Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2412:  The 5 Worst Fitness Mistakes Damaging Your Overall Health & Longevity

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Training for longevity vs. performance. (1:31) Chase health and aesthetics will follow. (5:30) 5 Worst Fitness Mistakes Damaging Your Overall Health & Longevity #1 - Not being consistent with movement. (9:20) #2 - Not lifting weights. (14:50) #3 - Doing too much. (21:54) #4 - Valuing calorie burn of activity. (27:40) #5 - Not viewing exercise as a skill. (32:43) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Our Place for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. Our Place offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. ** Special Launch Promotion: MAPS GLP-1 ** Code: GLP70 for $70 OFF. Includes: Ultimate Medication Guide for Patients & Healthcare Professionals & Intuitive Nutrition Guide. ** August Promotion: MAPS Bands | MAPS 40+ 50% off! ** Code AUGUST50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #2300: Seven Habits of Truly Healthy People Mind Pump #2402: The 5 Reasons Why Walking is King for Fat Loss (Burn More Fat than Running & How to Do it Correctly) Mind Pump #2310: Don’t Let Your Age Stop You From Getting in the Best Shape of Your Life Mind Pump #2387: How Much Should You Really Workout? Mind Pump #1990: Nine Reasons People Stop Working Out (& What to Do About It) Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, the five worst fitness mistakes that are damaging your overall health and longevity. Now this episode is brought to you by sponsor From Our Place. This is the first ever nonstick technology cast-iron dinnerware or cookingware I should say that's

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All right, here comes the show. When it comes to fitness, there are oftentimes things people do that stop their progress. In other words, oftentimes it's more about the wrong things people do, rather than the right things that they're not doing. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about

the five worst fitness mistakes people make that damage your health and your longevity. Stop doing these. Yeah. I think it's important first for you to note or define I guess like what it looks like to be training for health and longevity first versus like maybe a performance goal or to build the most amount of muscle or do you think that aligns still? Do you think the same? Yeah, it's different, right?

No, I mean, you know, who was it that showed us that Vangrant diagram? Jason. Was it? Yeah. Yeah, it was like longevity, it was over here and performance is over here. Performance and aesthetic. And the further you go towards performance, the more you take away from longevity. So now for the average person listening, this isn't really that important. But if you look at like hardcore fitness fanatics, for example, if you look at like the best

endurance athletes in the world, or the strongest power lifters or strength athletes in the world or the strongest power lifters or strength athletes in the world or the professional level of sports. What you'll see is they actually have worse longevity than just somebody who's really healthy and lives in the regular world. That's because when you start to pursue those extremes, you start to trade longevity for performance. I think the average person though hears that, they're not gonna, it's like, just work out. You know what I mean?

Just work out. Well, I mean, the reason why I bring that up is because I feel like the people that are communicating to the most amount of people are some of these extreme fitness influencer people that are communicating to the average person who's following them because they admire their physique or they like their personality online or whatever.

And they're taking health and fitness advice from this extreme kind of athlete. I mean, even though they may not seem extreme, they probably are in regards to diet and consistency and training volume and intensity. And when I think of health and longevity, it looks really... And the reason why I feel this is so important is I've even been struggled. I've struggled with this, right?

I remember not that long ago, I kind of had this moment where I started to even question the way I was training and what was I training for, right? Like it was very clear when I had a goal in mind of like competing, getting on stage or trying to get better at a sport or whatever. But where I'm at in my life now, it's more about playing with my son and being a healthy, mobile, strong dad.

It definitely looks more longevity focused, but then I still have some of these old patterns and behaviors that are more muscle building focused. It's like where is getting my deadlift to 600 pounds gonna really benefit me in the pursuit of longevity? No, I think what you're saying is important to note because in fact, as we go through the five worst fitness mistakes, many of them are a result of the communication

that we're getting from extreme fitness fanatics. Many of these mistakes are because we get, the messaging we get are from people who are not maximizing health and longevity, but rather either genetic anomalies or super obsessed and have been for most of their lives. And so the information they're putting out probably is playing a role in some of these huge

fitness mistakes that we're gonna talk about today. And as we go through these, it's very clear, as we go through these, it became very clear to me as I wrote them down, that these probably have more to do with the reason why people aren't able to accomplish their health goals and fitness goals, then it's pretty close to the fact that people just don't even try. Like that's gotta be number one, people don't even try.

But then second place, easily, is that people try and then they do, they make these mistakes that set them back so far, in many cases, having them never try again. So then they become, they make these mistakes that set them back so far in many cases, having them never try again. So then they become part of that category. In fact, if you look at it. Totally agree. You look at the data on people who don't work out,

if you've never worked out, there's a certain percentage odd that you'll try at some point. If you've worked out many times and failed many times, the worst of failure is is like if you got injured or got sick or whatever, the odds you'll ever try again or start to diminish every single try because you failed every single time.

Yeah, and a lot of times you see it's too hard, too fast, and then you're too hopeful that you're gonna get these quick results. So you take on just way too much in the very beginning, which the right approach is really like, how can I keep coming back? And what's that look like? And this is very common because momentum is placed such a huge factor in that initial spark to begin with.

You want to ride this momentum that you're feeling and it's a big feeling that you're gonna accomplish so many things, and so I wanna see how many things I can stack as wins all at once, which inevitably just ends up in disaster. Now, I'm glad you said that, and you highlighted the importance of momentum and how we start, because when I look at the list that you made, and I think, there's a list that you made and I think, you know,

there's a majority, obviously everybody I think is going to benefit from this, but you're going to have some people that think, oh, this isn't for me. I'm not, well, I'm a young guy who wants to build lots of muscle. That's all I care about. As I got further into my career, I realized that no matter what their goal was, when they were trying to lose a hundred pounds, uh, play a sport, build 50 pounds of muscle, compete for a show. This was how I wanted them to start. We needed to start on the health and longevity path first because all other pursuits only

get more difficult or less likely for us to succeed at if I haven't first figured out how to- Where's home base yet to start there yeah I have to teach them how to be healthy and live better and do that consistently and then we could stack on our performance goals we can stack on our aesthetic goals we can stack on these you know individual things that you want to accomplish that start to maybe move a little bit away from health and longevity but are still in the world or the realm. But you won't get there without the, without the stepping stone of health and longevity.

And the, you know, here's the side of that is if we took the average person, the vast majority of the population and just got them healthy, their aesthetics and performance would dramatically improve because of that. It's baked into the recipe. It's all baked into the recipe. It's actually one of my favorite things that you've communicated on the podcast. In fact, I just saw another trainer, a decent following too, sharing our content.

I don't know if I shared it with you guys or not, but he was sharing that as one of the most profound things that had basically resonated with him. He'd been a coach and trainer for a long time and in really good shape. And he's like, oh my god, like, you know, Sal from Mind Pump made this comment about chasing health and aesthetics will follow.

And he goes this whole time, even as a trainer, I've been so focused on my aesthetics and eating that way. And it's stressful and challenging, and I'm good at it's you know stressful and challenging and I'm good at it sometimes I'm not so good at it versus approaching it with this idea of I'm gonna try and be a healthier version of myself and always continue to improve that and the irony of the aesthetics tend to follow that. That's right that's right so the first big mistake is that people are just not consistent on a daily basis with movement, just movement. At some point in the health space,

we thought that movement only counted if it was a workout. Like you had to go do something. Break a sweat. Work out. Struggle. Like, oh, you go for a run or go for a swim or go work out or go do this thing. Otherwise it doesn't count.

This is terrible information because A, it's first off, it's not true. So that already makes it terrible information, but two, it devalued. One of the most valuable things that we find in all the data for longevity, which is this move every day, move throughout the day, every single day. The healthiest populations are populations of people where movement is literally baked into their daily existence. So the advice that you would sometimes hear and scoff at like park your car further away from your destination. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Stand instead of sit while you're working on this thing or go for walks throughout the day. The fitness space, the industry of the fitness industry itself came in and somehow made that seem like that doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. You really got to go do this crazy workout. Otherwise, it doesn't count. This is terrible. Nothing to be further from the truth. The average person who's inactive would see dramatic, they're not going to become ripped. They're not going to whatever, but they'll lose some weight, probably they'll get more fit, but really their health will improve dramatically just for moving more every single day.

Well, I mean, just think of that stark contrast of sitting down, uh, continuously sitting on the couch or sitting at your desk at work. And then all of a sudden wanting to do like a high intense workout and being that's the new standard I have to achieve every time I go to the gym is this high intensity workout and you know in terms of that being the bridge of like I just want to get up and walk and I want to get up and add more movement throughout my day and what that's gonna do is it's gonna supercharge your energy it's gonna make you more likely to want to just move around and do things and be more active, which will promote further steps where we can add some resistance to that and really get into the workout aspect of it. But a lot of times

we just have this tendency to just jump into something that's way too hard, too fast, where there's steps in between that will allow for you to set yourself up for more consistency. I love this being the first point because not only did I get this terribly wrong when I first started, but it also became the first thing that I would start to recommend to people going forward after I learned, right?

So initially, I would fall in the category of the dumb trainer that scoffed at this when someone would say that they walk for their exercise. And then later it became the way I would coach someone. So even if they were highly motivated to go in the gym five days a week, they're willing to do this, they're willing to do that, I'd say, listen, this is what I wanna start with.

I just want you to start with every day after dinner, go for a 20 minute walk. And I would prescribe a small walk, paired with something that I knew they were already doing every day, and wanted them to encourage them to not only just start that, but also get a sense of how, to your point, how much better they just started to feel how, to your point, how much better

they just started to feel because they were moving more, how easy it was to commit to that so I could start to stack some wins. Like it's so funny that this was something that I scoffed at, then it turned into the number one piece of first advice that I would give to clients because you also have to keep in mind that these people that were trying to help, part of that process, back to your point Justin, is consistency and being able to maintain this forever. I mean almost any of us can sacrifice or discipline or power through 30 days of torture or crazy, not sleeping a lot, working extra hard, but to sustain that forever is not realistic.

And so when we build in these things into people's lifestyle, as good coaches and trainers, we always have to be thinking like, okay, I know this person's highly motivated because they wanna lose all this weight right now, but I also gotta be thinking like, what are these things that I can give to them that they can actually start to build into their life and then keep in their life

forever. And that is why this is such an important one that so many people miss because it's an, it's a easy way to impact people positively with their health, with very little commitment and very little. You don't need to change clothes. You just move throughout the day, just be active throughout the day, insert it into your daily life. By the way, the data on this is remarkable. I mean, there's a strong connection between the less you move, the worse your health is. The worse your health is. It turns out not moving is just bad for you across the board. I mean,

it's the only time in human history, recorded human history, the only time you didn't move a lot was when you were sick. There were no other times where if you didn't move a lot, except for maybe the occasional Sabbath or whatever, you moved daily a lot. Every system in your body benefits from movement. Especially your mind. The mood boosting effects or the antidepressant, anti-anxiety effects of daily activity are pronounced,

they actually happen pretty quickly too. So you just feel better as a result. The next one is, especially when we talk about longevity health, is that people don't lift weights. They think the best types of workouts for longevity typically involve cardio or cardiovascular style training or something along those lines. Strength training was never considered for longevity. Now for a long time strength training or lifting weights was

considered essential for performance. If you want to be a faster athlete, a stronger, definitely a stronger athlete, then you lifted weights. We also knew that strength training changed the way you looked as evidenced by the extreme, you know, look of bodybuilders. But really it was never a conversation when it come to longevity. In fact, look, you know, I've been in this for two and a half decades, but it hasn't been discussed as a longevity form of exercise until, I mean, a lot of it until the last five years, even 10 years ago when we started the podcast, nobody was really talking about lifting weights as a way to improve

your longevity and health, or at least not as a superior form. Well, here's what the data shows now. Not only is strength training or lifting weights, uh, a good form of exercise for longevity, it turns out it's the best. It turns out when it comes to scheduled workouts, nothing is more effective at improving the quality of your life and longevity, the length of your life, like lifting weights. And there's a, there's a few reasons why.

One is it teaches your body to burn more calories. This is great. So now eating more food doesn't necessarily hurt you as badly. So there's that part, but more importantly, when it comes to metabolic health, muscle's metabolically healthy or active, I should say. It's very hormone sensitive, especially insulin.

We all know what insulin resistance does to the body. And then most importantly, nobody considers this. This is a big deal, by the way. Look at the data on this. Mobility. Your ability to move and function and take care of yourself is very strongly connected to your longevity. Live pain-free. And if you don't lift weights, okay, if you don't lift weights, if you don't strength train, there is a significant percentage of muscle that you will lose every decade you're alive. After I think the age of 30 or 40.

Like it compounds. So if your goal is to be healthy and have longevity, you better lift weights. It's like one of the most important forms of exercise. So it's interesting you went that way with this point because when you had written this point down, my brain went a little bit different direction. And not, I mean everything you you just said is a hundred percent on point. But what I was thinking when you made this point about the, like the, you know, five worst mistakes that people make in regards to this is how, how badly we

communicated lifting weights specifically for health and longevity. Uh, there's this misconception that, you know, if you're a gym person, I remember my buddy, one of my buddies said this to me not that long ago, about 10 years ago, when he said this to me. And obviously, I'm deep into my career by that time. And I'm caring about my buddies getting older and asking, he's like, man, I don't

want to seven days a week, an hour to two hours in the gym. I don't want to look like you that bad to where I would do that. I'm just like, wow, this idea that you either don't go to the gym you that bad to where I would do that. I'm just like, wow, that's the, this idea that, you know, you either, uh, don't go to the gym or if you go to the gym, you're a gym rat in order to, right. Yeah. There's no in between. Yeah. There's not like a, like what, uh, what does lifting weights for health, healthy and fit people? It's like either nothing or bodybuilder is the goal. No, I'm serious.

That's like, that's the perception. That's a lot of, that's what a lot of the general population thinks. They look at people that go to the gym like crazy, they look like bodybuilders, and either you want to look like that or you don't. And if you don't want to look like that, then why am I using, why lift weights? I'd rather run or I'd rather swim or I'd rather do these other- Because they're comparing physiques of like- Extreme people.

Yes. They know. And so yeah, that's why like running walking has been promoted so much as a longevity activity because it's relatable. It's more relatable. That looks really unrelatable. The bodybuilder type of physique with that. But it's so crazy because I mean, in terms of longevity, lifting weights and building

muscle, like it's not just like it keeps you strong. It also is protective with your joints in terms of pain, but it's also protective. You become even more resilient against things like- Illness. Illness, yeah. And it's so interesting to see how, you know, just internally how protective like muscle is

and how crucial that is for the longevity of your lifespan. And finishing the point that I was heading towards is the amount of volume intensity and stuff you have to do to achieve that is so minimal. To get longevity benefits? To get longevity benefits. Once a week. Yeah. One hour or two hours of lifting weights moderately, not crazy, not trying to break

yourself off, not doing crazy CrossFit workouts or some circuit class, but picking a handful of some of the best compound lifts, practicing it like a skill and getting good at it, getting good at it. One to three hours out of the week total, and you get profound health and longevity benefits. And that is just not communicating. It is either or, you are either somebody who doesn't identify as a bodybuilder, so lifting these weights seven days a week,

two hours a day is too much for me, I don't wanna do that, and I'm gonna go down this path, or I wanna be that way, therefore I had to do all this. So it's like, no, it's crazy what effort has to be put to. And I think that if more people, normal people, people that aren't, don't admire bodies and physiques and bodybuilding, people that just want to be healthy, they don't want to be sick, they just want to not have pain,

if they knew how little they had to do in the gym in order to obtain that best version of what they would envision themselves as. It's unbelievable how they do this. 99% of my clients strength trained or lifted weights one to two days a week. 99% and these are the people who everyday people fit and healthy. They definitely want to look good but they don't want to be shredded. They didn't care about that. They just wanted to improve their health. So if you're active every day, you're moving every day and you want to add a workout where you actually take

time in your day to work out, like you just you'll lift weights and it's going to give you more for the time spent than any other form of exercise. In fact, it'll give you more for the two times of amount of time spent than other forms of exercise. That's how effective lifting weights or strength training is. And the people that need to hear this, uh, when we're talking about health and longevity, you tend to, it tends to be people 50 and older or 45 and older, unfortunately came from a generation that where this is not communicated whatsoever. Like when I tell a 60 year old, we got to lift weights, uh,

to improve your health and longevity. And look at me like, can we pick another form of exercise? Like I don't want to do that. Turned out most of my clients were that age group towards the end of my career, and they got, of course, the best results. The next mistake, this is a big one, now this mistake is typically made early on, so somebody's like, that's it, I'm gonna start working out.

Yeah, this big mistake is that you do too much. The value of workouts. Uh, so we talked about just moving throughout the day, but actual workouts, the value of a workout is in the adaptation that occurs post workout, not in the workout itself, the workout itself just serves as a way to signal the adaptation you're looking for. So you go to the gym, you work out. It's a stress, it causes some damage, that's why it's hard and it hurts,

that's why you get a little sore sometimes. And then the body goes, okay, let's heal, and let's also overcompensate a little bit. Let's adapt so that next time if this happens again, this is how your body is designed, if it happens again, it's not gonna cause as much damage. So you get a little stronger, a little more fit. If you overcome your body's ability to heal and adapt,

which is, when you're a beginner, easy, very easy to do. I could take a deconditioned individual and over train them in 20 minutes, literally. If you do too much beyond that, then you're not getting, you're not gonna tap into that adaptation. You're just gonna heal. You're gonna damage and heal, damage and heal, damage and heal, and this is why,

if you've ever experienced this, you did too much all at once, and you didn't get a lot of results. You plateaued real hard, real quickly, and then you started feeling tired and burnt out. You lost all motivation, you stopped. Now, of all the points that you wrote, this was the one, to me, that stood out as like, this is across

the board. It doesn't matter if it's health and longevity. It doesn't matter if it's for sports. It doesn't matter if it's for fat loss. We all, we tend to, and I think we communicate the hell out of this on the podcast. We tend to think that more is better because it serves us in most everything else.

And in this scenario or in any scenario related to getting to your fitness and health goals, the goal is actually to do the least amount possible to elicit the most amount of change. Which I need to, which simultaneously is the perfect amount. I want to say that. Yes. It's the perfect amount.

It is. It is the most ideal and the fastest way to get there. That's the part that people have to wrap their brain around. The goal is to do the least amount possible that elicits the most amount of change and that is the fastest way to get to whatever said goal is. I don't care if it's performance, I don't care if it's longevity, I don't care if it's building muscle, I don't care if it's burning body fat, but that is how the body adapts and works. And if you throw more than that at it, you will only slow down your progress

or potentially completely hinder it. So you have to understand that. And I think in this case, because we have over-communicated intensity and beast mode and motivation stuff and hype is so centered around the fitness space that these people that come into the gym, whatever their goal may be, tend to almost always overdo it. Because to your point, if you were doing literally nothing for your fitness goal,

this is also why, by the way, walking became the first goal. If I got somebody who was like the average American, couch potato, not eating well, not doing anything, walking is the least amount possible to elicit some change. I mean, literally telling them to just go walk every day for 20 to 30 minutes, I'm going to start moving them towards health and longevity in a very nice pace. And then if I added one or two days of full body workouts, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm about maxing out on what I should do for that person to get the most

results, the fastest and the safest and the most sustainable for that person. And I just think that this is one that most all people, uh, make a mistake here. A hundred percent. And you know, mentioning like one day of strength training a week and moving regularly throughout the week, people think, well, how far is that going to get you? There's a lot you can do in a one, in one workout. It's not like you're doing the same workout, uh, once a week, you start very easy

in the intensity and the resistance increase and improve. This is why I was able to train people for 10 years and they would only lift weights once or twice a week. And it's, we started that way And that's how we ended there's a lot you can do within that well and not only that I mean you use Doug a lot as this example you have a guy who's been lifting for decades already and He achieved his best physique in what two days a week with me Two days and he wasn't like just going for longevity and health the guys ripping

400 pounds off the floor and he's shredded in abs. So with two days a week. So if he had came to you and said, hey, I don't really need, I mean, he wanted to build muscle. He wanted to get strong. But if he just said, hey, I just wanna be healthy, Sal.

Shit, I mean, one day a week would have got you to that just fine. I mean, even if like, let's just say a scenario where somebody has like a labor intensive job, uh, but you know, their idea that I'm going to be able to now be healthy and get in good shape and all this is to now approach these crazy, you know, workouts on top of what I'm already doing. When in fact, them actually getting more rest and recovery would probably move their needle like so much further, you know, from the very beginning.

So it's, I think there's, there's quite a disconnect there in terms of like what the workout, uh, like what its intention, what, what it's actually doing and what we're doing is we're stressing the body just that perfect amount. So that way we can go back and we can build upon that. I'm glad you said that because, or you re-emphasize that because someone may think if this much is gonna get me this far more will get me farther and I don't care if it's less efficient every time I push harder I'm still gonna get closer to my goal and faster no no actually going this far is perfect anything beyond that makes you

move less so that's literally how it works which takes us to the next point which is this is a big mistake valuing calorie burn of activity. This is a completely worthless statistic completely worthless now that doesn't mean there's no value in the And how the body's metabolizing utilizing energy. There's health benefits to that Obviously, but looking at forms of exercise and then ranking them in order of how many calories I burn while I'm doing it is a Is a terrible Terrible dumb mistake because number one

It means almost nothing. It means almost nothing the calories you burn with a hard workout Uh are almost inconsequential for a couple different reasons one Super easy to replace those calories with food, but really the big one is two, your body adapts to that very quickly, very, very quickly. And then it's not, not only, it went from low value to almost zero value. And then last reason, the biggest reason why this is terrible, is you end up ignoring the variable or the factor

that is most important, which is, what's the adaptation I'm after? What am I looking for? Am I looking for endurance? Am I looking for strength? Am I looking for mobility? Am I looking for a faster metabolism? Then you pick from there what form of exercise

you're going to use. The calorie burn means nothing, zero. And when people value this, what they tend to do is choose the highest cal, they look it up on the internet, what form of exercise burns the most calories in 30 minutes. Cool, let me do that one. And they get terrible results, because it doesn't mean anything.

I blame our doctors and our medical system for this one. I really think that they oversimplified the law of thermodynamics to the average patient. Weight loss. Because they know that the average American is overweight, a large percentage are obese. Obviously that is from simple math. There's a whole host of reasons and behaviors and psychological stuff that goes into that,

but the scientific reason why those people are overweight is because they don't move enough for the amount of calories that they eat. So the simple answer and equation to that reason why those people are overweight is because they don't move enough for the amount of calories that they eat. So the simple answer and equation to that is move more, burn more. I don't have to tell them anything about their diet and then that will improve their health more. We're not going to discern the actual tissue, whether it's muscle or fat and

like none of that is going to matter. This is where to the whole BMI, uh, you know, came as a result of that. So yeah, I'm on board with that. That's it. And we have to do a better job of communicating this, that that really does matter. That's why, that's why I blame the medical system and doctors first because they, they started that narrative and then the trainers that looked up to the,

the doctors, rightfully so, took that advice and then brought it into the gyms and have continued to communicate that. And the pendulum is just barely starting to swing back the other direction. And we're starting to get smarter coaches and trainers. We're getting a lot better doctors. Now you're seeing a lot more doctors that understand the value.

I mean, that was unheard of just 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I would never hear a doctor recommend strength training. You're actually hearing that now. I know lots of doctor friends of ours that have your book and recommend it to people and stuff like that. And I think that it's starting to swing back, but it definitely came from there.

And it was definitely perpetuated by us trainers that didn't know better. And unfortunately, the general population still hasn't heard the right messaging long enough that the form of exercise you're chasing is not the one that burns the most calories right now. It is the one that is going to build your metabolism more than anything else. That is what's going to set you up for the most success and the most fat loss. Yeah, and again, just to look at the data. First off, the data on weight loss through exercise alone is dismal.

It's the worst stat strategy you could, you could, uh, go into to try to lose, uh, weight. But then if you look at exercise, okay, they have done this now they've compared forms of exercise for pure fat loss and strength training, um, is superior, superior at burning pure body fat. And the reason is because it preserves muscle. Whereas other forms of exercise tend to cause muscle loss as well.

So it's head and shoulders above the rest, and the reason why we're emphasizing strength training here is because if we were to value calorie burn, guess where strength training would be? At the bottom. Very low, very low. Like traditional weight lifting, okay? Not-

With rest period. Yeah, not the fake weight lifting circuit, basically cardio, you're doing class, you're just holding dumbbells. That's not strength training. The strength training that we're talking about, the kind that converts, that really, really improves longevity and health, okay, is traditional strength training, traditional lifting weights. You do a set, you rest for two or three minutes, you do a set, you rest for two or three minutes. It burns very little calories in comparison

to other forms of exercise. So if it were about the calorie burn, you would not see that be the most effective form of exercise for fat loss and longevity, and yet there it is. So don't look at the calorie burn, think of the adaptation, that's the most important thing. Lastly, and this one is the number one reason,

in my opinion, people get hurt when they start to pursue fitness goals. And if you look at the data on this, if you're not exercising now, and you start exercising to try to improve your health and longevity, the odds are you probably will suffer from an injury within the first year or two.

So in other words, a majority of you will suffer an injury. Now the severity of the injury varies. Nonetheless, nobody wants to get hurt. It sucks. And then of course it could stop you from exercising. It could stop the momentum. It's one of the number one reasons why people stop working out completely. So you don't want to hurt yourself. And the number one reason why people hurt themselves through exercise is, and I know what people are saying, people are working out wrong or they're using bad technique. Okay. That's a hundred percent true. That's, that's the reason, but that's not the root reason.

The root reason is that we view exercise as a means to an end. It's about sweating and getting sore. And we completely forget that it's all skills. Running is a skill. Uh, hiking is a skill, swimming is a skill, lifting weights is a skill, cycling is a skill and like all skills if you perform it poorly you're you're you're gonna suck at it and in the case of physical skills your chances or odds of injury go through the roof. So if I go to the gym and I think and I'm gonna go lift weights and I'm all I think to myself is get my legs sore then a squat and a leg press and a lunge and whatever is all a means to an end. Get sore. The technique is really just I'll watch the video and I as long as loosely follow it then I'm gonna be okay. No not the case. Your chance of

injury goes to the roof. Instead if I look at it as if I was trying to learn a sport and I said, well, all right, today I'm gonna squat, let me learn the skill of squatting. Let me practice the squat or I'm gonna go start running. I haven't run since I was in fifth grade. I think I'd like to start running for exercise. You know, that's a skill. Let me learn how to run.

Let me practice the skill of running. Let me train as if I'm trying to learn how to run. Let me practice the skill of running Let me train as if I'm trying to learn how to run properly the odds of injury Plummet versus the person who's just trying to get themselves tired So my my brain also went a little bit different when I saw this point and again to your point I kind of percent agree what I thought of was You know a mistake that people make is not What I thought of was a mistake that people make is not embracing the fact that this is challenging and difficult and I need to practice it

to get good at it like any other skill. And what came to mind for me was the mistakes that even I made as a young lifter, which was, oh man, I'm not very good at this squat thing, so I'm just gonna not do it. So I'm gonna choose lesser exercises that I feel comfortable doing. And I would get in a machine and leg extension or leg press and not realizing how much I was leaving on the table and how much faster my results would have been.

Had I just accepted that this squat exercise is really difficult and I'm not good at it, but that's okay because I'm not good at it, but that's okay because I'm just going to start at square one and practice it. I'm not going to worry about how much weight is on the barbell and get caught up in, you know, the guy next to me who's doing four times my weight and let my ego get in the way. I'm going to just, I'm going to go practice it. Like the first day I picked up a basketball and I couldn't dribble a basketball, but I wanted to learn how to play. Or the first time I picked up a basketball and I couldn't dribble a basketball but I wanted to learn how to play or the first time I got into a pool and said I've never learned how to swim let me learn the technique of it and so embracing that learning curve of getting good at that craft and good at

those movements that are going to give you the most ROI inside the gym and so don't do that. Do not allow yourself to avoid the best movements just because you're not good at it or you don't do that. Do not allow yourself to avoid the best movements just because you're not good at it or you don't like doing it. Embrace the fact that it is a challenging skill that you will need to practice and get good at because what's awesome is that once you do pick it up like any other skill, it gets fun and then the results,

the return on investment start to compound. And I want to add, practicing or trying to get good at a skill through the practicing process, let's say you regress the exercise, you do other things to help yourself get in a position to do this new exercise or skill also give you great results. The process of getting that skill is also a great way to work out. In fact, this is how we train people. When we train people the first, I don't know, six months oftentimes of their training with us was us getting them to be able to do some big complex skill type lifts, but that whole process they're getting in shape. That whole process they're feeling better.

I mean, my brain kind of went in the same place you did, Adam, with this one. And back to your medical point, like this was always a fight when you would get a client that would come in and my doctor probably prefers me not to do deadlifts, not to do anything where I'm loading my back. And to be able to work on that and to be able to work your way towards the more high skill type lifts, and yes, compound lifts do require a bit more skill than just, you know, sitting in a chair and doing a movement with the machine. And so there is that bit of, you know, that gap, that learning curve that needs to happen. But the whole way there, you're gonna get stronger

and you're gonna benefit your body just working your way towards that compound lift. So to completely dismiss it, you're gonna be doing yourself a disservice. It's like everything else in life that we learn. Well, you're gonna learn this. Either you learn it from listening and applying it or you're gonna learn it the hard way,

that the secret sauce, the magic, is in the journey. The best part of the squat is the process of getting good at the squat. And the best results come from that. All the benefits, starting to eliminate back pain and hip issues and getting strong in the core and seeing body fat come off and muscle come on the body is in the journey of getting good at that movement.

It's so much like everything else in our life and to skip that or avoid that is such a mistake. Yeah, what's interesting too is all the most effective strength training exercises or some of the most common forms of exercise are not, now we will label them as high skill, but the reality is from a human perspective, from a human biomechanics perspective, these are all fundamental human movements that all bodies should be capable of doing. So what we're not saying is you're going to do a back flip to a dumbbell snatch or you're gonna do

just a crazy exercise like circus type movements. No, no. It's like you're gonna lift the weight and you're gonna press it above your head with good stability and strength and overhead press or you're going to lift the weight and you're going to press it above your head with good stability and strength and overhead press, or you're going to squat down with some weight across your shoulders, or you're going to lift something up off the floor, or you're going to push something off your body. These are all fundamental human movements. The fact, the reason why people get hurt and the reason why people can't do them and have

to learn them as a skill is just a testament to how poor our health and mobility has become. So what does that mean? Well, I'm going to add to what you said Adam. Going from not being able to squat to being able to squat. Forget that you can squat a lot of weight, you're moving, you're super strong, forget that. I couldn't squat before. Now I can squat. Or I couldn't reach my arms overhead. Now I can lift some weight straight up over my head. Or I couldn't lift things off the floor. Now I can lift things off the floor.

The difference in longevity is dramatic. From not being able to do fundamental human movement to being able to do fundamental human movement. So view all these things as important skills, practice them. Don't work out, practice them over time and then watch what happens to your health and longevity. Look if you love the show find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and Adam's at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your

body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other

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