Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2479: The 3 Worst Cardio Mistakes Everyone Makes for Fat Loss (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Three worst cardio mistakes everyone makes for fat loss. (2:08) Improve your sleep risk-free for 30 days! (19:12) Going down the rabbit hole of the origins of the ultra-processed food industry. (20:17) RFK’s impact on the food industry. (42:37) Eterna’s patent on stem cells. (44:32) Doug’s not so secret. (45:32) Shout out to Jeff Born! (53:23) Triple entries for the Black Friday sale! (54:31) #ListenerLive question #1 – How do you know when you are ready to run a MAPS program that is higher in volume? (55:47) #ListenerLive question #2 – How can I increase my squat strength and build my confidence with this lift? (1:11:58) #ListenerLive question #3 – An update on the advice recommended on how to prepare and gain some muscle before attempting the 6th-degree black belt test in Santiago Chile last December. (1:20:32) #ListenerLive question #4 – How can I gain muscle (not just maintain)? (1:34:20) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Black Friday promotion: Use the code MINDPUMP which will provide up to $600 off the Pod 4 Ultra when bundled. Currently ship to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. 30 Days Free Trial, Money Back Guarantee!!! ** Exclusively for Mind Pump listeners, head over to Eterna Health to discover the benefits of PLGAns. Whether you’re looking to restore your skin or revitalize your hair, PLGAns has the solution. ** For a limited time use the code MINDPUMP10 for 10%. ** TRIPLE POINTS for the Black Friday Sale - Ends Dec. 1st! ** ALL MAPS Fitness Products 60% OFF. Coupon code BLACKFRIDAY. The code will expire on Sunday, December 1st. Each purchase enters you to win one of two 5-day stays at the Mind Pump Park City Vacation Home. Each winner will receive $1,000 cash for travel and food. Bundle purchase - 30 entries, Program purchase - 15 entries, ALL other MAPS purchases (mods, guides, etc.) - 3 entries. Winners will be announced and contacted in December. ** Why Cardio Is TERRIBLE For Long-Term Fat Loss – YouTube Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV 1910: The Year American Medicine Changed Forever 50 Years After Surgeon General's Warning, Smokers Still Light Up Mind Pump #2437: What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Ultra-Processed Foods for 30 Days Tired of your Instagram algorithm? You'll be able to reset it soon for a 'fresh start.' Ninja NC301 CREAMi Ice Cream Maker, for Gelato, Mix-ins, Milkshakes, Sorbet, Smoothie Bowls & More, 7 One-Touch Programs, with (2) Pint Containers & Lids, Compact Size, Perfect for Kids, Silver Can RFK Jr make America's diet healthy again? - BBC Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code 25MINDPUMP at checkout for 25% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic** Mind Pump #2312: Five Steps to Bounce Back From Overtraining Mind Pump #2210: Best Workouts for Bulking & Cutting Train the Trainer Webinar Series Visit Joovv for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Save up to $1,000 on a new Joovv system. Plus, 0% financing is available with payments starting as little as $34 a month! ** Mind Pump Hormones Facebook Private Forum Visit Transcend for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Up to 35% off Select Peptide Bundles now through Nov. 30th! ** Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, Ph.D. (@biolayne) Instagram Dr. Tyna Moore (@drtyna) Instagram Dr. Stephanie Estima (@dr.stephanie.estima) Instagram  

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If you're doing cardio for fat loss, it's not gonna work if you make the following three mistakes that everybody makes. What do you guys think they are? Ooh. Ooh. Turn it into a mode of burning calories, right? So you approach it with the,

let's see how many calories I can burn in the next 30 hour, however long you do it for. I think that approach is a losing battle. Well, yeah, I think that speaks to the first one that I listed, which is where cardio becomes the cornerstone of your exercise routine. It is the main form of exercise. Cardio is a terrible way to burn body fat as the main form of exercise. Cardio is a terrible way to burn body fat as the main form of exercise because it doesn't preserve muscle and it asks for endurance and stamina,

which is okay if that's what you want, but through that process, and because it doesn't send a muscle building signal, the body adapts very quickly by pairing muscle down. So when cardio is the cornerstone of your routine, what you see, and you see this in studies as well, is number one, it doesn't lead to fat loss very effectively, but two, if it is combined with a low calorie diet,

you'll see weight loss, but a significant portion of that weight will come from muscle. And so people end up losing weight, they end up losing muscle along the process, typically about 30, 40% of the weight, and then they plateau real hard, and then they're like, where do I go from here with a slower metabolism?

And all of that is exacerbated when you do this in a calorie deficit. Which is what happens to most people. Yeah, well first off. That's on its own, those points stand true, what you just said. Totally, in fact. There's no more building signal at all.

Nothing, in fact the studies show that if cardio, if you don't combine it with a calorie deficit, you just won't lose anyway. Yeah. It's a terrible way to burn body fat by itself. Most forms of exercise aren't great if you don't combine it with a diet. But then you're like, oh cool, I'll combine it with diet. I'll cut my calories. Now you're going to lose muscle. my calories, now you're going to lose muscle. The reason why this happens again is cardio does not ask upon your body or demand upon your body to build muscle and strength. Because it does in the short term burn a lot of calories while you're doing it, the body

then tries to adapt to that caloric burn by paring muscle down, giving you more endurance, but you don't need a lot of muscle for that. You need very little muscle for endurance. You need muscle for strength, but not for endurance. So you'll lose muscle. Then your body learns to burn less calories and your initial 10 pound weight loss, then you plateau and then you're totally stuck and you're now you're stuck with a slower metabolism.

So it cannot be, if the goal is fat loss, it cannot be the cornerstone of your routine. The cornerstone of your routine should be strength training if fat loss is low Yeah, really low not even moderate really like long term activity throughout the days what you track But I think too a lot of people do cardio for too long the periods like so doing a short Punchy like maybe crank the intensity up just a bit and keep it more anaerobic than aerobic You're gonna have a lot better chance of like maintaining a bit of muscle. Yeah, I've always given the advice of just get a good mile time. One mile.

Sufficient. The effort that it takes to run one mile, most people with some dedication and focus, meaning like literally 30 days of approaching this or less, meaning like literally 30 days of approaching this or less, can have a mile time down to eight minutes or less. And if you can run a mile in eight minutes or less, you have- You're doing all right. You've got some pretty good cardiovascular endurance,

heart health, you're gonna be just like, that's good. And it's gonna have enough stamina to translate to 99.9% of all your normal activities. The real world. Yeah, real world. So it's like, and that's a good healthy goal, because I know when we talk about this, we always get this pushback,

this is something from here will get clipped out and some other wannabe fitness professional will talk shit that all these guys are advising for you not to do cardio. How stupid is that? And it's just like, listen, for overall health, exercising the heart, which is what cardio does, is a good idea and it's okay. The problem is, that's not when someone

who is 40 pounds overweight and they get on the elliptical, they're not thinking like, hey, I'm doing this so I can just be in better cardiovascular shape. They're like, I'm doing this because I need to get this 40. I need to lose weight. I need to lose 40 pounds. And that is where the problem

I have is that is not a good strategy That's a losing strategy and even if they find they muscle their way and grit their way You know white knuckling it to get there through that method. It will come back Yeah, and it'll rear its head and be worse and harder the next time stuck with're stuck with the slower metabolism in an unsustainable place. So in that context, it's a horrible idea. It's not me saying that cardio is bad for health. I think that would be a stupid statement. Well, I mean, if you're looking for endurance,

it's the best form of exercise, right? You want cardiovascular endurance? Well, you definitely need to do cardio for that. And by the way, this brings us to the next one. You said, you know, run a mile. Like, here's another huge mistake people make with cardio. need to do cardio for that. And by the way, this brings us to the next one. You said run a mile. Here's another huge mistake people make with cardio. More so with cardio than other forms of exercise,

although this is a common mistake people make with all forms of exercise. And that is that they don't consider the skill of the movement itself, right? So when people decide to pick up running, for example, they're like, okay, I'm gonna go start running because I need to get in better shape and I want to lose weight they just lace

up the running shoes and then they go and run until they're exhausted and they're like this is what I'm gonna do not considering that the the the act of running is a skill and if the skill if your skill is poor which it is if you stop running in high school and now you're in your 30s or 40s and decide you want to start running for workouts your skills gonna suck at running you're just not good at it and if you go do it to now you're in your 30s or 40s and decide you want to start running for workouts, your skills are going to suck at running. You're just not good at it and if you go do it to fatigue you're gonna have terrible biomechanics, it will result in chronic pain and injury. It will. In fact, if you look at the data on pain and injury, running is the top. It's one of

the top forms of exercise that causes injury. Now it's not because humans aren't supposed to run. In fact, to be quite honest, it's one of the physical activities humans actually evolved to do. A fit human can actually out distance run almost any animal. So we're actually evolved or designed to run,

but the problem is we lose the skill because we don't do it. Then we try to pick it up, and we don't practice it like we're learning the skill. We just go do it till we're tired, and this is why people injure themselves, and we don't practice it like we're learning the skill. We just go do it till we're tired, and this is why people injure themselves, and they can't do it anymore.

So that's why their knees hurt, their ankles hurt, their hips hurt, and their backs hurt. So great that this is your second point. So we're coming up on the final two weeks of this series that I've been doing on YouTube. And so I have introduced lists, cardio, like low intensity, steady state, walking basically. Speed three to three and a half on a slight incline, like really, really easy walking.

I had to move off the treadmill at about 20 minutes in and into elliptical for the exact reason you were talking about. Because of my hamstring injury I can tell I started to notice as my body sort of fatigued my gate was off yeah my gate was off yeah and I could feel about why that's a bad thing by the way well because I know it's going to set up me for chronic pain in my low back in my hips because I can tell I could like it was this it was very obvious that the left side it was like my toes were getting a little bit numb I could just I could fail that there it wasn't't the, my weight wasn't even,

even though I'm thinking about it and I, and I think I'm walking good. I could feel the fatigue sets in and the fatigue started to come in a little bit. And now I feel the discrepancy. The moment I felt that I got off and I went, got on the elliptical where I'm my, I'm in a stationary position. I can control with my arms now. So that was exactly why I did that. And I just think, man, how many people just power right through that. And they don't realize that now they start to create this new pattern. They've now repatterned the way their body walks because of this little- That's what they train. Yeah, because of this hamstring injury. And then the more of

that cardio, the more times they do that, the more they solidify that. And then even when the hamstring heals and they're better and they're back to quote unquote normal, they now walk with this imbalance that eventually ends up leading you to overcompensating. And then many times people can't connect the dots because this is how it shows up. It was a left hamstring injury. But all of a sudden my mid right side of my back bothers me or my neck on this side. And so-

Not realizing it's all connected. Yeah, so people don't think that it isn't dawn on them that that is because of the hamstring injury and you decided that you're gonna go for all these long walks or runs recovering from that, not realizing how important your gait is, and that you've now created these bad, poor recruitment patterns, and now your body's compensating, and the way the pain works is it kind of zigzags and ping-pongs up the kinetic chain, and so because your neck on the left side is hurting you, you have like, don't put that together at all that has anything

to do with your nerves. You're like, I have a bad neck, not I have a hamstring. That's right. You know what I'm saying? And then you think of it as, oh, I must have been, I slept on it wrong or something else. It's like, no, what's happened is because of this injury, you and not taking, you know, running like a skill, like any other skill seriously, and you've now created these poor patterns that now are, you know, manifesting as chronic pain somewhere else. Look this is true from all forms of exercise. People tend to look at

exercise as a means to an end like just get me tired just got to move. So it's true for all forms of exercise that thankfully with strength training people tend to consider form more often. I'm not saying it's great but they tend to consider like oh there's a technique to the squat and the press and the whatever. Still needs to be communicated more more often but when it comes to cardio especially running nobody considers it. They just go run till they're tired. They don't consider that there's a skill that goes to running and that if your skill is off the repetitive motion of it you're gonna

cause problems. You will cause problems not not that it's a potential, it's going to happen if your skill of running is terrible. Lastly, this is back to the diet part, you're eating too little with your cardio. Like you cut your calories really low and do a lot of cardio, this is a guaranteed way to lose muscle. You are going to lose muscle. Now it's not because your body's burning muscle I know people used to say that back in the past like oh you're burning your muscle off That's not what's happening. Your body's not reaching for muscle for energy to burn It's just paring it down making you better at what you're asking it to do. Now. What are you asking it to do?

I need endurance. I need to be efficient with this movement And and that's it. So endurance, I need to be efficient with this movement and and that's it. So alright, how do we become efficient? We pair muscle down. How do we become, how do we gain endurance? Well we don't need much muscle so let's become a skinnier, less muscle version, more endurance version of myself. So now doing the same activity, I burn less calories, I'm more efficient at it, I got more stamina, I've got less muscle, here we go So again, if you look at this the data proves this and shows us clearly And kind of defends what we saw for decades as trainers and coaches in the gyms. We used to see this all the time

I'd see people come in they jump on cardio Refuse to do strength training and you would see them get skinnier But you'd see that the muscle loss was happening and then they'd be stuck at like 20-30 pounds overweight and they'd come in every single day, hop on some cardio machine and just, and then they'd tell me, I don't know why I'm not losing any more weight, what's going on? In fact, I had a couple people one time, I had a couple members. I thought they weren't telling me the truth about their diets. They had like booklets of writing out their food and I remember looking at them going,

oh, you're eating 1300 calories a day. You're in your five days a week doing 45 minutes of cardio and you're not losing any more weight. Like, what is going on? Oh, the body just learned how to burn less calories. How do you explain this? When the body begins to metabolize fat as its primary source of fuel

because it's now been depleted of glycogen, how do you explain to somebody how you do that to where it just taps in and utilizes fat and it doesn't pare down muscle versus it actually not exciting? So for example, and this is kind of how I explain it and obviously, I mean, probably not the best. So I'd like to hear how you would say this. So right now I'm in this caloric deficit. And that doesn't mean that I'm in a caloric deficit 24-7 because I go fuel up, right? I go eat a 600 calorie meal. It takes about an hour to two hours for that to get

digested and then get to be converted over into glucose, then stored as glycogen. And that now is providing my body fuel to move around, to do exercise and that. But then those 700 calories goes just like a gas tank, I use and then it runs out. And then when it runs out, my body then goes, oh, let's kick over and find another system to run off of. Fat seems to be like a good source, he's got a bunch of that stored on him,

let's tap into that and start using that. Now what I know is that if I'm in that place where I'm depleted and I'm just kind of burning, this is me burning sitting here on the chair right now with you, right? Because I've already used those calories. My body's just metabolizing fat slowly, very very slowly, but it's metabolizing fat to get here. But then I go over and decide I want to ramp that up, I want more. So I get on the treadmill, I start running like crazy. What is happening that tells my body that,

that, is it because the fat is converting at such a slow rate that it goes, oh, this is not enough fuel. And so that's what causes the pairing down and that it like, or is it an adaptation later on that the body goes, oh, he keeps running every day, we don't need muscle. Two separate things are happening.

One is it needs a source of energy, but the other is just adaptation to the stress, that's all. So if the stress on your body is saying endurance and you combine that simultaneously with, especially with excessive calorie burn, and you don't have a signal that says we need muscle, your body's always gonna try and meet your caloric intake with its caloric output.

That's the goal, right? Because it would die otherwise. You can't always be at a deficit, you would die. If you were always at a deficit, eventually your body would run out of energy, it would at a deficit you would die if you were always at a deficit eventually your body run out of energy It would consume itself and you would die. So the body Learns how to burn less calories. It's always what it's doing when you're in a deficit always always always even if you do it perfectly your body will start to adapt called metabolic adaptation and

Again one way it does there's a lot by the way, it's very complex It's extremely complex like you can speed up or slow down your metabolism with the same lean body mass, by the way. You don't even have to gain or lose muscle. Your body can learn through heat production and through lots of other metabolic pathways. So more complex than people even understand, even the top scientists understand,

it can slow down or speed up your metabolism. But one of the ways it does it is just to reduce muscle mass. It would be like taking your eight cylinder engine and making it a four cylinder because you want to burn less gas. So that's what your body does. So it's just a different adaptation.

In fact, you could lose muscle and be in a calorie surplus. You could be in a calorie surplus, do so much cardio, so much endurance work. Well of course, if you're in a calorie surplus, you don't feed the body the proper amount of protein and you're overstressed chronically. Your body will get rid of muscle because it's a stress adaptation. And it's too expensive.

Right, so losing muscle doesn't just happen from calorie deficit, although it usually does. It could also happen in calorie surplus if your body is adapting in a direction to adapt to stress in a way where it's trying to reduce its caloric output or improve its ability to store energy. Again, it's a complex process,

but it's an adaptation process. I feel like I like the way, whether it's scientifically correct or not, I like the way it is. No, I think you're selling it well. I mean, to me, that's how I always, because here's what I understand. I know for a fact of how many times I've done it,

not only to myself, but to so many people. Like, it's like there's this beautiful sweet spot, if you can get a client and yourself to be in this core deficit and actually just moderately move and cruise. And it feels like almost like the body is just metabolizing fat as a primary source. And the moment I decide to get crazy and want more and push harder, the body kind of goes, whoa, it's real convenient for me to metabolize fat and convert it over, it's nice and slow, you got plenty of it stored on you, this is fine.

But then the minute you start doing something hard and aggressive, the body goes, whoa, this is more than we can handle right now, and so what do we need to do? Oh, let's put a pair down some muscle, you know. We used to say, oh, you burn the muscle, but we know that's not true. We know that you're not metabolizing

and burning the muscle as fuel. Do you guys remember one of those, this was years ago, this was a big deal though. Remember when those scans came out of obese individuals and it just completely destroyed the myth that they carried more muscle mass and bone mass? Yeah. Right. You thought logically just because they're carrying

this extra weight it would produce muscle. No. Which was not the case. No, sarcopenia is actually more common when they were obese. So you have to send that muscle building signal Anyway, I gotta I gotta bring this up savings is so crazy We're supposed to mention our sponsor eight sleep They're doing a 30-day trial for this not crazy. It's brilliant. The fact that they

Sleep you try it for 30 days. That's really the whole thing It doesn't blow your mind with your sleep, return it. This doesn't work with all companies and all brands, but with something, and I've talked about this forever because of how much I'm a fan of eight sleep, it's like, it's one of those things that if you're somebody who knows that you're sensitive to the temperature in your room,

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That's right, and so, you know, so brilliant for them to do something like this. You have to be really confident in your product to do something like that. Yes, yes. It makes a massive difference, yeah. They have to go through that experience. Otherwise, it's just talk You know like to really feel the difference of it's everything. Yeah. Yeah, so I gotta tell you guys this I went down a rabbit hole this morning. I took notes. This is how excited I was to bring this up I almost never do that because they typically remember but I'm like I I gotta write this down because I went down this rabbit hole

of the ultra-processed food industry, which, okay, we've talked about this. Let's spark this, because I always get sparked by something that leads me down these rabbit holes. There was this gentleman who was talking about the history of it, and I'm cross-checking and referencing,

and then I went down this rabbit hole. It's crazy. So we've talked about this before, right? Like how ultra-processed foods, if we had to pin the obesity epidemic on anything, which is a complex problem. There's a lot of factors. There's a lot of factors,

but if there's one factor that contributes the most, right? It's ultra-processed foods and just how they've been engineered to make us overeat. And good luck trying to control your calories and eat them. They're just brilliant engineering. They make people overeat. And you can see clearly, you look at the obesity epidemic, it directly lines up with how much ultra processed foods

have become a part of our diet. So I went down this rabbit hole, dude. This is gonna trip you out. So it starts all the way back to 1909. So it starts all the way back to 1909. So in 1909, Rockefeller, who was extremely powerful, richest man, I think might be even the richest man ever if you look at the inflation. Yeah, if you look at inflation and all that, right?

His lawyer wrote something up called the Flexner Report, which we still use to this day. Flexner? Flexner. F-L-E-X-N-E-R Report. Never heard of it. And what this did is it revolutionized medicine. So leading up to this point, up until 1909, we actually had a holistic view of the body, like how systems connect, you know, communicate or whatever. The Flexner Report literally says in there that holistic nutrition or medicine is pseudoscience. Get rid of it. What? Isolate each system of the body and then treat it. So look at each system and then figure out how to treat it. Now why would

he do this? Well Rockefeller is the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Remember he had oil more than anybody and most pharmaceuticals come from petroleum, come from oil. Most drugs are created from that process right there. So he is the father of the pharmaceutical industry. His lawyer writes up the flexion report and through that they basically started the path of this is how we treat people. He was the first person to fund the John Hopkins University and education. So the medical system, Western medicine, started in 1909. How we educate our

doctors was systems of the body or individual holistic medicine and by the way still used to this day. Till this day it still directs how everything is used. And again it's a medicine pharmaceuticals were byproduct of the oil industry and modern medical education came from this and still used to this day. So why does it serve him to separate the body? Because when you do it that way now you're treating just individual systems and diseases. So now I can so now I can. So you're looking at a disease by itself targeted with a drug. Well yeah it also means that I can sell so now I can. So you're looking at a disease by itself, target it with a drug.

Well yeah, and it also means that I can sell you 10 different things for five different. A lot more options out there. This is for this system. Oh shit, that's fucking up this system. Here's one for that system. Now I'm not saying, by the way, I'm not saying Rockefeller was evil

because remember medicine was Wild West back then, so the intentions might have been like good, like okay, here's what we need to do, but it had such a strong influence that this, believe it or not, ties to the pharmaceutical industry and it ties to- Well that's like the Western medicine approach that became like the difference in between that

and our old, I guess the Eastern, which you consider more holistic. Which became really good for acute stuff. Oh, got it, hit the nail especially. We became masters at that and that's what separated us from us. You came to us for very specific things. Hit the nail on the head. Up until World War II, most of the medical interventions that we attribute to Western

medicine that are miraculous happened right before or around that time, right? Antibiotics, you know, surgeries, like it actually, it were incredible breakthroughs from that categorizing system, okay? And up until about, for a long time, up until the 60s or so, late 50s, 60s, all Western medicine was about acute issues. Chronic issues were not considered, like you didn't go to the doctor for a chronic

health issue. You went to the doctor for an acute issue and they treated you. And the pharmaceutical industry didn't even consider that somebody would be willing to take a pill for the rest of their life. It was like you take this pill for 30 days and then you're done. The first drug to do that, do you guys want to know what it was? That what you take indefinitely? Where they tested this and then it's like the first drug ever and that, you guys don't wanna know what it was? That what, that you take indefinitely? Where they tested this, and then it's like the first drug ever, and then after that they're like,

this is a huge market. Birth control. Oh, birth control. I was gonna say blood pressure medication or something. No, everything after that, it was birth control. And what year was birth control introduced? Late 50s, early 60s. So they showed people will take a pill,

they'll take something forever if we can show that whatever sells some particular value. Up until that point, we had nothing that subscribed. No, and it opened up a whole new market. And then we had Valium came out. Right around that time, Valium comes out. At that point, I believe in the 60s, 30% of women were taking Valium.

Holy shit. Because they were like, oh, just take this every day. Just hopped up on opiates all day long. Yeah, just take this, well, it's a Because they were like, oh, just take this every day. Just hopped up on opiates all day long. Yeah, just take this, well, it's a benzo, I think, but just take this every day. Oh, is that an opiate? No, Valium isn't.

Oh, I thought it was an opiate. No, no. Does it still pair with the opiate receptor, though? I don't think so. I think it's a benzo type. Maybe look that up, Doug, but I know that Valium, 30% of women were on it. I thought it fell in the same category

as hydrocodine and all the rest of those. Oh, interesting, I didn't know that. Yeah, so that was, and then they started to look at chronic health issues. Heart disease, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and it went down, so that's that path right there. Like, okay, chronic health issues, we have now drugs, you just take them for the rest of your life

to treat these issues. Valium is a, yes, diazepam. Yeah. Interesting. Class of drugs called benzo. So, Sal, what does that mean as far as like what receptor attaches to? That's a good question. And does that mean that it's less addictive? No. Because that's supposed to be really addictive. Very addictive. Right. Benzo's very addictive. And if you just, if you go off of them after using them for a while, you get some crazy rebound anxiety and terrible side effects. Are you looking at receptors there, Doug?

Oh, the GABA receptor, duh. Yeah. So, okay, so that's where we're at. Okay, then you get to the 1980s. And in the 1980s, the Surgeon General releases a report admitting that tobacco's bad for you. Remember, up until then, there was this huge war between the tobacco industry bad for you. Remember, up until then there was this huge war between the tobacco industry and some scientists.

In fact, if you go back, this is the 50s, there were ads talking about the health. There's ads of pregnant women smoking cigarettes. There were ads, hey, do you know that there are ads? Doctors are smoking cigarettes and they're doing surgery. Do you know that there are ads that showed that smoking was good for a cough? There were ads, hey, Camel had an ad,

and it said like three out of four doctors recommend Camel cigarettes. Oh yeah, I remember those. So anyway, in the 1980s, Surgeon General Report comes out and says cigarettes are bad for you. So the tobacco industry was like, oh shit, what are we gonna do? You know

what they did? The largest business purchases up until then happened right around then. It was, by the way, these tobacco companies were the largest companies in the world. They were the Google and the Facebook of the time. Back then, in the early 80s, if you looked at the most profitable companies, it was these tobacco companies. That's how powerful they were. Would they move into energy? Where'd they move their money?

They bought food companies. Food companies, yeah. They went into these massive food companies. Well, you've said this before, I've heard you say this, that a lot of the people that got fired from the smoking industry just moved right over to the food. The scientists, all the scientists that were there. All these tobacco industries bought these food companies,

brought their scientists over, and they took their brilliant how do we make things addictive and applied it to food. And that is when food got crazy. That's when they really tapped into how do we make food so irresistible that people can't stop eating?

How do they consume the whole can in just a few bites? Be interesting to know who the big names, the big actual people that bought the companies. Who was it? Look at tobacco companies buy food companies, 1980s. And let's look at that. Yeah, let's see who the big hitters are.

Oh, they bought huge purchases. Well, yeah, when you look at, even if you look at, we think that we have millions of choices when it comes to food, but there's like a handful of companies that own all of those companies. Yeah, there's like a handful of companies that own all of those companies. Yeah, let's see what it says there, Doug.

Yeah, we got Kraft, General Foods, Nabisco. All bought by tobacco companies in the 1980s. And they were, back then they were such, let's see, Philip Morris and R.G. Reynolds bought them all up. And they controlled a large portion of America's food supply. And remember, they took these sciences

that worked for them, that knew how to make cigarettes, they knew addictive properties, understood it. Applied it to that. To food. So is it actually like Philip cigarettes, they knew addictive properties, understood it. Applied it to that. To food. So is it actually like Philip Morris, like a holding company, actually bought all these food companies, or is there a man behind Philip Morris

that went out and bought these, personally that benefited from it, or is it the actual company going by it? I think the company's bought them. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and it was big news because, again, this was like, I remember the, I know the purchasing prices, the sales prices were so big,

it made big news. It would be like Google buying Apple. Yeah, or something like that, right? So then they took these scientists and then they said, hey, let's have some fun with these foods and they did. And again, the data on this is so clear. And I love, I wonder if it's,

they're so powerful and they have so much money, they have so much pull with media, especially legacy media. They'll put out these bullshit articles talking about, oh, it's just calories, completely ignoring what's really important, which is you can't stop overeating this. Forget that what's in the food.

Look, it's got fiber in it. Look, it's got nutrients. Look, it's got, it's just the calories. It is making you overeat. If you eat these foods, you're gonna be overe it. Look, it's got nutrients. Look, it's got, it's just the calories. It is making you overeat. If you eat these foods, you're gonna be overeating. Period, end of story. I mean, this is the big thing that we have disagreement with some of you who are really good friends, right?

We have quite a few very intelligent, you know, science friends that defend the, you know, these processed foods. I don't think so, not anymore. Not anymore. Sure. No, ten years ago maybe. Even Lane, like you'll even hear Lane Norton be like, no they make you overeat. Like, you know, the argument they would make was, well, it's just don't overeat your calories and you're fine. Well, no shit. Yeah. But it's like saying to somebody, here just do a little bit of cocaine. Yeah, but don't overeat your calories and you're fine. Well, no shit. But it's like saying to somebody, here, just do a little bit of cocaine, and they don't do anymore, but it's sitting around you.

You're going to overeat, and the study, and the reason why they don't say it anymore is now we have incredible studies that just show how powerful these foods are. They're so powerful that, our bodies naturally tell us when to stop eating, by the way, everybody. Your body tells you when to stop eating but when you're consuming a food that's been designed to make you overeat to hijack that signal doesn't happen until you're you've already overeaten yeah once you've like really

overeating then it says okay by the way as you continue to eat these foods because of the way that they're designed that overeating signal gets pushed down the line. So if you eat them now, you overeat, but if you eat them all the time over years and years and years, like any drug, you build a tolerance and it makes it worse and worse and worse and worse. Well, it wasn't, I mean, back in the day with a lot of our science friends, I'm sure there wasn't a lot of studies in terms of the the counter of a lot of these companies like products,

like they're not motivated to pay an exorbitant amount of money to study these to see that it's making people overeat. There was probably interest way later once there's all these chronic issues we see, you know, in culture and trying to like dive in and find that out. But it's like, it's only been recently

we've seen some of these. Excuse me, if you're making these foods, your incentive is not, oh, they're overeating. That's a good sign. If I make a food and I'm trying to make money, and that's, by the way, that's what companies are supposed to do, okay? And it's a quote unquote voluntary thing,

so you buy it because you choose it. Like if I'm making a food and oh my God, my consumer's eating the shit out of this, good job. Yeah, it means you got a home run. Yeah's eating the shit out of this, good job. Keep going. Yeah, it means you got a home run. Yeah. I mean, it's just a good product. And the thing about this is that,

I mean this is part of living in a free country though, right, and this is what happens in free markets is every, like let's look at a different industry, the video game industry. Yeah. I mean, the novels, the movies, the streaming. I mean, they're all incentivized to keep you addicted to whatever that is. And the better they are at it, the better it is for their business.

And so it is so much up to us as the consumer to be more aware of all of those things. Yes. And here's the myth. The myth is I can use all these things, I can consume all these things, and I can control my intake, and I can control my access. I can still be in balance. That's the myth. The truth is you become aware,

but your awareness has to be at this point. Oh, if I engage in this, I'm going to overeat. Or if I engage in all this tech, I will over-consume it. Or if I engage in it. So that's the awareness. The awareness is to overeat, or if I engage in all this tech, I will over-consume it, or if I engage in it. So that's the awareness. The awareness is to not engage, because you're out of control with it, and that's just a fact.

But it's crazy when I went down that rabbit hole of like, it started with medicine and moved its way into food, and now we're like, we've created these, chronic illnesses are, by the way, 90% of pharmaceutical drugs now treat chronic illnesses, meaning 90% of drugs are drugs designed to take all the time. Not just you take it sometimes and you're off of it.

And that's a money maker right there. That's a crazy money maker. I wonder if ARR, like, reoccurring revenue came from that. That's a great question. I wonder if every other business followed suit and went like, oh my god, this is how we should do everything. Yeah, look at this. This sets it up for the long-term user.

Oh, it's crazy. That's why the studies on psychedelic use for therapy, the pharma industry is not really super interested, because what the research is showing is you use it for six sessions and then you're fine. They're like, how do we make money on this when people stop use it for six sessions and then you're fine. Like how do we keep making money? How do we make money on this when people stop using it after six sessions or whatever?

I know. That's crazy stuff. I wonder how much overlap too there is because you talk about the medicine led to cigarettes, cigarettes led to food is how much of the overlap is in the tech now. Like I wonder how many people that were in that world. It's on steroids, bro.

Yeah, because I think the tech thing is the next biggest. If you talk about pharma, cigarettes, processed foods, tech is that of our generation. Imagine with food, how they figured this out with food is they little by little they tested it on people and they started to realize, oh, this is working, this is working. With tech, the feedback is so quick yeah that they'll

measure how long you hover over something yeah how often it gets all the analytics are insane and the data they can just retrieve from all your just behaviors around it like they get instantly you're at the algorithm on your social media adjusts on the fly. Whereas processed foods took a second. They made one cookie, then they gotta wait to make another cookie to make it more, or whatever. Imagine if you were eating a cookie, and with every bite it was adjusting itself

to become more palatable, that's tech. Did you see Instagram, I guess the CEO said that there's a new feature that allows you to actually wash clean your algorithms and start over. No. Yeah. Which is cool. I was trying to figure, I couldn't even figure out how to do that on my settings, but like,

it's just, I think they're realizing that, you know, this is going to be something that they're going to look into in terms of people's behaviors, how it's influencing them. And so this is almost like, well, here you can, you can adjust it if you want, or you could just keep doing what you're doing. This is uh this is like tobacco putting the warning label the warning label it's the warning label tech. That's what it is you know what I'm saying or like because didn't they run didn't they run like counter ads on themselves too like oh they paid yeah didn't they pay for like yes some some ads like like talking bad about yeah smoking and you know it's like they're that's interesting you know what's funny about that. Just to bring interest into it.

What you bring up is so interesting too, because we're talking about the bad guys, right? Imagine if a food company gave you the option for a less palatable version of their product. Most people would be like, I don't want that. Of course not. Why would they, I want this one over here. Yeah.

So you give consumers the option. I hate to say it, but most of us would choose it. And then they don't choose it, over here. Yeah. You know, so you give consumers the option. I hate to say it, but most of them, they don't choose it, and then it's like, well, we tried. I mean, it's the most challenging thing for even health products, right? Is like, how do you make something healthy, but also make it palatable so people want to actually eat it? You know, the truth is.

Well, that's the key. You want to make a protein bar that sells like crazy. You don't focus on like how healthy it is, you make it tasty. That's how Quest hit a home run. Quest hit a home run because it was like the first protein bar in a long time that I had seen that was like, oh wow, this tastes good.

Like they got everybody like that. It had nothing to do with like how healthy and how great it was. It's like, you know, it's a glorified candy bar and they figured out a way to, you know, keep the calories minimally down and put 20 grams of protein in it and it was a gang bust I tried it was the first power bar that they ever came out So gross. Oh my god

Green like a green like a puke green It was almost like eating leather but I remember they were passing them out at a three-on- basketball. And and so they're like, oh, this is new Protein bar you guys want to try it and we try it like oh Gross, it was awful and like there it was this revolutionary thing and I just never got much better Doug look who owns power bar. Yeah, they were the first right? They were one of the first they were by the way the protein There was so low like I think was like yeah, there's nothing it was like 12 grams. Yeah, there was nothing in there really. It was like eight to 12 grams. It was super low back then.

Yeah. It was like high, it was like energy bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I wonder who owns it. When I was a kid and I found out about protein, I would eat three or four of them. It looks like Post. Oh, Post owns them now.

Damn. See, and I bet you, Justin, when Post bought them, I bet you that's when they re-engineered it and made it like, now that- Made it tasty. Yeah, they make it all tasty now because power bar I've been around for a while the original power bars. You can't buy those anymore. No They've evolved all of them. Yeah, you guys they make them now like normal protein

They make them like quest now they make like those type and when did power bar start? Was that a 1980s product not 80s? No, it might leaders like 89. Well, maybe maybe I didn't see it Maybe it wasn't popular. Yeah, look at maybe I didn't see it till the 90s. Maybe it wasn't popular. Yeah, look, I was seeing the 90s. But how about that Post owns it? That's the thing that's got to be like scary for you too, is that? 86.

86 when it started? And then when did Post buy it? Runners probably. Yeah, runners. I think I did have it when I was like... I bet Post bought it in the last 10 years. ...88 or something around there. I was like... Maybe 15, because I think those bars were like that for a little bit.

Yeah. Maybe 20, you've got to figure out how old I am. Maybe 20. I was like, you know, maybe 15 because I see like nine years old like that for a little bit now. Maybe 20 and go for how old I am. Maybe 20. I was young. Let's see. 2014. Yeah. Yeah. I was just saying how,

when I thought Nestle owned it before then, Oh, Nestle had bought it before then, huh? Oh, yeah. I used to come a long way for sure. When I was 16, I started working on it. Why Nestle would buy that and then Post would buy it from them. Why would you sell that part of your business? Interesting move.

I mean, obviously they thought it would be good. They wanted some marketing there. I was 16, I was 15 and I was working out at the YMCA, the first gym I ever worked out at. Little tiny weight area. I used to have to ride my bike to three miles to get there. And then I'd go in and all they sold were power bars. This is my first foray into supplements.

I'm like, oh, I'm gonna eat these right here. I would have like three. I would have like three of them at a time, dude. And they were so gross. I was eating those and drinking a gallon of milk, thinking I was gonna get jacked. The milk was the best thing to eat. Yeah, the milk was the only thing I had going for me.

That's what I've always thought is funny is when you actually look at all the studies they have now, too, on just a glass of chocolate milk comparing to a shake and everything like that, it's pretty much the same. That's the gym that I worked out at up until I was 16. And that's the one I told you guys about that I left, because I broke the mirror, where I loaded the bar

with a bunch of small plates. And I was stripping them off, and then it just one side flipped in my hand. Are you still using your, because I know stripping them off and then it just one side flipped out. Are you still using your, because I know you ended up going and buying a ninja cream, didn't you? I did. Do you still use it a lot?

I love it. With protein powder. I use it like crazy. My kids, I give it to my kids. I make little protein powder ice cream pops or ice cream with the ninja creamy and they just get psyched, dude. My little two year old screams when I tell her,

you want ice cream? Ah! And she gets in her chair and she waits for me. I mean, it's pretty wild, right, how you can be, you're eating. It just mixes air in it or something perfectly to make it give you the right texture. It rips it up, yeah.

By the way, that just goes to show you palatability, how complex it is. It's texture plays a big role. Well, and it's protein, you you can make it into a drink, but all of a sudden it's more palatable because it's got different texture. Well, it's like nitro coffee, right? Yeah.

All you're doing is throwing nitro, oh, see how excited, oh my God. It's like, it's pretty much just coffee with some fucking nitrogen in it, you know what I'm saying? It's not like a new recipe. It's not like a special bean, you know what I'm saying? Justin loves it so much. They shoot some nitrogen into it.

Oh, it's so good. But to your point, I mean, that just shows you how complex the science is to this and how much you can manipulate something by. I mean, that is literally, the ninja cream is literally a boring ass, if you use whey or whatever you use, protein shake that's just whipped into an ice cream. And yet you've just not taste anything like my protein shake.

Like if I were to drink a protein shake and then eat that, I'd be like, no, these are not the same thing. But they are exactly the same thing, just with air in it. It's wild. I know, I love it. Super wild. Speaking of health and science and stuff, like, you know, RFK, right?

He's supposed to be like the head of like this new health initiative or whatever. Which I've never been ever had any hope in government policy with health because they're just they're the worst. It's always flopped. I trust the fitness influencer. Every time they've tried to change like the the kids meals of the cafeteria it's been like completely just all of a sudden you know they they just run away from oh well the initial food pyramid with all many support processed

foods lobbyists in there that get in the way. Terrible. It's just a nightmare. Terrible, but here he is and he's in there talking about certain things. Now, I will say this, I think, and I don't know if this is him or if this is social media, but they're mixing up the priorities a little bit.

Like right now the big news is on seed oils. And he's gonna meet with all, I don't know if you guys saw this, he's gonna have a meeting with all the fast food companies and convince them to remove seed oils and replace them with like beef tallow and stuff like that. Sweet. That's not going to solve obesity. Everybody not even come close. I mean, no, but the fries are fine. Tastes good. It might, it might get a bunch of fitness people fat fries. Tastes good again. Yeah, dude. Yeah, I know. That's, I mean,

it is it going to be healthier probably, but it's going to call it. It's not going to solve a lot of, a lot of stuff. Yeah, I don't know. It's like, I got a little bit of optimism with it. You know, at least somebody's in there that's like kind of stern. He's like the first health person in government that looks healthy. Yeah. Have you seen these, these cares? Have you seen these administrators of health of other countries? Why are they all our country? Have you seen our triple chin? Like,

oh dude, how does that happen? I don't even know. I mean, that just, I mean to me that just highlights like how, how the game of politics is played. It's like, it really does not matter. It doesn't matter what you know. It's like 100% who you know. Totally. Hey, speaking of politics is played, it's like it really does not matter. It doesn't matter what you know. It's like 100% who you know. Totally, 100%. Hey, speaking of science, so one of the companies we work with, Eterna, I confirm this, it's a skincare product, it's actual stem cells.

You can actually apply on your skin. So I heard Katrina talking to you when you were asking her about it, and did I hear correctly that they actually have a patent on it? That's right. It was only available in Japan. We now have it here and it's actual so if you want stem cell skin treatment Eterna has it. By the way when you make it you have to refrigerate it because they're cells but you use it

on your face so I know she loves it. Doug's been using it which you know Doug likes to keep things secret. I don't keep it secret. I do everything. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's it right there. That's it right there. It's actual stem cells. So is Japan ahead of us in? Their regulations are different.

Yeah, their regulations are different. The US restricts a lot of this type of research. Yeah, speaking of RFK, that was one thing that excited me a bit too, is some of these things, like stem cell research and also peptides, it's like lifting a lot of the restriction on that's gonna be great. Yeah, that would be good.

Speaking of Doug hiding things from us, do you know what else he's learning? Do you guys know what he's been doing? Oh yeah, he's... Calligraphy? No, no, no, there's something else. No, there's one more thing I've already told you guys. Oh, you haven't told anybody.

It's the flute. The flute, yeah. The skin flute? Oh, come on, Adam. I have to make everything dirty. He plays that. I mean, come on, dude. You have to make everything dirty. He plays that. I mean, come on, dude. Give it to me underhand like that.

It's called a shakuhachi. Is it a big, long, wood one? Yeah, well, it's about a foot and a half. It's the one you hear in Karate Kid. In the beginning? Is it really? Yeah, that's what it is. It's like you hear samurai movies and things like that. It's got a very distinctive, kind of haunting sound to it

So how does that so how do I tell me? dripping and I know how like I or at least I think I think I can draw back to Where all of my weird obsessions or things I'm into like stem from like where does how does like Doug all of a sudden? Go, I'm gonna learn this weird ass flute It's Japanese culture. I get that but I mean like like why that no see it at a convention and go that's no I heard an instrument and For some reason it just struck me. Okay. I mean I just out of the blue I go I got to figure out what that instrument is then I found out that's this flute called the shakuhachi So I ordered one online. Okay come to to find out it was made in Hong Kong and it looks good but it doesn't really work that great.

Yeah. Knock off? Wait so a real one is expensive? Well it depends. Okay. I mean some of them are very expensive they can be $20,000. Whoa! Why? Like okay because for one thing the bamboo has to be cut to a very specific length, meaning where the joints are in the bamboo have to be exactly in the right spot for the length of the flute.

Interesting. So there's multiple lengths. Now the shaku hachi of his arm and that's the standard size of the flute Okay, which is like a little over a foot and a half and then they have bigger ones But they're all called shaku Hachi. So yeah, very fascinating So that means you have to what makes it so unique is being able to find a Piece of bamboo that lines up perfectly Oh, yeah They have to first find the bamboo that lines up perfectly and then they cure the bamboo and sometimes it's for ten plus years

So it dries out because bamboo will crack so they have to cure it So like and then they they bore it out and they do the holes There's only five holes in the instrument and they have to be obviously in the very correct right place. So how you bored out again? Okay, Adam always making things dirty So you knew he was learning this? I did mention it. I just found out. I forgot, I forgot. I forgot. You know what? Like four months, right? Three, four months. Yeah. Since August. That'll be our new intro. Yeah, maybe. That'd be cool.

So here's, can you lead the rats out of San Jose? Yeah, maybe. Hopefully. There's a lot of them here. Trust me. But the interesting thing is, is there's no reed, there's no, there's just a hollow tube and then one edge is cut. So it's just purely, you know, your air from your mouth. Does it whistle by itself or do you have to blow specifically in a different way?

You have to blow right into that place where it's cut on the, and it's very fine. It took me over a week just to make a sound out of it. Five holes? Yeah, five of them. Five holes. Five holes, yeah. Interesting. Wow, so how often are you practicing this?

I play a little bit every day. Did you hire someone or are you doing it online? No, no, I hired somebody. Oh, you actually hired some person or virtual? Virtual, yeah. Wow, so he's doing that, he's doing the calligraphy, he's gonna be... I feel like he's getting ready to move on us.

What? Move where, to Japan? Yeah, I'm out of here. I'm tired of you Japan? Yeah. I'm selling. He's like, I'm out. He's like, I'm out of here. I'm tired of you guys' bullshit. I'm going to go sit on a street corner and play the flute. I'm going to sell my shares. And start gardening and raking.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if I'm into that yet. How come you never did karate or martial arts? In hindsight, I wish I did when I lived there. I just didn't have any interest. Actually, honestly, when I lived there, I had very little interest in Japanese culture in general. I've gained all that interest after I came there. Uh, I just didn't have any interest. Actually, honestly, when I lived there, I had very little interest in Japanese culture in general. I've gained all that interest after I came back. Yeah. Oh, that's,

I didn't know that. That's kind of interesting. You would love karate, dude. Yeah. The roommate in Japan, she was into Kendo. Oh, that's a stick fighter. Yeah. Which is really cool. But I'm going to tell you this. When she came back in with her gear, Oh no, it's stunk. You know, you're sweating. This is very like any sport well yeah but it's like very thick cloth and stuff on these things and it just gets like yeah yeah I can't wait to hear you play dude yeah well I'm getting to the point where I maybe can feel like I can actually do something Japanese culture fascinates me I've never been there

fascinates me I I wanna go there too. Just cause when I did Judo as a kid, where I did Judo at the Buddhist temple in downtown San Jose, it was taught by actual Japanese instructors. Yeah, yeah. And it was very traditional. By the way, so different from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

The culture, so different. Judo, you walk in, you bow, you bow, you greet the senseis, you don't show up late You don't talk jujitsu's like hey, hey, come on in. Yeah, when we go start. I don't know. It's very loose Yeah, Brazilian culture versus Japanese culture is you totally feel oh totally different I feel like we all want to go there, but we all want to go there for different reasons I want to go there for sushi in the sneaker culture. That's what I want to go there for. They have a big sneaker culture? Pro. Japan?

Yes. Really? Look it up. Look up Japan's sneaker culture. Do you know how safe, have you ever looked at the crime statistics over there? It's super safe. It's like crazy safe.

Ridiculously safe. What do they attribute it to? It's the culture. They cut your hand off if you steal something? No, their laws are normal. They're just culture. Just very, very, very, very- Polite, friendly.

Very organized, like great, you know. Yeah, they have crazy sneaker culture over there. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know this town very well, like where. Probably Tokyo, yeah. Yeah, I would imagine it's Tokyo. I went to one time. They had like really cool shops.

Have you ever seen somebody in the locker room with the tattoos that are, it looks like they're wearing a shirt. Yakuza. They say that that's what that is, right? Well, that's not where it came from, right? I think so. I saw one, never, I only saw one time, it was an older Japanese man and he was dressed

normal and he takes his shirt off and it was literally like there was a gap in the middle for where you might see it and everything ended where the sleeves ended And he was fully tatted on his back, on his front. Likely Yakuza. Really? Yeah. Wow. Full body tattoo. Actually, if you go to the hot springs, the Onsen in Japan,

if you have tattoos in a lot of places, you can't even go in. They won't let you in? None of you could go in. I can. Really? You have one. And you're low back. No, I don't.

I'm not a low back. They do dolphin sound. Hey, unicorn boy, you're out. Yeah. And you're low back. No, I do like dolphin. Unicorn boy. You're out. You're out. It's a scary unicorn. It's a metal. You know, it's jumping over a rainbow bro. Come on. It's too much. It's too much. You're not like that. That's what it is. I don't have a unicorn tattoo. I always say everybody thinks actually My favorite things are the things I lie about you guys Dugs like 90

Because he uses eternal I'm gonna start a rumor about Justin suit. I haven't decided what it's gonna be I did that like butt tickling one You already did that like butt tickling one. No, that's right. Some people were like, what? What is he doing? I missed that this year. I'm going to have to bring that. I'm not the butt tickler, OK?

Do you remember that? Every year I would post that. Every year I'd post the same exact post. It was so good, dude. It was such a good post. He's arrested again. So shout out. This is going to be from our forum.

Doug, do you have that? Can you pull it up? This was some commentary from one of our forum individuals. In fact, I can probably pull it up. I can bring it up. Jeff Bourne. I will read it right here. Okay, so the shout out is for Jeff Bourne. He's in our private forum. He's talking about Maps Prime. So he's talking about how he was super tight, stiff, with restricted range of motion everywhere, despite static stretching, three to five days a week, like it just wasn't happening.

Then he did Maps Prime and he's like totally blown away. He's also a Czech practitioner, functional health coach. Oh wow. To impress him, that's pretty cool. Right, because the Czech course is legit, right? So he knows what he's doing, but he using Prime, it's totally made a huge difference in how he feels. Is he doing Prime or Prime Pro?

He's using Prime. Oh. And he's doing the zone tests and doing some of the stuff from there, and he's using it on his clients and stuff. I mean, I still stand by that as one of the more proud things that we've done. Totally. I think it's a stand by that as one of the more proud things that we've done. Totally. I think it's a.

Speaking of which, by the way, Doug, this is Black Friday today. Yes. Today is Black. Hey. Real quick. The Triple Crown. Who wants it?

60% off all MAPS programs in all bundles right now. And this was Adam's idea triple entries for the maps excuse me mind pump vacation five-day vacation at the mind pump Park City house which is all optimized for that health and fitness we got red light therapy got a gym you got cold dip you got sauna you got everything in there how long is triple entries how many days either till Sunday till Sunday till Sunday got till Sunday to get triple so you go to to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then the code is Black Friday for the discount and then so you get a bundle you get 30 entries now.

Yes. You get a single program to get 15 entries. Just for that window though it's between now and then Sunday after that back to normal. Make it happen. Let's go. Hey real quick probiotics have been shown to improve gut health, nutrient absorption, your skin and your mood, and the best probiotic in the world by far is seed.

Nobody comes close to seed. Go check them out, go to seed.com forward slash mind pump, use the code 25mindpump, get 25% off your first month's order. All right, back to the show. Our next caller is Victor from North Carolina. What's up, man? Welcome to the show. How can we help you? How y'all doing? Thank you. How y'all doing? All right, man. How you doing? What up? Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Can I give a quick shout out before we get started? My question? Go for it. Yeah.

Yeah, just want to shout out to my wife, Katia. She's been doing these maps programs with me this year and, uh, she's really benefited from your guys' programs and your nutrition advisor. Her guns are bigger than mine. It's super impressive. That's awesome. That is awesome. Right. So what's going on? Awesome. Yeah. So I just had a question regarding a training volume and when, you know, it's your body's ready to handle it. Um, so just going to go through my question here. My question is regarding how you will know when you're ready to run a maths program that is higher in volume. I've been training consistently for about six years. I first learned of mind pump after Sal made an appearance on Joe DeFranco's podcast.

I was blown away at the concept of cardio being a terrible way to lose fat. But after Sal broke it down on Joe's podcast, it was like a veil was removed from my eyes and I can see clearly now. I bought the RGB bundle last November during the Black Friday sale and I recently completed it. In the third phase of aesthetic, I started suffering from poor sleep, increased irritability and a little libido. I thought it was a result of low testosterone because in January I had my blood work checked

and my testosterone was around 487, which I always thought wasn't optimal. I had my testosterone checked again and it actually went up to 742 in August. So your programs really work. Awesome. Okay. I came across one episode where a caller was describing similar symptoms that I was feeling and you guys figured out they were overtra training and I felt so dumb for not realizing what that was happening to me since I was running aesthetic in a cut and the volume goes up in phase three.

I was going to go into map split and I actually did the first workout but after listening to you guys talk about overtraining and how to reverse the effects of it, I pause map split took a deal of week instead of focusing on getting around 8,000 steps mobility and eating out of maintenance. After the deal a week I went into map getting around 8,000 steps, mobility, and eating out of maintenance. After the deal of the week, I went into map symmetry, which shocked me with how much I enjoyed phase one with the suspension trainer, and I highly recommended definitely it's an awesome program. I got to the last phase and went to a maintenance with my calories.

I finished symmetry and I'm currently running power lift and a maintenance. It will probably go to a slight bulk when I get to phase two. Uh, when I'm done with power lift, I'm thinking of running mat sit and a cut since it might be a good change of stimulus from power lift. So my question is how will I know when my body is ready for a higher volume program? Can I do anything to prepare for a higher volume program? So I wrote to you between lower volume and higher volume programs. I'm planning on picking up a few more programs during the Black Friday sale and I'd be discouraged if my body can never handle some Of the more intense programs first of all

excellent excellent Analysis and pivot I mean What you did pick up on and then what you pivoted to was awesome I mean, that's the advice you probably would have heard from all of us So I think you know, this this is, it's, it's really hard to say that, right. And I'm, by the way, this is like something that's like going through my head right now is like, I'm wanting to

scale my volume and I'm getting these little nagging injuries and I'm like, shit, man, I'm nowhere near what I've handled before. And a lot of it has more to do just with the context of what currently is going on in your life, right? Like if you're in a season of, you know, calorie surplus, you're well rested, you've addressed a lot of mobility stuff, this might be the time to start to do it. But you obviously have the tools, the knowledge and the awareness that if you start to notice that, ma'am, it's you're not seeing the

results, you're plateauing, it's disrupting sleep, it's time to pivot out of it. I don't know if there's a clear indication of like, okay, you've done X, Y, and Z, you're ready for this. It's kind of more like, okay, I think I'm ready for this, let's see how my body responds and feels, and then just don't get overly committed to it, just be open to if you see those signs is responding early and then moving out of it until you are.

But it really does matter all the other variables, right? In your life at the time and your stress bucket. The big factors. The signs that you're doing too much are much more clear. Right, than the ones that you're doing. Than signs that you can or you should do more. Also consider this, a lot of people don't realize this, but if you get stronger, your volume went up. So in other words, or you do more reps Also consider this, a lot of people don't realize this but if you get

stronger your volume went up. So in other words, or you do more reps right so if you're doing a let's say you did maps anabolic right which is for most people kind of an appropriate level of volume and you're following that program and you added 20 pounds to your squat. Well you just added volume to your lower body right you added you know 15 pounds to your overhead press Well, you just added volume to your lower body, right? You added 15 pounds to your overhead press. You've progressed it, voted intensity. Right, so people tend to think of volume

and what they think of are sets. Oh, it's gotta be just more sets. No, no, if you're getting stronger, the volume is scaling up on its own. So consider that. So if you're following a program and you're getting stronger and you're progressing, there's no need to add any volume

The volume is being added already. It's automatic So so consider that when you're following a program also consider that for most people You know 80% of the time you're gonna be coasting there's that 20% where you kind of sprint with your training because what tends to happen is we'll throw in those sprints Where we add more and then we see more progress and then we stay in the sprint and then we burn ourselves out The what's more important? I think is backing out of the sprint before you hit a hard wall or plateau or Noticing the signs before they get really loud. So it's like, okay

I'm doing great. Everything's going good, I'm getting stronger, I'm not really getting stronger anymore but let me see what's happening. I kind of feel tired, my sleep is a little disrupted, time to back down versus I'm gonna keep pushing until it gets so obvious that I have to really you know kind of back down. When you look at our higher volume programs, like split or aesthetic, those are appropriate for people who have everything kind of put together, sleep, stress, diet, and they're gonna follow them maybe once a year. They're not gonna follow them all the time.

No. That's like a once a year program. MAPS Anabolic is probably the kind of volume that you'll be following most of the time. And there's lots of, we have a lot of programs that kind of fall in that category. Symmetry would be like that. Performance is kind of similar with its volume. Also consider one of the things that you did, which is very common, but it's a mistake is when people go into a higher rep phase they tend to think that's fat loss time and they cut their calories at the same time. Not a great idea because

increasing the reps tends to generally increase the volume even though the weight goes down. So to give you an example 20 reps with 200 pounds in a squat is going to be more volume than five reps with 315. Even though I'm lifting way more weight, 315 for five, even if it's intense, isn't gonna hammer me like 20 reps with 200 pounds. Okay so higher reps tends to, and this isn't always true, but it tends to be more volume as well. So personally it personally, and this is opposite of what people think, low rep phases tend to do better with cuts than high rep phases.

And you'll get lean. You'll get lean doing it that way. Really, the leanness has to do with the calorie deficit. But dropping your calories and ramping up your volume at the same time, now you've just thrown a lot at your body. So consider that as well. I also always like to consider shorter bouts of cutting and or bulking, right?

Like I'm trying to hover around and kind of like, I don't know if you're paying attention to my series right now on YouTube, but for the most part, I'm kind of hovering around maintenance with these slight surpluses for a couple weeks and then slight decreases for a couple weeks, never really staying in one for very long. I think that helps to mitigate the amount of stress because if I'm in a low calorie

deficit and I'm training pretty hard consistently for a long period of time, the compounding effects of that stress tends to exacerbate some of the problems that can happen with achy joints and sleep and all the problems that can happen with achy joints and sleep and all the things that you might feel disrupted. Also following up a program like aesthetic you probably want to follow up with a low volume program before you move back into a high volume one. Even if you did great you probably don't want to go aesthetic to split right out the gates. Aesthetic to anabolic, to MAPS 15 for most people, or performance or symmetry, is probably a better approach.

So what are you doing right now? What program are you in right now? Right now I'm in week one of PowerLift, and I'm doing it in maintenance. Okay, so after that symmetry would be good, so would, probably I think symmetry would be the best performance might even be good to follow up with that and then after that then you could do like a maps 15 and then jump back into some higher volume

training. At the end of the day though when you have... Would maps... Go ahead Victor, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna tell you that... I was gonna say it would with- There's a delay. Yeah. Go ahead, brother, go ahead.

We'll wait. Yeah, I was gonna say with MAPS hit fall in the category of lower volume, like I understand like it's kind of more intense, but the, it's not as many sets throughout the week, or would that be considered like a, was something considered a higher volume because of the intensity or good question great question hit is a very short program I would put it in the middle of our

programs in terms of how it affects the body hit is not a program that you follow over and over again if you just follow it once and then you move into some traditional yeah definitely I mean if you were to look at like a year of good training for most people, most of the time they're going to spend most of their time in- Yeah, these are the peaks. You know, you're going to get a really high volume or you're going to end up with high intensity type of programming and you just don't want to live in them for too long.

Those want, you know, taking those through their full course and like going through the program. But then I would stay pretty low volume pretty much like throughout the year for the majority of it. Yeah I like so I like symmetry after power lift and after that like anabolic advanced if you feel good. I really think too that Victor you you you've got a pretty good I mean nobody is gonna have a better insight on you and how you feel than you. Yeah. So right now you're hearing us kind of speculate and you know I'd probably go here and do this but if you're feeling really good and you move into nothing wrong with testing the waters

and math's aesthetic and you seem pretty self-aware you start noticing sleep getting disrupted, achy joints, plateau and strength then just pivot out. You know pivot out and go oh well that's my body because let me tell you I've been doing this for well over 20 years and I still make this mistake. Yep. Same. I still say, Hey, man, I'm ready for this. I'm going to do it. And then I start doing it.

What I've gotten better about as I've gotten older and wiser and more experience is I catch the signs earlier because I'm paying attention and I'm open-minded. I'm not stubborn where I'm like, I'm going to run this math, aesthetic program. No matter what, just hammer myself. I go, Oh shit, I'm starting to notice sleep's getting a little disrupted. Oh, you know what? I just regressed in strength this last week.

You know what? I better actually dip over to like math 15 for a while. So there's, you know, and that's really the real art of this is you've got all these different programs, you got all the great programs, you got the tools, you've got the experience now. We can sit here all day and speculate and tell you what we think you should do.

But the other day it's like, you're gonna know the best by going through that. Just be aware and pay attention early and get better at reading the signs earlier. And it's not like you're gonna regress because all of a sudden you're in phase two of MAPS Aesthetic and all of a sudden you have to pivot to MAPS 15.

In fact, you'll probably- You'll get better results. You'll get better results because you noticed it early and then you moved over to something else and then run that for a while. Then you start feeling really good and then maybe you dip back into one of those programs you think that has higher volume and then again pay attention. And so, you know, let the body, you know, talk to you and dictate, you know, how you feel and what you do because we can sit here like experts and tell you what's best. But the truth is nobody knows that better than you do as long as you're

open-minded and not stubborn about not listening to the signals your body's trying to give you. You already have symmetry I'll send you anabolic advance because I think that'd be a good program to follow afterwards. Oh oh perfect so do that one after power lift? No do symmetry and then do anabolic advanced if you feel great. Yeah, I like that. I like that. And you know what's cool about maps anabolic?

Maps anabolic is cool because Sal designed it to where you have these little bouts of higher intensity than back off. High intensity, low volume, low volume, lower intensity. Which tends, I tend to do better with that. Just like I said, I love short cuts, short bulks. I love short bouts of intensity back off, then intensity back versus a whole long period. And I, MAPS Aesthetic was really inspired by the peak of my bodybuilding career. Like I was feeling it. I was in the zone. I was dialed perfect. And so that was really when we wrote that-

It was your job. Yeah, exactly. It was inspired by that. That was the appropriate time for me to do it where I'm at in my life now I'm nowhere near that level of discipline around sleep and diet and everything else It's like I probably couldn't even handle that for a long period of time So I like these programs like maps on a bulk advanced where I get to do a little bit of that intensity But then I get back right off right afterwards. My body tends to handle that better. Perfect Yeah, I think what also messing me up when I got to phase three of aesthetic, I added in another focus session day, also increase the volume and I was in a cut.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was like in the last week, I'm like, I understand y'all are saying like, yeah, understand your body pivot and then don't feel like you have to finish. But I got to the last week. I'm like, I need to finish this program but definitely gonna heat caution next time and pivot if I need to definitely understand so appreciate y'all bringing that down for me. Keep going dude you're doing great.

I appreciate it. If I could just like give you all some, if I can give you your flowers real quick. Go ahead. Thank you I love flowers. I just wanted to share, Justin I got my daughter enrolled in gymnastics. She had her first class last week and I was inspired from your discussion about your kids going through it as well. And I'm super, she loves it. She'd been really encouraged by it. Um, Adam, I am following your docu series on YouTube.

So I'm one of the, uh, I'm one of those are actually watching it and the mind punk channel, so definitely appreciate you sharing that and that program. You're talking about writing that I'm super eager to buy that once it's ready. And, um, Sal I've been really encouraged by your sharing your faith journey going on and actually DM'd you back in May after you shared the story about, um, you had a past someone that was asking for money. And then you were listening to the Bible in the car and you turned back to,

to give them something. And I actually shot your DM and I was shocked that you replied and you said, thank you. And I thought that was awesome. Appreciate it, brother. All right. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. You know, that's funny. It's a, he mentioned something that's a, as a common mistake too, is you'll be following a program and you'll feel good. Yes. You add more. You add more, but you add more like with three different variables. It's like, I'm going to harder, and I'm gonna add an exercise, and I'm gonna add frequency or whatever.

And cut calories. Instead of just adding one thing. It's dangerous when you're feeling good. When you add volume, just do one thing. One thing, not all the things at the same time. All in all though, I do wanna commend him. What he did to pivot out of that, and then the series of things.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, and I just wanted to make that clear too, because we could sit here all day, like a bunch of experts and say, this is how I would do it. But it's like, he lives in his body. And how often do you guys still make this mistake ourselves? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like individual experience. Yeah. And there's so many times where I think I'm ready and then my body reminds me, no, it's not. The mistake I make is the last place I look at is reducing my training. It's like, oh, I gotta eat more, I gotta sleep more,

let me add another peptide. After four weeks I'm like, all right, I'm doing too much. Our next caller is Madison from North Carolina. Hi Madison. Hey Madison. How can we help you? Hello. Hello. Hello guys, thank y'all for having me on today, and thank you guys for everything that you do. I'm going to read my question because I tend to ramble we're

not gonna do that today. So here goes I've been lifting for about seven years absolutely love it strength training is all I do. So much so that I decided to make it a career. It took a short break to have two kids, but most part though, my strength has greatly increased except for my squat. It's always been my weakest lift and it seems to be getting worse lately. Most recently, I've ran into the issue of lower back pain during a squat.

I'm thinking potentially I've developed an anterior pelvic tilt for some reason. I avoided squats for a really long time because I just got frustrated with them, didn't have any confidence in the lift. But recently started following y'all's programs and added them back in. I know you guys say that your weakest lift is where your most potential is, so I listened even though I hate them. I'm wondering what I can do to fix this. I don't know if this is a mental block. I don't know how I can increase strength in this. A little more background. I used to have issues with like my knees caving in. I fixed that. I

leaned forward too much. I thought I fixed that. Had shoulder pain in the squat. I fixed that. It has been my arch nemesis for years. My left side's way weaker than my right. My right tends to take over. But recently I've been trying to squat a bit deeper and I think that's where the problem has come up with the lower back pain. So I need help.

What program are you following? I'm following Antibiotic. Oh good. It's putter and symmetry. Yeah. You said something that made me think symmetry because you're right, your left side is a lot weaker than your right. Now symmetry has squats in the last phase. Okay. Which will be good.

But I think there might be a discrepancy between right and left. I'd like to see your ankle mobility. Yeah. And if you're, if you're noticing back pain, there's definitely something happening with your stability through the movement, either with the core, your hips, or your ankles, or all of the above.

But I think symmetry would be good, especially because you know, here's the thing, most people have an asymmetry, but when you notice there's an asymmetry, it's big. And that may be the root issue, and map symmetry will address that for you. So I think that would be the right program for you to follow. Yeah, I'd also like, Doug, to give you access

if you don't have it already to the private forum, because this is an example of, if I could see you squat, I could give you even more precise advice. Like we're- We're more targeted. We're guessing right now on what the big limiting factor is, but it could be really odd. Like if we see you squat and I see that you have little

to no ankle mobility, I mean, that's the root cause. That's where this is coming from. Have you tried elevating your heels and see if it feels better? I have not. And you know, the crazy thing is, you know, I can spot it in other people, but in myself, and that's exactly what I do. I'd elevate the heels. But for me, I've not done it yet. I just, you know, I can spot it in other people, but in myself, and that's, that's exactly what I do.

I'd elevate the Hills. But for me, I've not done it yet. I just, it's like, I beat myself up and try anything else. Can you, can you, can you adjust the camera and, and, and squats and do a side view of yourself squatting just to see if we notice anything? I don't judge this crazy house. They were here. Kids, this all Toro.

You got kids. I know what it looks like. Don't worry. Yes. It's hot mess. I'm also trying to use my phone because we don't have a laptop that works very well. Um, sorry. We're gonna need to see her. All right. So I don't know how much y'all can see though. Let me try to set it up. Yeah. I'd love to see it from the ground or from the chair. So I want to see your ankles from the ground or from the chair Yeah, there we go Put your hands put your hands up kind of up in the air like you're doing like straight arms up in the air

Yeah, now go and start to squat You got it. Yeah, we got it. Okay. You know, and my knee pops down. Yeah, not not too bad. But let me see from the front. Can you can you do it? Yeah. And let's do like, do like five for me because I was too fast. I got to do five. Let's do like five for me, because I was too fast. I got to get a good chest. Five?

Okay. I'll do five. All right, same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're actually rotating a bit. Slow down. Oh, sorry. Yeah, no worries.

Just got pretty good. Yeah, ankles caving a little bit. A little bit of asymmetry. Yeah, and a little bit of asymmetry. Yeah, let's do map symmetry. By the way, you've got good leg development, so you've gotten away without doing, you've gotten away without doing lots of squat. I think map symmetry might actually fix this for you.

Do you have Prime Pro, by the way? Doesn't look too severe. I don't, that's one that I've been wanting to get, because I know that it can help me as well as my clients. So I do not have that one there. Let's send, do you have symmetry? I don't, no. Well, you're about to have two free programs.

We never do that, Madison. I'm gonna send those both to you. You guys are the best. And then I want you in the forum also so we can watch as we go through this and then use it, like use it by showing videos like that. This is a strength, this is probably a strength issue and not necessarily a stability or mobility issue

because you look like you have decent flexibility. You have good control, yeah. It looked like your foot was collapsing a little bit from the front and I probably, what I would do if I were your trainer is I would load you and then I'd watch it again and typically with load you start to see things that you don't see without load.

But it looks like you have the flexibility, so there might be just a strength issue when you start to load yourself. But if you notice a difference between right and left, then it's definitely there. So let's follow map symmetry and see what happens. And then Madison, are you signed up for the free webinar with Sal and I already for trainers?

I did one a couple weeks ago It's it's hard with my schedule, but when I can make it I'm trying my best to do it Yeah, I mean you got it because even if you even if you can't make it if you sign up You'll get the replay email to you for free. So yeah. Yeah, so I'll have Doug send the link over to you So you can make sure trainer webinar calm, but I'll send it as well link over to you so you can make sure you're ready. Yes, trainerwebinar.com, but I'll send it as well. Okay, thank you. We'll send that link to you.

Thank you guys so much. It's good to know that it's potentially just strength, really, I've researched this problem to death, and I mean, I just didn't even know where to turn, and I knew that you guys, y'all know what y'all are doing. Yeah, and you know, to keep this in mind too, Madison, when we're watching from a camera, what we will notice are glaring big issues.

Smaller issues are much more difficult. Yeah, much more difficult to detect. And you're a trainer, and so I thought to myself, it's probably not gonna be super visible considering that you're already a trainer. I mean, it could be strength, stability, could be the imbalance right to left, it could be pelvic floor.

I mean, you do have two children. That can actually contribute to back pain. A lot of people don't know that. You'll see it a lot more when you're fatigued too. Yes, so let's do symmetry and let's see what happens after that. That sounds great. I really appreciate it, guys.

Thank you so much. Keep us posted in the forum so we know how things are going. I absolutely will, yep. You'll be hearing from me. All right, Matthew. You got it. All right, thanks. And just for trainers.

Not as bad as I thought it was gonna All right, thanks. And just for trainers- Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. No, so and just for trainers and coaches, like probably 10% of the time, someone's going to tell you, this hurts, and maybe less than 10%, maybe 5% of the time, you can't tell. You're going to watch them and you're going to be like, oh, I don't know yet. The form looks good. Yeah, which means you're going to have to do different things. Like, okay, well, let me see you do one-legged toe touch.

Let me see you do squat with load, let's front load you, let's back load you, let's try these different movements, and then things start to kind of reveal themselves a little bit, but 95% of the time it's obvious. The only thing I'm not. Even walking patterns too. Yeah, there you go.

Something different. I mean, the only thing I really saw was a slight external rotation on the right side more than the left. Yeah, and the foot was. But if that's slightly externally rotating out more, that could cause an asymmetrical shift, especially when she loads. There was a little shift.

And if there's a little bit of shift, just a small shift, while you're also loaded, that'll cause some low back pain, QL type stuff for sure. So that could be it. But I definitely expected to see something a lot worse when she first saw it. I was like, oh, let's see. I bet she's not even going to be able to break 90.

And I thought her shoes would look really bad, but that didn't look that bad. So hopefully it'd be a small thing that we can adjust. Next caller is Ian from Washington. What's up, Ian? Hey, what's going on, Ian? Hey guys, how's it going? Oh man, excited to let you talk about the follow-up

since the last time. How long ago was it when we talked for last time? Yeah, so we had talked, gosh, I guess a little over a year ago where I started my after I heard from my teacher that I was basically volun told that I was going to be grading at the World Cup in Santiago, Chile. I basically had to get ready and that's when I called you guys because I'm like, hey, I'm 54 years old. Like I know I know like, Hey, I'm 54 years old. Like I know, I know what's coming.

I'd done it before. So that was January. And then I talked to you guys around that time and then I graded in December. Uh, so that was almost, I guess about, uh, 11 months ago. So in your past, right? Yeah. Remind me and the audience what the challenge was again. I know you had to, didn't you have to like fight multiple guys in a day?

Like remind me what the challenge was. Yeah. So this is Kyokushin karate. And I know Sal at least is familiar with, with this. Uh, so, uh, it's full contact, bare knuckle karate style, very old school in that way. Uh, and the goal was I was I was grading for my sixth degree black belt test and so I knew it was gonna be a full day of you know fitness and fundamental movements and all of that stuff but then at the

very end is when it's the hardest because you're doing you're doing bare- knuckle fights round after round, uh, with no rest. So I knew I was going to have to fight 60 fights at the end. And so I just, I needed to be prepared for that. Yeah. So crazy. Break it down, dude. How did it go? Tell us the experience getting, getting ready for it, for it. Uh, and then uh what how it went down yeah so i really wanted to have a really solid plan uh because i have huge respect for my teacher and so um he's he's a legend in kyokushin karate uh student of the founder sosai oyama and so um after i talked to you guys i knew i wanted to spend about six months working on some anabolic training to be able to build up some more muscle just because I knew who was going to be at the exam.

It's a multinational Olympic level competition. And so while I wasn't competing, I did have a fighter fighter so I'm an Olympic level trainer with that I have fighters that compete at that level and so I knew that I had to get ready At that level as well. And so that's what I called you guys You had me do maps anabolic for three months and then I did maps performance for three months and then We had talked about the right timing for the cardio portion. And we talked about the fact that it goes quick and it comes back quick and it doesn't last. So I did cardio about six weeks out, kind of split the difference of what you guys had

all recommended. You were recommended four to eight weeks. And the key thing that I did, so I don't know if you guys know, but, um, since we've talked to them and integrated health practitioner also with Dr. Cabral, and, uh, what I did in the middle before I did my cardio was I did a seven day functional medicine detox. So after I did my anabolic and my performance training, I felt like my base was really good and I was, I was really happy with where that was. I gained about five to six pounds of lean muscle and, uh, my body could take a lot more damage and then, uh, cause that was really the goal is to be able

to just withstand that and then from there, um, I did a seven day functional medicine, detox dropped eight pounds of straight fat and then the cardio was a breeze. It just, I couldn't believe cause I've never done a detox like that and So I was amazed at how how useful it was on an athletic level to be able to help with that. So the exam starts with You have 20 pound dumbbells and you do shoulder plus press until you can't lift them anymore And so my goal was to be able to hit 70 reps and I hit 70 reps.

So I trained for that and then it goes into you know the push-ups all the other stuff to exhaustion and then the foundational martial movements, kata, you know that kind of stuff and then it ends with the fighting. So, uh, the, the test went great. Um, I, I had lots of stamina. Um, I felt really strong. It was 95 degrees high humidity. Um, and I just, I felt great. I felt prepared and, uh, and in large parts of what you guys had recommended. I really appreciate that. That's awesome.

And then the, the, the matches afterwards, So correct me if I'm wrong, but the rules of Kiyokushin full contact is it's a bare knuckle punches and kicks and knees to the body. You can also kick to the head and knee to the head. Yes, correct. Okay. We don't punch to the, well, we punched to the face in my dojo just because, uh, you have to learn to protect the head, and so you gotta protect hands. So we don't punch to the face with bare knuckle

just because it's disfiguring, but that is part of the training for a lot of people. But you also get kicked in the head though. Yeah. And if you suck at it, yes. And then when you're doing this, how do you go through 60, is it time, like fight this guy for this time, fight that, or do you have to win

all of them? How does that work? Um, you, you have to stand up after all of them. So they're going to push you way past. You have to withstand it. Oh, wow. You just, you just have to, you just have to endure. So, you know, um, I I've done this, this rodeo before, so I knew it was involved,

but you're never really prepared. So it was just, you know, the exam is 10 hours long, and then you do the fights. So it's like, you're constantly fatigued. And it's really just all guts. The second half of the exam, especially the fighting, it's just all guts. Uh, what they call spirit. That's the most important thing, the desire to get back up. And, and now you're, do you, are you all, I mean, you gotta be all banged and bruised up afterwards.

What's the recovery look like afterwards? Yeah, that's it. That's such a good question. So, uh, I've been playing around a lot with, um, with my recovery. So I took some pictures I could show you guys all black and blue, all up and down my forearms, all over my arms, you know, like you get tired to the point like that and you're just trying to cover your, your, your main organs, right? You don't want anybody to get a liver shot.

Cause then you're, then you're really like hurting. So trying to just cover up the spleen, cover up the liver. And that means your shoulders, your biceps, your tris, uh, you know, your, your obliques, those are all open on some level, especially, you know, these are, these are fresh fighters. And so, you know, some of them are multinational champions. You know, they could kill you if they wanted to, but I'm glad they didn't. Well, that's awesome, man.

Well, that's, yeah, I watch, I watch, uh, uh, that kind of full contact karate, um, all the time. Uh, I, I think it's, uh, one of the best, uh, full contact combat sports. I think it's just so rad. And I also, I especially love watching the karate, uh, versus Muay Thai fights. That's things like a cool rivalry. And you say, and you, you, I mean, it's, it goes back and forth. These guys are brutal.

It's insane. But these karate guys are, um, they're tough, man. They are some of the toughest strikers you'll find, um, in any sport. I know, I think, uh, George St. Pierre, wasn't he Kiyo Kishin? Yeah, he is Kiyo Kishin. Dolph Lundgren is Kiyo Kishin. Uh, Sean Connery when he was alive was Kiyo Kishin.

So, you know, they, they never made it sort of high profile. George St. Pierre, I guess is the most high profile guy, but, um, you know, they all embody sort of that humility that goes along with it because Cause you know, that's just part of it. You gotta, you gotta strive, but you also gotta, you know, keep your head in check. That's awesome. Do you do the hand conditioning too or you cause I've seen some of the knuckles of some of these older senseis and they look,

their knuckles are bigger than my hand. No, it's a good point. Um, so I'm a, I'm a professor, so I have to type for a living. So it's all a matter of degrees. So you can always tell that, you know, somebody's got buildup on their first two knuckles if they do any kind of conditioning or if they know how to fight. So mine don't look like an Okinawan master's

because I have to use my hands. It's like cauliflower ear for wrestlers. Yeah, totally. Very much so. So, Ian, now that that's done, um, what are you following right now? So what, where did you transition into a maps program wise and stuff? What are you up to? Yeah, that's a great question.

So, you know, some days, um, you know, my day job is, can be stressful and just trying to find time, like everybody just struggling to find time to be able To fit it all in so maps 15 is super good for that I've also put together just you know, the the maps 40 plus is a game changer really so I'm 55 now and Just really the the multi-joint muscle movement activation really the multi-joint muscle movement activation, you know, really focusing on adaptation, not doing four, five, six sets of anything, doing a whole body all, you know, every time I go in I'm starting at the floor and I'm working my way up. So

the sequencing really just works well for me and I feel like, you know, Sal mentioned something earlier about recovery. Recovery is huge so you know I've started as an IHB I'm starting to bring in other other elements like I've been doing more hydrogen water it cuts my recovery probably by I would say six to twelve hours so you know my body's done this for a long time so it recognizes what needs to happen. Good sleep, good nutrition, good hydration, good supplementation when it's appropriate. Do you have red light therapy in that would be that it's exceptional for,

uh, the kind of injuries that you can get from, uh, practicing karate. Yeah. Like you put that on a bruise or a small fracture or whatever. It really makes a big difference. Yeah, like you put that on a bruise or a small fracture or whatever, it really makes a big difference. Yeah, I do have some red light, but I'm gonna upgrade that. I do have a sauna that's got a near-infrared sauna, so that definitely helps. But I'll definitely, definitely take that advice. Yeah, oh yeah. And get the, I mean, we work with JOOVE because they use the same red light that you see in studies, but when it comes to like,

healing the kinds of injuries that you tend to get from the style of training that you do, like that, you know, kind of like beneath the skin, you know, kind of surface, like it's fast. It really works exceptionally well, and the data on that goes back decades, so. Ian, any programs or hours you don't have, I'd love to hook you up with something.

You know guys, I think I own most of your library if I'm being honest. Cool. I've got cardio, I've got anabolic, I've got performance, I've got 15, I've got maps 40 plus. I mean I've got a lot of them but I appreciate it though. We got a couple new ones coming I think you're going to like that are up your alley. So maybe we'll send you that. Yep. Keep you posted Ian. Good I look I look forward to it. What are they called or have you released them? Did we release the name? I mean we mentioned it so we're doing a Maps 15 performance so it's gonna be the first. Oh nice. Yeah. So if you already like Maps 15, it's got a little more functional twist to it than the original one. You'll like it. You'll like it.'s gonna be a bang. That sounds amazing. All right. Awesome. All right, Ian. Thanks for the update brother. Keep it up, man

Thanks guys. Have a great day. You got a good work, man 60 those are some of my favorite guys. So you guys I love martial arts, right? And I you know point fighting and stuff like that and ever we get into because it's just whatever. Yeah, but I love Kyokushin matches and they'll go up to the other and just I mean it's crazy and then you watch them the way they kick versus Muay Thai it's very different and you think oh one Muay Thai Kickstarter. No, they're It goes either way like in and out like so they come in with a hard shot and kind of come back karate is very Like traditional cries very powerful. Karate is very, like traditional karate is very powerful. Very, very hard force.

And they also, the way that they block will hurt you. So like you hit them, they block you right, it hurts you. I don't follow it, but just you connecting the dots with George St. Pierre, who I watched almost all his fights, if not all his fights, I mean he was special. He was amazing to watch. He was special, and if that was his expertise, I mean, that highlights that right there,

what a badass he was. And the hand conditioning is, you know, they give themselves microfractures over years. And their bones. Muay Thai, it's like that, but with your shin. Yeah, and they don't wear gloves. So these karate guys, because old school martial arts,

you know, you were defending yourself. And if you know boxing and you train with gloves, like you're a badass, except you're gonna probably break your hand. And then when you break your hand, you're done. Karate, because of its ancient background, like they didn't wear gloves. You need to have hard hands so you don't break your hands.

And I mean, you should look up. Look up pictures of these Kyokushin senseis. Their knuckles are so big. You'll have to email him, Doug, and get him to send the pictures of what his bruises, so that the boys can, when they do the edit, they can. Oh, bro, he probably looks like a sausage. I know, I totally wanna see, bro.

That's so wild. That's cool. Oh, what a badass. Our next caller is Kirsten from Australia. Hi, Kirsten. How can we help you? How you doing? Hi, guys.

How you doing? How are you? So excited to be here. Yeah, all right. And as I've been to the questions, thanks for your time to answer my question. But I found you guys in November 2022 and since been running maps programs. So I started in January 2023 with the RGB bundle. And since then I've been running also symmetry split performance and then did a bit of muscle

mommy and just recently completed anabolic advanced. So by way of background, I'm 50, just turned 50 this year. I'm about 145 pounds at about 20, 21% body fat at a height of 5'8". But the thing is with my program, it seems something's off. I've been working with a general practitioner on my health. I worked on my gut health with functional medical practitioner and also just worked on various other things like sleep and bring the protein up and so on and adjusting my macros.

But still, I haven't seen really much muscle gain. Maybe that's just being female at the age and being an ectomorph. I don't know, but I would just like to make more progress. So I'm just wondering if you had any tips on programming and what. I think actually, I think actually maybe going to either, uh, maps 40 plus or going to maps 15 might be a good transition before we go there though, let's start with, let's start with here. Your height, your weight, your body fat percentage.

You're in a great place. You're doing really good. Yeah. If you're not seeing strength gains based off of what you told us and what you didn't tell us, I'm going to guess it has to do with your nutrition and you're not hitting protein intake is what I'm going to guess. Do you know how much you're, what your protein intake looks like? Do you know what, are you tracking anything like that?

So I don't track every day, but I track occasionally just to dial it in so I know how much protein or how much yoga, for example, I get to put in my breakfast or how much chicken to put in my lunch and so on. So I'm aiming for one gram per pound of body weight and also dropped a bit of the statin brought up to carbs. So I think get about 2,500 calories on average.

And your protein, you're hitting about 140, like close to 140 grams a day? Yes, yes. Excellent. Okay, you're doing a lot of right, good stuff. I agree with Adam. Let's have you back off on the volume and see what happens Especially you see she just started HRT, too

So if we if we get if we got that because that could have been something too, right? If you're if you're doing all the right things, but your hormones are out of balance That's enough to keep how long have you been on HRT now? Only since my son it just started I'm not sure I'm feeling a big difference But I'm just trying to give it a go and see if that helps. Any, uh, any thyroid or testosterone with that, or is it just estrogen and progesterone? It's just estrogen and progesterone. No testosterone.

I did have my thyroid outside, so I'm on thyroid medication anyway. Oh, you are. Okay. Cause the two biggest body composition changing hormones are testosterone and thyroid. So I'm sure you got your testosterone looked at, so it's probably okay, I'm assuming. It's very low, like DHEA is very low. Okay. But I don't give you anything for that too.

Oh yeah, so thyroid and testosterone are typically the two, like those are the body composition changing hormones. If your testosterone is low and DHEA is low, it is gonna make it more challenging to get results. Now it doesn't make it impossible, it just makes it more challenging. I don't think that that's the whole answer, but I do think that will make a difference. That being said, I'd like to see you reverse diet and back down on the volume

and see how well you do. And of all the programs that you did, you did anabolic, performance, aesthetic, strong, symmetry, split, muscle mommy. Which one of them gave you the best strength gains? Which one of them made you feel like, Oh, I think I'm progressing. Um, I think initially with anabolic advanced, um, but I had to take it off after a few weeks. The first four weeks was good. And I kind of leveled out, um, aesthetic was good, but felt too much

strong in the end was a bit too much. I had to add more rest days in between as well. Let's let's go maps 15 advanced. Let's go MAPS 15 advanced. Let's do that. Do the advanced version of MAPS 15. We'll send that if you don't have it. And let's see what happens. We'll send that to you.

Is that every day? It's a six day week program, but it's about 20, 25 minutes. If you're limited on the days, so if it works better for like a three day a week, you can stack the days. So it's a three day a week you can you can you can stack the days so you could so it's basically six days a week but you can do three days a week you could put three days a week if you need to so it's okay the way we wrote it you could pair those up and it's a short enough workout that you could pair it up and still be under an hour so that's a that's an option or or run it the way it's laid out which would be ideal

but i think that uh based off of what I'm reading, the reduced volume, and then be as consistent as you can with the tracking the protein, because sometimes, I mean, when someone tells me that they're targeting and they check every once in a while, I normally will have my client, hey, let's for the next few weeks, let's really track every day so I can get a good glimpse of making sure you're hitting that because with protein,

it doesn't average out. So if you have like a great day of protein one day or even over and high, and then you turn around the next day and you have say 90 grams, it's not like it's an average of the two. It's you missed that day, we're going backwards. And so if you have a day or two like that every week, even though the most of the week you do really good, that's enough to potentially keep us in a plateau. So I'd want to make sure we're consistently hitting the protein. Now that being said,

I want to go back to the hormones. You said that testosterone is not something, are the regulations where you're at in Australia, does it make it very hard to get testosterone replacement therapy? The GP normally just suggests to estradiol and progesterone. I don't know who you would have to see to get testosterone but it seems like not available. You would need to find a longevity clinic. They have them over there. They do.

If you went to a longevity clinic, if your testosterone is low on the low end, it'll make it difficult to build. Now reducing the volume can make up for some of it, but it makes a big difference. Like I said, thyroid and testosterone, those are the ones that if you balance those out with replacement, then you see big composition changes, fat loss, muscle gain, all that stuff.

That all being said, also, I want you to be like, your height, your weight, your body fat percentage, your age, you're doing really well. You are, you are doing really well. Very well. We're obviously nitpicking right now. Yeah, low 20s is great body fat percentage. Nice, healthy body fat percentage.

Another option for you to help you out on the potential mission to go find testosterone, if you go into our free forum on Facebook, Mind Pump Hormones, the company we work with Transcend, they might not be able to do it for you, but they will most likely know somebody over there that they could connect you with to be able to get you testosterone. And I do think that that can make a huge difference. And you said reverse diet, so from 25? Yes, reverse diet would probably be good. So from 25.

Yes. Reverse diet would probably be good. Sorry. So from 2,500 to what kind of calories? Oh, yeah. Oh, 2,800. Yeah. You could go up a hundred to 200. That's it slowly.

Yeah. Slowly. So, cause when I tried it during split, I thought I could eat more. So I put on 500 calories and went straight to body fat on my belly. So I don't, I want to avoid that too. Maybe take it more slowly. Yeah.

500 is a big jump. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred, 200, that that's, that's a good, like nice reverse diet. Okay. And after maps 15, if I was planning the whole next year, would I just keep running the same program or switch to something else? I like Maps Anabolic afterwards and then Symmetry afterwards.

I wouldn't touch Aesthetic and I wouldn't touch Split probably ever. Over 40, Maths 40 plus would be another good program. If I could make a recommendation too on the way you do the reverse diet is if you eat, I'm assuming probably three times a day or so, every meal that you eat, add two more ounces of meat to whatever you're eating. So whatever portion size you currently do right now, when you eat chicken, when you eat steak, when you eat fish, whatever the choices that you're choosing, add two more ounces of meat to each one of those meals.

That should cover the reverse diet and it'll also help ensure that we're hitting optimal numbers of protein that would be an easy good way to reverse diet. Okay and do I need to bring my steps up as well at the same time? Someone suggested I should bring my steps up as well. I'm already at 12,000 a day. No, you're fine. You're okay. Yeah. I mean stay active but you're okay. You're not like sedent. If you were at like two, 3000, I would suggest that, but 12,000 steps, you're moving good. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. Math 15, reverse diet, check out testosterone and be conscious about the proteins. So that's right. Any other math pro adjustments? That's it. That's it right there. Those are the big rocks right there. Yeah. Okay. I'll give that a go.

We're going to send the Maps 15 over to you, Chris. Okay. You got it. Amazing. Okay. All right. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good one. Okay. Bye. Ever since working with Dr. Tina and Dr. Lauren, you know, they really make the case for- They make a good case for it.

Especially testosterone and thyroid. Both of them had said that. Like those two, it's really hard to have body composition changes when they're not- And at 50 years old. Right. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, we're not talking about a-

Chemistry's changed. 20-year-old right now. You're talking about someone who's 50 years old right now So I you know, that's why I went that direction right away for I hope she does I hope she reaches out goes in the forum pretty sure that transcend I don't know if distance transcend good Australia. No, they don't yeah But I'm sure they know somebody because they're connected in that world who does and I know they do it over there They do they have longevity. Yeah, so there's gotta be someone that will do that for this The one thing that sucks about it,

going to a GP for this type of stuff. A general practitioner. They don't. They avoid it. Yeah. Well they're completely medicating off the charts only, versus the symptoms and listening to the client tell them all these things and say,

oh, this may help. Plus testosterone has been relegated to the performance enhancement drug category. So they're afraid to prescribe. There's still stigma there. Yes, I mean the fact that she's on progesterone and estrogen is actually remarkable from a GP because just 10 years ago, 15 years ago,

they weren't even doing that. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefan Oh and Adam's at Mind Pump Adam. 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 valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a 5-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump!