedridden, you get up and make it to the gym. This is a sign that your relationship with exercise might not be so great because exercising and working out is a stress on the body. And when you're sick, injured, or run down, you're only doing your health a disservice. You're only knocking your body down even more. It's not beneficial. In fact, it's beneficial to take time off. So if that's you, that's a good sign right

there. Yeah. And I think too, with this, like a lot of times it's somebody that's in that sort of momentum state. It's always has to be a momentum thing for them to be able to continue this, um, this pattern, this healthy pattern that they've established. And it's like this fear and this, this real like visceral feeling that, um, all this is going to just implode if I don't push through my body telling me I need to rest, recover and heal from the sickness. Uh, when in fact that's the best thing for you. If you could think logically about it and rationally about it.

But if you're in a rational state where it's like, there's a fear there in a sense that like, um, you know, it's all just going to go away, uh, in a week, then we have an issue. Yeah. I think that's a good way to put it. Like it's so irrational when you think about it, because the, the rest and recovery and health aspect of you getting in shape is such a major factor.

And the fact that you're sick and yet you still won't miss is so crazy because it's like you are only hurting yourself in this situation. So you have to have a very irrational way of looking at it for you to even go because it makes no sense. It's like your body is needing all its resources to get better and recover You going and training and adding a stress to that is only gonna make it by the way the data on this is really clear Like if you missed a week Every four every four three or four weeks at the end of you know, 16 weeks 20 weeks. You'll get the same results

I'm not just making that number up by the way, there was an actual study that showed that. Now I don't think it's identical. I think there are benefits to being active all the time, but my point is missing a day, even if you weren't sick, isn't going to have these negative consequences. Missing a day when you're sick is going to have positive consequences. I think that's the point that we're trying to make here.

Next is if you were presented with less time in the gym but getting the same results, does that seem not appealing? Or does that make you go, ooh, I don't want to do that? I've actually experienced this myself, or I've experienced it communicating to people saying, you know you could get the same results doing less, and I've heard people say. No, but I like to go every day.

But I like to go every day. You know, it's like, ooh, I don't know, that's interesting. It doesn't mean you can't do other things in the gym or do other things for your health, but why would you wanna do more for the same? That's very interesting. I mean, that just screams I'm obsessed with this or I have an unhealthy relationship with it

when someone's, I mean, how many people would work more to make less money, right? Or like, and if I told you like, hey, you know you can work like half the amount of days and get paid exactly the same, and for you to be like, no, no, no, no, no, I just love to work. Well, that would again be a bad relationship.

Like, you might not wanna go home. You might not wanna go home and see your life. That's a great point. That's such a great point. But this is actually more common than you would think, because there's been many times where I've presented that to somebody when they break down what they're doing, and I'm like, hey, you know

that like, it doesn't have to be that hard, right? You do know that like, you could be seeing as much, if not more results, if you had a better balance of exercise. Oh no, but I like this. And it's like, okay. One of the surprising, I guess not so surprising criticisms of our most popular workout program, MAPS Anabolic was it's only three days a week in the gym. Like, but I like to go five, do you have a five day week in the gym program? And I was always like, huh?

You know, that, okay, interesting. Like try it out and see what happens. And it's popular for a reason. People get phenomenal results, but it's interesting that people's, some people's critiques are it's only three days a week in the gym. Not about the results. That's only three days a week in the gym.

And they even struggle when you do, cause we've given people that like, like, cause I can respect, um, the, I've carved out this hour. I've made this a daily habit that I carve out, but then I'll say things like, okay, well then like go for a walk for that, you know, for two of the days. Go do mobility. Go do cardio.

Yeah, go do mobility or stretch or, you know, do some Stana and cold work. Like there's a lot of things that we can do that are going to be healthy, beneficial, and keep you on your, every day you have this hour. Like I'm totally for that if that's, if that's, but it's still, they want to get in the gym and push the weights or push the body.

And it's like, okay, well, yeah, I mean, we can, but you would get more results if we actually let the body recover and had a better balance of nutrition, recovery, and stress. Yeah. This next one is that, is when missing a day in the gym actually causes stress for you. Now this one I can identify with, this one I still struggle with, whether we're traveling or doing other things, is there a gym nearby? Because God forbid I miss that one workout this month. And so I have to reflect on myself. I have to really self reflect and be like, okay, what's going on here? Why am I tripping that I'm going to miss a workout?

Maybe I'll sleep in more, maybe I'll whatever. But if this is you, this is a problem. Like if you're missing a day for whatever reason, go, go, you know, watch somebody's graduation, go do spend some time with your spouse or go travel or go on vacation. That's another one. People on vacation, some, you know, you're stressed out that there isn't a gym, uh, you know, at your hotel or whatever. Like that, that's a, that's a sign that there may be a relationship here with

exercise that's not necessarily healthy. No, because this is an area that you admit that you've had to self reflect on. And maybe somebody else has felt this, like, what are some of the things that you have noticed or that you can attribute that to? Like what has caused that? Is it just years and years of being so consistent? Is it, there's something that, uh, you, you want to look a certain way or you've identified that I need to do this in order

to feel a certain way or have a certain type of day. Have you made connections? My relationship with the workout itself, it's not how I look. I know it's not going to change my body. I've been doing this long enough to know that. That doesn't bother me. If I took weeks off maybe, but a day off, it's I love the feeling of the workout. I'm not going to get that.

And then it's like, well, what's the big deal? Why does it stress me out? So that's the interesting conversation. So maybe you're so connected to like the endorphins. The pump. Yes. Oh, interesting. Yeah, 100%. And it has in the past caused stress. Now I'm a lot better with this. I'll take time off when I need to, but I still find myself planning around that time off with my workouts. Which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but it's a step, it's definitely not, it's a step towards that I still find myself planning around that time off with my workouts, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but it's a step towards a better relationship.

But I think, I mean, wouldn't you think the majority is more concerned about their aesthetic appearance? Yes, yes. Diminishing somehow. Oh, I think so. Yeah, that's what most people think. That's what it was for me when I had this going on. Like it was just like, oh my God.

When I was a kid. If I don't lift, I'm gonna lose the muscle. If I don't like that, I was obsessed with, because too, I think back then, I mean, the workout gave me the pump, made me feel a little bit bigger, I was so obsessed with being small like that. Of two days in a row of not going to the gym and I felt like I was shrinking, so yeah, definitely.

I think that was when I was a kid. Now as a 45 year old man, I'm not worried about that so much. I've done enough times to know that's not gonna happen. But yeah, when I was a kid, for sure. Uh-oh man, I'm not worried about that so much. I've done enough times and no, that's not going to happen. But yeah, when I was a kid, for sure. Uh oh, I'm not going to have protein at this time. Uh oh, I'm not going to work out. Muscles going to just disappear.

Yeah. All right, next, this is a good sign that you're doing too much, which is you come back to the gym after a layoff for whatever reason, maybe you were sick and you took time off or you got injured, you go back and you're like, Whoa, I feel stronger. I used to notice this after vacation as a kid.

I'd take some vacation. I remember one year I went to Italy for the summer and I was there for two and a half weeks and it was a small town that we were in. We didn't have a car. It was a very small town and there's a gym in that town. I was like, oh, I'm going to work out in this gym. But I didn't know when we got there that that gym was closed for the entire month of August. And that's when I was there. So I was like, there's no gym. So for two and a half weeks, I didn't

really do any strength training. And I came back to the gym. And I remember being way stronger than when I left. And it was, it was a funny moment for me because I needed that time off. It took, it took me a couple of years in a row. So we used to have this trip that I did ever since I was a kid in like junior high, all the way up into like my mid twenties, uh, where my best friend and his family would go up to Lake Trinity and we basically would lay around the lake, camp out, eat camp type food, drink sodas.

I mean, totally off the diet, no weight training. The only bit of form of exercise was wakeboarding is what we do for a couple hours a day. I mean, there was like no, none of that. And I'd always come back from that, from that trip feeling better in the gym. Cause what I did was I trained real hard to go there. I'm going to be in the lake. I'm going to be on the boat. Like, Oh, I want to look Jack. I want to look at his physics. So the lead up was always like training super hard and crazy and to get in the best shape I could be for the Lake week. And then I come back and the lead up was always like training super hard and crazy and to get in the

best shape I could be for the Lake week. And then I come back and it's, it took multiple years in a row. Like the first time I probably thought it was just some anomaly there or maybe attributed, Oh, it's the sun. Vitamin D made me buff. You know, wait, wakeboard. Yeah, something right. Like I always attributed to something else than what it was. And then I started to realize like, Oh shit, maybe I'm really overdoing it.

And my body just needed that recovery and rest. I finally was forced to give it to it. And then I saw this rebound took me a while to piece that together. As somebody who's who struggled with this, with the, with my relationship with exercise, I'll tell you what, um, almost every time I've consistently reduced intensity or frequency or volume, I've improved almost every single time I've consistently reduced intensity or frequency or volume, I've improved. Almost every single time I've applied the less is more approach, I've done better. Now for the average person who struggles making it to the gym, that's not going to apply to you,

but if this is you, if you're listening and so far everything's resonating, take a step to reducing volume, intensity, frequency, either one of those or all of those, and you'll probably see yourself improve. That was especially relevant for me with the intensity piece, right? I was stuck in that mentality for years with, I had to just crush, crush every workout, crush my body to the point where I squeezed every last potential out. And then we took a week off and came back and felt like a million dollars and all of

a sudden now I could load 10, 20 pounds more on the bar. It's like, this was, this is just like dumb that I have that mentality. So I'm so glad you, you, you said that because this is something that I felt like even when I thought I solved this or thought like I had figured this piece out, I've learned that still like it was, it was when we created mass 15 was the most recent time that I learned to get, I was like, damn, it was when we created Math 15, it was the most recent time that I learned again. I was like, damn, how could this program be giving me the results that, like with all my-

Moving me forward and it's this little, yeah. And so I do really think there's like really two camps of people, like if we had to categorize people into two camps that we're speaking to right now. Yeah, the graph would have two high peaks on the heads and very little in the middle, right? Yes, and I really think there's a portion of people listening right now that this doesn't apply to.

You haven't been able to put two weeks together of training and dieting before, and you don't need to hear any of this advice. It's like, you need to first be considered. Then there is the people that consider themselves love working out, or fitness fanatics, or I never met, like that group, I bet that wherever they're at in their training volume and intensity, reducing that

significantly. I would bet nine out of 10. Will show them positive results. And I think that that was the thing that blew me away was even after I thought I had learned that lesson, I still learned that lesson again, older, wiser and experienced that man, it takes to, it's really funny to when you're, when you're diet, dieting right or eating balanced, hitting

what you need to hit macros wise, you're getting good sleep and rest, you're mitigating most of stress in your life, you're getting sunshine and stuff outside, it's actually stimulate to the body to respond to positively respond to either maintain muscle or build muscle or to build strength, it doesn't take nearly as much. And I think we've over glorified the intensity failure thing. And we've all fallen in this category of

following the lead of all these huge jacked bodybuilders that are on all kinds of copious drugs and training to grow. I'm glad you're bringing them up because the difference in recovery and adaptation ability with those extreme athletes or bodybuilders is so different from the average person. You're not even in the same universe.

And so what these bodybuilders have found is that through their own training is that they apply a certain amount of intensity, frequency, volume, they build muscle, but they also recover so fast that if they add more, they build more muscle. And so when you look at their routines, they have trained in a way that maximizes their muscle growth.

Their bodies does not reflect how your body will respond. You try doing what they did, even after training for 10 years, and you're very likely to severely over train. You're very likely to not get, not even close to those results. So I wouldn't look at the, you know, the 0.001% of extreme anybody and say, I'm gonna apply that same strategy,

that'll work for me. All right, the next point is that you're just not healthy. Like, think about it, you work out a lot, you're fanatical about it, you're always consistent, but you just you don't feel good. Yeah all your other health markers are down. Yeah you don't feel good, you're stiff, your joints hurt, why do I have all this pain? Oh it must be because I work out. You're inflamed all the time. Your sleep isn't good, you're getting sick very easily, you know you're experiencing anxiety, you know issues or whatever.. It might be the exercise, it might be the workout,

the workout might be making you not healthy. And I know this as well, if I go too hard in my workouts, I just don't feel good. And in the past as a kid, I would ignore this in pursuit of trying to just keep pushing myself harder. I'm gonna add to that, or another way, you're not getting healthier too, right? Because some people start their pursuit,

they already know they're unhealthy, so they start their pursuit. They already know they're unhealthy. So they start their pursuit. And ideally, if we have the right balance of exercise, rest, nutritional, and strength training, the stuff that we're talking about, then all markers across the board should start to show positive from that. And if you're somebody who's like decided to get

into training and you're not seeing the markers go in the right direction to getting healthier, then there's a good chance that there's an over-application of intensity or volume here that you're overdoing it, which is actually really common where someone is told from their doctor, you need to get in shape, you're way overweight, you got high blood pressure, you got all this stuff going on. And so they're now motivated to go in the gym. And instead of like easing their way in, slowly increasing volume and intensity over time and buildings, they'd go right into a ball's wall.

And then they get feedback a month later. And a lot of these markers are not improving because they're over applying their intensity. They never spent the time to build into that adaptation. So that way they actually have that kind of resilience to the stress. They're just adding all the stress without the recovery to build them so they can have this

resilient result. Yeah. We had a listener recently who, you know, I believe they were a caller at first, they called in and they went through their workouts and what they're doing. And it was very obvious to all of us within two seconds that this person was severely over

training, like severely. It was too much, too much and not eating enough. And so we informed this, this young lady, drop way off, take a week off when you come back to way less, eat more, whatever. Anyway, this person later on posted, uh, in one of our groups and the doctor had, she'd

done a routine test because she wasn't feeling good, her CK levels were so high that she almost had to get hospitalized because they had to maybe filter her kidneys. And her question was, what should my workouts look like during this period of time? Right? So, so I mean, this can get really, really bad. And I'd like to go back to that first one.

I bet you there's people in this person's life. Yes. At this point, we're saying you need to stop. This is way too, you're way too obsessive. So definitely listen. All right. The next one is that you allow the mirror or the Yes. At this point we're saying you need to stop. You're way too obsessive. So definitely listen.

All right. The next one is that you allow the mirror or the scale to drive your gym routine or choice of exercise. I like this one a lot, Adam. I know you added this one, but I like it because I'll get clients who on all other measures were doing great. More energy, stronger, feeling good, whatever. But if the scale didn't move in the right direction, it ruined their day or vice versa.

We'd have all these markers going in the wrong direction, but because they saw the scale move in the direction that they wanted, now they're like, everything's good. And it's like, no, it's not. You feel like crap, your hair's falling out, health is going south. Just because you lost weight doesn't mean you're doing better. Yeah, this one came to mind because it was one of the last clients that I had trained when I worked in one came to mind because it was one of the last clients that I had trained when I worked in a commercial gym. And it was one of the last conversations I remember having with a client, like in a commercial gym.

And I remember coming to the gym the next morning, right? Like from work. And I had seen this client the day before and I came in the morning at a time that she normally isn't, and I saw her over on the elliptical chest, like going bald. And she'd already been there for, I don't know, a half hour, hour already, just sweating like crazy. And I said, what are you doing?

And she's like, oh, I woke up this morning and the scale hadn't moved. I can't remember if she had moved or was up a pound or something, but she read the scale. And she was so unhappy with it. And she even in addition to that, like skipped eating. She was going to cut out calories, and she read the scale and she was so unhappy with it. And she had even in addition to that, like skipped like eating, like she didn't want to, she was going to cut out calories and she came after it.

And I'm like, what are you doing? Like that scale is, I don't care if that goes up or down a pound or two here and there as we're going through this process. Like we have a plan right now and this is not part of the plan to do that. Like stay to the course, trust the process. Like one day of getting on the scale

and or the mirror in this case is not a good reflection of are we heading the right way or not and this is not part of what I have you doing. And so it just was so funny to me that, I mean, this is a client, I'm training, I got the program, I've got the diet, I'm telling her what to do and then this was something. And so it's like, man, if these are my people who hire me, that pay me to tell them what to do, how many people just do this to themselves? This was, I mean, this used to affect me quite a bit, and so I'm gonna give some advice to someone right now

who's like, oh my gosh, I do that, how do I fix this? Well, step one is to not weigh yourself anymore. Not to tell yourself it's not going to trigger you because it will. Don't weigh yourself for a long time. Look at other things that'll tell you whether or not you're progressing or not. And then the other one is don't steady your body in the mirror. This is what I had to do is I would, when I'd get dressed, I wouldn't sit there and look at my body and how I was improving.

I would just put my shirt on and I would ignore a shirtless reflection in the mirror. And I had to do that for almost an entire year before I could really solve this issue. Before that, the mirror would definitely dictate, I'm doing more of this, I'm doing less of that, I need to go to the gym, go hard riding, go push, or whatever. It wasn't something I wasn't fully aware of until my health went south, which that's the story I've talked about many times. Next up, this one's a tough one for me now, which is you take gray market substances to try and accelerate results.

So are you buying things, are you buying a lot of things online that are iffy, that you know are gray market, research lab stuff, whatever, to try to gain that extra edge with your performance? You just speed things up in general, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm guilty of this one. Uh, this was my first introduction to steroids.

Um, I remember as a trainer, I, you know, had a little bit of nutrition, uh, knowledge, I had a little bit of exercise knowledge. I've, I've been in the field now a couple of years and, uh, I still hadn't pieced it all together for myself yet. And I was convinced that these guys on magazines in front of on men's health magazines and men's fitness and stuff like that, that had these abs and were jacked and look so good. Like the difference, because at this point in my career, I'm thinking, I know

the nutrition, I know the exercise stuff. I'm consistent in the gym. The only missing piece that I haven't messed with is steroids and that's gotta be what all these guys are doing. That's what it takes to get to that level. That must have been the missing block and I went that way and of course it was driven because I had an unhealthy relationship

with my body with exercise and it was completely wrong. I didn't get more results because of that. I got stronger in the gym but I didn't get that look. It was nowhere near the magic pill. Yeah, it was nowhere near the look that I thought I was going to get from this thing and I was so disappointed in that and it wasn't until way later in my career that I realized I just did not fully understand yet. I did not understand the proper balance of exercise. I didn't understand program design at the level I did. I didn't understand nutrition at the level I did.

And that is what really made the big difference. Yeah, I'll never forget. I used to have a gym in Southern California and I had a sales guy that worked for me. And this gym was in Southern California, it was close to Mexico. And they would go across the border and him and some trainers,

and they'd come back with all these anabolic steroids or whatever. And this guy was on, the doses he was taking were, I mean, I was surprised that he hadn't, that something serious hadn't happened to him. He was young, so I think his body was pretty resilient, but he didn't even look like he worked out. He literally didn't even look like he worked out. Now the reason why that happened was because he didn't know how to train right. His diet was crap. He drank alcohol, he didn't get good sleep, but he took all these drugs thinking it was going to make him look a lot different. The reason why I'm saying that is because they're not the answer.

But if you're searching for the answer, and especially if you're going gray market, especially black market, there's a problem. Well, that's what I think the majority, it's a misconception to what you brought up. And they'll maintain those bad habits. They'll not get the best sleep, or they'll not have the best nutrition to go in conjunction with this, or they feel like this is gonna elevate their training on such a higher degree that it's gonna compensate for all of that when, at the end of the day,

if you're just consistently doing the right thing, you're gonna have such a bigger impact every day of the week. I'm gonna add to that too. I know I listed this as gray market substance, but I think this falls in the category too, which is if you don't have the disposable income and you're spending $300 to $500 a month on supplements, period.

Even ones that are not a great- You cannot buy $300 to $500 worth of supplements that would move your progress forward 2%. They don't exist. So that's a fact. So that, and I wanted to bring that up because I was also guilty of this as a kid. Like I think I was making like $7 an hour,

but buying three, I was like, at least two paychecks were going to, of my four paychecks were going to the supplements and stuff that I was taking, thinking that that was gonna get me that look. And so maybe you don't do steroids, maybe you don't mess with SARMs, but you know, you don't have a lot of money

and you're spending a big part of your budget on supplement products, thinking that it's gonna get you this look. That's an unhealthy relationship with the two. I still have a bad relationship with supplements, but I have the expendable income. I will, you've heard me on the show, I actually say that a lot of times when we talk about supplements, but I have the expendable income. I will. You've heard me on the show.

I actually say that a lot of times when we talk about supplements. I tell people like, because we can sit here and pick a part like, oh, it does this, it does that. I go, listen, hey, if you've got the disposable income and you want to try it out and apply it, I'm all for it. I tell people all the time, you think that this thing is going to give you better results and maybe it is. Maybe spending an extra 50 bucks makes you more consistent with something like that,

or you feel enough of a difference that it makes you feel good, then go for it. But I like to tell the kid or the average person who can't spend $500 on supplements a month that listen, it is not gonna give you the results you think it's gonna give you. It's not worth that much money. How much money would you and I have

if we took all that money and we spent on supplements and put it in the stock market? It reminds me of that stat I gave you guys on the iPhone. I know. If I would have actually put the money on supplements in the supplement companies and their shares, I'd be a billionaire by now. I know, it's hilarious. All right, last is that you finish your workouts and you leave the gym and you feel sick or you have a headache or you feel run down. or you have a headache or you feel rundown.

Here is a wonderful sign that your workout is inappropriate. You feel worse after the workout than you did before. You should most of the time, because I know there's some people like what about those hardcore, crazy workouts? Okay. You know, here and there, maybe once a year, you test yourself or whatever.

But if you're working out and you're doing this long-term and you don't feel better after your workouts, you did something wrong. Especially if you feel a lot worse after your workouts now I remember this feeling for me I remember concepts a lot of people dude I remember leaving the gym as a kid and having to go home and take an hour or two hour nap yeah on the couch because I just destroyed myself in the gym, not realizing that I totally, I would have got such better results.

I'd pushed leg days to throwing up. I've thrown up, I've thrown up. I've walked out of the gym and fell off the curb because I had no strength in my legs. You could walk for like two, three days real well. And the worst part about that was like, yes, I got it. So proud. Yeah, I did it.

Like that added five pounds of muscle, right? You know, like, no, it's it. So proud. Yeah, I did it. Like that, that added five pounds of muscle, right? You know, like, no, it's so crazy how backwards thinking that is, that training that way is, is accelerating your progress. Many times it's causing you not to see progress and not having, and which is even more crazy that you, I pushed myself to limits of throwing up, to falling off a curb, thinking I'm going to build more

muscle, not realizing I built none from that. And what's terrible is that many fitness companies, gyms, fitness programs, they actually use this as a way to advertise. They'll show, wow, this is the hardest workout you'll have, you survived. In fact, they name classes after things. And now it's such a common name that we don't even think about it. But the reason why boot camps exist is because boot camp used to mean military boot camp. So the average person said, wow, that workout is a boot camp. That's going to kick my ass for sure. They thought it was a great workout.

Terrible workout. It's terrible. If you feel like crap after your workout, you definitely did something wrong. A hundred percent. Look, we have free guides here at Mind Pump. In fact, we have a peptide guide. We talked about gray market supplements. These are peptides that you get from a doctor. You get a prescription. Anyway, we have a guide that breaks down the most popular peptides and it's free. Totally free. You can find it at mindpumpfree.com. You can

also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at MindpumpJustin. I'm on Instagram at MindpumpMedia and Adam is on Instagram at MindPumpJustin. I'm on Instagram at MindPumpMedia and Adam is on Instagram at MindPumpAdam. 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 MindP 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.