Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2543: Beware of This Kind of "Scientific" Fat Loss or Muscle Building Study...It May be Flowed & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions from the Sunday @mindpumpmedia Quah post. Mind Pump Fit Tip: If you follow scientific studies to determine what to do for fat loss and muscle gain, STOP NOW! Consider these things first. (1:42) The interesting side effect of customers who consume LMNT. (24:01) Don’t be afraid of some germs. (26:24) Encouraging signs when it comes to government policies on health. (31:09) Sex and poor health correlation. (38:36) The #1 predictor of child abuse. (40:11) Why do people end up in divorce? (43:08) Caldera is NOT just for men. (52:01) #Quah question #1 – Do trigger sessions still send the signal to build muscle and speed up metabolism? (54:33) #Quah question #2 – When should you consider "eating back" your burned calories? (57:54) #Quah question #3 – Do you recommend any kind of break from training? (1:00:35) #Quah question #4 – I have 3 consecutive days off a week. I want to try full-body workouts, but is training full-body 3 days in a row a smart idea? I currently do legs and biceps on Monday, chest and triceps on Tuesdays, and back & biceps on Wednesdays. (1:04:01) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** Mind Pump Group Coaching February Promotion: MAPS Anabolic & No B.S. 6-Pack ** We are offering them both for the low price of $59.99, which is a savings of $114! ** Mind Pump #2517: Hip Thrusts vs Squats… Which Builds a Rounder Butt? Men Who Have More Sex Have a Lower Risk of Heart Attacks I'm a evolutionary psychologist - here's the number one predictor of child abuse in the home The Couple that Prays Together Divorce rates double when people start watching porn 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** The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle - Mind Pump Media Blog Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mike Boyle (@mbsc_online) Instagram Layne Norton, Ph.D. (@biolayne) Instagram Dr. Gad Saad (@doctorgadsaad) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump. In today's episode, we had listeners write in and we got to help them out on air. So we answered questions. This was after the intro, by the way. The intro was 53 minutes long. In the intro we talk about like current science, fitness, diet information. It's a great time. After that

we got to answering the questions. By the way if you want to write in some questions that we might pick go to Instagram at Mindpump Media. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Element electrolyte powder that you put into your water. Tastes good, no artificial sweeteners, no sugar. Go check them out. Go to drinkelementt.com forward slash mind pump. On that link you'll get a free sample pack

with any drink mix purchase. This episode is also brought to you by Caldera Lab. They make natural skincare products that are exceptional, they're blowing up. Go check them out. Go to calderalab.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump 20. You get 20% off your first order. Also we are offering group coaching here at mind pump. If you want

to get coached by our trainers and by us go to mind pump group coaching.com sign yourself up so long as there's spots available. You can do it. Finally one day left for our February special Maps MAPS Anabolic and the No BS Six Pack Formula we put together for a price that's super low. It's $59.99 for both programs. You can find them now. They're gonna be gone tomorrow. You can find them now at MAPSFebruary.com. Alright, here comes the show. You're trying to burn body fat and build muscle and you're looking at scientific studies. What's the best way to do so?

Stop right now. Don't look at those studies. Consider this first. All right, I'll start with the first thing you're gonna look at, which is how big was the sample size in the study? This is important to look at. And by the way, studies can be very valuable, but sometimes they're not valuable at all

and they can point you in the wrong direction and this is when you need to be very, very careful. And one of the things to look at, I just said it, which is how big was the sample size? Was it 10 people? You know, if it's 10 people, then I would be very cautious at interpreting the result as something you can count on. Or was it done with a thousand people? That's something to pay attention to. What do you think in terms of the average person, percentage-wise, just reads the title? Everybody.

Yeah, versus actually going through these abstracts. Yeah, abstracts. Okay, so you know what? Because this is obviously, this is my expertise as health and fitness, you see a lot of, especially weight loss study headlines, you see a lot of them, right? Like compound and chocolate has been shown to blah,

compound and red wine or this fruit has a fat burning, whatever, study show. And I know as a coach and trainer, I've worked with lots of people, and I was also taught a long time ago how to read studies. That people aren't going to read this study, they're going to pay attention. They're just going to look at this and then they're going to move away from what really is going to make a difference and towards something that makes no difference whatsoever. Years ago I

had a client who was a professor of psychology and she sat me down because I would talk about studies and she goes, do you know how to look at studies? And I said, what do you mean? And she broke this down. That was one of the things she said. She's like, we've got to look at the sample size. You know, if there's a lot of people in there,

that's more likely to be accurate, because very few people, if we pick 10 people to study, I could very well pick, you know, out of those 10 people, seven of them who are going to respond really well to what I'm studying or people who may be biased. And so now my study is going to show that something works really great when in fact it may not. For example, if I pick, you know, 10 people and I'm testing the results of a vitamin,

maybe 6 of them actually lack this vitamin. Well, now this vitamin looks like a miracle drug. You know? It's amazing. Absolutely. So it's really important to pay attention. I'm looking ahead at all your other points and I don't see this and I feel like it would belong here

then with that is also the length of a study. Yes, yes. And even if it's a good length, it's also something to just be considered, like no matter what. So even like a good 90-day or six-month long study, okay that's great, but in the context of what we're talking about and we understand how the body adapts, like that still needs to be considered as part of the point. I'll get, I'll create a fake example that I think will illustrate this, right? If we studied cocaine

for depression over 30 days, it would look like a great antidepressant. Over 30 days we tested cocaine's effect on depression. And it was like this is the most crazy. Client woke up two hours earlier, client was more productive at work. Everybody's super happy. Yeah, positive. Picked up dancing on the side. Follow it, like these other. Follow it for three years. And all of a sudden you see cocaine was terrible on their psyche and their health. But that just gives you, your great point, Adam,

is the length of study. Exercise studies are, that's one of the things I really look at with exercise studies. Because when it comes to exercise, strength training, and other forms of exercise, cardiovascular training, even flexibility mobility training, especially with strength training, just changing the, just the novelty effect,

almost always, unless it's like crazy or terrible, almost always has a positive effect. So you could take almost anybody who's strength training, change a variable, like make the reps go high, make the reps go low, make the reps go low. Change the tempo. Yeah, how's that saying go? Almost everything works until it doesn't?

Almost everything works, but nothing works forever. So when I look at like a strength training study, I always take it with a grain of salt because of the timeframe. And I'd like to see a study that's done for like a year or two years to make a determination, for example, very, very commonly cited statistics in strength training. And this is backed by many studies, although now we have so many studies

that actually prove what I'm about to say. But you know, 10, 15, maybe 20 years ago, if somebody said, what's the best rep range to build muscle? Well, the studies were all showing eight to 12. Eight to 12 was the hypertrophy range, right? Low reps weren't as effective, high reps were definitely not as effective, but the studies were like 12 or 16 weeks long. If you stretch that out long enough you'll see that the 8 to 12 reps really stops working and they have to switch out and move into a lower rep phase or a higher

rep phase. It also didn't illustrate the fact that all the rep ranges built muscle. So it's not like eight to 12 built muscle, all the others did nothing. They all built muscle. So then the thing to consider is, okay, when do I use each of those rep ranges? And as a trainer, when I train people, you know, I noticed if I kept them in a rep range

for too long, it would stop working. It didn't matter how great my programming was. One of the best things I could do would just change the rep range. You don't even have to change the exercises or anything else. Just change the, you know, lower the weight and make the reps go higher or vice versa.

And then it was like magic. People would start getting results again. Yeah, and I think the point of this conversation, because I know right away it always tends to ruffle the feathers of the kids that love to lead with all the studies. It's not that to completely disregard studies. It's just that there's another point like with experience that I think matters.

And I think that you have to take that into consideration and just the nuance when it comes to individuals. I mean, this is, you could have two people that are the same weight, same goal, same age, yet the approach and results will be vastly different based off of many factors. Their sleep, their hormones, their prior dieting. Their attitude. Diet happens, their attitude, their, I mean, there's so much when it comes to getting results, building muscle, losing body fat and such a wide

individual variance that what worked for this person fantastic or what worked in this study so well may not for somebody else. And you just have to consider all that. Absolutely. Um, you know, another one would be like, what are the controls? So control, like, are they able to weed out variables that could be potentially

influencing the result of the study? For example, um, to do the cigarette and coffee one. I love that one. That's one of my favorites, you know, for a long time, uh, people, studies showed that drinking coffee was, uh, correlated to cancer risk. So they thought they actually used to say coffee probably or may cause cancer, but what they didn't do very well was control for the fact that back in the day, people who drank the most coffee smoked. This was a thing, you know,

30, 40 years ago and before, right? Everybody, no Starbucks. Yeah. Everybody who drank the most coffee was doing it with a cigarette. Whenever you talk about that, I have, I have such a vivid, There's no Starbucks, yeah. Yeah, everybody who drank the most coffee was doing it with a cigarette. Whenever you talk about that, I have such a vivid, I live with my, when I first moved to the Bay Area, I moved here when I was 19, turning 20. And I lived with my grandmother and my grandmother started every morning.

She would move her little chair and she'd sit over there with her arthritis and she would have a cup of coffee and smoke her cigarette. You know, I'd be getting up for work, getting ready to head off to the gym. There's my grandma at seven o'clock in the morning having her cigarette and drinking her coffee at the same time.

Well, there's a synergistic effect between nicotine and caffeine. Everybody knows this. People now are using the nicotine lozenges with caffeine. Zin and all that stuff. Yeah, it's like a synergistic, you know, people like the way it feels. But that's what happened.

So people thought, until they controlled the cigarette smoking, when they controlled the cigarette smoking, here's what they found. Not only did coffee not cause cancer, it actually prevented cancer. It was actually the opposite of what we thought. Another, you know, common one in, especially in fat loss and muscle building or health studies

is the healthy user bias. That you have to control for. So people who eat a lot of, I'll make one up, people who eat a lot of oranges tend to be healthier. You might think to yourself oranges are really healthy, but what we don't know are do healthy people who follow healthy lifestyles, who exercise, get more sleep, do other things,

do they also eat more oranges? So really are we looking at a bias of healthy people isolating one thing? Here's another one that I love, okay? People who eat a lot of red meat have worse health. This is often one that's cited and quoted. They try to pare that forever. And the problem with that is for decades.

Tease out the fast food people. Not only that, but for decades we've been hammered. It's been hammered into us that eating red meat is bad for us. OK, it was government policy, right, since the 70s on. Even today, they still try to hammer this. And so what ends up happening is you develop a poor health user bias. People who average person who generally,

and it's changing these days because people are now starting to figure this out, but over the last 60 years, especially if you go 20 years and then before, people who ate the most red meat were people who were typically unhealthy because they ignored the health advice. So they didn't cut their red meat consumption.

They also smoked cigarettes. They also didn't exercise. And so you're like, oh yeah, people eat the most red meat, have the worst health, because we had a poor health user bias. We now know with controls, which is what I'm talking about, where they actually go in and control all these other factors, not only is red meat not bad for you, it's also positively correlated with health, with good health, good cognition, et cetera. I'm talking about whole natural red meat, not just not, you know, processed meat, which they often don't also control for. Well, that's probably what I think the biggest is like when you don't control

for, because there's a lot of McDonald's and Burger King and Carl's Jr. people, Carl's and hot dogs and yeah, that eat that way. And if you include all those, there's nobody, I don't think there's anybody who's trying to say any of that is healthy whatsoever. And so if you just simply took that group out and then just compared everybody, oh, it'd be massive difference. Look at healthy people who eat a lot of red meat

and then healthy people who don't eat a lot of red meat and then what you find is red meat is correlated or connected with better health in many cases. The next one is like who was studied? You know, a lot of, I remember when my client brought this up to me, because she sat, we were talking, it was a great discussion, it was one of my favorite, you know,

it's one of the things I love about training people is there are moments I can distinctly remember with clients, because they were all really smart people where they just taught me a lot. And she sat me down and she said, where do you think they do most of the studies, Sal? And I didn't know, I'm like, I don't know, they do them in like, I don't know, labs? And she started laughing, and she said, where do you think they do most of the studies, Sal? And I didn't know, I'm like, I don't know, they do them in, I don't know, labs?

And she started laughing, she's like, colleges. Yeah, young college men. And what they do is they recruit, they put out a study and they say, we're looking for 50 people to be a part of a study and we're gonna pay you like 40 bucks a day. And she's like, who do you think signs up for that? She's like, young college men who don't have a lot of money.

Easy gig that you could just go get a couple bucks. Don't mind being a guinea pig. Don't worry about the risk. Yeah, so it's as much a 20-year-old dude who don't have no money. They're like, I'll take a pill, or I'll do this study where I don't sleep for three days or whatever. And so what you have is a bias of young college-aged males,

typically, in many of these studies. So what if you're an older man? What if of these studies. So what if you're an older man? What if you're a woman? What if you're pregnant? What if you're you know menopausal? You have to look at who was studied and does it actually apply? This one is another great one with exercise. You take a bunch of college- aged males and you're looking at hit cardio and it looks like a panacea. But when I trained lots of middle-aged, everyday people, hit cardio was hit or miss.

Sometimes it was great, sometimes it was terrible. It was just too intense and too stressful. But you give me a bunch of 20-year-olds and hit cardio is probably going to help perform any other form of cardio. So you have to look at who was in the study as well. And then here's another one, does it follow a consensus? I like meta-analysis because meta-analysis is where they, it's a study of studies.

So they're like, what effect does carbohydrate- They put them all together, right? Yes, yes. Yeah, I love that. What effect does carbohydrate intake have on fat gain or fat loss? How effective are low carb diets for this? How good is fasting for that? How good is whatever?

And then what they'll do is they'll take 10 studies that are peer reviewed, meaning they're all accepted as studies, and then they'll give you the consensus of all the studies. Meta analysis are, for me, that's one of the best places to look in terms of- Any idea how often those end up disproving a lot of studies? Once they start to draw correlations from other data points, does that many times end

up throwing a lot of studies out? Dwarfing some of them, yeah. Do you know how often? I don't know how often, but I'll give you a diet example. When low carb keto dieting or Atkins kind of became popular in the 90s, the initial studies showed it was great for weight loss. It was great for weight loss. But then we had more and more and more and more studies

and we found that it didn't assist in fat loss. But what happened is people lost more water weight faster, which is what happens, right? So if you're measuring just weight and you go no carb and someone else goes in a calorie deficit, both same, everything's the same. The difference is one's low carb, one is whatever, you know, higher carb, but the calories are the

same and let's say the protein is good. What you end up seeing is initial weight loss being on the scale showing up faster and greater in the low carb diet. Or that's cause of weight, cause of water weight. When you go low carb, your body flushes out a bunch of water. It's a very easy way to lose 10 pounds on the scale. I mean if I went no carb today, I would lose 10 pounds by the end of next week. But probably one pound of fat if it was in a deficit. If not, I'd lose no fat.

I'd just lose a bunch of water weight. Yeah, and for the person who's freaking out, saying no way, it's you. So three to 10 pounds is what I used to say. I have a lot of muscle mass, so I have more water. Exactly, you're a big guy and you would lose 10 easily. You would fluctuate that. But I mean, most of my female clients,

it was a good solid three, four pounds. Yep. That they would lose just by pulling all the water out. That's right. Next up is, does it apply to you in any way whatsoever? Oh yeah. Will you even do it? That's it.

If I look at this study and it passed the test, like big sample size, done for a long time, great controls, it's a meta-analysis, and it's telling me that I'm gonna burn 15% more body fat if I exercise at 3 a.m. outdoors. Like, I mean, I'm using an extreme example, but no, it doesn't apply to me. I'm not gonna wake up at 2.30.

A good example of this is the way we talk about taking your creatine. The research shows that the most optimal time to take your creatine within 30 minutes to an hour of your workout. But if you're somebody who is not going to be carrying all your supplements everywhere you go and it's very easy, you can take first thing in the morning with your vitamins and breakfast or at night before you go to bed, you're more likely to follow that than it doesn't matter. So even though the the studies will show this is a

more optimal time, if you're more likely to be inconsistent because that's inconvenient at that time. It's not effective anymore. Exactly. Then the other times are superior because you'll be more consistent. Let me piggyback off that. Crateine monohy, I'll use a Crateine like you said, five grams a day, let's just say great, studies show that's great, it's awesome.

And then company comes out like some of our partners with Gummi creating, and it's like, wow, Gummi, oh, but that's gonna add seven grams of sugar. Except I don't like powder, I don't use the powder. A lot of people don't take the powder, they stop taking it. So the Gummi's are gonna make me take it more, so I add seven grams of sugar. Who cares, because now I'm gonna be much more consistent. So does it apply to you in any way at all?

I'll give you another example. When somebody asks me what's the best form of X for cardio, for example, I'm always gonna reply by which one do you like the most? Because if you hate it, it doesn't matter. You're not gonna do it. So you have to always ask, does this apply, even if it's true, does this apply to me

in any way whatsoever? And then finally, my this apply, even if it's true, does this apply to me in any way whatsoever? And then finally, my favorite one, what do experienced coaches say? And this is because experienced coaches, experience meaning coaches who've trained or worked with people for 10 plus years. And for me personally, if you're to ask me, when would you consider a coach to be really experienced, I would say about 10 years. And I'm using my own, I've trained lots of trainers, I know you guys have too, and we were trainers. I was good five years in, I wasn't experienced about 10,

it took about 10 years for me to really be good. What do experienced coaches say? And experienced coaches will often say the opposite or maybe something different than a study. For example, fasted cardio in in the morning burns more body fat. A lot of coaches will say this, man, when I have my clients do cardio first thing in the morning fasted, they just get leaner. And then you do, there's all these studies, there's meta analysis.

And the studies are clear. Fasted cardio burns no additional body fat than cardio at other times of the day. But why the hell then are coaches, what do they keep saying? Fasted cardio burns more body fat than cardio at other times of the day. But why the hell then are coaches, what do they keep saying fasted cardio burns more body fat? Well I'll tell you why. Other behaviors that are attached to that. It adds more activity to their day because they wake up and move.

That's probably what's happening, right? Or water, you know, additional water intake doesn't cause more fat loss, right? We got all these studies that show, as long as they're drinking what they're supposed to, doesn't make that big of a difference. Well why do coaches say, man, when I get my clients to drink a half a gallon a gallon water day They all seem to get a little leaner. Well, I'll tell you why so not drinking other stuff because all the behaviors

That's right. You have that I think the why the coaches one is so important is because a coach who's Experienced with a bunch of clients that they're not just taking The studies in consideration. They're also taking human behavior into consideration. And to me, this is where it's really good, right? When you have good research and studies that point you in the right direction, paired with 10 years or more of experience, you can then take what we know from the studies,

you can take what you know from human behavior, and together, you have probably the more ideal answer for the average client. But many times that doesn't perfectly align with what the studies say. Sometimes it can even be counter what the study says because human behavior is so strong and that's more likely for them to adhere to. That's what you're going to lose. I remember Mike Boyle kind of breaking this down with, cause he's been, uh, you know, using the rice method and using ice, uh,

after like heavy training sessions with his athletes. And he's more concerned with longevity and making sure like the recoveries are not necessarily because there was like this study that talked about the decrease in muscle building, building signal. Uh, you know, everybody stopped doing that with their athletes. And then it was just like one of those things where he's like, well, I've been doing this, you know, for decades, and this is how I've applied. And he's got the best track record for keeping athletes healthy. And it's like,

we actually, we actually argue that we said that when you're pushing the limit and you're redlining often, which athletes are, it allows you to work out more. Yeah. So that, so, so now it now it makes sense. Now it makes sense. So it didn't even apply to him. Yeah, it's funny, I want something that, this is the conspiracy guy side over here in the corner too, it's like I'm always looking at who's funding the study. Yeah, I didn't even say that.

I didn't even say that, but you're right because. Especially in nutritional studies. Here's what happens. It's so biased. Here's what happens. They can do things with studies to keep them within the parameters of what's what happens. It's so biased. Here's what happens. They can do things with studies to keep them within the parameters of what's considered legitimate. Like they can shorten a study or lengthen a study,

for example, and this has been shown, this has happened. A pharmaceutical company will do a nine month study, but at six months, everything looked good and side effects got started to really pop up around month seven. They'll stop the study. And they'll publish the six month study

and not show nine months. And that's happened. It's a cherry pick. That's happened before. Pharmaceutical companies got sued over stuff like that. Or, I'll give you a great example. In the 1970s, there was a study that was funded by the US government to

connect cannabis to cancer risk. They said well it definitely causes cancer because cigarettes cause cancer. Let's do this study and when the study started showing that it wasn't causing cancer, in fact it might actually have a slight protective effect, they stopped the study and didn't publish it. So sometimes they'll do that as well. They'll fund a study. We don't like those results. No one ever knows about it. So that's another one, that's another thing

to kind of consider. But the reason why I'm careful going down that path is because I also don't think you should be like, I'm a pro study study. Well no, you also, I've heard Lane defend this. And he's like, the only way you're gonna get money sometimes is from the people that are most interested in getting that study.

So it's like, you know, expecting somebody to fund a study that has no benefit for them whatsoever is almost impossible. So that's the, studies wouldn't get done if they didn't have bias contributors to getting it done. And so that's- Everywhere the meta-analysis, I think, is great for that though, you know?

Cause then you can kind of pit like who's bias versus the other bias and see where we're at. That's right and this is one thing that we aim to do is we try to get in there and kind of figure it out like a great one we just did an episode recently on hip thrust versus squats and the studies show that they both build the glutes the same but so much anecdote from people online saying that hip thrust build their butts more well that's because the self-selection bias that we're dealing with are people who have trouble building their butts doing squats. Right.

And in that case, the hip thrusts, which allows you to feel your glutes more, it's easier to feel your glutes on a hip thrust than it is a squat. For those people, it is more effective, but they're not going to show that in those studies. So true. Yeah. So speaking of studies and human behaviors, like you brought up, Adam, So true. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of studies and human behaviors,

like you brought up, Adam, interesting side effect from Element, our partners with the electrolyte powder. Do you know what I'm finding? So first off, we did a poll for all of our listeners and it got first place. It was the most frequently used. Yeah, by a lot. By far.

I was surprised at that. Of all the partners we worked with, it was the number one most used product among all our partners. By quite a bit, yeah. But here's what I found. There's an interesting side effect or behavior change I'm noticing with people who consume a lot of element,

because my whole family does it, my wife drinks it, whatever. It makes people drink more water. And it's because it's palatable. It tastes good. Because it tastes good. It doesn't have sugar, it doesn't have artificial sweeteners.

It's the sodium combined with the stevia in there that gives you that kind of palatability. My wife drinks a lot more water when there's element. My kids drink more water if I add a little sprinkle of it to their water. So it's like, as a coach, you might notice, my clients drink more water. They're more hydrated.

Well yeah, because they're using element. I also feel like I get a little bit of energy Like as a coach, you might notice my clients drink more water. They're more hydrated. Well, yeah, because it's got, because they're using it. I also feel like I get like a little bit of energy from it. I think the reason why I feel like I get energy is sometimes when I'm really low calorie, um, I'm also low sodium and not hydrated. And just sipping on that always makes me feel a little bit better. So you add that to it. That's probably why it's simple. It's easy.

Tastes good. I've narrowed down Adam. Like the best we've talked about this before, but now I have it down to like a number. The best pumps I'll get in the gym because I work out in the morning and I don't eat. I don't eat till after I eat when I get here. I'll do a packet element in this big container right here, which is I think 42 ounces. Yeah I get up in the morning, I do my thing upstairs, and then I come down. My workouts typically around 7, 15, 7, 20 in the morning. 6 a.m., I drink a whole one of these with one packet of element.

If I do that, the pumps are ridiculous. Like way way bigger. I think it's so funny, because you think about all these crazy, there's so many products on To increase you have to increase the pump Like just like something like some salt water If I had carbs would they be even better but I don't eat yeah

That's I had mine all the way down to the car, but I knew exactly how much water sodium and and then Carbohydrates to get to just the crazy pump dude., so remember I brought this up on a recent podcast and I was talking about the chemicals that people spray on the benches and machines. So this was a thing that started really happening during and after COVID. So when I used to work out in gyms, the policy was, especially when I managed gyms, was bring a towel, wipe your sweat off. That was it, bring a towel, wipe your sweat off. And then some gyms, not a lot of gyms,

but some gyms would have paper towels in a spray bottle, but nobody was doing it, nobody was doing it. And then COVID came, everybody got freaked out, and it became like... Blasting it everywhere. Yeah, like the culture now is after you work out, go get the spray bottle, spray the bench. Sanitize the whole thing.

And sanitize the hell out of it. And I hate that. I hate following somebody who does that. When I see people doing that on the bench, I go, no, no, no, leave it. Because then I get on the bench and I smell the chemicals and I know that the xenoestrogens, the hormone disrupting chemicals,

I feel like are not a good trade off. I would rather be on a bench that has a little sweat. It's not even close, is it? No. It's not even close. We're so afraid of germs now. I know being clean is great. That was a wonderful breakthrough in society,

was understanding germs. But we went so far with that, that we antibioticed the hell out of everything. We have chemicals that cause, we know are connected to cancers and hormone disruption, where, you know, just wiping the sweat off the bench is perfectly fine. Or maybe a little soap and water, but they're spraying

like Lysol on there. Yeah. Which is, you know. They're just killing it off. No, it's all antibacterial stuff. That lack of exposure has its own problems. Oh, yeah. Like we need to build up a defense system against these and you know be immersed in it on some level. Oh, a common antibacterial that was in soap, I don't even know if they use it anymore. Doug, maybe you could look up

triclosan health effects. So when you would get like antibacterial soap or spray, they would add something called triclosan, I think I'm saying it right. And what this does is when you spray a surface with it, it leaves a residue that has antibiotic properties. So it's an antibiotic.

We know, and I don't know if they still use this, but this was everywhere. It's still, okay here we go, ready? It's still in a lot of products. It's an endocrine disruptor, meaning it can disrupt hormone metabolism and interfere with your hormonal system. It may impair reproductive function. It can cause or increase the risk of allergies, skin irritation, cancer.

Some studies suggest that long-term exposure to triclosan may increase the risk of certain cancers. It could cause antibiotic resistance. In other words, we're creating bacteria that are like super bacteria. And a thyroid issue. And thyroid issues. By the way, soap kills bacteria perfectly fine. It doesn't cause any of that stuff, but it's in so many things, including

toothpaste, mouthwash, hand soap, shampoo, lotions, deodorants. Like that's just an example. So in other words, just basic soap was perfectly antibacterial. The extent of which we need to take. I think that post is flying because I think it's, I haven't heard anybody actually talk about that, but it's kind of obvious.

You know, I think most people understand now how antibiotics and antibacterial stuff isn't ideal for our microbiome and then yet that's what we're blasting these things over versus getting a little bit of sweat on there. It's like that's probably not a great, probably not a great trade-off. No, everybody gets in your skin and yeah. They're so afraid of like getting on a bench or because someone, now your sweat, that's fine. You don't want to be in a puddle sweat. I wonder how many,

I think gyms need to get rid of it. I want to make an announcement. If you're a gym, just get rid of it. All they have to do, Sal, is actually just put something more proper in the water bottle. Just water. Spray and wipe with water would be fine. Water or water and soap.

Just a little bit of soap. Just basic soap. But I even think that's not necessary. Just wipe your sweat and then at the end, twice a day, you have reporters go through and clean everything, and you're perfectly fine. These chemicals are spraying everywhere, it's not a good trade-off. And you're working out, you're breathing hard.

I was saying, not to mention you're breathing, if everyone's constantly spraying those things in there, you know you're breathing it in. It's a freaking chemical warfare in the gyms with the amount of shit that they... If I see a bench that someone just used and I see it's wet with like the chemicals I'll find... I'd rather go on one that had a little sweat spot on it. Yeah, and I'll just wipe the sweat with a towel. That's so true. And I'm perfectly fine. I think it's... I think if you're a gym get rid of that stuff right away. It's worse. It's worse for people. None of that penetrates me with my mask on though.

I'm safe. You work out with a mask, dude. Yeah, dude. Hey, speaking of all this. I wanna keep it alive. Have you guys seen, so I've, well, this is a low bar, okay? Well, here, I'll ask you guys this question. Have you guys ever felt positive or encouraged

by government policy when it comes to health? I know. In any way? I don't think ever. I feel like it's too good to be true. Like seeing RFK get sworn in and then the things that he wants to do just seem like, is this possible? Could there, could, but then again, I've said this forever on this show, that I tend to be the least alarmist out of all of us

and I really believe that the pendulum swings and we've swung so hard in that direction that maybe we're actually swinging back the other direction. I mean, he has a lot of experience going after big companies and challenging them and winning lawsuits. So, I mean, I'm slightly encouraged.

Same, because the bar's low. Government policy on chronic health and obesity is terrible. It's so bad that it's made us worse. Almost doing anything is gonna be positive right now. Caring in general, like I didn't even hear that from the other side at all. And the stuff that they pushed forever for decades

was actually the opposite. So it's so bad it was actually making people worse. This is the first time I feel optimistic and it's not because he has experience fighting companies or because I trust the guy, it's because the stuff he says is actually more aligned with real health. Like he did a post on X where he posted a picture of the breakfast cereals for kids.

And he's like, we need to, like this is terrible. People feeding their kids this, we gotta get in and make sure kids are not eating this crap. He's a government official talking about big company like stuff. Talking about sugar and artificial dyes and stuff like that. I think it's amazing, but he, dude, you gotta see the stats that he was quoting. I saved it on like the state of our health. This is gonna crap everybody out, but it's pretty bad. So the US, six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease. Four in 10 Americans have two or more chronic diseases, which is ridiculous.

Autoimmune diseases are some of the highest in the world. Inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis. This is, we're the highest, I believe, of all the Western nation. For children in 2022, 30 million children, 40%. 40% of our children had at least one health condition, such as allergies, asthma, or autoimmune. That's crazy. Autism is one in 36 children in the US. Okay, which is crazy.

In the 1980s, it was, you want to know what the number was in the 1980s? For autism? So right now it's one out of 36 kids. Yeah. You want to guess? One in a thousand. It was one or maybe four out of ten thousand. Ten thousand. Wow, even crazier. I had a doctor that I trained. What is that increase? That's like a huge increase. Thousands of percent increase. It's insane. I had a doctor that I trained who said

autism was so rare when he was getting his, when he was doing his, what do they call it? Residency. Residency. He said it was so rare that there was a person with autism and that they all would go, they went to go look at this guy because you couldn't find it anywhere. It was so rare that there was a person with autism and that they all would go, they went to go look at this guy because you couldn't find it anywhere, it was so rare. 18% of late adolescents and young adults

have fatty liver disease. 30% of adolescents are pre-diabetic and more than 40% are overweight or obese. It's, I mean, and then he goes, talks about ADD, talks about like all of this stuff. So they're gonna talk about exercise, nutrition, they're gonna examine SSRIs, they're gonna examine ADHD medications for kids.

They're going down the list of stuff. And it's so- I mean, that's the biggest alarming factor is looking at the health of our kids. I mean, I understand adults, that's a major problem, but if we're not addressing this at the root of it all, we're not giving them a chance from the very jump. We gotta really take hold of it.

Well, what's scary to me is, and I don't think that, I'm not a person that's gonna say that the pharmaceutical industry's evil. I don't say that. I just think that, I think there's good and bad people in every industry. I think the pharmaceutical industry has some distorted incentives because of the nature of the beast. In other words, the incentive that a pharmaceutical company

has to create a lifelong customer from child to adult is very high. There is no incentive really to cure them and then that's it. Or to prevent ever needing treatment at all. It's a distorted incentive. So, pharmacy industry, just because of the nature of it, that's not where we should look to solve these things.

They're not gonna give us help when the shit hits the fan, but they're not gonna prevent the shit from hitting the fan, is my whole point. When you say things like that, does it make you question the whole idea of capitalism with the pharmaceutical industry? Almost like you're pro free market for most everything, but then when it comes to something like that. No.

Well, that's like saying- It's the protection. It's the ability to not question and peer into the data and have lawsuits. Would that be enough? Would that be enough? Yeah, and the problem is not, you gotta be fair with the comparison

because what you're saying is, is it better, would you rather get stabbed with a needle a bunch of times or get shot in the face with a shotgun? Well, I'll pick the needle, but that sucks, still sucks. So, capitalism's the better, the best option we have, and I think we could do it better. But yeah, what's the other option?

Make it complete. That's the ugly side, right? Is that driven towards that continual growth and how do we do this? Well yeah, that's what I mean, because obviously they're motivated to get customers. They're motivated, and which is capitalism is built on that. And for most other industries that serves us as a species that, you know, they're competing each other to give something that is

better for the customer. But when it comes to the pharmaceutical, it's in their best interest to keep you on medications or get you on another medication. And so if that's the desired outcome from a pharmaceutical company, and that's what's driving it, that capitalistic type of mentality, that can be really dangerous, right? Yeah, what you're saying is that the special interests or selfish interests play a role in that,

but they play a role in that in socialism too. They play a role, that's the, so I think the checks and balances need to be a little bit better. I think like what Justin says with like lawsuits, with transparency, and I do think that because we have an open society, I think now people are becoming more privy to it.

I think COVID sped that the hell up. I think they really sped that up. A lot of people now are looking, you know, twice at certain things. So it'd be interesting to see if he, you know, addresses the the marketing of these pharmaceutical companies, you know, on TV and media and all that kind of stuff as well. Yeah, that one's interesting to me. When I learned that statistic, I thought that's true. Why are they advertising prescription drug companies

that we can't even go by? We have to have our doctor prescribe us. Why is that advertised on TV? It's like, oh, so they can pay. It's the messaging. Yeah, they can pay these media companies and have a little bit of power over them. Yeah, that's crazy.

You know, earlier we were talking about studies. I'll give you guys a study that, let me see if I have it here, that now that we've kind of talked about how to read studies, let's see if you guys can kind, that now that we've kind of talked about how to read studies, let's see if you guys can kind of get to what's interesting with this. So this study showed that men who have sex once a month

are 45% more likely to have cardiovascular disease compared to those who have sex two to three times a week. So there's two ways we can look at this. Right? So way one is. I mean there's a couple things. The guy who's. The old boy's stressed.

The guy who's having like low amount of sex like that's probably depressed. Yeah. Right? It's probably sitting on the end for, and it's probably. His lifestyle's affected for sure. It's a cycle, right?

So not only is he not having a lot of sex, but then he's sitting at home eating Cheetos, he's not exercising, which is not helping his case to have sex anymore. And he's probably more likely to have erectile dysfunction. He's more likely not to have that, so it's like a feedback loop. Yeah, so there's a correlation that can,

you know, one person, someone might look at that and be like, oh, if I want to reduce my risk of cardio disease, I need to just have a lot of sex. But it's probably reverse causation. Totally. Yeah, like the guy who's having almost no sex, why aren't you having that much sex? Yes.

You're lonely, you're depressed. Yeah, 100% life, that's the factor. I had my cousins were sharing that. We're just, you just gotta have more sex. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's not that simple. So the dude, the guy who wants to reduce his risk, he should just go to a brothel.

Yeah, yeah. I'm lowering my risk. Of course. Can I get an insurance reduction for this? Yes. He should just go to a brothel. I'm lowering my risk. Can I get an insurance reduction for this? Yeah, can I get a write off on all this? Yeah, write off. I know. You know, speaking of studies, I saw God Saad talking about a study on behavioral stuff.

That's what his background is, right? And do you guys know what the number one predictor of child abuse is? The number one predictor of child abuse is? The number one predictor. Step parent. It is right. Yeah. I would have never guessed that. I would, you would think alcoholism, you would think like, you know, prior,

the parent being getting abused prior, like you, there's a whole host of things that would, but it's like, it's not even close, like, so like, yeah, like you're having a step parent is more dangerous for the child than them being an alcoholic or all these other things. Not that that's a good thing, but it's that that's how much of it's a greater predictor is just simply a step parent. I thought that was really fascinating.

It's sad. And there's a lot of, there's an argument, it's like to try to support, like, why is that the case? Uh, it's competition. It's, it's the responsibility without the connection. I have all this responsibility for this kid, either with resources or through my work,

but they're not my kid. Resentment, there's a lot of things I can. There's also something to be said about why you, why you don't, why you don't with a child that you just absolutely, because it's yours, and you feel this different connection and bond I feel like. When it's your child that shares a part of you,

I feel like there's a different level of- When a kid has a really good step-parent, that's such a nice thing. It's a really great blessing. You'll hear sometimes, I know a couple people like this where they're, oh this is my dad, this is my mom. I was like, well actually he's been raising me since I was four.

Such a great dad, a great mom. That's a great blessing. If you ever hear Katrina talk about, she talks about her stepfather more than she does her own father. Yeah, yeah. So her own father is, she has a really, she has a similar relationship with her own father as I have my mother and she's way more, or was, Troy passed away, but she attributes a lot of her good

from what she's learned from him, and so he was a good stepfather. Yeah, there's a lot, some of that data's kind of hard to read too, because you'll read that, let's say you're in a marriage and you're unhappy and your spouse is not that great. They're not that great. They're not terrible, they're like beating everybody

and abusing drugs, but they're just not good. And you're really unhappy and you'll hear, well your kids will be better off if you get divorced and you get happy. The data actually doesn't show that. The data doesn't support that. The data actually shows the worse. They're worse off if they're raised by a single parent.

That's a conundrum. Yes. And now people hate hearing that because it's against kind of what we want to hear, but the data does show that. Or like, I divorced his dad and he's such a crappy guy, I want him completely out of their lives. Versus, he's in their lives but he's not that great, right? It's actually better that he's in their lives, but he's not that great, right? It's actually better that he's in their lives a little bit.

And that, also a lot of people don't hear that. I saw a marriage expert talking about this, and it supports the argument that I think I've made before about why many people end up in divorce, like one of the number one reasons, is it's purely picking the wrong person to what I've talked about before, like you're attracted to all of your insecurities and brokenness is what you mistake as love, is you're drawn to this.

You know, I would argue differently now. I would argue that, you know, if you look at the way marriage, as we understand it, one man, one woman, where did that come from? Where did that originate from? How we understand it? And it came from the Judeo-Christian religion. And they actually have a framework in there of how successful marriage is supposed to work. And if you look at the data on people that follow the framework like that, they have very successful marriages. But when you read the framework of how it says you're supposed to be within your marriage, it's the opposite of what you're here. So I could give you an example, what you hear all the time

from marriage therapists, accounts, whatever, is you gotta get your needs met. You need to get your needs, know what your needs are, express them, and your partner needs to meet your needs. It says, it doesn't say that. It says you need to meet your, you need to, the key to successful marriage is you meet their needs. Is you gotta be other focused.

And there's a lot of stuff in there that you read that you go, oh my God, but then you compare it to the data and it's like, it actually works. I mean, so basically what you're saying is, your argument is that it's people not following the original framework to how marriage should be. Problem with that is, problem with that is though that there's obviously a major correlation with, just like we just talked about,

other studies and diets and stuff like that, if you're somebody who puts God above yourself- Totally. You know exactly where you're going. Yeah, that and itself is already, and both of you think that way when you marry, then there's a super high chance that you would be... The one study I brought up a while ago, couples that pray together, it's a very famous study,

couples that pray together every day, every night, so they pray together openly, their odds of divorce are 1%. That's crazy. That's like, you don't find that anywhere. Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, there's also an obvious, like, huge correlation. If you have the ability to, you know, there's an old, like, don't go to bed, you know, angry, right?

Yeah, if you believe in God, you believe in God, you'll be vulnerable. If you've got to sit down, the girl, the spouse you just got in a fight with, you know, you know that tonight you're going to sit down and pray. You're going to have to pray tonight together with them. It's like, you got to talk to God. He knows everything. Yeah, yeah, you've got to solve that, right? So there's definitely, there's something there

just for that, right? Because if the couple has the ability to do that, that means they have the ability to work through problems. Even from a secular perspective, my grandparents' generation, the understanding around marriage was different than what it became. It became about falling in love, irresistible, meet my needs, you know, Jerry Maguire, you complete me,

right, it was all that's so romantic, whatever. Back in my grandparents' generation, nobody believed that. It was all about like, we're signing up for this forever and we're gonna raise a family together. And you're gonna do that job, we'll do this job, and we just go, we just do this together, and this is forever. It was never about like, yeah, you complete me.

You make me whole. I forget what I read too, what a huge part social media has played in divorce too. I forgot what it's, there's a high percentage. You know what's playing the biggest role right now? Pornography. Do you know pornography is listed as one of the number one reasons for divorce today? Is it?

Yes it is. Number one. Is one of the number one, I don't know if it's number one. Doug, you can put, how often is pornography cited in divorce today? It's one of the top. And the number one. I don't know if it's number one Doug you can put how often is pornography cited in divorce today It's one of the top and the data show I would say so if you word that like that It would also social media would pop up there too. There's like oh, yeah like cheating on there

Yeah, oh, yeah, it's listed in there be interesting to see what the Ordered it but there was a data on this too It's like when when a couple view pornography regularly together, their odds of divorce go up quite a bit. When the wife looks at it regularly, it goes up quite a bit. If the husband looks at it quite a bit on his own, it goes up quite a bit.

So pornography's playing a huge role today. Yeah, it says divorce rates double when people start watching porn. See? Yeah. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, yeah. Well what's crazy,

well what's really crazy and unfortunate about that is there's a lot of, I mean there's somebody listening right now, I guarantee you, you'll get off fire. Oh, that's good for me. That's a sex expert that tries to, Bullshit. Tries to make the case all the time for that.

I mean we've communicated with them before and that's, Sex experts are such a, I mean here we go, right? I'm gonna put this right here. It's such a bullshit, it's such a, fine, you disagree with me, that's fine. You just keep listening if you disagree. But it's such a bullshit job and I'll tell you why.

Sex experts are experts in pleasure. Yeah. But the data will show the best satisfaction with sex comes from connection. Sex is a result of deep connection. Insistency is like communication. It's not just the physical act. And so sex experts would tell you,

how do you satisfy your partner? Touch your hair, touch him there, do this weird thing with your tongue or whatever. The best sex, the data shows us, the best sex experienced by people is people who've been married for like 30 years, they're past their prime, they've only been with each other,

they're not doing weird shit with each other, they're just, it's the connection. I mean, I would have, straight up, I would have never believed that. Same. You know, 14 years ago. I would have said, no, that's no way, not true. That's all about novelty.

The novelty, the new, the, you know, no matter who I was with within six months, I don't care how beautiful, how amazing, whatever she is, then something new or different is always with, but I guess when you truly find someone that you're in love with or willing to love like that, it grows, which is a trip. It's a trip to think, Katrina and I always talk about this

with each other, how amazed that we are that it's 14 years later and the sex life, the attraction, everything is better now. Because you always hear the honeymoon phase too. Like people always say like, oh yeah, well, once you get to the honeymoon phase. Are you guys, you know, I'm putting you on the spot, but are you, are you, well, I'll put you on the spot. Are you objectively the hottest you've ever been?

No, no, no, I don't think so. She might say that though. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, but I would say the same thing. I look at when she was 29, 30 when we first got together and I'm way more attracted to her in her mid 40s than I am what she was in her 20s. So yeah, it's interesting.

There's something to be said about that. But I would have never believed it. Like, so if I was listening to this and I'm 20 and I'm 20 something, I'm just like, yeah, you guys don't understand about it. I'd be saying things like this because you don't have any good sex. You obviously don't have good sex. Yeah. If you see what's going on over my place right now, I'd be a different story. Sign up for stripper classes. Look what I learned, honey.

But I think you see, you see too satisfaction go up when people pursue that kind of stuff, but it's because the intimacy level goes up. It's not because they learn a new trick. Well, it's also probably a spike and then drop too, right? There's probably like the novelty. Oh, wow. No, but what I mean is, let's say you have a couple long time and they feel like our sex life is a little whatever, so they read a book together then they read a book together, or the intimacy level goes up,

because they're vulnerable with each other. So that's why you'll see some of these. Well honestly, I think that, because obviously they try and, these sex experts try and pull and use the studies to support what pornography can do to support the argument, but I would argue that that's just the vulnerability piece

of like two of you agreeing you're gonna do something and be vulnerable. Some of the best reported. Just taking the focus off of each other. We're projecting outward instead of like, you know, keeping it within. Some of the best reported, if the data shows us, some of the best reported satisfaction with sex lives

are couples who are, been married for a long time, they're past their prime, who were their first and only partners. That's some of the best satisfaction ratings you get. He's the only man I've ever been with, she's the only woman I've ever been with. And they grew together through that process. That is so counter from what the world tells you.

The world is like, you gotta try it out first. You've been eating at Sizzler your whole life and you have no idea. You have no idea You have no idea what Ruth Chris tastes like Hey, you know what's crazy about that By the way, that's actually that's actually not true. However, even if it was true You're happy. I mean, that's it's so crazy. Well, you've never tried, you know, you're satisfied with your Honda, but you've never driven a Ferrari, that's why. Even if that was true, which is not true,

the data actually shows it has nothing to do with that, because I can get in the data queue. I mean, they've got a lot of accessories you can buy. Yeah, but they're happier. So who gives a shit, you know what I mean? I mean, it's true. At the end of the day, if you're happier, you're happier. It doesn't matter for what reasons, you know.

Dude, speaking of happy, and this is a funny story. So this morning I go out there and I'm talking to Cole. And so remember on the Christmas, what was it, the white elephant gift? Remember he stole your Caldera Lab? Yeah. And he's like the youngest guy in here. How old is Cole?

Is he 20? Is he even 21 yet? Is he 21? He's not. No, I don't think so. No, because we went somewhere and he, yeah, he wasn't able to drink. The Christmas party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Young kid, and he's like, what are you gonna do with Caldera Lab? He loves it. We went somewhere and he wasn't able to drink. The Christmas party. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Young kid, he's like, what are you gonna do with caldera lab? He loves it. Yeah. That's why he stole it. Yeah, seriously, he's got the youthful skin on his side. Yeah, you go backwards too far, bro.

Yeah, you already look too young, dude. You look like a baby. You already look too young, right? Dude, the combination of the base layer with the oil, oh, that is like, what is that? I actually had a DM the other day. I wasn't using the base layer before. So I Oh, that is like, what is that? I actually had a DM the other day. I wasn't using the base layer before.

So I had a good time to bring this up in the commercial is that I had a DM the other day about, it was a female who said that her husband and her son both love and use it and that is it good for women too? There's 100%. It's all natural. So both men and women can use it. My wife will steal mine if I don't bring her one.

Katrina loves it and uses it too. So if you're a listener and you've been curious about it as a female, like it's not just for men. I mean, I think they marketed in that direction because there was a need in the market and they filled that need. But yeah, no. I'd like to see their data. I would be surprised if more men used it now. I bet you... Oh, you think there's that many women that are using it? I think so. Oh, I don't think so. I think they mark it strong to men and that's gotta be their done.

What would you say, Doug? Men. You think so? Yeah, yeah. You should ask them. Because I know what happened to my house. My wife tried it and now she steals it. But I mean, I think that's where, it's just smart.

The woman's skincare is so competitive that they, I think, very similar to Viori success, right, I saw they instead of going after Lululemon directly in athleisure wear for women, they went to the back door, they went through men. Now there's a lot of women that are all wearing that also, but I'm sure the same thing is Caldera. Caldera is focused on men and I think, you know,

as a side effect, some women are trying it or using it, but I would think that's still their dominant market, so. Probiotics have been shown to improve health, digestion, recovery from workouts, even reduce anxiety in some people and depression in some people. I don't think I need to convince you that probiotics are healthy, but which one do you get?

Seed, seed is the world's best probiotic, hands down. Check them out, go to seed.com forward slash mind pump, use the code two five mind pump, get 25% off. All right, back to the show. First question is from Sky Real Lejo, mess that up. Do trigger sessions still send the signal to build muscle and speed up the metabolism?

All right, so we gotta define trigger session first. Some people refer to trigger sessions like a feeder session. Grease in the groove. Or grease in the groove or microdosing. So trigger session is just a term that we came up with with our program Maps in a Blog. Essentially what it is is there are little mini workouts

in between your main workouts. And they're not really workouts. You're using bands typically with a trigger session or body weight and you're just kind of getting a little bit of a pump in the muscle. You're just working it a little bit. You're not anywhere near intense. You're trying to break down. Yeah, yeah. So it's like I hit my full body on Monday. Today I'm going to do a trigger session for chest and let's say I could do 70 push- Monday. Today I'm going to do a trigger session for chest. And let's say I could do 70 pushups straight. You know, I'm going to do like three sets of like 15, just to get a little pump in

my chest and really what trigger sessions do is they facilitate recovery and they actually make the adaptation signal louder. They take your previous workout, the main workout, and they just add a little turbo to it. Which is a direct connection to building muscle and speeding metabolism up. Definitely. Yeah. If you have the ability to recover at a faster rate, you're going to build more muscle. If you build more muscle, it's going to speed your metabolism up. I think the way

not to look at it is like, is this extra workout enough to be burning X amount of calories to burn body it's not don't think of it that way it's that you're optimizing your training program and your sessions and you're helping facilitate recovery speeding that process up you can speed that process up you in turn build more muscle speed your metabolism. Now what I would like what I would also like to add now that we know what we know with CGMs, right, Continuous Glucose Monitor, what we know about with insulin.

Activity, insulin sensitivity, which, you know, staying sensitive to insulin is a great strategy for health and for fat loss. I bet you trigger sessions have a really nice impact on blood sugar because throughout the day you're doing a little bit of movement. And I bet you it's better than walking because it's a little bit more targeted and more intense than a walk. So I do think that because here's what I notice for trigger sessions when I do trigger sessions I

definitely get a little boost in my regular workouts I notice I get a little bit more more juice out of them but what I noticed the most is fat loss. I've always noticed fat loss from trigger sessions. So I'm wondering if that's the reason. Because I'm not like burning tons of calories. A total trigger session will take me seven minutes. Yeah, but I had, there's another correlation or behavior I noticed that's attached to that for me, is when I do the trigger sessions,

I'm just more active through the day too. Because of the energy. Yes, because I remember when the most discipline I ever was was around competing time. And I remember I used to hang the bands in my living room over this door. They were all set up to go. And if I just kind of made it a habit that, hey, every hour

or two, go over there and do a couple exercises. And there'd be times where I'm sitting down on the couch not wanting to do anything, get up and do that. After I do it, now I'm doing the times where I'm like sitting down on the couch, not wanting to do anything, get up and do that after I do it. Now all of a sudden, now I'm doing the dishes, I'm doing other things. And so it would just promote more activity and moving. So I think there's something to be said there too,

with like its connection to fat loss. Next question is from Risa Auger. When should you consider eating back your burned calories? Oh, so this is like when you're calculating how many calories you're burning through activity should you make up for them with extra calories. I'm assuming when you're trying to gain, right? Yeah.

This is the strategy here. By the way, you gotta be careful with this too. Yeah, this is a tricky kind of mentality. Yeah, because what you'll calculate or what the apps will show that you're burning with activity isn't very accurate. Yeah, doesn't usually equate. Yeah, you gotta be kind of careful with this.

And I don't necessarily like looking at activity as this phenomenal way for creating calorie deficit. The deficit should mainly come from resting metabolic rate and also the big thing is your diet. So again, this is when someone's trying to gain. This is when I'm like, okay, you're doing more activity why don't we bump your calories a little bit,

is typically what I do. Yeah, this is difficult because I need to know the person that I'm talking to because if it was somebody who's like a hard gainer That they already struggle with hitting their maintenance calories or in a surplus that I'm encouraging them to probably increase Calories and pay attention that every which way they can but the average person who's just kind of maybe going through a mini bulk Or like I've decided to go on a slight surplus right here and you're trying to figure this out. If you whatever you've decided is your surplus, let's say there's a day where you burn more calories because you were just more active. That's okay.

It's not like it changes. What ends up happening and this is I explain this in my little docu-series I did, where in a month's time, especially that first month, built I think I built four or five pounds of muscle and I lost Almost 20 pounds of fat. Well, how is that possible? Because we know you can't burn body fat and build muscle at the same exact time Well, that's because it wasn't happening exact same time in that month There was periods where I was a little bit in a surplus and there were periods when I was a little bit in a deficit And so there was times when my body was anabolic and times when my body's catabolic.

So there's times when this person who's trying to build muscle, so long as they're in a surplus most of the time or a lot of the time, they're gonna gain. And the few times that they're a little bit in a deficit, they'll probably lose a little bit of body fat. Especially if it's not a crazy amount of a deficit for an extended period of time.

And so it's not something that I would ever, I've ever worried about myself or with a client like, oh, you burn an extra 200 calories a day, make sure you bump your calories 200 more even today. It's like, we've decided your caloric maintenance is here. We've decided this is your goal calories. I'm not worried if that day you had an addition. It does seem like splitting hairs, right?

Like, oh, I burn an extra calorie, I gotta eat it, now I gotta eat an extra 367 calories, really. And now you're trying to use your tool to measure every different kind of workout, and you're like, oh, that workout burned that many, so now I gotta eat this more. It's like, dude, it does not have to be that complicated. Next question is from Mike, OK72.

Do you recommend any kind of break from training? Depends who you are. If you're a fitness fanatic, yes. If you're like consistent, don't miss workouts, you push it, you love spending time at the gym, a break will give you better results, period, end of story. And a break can look like time off, or if you're like me and time off is like,

you might as well tell me to cut my leg off, then the break would look like four weeks or two weeks or three weeks of dramatically reduced intensity or volume. So your break looks like a much easier workout. But the data shows this with consistent, with fitness fanatics, so that category of people, breaks produce better results because they tend to push it too far for too long and the brakes are needed for those individuals.

Yeah. And for those, I like shifting the focus in working on other things that aren't as taxing on the body and like working on bouts of mobility and, you know, where I can find opportunities to kind of reinforce stability and control and you know all the other aspects of you know the pursuit towards fitness and health is there's just so many things to cover and I know that I'm not always balanced right and so I'm just kind of continuously looking at this moving target of what you know where there's deficits and a lot of times it's it's taking a break from the intensity of the

training and the weight training and focusing a little bit more on the movement aspect or focusing more on the diet aspect or just my overall mental health and relationships and that kind of thing. I want to give some generic but very specific advice to the audience that I've never have in regards to this that I think aligns with this. We've said before on the podcast that we think that almost everybody, if not everybody, should at least one period of time in the year run like a performance or a symmetry type of program,

to address all that. I'm gonna make the argument that I think that everybody should at least for one period of the year run like a Maps 15 type of a protocol. And what is leading me to say that is, and it just keeps getting confirmed with me with our listeners and audience and people I know that have gone through this,

a lot of people that listen to this podcast, I would say a greater percentage are fitness fanatic or fitness people that are really into it. They don't miss days. Yeah, they don't miss days. They're very consistent or they come from a history of training hard and pushing. And I can't tell you how many times I've gotten DMs

and I'm seeing people report back to me like, man, I really didn't believe I'd see results on Math 15 and I saw this and I saw that. I think the people that are hardcore fitness people tend to have a tendency to over apply the intensity and volume. And I think a period of running like a MAPS 15 protocol, I think it will help you peer into that

if you're that type of person. So I think that everybody should run something like that once a year. MAPS Anabolic Advanced has back off weeks in there. After each phase, there's a week where you're really backing off on things. And I think it's one of the reasons why that program, people will write back and say, I got some of the best gains I've ever had in my entire life. And it's because it's one of the only programs we actually scheduled a lot of times.

We actually scheduled it in there and said, after each phase, you have to take a week off. Next question is from Richie IE89. I have three consecutive days off a week. I want to try a full body workout, but is training full body three days in a row a smart idea? I currently do legs and biceps on Monday, chest and triceps on Tuesday, and back and biceps on Wednesday.

It depends on how you do it. You could do full body three days a week. Just to modify intensity? Yeah, one day is heavy compound lifts, the next day is isolation, then the last day is mobility, full body three days a week if it's like one day's heavy compound lifts The next day's isolation and the fault in the last day is mobility full body then you're perfectly fine Yeah, this split works perfectly fine as well It's it's not ideal to work out for three days and then take four days off Yeah, but it's fine. You'd still progress as so long as you're smart with your programming you could do it

But if I had to do full body three days, that's how I do it. I go like heavy Monday, compound lifts, Tuesday, isolation, exercises for the full body. And then, you know, Wednesday would be mobility, you know, full body. And then, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. Yeah. I don't know how I would go back and forth on it. I mean, you could even do a, like the, the upper body, lower body type

of toggling back and forth. Upper lower full. Yeah. Something like that. There's a lot of different things. I'd also always want a client like this to consider like a max 15 type routine. Like I'm assuming your other days when you work are long days and so getting to the gym for an hour is just not feasible, but maybe getting a 15, 20 minute workout in your garage or something is feasible.

And so this kind of micro dosing approach versus trying to cram it all in your three days. By the way something else that nobody ever really considers bodybuilders do this often but really nobody else does because our days or weeks or seven days we tend to just set a convenience program everything is seven day blocks. Yeah we're looking at it in the month or something. Yeah bodybuilders for a long time seven days, we tend to, just at a convenience, program everything in seven day blocks. Yeah, for example, in the month or something. Yeah, bodybuilders for a long time would do a routine. They'd be like three on, one off, two on, one off,

type of routine. So every week, each day looks different, right? But they're not looking at it from a seven day period, they're looking at it from a 30 day period or a 35 day period or something like that. So that's how I think, that's what I meant by, I would actually go upper, lower, upper, lower, upper, lower, at the end of the month. Irregardless lower, up or lower, up or lower at the end of the month.

Irregardless. Yeah, irregardless. So at the end of the month, so some weeks you have two of them are gonna be upper and then other times you're gonna have two or lower and you just toggle through the whole month like that. I like that. After 30 days though it looks like, yeah. After the whole year it looks pretty nice though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no I agree. I think that's, sometimes we look at everything in this like snapshot of seven days. It has to fit seven days. No you're- I actually like that, I like that a lot. Yeah, you could you can either go up or lower upper and then lower upper Yeah, yeah Yeah Yeah, all the way through and then at the end of the month if you do the math on you've basically getting two really good workouts Of upper or lower in a week like that's pretty solid. You can make some pretty good gains now that works

Well, look if you like the show come find us on Instagram You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam 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

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