Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2409: How to Increase Your Bench Press, Tracking Calories Vs. Macros, the Truth About Fitness Challenges & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Six warning signs you are not healthy and what you can do about it. (1:45) The real Nacho Libre. (21:49) Admiring old-time strength athletes. (26:16) The guy's ‘douchiest’ looks. (30:49) Growth spurts. (36:12) Hardcore gyms are the best! (40:09) Mind Pump’s top sales movies. (46:16) Chase mastery first. (47:50) Shout out to Alex Hormozi. (50:38) #ListenerLive question #1 – What are some good ways to increase your bench press? (51:43)  #ListenerLive question #2 – Which is better to track, macros, or calories? (1:00:50) #ListenerLive question #3 – Can doing a challenge be a good way to kickstart weight loss before going into a program? (1:08:34) #ListenerLive question #4 – Can I swap my accessories for my Olympic lifting program and replace them with unilateral movements or symmetry or wait until next summer? (1:18:50) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order of their best products ** August Promotion: MAPS Bands | MAPS 40+ 50% off! ** Code AUGUST50 at checkout ** Bristol Stool Chart: Checking if Your Poop is Healthy - Verywell Health Mind Pump #2312: Five Steps to Bounce Back From Overtraining Mind Pump #2307: How to Optimize Your Brainwaves for Improved Focus, Relaxation & Sleep 'Fray Tormenta', the Mexican Priest Who Inspired 'Nacho Libre' Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling – Book by Bret Hart The Great Gama - Legendary Strength Mind Pump #2140: How to Choose the Best Gym for You Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) - IMDb Boiler Room (2000) - IMDb The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - IMDb 3 Day Mind Pump Personal Trainer Webinar Mind Pump Fitness Coaching Course Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump Mind Pump #2127: Bench Press Masterclass Mind Pump #2160: Macro Counting Master Class Mind Pump #2340: The Ultimate Muscle Mommy Workout Program The Resistance Training Revolution – Book by Sal Di Stefano 30 Days of Coaching | Mind Pump Media Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Logan Paul (@loganpaul) Instagram Jon Call (@jujimufu) Instagram Alex Hormozi (@hormozi) Instagram Ben Pollack, Ph.D. (@phdeadlift)  Instagram  

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 Schaefer and Justin Andrews You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump right in today's episode We answered live callers questions This is where people called in and we got to help them out on air But this was after a 15 minute intro portion. In the intro we talk about fitness, current events, family life, studies, and much more. By the way, if you want to post a question or ask us a question live, I should say on an episode like this one, first email us at live at mindpumpmedia.com. Now

this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Brain FM. Now they play sounds and music that can change the state of your mind. This is all backed by real data. It's pretty phenomenal. In fact, you could try it for 30 days for free and see for yourself. See if it helps you focus or relax or sleep.

They do all three of those and more. Go to them, go check them out. Brain.fm forward slash mind pump. This episode is also brought to you by Caldera Lab. They make skincare products. They're all natural. They balance out the oils on your skin, reduce fine line wrinkles, and help promote a healthy microbiome on your skin so that it's healthy. Go check them out. Go to calderalab.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump 20 for 20% off your first order.

We also have a sale on some workout programs. MAPS bands is half off and MAPS 40 plus is also half off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code August 50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Here are six warning signs that you're not healthy. The first one is your gut is off. The second one, your skin is off.

The third one, you can't sleep even though you're exhausted. The fourth one, you have crushing, consistent fatigue. The fifth one, your nails, they have an odd color and texture, and the last one, your lips crack at the corners. If you have one of those signs, your health's not doing very well. And by the way, if you don't have good health, you can forget about building muscle, burning body fat,

or trying to maintain your youth. So pay attention. I like this. This was something that early in my career, I wouldn't have paid very much attention to. I was so focused on macro. Yeah, so everything had everything to do with my workout, your caloric deficit or surplus, intensity, and just not realizing how many clients of mine had stalled progress or none at all. And

it was because they weren't healthy. And they had all these types of signs like this. And I was constantly trying to manipulate the calories and mess with their workout to get them to break through this plateaus, not realizing how important it was that I got them healthy before us. And that seems obvious, like saying that out loud, like duh, of course.

But I don't think a lot of people realize how much a lot of those warning signs you just said can be off and how much it plays in the factor of you seeing results or not in whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish inside the gym. Yeah, you know, burning body fat, your body has to feel like it can get rid of. Safe.

Yeah. Now calorie deficit does this, but your body will fight hard to prevent you from losing body fat if it's not healthy, because that's stored- Preserved energy, yeah. Preserved energy. Building muscle, forget about it. That's expensive tissue, it costs a lot of energy.

We're already not healthy, not to mention, oftentimes, many of these symptoms, and we'll get into each one of them, many of these are we're already not healthy. Not to mention, oftentimes, many of these symptoms, and we'll get into each one of them, many of these are related to nutrient deficiencies. Good luck trying to build muscle or get stronger when you have a nutrient deficiency. And then, you know, the aging process is accelerated with poor health.

We know this, right? If you've ever seen somebody in poor health, if you've ever experienced this yourself, it's like you're in a time warp. Or you could slow it down with excellent health. Now, the reason why it's a challenge, I think what you're saying, Adam, is a challenge, is because eating right, exercise, it's a part of getting healthier, right?

But it's not the only thing. It's definitely not the only thing. So the first one I said was your gut is off. There's this, so years ago I worked with somebody, a really brilliant young woman, I've talked about her before, and she was talking about gut health way before anybody else was.

She was really making a big deal about it. I remember in the beginning too, I kind of made fun of her over it, but she was on point. And she, in the bathroom in my studio, she asked me if she could put, it was a small poster on the back of the door. So like when you're sitting on the toilet,

you'd be looking at the door, and it was a small poster on the back of the door. So like when you're sitting on the toilet, you'd be looking at the door. And it was a Bristol scale. Stare at poop while you're taking a poop. And the Bristol scale- Which type is me? For people who don't know, it'll list six levels, if you will, for lack of a better term, of stool from extremely constipated to extreme diarrhea.

Healthy stool is around a three or four. So if you look at a Bristol scale right now, if you look it up, it tends to be something like five or six inches long, smooth, not hard to pass, not runny or whatever. Like you wanna have- I need more descriptors in there. Sorry.

You wanna have a three or four. You know what though is so great about this point, and I know it's funny, we're laughing, tongue in cheek type of deal. It's like, but I can't tell you how many people are like so unaware of where to this and that this is actually one of the first easiest signs to know like how off your gut is and you just and I get it because I remember being in my 20s and

just attributing it. That is, that's normal. Like, oh, sometimes you have good ones. Sometimes you have bad ones. Sometimes I wake up and it happens like that. Instead of how I 100% look at it today, which is when that is, I immediately go, Oh, investigate what I just did the last 24 hours. To me, it's one of the early signs that I did something or ate something that doesn't agree with my body,

and it's leading clues to what that may be. And some of the earliest clues are those, because skin, nail, hair, things, the other stuff, that takes time for that time to show. But stool is normally within hours, or within 24 hours for sure, of you making a choice that was probably not healthy for your body.

That causes inflammation of the gut. I mean, gut inflammation is systemic inflammation. It's also, we now know there's a communication highway between the brain and the gut. They call it the gut-brain axis. And if your gut is off, then your mental state is likely to be off. That's why there's a strong connection

between anxiety and depression and what they call dysbiosis of the gut, where the gut bacteria is off. That's why there's a strong connection between anxiety and depression and what they call dysbiosis of the gut where the gut bacteria is off. That's the other one too, is it could be a, it could be just something you ate and if you keep pushing it then you're gonna cause bigger problems or it could be bacterial overgrowth in your small intestine. It could be fungal overgrowth in your small intestine. It could be damaged, you know, your stomach lining could be inflamed and that might need help. But if you ignore this, then you'll start to get worse and worse health.

You'll get nutrient absorption issues, systemic inflammation, it turns into skin issues. It could turn a lot of things. Some other signs that people tend to ignore, one of them is really strong smelling flatulence. That is not normal or should I say necessarily healthy. Now I remember as a young, as a teenage boy trying to build muscle, taking all the protein powder, I thought that was just, oh that's just what happens when you take protein powder.

In fact. You're supposed to. You're supposed to if that didn't happen and take enough protein. But no, it oftentimes means something's off. It shouldn't have, you shouldn't clear the room. I know some people watching this right now are elving their partner by the way.

The paint should not peel. There's been plenty of weight room where everybody just had to step out. It's again another good point. Shoot, we were, it wasn't even, I mean it was a while now. It's been good eight, nine years, maybe longer now since we had our buddy Craig on here. And I remember. Oh, you can tell the story. Well I mean, I mean it was a while now. It's been good eight, nine years, maybe longer now, since we had our buddy Craig on here. And I remember.

Oh, you can tell the story. Well, I mean, I think it's a, because the reason why it highlights such a good point is because you're talking about, it's a smart guy. He's not dumb at all. Craig is a very well-read, smart dude. And I remember all of us being up in the suite that one night and it was like, bro, if the paint starts peeling off the wall

from your forehead, it's like, that is a sign, that you're pushing the protein or you're pushing something too much. Yeah. And just, but almost oblivious to that because what happens again, like the stool, people just become accustomed to these things and think that, oh, this is just so normal. It's like, man, this is, this is, this harkens back to what you hear us talk about on the show for such a long time is that this is learning how to listen to your body. Your body has a lot of these, you know, I would think it's not very subtle, it's more,

but for some reason it seems subtle to some people, signals to tell you that, hey, something's off, something's not right. And you know, it doesn't mean you're gonna draw a perfect connection every time, but it should at least cause this like, aha moment of I need to investigate. Pay attention to it.

Yeah. Yeah, you might have some kind of intolerance. You might have something that you ate that you might have this repeated pattern that you're not paying attention to that you could avoid. Yeah, another one with the gut that a lot of women will ignore, especially young women, is bloating. You hear a lot of young women talk about bloating,

at least I did, as clients, that they just thought was normal. Oh yeah, I get bloated after I eat. Isn't that normal? No, no it's not. There's a difference between eating and feeling full, and eating and feeling bloated. Now your pants are too tight. Yeah, that's also a sign that something isn't right.

It is a sign, as I said earlier, that you're not necessarily healthy. Then we talked about skin. When your skin is off, lots of acne. Remember there's a microbiome on your skin and healthy skin, we know this when we look at it. By the way, the reason why we consider inherently, this is cross cultures, this has been like this for thousands of years, it's evolutionary. The reason why we consider clear skin attractive is because it is a clear sign of poor health when it's not. That's one of the reasons why across cultures this makes sense.

It's a visible sign. That's right. So lots of acne, rashes, those types of things oftentimes points to gut issues, food intolerances, or hormone imbalances. Hormone imbalance is a big one. That's why often you'll see sometimes with women, skin changing with birth control, or of course we know bodybuilders on anabolics,

and they'll see skin issues. So that's another one you wanna pay attention to. That might mean something deeper. The next one is the sleeping, not being able to sleep when you're exhausted. The next one is the sleeping not being able to sleep when you're exhausted like that's a pretty clear sign like you're so tired so exhausted you're like oh my god I can't wait to go to bed then you lay down and you can't go to sleep now what is going on the adrenaline

everything else is still keeping you up. This wired energy is there instead. Yes. Or worse, one that you can't or don't notice, which is this chronically under sleeping and not realizing. And the body is now adapted to figure it out and you think you're okay, but then you're only sleeping five, six hours a night. I mean, we've had that many times before. We have somebody who thinks they feel okay.

And a lot of that feeling of okay is that they have become used to or adapted to how low of sleep they're getting and don't realize the importance of getting that 78 hours and they're chronically under sleeping and they think because they're probably masking it with things like caffeine and other things that is helping them get through that, but really chronically under sleeping and not realizing how much that's hindering your results in the gym.

It is, but if you're tired, if you're exhausted, and you go to sleep and it's broken sleep all night, or you can't sleep, first of all, that's oftentimes for people who work out, a sign of overtraining. One of the first signs of overtraining is I just, I restless all night. That's the, that's the right word.

It feels restless. Another cause of this is a nutrient deficiency. Oftentimes it's magnesium. This is why magnesium is such a popular pre-bed supplement. It's so such a common deficiency that when you take it, you notice you're like, Whoa, I all of a sudden can chill out. My body feels like it can relax and I can get it, you notice, you're like, whoa. I all of a sudden can chill out.

My body feels like it can relax and I can get some good sleep. You know, I noticed from it too is like, sometimes I'll be a little more tense and like I'll have these kind of achy muscles that wake me up in the middle of the night, but when I take magnesium, it tends to help quite a bit with that.

That's yes, 100%. Nutrient deficiency, yeah, that's a magnesium deficiency sign. Absolutely. Well, I mean, it's a 50-50 shot. Everybody listening to this has got this. I mean, over 60% of the population is deficient in magnesium. And I wish I understood the effects of that

and how much I would feel that. Because I remember the very first time that I took the magnesium supplement before bed. It was like an instant difference. Like, it's one of those things that if you're deficient and you take it, you'll clearly know if you're one of those 50% or 60% that are deficient. Right, and then I mentioned the crushing,

consistent fatigue. Now this one people tend to not ignore. They'll ignore it as long as they can deal with it, with caffeine and stuff, but this one tends to send people to the doctor. This is not normal fatigue. This is like lethargic, what is wrong with me type of fatigue. Luckily though, this is one of the signs that people tend to pay attention to because they

just can't function no matter what. Then I talked about nails. That one people tend to ignore. Your nails having an odd color or weird texture is often a clear sign of a nutrient deficiency. A lot of people don't realize that. That you can tell that you're lacking a particular nutrient by simply looking at your fingernails. Through like more brittle.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I've noticed that, you know what I was going to say about the other one too, the constant fatigue, like you can see it in people's face too, especially under the eyes and you know, if they're're at all like you got kind of like this like raccoon eye or bags, you know under your eyes and There's just like those visible signs

You can still see a fatigue besides the fact that you're just then you know, the nails are also connected to liver function So if you're if your liver is stressed or out of balance I mean a lot of times you'll see that in the fingernails also. Yeah, I don't know, Chinese medicine noticed that for a long time ago. They'll look at that kind of stuff. But it's backed by Western science as well. And then the last one I said was your lips

cracking at the corners. If this, and this is a relative, it's not super common, but right now I'm saying that, everybody listening right now can point out a person that's like, oh yeah, I know someone that that happens to. That oftentimes means that they have a vitamin B12 deficiency or another nutrient, but it's typically B12. Now this gets a little complicated. Either A, they need to supplement with B12 or B, they're not absorbing B12 very well, which tends to point to the fact that their gut health is off.

So if this is you, then you would get your B vitamins tested and see, do I need to supplement? And again, this is an easy fix. For people, by the way, with B12 absorption issues, a very simple B12 injection, which most doctors will give you, you'll feel it right away. I had a client like this. They went and got a B12 injection, they changed their life just from one shot. Whereas I could take B12 or whatever, notice a difference,

because I never had a deficiency. So I want to do something a little bit different, right? With this, today's episode, we have, like with our partners, we have two partners, right, that we mentioned in the episode today. You went over six of these things that are going on as signs of potentially, using those, like Caldera, Brain FMM, or two of our partners

that we work with, how is that as a tool that you would use to help either mitigate or help one of these situations? Well, BrainFM is easy. That's sleep. That'll help you a lot with sleep. So the way BrainFM works is you listen to the sounds that are coming through the headphones,

and the sounds are designed and engineered to induce certain states of brain, of your brain, to induce certain brain waves that are associated with things like focus or sleep or meditation. So, and this is a very effective, it's actually a creepy effective tool. I mean, you put this on and five to 10 minutes later, you're like, wow, this is putting me in a different state. So that would be a good sleep, in my opinion. I found it, and I don't know if there's lots of other cases of what types of people that are struggling with sleep,

but for me, when I struggle with sleep, aside from obviously supplementing with magnesium is first and foremost, but it's when my mind starts to wander or I get fixated on something in the business and I can't get out of that loop. That's probably the most common, right? Like exhausted but anxious and stressed. Right. Right. And I find that when I put that in my ears, I hear the sound back and forth and it all of a sudden pulls me away from that loop and then I fall into a deep sleep. See, I've used it before for the sleep, but what I like to do as opposed to that is I'll

go for a walk outside listening to the relax and so I'll kind of get, again, so the mind chatter stuff and the stress is addressing that before I start getting into my actual sleep ritual. Oh, interesting. I've never thought about using it like that. So it's like a step before. It's just a step before. Yeah, just only because, and I know that they now are like okay with you broadcasting over

like a speaker, but before that it was like you had to have like your headphones on. I just don't like sleep well with headphones on. So that was sort of my hack before that, but that was just something that I did with them. Yeah, because you could if they if you were to look at a person and not see what they were doing and examine their brain wave patterns you could very reliably tell what they're doing. They're thinking you know intently or they're sleeping or they're meditating or they're stressed out and so what they do with these sounds that they you know brought they put through these headphones

is they figured out how to get your brain into the brain wave patterns that match what you're looking for. So your brain wave pattern may look like a stressed person, but then you listen to relax. And then through the sounds, it actually teaches and trains your brain to get into this brain wave pattern.

So then suddenly you feel. Yeah, that's actually, I don't know why I had never thought to do that, Justin. I think doing that and pairing it even too with like a gratitude practice while you're walking. So you know, like, how he'll take you out of that anxious mindset by having a gratitude practice. So pairing that with the BrainFM in there

before to prep for sleep, that's not a bad idea. You know what else is something for sleep? I talked about this on a recent, we had a caller call in who talked about how they had poor sleep and they were on a low carb diet. And I recommended that they eat carbohydrates before going to bed, you know, maybe, maybe two or three hours before bed.

Carbohydrates before bed for many people, not right before bed. You don't want to eat anything right before bed, but you know, your last meal of day, carbohydrates have been shown to improve people's sleep because it contributes to tryptophan being utilized by the brain. Now, carbohydrates don't contain tryptophan,

but they do help that tryptophan get transported and utilized by the brain, and that also helps and contributes to melatonin production. So in many cases, especially if someone's eating low carb, having them eat their carbohydrates as their last meal will help them get better sleep. Just a little tidbit.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, that's like a hack for babies. You know, you do that. Like, you ever seen people who will put crushed cereal or something like that to add carbohydrates into their meal? Oh yeah, it's like a hack to help your baby sleep at night. If you have a baby wakes up in the middle of the night, a lot of times they're waking up too

because they want more calories, more food, and so a denser, heavier carbohydrate meal with their milk tends to help the baby sleep more. Interesting. And then you brought up caldera for skincare. Caldera is a topical product, but the compounds in caldera, these natural botanicals, that reduce inflammation, have antioxidant properties,

and promote, and this is the most important thing, promote a healthy microbiome on the skin. So that makes a huge difference. This is why, so a lot of people don't realize this, but the classic over-the-counter acne treatments, benzoyl peroxide is one of them, another one is salicylic acid, I think, those are topical antibiotics, essentially.

I was gonna say, yeah, they kill the bacteria. They kill bacteria. And this is why they make your acne, in many cases, go away unless there's a much deeper root cause. So what a product like Caldera does, it's a face oil, and it balances out your skin's oil and all that stuff, but it also helps promote healthy microbiome. Which, by the way, so they do studies on their own stuff, clinical studies.

I didn't know this, the typical skincare product, if they do run a clinical study, is 30 people for 30 days. Caldera did a study that was 50 days, and it was, I think, 50 people, or 50 something people for 50 or 60 days, so twice as long. Well beyond what is considered industry standard. Interesting, I wonder what the strategy is for the other companies to do shorter periods like that.

Cheaper. Yeah. It's much cheaper. Is that the main reason you think? Yeah, it's much cheaper. Okay. Yeah, I mean, why would you, you wanna do the minimum because,

you know how expensive studies are to conduct, but Caldera did it like almost twice as long with more people. I guess I never thought of that like that, the difference of 30 days to 50 days makes such a difference in price for what it would cost to get a study done. I didn't think that that would make that big of a difference.

That's the study that they showed 91% of the people saw improvements in their skin, reduced fine lines and wrinkles and all that stuff. I mean, I haven't had anybody use the product and not say that. Every single person, family, friend that I've sent in that direction have all said nothing but positive things about it.

Yep, yep, yep, interesting. It's pretty effective. Anyway, I learned something the other day. It's a true story that I did not know was true, but there was a semi-funny movie, wasn't that great, that was based off of it. You guys remember the movie Lucho Libre? Is that what the name was?

Or no, no, that's not it. Nacho Libre. Nacho Libre. Lucho Libre is the name of the actual sport. Or no, no, that's not it. Not Lucho Libre. Not Lucho Libre. Lucho Libre is the name of the actual sport. You know that's based off of a true story? Yeah. Did you do that? I don't know the whole story, but I knew it was pretty.

Loosely, because yes, very loosely. Yes, loosely based off of a character. Which I, isn't it, aren't most, even like fictional movies normally drawn from some sort of. Yeah, they get inspiration from a real character in real life. Most times that I've like looked up like a movie like to see if it's true or not. Even the ones that are fictional will normally say like,

but then the author pulled from, you know. They use archetypes from other cultures and you know, they'll bring it in. Check this out. So it's relatable, otherwise it's not relatable. I just saw this and I looked it up. This is crazy. So Frey, his name is Frey Tormenta. He was born Sergio Gutierrez Benitez. He was a Mexican Catholic

priest who turned to professional wrestling to support his orphanage. He had an orphanage that needed money. They weren't able to get enough money, he wanted to support these poor kids. Was he successful? Yes! Oh, that's cool. He became a wrestler and made money, and he was a famous wrestler as a result. Here's a picture of him after, when he was old,

and look at that. He actually went and wrestled, pro wrestling in Mexico, to feed these kids. What a badass! Now, do you feel like, cause I- How awesome is that? I don't even know if I've sat and watched that whole movie all the way through or not.

Is it a bit of a mockery of him or do you think it's like paying homage to him? No, it was all comedy. Cause that sounds like a cool story. I think they saw the success of Napoleon Dynamite and it was like that off beat like humor where it was like, it's kind of slow dorky and it fit within that sort of genre. But yeah, it was definitely comedy first.

But that's, I'm sure they saw that story. Like, hey, like we can make it. I just love that story. Like you have a guy who's like, we gotta keep, how do we feed these kids without parents? And you know, we can't get, the donations aren't working, so I'm gonna go do this dangerous, pro wrestling is not a dangerous sport.

You just get, your back is destroyed, like you, I mean, there's no way you're making out for years in without like major injuries. No, and so he wore the mask so people didn't know who he was. Yeah, that's cool. Are you guys, are you guys peering in? Are you paying attention to Logan Paul and his whole journey in the WWE and so on?

I've just seen some highlight clips. And it's just like, it's very impressive to see. It's very impressive. From where he started, like kind of just doing the whatever, where you talk trash and he kind of does these like reels. And then he's doing a few moves, but nothing crazy. Now he's like jumping off of like the high spots on these dude.

Love him or hate him. He was made for that. Yeah. Like the fact that he started his career as just like a YouTube kid who's like, could be a character and do all sorts of that, that right away fits into that. He's stayed active and fit for most of his life, right?

And he is like unbelievably talented inside the ring. Like, I mean, it's crazy. Him and his brother are both athletic as hell. Very athletic. Super athletic. And if you see some of the stuff that he's doing, I mean, he's like shooting off the ropes, back flipping onto like, onto the concrete

and stuff like that, landing on guys. It's wild. Smashing tables, like jumping all the way out. You know how they do those huge like back flips? Yeah, I saw one recently he did and was like wow I so crazy when I was looking at reading up on this priest I saw some videos on like pro wrestling moves and stuff and there's one move where they I don't know it's called pile driver or whatever where the guys upside down and you pretend to hit your his

head on the ground yeah and the idea is I land on my knees and I don't let him hit his hell your thighs keep you don't break his neck, but yeah, you know you're doing this, you know every week you're doing in front of lots of people you're hot sweaty and Sometimes the people hit their head and this is getting herniated discs. Oh, yeah, I mean that sucks That's it's a it's a rough sport. Yeah, I think I've told it before on the podcast. I forget the name of Brett Hart's bi sport. Yeah, I think I've told this before on the podcast. I forget the name of Bret Hart's biography. Oh yeah, I've talked about it. What it was called.

It's huge though, it's like a Bible-sized book. His family, they're responsible for love. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. So it's a really interesting read to like all the backstory and all that stuff like that. I told you guys when I met the Iron Sheik, I think that was his name. Was it the Iron Sheik?

He was a pro wrestler. I met him at, it was a bodybuilding convention and he was signing autographs and he was, I mean, with a walker. Pete Slauson He used to swing those Persian meals. Jared Larkin Yes. Pete Slauson I loved watching that. Yeah, I was always fascinated by some of those things and the gada and stuff like Indian culture and stuff like that they used to have. Jared Larkin Did you know about that way before it became a thing here?

Yeah. How did you learn about that? Because that was kind of like how you got into like the old classic bodybuilding stuff and then went further back and saw the origin of that. I just kind of traced back a lot of, from dumbbells to kettlebells to who did what, and then like strength feats and all that kind of thing,

and then looked at other cultures like what kind of weights do they use? And then you start seeing that like some of these cultures, they're like swinging their weights and they're, or they're doing a lot of like crazy wrestling feats of strength. And so there's some cultures that are just like all in on the- I want to say it's India right with a huge yes They have an incredible wrestling Pedigree pedigree and that's where this strength training came from right with the big the massive clubs though like Like huge bro, like as big as me almost and they're really yeah, dude

It's like they're also training for war at the same time. And so a lot of weapons you like a mace Yeah, and it's like a weapon. Yeah, and Pacific Islander, and like they had a lot of really cool clubs that they used to, Well, so is that the true origin of like things like mace? Was it first like training for a weapon before it was like, oh, this is a fitness school? Yeah, because you're literally swinging a big metal,

you know, heavy object at the end of a pole. Right. So you train with heavier ones. Because you would knock people off courses. It just became a discipline that they would do consistently before they would go off to battle. It's just to prepare them physically. Yeah, Doug, can you look up the Great Gamma,

I think his name is, maybe G-A-M-A, put Great Gamma wrestler, and then it'll come up. I want you guys to check this guy, he's an Indian wrestler. He was undefeated for I don't know how long, but there's a picture of him and he just looks, you definitely don't want to wrestle this guy. If you look at this picture, did you find it? Yeah, check this guy out right here.

And now what's his story? When was he wrestling? Yeah, look at this guy. Oh, there he is holding that mace. Yeah, there he is. I mean, and this is like before they were lifting, definitely before supplements or steroids, but look at that horse. He's a beast.

Look at the size of his. So he was 18 or was it 1879? 1878? Yeah, 1878. What was his record? I want to look at his record. I love learning about these, like these athletes from back in the day with these crazy records. What is it? Oh, 5,000 matches, won 5,000. Oh, see Bruce Lee was a follower of his. That's how I knew about him.

Pretty cool stuff. I think that's our cross sectional meeting point is like Bruce Lee. Because he brought all that together, dude. You know that he. How do you even win 5,000 matches? Do the math on that. They brought all that together. Do you know that he... How do you even win 5,000 matches? Do the math on that. They're just always fighting. Matches happen all the time. Like crazy amount. Think about that.

There's still wrestling schools that are like this old school style in India where the ground is, I want to say dirt or sand, and that's what they wrestle in. And it's brutal as hell. And they drink, I think it's like a milk-based diet or something like that to get them big. I remember reading about this when I was younger. Hey, you mentioned Bruce Lee. It's funny, my dad was, you know, we were talking today

and he brought up Bruce Lee because that was his hero when he was a kid. And he said that's what made him think about lifting weights when he was a kid. And it was when Bruce Lee does his famous lat spread I'm gonna use this Yeah, I like the first famous lat spread I think Like when he just prepared a fight like Chuck Norris or something and just be like

Shredded abs. Yeah, I just saw something with like a Chuck Norris. I think they CGI'd him too. There was a new movie. It was a commercial I think. Is that what it was, a commercial? I just, as I say, I just saw something with Chuck Norris in it and was it CGI? Cause he looked way younger than what he was, right?

I think I've seen the same commercial. Okay, it was a commercial. I wasn't sure if it was a commercial or a new movie that was coming out. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, wait a second, Chuck Norris can't look that, like looks way older. He's old now. Yeah, he's fit. He's able bodied and fit, but yeah, he's definitely aged.

Did you ever see his ad? So I used to subscribe. His Total Gym? No. So I subscribed to all the bodybuilding magazines, but I don't think I ever really talked about it. I also subscribed to a bunch of martial arts magazines as a kid, Black Belt and all those.

And in the back of the martial arts magazines in the 90s, there were always like these obscure ads. Half of them were for martial arts that we discovered thousands of year old that can kill you or whatever and I would buy those books and it was all bullshit. But there was Bruce Lee, uh, excuse me, Chuck Norris used to sell, I think they were called Action Pants. And they were, have you seen those? Their jeans. Their jeans. Is that where Jujy Mufu got his idea? Yes, dude, it's gotta be bro.

Yeah, it has him like doing these jump kicks You saw those dude? And then he has some where they're like cut off jeans and he's in boots. I wonder if Jujy got his from that. I wonder if that's where that came from. Of course. Cause you don't want to be stuck, you don't want to be caught in a street fight wearing tight ass jeans. You can't even throw your roundhouse dude.

Yeah, you gotta be able to. The first image that comes up. I got my action pants on. I can't help but think of the Napoleon Dynamite clip. You know what I'm saying? The guy in the MC Hammer pants, the American flag. Oh, yes. Did you guys ever, I went through a phase of wearing those.

The big, the balloon pants? The second I did. From like fourth, I want to say from fourth to sixth grade around the zoo bath. I never did. They were called zoo baths. I had a, so they were like bone fish. You know did. Called Zubaz. I had a, you were like bone fish. You know, like that was the

pattern. Yes. Mine. I minded this to the unvelcroed like this so that you opened them like this and then, you know, made them open like this big. And then you, you Velcroed them closed. Dude, I was a huge MC Hammer fan. Yeah. So I was just, I was all in with a tucked in turtleneck.

No, you didn't. You did the tuck. Sorry, God, dude. Man, you went all MC Hammer pants with tucked in turtleneck yeah you know you did all your pants with tucked in turtleneck dude oh you're sure I'm pretty sure I got you have like the layered like yeah you can still buy you know who else wore a lot of those guys I don't want to you know you know who else used to wear those pants for a lot all the time who bodybuilders of the 90s and 80s. Oh yeah, bodybuilders. That was bodybuilder pants. Bodybuilders and chefs. Yeah.

That's the commonality. What's going on here? I don't know. In martial arts masters. I believe that, right? I definitely have seen, I remember when I was wearing the sweaters again, bringing the all cut out, open and stuff like that.

I was wearing that again. Oh, the open collar? I've seen that now in the gyms, like crazy now. I've seen quite a few people that are rocking that. You know what shirt will never make it back in style? I know the fishnet ones. Half shirt? Yeah. What were dudes wearing half shirts? Football. To cover your pads. I wish I said I didn't do that. No that's a football. That's a total football trend. That makes sense. Yeah. Do you know when I first saw it was Rocky 3 when it went Rocky and and Apollo running running running on the little tiny half

shirts. They're like mid-term. Now I have to claim that's probably like my douchiest look. What? Yeah but you play football. Yeah but like I also like walked around campus. Yeah after I was done a pass. In the late 90s? Yeah. You had a six pack, huh? For sure, I had a six pack for a long time. Just walk around, you got to be attentive. You guys are haters, man.

I got pics, dude. I didn't care. I didn't even care. Well, hold on. I see the proof. What a liar right now. Hold on. I wore a half shirt, I had a six pack.

I didn't care, though. That's what I'm saying. It's like, it's douchey. And I did. I got complimented. Supermodel girlfriend in Canada, too. Yeah, what I'm saying. It's like it's douchey. I got complimented. Supermodel girlfriend in Canada. You know when Mills picked a person, I almost believed you didn't care until we got that selfie accidentally sent to us. Okay, I know you care. I still got that same W. I'm not allowed to talk about that anymore. I put that away somewhere. I'm going to pull that out.

That's blackmailed me. You're going to lose so much, dude. Maybe one of the best things that's happened to us together was, I think, that one of my favorites. And being Justin is the best. If it was one of us, it wouldn't have been that funny. No, it would be a Friday. Yeah.

OK. But listen, you can't get. Yeah, I have tendencies, guys. You can't, at least in my opinion, you can't hold that against you because regardless of you wearing it at school, but it was functional. So it's a pass. You can play football. Yeah, you play football.

It might work. Way douchier, yeah, if I wore it, say like as a basketball player. That's true. Yeah, no functional reason. Because we did stuff like this all time, too, right? What people would think was, I think people today would say this is douchey I don't think so back then we used to wear

Socks with our slides all the time. Oh, but that was functional I had my basketball bag with my with my sneakers And so as soon as I get in the gym, I do kick my slides off sneakers go on I'm ready to play their basketball player or Cholo. Those are the two acceptable No, they're cool or Cholo, those are the two acceptable people that can wear socks. You're not gonna talk trash to your cholo. No, no, they're cool. Do your thing, bro.

You're good. Yeah, I feel like you get a pass with some of that stuff, you know? Like if you actually used it and you were an athlete. Is it okay to wear socks, not with slides, but with the flip flops or the toe? The Jesus Shant singles? Yeah, the toe goes in between.

Oh no, that is not cool. That is not cool. I saw a guy in the store the other day doing that. Yeah, the toe goes, you know when it goes in between? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, no, that is not cool. That is not cool. I saw a guy. That's gotta be so gross. I saw a guy in the store the other day doing that. I'm like, bro. Really? Yeah, it's like, maybe if you were aware, like I could see if you were at home, right?

Just take your socks off. And the wife goes, hey, can you take the trash out? I've asked you three times. Real quick. And you got your flip flops right there, and you're just like, you shove them in, you go. But you go out in public in that? I just don't like the feeling,

I wouldn't like the feeling my socks in Between my no, it's awful. What are you doing? There's an awful feeling and a look. No weird not acceptable No, yeah, not not acceptable. I mean I you know, it's tripping me out though Like so Ethan he has like the same size feet as me now really I'm like it but he's yeah He's not that's cuz he's gonna get taller. What kind of what grade is he in right now? Yeah, so he's going into freshman year. Okay, that makes sense. Um, isn't that when you probably peaked your shoe size? No, I don't know. It's hard to say. I don't know. Yeah, probably. Yeah, that's about when I peek shoe size Yeah, I don't remember. No, I didn't remember it happening. Yeah, you got a 12, right? Yeah, you were a 12 as a freshman

Weren't you short? Yeah, but my feet were big. I hadn't grown into my feet yet. Holy shit, so you look like a diver. I mean, I definitely know I had a... How tall were you as a friend? Cause you... Five three. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You were five three with a size 12 shoe? Yeah, probably, or 11 probably at that time,

close to my peak. Oh my God. That's normal. It's normal you have big feet and then you grow into it as a kid, something the other way around. You're not hella tall and then your feet grow later and that's even worse, bro. You're it's normal you have big feet and then you grow into as a kid Yeah, the way around you're not hella taller than your feet girl. They don't that's even worse, bro You look like a fucking 6-3 with size 5 size 5 shoes You're 6-3 sooner or later my feet are gonna grow in this high

Japanese geisha that's way more weird than having big-ass feet. There's a time that every kid goes through huge disparity Holy well, I mean like I said, maybe I'm off a little bit. You've got to be off. But I know I remember in, you know, as I remember too, a phase in junior high, when you used to wear shoes, you wanted bigger feet. And so you wore bigger shoes than what you could. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, I wore a size up. Yeah, like a gap like that. Yeah, yeah. I remember wearing like a size up when I probably should. So I remember doing that in like fifth, sixth, seventh grade. And then I remember heading into high school, like pretty sure I was close to size 12, close. Maybe 11, 11, I probably went 11, 11 1 1 2 was probably,

and then I peaked there, and that's always the end of it. But yeah. Interesting. I gotta think back to that. You know, but your shoe size goes first. Your feet get big first. And then you grow into it. That's right.

And so I think it's pretty normal for a kid going into high school to be close to his. At what age is a typical male stop growing taller? Oh, well, men in general stop growing. 25, they need to cut off. Yeah, what would you say? I think it's like 18. I think height is right.

On average. Because you were a late bloomer. I kept growing height-wise out of high school. That's right. I stopped when I was 18. I was 15 or 16 Did you hear me tell you guys that stat look up Dennis Rodman growth spurt how old he was? Yeah, he was like he was a little later. Yes

He grew like a foot like like when he was like 1920 or something, you know, it sucks about that There's a lot of dudes that just they just hope that that's you know, I mean they're all Dennis Rodman did it No, maybe I'll just have a growth spurt. Yeah It's not it's not common. Yeah, you're just I mean? That, oh, Dennis Rodman did it. Maybe I'll just have a growth spurt, you know? It's not common. Now you're just hanging from the pull-up bar like, ah, dude, it's gonna happen. Yeah, no, I got tall real fast and that was it. I just froze.

Early or was it later on? Early. Look at this. He went from 5'11 to 6'7. Wow. Holy, wow. Isn't that wild? Yeah, that's gotta feel weird.

Yeah, so look, it was when he was a janitor at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. It didn't say how old he was, all right there, huh? No, that's gotta be a weird feeling. But it was after high school. So he's after high school, he hits this 19 years old. That's a crazy leap. That's almost a foot, bro.

To put almost a foot on after high school? Yeah, that's wild. This is, and you know, babies grow like this too. They did that one famous study where there was a woman that was, she was measuring children and babies every single day because parents always talk about growth spurts and the common belief was that they grow consistently and parents are like,

that's not what happens. Like my kid all of a sudden overnight, that's exactly what happens. They grow overnight. It's like they do nothing and they explode. It totally confirms what every parent has felt before. Totally. You don't see your kids for a couple days sometimes and it's like you have those ones like he got taller.

I can tell, I swear. I didn't see my cousin and his daughters for a couple months. And then he shows up with his daughters. I'm like, they look way different. It was like a two month period. they look way different but they're around that age when that starts to happen anyway you know I was having a thought today that I think needs to be communicated more often to the non-fitness fanatic or

person who's looking to get started in fitness and trying to look for a gym. And that is that I understand that the hardcore environment in hardcore gyms is intimidating, but that's probably the best place you could go. Because when you're in a gym where, you know, I'm working out this morning, I'm looking around, and I've worked out at the country club type gym, I worked out at whatever gym, and then I go to the, you know, UFC gym and it's more serious, and I'm looking around,

I had this thought this morning, I was looking around and I said, let me ask you guys, how often is it you go to a commercial gym and you look around and 90 plus percent of everybody in there is doing everything right? Never, no. And that's what you get in a hardcore gym. And they don't know the social cues

and the gym culture at all. Yes, when you go in a hard gym. And they don't know the social cues and the gym culture at all. Yes. When you go to a serious gym, although it's intimidating because you're a beginner. Visually it's intimidating, that's why. Yes. First off, it's the most inviting. Even though it feels intimidating, they're the most likely to help you. People who are very serious about fitness, when you come in as a beginner, you could

tap on anyone's shoulder or even if they see you struggling, they'll want to help you. So you'll get great, you're more likely to get good advice, but you're also just around proper technique, form, and training. I mean, I was literally this morning, I'm working out, looking around, and typically I'm in my own world when I'm working out. I'm just doing my thing, and if I see someone

that I recognize, I'll say hi, and that's it. But I was literally sitting there for a second in between sets, and I was looking at one corner where all the platforms are, then I looked at where the dumbbells are I looked at the machines and I'm like you know first off my first thought was boy has fitness culture changed in 20 years like I saw just as many and I see this every morning just as many many women strength training as men everybody in there was strength training properly.

Everybody's technique and form was good. I didn't see, you know, I didn't see shitty technique. I saw everybody pretty much full range of motion, controlled, they were spotting each other properly. I was like, wow, this is, you know, we should communicate this more often because the average person, they wanna go into a gym that feels,

they don't wanna feel intimidated. Going to a hardcore gym feels intimidating, but that's where you're gonna get the best environment, the best learning, because you're learning from people who know what they're doing. The problem with that is that people that are gym shopping, that's not even a factor for them.

They don't know that. I know. They don't even know that that should be a factor. It's not even a thing. It's like, I mean, they've done plenty of research on this, right? The three C's we used to call it, right? The convenience, convenience, and cost. So those are the three things that people really care

and think about when they make a decision. Now, they should consider what you're saying, right? Especially if you're somebody who is intimidated, you aren't sure what to do, and you want a conducive environment to growth and consistency and help and so in that case it would behoove you to find a gym that is more grungy dungeon like type of vibes and Serious lifters, but it's so funny because that feel that seems so counter Oh, it's like you would never tell someone else starting at like a sports more that like go where all the pros are

That's where you should learn how to do this You would want to go where the beginners are you think but in this situation? It's actually more advantageous for you to find that because of there will be more better advice We've been in gyms most of our lives, okay? Think of now, picture a hardcore gym where everybody in there knows what they're doing, they've been training a while, they're very consistent. Now imagine a beginner walking in and trying to use something, not figuring it out.

You know what's gonna happen. You know somebody's gonna go up to them and say, hey, do you need help? Do you want me to show you how to use this? Are you new here? Let me help you out. Or if they ask a question, absolutely. Like I learned that as a kid. I learned that as a 15 year old kid there was a

group of powerlifters, scary looking at the time, powerlifters working out and they were so happy to see some kid working so hard. They asked me what I was doing. I asked them a couple questions and they said, why don't you work in with us? And I learned how to squat. I learned how to squat properly from those guys. So, you know, it's intimidating because people when they're serious and they're really into the workout, it looks scary to the outside person.

But that's the most inclusive, accepting, helpful place you could possibly be is in that kind of a gym, you know? Yeah, and I mean, they probably feel like they don't want to get in their way and they don't know anything and like, you're, they feel like they're going to be annoying or whatever coming in is not knowing anything. But like, yeah, again, to that point that that's actually that excites those type of members in there, because it's like, they see that you, you really want to make this happen. You're committed to this. And so they're willing to get out of their way to come over and kind of give you advice and help you out. I can look, okay, I take my workouts very seriously. I have a limited time to work out.

I have to work out really early so I can make it here to work. So it's not like I can spend extra time at the gym. And I can tell you right now, the three times that I stopped and took 15 minutes to talk to someone, help someone over the last 60 days. Two of them were kids, so two of them were, two times where they were under the age of 16.

And it's because they were, I saw them looking at me and I saw them doing an exercise and I walked over to them and I said, hey, what are you doing? How's it going? I started helping them. And the other one was this woman who, she was working so hard and it looked like she was getting back into it and her goal was to lose weight.

And I just had to go over to her and tell her like, man, you're doing a good job. You're doing good form. I see you working out. And we talked for like 15 minutes. Were you and your wife beat her? No, not at this point in the workout, why? No, I just figured that the 16 year old boys

were probably making fun of you. That's probably why. No, no. They're in style now. Who's that wannabe Rocky guy over there? Hey, first of all, they don't know who Rocky is. On the bus, on the bus, on the bus. Are we getting that age where you can't even

reference a movie like that because it's too out of date? I have a cousin, young cousin, that's just got into car sales. And I reference Glyn-Gary, Glyn Ross, and Boiler Room. Don't tell me he didn't know either one. He didn't know either one of those. And then what? God is it big. So obviously Glyn Gary, Glyn Ross is a really old one that a lot of people I know that are.

Those are sales. But Boiler Room, how old is Boiler Room? Is it getting that old? 20 something years, bro. Really? 25 years maybe. That makes sense because he's only 24, I think is how old he is. So is Boiler Room really that old?

It's 25 years at least, bro. Really? Yeah, I watched it. I took my sales guys to watch it when I was 19 or 20. So it's gotta be 20 or 25. I mean, I remember watching it in the gym. And so I'm assuming it was when I was 20. So I guess 20 years old.

No, 25 at least. 20, that's my guess. What's the over under here? 2000. Boom, 24 years old. Wow. That's exactly why he doesn't know. Yeah.

That's so crazy. You know, for people who've never seen either one. Dylan's back there going, like I don't know the fuck they're talking about either. Yeah, he's there watching, dude. He's over there Googling as fast as he can right now. Hey, for people who haven't, like. You have to watch Boiler Room.

The language is colorful. It's not like the most. Is it politically incorrect in there? Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross is. Big time. Oh yeah, oh yeah. They say things in Glen Gary Glen Ross's Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah They say things in there. You can't say anymore on TV Okay. Oh god. Yeah, it's I mean if you're in sales you have to forget the language. It's like if you're in If you're in sale, that's another one right so those would be my top three if you're a salesperson

Those are top three movies right there. You gotta watch glen gary You gotta watch boiler room and you gotta watch Wolf and Wall Street. I had to say those are like the three best. Those are some bangers for sure. Who were your sales, did you ever watch or listen to sales like people who were, you know, like sales trainers or? You know, like Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar. I read Zig Ziglar.

I read those books. But you know what, I was, and I feel like we all were kind of like this. I was so blessed to be surrounded by really talented real people. So that was, I spent a lot of time outside of my work hours inside the gym. Like I would, if one of those sales guys that I worked with at the time, and I worked with some of the guys that are great that have gone on to do a lot of different things in sales and been very successful. If they were still in the gym and it's like eight, nine o'clock at night and I'm done, like I would come sit over at their desk and we would talk. And I'd ask him about sales stuff and we'd role play and I would just, I would eat that up. So I spent so much time with people like that. I mean, I can't stress this enough for our coaches and trainers too that listen to us and that we're helping through the coaching program.

Like, you know, when you have that opportunity, I think that's why I get frustrated sometimes too when people tell me they're like, oh, it's so hard or this, that, and they have this opportunity to be learning and to be role playing and to be practicing. It's like, you can't expect to be so good at this if you haven't put any of the time in to learn it and get good at chase mastery first like I saw Hormozzi did a really good post the other day.

I'll look it up because I'm probably in a butcher right now. We talked about the first two years of like, you know, building your business or going is your time to learn not earn and everybody approaches it trying to earn. Yeah. And it's like that're- That's why they keep quitting for six months. That's right, and that's why you quit because you're so focused on the earning part when that's not what you're supposed to be doing right now. You're two years into a new craft. You learn right now.

Everything that you do, it needs to be looked at through that lens. Now, if you're lucky, you get to earn a little bit along the way if you're lucky, but it doesn't matter even if you don't because really the goal at that point in your career, no matter what it is you're doing, is to learn and to approach it that way.

You're not gonna just jump right into being this great salesperson or top podcast, or you have to first go through the process of learning. I think everybody benefits from learning sales skills. 100%. It's communications skills. 100%. And it's human behavior. And when you first learn learn it's following a script and this is what you say when they say that

and this is what you do and that's fine. But when you really get good at it, you just get really good at being able to communicate. It's the art of communication. Yeah, I know, I think too, and I think you've said it really well for a long time, I think that if people were to look at it that way instead of this, ugh, sales.

The reason why that's got a bad connotation is because we've all experienced a bad salesperson. Yeah, we all connected to a used car salesman. Yeah, that's not good sales. No. If you leave with a bad feeling, ugh, that person was slimy, he did a bad job. You know, I have a shout out

since we're just finishing up with talking about business stuff. I mean, I really enjoyed the content that Alex Hormozzi has put out. If you are a business operator, you're in sales, you're a trainer, and you don't already follow all of his content. He is just a fire hose of business knowledge and information on both his YouTube channel, his podcast, his Instagram

reels, like the guy's constantly putting out fire. So make sure you give him a follow if you're not already following him. Elementee is an electrolyte powder, no artificial sweeteners, no sugar, but it's got the right amount of sodium to fuel your body for workouts, for performance. If your sodium is too low in particular, you can get headaches, you can get for performance. If your sodium is too low, in particular, you can get headaches, you can get poor performance. This is actually more common than you think with people who eat a whole food diet, and especially if you have a low carb diet.

Anyway, go check them out. Go to drinklmnt.com forward slash mind pump. You'll get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Jamie from Illinois. Hi, Jamie. Hey guys, how are you? Good. What's going on?

I feel like we tried this. Good. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm going to get right to the question. I'm just going to read it. So I stay on task. Okay.

Um, I've been lifting weights for about a decade, but for consistently for a good five years now, um, I've seen strength gains and have watched my body re-comp happen. about a decade, but consistently for a good five years now. I've seen strength gains and have watched my body re-comp happen. My question is, what are some good ways to increase my bench press? I've never done anything competitive, mostly due to lack of confidence,

and I'm not quite sure I can hit the numbers on the bar that would prevent me from getting laughed at. However, my local gym has a bench press competition every fall and I'd like to step out of my comfort zone and give it a try. I'm 41 years old, 135 pounds and right at five foot. I just hit a PR last week of 110 pounds and I'd love to see that number go up. I'd also love some advice on proper form as I sometimes get some front shoulder pain when doing the exercise. Additionally, I just don't feel as connected to my body as I do when I squat or bench press.

Thank you so much. Good question. Cool question. Real quick, just want to address your comment about being laughed at. Nobody's ever going to laugh at anybody at a powerlifting competition. Yeah. No matter how much weight you lift, it's very supportive community. They'll see you trying. It's great. It's an amazing community to be a part of.

And you're already, by the way, at a respectable bench price. Yeah, you're doing fine. You're doing fine. Okay, so are you following any of our programs? Because the best thing I could do is put you on a legit powerlifting program. The powerlifting protocol and programming is different than like bodybuilding style training or muscle development type training. Powerlifting protocols are excellent at getting people stronger at the three lifts,

bench press being one of them. So are you following in a verse? I just finished anabolic and I've done aesthetic, but no powerlifter, strong or anything. All right, I'm gonna send you, yeah, I'm gonna send you mass power lift. Anabolic was great for strength. Aesthetic, a lot of volume, but power lift will get your numbers up for sure. Now as far as the shoulder pain, front shoulder pain tends to be the bicep tendon where it inserts over the shoulder. That could be due to a few different things, overuse, technique,

probably shoulder stability, probably weakness in the mid upper back, who knows, but shoulder mobility movements and a strong mid upper back makes a big difference. Priming, priming before you bench will do wonders. So do you have our prime program? I don't, no I don't. Okay, it's another one that you should look into too. But for just to give you straight up what you should do before is like band pull-aparts, shoulder dislocates, handcuff with rotation,

those type of movements. Wall circles. Yeah, wall circles, those types of movements before you go into a bench press will help that. And that's gonna make a big difference before you go in is priming Now I'm gonna I'm gonna give you like a little hack. Okay, which shoulder is it by the way? Right if you push on it, could it feel tender in the front? Not now, but last week after I worked it pretty hard it did here's an easy hack

This isn't gonna fix the problem what Adam said fixes the problem But what I'm gonna tell you is a temporary relief. Okay, you do a static stretch of your bicep. Literally, literally you take your hand out, you stretch out your, put your arm on the wall or something, stretch your bicep, hold, make sure it's your bicep that's stretching, hold that stretch for like 40 seconds and then try the bench press again and in the pains typically a lot better Look, it's because it tends to be bicep tendon inflammation No, it increasing my bicep with going up and weight on my bicep. No that help it. No, not necessarily No, no, no, no, it's that has nothing to do with your bicep

but be where the bicep tendon is and runs over the top of the humerus and the way the shoulder functions the inflammation will hit that, especially if you're not good at retracting and depressing the scapula when you bench press. MAPS Power Lift has got really good coaching on biomechanics of a power lift bench press, which is, that's what you want to learn. I was going to say there's a master class in there that Ben Pollock did where he kind of breaks down all the different cues and very specific things to look out for technique wise while performing that exercise. Cause it is a lot more technical of an exercise people than they realize. So yeah, there's a lot of things you can do to tweak and alter that and brace and maintain

a lot more leg drive, you know, emphasis that you can kind of learn and teach yourself to maximize your efforts. So yeah, really dive into that and kind of learn and teach yourself to maximize your efforts. So yeah, really dive into that and kind of practice and implement it. But yeah, the shoulder mobility is going to be huge as well, just to get that solid connection. And there is some of that in there. There's some priming and stuff like that.

So literally, that program alone is going to probably do wonders for you. Oh, yeah. Just considering that you haven't ran something that's organized like that, the fact that it has the coaching in there from Ben Pollock, literally just follow that. I think that in itself, you're going to see a big difference.

And then we can get into stuff later. Totally. I think there's lots of value, too, when you're doing bands where the bench press is assisted. So you get used to holding a weight that you couldn't do on your own, but because it's assisting it. There's a lot of little- That's more advanced.

That's more advanced techniques. For now, follow the program. The program alone, I think is going to add at least 10 to 15 pounds of your bench press alone. So does it go over like proper form? Yes. Yes. Yes. It goes over all of that. It does. It does. By the way, proper grip, uh, you know, with on a bar, there's a range and you'll see some people will bench with slightly closer grip like me. Some people do a much wider grip. So

there is a range right now. Obviously too close, too wide, obviously not going to be good, but you'll see some people with a more tight grip or what they'll call tight or closer, some people a little wider and that's perfectly fine and you'll find kind of a range even among power powerlifters, you'll find that. I feel thing. Yeah, I personally have found what matters the most with that is actually what allows you to get your shoulders retracted and depressed where that's the most comfortable. Because that tends to be what happens to a lot of people is one or both shoulders tend to roll forward and then their arms

take over the lift instead of their chest moving it. That's where the bicep tendons come in. And so, yeah, and that's probably what's going on with the bicep right now. So what is normally going to be best is whatever position helps you get into that retracted and depressed position. And a lot of this stuff is covered with Ben Pollock in the, in the program. So this is, I think, uh, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds with you cause we could be like, uh,

telling you all these random, like follow that program. That should be in itself very, very valuable and then circle back from us after you do that. We can get into more of that stuff. In fact, Jamie, really good powerlifting technique will probably add a few pounds, maybe five pounds to your bench, just that alone. If you haven't already practiced it.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Just one little quick lower back it just comes up or stay on the bench. Your lower back off your hips. You want a natural arch. Yeah. Yes. Your hips come to your hips stay on the bench. So don't let your butt come off the bench because that'll get you disqualified. So upper back and butt on the bench, natural arch a little bit. Now you might see some powerlifters who's really crazy exaggerated archers. Don't worry about that. But you don't want your back flat. That's not good. Yep. Okay perfect. Awesome. Thank you so much guys. I'm really excited. You got it. We'll send that over to Jenny. You're gonna crush it. I think everybody when they first get started, when they first get started,

when they learn to bench press, they need to learn the power lifting bench press. I think that's the way you learn how to bench. Now later on, you can do more bodybuilding style, whatever, but. Yeah, start there and work your way. The least likely to hurt yourself, you're gonna have the most control, most stability.

Power lifters have mastered the bench press. Now of course, like I said earlier, there's extreme, like where you'll see these crazy arches to limit range of motion, whatever. Most people can't even do that if they tried. But just the foundational... I agree. That technique is so fundamental in being able to distribute force appropriately and really anchoring yourself so where it's not going to expose areas in the joints or ligaments that are going to take on a lot of unnecessary force. I would actually make the argument for any of the core lifts that this is what you should do. Like going through a powerlifting routine for squat bench deadlift is probably going to serve you way better than

following a bodybuilder program to any of those because most bodybuilder programming will have shortened range of motion. They're not going to put a lot of emphasis on tech, the technique and the form like- Powerlifters have mastered maximizing biomechanics. And maximized biomechanics typically is the safest way to move. And I say typically because there's extremes, like people are going to look at pictures of powerlifters with these crazy wide stances and all that stuff. But you take the squat suits and the bench shirts off of them and then look at their technique and that's typically what you want to emulate.

Our next caller is Christelle from Canada. Christelle, how are you? Hi. How can we help you? I'm good, how are you guys? Very good, very good. What's going on? So before I get started, I just want to say

thank you so much for your podcast. Honestly, it's been such a blessing I'm about seven months postpartum with my second child and just kind of like getting back into Working out fitness and everything and just finding your podcast has helped so much. So, thank you Awesome. You look amazing by the way seven months second kid. Great job. Yes. Thank you. I've lost 50 pounds I didn't need another 10 pounds and then I'll be good. So my question, very simple really. So I've been kind of doing like tracking macros and I just kind of want to know like going forward, should I be focusing more on

tracking like just the calories or just doing macros? I am exclusively like breastfeeding right now. So yeah, I don't know what you guys kind of recommend. Well, one, if you track one, it will give you the other one. And then there's another one that if you track, won't give you the other one. So in other words, if you just track calories, you might be off with your macros. But if you track your macros, you're going to hit your calories. So from a just a, in other words, if you hit your proteins, fats and carbs, calories are calories. Right. So from a, just a, in other words, if you hit your proteins, fats, and carbs, the calories are there.

If you just track calories, we don't know how many grams of protein that is, we don't know how many grams of carbs that is, or grams of fat. And that's really important. Yeah, so macros I would say, track, unless it's stressing you out, unless this is causing lots of stress around food,

and you're not relaxed around it, and you start to get, you know, when you try to eat out, oh my God, what's happening type of deal in which case I would reduce the type of tracking you're doing to just protein you could just do that that's the most important one fat and carbs and to take care of themselves I like I like to just focus on that with most clients until I need to get really rarely ever do I need to get so granular that I'm actually manipulating carbohydrates and fat and the only time I find myself really doing that is if there's something I notice

like maybe a client is for some reason eating all this low fat stuff and they're not getting enough healthy fats. But if I just have you track protein and calories, the carbs and fat, it really doesn't matter so long as you're getting what your body needs on the healthy fat side. So in other words, like just we decide like whatever your weight is, I know you said you want like another 10 pounds, so whatever that number is weight-wise, hit that in grams of protein every day and like just be consistent with that. Then you can allow the fat and the carbs to go up and down based off of how you feel. And I like that way of tracking because I think it's healthy for you to have some

days where you have a little more fat and some days where you have a little bit more carbs based off of your activity and to kind of play with that, but really just pay attention to what our calories are at every single day paired with that amount of protein. In other words, you won't go wrong if you do this, hit your, hit your protein targets and eat whole natural foods. So if you eat, hit your protein targets and eat whole natural foods. So if you eat your protein first, so let's say your goal is 120 grams of protein a day,

all right, I'm gonna eat 40 grams of protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eat that first in your meal and make sure it's whole natural foods because heavily processed foods really throw off our satiety signals. We just overeat with heavily processed foods. Very difficult.

So whole natural foods, hit your protein targets, eat it first and you're fine. Everything else is set. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. And I'm assuming also that will definitely help with like, kind of want to get more, gaining a little more muscle as well. Oh yeah.

More definition. So that should help as well. It won't even just help. This is what's, this is why the recipe, when you asked a question about calories or macros, this is why the macros are so important because let's say you decide that or we decide that 1800 calories is what your body needs to lean out or whatever and you hit 1800 calories but you miss your protein intake all the time. You don't get as much muscle.

You're not going to build hardly any muscle. You might lose some weight but you're not gonna build you're not gonna be able to build hardly any muscle you might like lose some weight but you're not gonna build any muscle so we need to definitely make sure that we're hitting that that protein target every single day becomes really really important and then paired with a good trick strength training program are you following any maps right now no okay what kind of workout are you your seven months postpartum what does your workout look like right now so pretty much I do cardio four days a week,

just like 30 minutes. I try to keep my heart rate around like 150, 155 average. And then just like strength training, I do like legs and like arms and yeah. Oh my God, Christelle, we're gonna blow your mind. Okay, yeah, yeah. Hold on a second, let's back up for a second. Do you have, are there any things that we need to know about any movement issues,

any pelvic floor issues after having your baby? Uh, any core stability issues, anything like that before we move forward? Yeah, more pelvic. I'm still kind of working on that. Trying to, at least trying to find something, but yeah. Muscle mom. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to send you muscle mommy, follow that program like it's laid out, take anything out that doesn't feel comfortable, but I think you're going to be okay. There's some pelvic floor exercises in there that I think you can practice.

And then cardio. I mean, I would rather you just track your steps and just be, just be moving. I'd rather you focus primarily on strength training. Walk and do muscle mom. Yeah. Unless you like the endurance and stamina from running or whatever you're doing. Even then I wouldn't want you to do that yet. Yeah. Unless you like the endurance and stamina from running or whatever you're doing. Even then I wouldn't want you to do that yet. Yeah.

Because we can get there. You can build endurance and stamina and literally a couple of weeks of doing that. Like literally, if you want to sculpt and shape the best version of you body-wise. Follow the program. Follow muscle mommy the way it's laid out. And there's places for you to do the pelvic floor exercise. That's what you're going to do in there. That alone by hitting your macros or hitting your protein intake, like we're saying, it'll take care of the rest. Yep. Okay awesome. Yes guys. You got it. We'll send that to you okay. I would

love to hear back from you too. So after you've been going through the program for a while, check back in with us. Okay I definitely will. Thank you so much guys again. I really appreciate everything you guys are doing with this podcast and yeah. Awesome. Thanks for calling in. Thank you. Yeah, good, easy. And I'm glad I asked her about her workout. I just want to point out that I had to fight a little bit

for pelvic floor exercises and muscle mom. Oh, you were? Do you remember that? Well, because we have Starter. That program tends to be the postpartum. I know, we wrestled with that and I was just like, I just think that there's gonna be a lot of that Just like that clients just like that that have come out of that

But they're still need to focus on the pelvic floor, but they want to build and sculpt that body Yeah, so perfect example right there. You are pelvic floor experts. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's what they say. I Do know that sounds bad we were we were brief with her as far as like just kind of telling her and I just want to Make sure that she sounds like she's only been listening for a while or the short while with us Do skip the 150 beats per minute four days a week cardio? Completely unless that's unless you want it No, she was you could tell she wants to build the body right now. That's where she's at.

Her goals are different than what she's doing. One of the worst things, I don't know what kind of cardio she's doing, I'm assuming running, because of what she said with the heart rate, but if you have pelvic floor issues, which you typically do postpartum, if you have natural childbirth in particular.

It's a recipe for wetting your pants. You're gonna run, running, you start to, you create lots of imbalance. You start to strengthen these, uh, these pelvic floor issues. Now that doesn't mean you can never run again if you love to run, but you want to strengthen those pelvic floor muscles, the core stability muscles, all the muscles that had to change to accommodate the growth of the baby and then to help, uh, with childbirth, but you need to rehab those for lack of a better term. Then you get back to that kind of stuff.

But running right afterwards, you have a lot of women with problems. And they oftentimes years later, like, oh, I never was back to normal. You never rehabbed them properly. Our next caller is John from New Jersey. What's up, John? What up, John?

How can we help you? Hey, how you guys doing? Good. We're doing all right, man. How are you? I'm great. I was just surprised to get the email back. Though I'm ready to get some answers. I just surprised to get the email back though. Um,

I'm ready to get some answers. I'm ready to get some help. So if it's good with you guys, I'll just go right into the email. Let's go. All right. So, um, love the show. Been a listener for a while now. Um, I've looked at other programs. Pat Flynn has a 300 swing a day program, which is 300 swings a day in different variations for 30 days. Dan John has something like the 10,000 swing challenge, which is 300 swings a day in different variations for 30 days. Dan John has something like the 10,000 swing challenge, which is two, two days on one day off 500 swings. Does

this make sense to kickstart before using something like Sal's program is your program in your book, which I have your book, which is great by the way, or a maps program, or would you not advise to do that? I'm five foot six um i'm 207 pounds strong but definitely over fat to use that phrase um i would like to kick start something after a prolonged mental health struggle so um you know i've kind of just i've had a over a year of kind of just like not doing what i normally do bouncing bouncing from thing to thing, not staying consistent with anything. So I'm kind of just at a bit of a loss and looking for some help from you guys.

John, this is a cool question because it gives me the opportunity to share something about the workings of our business and our marketing team. So our marketing team would absolutely love it if we did something like this, because people gravitate towards challenges like these, not because they're effective or they're good, but because they're marketable. And we've refused to do it, even though we probably lose out on a lot of money because

of that. And so the simple answer is you're far better off following the resistance training workout that is in Sal's book or something like Maps Anabolic to start you off, if results in a better program is what we're seeking and that's just that's just a fact. These challenges are great ways to get people started on moving and so that's the argument for them but as far as better programming you're not gonna beat like a laid-out program like Maps. Now I'm gonna so I'm gonna I'm gonna counter Adam a little bit and not really what he said, because what he said is 100% accurate.

But the counter is this, there is some value in starting out some kind of a challenge that requires some kind of discipline because it creates a sense of purpose, it creates a drive, a target, some accomplishment. So there's some value there, I can see that. Especially if you felt lost, you're floundering,

and now every day you've got this challenge, and then you meet that challenge, and that can build confidence, it can make you feel like, okay, I'm doing something, I'm feeling better. So I can see the value of that. I just don't think it's 300 swings, or 10,000 swings, or anything like that.

I think it would be good to start with some kind of a challenge, but I would go more the mental, spiritual route, and then for your workout, train yourself properly, because what you're sacrificing with the 300 or 10,000 swing is your safety, you're gonna have high injury risk, it's not gonna get you in better shape in the way that you should.

It's not really good for you. Again, I can see the mental potential benefits, but there's better ways of doing that. Maybe you have a 30-day meditation or prayer challenge. Maybe it's a 30-day challenge of eating a particular way and keeping a journal or something like that. I like all that, but as far as workouts are concerned, it's far from ideal. It's absolutely, it's almost as far from ideal

as you can get. You'd be better off with the MAPS program starting that and then if you want that daily, I need some kind of a daily discipline, I would go more the spiritual mental route not the necessarily, although the physical challenge stuff I know can cross over to that, I get that, but you know trying to lose weight 5'6"-07, you said you're over fat over to that. I get that. But trying to lose weight, 5'6", 207, you said you're over fat, probably not ideal. I would say definitely not ideal. I mean, I guess it's somewhat similar to we get people that are really into running and

cardiovascular pursuits and things that like, but meanwhile they're trying to build muscle and they're like, well, can I just do that just do that as well? And, um, this is a skill that's very specific. Uh, and I love this skill and I think that it'll translate well in programming down the road in terms of like mastering a kettlebell swing. Uh, and it does require a lot of practice and it's going to require a lot of those reps. So I don't really have like qualms with, you know, a high number of reps to get proficient in that very specific type of a skill.

But if you look at it as a skill, not necessarily something that's getting you in shape or something that's like getting you overall stronger or like building your body up or moving the needle for your fitness necessarily. And I know that's maybe like contrary to a lot of the kettlebell heads out there. But like having more of a well rounded base and a foundational base to build off of strength wise and then kind of pursuing skills within the fitness realm. I think that's great. I think that these are all like pieces to the to the overall puzzle of your journey. And so I don't think that this is a bad pursuit. I just

think that if you know where you're at right now is to get like this foundational base, the strength base established first and we need to just go into the sound programming for that where that covers the overall. And I got something for you if you want to do like a 30-day cool challenge. So I'm gonna send over maps and a ball to you. Follow that, start in a pre-phase. And then here's your challenge, okay? Do exactly how it's laid out, including the trigger sessions,

which leaves you with two days of nothing else. I want you to walk on those two days. So every day you got something. Either you're doing a foundational day, you're doing a trigger day, or you're walking. So every day you do one of those things, right? So if you don't have a foundational day, you don't have a trigger day, then you're walking that day or you're following what it says in there and do that for 30 days. Watch what,

watch how you feel look after 30 days. Totally. Good idea. No, I appreciate that. You know, I was looking that the reason I was looking into things like I had asked, it was because I was looking for something every day because I find myself, you know, struggling mentally when I'm not doing something every day because I find myself struggling mentally when I'm not doing something every day. I respect that. So I appreciate what you're saying. Sometimes you just need to hear it

and hear it from you guys, not talking to somebody else but talking to me. That I can do something every day, but it doesn't have to be 500 swings every day or 300 swings every day, or the program or the month. So I really appreciate that help and yeah definitely that's a great challenge. I love this and we'll send it over to you so you got it and check back with us after 30 days how you're feeling and I

get that by the way like early on in the podcast I talked a lot about when we talked about programming and I made the case that I liked going to the gym every day because it was a part of my routine. And if I make it in a daily thing where I, hey, from this hour to this hour, I'm doing my workout. Uh, it's better for me consistency wise. But what you have to learn to do is to modify that for what's ideal for you. Like me lifting weights seven days a week for an hour is not ideal. But if I did three days a week of lifting two days of walking and you know,

another two days of stretching, like, okay, that's awesome. So learning how to modify that every day, doing something to improve your health. Like I love it. And I think the, the 30 day challenge with maps and the two days off that you're not taking off, that you're going for a walk for that hour is perfect. Okay. All right. I definitely do that. All right, John. We'll send it over to you. All right. All right. I appreciate it. You got it. Keep us posted. I will. Thanks. You know, I got to say, I got to want to add this again. Like, I get it. Like, you feel lost. You feel like you don't have a direction. No sense of

purpose. So then you see a challenge and it's like 30 days of X, something really hard and it's typically something physically hard. And it gives you this sense of direction and purpose and accomplishment, but it's not the same as real purpose, it's not the same as real direction. But I get it, I get how it can be a kickstart for someone.

It's a spark more than anything. I get it, I totally get it. But you gotta understand it's a cheap version of real direction, real purpose. Now I'm not saying that doesn't work for some people, but there are more effective ways of doing it and they tend to revolve around the core things that are happening.

That doesn't mean you don't involve some physical element, but when it comes to exercise, if you do it wrong, at best you don't get good results, at worst you hurt yourself. And so then what happens, this is what I've seen, people do these challenges and week two, they injure themselves. Now they're worse off than they were before

because now they can't. They're so fixated on the challenge, the numbers, they're not really paying attention to their body signals. Well, we actually have plenty of stuff around this, as far as research, on the psychology of this. This is a reason why birth control pills have a pill every day, yet one of them or two of them are not even used. It's like a week of them or whatever.

Yeah. That are your sugar pills. It's just because it would be more difficult to train someone to go every day, but then skip these seven days in a row. And the same thing goes if you were teaching your child to brush his teeth every morning, if you're trying to teach them that

and you skip two days of the week, they're less likely to be consistent if you just made it every single day thing. So I get the, I'm trying to be consistent, I need something every day that I have a lot of this time. So do that, but then learn to modify it just like I just suggested with him is that follow something like a maps

and then for other people that are listening that wanna try and imply the same philosophy, I do this because I am very much so, I am like this where I need that. I need to have something every day that I'm focused on, but then one day it's reading, another day it's mobility. And so it doesn't have to be,

all those things improve me, right? All of those are gonna make me a healthier version of myself mobility and it so doesn't have to be all those things improve me right. All those are going to make me a healthier version of myself. So it doesn't always have to be like training or pushing yourself in the gym. It could be one day is going for a walk, one day is mobility, then one day is pushing in the gym. One day could be I mean it could be a lot of different things. So you know modify a map if you need that modify a maps program because the programming is so is done so well and then you know do other things that improve your health or improve your life on the other days. Our next caller is Kristen from Montana. Hi Kristen. Hey hey hey. What's going on? Oh my god this is very bizarre. How's it going? Good how are you doing? Good how can we help you?

Good I just wanted to first say thank you for everything that you've done. I feel like I'm a mind pumped success story and I don't think I'd be where I am now without you guys. So big thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. So my, my question is about symmetry. So I compete in Olympic lifting and my programming is, we don't do anything unilateral at all. And I have a weakness in my right hamstring,

which causes my right leg to track out and back when I snatch, which causes me to dump my bar forward a lot. And we squat in the program, front squat, but we don't do any lunges and we don't do anything unilateral at all. And if I was thinking ahead, my off season is the end of April until right now. I probably could have ran symmetry in there at some point,

but now I'm starting my new program. I'm going into my meets at the end of October. So I just don't know if I can, like, I think running symmetry with my Olympic lifting program would be too much volume because I'm already toggling that too much volume switch. But I just didn't know going into this meet if I should swap out some of my back squats

for maybe back rack lunges or front rack lunges. Um, or how I should kind of do all of that with getting some unilateral in, cause I am a lot weaker on, well, my right hamstrings weaker, but my left side is generally weaker than my right side. I wouldn't not right now. How important is it that you do this competition? Well, that's the other question. Yeah.

Oh, this is no, this is my life. This is not, yeah, I's the other question. Yeah. Oh, this is, no, this is my life. This is not, yeah, I'm doing the competition. Okay, all right, all right. Well, after you're done, I would just symmetry. Leading up to it, when you're doing your squat workouts, I would swap out some of the volume of the squats for unilateral work, starting with the weaker side. Starting now?

And letting it dictate, yeah, just swap out some of the squat volume. Not the Olympic lifts, not the technique work, but like how often do you do barbell squat work? So I only run, I'm pretty particular about my programming because I come from like an overtraining past. So I only work out three days a week and that's my maximum. So on Monday, obviously I'm front squatting when I clean,

but on Monday I typically back squat and then on Wednesdays I overhead squat and then on I'm front squatting when I clean, but on Monday I typically back squat, and then on Wednesdays I overhead squat, and then on Fridays I front squat. Okay, on the back squat and on the front squat and the front squat day, I would swap out a little bit of volume and do unilateral work. And I would start the workout out that way, and I would let the weaker side dictate

how many reps the stronger side does. So let's say you do five sets of back squats. I would do two sets of unilateral work, starting with the weaker side, and then moving to the stronger side and be very careful with your technique and form. It's going to feel very awkward at first and a bit weird, and then do the rest of your squats. I don't think you're going to lose any strength in your back squats by doing that, especially at this.

I mean, how long have you been training competing for? Well, I've, I am from a power lifting background, but I just switched to Olympic lifting last January, so about a year and a half, but I hold on to my back squat pretty well. Like I haven't squatted in the summertime. I kind of mess around. I ride my horses a lot and I don't train as much. Um, but I just had a really heavy back squat last Monday and it was still there.

So I'm not really too concerned about losing my strength. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Then I would then, yeah, what I said would be one way to kind of do it. Although you're in your 12 weeks cycle moving up, I wouldn't expect tons of changes in progress, but you probably will get a little bit. A little more stability, at least address that. But yeah, this is kind of patching that in,

leading into your competition, which is going to take priority. But when you can, obviously run the full symmetry program, that's going to be ideal. That's what I would love to see. I'd love to see you actually take a three-month break of actually really working on this, and then go back to a, you know, Olympic lifting protocol. I think you'll see huge benefits just from one full cycle of symmetry. Totally.

And then, and then, and then do you have maps prime pro? Yes. Oh yeah. I'm like, I'm like, when I first started Olympic lifting, I couldn't even put my hands over my head and I can sit on my heels in an overhead squat. Nice. Wow. That's awesome.

Yeah. So prime pro, you know, there's correctional stuff in there for hips and ankles and I would, you know, I would practice that stuff cause that's probably where it's coming from and really good attention in those. But aside from that, because we're 12 weeks out, we're a bit limited on, on really how much progress we can make here. We could just like Justin said, kind of try to improve some of the stability. Kristen, I know you go ahead.

If I'm thinking like thinking ahead with the way I've always worked out is I, I live in Montana, so our summers are cherished here. So we do, I would next year for sure want to run at symmetry during my quote unquote off season, um, kind of in the summertime when I'm not really chasing any numbers or doing anything, but, um, here I am at the end of August and I'm going to do it. Yeah, it's tough. It's a big change and you're going to feel, it's going to

feel weak, you know, because you're so used to bilateral. I remember Ben Pollock, who's a credible powerlifter. I, we were, you know, I remember he started doing lunges, just stationary lunges and here's a guy who squats 600 pounds for reps and I think he had like 135 pounds in the bar and it was challenging. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a, it's a neuromuscular thing for sure.

Yeah. I definitely think my, I'm really worried about my right hamstring. And I feel like that's an injury waiting to happen at some point as my lifts go up. So I definitely want to target that going, moving forward from now, just so I can catch that hamstring up. Um, smart. That's smart. So yeah, I just, I don't want to be injured is really my, my, and we do so much.

I mean, all I do is clean pulls and Olympic lifts and back squats and front squats. Like I don't go sideways at all. So I've been doing like loaded Cossack squats and stuff like that because we're saying in one plane, yeah, stability. Yeah. Laterally in, in with, with rotation is going to aid in that. So especially in mobility and like your sort of active recovery days, you know, to keep that established is like just movement that you're stabilizing, I

think is very beneficial. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for calling in. Yep. She's been with us for a long time.

Yeah. I recognize her name. She's been in the us for a long time. Yeah. I recognize her name. So do I. She's been in the community for a long time. You know, when you're training in a specific cycle for a competition, you know, 12 weeks out or whatever, this is, it's hard to really make any crazy improvements outside of what you normally do. I was surprised that you even recommended anything.

I would have. Just a little bit for stability. I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I, after you, you, you broke it down and said how you would do it, I don't disagree. I just, I would have probably been like, listen, if I can't get you to not do the meat and focus on it right now, then I don't want to disrupt your normal prep for getting ready for it. So do your thing.

And then after pre or after your show, uh, we will do, or your meat, uh, we'll do a focus on symmetry if I can with her. So, you know, she'd also really benefit from a cycle of old timey. I think old timey would be a, so that would be a really good one for her, especially hearing her talk about how she doesn't do a lot of things in the sagittal plane at all,

or the frontal plane at all. I think that would be- She's strong in all kinds of new directions. Yeah, yeah, so I think that would be a super beneficial one for her too. Look, if you like our show, if frontal plane at all, I think that would be- She's strong in all kinds of new directions. Yeah, yeah, so I think that would be a super beneficial one for her too. Look, if you like our show, if you like Mind Pump, go to mindpumpfree.com. We have a free guide, how to lose fat in three steps.

It's effective, it's free. Mindpumpfree.com. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump with Stefano, and Adam's at Mind Pump. Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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