Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2485: How to Make 2025 a Successful Year for Your Fitness Journey

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

How to Make 2025 a Successful Year for Your Fitness Journey Getting ahead of the New Year’s resolutions. (1:14) The Roadmap on How to Make 2025 a Successful Year for Your Fitness Journey Start with the big goal. (3:16) Make it challenging but realistic Break it down into smaller goals. (9:33) Calculate in “breaks” Use reverse diets and cuts. (17:02) Stick with easily digestible foods Avoid processed foods. (21:53) Use shakes for protein targets Get your programming all laid out for the year. (26:54) Bodybuilding, corrective, strength, conditioning  Set up a backup plan. (30:43) What if you can’t go to the gym? Questions: What supplements should I take? (31:48) Should I hire a coach? (33:09) Is it better to start slow or go for it? (34:54) How would you cut and bulk through the RGB Bundle? (35:34) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code FIT2025 at checkout! ** Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Final days of Black Friday promotion: This offer will only be valid until December 14! Hurry up and use the code MINDPUMP at checkout for $600 off the Pod 4 Ultra when bundled w/sleep essential bundle (Includes everything you need to pair with your Pod: one Pod Sheet Set (white), one Pod Protector, and two Air Pillows and mattress) ** Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business – Book by Gino Wickman Mind Pump # 2287: Bodybuilding 101- How to Bulk and Cut Mind Pump # 1860: Fourteen of the Best Foods for an Amazing Physique Mind Pump # 2432: The Truth About Essential Amino Acids with Angelo Keely Mind Pump # 2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Mind Pump #2210: Best Workouts for Bulking & Cutting Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about 2025. Let's make this a successful year for your fitness journey. We break it all down map it all out For you now because of this episode we are putting our 2025 bundle of programs the RGB bundle which includes maps anabolic mass performance maps aesthetic

We're making it 50% off for this episode only can find that at maps december.com with the code fit 2025 now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, 8 Sleep. This is a device that goes on your bed, it warms and cools your bed, and uses AI technology to maximize your sleep. There's no sleep system like this anywhere in the world. This is in a category of its own and right now these are the last days for the Black Friday promotion which is up to $600 off go to 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump use the code mind pump for that discount. Alright here comes the show. You will not get fit you will not get lean you will not get strong in 2025 unless you have the right plan. This we're gonna talk about today. Let's set you up this is how you can make 2025 the most fit year of your life. Plan for what we're gonna talk about today. Let's set you up. This is how you can make 2025

the most fit year of your life. Plan for it. Let's talk about it. How many people that are the most successful are the people listening to an episode like this trying to get ahead of the New Year's resolution? So I feel like every year the wave, I mean it's always top one if not two in New Year's goals.

So everybody will be thinking about this in about what, three weeks or so. Yeah. It's always top one, if not two, in New Year's goals. So everybody will be thinking about this in about, what, three weeks or so. Yeah. But if you're the proactive type who's like, listen, I'm gonna not put on the holiday eight, I'm gonna get ahead of the game, let me figure out how I'm gonna set up a plan

so I hit January running, they're probably the ones that are more likely to be successful. Yeah, and just for people to understand, we have a lot of experience with people, working with people who have this kind of a goal. We worked in the gym industry for two decades plus, and January, come January, you see a 50% plus increase

in just the amount of people that come in your gym, both current members who weren't coming for the last half of the year, and new people coming in to sign up. And so we had this like interesting perspective at seeing, well, what do the successful people do versus people who aren't so successful? Because the stats are very clear. The majority of people who start out in January who say, I'm going to get in better shape, I'm gonna lose X amount of pounds, I'm gonna get fit, fail. They fail. But there is a consistent small percentage of people that succeed and so what we're gonna talk about today based off our experience, again managing big box gyms, working with clients over

you know 20 years, like what did they do that made them successful? What do they have in common that allowed them to not just hit their goal but maintain that goal and not become one of those statistics where they just drop off? Yeah I think the first step to this is actually to have a goal. I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make is heading into the new year and not having any sort of plan whatsoever. Just wing it. Right, and so I think step one is establish a big goal, a goal that you want to go after for the new year. Yeah, and get specific with it.

So this is called the big goal because it's for the year. So let's say your big goal is I want to, let's say it's something general, because I would hear this all the time, like, all right, what's your goal coming in here? And they'd say, yeah, I want to get in shape or I want to get healthy, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that goal, but we need to get a little bit more specific. What does that mean to you? Does that mean you need to lose weight? Does that mean you need to get stronger,

improve your stamina and your endurance? And then get more specific from there. So let's say your goal is to lose 30 pounds or get in better shape. So that means you need to lose 30 pounds. Well, what does that look like? 30 pounds of what? Body fat.

Do you need to increase your strength? Yes, I do. Where in particular? What kind of fitness are you looking for? Set that big goal and get specific with it. But here's the most important part, is this goal needs to be realistic. Now the reason why this is challenging for people is because the further out we put a goal from ourselves, the less realistic we are with what we think we can accomplish. Like if I were to say to you,

you know, what do you think you could do in the next week? You'd have a much more realistic answer than if I said, what do you think you could do in five years? So you need to make it something that's realistic, and the question's always, well, what does that look like? And it's okay, well, ask yourself if it's something you can maintain for the rest of your life. I think that's a good place to start, right?

What's the least foreign in terms of what your current lifestyle prohibits right now? Look at the list of... Because usually when you have a big goal like that, there's a lot of things that you want to accomplish. This is always a big red flag. As a trainer bringing somebody in, they have a lot of goals within that goal and to really prioritize that. And to show, you know, this is probably the focus where we're going to be able to see like initial best return. And it's usually the simple achievable goal. Like where,

where is that? Where does that lie for you? In, in that big macro goal, isn't there a term for this? Is there a term like a term like, this applies across other mediums, right? This is rules of business. You go into the new year and I mean, there's a whole book called Traction that is related to this where you have your big rock, you have your big goal for the entire year, you can actually set out your three year, your five year plan. Then you break it down by the year. Then within the year, you have the big rocks that move everything, the needle towards that big goal.

I mean, I just think that if you're going to be successful having a clear cut plan like that and laying it out, set you up for so much more. So it doesn't mean there hasn't ever been a business where somebody just did it without any sort of plan and had some sort of success. Doesn't mean that there hasn't been people that have gone to the gym and gotten shaped without having a master plan,

but I think the percentage or the likelihood of you being successful is much greater if you approach it with this. Totally, and just to kind of give you a different perspective, I think this helps a lot, is imagine you're looking at a map and you're deciding, and your big goal is where you want to end up. So I'm over here on this side of the map

and I want to go here. Well, you're not done, right? I know where I want to go, but I'm not done at all. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to get there and I need to break it up into smaller pieces that account for lots of different things. For example, okay, I'm gonna be walking, so how many miles per day, I need a place to sleep,

I need food, I need rest, I need recovery. This is how you're gonna map all of this out ultimately so that you can accomplish this big goal because most people don't have a goal, and then second, some people do have a goal, but they stop there. It's like, oh, I just wanna do this thing, and then second, some people do have a goal, but they stop there. It's like, oh, I just want to do this thing, and then you ask them, well, what's your plan?

And it's like, well, I'm just going to go work out. I'm just going to go to the gym and work out. I think, too, a lot of people don't realize that they're, they can address things like going into it, like I want to work out, and I want to get really into it, but don't realize like I'm really limited on range of motion. I'm really limited because I have pain right now,

and I think I could just work through. But to address the fact that the pain is something that you can absolve, which will then open up so much more momentum for you down the road. If we just focus on that first, would be great. So this is also how I began to adopt this philosophy of I'm not going to give you a meal plan or tell you a plan.

What I'm gonna have you do first is track for a week or two and then we'll go from there because what would happen is even though like everything you're saying, Sal makes sense. I still would get a lot of clients that would actually say like, well, I'm not sure what my goal should be or I don't, I just want to be healthier and like, and when I asked them to define that for them, they actually struggled with actually really defining that goal.

And so one of the things I would do to help them refine that is, I tell you what, this is what we're going to do, is for the next week or two, I don't want you to do anything different. I just want you to track your food, track your steps. Back then, we didn't have great tools for sleep and stuff. I would add that now. Track all these metrics that make you a healthier, better

version of yourself. And then we'll report back in a week. And then together we will break that down and look at, okay, where areas that we can improve and where do you want to improve? Where do you want to improve? And then from there we'll set out this plan. And so a lot of times, and to me, I found this really important as a trainer, because it allowed me to meet them where they are currently at.

I mean, some people couldn't put a night to sleep. Some people couldn't even put a whole three weeks in a row of consistency. And so knowing and finding this all out was crucial to me helping them know how to set appropriate goals for us then to break down in the smaller, the smaller. Right. So it's got to be a challenging goal because it has to have some meaning to it, but it also simultaneously needs to be realistic. Simple.

But ultimately this is where you set the big goal for the year. Next, you break it down into smaller goals. Uh, what does the journey look like on my way to losing 30 pounds or on my way to transforming my body or building this muscle or getting this particular lift or getting my performance to improve in a particular way. What does that look like on a month to month basis or quarter by quarter basis? But you also within that need to calculate things like breaks. You need to calculate time for recovery.

Oftentimes people, this is where people make a big mistake if they make it this far at all, is that they look at their progression and they just think it's linear. I'm going to go from here to here and that means I'm going to incrementally improve every single day. That's actually not how the body adapts and that's also behaviorally not how we work either. It's extremely rare to always progress all the time, however incremental. What it usually looks like is like a three steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back, type of an approach where there's gonna be times

where you're gonna make faster progress other times you're not gonna make any progress. And the best thing you could do with that is to actually put it in a plan and put in there, well, for the next two months, I'm going to be focusing on just getting stronger in these two lists. By the way, the more specific you are with these small goals, the more effective you're going to be. That's just a fact. Just like I use the analogy of the map, the more specific you are with your directions, turn left here, go right there, move up this direction, the more likely you are to hit that particular goal. It's just as true for a

fitness goal. Be very specific. So you could say for the next 60 days in this segment here, I'm going to be trying to add 15 pounds to my deadlift and 30 pounds to my squat. Then here for the next three weeks, because I just hit that milestone of a PR on those lifts, I'm going to try and focus on mobility and recovery. I'm going to schedule it in. This is crucial because you will fool yourself through this process if you don't have a plan to follow. There's a lot of different ways you can fool yourself. One of them is by pushing too hard too often. Like, oh my god, I hit 15 pounds in my deadlift and 30 pounds in my squat. Like the last thing I want to do is take a three week quote-unquote recovery break or mobility break. I'm just going to keep moving forward. That's one mistake that people often make or another mistake

they make is they don't add the brakes in and they get burnt out and then they stop anyway. So put those in your plan, break everything down and when it looks written out, then you have something to follow and then you're doing it because when you take a step back, you tend to make things a little bit more intelligent and logical and planned out versus when you're in it and then you're running off of emotion and feeling and okay, I think this is the right thing to do. That's not to say you can't change things on the fly and you're in it and then you're running off of emotion and feeling and, okay, I think this is the right thing to do. That's not to say you can't change things on the fly and you'll have to, and we'll get to that, but planning things out and following the plan. Boy, does this make a huge difference on your potential success?

Most common mistakes. I think one has to be that people tend to overcommit or overreach as far as the goals, right? So you have the one example of, uh, I don't set any goals. And then you have the other extreme, which is they give themselves so many goals, they're bound to fail. Right. And so I think there's like a happy medium somewhere there, right? Of stretching yourself and setting specific good goals but also like setting yourself up for some wins and some success I don't want to try I'm not gonna try and improve my mobility improve my squat my bench press lose 30 pounds and also build 10 pounds of

muscle my first you know run at like hey there's the goal good point one goal at a time yes like focus on one thing at a time maybe the the entire goal for the year is I would like to be more mobile, stronger in my squat, stronger in my bench press, faster metabolism, and you know that would be a great annual goal but then I'm going to break it up in blocks of okay first let's go after this. Yeah let's go speed the metabolism up and build muscle since those are synergistic right. I'm'm gonna go increase calories go get stronger. That's gonna serve me metabolically That's gonna serve me for that goal and then after that then I can go work on mobility and reducing body fat, right? So breaking it up like that. I think is is important to being successful. Yeah, and this is by the way, this is I mean strength coaches athletic

coaches trainers know this that the body tends to respond when you focus on I mean, strength coaches, athletic coaches, trainers know this, that the body tends to respond when you focus on one particular goal at a time. Like, okay, right now we're gonna focus on speed or power or strength or focus on this movement or that movement versus all at the same time, the body tends to adapt more effectively. At the end of that cycle, you'll actually have cumulatively better results with all

those things because you focus on them one at a time. Also behaviorally and psychologically, in my experience, it works better that way. When I had my clients just focus on this one thing, they did much better when I had them focus on many things. And then I could move to the next thing once we accomplished that particular one. Well, this is really the philosophy behind all the maps programming, right? So if you look at all the programming that we've done,

there's a real reason behind the phases is this, is that it's not like we technically could take all those workouts and scatter them all together, every other one, but we've found that your clients are far more successful when they have a focus, an adaptation they're going to chase for the next three to four weeks, and then we transition them into another adaptation

or focus for the next three to four weeks. So that's one of the nice things about a blueprint like that is that, you know, that's what we've taken into consideration when we write those programs, is like, we're going to lay that out for you that, hey, right now is strength, right? Right now is endurance, right? Psychologically more clear. Yeah. Like when you have the, because too, when your intention going into those workouts or whatever that specific goal is, it's going to vary. And so to have that very clear, distinctive

focus of I'm just going to, you going to try and get strong doing this one thing here, it's going to be much more effective. Yeah. And it also encourages discipline, and it encourages building discipline. What do I mean by that? Well, if I go just based off of feeling, then what tends to happen is I, well, obviously tend

to do what I feel like doing. I feel like ice cream every now and then. Yeah, right. That just feels right to me. Right, so, and by the way, you should listen to your, you should learn how to listen to your body, but before you do that, you have to be able to develop the skill of discipline and discernment,

because oftentimes what you feel like is like what Adam said, eating ice cream, not working out, or overtraining, or pushing myself too hard. So when you have it all broken out and planned out, and I'm going to, I can look at it and say, well, actually this week I'm supposed to focus on mobility. It's objective though. And that's what I'm going to do is I'm going to do what I planned. And what I'm doing is I'm actually in the data shows this, I'm actually developing and building and strengthening the skill of discipline, which I'm

going to tell you right now, if you could develop anything that's going to guarantee your success in 2025 with fitness, it's going to be discipline. That's the thing that's going to stick with you for the rest of your life. Your workouts may change, your diet may change, your circumstances may change, but if you can develop this skill of discipline around fitness and nutrition, you're going to be doing pretty darn good for the rest of your life. Next, use reverse diets and use cuts or bulks and cuts. Okay, what is that? Calorie surpluses and calorie deficits, right? There's gonna be times when you need to eat more than you're burning and there should be times when you should be eating less

than you're burning. All right, so the question always comes up. Well, I want to lose weight. Why do I got to go and spend any time in a calorie surplus? Because you're going to need to go through periods of boosting metabolism, your body will adapt. We're talking about a whole year here. You need to lose 30 pounds. If you just try to lose 30 pounds for a whole year

and you're at a deficit the entire time, you will plateau real hard. Your body will lose muscle, it will learn how to adapt, it will slow down its metabolism and make it either impossible, feel impossible, or it's so hard to maintain you'll gain it back very quickly. So that person would still have to do what are called reverse diets or bulks. Well, what about the person that just wants to gain weight?

Why don't I just always be in a surplus? Because your body will start packing on body fat, it'll get very difficult and tenuous to just constantly force feed yourself. Those cuts actually help maintain insulin sensitivity which also helps with the muscle building process. Most people want to gain lean body mass and not body fat. So although the person who wants to lose weight is probably going to spend more time in deficits obviously and the person that wants to gain weight more time in surpluses, use reverse diets and cuts and schedule them

out. This is the beauty of what we're talking about is you have that year goal, you break it down into quarter goals and the monthly goals and I can literally say three weeks here I'm gonna be in a calorie surplus, six weeks here I'm gonna be in a calorie deficit, then I'm gonna do two weeks of a surplus and by the way one thing I like to do with this is when you're looking at your year you can look through the year and go, oh, summertime, I think I'll plan my cut right around then because I know I'm gonna be at the beach. Absolutely, or hey, winter time,

I may wanna be a surplus, I'll be wearing big clothes anyway and I'm gonna be in a holiday season, that's when I'm probably gonna wanna be in a bulk, or I got that trip coming up, this is when you can plan those things out and make it so that it fits your lifestyle. I just came off of doing this, right? So we obviously have been documenting my whole transformation and within that once I got after I did the

reverse diet, got my metabolism up, then I moved into a flip-flopping between a cut and a bulk and I looked at the calendar and went I do not want to be in a cut right in the middle of Thanksgiving. So I'm gonna run a cut before that. So I ran a cut right in the middle of Thanksgiving. So I'm gonna run a cut before that. So I ran a cut for three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and then ran myself in a surplus. That way I could use the momentum of the holiday and the fact that I'm gonna eat anyways. And I just came off of running a cut and leaning out and so it's oh perfect. Now I'll start to reverse the calories back up right in time for Thanksgiving so then I could enjoy my Thanksgiving meal

and it's a time when I'm supposed to be in a surplus anyways and so I love looking at the calendar like that and mapping out these mini cuts and mini bulks and you work it around your birthday work it around the anniversary and the holidays to be and use that strategically like that to where you don't feel like you're having to like miss out on a holiday or day like that be smart about it and set yourself up for success. And there's a lot you can learn from scheduling these and then paying attention to, this is what I like about this the most, uh,

how you react and respond and feel because oftentimes when people are doing this, they're not quite paying attention to what's going on. They may think or know I'm eating more, I'm eating less, but they're not really paying close attention. So it's hard for them to kind of attach that to their performance, fat loss, sleep, energy, etc. But when I'm scheduling and doing it in this way and it's mapped out and I'm telling you if you do this you will succeed in 2025. If you map it out this way then what will happen is after you go through you do this for three four months you make it

almost halfway through the year you'll know how you feel. You'll know what to expect and you'll start to develop this sense, this intuitive sense with diet where I am developing a skill that's going to last me again for the rest of my life. Now, so a few tips with this, stick with easily digestible foods. This is across the board. These are foods that you know don't cause bloat, don't cause gastro distress, don't cause heartburn. Easily digestible foods are low, these are low inflammatory foods. You often hear this on social media, right? How to eat for low inflammation or you know anti-inflammatory foods or

whatever. And there's definitely some truth to what they're saying but ultimately, ultimately the foods that give you the least amount of inflammation Are the ones you can digest the best and the ones that give you the most inflammation are the ones that give you digestive issues So go with the easily digestible foods and on your plan if you're writing this out if you're smart you're writing this out Make a list of the foods that you know, like, oh yeah, like rice I can digest very well, potato I can digest very well, red meat. Make that list out, write it out, make it a part of your plan,

and then try to eat those foods for the most part. You also wanna avoid heavily processed foods. They just aren't great for you, they make you overeat. Talk about digestive issues that tend to cause those as well. And then use protein shakes to hit your protein targets, which I'm sure you're going to get to. Yeah. But I can't stress enough the importance of what you just said with like foods

that are easy to digest and not eating processed foods. And I'll tell you why I think this is so even more important. I can eat a meal, uh, let's say like five guys. And so long as the macros and the calories are all equal, I won't necessarily put body fat on. I could fit it as the macros and the calories are all equal, I won't necessarily put body fat on. I could fit it into my macros, but I know that definitely the hamburger bun and or the cheese and or the non-grass-fed beef or the combination all of it definitely has like causes some digestive issues and causes inflammation in my body. Now that goes away in about 72 hours, but for about 72 hours,

I look bloated and I hold on an additional five pounds of water on my body. And if you are the average person who is trying to lose body fat or lean out and you're eating well and you're counting your macros and everything looks perfectly fine, but yet then you look in the mirror and you go, Oh my God, I look like I'm putting weight on. This is where people start over-correcting and making bad decisions when really what's happened is you chose a food that your body doesn't easily digest. It got a little inflamed. It's holding water. It typically holds water for about 72 hours before it completely releases it.

And so for a two to three day period, you think you're getting fatter when all that's really happening is you're holding on water. And that really messes with the psychology of a person who set out on this new year's resolution or this goal to get in shape for the year and now they think all of a sudden they're doing something wrong. So I can't stress enough how important it is to pick whole foods and to be aware or become aware of the foods that your body just doesn't even if it's okay. Like I can eat five guys.

I'm not on the toilet. I'm not sick from it, but it's enough to irritate my gut that I get inflamed and I hold on to extra water, and that's enough for the average person to mess with their head and think that they're getting fat. And look, not to get into the weeds with this, but inflammation has a negative effect on your hormone profile.

It will negatively affect your body's ability to adapt and recover from exercise. It affects your sleep. It affects your insulin profile. It will negatively affect your body's ability to adapt and recover from exercise. It affects your sleep. It affects your insulin sensitivity. It's not good for longevity. So regardless of the water gain and the bloat that you may get, if you look at the effects of inflammation over the course of a year, you're going to burn less body fat and build less muscle. You're going to get worse results from that. Not to mention how hard it is, how much more challenging it is to eat in a surplus or a deficit when you're eating foods that mess with your gut. They just throw off appetite,

they throw off cravings, they just throw off, they change your behaviors. So you want to stick again, easily digestible foods. Typically this means the foods that you'll probably, I'm saying probably, this isn't everybody, but the foods that tend to cause digestive issues in people tend to be gluten, legumes, egg whites, and dairy. Gluten being probably the most common one. Everybody tends to know if dairy is good or bad for them.

That's one that people are pretty aware of, like I can't have dairy or I can't have dairy. Legumes, that's like 50-50, depending on the individual. Egg whites, a lot of people or bad for them. That's one that people are pretty aware of. Like I can't have dairy or I can't have dairy. Legumes, that's like 50-50 depending on the individual. Egg whites, a lot of people are okay with them. If you're not, you probably know. But gluten is the one people tend to, I think it's because it's in everything. So they think that, ah, it doesn't really bother me.

Remove it out of your diet for a week. See if you notice a difference. If you do, it might be inflammatory for you. And then protein targets. Try to hit your body weight or your target body weight in grams of protein every day, regardless of whether or not you're in a reverse diet or a bulk or a cut. Try to hit your protein targets every single day.

This is where I recommend using a protein shake at the end of the day to make up the difference, whether it's 30, 20, 30, 40 grams of protein that you're off, take that shake, make up the difference, hit those targets. I know we just said this on a other podcast recently, but I think it's important to remind people too that protein is unique for several reasons, but unique in the fact that it's not an average

of your week, it's a daily target that you have to. You don't store protein very well. And everything else we calculate different, right? Everything else we look at, total calories and carbohydrates, we we look at you know total calories and carbohydrates And now we look at like oh Would you average for the week and as long as your average or your your calories stay below this average in the week? Then you'll be in a calorie deficit if you're over this average, then you're over you're a surplus But when it comes to protein targets you have to hit that protein target every single day if you don't hit that protein target

You're behind its pass or fail, you don't carry over. That's right. And I think that's a mistake that a lot of people make is they think, oh, why eat lots of protein? And that's because they have a good day, right? They have a good day, they ate 200 something grams, but then they run another day right after that, they ate 60 grams. It's not a blend of the two and you divide it by and find an average. You did one day you did well, another day you failed. And so you have to have that attitude going into and that consistency right in it because it's paramount to building your metabolism, building muscle for you to be hitting those targets consistently. Right. Next up, this is the fun part of

this, is get your programming all laid out for the year. When I say programming, I mean your workout. That's what we do. Right. And that's that's it. So here's what a lot of people do when they draw out their yearly goal when it comes to fitness is they'll just put, well, I'm going to work out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I'm going to strength train and do 30 minutes of cardio. If you have a destination in mind, a gym that they're going to commit to, and they're going to show up this many times a week, and that's about it. That's it. There is way more that goes into programming than just that. That's

like step one. Make it to the gym these days. Do some strength training. Do some cardio. Like okay what now are you gonna do with the strength training? What is the goal? What are we trying to accomplish? So just to give you some examples of what this should probably look like, you should definitely lay out some workouts that are more bodybuilding focused. Why? Well, the hypertrophy, the muscle building process through bodybuilding is great to speed up the metabolism.

Aesthetically speaking, you can shape and sculpt your body. You can individualize a bodybuilding type routine. Strength training allows that. You have correctional- Less impact on the joints. That's right. You have correctional or mobility type phases you should incorporate for a couple months where I'm just focusing on movement. I'm trying to get my body to move in different

planes of motion. I'm working on range of motion. Then there should be just pure strength. There should be segments where it's like it's not bodybuilding, it's not mobility. I'm trying to get strong as possible in these particular lifts. Then there could be a conditioning component well now I want to get you know conditioning I want that overall strength and stamina like an athlete type of deal like those are just examples but break that up into blocks of two and three months at a time so that your whole year is set up and you know like bodybuilding strength you know mobility and correctional work when

you do it like that at the end of the year, regardless of what your goal is, regardless, I don't care if it's fat loss, muscle building, whatever, you'll get better results by doing it that way than just focusing on that one particular goal the entire time and definitely better than not planning it out like I said. Well if you've been listening to the podcast for a really long time you know this, if you're new, you may not, but this is what the maps, anabolic mass performance and maps aesthetic, why it was put together in an RGB bundle, because it was what we looked at as like the ideal pathway for the average person in a year.

If your overall goal is to build muscle, lose body fat, be mobile, be healthy, it's like the ideal pathway and it takes you almost a year to get through those programs, and it takes you through every single thing that you just talked about. I mean, that was literally the idea of running those, and in that order, how we wrote them and created them was thinking just like that, is what would that person

who just came out of anabolic, what's the next best thing they should do? Okay, that was performance. Oh, if they got through performance, what's the next best thing that person should do? Oh, it's mass aesthetic, and so that's what that looks like. Yeah, and when you're doing this and writing it out and you're looking at it and you're saying, okay, for these three months I'm doing maps anabolic and then here I'm gonna do math performance and then here I'm gonna do aesthetic or whatever.

Then you have fun with the diet, you know, okay, here I'm gonna be in a little bit of a surplus, a little bit of a cut. You know, here's where I'm focusing on strength. That's maps anabolic. Here's where I'm doing the sculpting, that's maps aesthetic. Now I'm going to focus on conditioning. You can plot that out a lot more effectively. Otherwise, you're going to be susceptible to the momentum, which people tend to find classes for this to address a lot of these needs once they're there at the gym. And they do offer these sort of group classes and things, but we know You know as trainers and I know a lot of like your average people probably don't consider that they're less effective in terms of You know getting you closer to your desired outcome and your goal So if you have these real specific goals in mind, make sure you match up and line up these programs

So that way you you're sure to do it. Yeah, and now finally up these programs so that way you're sure to do it. Yeah, and now finally, the one guarantee I can tell you for the next year is that there's things that are going to happen that you're not going to have planned. There are going to be times when you can't make it to the gym for whatever reason. There are going to be situations that are going to take you off your plan, in which case you can either try to play it by ear, which is okay, or better, you could have a backup plan. What happens if I can't go to the gym? Do I have exercises I could do at home?

Do I have a mobility routine I can focus on on my own? What do I do if I get injured? Have your backup plan ready and actually plan it out so if something happens, ooh, I got my plan right here. And what that does is that really sets you up very, very well. Again, in my experience with the people that I've worked with who did the best

over the course of a year, they almost all had either a plan themselves or they hired me to do this for them. And this is what I would do. This is what I would do as a trainer is I'd map this out and work with people. They hire me for the entire year, and the success rate was through the roof. All right, we've got some questions here.

The first one is, what supplements should I take? Yeah, always a question people have. Protein powder, we mentioned that one. Créatine, créatine across the board. It's good for health. It'll benefit strength and muscle building. Indirectly will help the fat loss, helps with sleep, stress, cognitive function.

It's a supplement that most people should take so long as it doesn't bother your gut. Some people have digestive issues, very rare, but if that's you, then don't take it. The other one would be a multivitamin. And then everything else is kinda like, I guess, if you qualify. I'm gonna throw one more else on there.

I'm gonna throw EAAs on there at the beginning. And the reason why, and this is just my personal experience. So people don't hit their protein? Yeah, just because people struggle to hit their protein and take, especially at the beginning of getting started and reverse dieting and getting back in the swing of things. I don't think I've ever had a client that when I set out

their protein target, they come back and they're like, oh, that was so easy. Most of them come back and they're like, oh my God, that's a lot more meat or that's a lot more food than I thought, or I have a hard time getting that many grams of protein every single day. And so having that on the back burner for those days that you struggle to hit your targets, I think is nice.

You could obviously use a shake, but if part of the reason why you're falling short is because you're full and you don't want to eat anymore. That's where I think that- There's less calories in essential amino acids. Yeah, so I think that's an easy one. Should I hire a coach? If you-

If you get a 40- You can. Always. If you have the ability, if you can do it, if you have the funds and you found yourself a good coach, there's nothing that's gonna be more guaranteed to get you success than having a guide and a coach who knows what they're doing throughout this entire process. In fact, there's nothing that's gonna be more guaranteed to get you success than having a guide and a coach who knows what they're doing

throughout this entire process. In fact, there's no supplement, there's no podcast that we do, there's nothing that I said here that's gonna be as effective as having a coach work with you and train you through this entire process. Very specific individual needs. In business, in life, in finances, in fitness, I mean I think any of those... Nothing's a guarantee but that's the most guarantee. Yeah I mean if you're, if you

if you have, if you have the funds to be able to hire a professional to guide you through and teach you firsthand then then a hundred percent it's a no-brainer. It's really a matter of do you have the means to do that because it can be expensive to hire a coach in any of those facets. Now there's a couple ways to do it with that. Some people think, well, I have to have a coach every time I work out, which is the ideal, I guess, perfect way to do it. But you could get a lot of value because if it's expensive, you could work with a coach

once a week. You could work with a coach twice a month. You could work with a coach virtually. All of them are infinitely more valuable than doing it on your own. So there's a lot of ways. Well, yeah, me and back to the analogy of all those life coach, business coach, financial coach. I mean, sitting down and talking to someone just for an hour for one hour,

that's a professional in that field is worth it in my opinion. So it's the same thing as like, maybe you can't afford to have a personal trainer train you every time you work out, but meeting with him or her once or five times is five hours or one hour of valuable information that you probably wouldn't have gotten had you not hired that coach. Is it better to start slow or just go for it?

Definitely start slow. Definitely start slow. It's better psychologically. It's better physically. You're less likely to make mistakes. Yeah, for longevity, it's definitely way better. And your body doesn't, it's better physically, you're less likely to make mistakes. Yeah, for longevity it's definitely way better. And your body doesn't, here's the thing, you don't need to go all out to get your body to respond.

It'll respond better by going, the mistake that people make is they actually think going harder or going all in or going faster is going to get them more or faster results. And it's the opposite is true. The goal is always to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. And I think that's probably one of the biggest mistakes

that people make is doing too much too fast. How would you cut in bulk through the RGB bundle? Oh, that's a very common question. OK, so RGB. Reverse diet first and anabolic for sure. Well, so RGB stands for red, green, and black. Those are the colors of the program. So it's maps, anabolic, mass performance,

and maps, aesthetics. There's a couple ways you can look at it. There's an, now every individual's gonna be different. So if I'm speaking to an individual and I'm looking at their diet and what they did last, my answer may change, but generally speaking, most people, if they're gonna do a cut, are gonna do better in a cut in a lower volume phase or program than if they're in a higher volume one.

So believe it or not, the lower rep phases, the lower volume phases, because your calories are low and because they're low volume, you're better off pairing those together because you don't require as much recovery as the higher volume phases. Like when you get to some of those high volume phases, like MAPS Aesthetic Phase 3, MAPS Anabolic Phase 3 is like this, that might be one you want to bump your calories to kind of help you recover from all that volume.

So I have definitely a different answer on how I would use this. I would use MAPS Anabolic, no matter what your goal is, is the primary focus is to reverse diet. Because I don't care who you are, when I first get you started, I wanna put you in the most metabolically advantageous position no matter what,

whether that is to build more muscle or to lose body fat. And so MAPS Antibolic would literally be primarily focused on slowly increasing calories until we get to a place which we've talked about before where the client goes, Adam I'm eating a ton of food I don't want anymore. Okay great now I've got the kind of where I want you at metabolically now we can talk about whether we're gonna go cut or bulk and then it's a 3-1 type of cycle and the way I decided if it's

three months three weeks in a cut and one in a bulk is what your main goal is. So if your main goal is you want to gain weight I'm doing three weeks in a cut and one in a bulk is what your main goal is. So if your main goal is you want to gain weight, I'm doing three weeks in a bulk, one cut, three weeks in a bulk, one cut, and I'm gonna toggle all the way through. If the reverse is true, you're somebody who is trying to lean out, I'm gonna do three weeks in a cut, one week in a bulk, three weeks in a cut, one week in a bulk, because your primary goal is a cut. So all we're really doing is once a month we're interrupting the thing that you want to do whether that's cut or bulk with the opposite. I like that because it's easier to understand and follow than what I just said. Yes and you can still take some of your philosophy by planning it around phases.

If you need to change something but I like what you just said because it makes sense it's easy to follow too. You start maps on a bulk it's a reverse diet and then you go 3-1 all the way through. Now they have their whole year planned out. All the way through and the only way you flip-flop that is based off of the goals. If you're someone who's trying to bulk, we're doing more of the weeks or in calorie surpluses and you're just interrupting it with a cut. If the main goal is to reduce body fat, you're mainly in a cut and you're interrupting it with mini bulks.

That's perfect. So here's what we're doing for this episode. That RGB bundle, which is already 30% off because it's a bundle We're gonna take an additional 50% off for this episode only So if you're interested you go to mapsdecember.com and then use this code fit 2025 that'll give you the additional 50% off look if you like the show come find us on Instagram Justin is that mind pump Justin? I'm at mind pump to Stefano and Adams at mind pump out 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.