Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2559: Four Weird Ways to Build Muscle & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach three Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: 4 weird ways to build muscle. (2:03) GHK-CU and its effect on skin looseness. (22:35) Sal���s confessional. (28:32) Is this the beginning of the end for CrossFit? (49:53) Drinking with or without Zbiotics. (55:52) #ListenerLive question #1 – Do body proportions or body type play a significant role in the way someone is able to change their body through resisting training? (57:25) #ListenerLive question #2 – Is it possible that consuming a lot of eggs can have a negative effect on sleep? (1:09:25) #ListenerLive question #3 – What is your take on myostatin blockers? Is this another fitness fad? (1:20:47) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Luminose by Entera for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MPM at checkout for 10% off their order or 10% off their first month of a subscribe-and-save. ** Visit Pre-Alcohol by ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MINDPUMP25 for 15% off first-time purchasers on either one-time purchases, (3, 6, 12-packs) or subscriptions (6, 12-pack) ** March Promotion: MAPS Performance or MAPS Performance Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** How Much Exercise You Need to Offset Sitting All Day The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle How to Use Intra-Set Stretching for the BEST Shoulder Workout | Ben Pakulski Use Intra-Set Stretching for the BEST Hamstring Workout | Ben Pakulski How to Use Intra-Set Stretching for the BEST Chest Workout | Ben Pakulski Regenerative and Protective Actions of the GHK-Cu Peptide in the Light of the New Gene Data Visit Transcend for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! ** March 3 – March 31 = 25% Off Wolverine & Endurance Stacks! Wolverine Stack: PDA (BPC)/TB-500 (Including the KPV stack as well – Capsules and Injectable stacks). Endurance Stack: SS-31/Tesofensine (Optimized for performance and recovery). March 10 – March 31 = 35% Off Exosomes. ** CrossFit for Sale After Years of Drama and Attrition Sexy Athlete Bundle – Mind Pump Media Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump Mind Pump # 2502: Hormone Therapy for Aesthetics With Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald 7-Day Overtraining Rescue Guide | Free by Mind Pump Media Stephan Cabral Cortisol Test Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, Ph.D. (@biolayne) Instagram Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness) Instagram Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram LAUREN FITZ, M.D. (@drlaurenfitz) Instagram Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Phil Heath (@philheath) 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 Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we had live callers call in. We got to help them on air. We got to coach them, but this was after our intro. And the intro today was 54 minutes long.

Now in there, we talk about studies and fitness and diets, good time. Then we got to the callers. By the way, if you wanna call in and get coached on air, email us your question at live at mindpumpmedia.com. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Luminose by Intera. Today we talked about

their skincare products that have the highest amount of GHKCU peptide you'll find anywhere. It has been shown in studies to help improve loose skin. Okay, there's studies that actually show GHKCU helps with loose skin, not just making it look better or more firm, but actually with skin looseness. And again, their product that Luminose has the highest concentration of GHK-CU that I've ever seen. Go check them out. Go to interaskincare.com that's E-N-T-E-R-A skincare.com forward slash M-P-M. Use the code NPM get 10% off your order. This episode is also brought to you by Zbiotics. This is a pre-alcohol drink. It's actually a probiotic that's been genetically modified to break down acetaldehyde, one of the negative

byproducts of alcohol consumption. So you take Zbiotics, then you drink alcohol, and watch what happens. You feel way better. Go check them out. Go to zbiotics.com forward slash mind pump to five use the code mind pump to five for 15% off if you're a first-time purchaser we also have some program sales this month Maps performance and Maps performance advance both 50% off if you're interested go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code March 50 for the discount all right here comes the show all All right, you wanna build muscle, you know you need to lift weights, you know you need to eat a high protein diet

and get good sleep, but are there other ways to trigger muscle growth? Yes, there are. Today we're gonna talk about four weird ways you can boost muscle growth. I'll start with the first one, and I did use the word trigger. The first one is trigger sessions,

or as some people call them, exercise snacks. That's the lamest version, come on. Snacks, stop calling them that. But I'll pull up, they just did a study. They did, right? On trigger sessions. They did, so here's what they did in the study.

So in the study, they took individuals and they had them sit for seven hours. Some of them would get up every so often, in this study, every 30 minutes and do some body weight squats. It wasn't a workout, it wasn't intense, it was literally just do some body weight squats. Just doing that increased muscle growth signal, so all the ways that we know currently to measure muscle growth signals, including muscle protein synthesis, it was seven and a half times higher than when the person didn't do that at all.

That's a big difference. Seven and a half. That's a big difference. Now, it's not like a workout, right? A workout going to lifting weights is going to send the loudest muscle building signal, but the challenge with that is there's only so much you can do. You're always battling with recovery and adaptation. If you could just work out more and continue to build more muscle, then you could work out 24 hours a day and you'd be amazing. But you're limited.

So it's like, okay, are there other ways that could trigger muscle growth that don't compromise my recovery? And this is one of them. It's a trigger session. Well it doesn't even not doesn't not compromise it also it's really facilitates recovery. Correct. I mean that's really where the... It's even better. Yeah I think that's probably where the the misconception around feeder sessions or trigger sessions or whatever I want to call it is or whenever I see them done wrong is when people think it's just simply increasing the volume of training, right? Like, Oh, okay. Yeah. I'll just train more times frequently throughout the day, but you approach it with the same type of intensity that you would train.

And that's not how you get these benefits. The benefits really come from the facilitation of recovery, because we know more blood flow, more oxygen, more nutrients is what's going to speed up the recovery process. And so, I mean, there's a bit of a like, duh, right? When you think about it, when you, cause you know that, that's been well known and documented for a long time that that's what builds muscle is the recovery process. And through the processes of all the things I just said. Yeah.

And then you stack on top of that, that you're practicing these types of movements with low intensity, which increases your skill, right? So that's another way to sharpen the sword on that regard, but you're practicing these types of movements with low intensity, which increases your skill, right? So that's another way to sharpen the sword on that regard, but you're getting the benefits of the recovery while doing that, carries over into now the actual more intense days. Right. So by the way, the study also compared getting up and walking. And getting up and walking also boosted muscle growth more than just sitting. So any activity-

What was the, okay, so seven times was the trigger sessions, what was walking? Well, with walking they just saw an increase in muscle protein synthesis, which is actually, I don't remember the X and Y number, but it was significantly more than just sitting there. But the other growth signals weren't the same, right? Because body weight squats is more like strength training, whereas walking is just movement. But the challenge with this is when we think about building muscle through exercise or movement or activity, we think of strength training.

Strength training, there's this structure around it. It's a certain type of intensity. You're doing certain exercises. Unless it's that intensity of those exercises, it really doesn't count as strength training. The trick here is to not consider the strength training, but rather I'm doing strength training exercises, but I'm just doing them as a form of activity. The way that we've explained it in like Maths Anabolic, which uses trigger sessions, and how long has it been now?

12, 13 years since that program was created? I remember when writing that program, my dream was that people understood the concept of trigger sessions and used them with whatever workout they did, because you can. It doesn't matter what workout you're doing, if you find yourself on an off day or doing something that's inactive, if every few hours you just did some pushups, some bodyweight squats, some band rows,

just enough to get your body to move, maybe get a little bit of a pump, that's about it. The growth you get from that, the muscle building you get from that is, it's like a turbo charger. Now it doesn't compare to the workout, but when you add it to the workout, it's super powerful and it's super easy. And what's cool about this is that they just stood up. They just stood up and did some bodyweight squat, sat back down.

Yeah. And you saw seven times increase in gross signals. By the way, people have, one of the ways that I saw this or what the idea of this was, and I have this story I've told many times, is I just noticed the blue collar workers in my family who didn't lift weights at all had muscular body parts that correlated to the type of activity they did in their blue collar work. So like the male carriers of my family all had well developed calves in comparison to people who don't, aren't male carriers, right?

They didn't lift weights, they didn't do calf raises, they didn't go to the gym. They just all had like kind of nice looking calves, both the men and women in my family that did that. Then the other blue collar workers, people that swung hammers, they all had like kind of muscular forearms. And I thought, you know, they're not lifting weights at all.

And here's the second part of this. If you go become a construction worker or you go become a mail carrier, yeah, you're going to get sore in those body parts. But after six months or a year, it's gone. You're not tearing muscle down anymore. You're just doing something that you're really accustomed to. And yet, they had well-developed farms, well-developed calves, what's there?

And it's this right here. So it's a cool thing you can add. Anybody can add this to their routine and it doesn't compromise recovery, it only facilitates. I wish we could get you to do the extreme test of this because you would be such a good person to do this with. I've talked before about, you know, I bet if you were to drop down to once a week

of full body training, you would be able to keep. I'm serious. Imagine if it was one full body routine. That is it. And then just trigger sessions. These little 10 minute quick little workouts throughout the week. I bet you it would be really interesting to see a year from now, the compare, if yeah, we compared your physique. I am willing to bet it wouldn't be much different at all, if at all. Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe, maybe even hear you say things like, I actually feel better. Yeah, probably. I don't think you realize just how relevant what you said is, which we'll get to later. Yes, I agree with you, but and I think you're probably right.

It's probably, it's a lot more than even I will admit or try to realize. I know bro. I guess for the average person like this is as easy as like you know let's say you could rep out 30 push-ups. Well what if three or four times a day you did 10? That's all. You just went on the floor and did 10 push-ups. Is that going to boost muscle growth in my chest, shoulders, and triceps? I mean, 10 is easy. I can do 30 or 40 in a row. What's 10 going to do?

It's going to do something. That's the crazy thing about this. I had this one trainer, this guy Rafael, older guy. He was in his late 40s when I was in my... Ninja Turtle? No. There are other people named Rafael too. You're a painter or a Ninja Turtle. Not just Ninja Turtles.

That's all we got. He's never ran into a Raphael. This is pre-Justin, so this is before you came on to Hillsdale with me. I had this guy, he was from New York. He was Justin before you were there. No, he was definitely. No, we could be that guy.

He actually drove me crazy. But he, I would watch the way he trained and it was so different than anybody else. He would just all day long walk over to the Bicep Curls in one set. Yeah. Go over to the put, one set. That's all day, all he'd do.

I'd like never saw him do a full one hour workout. That's smart. It was just all the time and I used to like, and now I originally thought this guy is so obsessed with arms pumped up that he, that was what it was. It was like, Oh, clients coming. I need to get pumped up. Like, and it might've been why he did it. I'm not even sure he even understood what he was doing.

I mean, obviously he understood. He saw, he saw his, he had an incredible physique and, uh, it always, as, as long as he'd worked for me, you know, trainers were all, we all go ups and downs as far as like peak shake, okay shape, whatever. He stayed consistent, the most consistent guy I ever had, older guy working for me, and he trained that way. Never seen anybody else train that way. It was always, always these trigger like sessions and he had a crazy physique.

And he swore by that's the way he lives. I don't do a full hour session. I just do all these little and he didn't, I don't remember what he called him back then but micro sessions. It's been observed in many by coaches, by strength coaches, Olympic coaches, the Soviets I think in studies on stuff like this. It really does work. It's really easy but it's deceiving because it doesn't feel hard, it doesn't feel like a workout. So how important is it really? It won't, you know, I think you'd have to probably do a lot of them to supplant an actual workout, but keep your workout the way it is and just do, especially on your off days, a couple, two, three of these a day, and then watch what happens.

The next weird way is boosting growth hormone while you sleep. Are there ways you can or things you can take that will cause a boost in growth hormone that's significant enough to show some differences in muscle growth and fat loss over long periods of time? And I do think yes. Now this is not gonna be like taking growth hormone. This is not again gonna be like starting a workout. However, when you look at the data on what we're about to say, it will increase growth hormone

and it should over time, over a year, two years, three years, create a difference in how your body and your physique feel and look. And there's a few different ways to do this. One of them is to not eat a few hours before you go to bed. So growth hormone is typically highest when you sleep. That's when your body tends to release it. If you have food in your belly, especially carbohydrates,

you will get a rise in insulin, and insulin and growth hormone are inverse. Yeah, insulin goes up, growth hormone goes down, growth hormone goes up, insulin has to be down. So fasted and then the following compounds you could take. Arginine, OKG which is orthinine alpha-ketoglutarate, it's a form of the amino acid orthinine, glycine and GABA.

Take those before you go to bed on an empty stomach and the data depending on what study you see, you can see between 30 to 70 percent and some studies show double growth hormone output while you're sleeping. Yeah, I've noticed quite a difference just by loading breakfast and lunch, typically in like, trying to eliminate,

because dinner always is the biggest amount of calories, and that would impede on sleep a bit, because of digestion, and then I think too, yeah, like processing insulin and then, but kind of putting that on its head and flipping it has made a substantial difference in terms of strength and muscle building for me. Now, per our friend, Lay Norton, I remember him breaking down fasting and one of the many benefits attached to fasting is growth hormone. And that happens to be one of the ones

that he talks shit about. That it's negligible and the amount that you're getting from that is. So his point is this, and I'm not talking about fasting, fasting. What I mean by this is go to bed fasted. Exactly, you're still eating throughout the day. Yeah, you're not eating two or three hours before bed.

Not like 24 hour fast shows a spike in growth hormone. That's offset by the fact that you can't eat your protein. Yeah, you don't have any building materials. That's right, so you can have all the growth hormone you want, you're not hitting your protein. There's an order of operation. Just like the order of operation with what we're talking about in these weird ways is lift weights,

eat a high protein diet, get good sleep. If you don't do those, you can do all the ones we're about to talk about, it's not gonna do anything for you, but these are weird ways because a lot of people don't know about them and they're great things that you can add to an already good protein. Trubo boosts. That's right, and so those amino acids that I listed,

plus not eating a few hours before bed, over time that elevated growth hormone level while you sleep should improve your recovery, your skin health, your joint health, your ability to burn body fat and build muscle. And it's also healthy. It's also healthy to do that. Next up, deep stretching isometrics at the end of your workout.

I like this one. Yes. So isometrics in general are amazing. Isometrics in a lengthened position build the most muscle. So I could do an isometric on my bicep by flexing it like this, or I could flex it like this lengthened. Lengthened is going to send the loudest muscle building signal. You typically don't want to do a static stretch,

even with resistance at the beginning of a workout, because it tends to dampen the- Yeah, fry you a bit. Yeah, and also dampen the CNS a bit, which, you know, I guess with load, it may or may not, but I think at the end of the workout with a pump is how bodybuilders have typically used this particular method So what does this look like?

Let's say you work out your chest. You're done with your chest You do you finish your workout by holding a pair of dumbbells in the stretched fly position So you're on the bench and letting it stretch but you're holding it there and you're doing it for like a minute or a minute and a half That has been shown to stimulate muscle growth by itself, independent of strength training. And there's some really interesting animal studies on that where it induces muscle fiber hyperplasia, where you actually increase the amount of muscle fiber.

Yeah, I mean, lengthening and relaxing muscle with the CNS pre-fast twitch movement and activity is not a good idea. And they've shown that. So. But this is an isometric in the sense that. At the end it's perfect. I'm not just holding the stretch, I'm holding a weight, which means that I am allowing the stretch to happen,

but there's also enough of a contraction to support. There's resistance. Yes, so you could do this with your lats, you could do this with your delts, your triceps, your biceps. So it's still parasympathetic, it's just that you're honing in on that as a potential for needing to get recruitment there. This is a part of a program that was popular online called DC Training. DC stands for Dog Crap Training.

I don't know if you guys know this. Yeah, I'm familiar. Well, where they include this. I remember Ben Picholsky talked a lot about this kind of stretching. Yeah, he came on our YouTube channel. There's a good, for the audience, there's a good intro work setting. If you go to Mind Pump and I think search Mind Pump Intro Workout Stretching, I think is where it pops up and you'll see Ben Paculski teaching this and swears by it also.

It's gnarly. I'm going to tell you right now, deep stretching a pumped muscle with some resistance to it hurts really bad. Afterwards, the pump gets even more intense. It's pretty awesome. Now I've done this before and I like it. I also like it as like a plateau buster to your point about the big rocks, right? Like, you know, when we talk about the weird things to promote muscle growth,

you know, I'm always, I want to teach a client or family, doesn't matter, anybody who I'm helping, to check all the big boxes first, then the inevitable will happen. A plateau will eventually occur, no matter how good of a programmer you are. And when that plateau occurs, here's a cool thing that you can add into that routine versus you're just getting back into the training again and then you're going to incorporate something like this. I feel like it's not necessary. You're going to see great benefits by traditional training. Wait till you have a nice plateau and then use a strategy like this.

Yeah, and definitely have a good routine first. Again, I'll say that again. All of these aren't going to do anything for you if you don't strength train, eat high protein and get good sleep. Lastly, the all day workout. You want to talk about a plateau buster. This one's awesome. I haven't done this in a while, but this one I did do. This is an event.

It is. And so what it looks like is you basically have a day where you can do five workouts, Pick two or three exercises and every other hour or every two hours you go out and do a moderate three sets of each exercise and then you go and eat and relax a little bit and then repeat it again maybe every hour, every third hour. The total volume that you're able to accomplish with this is so insane. You would never be able to do an all-in-one workout. The muscle and strength gains that happen from this

are almost immediate. Like two, three days later, I'm stronger. I'm doing something like this. It's the workout version of cluster sets. Kinda, yeah. Very much so. When you think of what makes cluster sets so cool is like the amount of volume you do

in such a short period of time because you get these little mini rests in between is just crazy how much that is and that extra volume ends up breaking through a plateau. I think that's the same kind of concept but on a grander scheme, right? On the workout scheme. It's like you do these cluster workouts all day long when you actually look at the workout at the end of the day you go, oh shit that was like two and a half workouts or more in one day that my body totally could handle because I gave it all these great rest periods in between.

So to give an example of what this would look like, let's say my working, let's say a five rep working set of squats for me was 315. Let's say five reps for bench press for me was 225. And pull ups, let's say I could do 15 for a hard set. So here's what it would look like. I would do 225 for squats for five reps. I would do maybe 165 for bench for five reps and then I would do maybe seven pull-ups and I would do three sets of that. So it's moderate, it's not hard. I do

three sets let's say at 9 a.m., then I do it again at 11 or 12, then I do it again at like two, then I do it again at like four or five, and then maybe one more. In between eating, relaxing, it's pretty incredible. Again, the strength gains you get from this and the amount of total volume that you're able to accomplish, it's pretty awesome.

It's a really, really awesome feeling. It's interesting that we haven't seen more pro bodybuilders put this to practice. I feel like, again, it's another one of those things that logically it just makes sense on why it would work so well. You're able to do so much more total volume on the body because of these great rest periods and feeding between and stuff like that. So it seems like it would be a massive hack

for somebody who does this full time. Unrealistic for most people. Yeah. That's why it's like once in a great while. Yeah, it's like a weekend, maybe a cool weekend thing that you can plan to do. Do your friends or something. Average person who has a job and a life or kids.

You'd have to do it on a Saturday or something like that. Probably not happening. But the pro bodybuilder, I would have thought that this would have made its way into that scene way more. A couple of them have talked about this. I know in the 70s there were bodybuilders. They did those double splits instead. Yeah, did stuff like this, and then you had

like Rich Piana talked about this for arms, where you'd add a half an inch to your arms in one day, you know, you would kind of talk about, and he did stuff like this. I know that in the old time, strongman competitors would sometimes do this when getting ready, and they wanted to practice a particular lift, often for a particular competition.

You would see this, and then sometimes, so I remember the first time I experienced something like this was filming the original Maps Anabolic, which was again, 13 years ago or so. It took us all day to film all these exercises. So I was kind of, and I was picking weight that I could do. It was like I'm trying to work out on camera.

But because I did all these lifts all day long, the next day I was like, whoa. I feel like I had a crazy workout. And I looked at the volume, like oh my God, there was so many sets of all these different exercises you know that I did. All day long. Yeah, all day long. It's a lot of fun.

I wouldn't suggest this every week, but I think every two months or so, have fun with it. Take off most of the workouts that week and then go on on a Saturday, pick three exercises, keep doing them. Here's what happens, by the way, halfway through you get stronger. You actually find yourself getting strong

halfway through and then fatigue sets in by the second to last week. I mean, it's just like working some crazy manual labor job where you're breaking rocks and shit. You actually find yourself getting strongly halfway through and then fatigue sets in by the second. I mean it's just like working some crazy manual labor job where you're breaking rocks and shit. You know, and you have to do it all day long. It's like you gotta adapt. You gotta figure it out, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I got another, I got some cool study on something that we often get asked about that we typically don't really have a good answer for. And I feel bad about it. What's that? Loose skin. Oh yeah.

Loose skin. You know why? There's a lot of bullshit out there. There is a lot. And I know, and I'm actually glad, I'm curious what you're gonna say or share because I know there's a lot of bullshit, but I also know that there's a lot of stuff out there too

that supposedly works. And it's not something that I've gone down the rabbit hole really deep and so when someone asks me, I tend to defer like, ah, you know, it's not, I don't really know for sure. I've heard this, I've heard that, but I normally don't like confidently point someone in a direction. I'm assuming that you're bringing this up because you feel pretty confident about something you read. Yes. So now there's a limit. Okay. So, you know, if you lose a hundred pounds and you have that kind of loose skin, this is going to be very minimal.

But this is the kind of loose skin that you see as you age. And you'll see this or you'll feel this in your face, in your belly. Sometimes as you age, you'll see it start to happen in the knee area. And then you'll have the turkey neck thing. Yeah, so GHKCU, the peptide GHKCU has been shown to help with elasticity, firmness, and looseness. It's one of the few things I've ever read about in studies to help with looseness in particular. So there are cosmetic products with GHKCU, but

they're often really low dose. We work with a company, Luminose. Luminose is like, you're not going to find anything higher dose than them for topical GHKC, super, super high dose compared to anybody else. So if you have neck skin, so here's where I would use it. You often hear women in particular talk about their skin on their neck. That would be the place to use it.

You would see tightening in that area. Katrina rubbed it on her belly. While she was pregnant? Oh yeah. That makes a lot of sense. She was really religious about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And for the stretch marks and all that stuff? Mm-hmm. She didn't get anything. Yeah. I mean, I know that a lot of that is largely genetic though. Yes, yes. Most women that I know that didn't get stretch marks, their mom didn't get stretch marks,

the ones that did, their whole family did. So I know genetics plays the biggest role in that, but then I know people that swear by, they've rubbed that type of stuff. Coconut oil, I've heard. Yeah, I know. Or what's the other one, cocoa butter? Yeah.

Yeah, you know? But no, no, GHKCU's been shown in studies to actually do this. Now real GHKCU peptide's expensive. So you get what you pay for when you look at a product. But I like it because again, there's very few things where they're like, oh this will help with the looseness of the skin in your neck or under the eyes.

Or again, I noticed this with aging people who strength train, is they'll get lean and you'll see a little looseness in the knee skin. You ever notice that? Like the flexor quad or in the belly. Like they'll get lean but there's see a little looseness in the knee skin, you're gonna say? Like the flexor quad or in the belly. Like they'll get lean but there's a little bit of that looseness, even though they never had a lot of body weight to lose.

Yeah, I was gonna say, so that's just the, that just is a natural cause over time with the skin. It's not like it's a stretching, you know, too elastic and then the- So there's that, which is not what I'm talking about. Like you lost 100 pounds, that's very different. GHKCU isn't gonna, I don't think it's more obvious. I went through this my first round of getting ready for a show.

So pre-prepping for a show, I had never seen anything lower than about 9% body fat. That was the lowest. My entire training career, I'd never seen less than 9%. And then I went on, I don't know, probably a three year run of carrying myself above 15% body fat, which is like a small, small belly to me. And then I started cutting. Not bad, but it's definitely more than nine. So then I started cutting and the original first cut, I got all the way down to 7%. So lowest I'd ever been before. And I had that

loose skin on my belly. Now I've always told people what worked for me was, okay, I cut all the way down to 7%. Then I bulked up, built muscle, and I went and added like 10 pounds of muscle. And of course, a little bit of body fat came back on. I think I went up to like 10 or 11%. And then I cut down again, down to like 6%. And I noticed that it was a little bit tighter and it was almost gone. And then about the third time I did that- You've told us, you said this before. Yeah. And then it was gone. And now it's not there anymore, but I also haven't carried myself at a high body fat percentage. Like I did like that for a very long time. Even

like just recently when I came off of like the getting back in shape I wasn't that crazy out of shape like I mean I was I lost a lot of muscle But I didn't put on a lot of ton of body fat like I had in the past like I got all the way up to almost 20% body fat which was really high for me and that's when that happened to me So there's something to say to about the you know the if it's if it's in that range right where I didn't I didn't have like obese I lost a hundred pounds loose skin but there was definitely loose skin and it definitely tightened tightened back up. Well the data on protein intake high protein intake in strength training shows that strength training is the best for skin of all the forms of exercise they're all good if

you exercise get healthy it's always good for your skin but strength training has some special effects on skin. We've seen this in studies. High protein diet, because skin is protein, right? That's what it's made up of. But then there's also the looseness that starts to happen as you age. And you'll see this in like,

you know when you, you know what's really clear, Adam? When you see bodybuilders, physique competitors, bikini competitors who are in their 40s versus in their 30s and 20s. They're still lean, they're still shredded, but you'll see it in the knee, you'll see it in the elbow. You can see it on Ben Pokolski's arms

and so with that, because his arms were so big before, you can just see that it's like loose there. But you'll see as people age, this is what's gonna happen, and that's the first study I've ever seen where something seems to be effective on skin looseness. Not just the elasticity or the vibrance and that kind of stuff, but actually the looseness of it, which I think is pretty fascinating.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm dying to know, bro. What is this? Oh, God, man. I wanna hear, like you came in this morning talking about how you just. I'm putting it out there because I gotta make it real, so that's why I'm doing this.

And then I feel like I kinda have a guess now because I said something that you said that I'm putting it out there because I've got to make it real, so that's why I'm doing this. And then I feel like I kind of have a guess now because I said something that you said that I have a feeling. Well, just hold your tongue and I'll go. Yeah, over here. No, it's funny, it's going to get spiritual for a second, but when you, this has been told to me and I've experienced this very much. Trying to walk with Christ is not easy. You pray and He reveals things to you and it's very painful and challenging because you make things idols, make a lot of things idols or you have things that you just don't

want. I was at church on Sunday, my friend Chuck was speaking and he's an incredible speaker. By the way, pastors are the best speakers in the world because they do it so often. He's up there three, four times a day talking, so much practice, right? But anyway, he's so good, and he talked about how Jesus washed the feet of the apostles. And he was explaining that, and part of it is what we understand, which is like the king of kings washing someone's feet, like that's not even your servants would do that. But then there's the flip side of it, which is you don't want them to wash your feet because

that's the dirtiest part of it. You don't want them to see that. So no, no, no. You can wash my hands but don't look at my feet. Don't look at this stuff. I don't want nobody to see this type of deal. So I was experiencing that and I've been praying a lot for the idol that I have which is my body and exercise and fitness. You guys know that about me. But yeah, man, he's really showing me and through some challenges at home and it's a really, I've been praying for God to help me with this. And the way that I pray is I don't want to change this. Like, I'm being honest, I don't want to change it. I need help. God, I know it's not good. I don't want to change this. Like, I'm being honest, I don't want to change this. I need help, God, I know it's not good.

I don't want to change it. I need help. It's not like, hey, I'm gonna do this. It's like, I don't want to change this. And so, it's really painful. And what I saw was what it's causing. What it's causing for my family, what it's causing for me. And I abuse, I abuse peptides, I abuse hormones, I push the limits with what I can get away with.

And it was all culminating in this week that I actually was going to buy steroids this week and I was going to start taking out a box of steroids. And I was leading into it and I knew that it was a problem and I was praying and this morning it all really hit me. Like something additional to the TRT? Yeah. Oh wow. You were about to hop on like a rigid cycle.

Yeah and I know it's an idol, I know it's a problem. Well you said that when we first, you know, to back you up, I mean, it's not like... I mean, I talk about how I challenge this on the podcast, but I'm not fully open with it. I mean, when we, oh yeah, I mean, I'm sharing off air stuff you've shared with us. Hopefully it's okay.

I remember when we... We'll edit it if it isn't. Yeah. We've never edited anything. No, you fucking... I remember when, I remember you very honestly and humbly said to me when we signed with Transcend that you said, hey, keep an eye on me.

I love this stuff and love experiment, love that. And I know that about myself and I could definitely get out of control with it. And so I remember what you said. And I've always tried to respect that in your space. I throw you little jabs every now and then, like my subtle way of telling you like that, but without, I mean, I think you're a very self-aware person. You knew it going into it.

So to me, it was only a matter of time before you felt that. Well, it was crazy as that. Again, and I'm asking for mercy because I'm like, don't let it be something with my health that causes this to change. Like I don't want my family to suffer. I don't want something to happen with my health and then that's the thing that changes me. Meanwhile, my family's suffering. And so I've been praying for that mercy and I don't want to change this. God, I'm not going to change it, I don't want to change it, I need help type of deal. And it's, again, I know it's an issue and it's funny, you know, I got into an argument with my wife this morning and I could see how keeping this idol is related to so many

other challenges that I can pose for my family and I just was she was talking to me and she was really Open and vulnerable and I was looking at her and I suddenly felt the the crushing pain like oh my god, man She doesn't deserve Some of the things that I did it's if I tell you kind of what happened. It sounds silly but like we got an argument because I had to work out one morning when we were supposed to go somewhere. And I can rationalize it, it's 20 minutes in the garage,

I'll go do a set, it's not a big deal. And I'm looking at her and I'm like, I'm causing all these problems, like all this pain over this idle. I felt this crushing pain. So I'm on my way to work and I want to talk to her because I can feel like I need to strike when the iron's hot because I know it'll happen.

If I wait long enough, I know my tendency is I'll disassociate, avoid, and then stay the course. So I'm like, I need to tell her now. I need to talk to her now and I need to make this real. And so I'm trying to get her on the phone. She doesn't want to get on the phone because I just got an argument. She thinks I'm going to, you know.

Continue the argument. Well, she thinks what I'm going to do is sweet talk her. I'm really good with words an argument. She thinks I'm going to... You know. Continue the argument. Well, she thinks what I'm going to do is sweet talk her. I'm really good with words, obviously. And so I'm trying to tell her. So finally we get on the phone and she's like, you know, you got to make this real. You got to tell people. Tell, you know, tell your friend Chuck, the pastor, tell Chad, who's another pastor I

talked to. While I'm talking to her, I get a text from Chad. And literally all it says was, hey man, how you doing this morning? Let me know if you want to talk. I'm like, what? So I call him and I tell him. I tell him, hey man, I was about to get on the stairways this week. This is a problem, man.

I need help with this. Yeah, dude, so here's what I'm going to do. I've got to put it out there because now that I put it out there, it's going to happen. Or at least you guys will be able to keep my feet to the fire. But I'm taking this week off. All I'm going to do in the morning is pray and journal. I'm going to get back into working out probably two or three days a week and then I think I'm going to pursue, I don't know if this is what I'm going to do, but I might pursue

Jiu-Jitsu again because it's enough of a, it's physical activity, but it's away from bodybuilding. It's away from lifting weights, which is what, is the big trigger for me. Is it too much of a leap? I so want you to be the guy to do that experiment, dude. You know what, I like what you're saying. Here's the thing.

I know it's a big leap. Well, it'll turn into pride, bro. It'll turn into, let me show everybody, let me do this thing that can sell how great, you know, this type of workout is. Let's create a new program. Let's create this a new program based off of this. Let's monetize it. Let's whatever. It'll turn into pride. And again, I'm just saying this out loud so that doesn't happen because it can very easily happen. Even this can happen, right? I'm telling my audience, look how cool I am. You know, so. I mean, that's fair. I think

it's, I think it's such a cool, it's such a cool lesson. I mean, I don, so. I mean, that's fair. I think it's such a cool, it's such a cool lesson. I mean, I don't know, I guess I'm in the middle of learning it myself. I don't wanna see. And so I'm fascinated by it. I don't wanna see how much muscle I can keep. I don't wanna, my eyes focused on that.

Yeah. I think what I need, I think I know where I need to keep my eyes, you know? And I need to exercise, cause it's healthy. That's good for my mental state, but I gotta move away from this idol that I just, oh man, I struggle with it. It's a real nasty, you know?

It's helped me coach other people, but boy, flipping it on myself is really, really tough. So yeah, man, I was there, dude. I was like a day away from doing that. What were you gonna do? Can we hear the staff? No. No. I know you thought long and hard about it. No. Really? That's too much. No. Really? You know what? Some kid's gonna hear it and be like,

oh that's what he was gonna do. Maybe that's what I was gonna do. That's not true. Listen to it. I'll just put it this way. If the kid heard what you just did right before. I'll just put it this way, okay? There is nothing about me in this regard when I am full-on worshipping muscle building that is logical. It's all about how far can I go? Yeah. It's all about how far can I go? How far can I push it? And I could rationalize it because I get blood work done and I'm, oh, this is prescription. I'm within the legal, I'm not, I'm well beyond what's appropriate. I push the limit, so. I think it's really cool though for the audience to hear that because I do think that we talk

about this. I mean, this is the reason why we tend to tell people that we recommend that they don't do competing, right? Because if you have even like an ounce of similarity as you, and you put that person in that world, it's like, and then it's really easy to justify because you're like, oh, it's my sport and I love it. And it's so, it's really easy to wrap it into this. It's good for me. It's my sport. And it's, I love it. And it's so, it's, it's really easy to wrap it into this. It's good for me.

It's my sport. I love the sport. It's all about this when it's really feeding this internal monster that is, is growing from this. And you're just getting this feedback loop of people telling you how great you are and how good you look. And so it's, it's a, you know, I'm on a fitness podcast, this is what I do, and you know. The worst part about this.

And you know what sucks too? You know what makes it hard? People don't really, by the way, people listening are going to be like, they're not going to say anything anymore. People will come up and be like, bro, you're Jack. Dude, you look great. You should, you know, you should go after that deadlift or whatever. It's funny.

I'll tell my friend, I even told, so so even my friend Chuck who now he's full-on Understands and he's a great but because I wasn't fully letting him in he thought that he didn't I don't think he realized how serious I was yeah, we would joke about this but now man, you know Working out for me is a challenge, you know I go I push it too hard and he's he likes to work out so he's like, oh, come on Go get that 700 pound deadlift. I'm like, you don't know what you're doing by telling me that. So today when I talk to him. Yeah, he feels bad probably.

No, not bad. He's like, oh shit man. He's like, okay, I see. So I got some people, I got people help and I can see God using people around me to help with this. So I'm actually going to see a professional about addiction. This really sucks because this puts a lot of pressure on me and Justin to carry the average. Yeah. You gotta get the average. I've been enjoying this kind of like,

I've just been cruising. So there's a, for the audience, Yeah, this is the opposite. There's an off-air joke that we have that then 10 years we've been doing this, we've managed the same body fat percentage average. And muscle. Yeah, and muscle, right?

We've just shifted her. Oh, yeah It's just like if you if you go back and you look at all different pictures of all of us There's been a point where one guy is more shredded than the next guy always but as a group We are average is always, you know the same or whatever and you're gonna fuck that up. So Doug me and Justin is it up a little bit. You were carrying a lot of the load there for a while. Well, I mean, all joking aside, I was in tears this morning, you guys. This is no joke.

I mean, I'm on the podcast, I'm talking on camera, I can really turn it on when I need to, but this was hard. And I know my body doesn't show it right now. Again, I'm on camera, but this is real hard to let go, man. And like I said, when I was talking to my wife, thank God for my wife, man. She can, when I'm vulnerable, really, when I'm not vulnerable, she's,

this is a challenge for her. When I'm really being vulnerable, she gives me so much grace. She can make me feel like I can tell her anything. That empathy, you know, that they have. Yeah, because it could really backfire. If it's for, you know, when somebody opens up to you, the worst thing you could do is make him feel shitty for it.

Especially a man. Especially a man who has a hard time, men have a hard time being vulnerable like that in the first place. You feel emasculated and then you're gonna hammer me for it? We're going backwards. Last time I say that, right? Yeah, so you should give me so much grace.

And then I saw that text out of nowhere. By the way, this is like the fourth time that's happened, you guys, where something's going on and randomly someone will reach out or I'll run into someone and they'll be like, hey man, yesterday, what were you doing? This happened to me the other day too. A friend of mine, we ran into him at some show, say hey, bro, what were you doing last night at 7 p.m.? I'm like, why? I felt this overwhelming conviction to pray for you. I'm like, oh my God, bro. I was in a blowout fight with my kid.

You know, and how did you, like so weird, right? It's so weird. So anyway, it's painful. And so my Chuck told me too, he goes, listen, there's a lot of scripture that tells you that walking with Christ is dying, is constantly dying. You're like so many parts of your life. Old self is dying all the time.

And that doesn't feel good at all. Now, are you, you know, I don't want to throw too much at you, like, because I'm sure this is all fresh and new, but I'm genuinely curious. Like, are your thoughts, are you going to try, and even like, and I know the scenario that you're challenged, right? We travel so that you're always so regimented about your training and your diet and this

and that. Is that part of, I'm going to try and be less of that in those moments? Like, hey, we're traveling. This is my time. I'm not going to lift today. I don't need to go lift. I don't need to get up at six o'clock in the morning and do this thing. Are you trying to do that also or is that-

All of it, but I think the reason why I'm taking this week off is I need to get away. Reset. Yeah, but there's real value, I don't need to say this, there's real value to exercise and fitness, it's also good for my mental health. Of course. So, it might look different, is what it might look like. It might look like I go for a walk in the morning,

or I do mobility, or maybe I do lift, but it's different. The intention's going to... I'm going to try real hard to have the intention be different. So... Yeah, I've always thought... I mean, that's obviously it's healthy and good for you. And I think that this conversation might be going over some people's head. Like I'm so confused right now with these fitness guys talking about that. I'm not working out right now.

I'm sure we're going to lose some people because of that right now. But you know... You can make some people because of that right now, but. You can make some healthy, real unhealthy. Yeah, yeah, well there's times where we've been together and the obvious easy thing to do to make the work situation smoother is you just sacrifice that workout. Sure. And at that moment, that's what makes sense,

but because of this pull that you have to it, it's very difficult for you to do it. So that's the time where I think that gets exercised. I don't think you just don't work out whatever. There's times when it obviously makes sense. It's healthy, it's right, you need it. I'll listen to you because I need to listen to other people so I'll listen to you. Listen to myself as it worked. It don't work man. I lied to myself. I'm so curious about the stack. I'll tell you all fair.

I can't believe you're going to do that dude. That's so crazy. I'm so curious about the stack I'll tell you all fair. I can't believe you're gonna do that. That's so crazy. I know that's so I was so cool now Okay, I was so close Complete honesty cuz we're all very open and honest with each other. Were you not gonna tell Justin and I oh um Injury, I feel like you would have told us if I went on yeah Oh are the plan was to not tell anybody you guys Yeah. Oh, the plan was to not tell anybody, you guys. That's interesting to me. The plan was to not tell anybody,

here's what would have happened, I'm sure. You would have noticed. Of course. I told them. Okay. What the fuck? What's happening, Sal? Sal ate Sal again.

You got a third track. Yes, what's happening to you right now? Zook. Zook. I'm taking more big bites. Why would you have your neck in? No, it wasn't really a plan. I didn't think it out like that. It wasn't like I what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what?

I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what?

I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what?

I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, what? I was like, come on, bro. I know D-Ball when I see this. I would have told you. I mean, yeah, now you think about it.

I thought you meant, what was I gonna tell you this morning? No. Had I gone through with it? Yeah. It's hard to say, because that's a weird state of mind, dude. You know, that's a weird state of mind when you get into something and you're, you know it's not great, and you know the people

who you care about, who you trust will tell you the truth, sometimes it's the people you don't wanna tell. You know what I'm saying? Because I trust you guys, I love you guys. And you guys aren't gonna lie to me. You know what I mean? So if I tell you guys, you're not gonna beat me up over it, but you're gonna be like, what the hell are you doing?

Like why are you doing that? You're stupid. So I don't know, man, but it's weird though, like I'm telling you, man, I was praying, I was like, I don't wanna stop, I don't wanna not do this. that? You're confused. You're stupid. You know, so I don't know man, but it's weird though. Like I'm telling you man, I was praying. I was like, I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna not do this. I don't wanna stop. So I'm not gonna stop.

I need help. I know what I'm supposed to do. Please have mercy. Don't let me hurt myself. You know, whatever. And that's how it all came down. The Jiu Jitsu is a really cool idea. Cause I, you know, you and I share a similar insecurities

when talking about this, right? And we've both openly talked about. When I went on that year two kick of becoming the mobility guy, what was so special about that for me was that, so not what I want to do. You know what I'm saying? I leaned all into it and got into it. I had to. I had to be about it.

I had to be excited and into it to really buy into it. I had to. I had to be about it. I had to be excited and into it to really buy into it. But it was such a good exercise for me. It really, really helped me tackle a lot of probably similar demons that I had for a really long time. And that stretch of time, I don't know, if there was ever anything that I felt helped me break free of that more than ever, that was it. I felt like I've never looked back since then. It's been like, okay, this is not as hard as I thought it was. You know, and I think I'm like-

Jiu-Jitsu did that to me before too. I bet, I bet. That's why I thought of it, and that's why, one of the reasons why I thought of it, my wife has been encouraging me, which is interesting because she typically doesn't encourage me to spend more time away from the house. And yet she's like, go do Jiu-Jitsu.

I'm like, it's in the evening, like when the kids are going down or whatever, no, no, no, you got to do this. So that was part of it. And the other part of it is I did in the past and that was probably the healthiest body image I had because with jujitsu, you can take steroids and do jujitsu too, but it's not bodybuilding. It's not beneficial to you. Well, it can be, right?

It definitely can be, but it's not like I'm not getting. I'm not it can be right definitely can be but it's not like I'm not getting a pump in there and looking in the mirror association. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it was more about the technique and the big fluid and having stamina So we'll see we'll see if that works out. I'm sure I'll be showing up to the studio black eyes and stuff I so want to do it. I feel like I should Yeah, I so want to do it. I feel like I should do it. I really would love it I feel with long limbs you would crush maybe if you get into it, maybe that's what I'll drag me into it I just I needs you know what it is to I'm so resistant because everybody does it. Yeah, that's I just have to tell you I know exactly if I'm a dude, it's gonna be under cover. I get all oh you didn't like it at all

I much prefer like Muay Thai. Yeah. Well to me, it's so opposite of you That's why it actually probably be good for you It would because you are so the guy to grit his teeth and that's what you want You won't hit me in the mouth. Let me punch somebody else in the mouth and that is not jujitsu Jiu-jitsu is Jiu-jitsu is like flow and they don't lay on my back Fucking lay on my back, dude, like it's a very vulnerable position for me. I don't like that, my leg's up.

Come here, come here. What the fuck is that? I mean, that's true. Plus, you did jujitsu with Dennis. I know, Dennis is huge. He's like a world-class monster. So you probably made him feel like he's a great jiu-jitsu player. Yeah, but to be honest, that's so not his style. But yeah, you know I don't see that's so

not his yeah I was so much he was be a monster jujitsu too well I mean but I get what you're saying yeah it's so not his personality yeah I just asked dude yeah it's fighting for nerds it really is it's like it's really about chess yeah it's hard I respect it completely it's just the I felt so uncomfortable for me it's like a dead fish I want to do it because I think I respect it completely. It's just the I felt so uncomfortable for me Just like a dead fish. I want to do it cuz I think I'd be pretty good at it. You'll be very good You're also you're also think a lot you would really like yeah, and I like that type of stuff, you know I really saw I that's why I want to do it. You know, it's gonna be one of those things I might do it. I'm like god damn it. Why did I do this?

God damn it, why did I do this a long time ago? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. It would be good for me. Wait, throw the messages now, people. You know what, also it sucks, which I have a group of guys that I trust, but also the other part that makes me not want to do it is showing up to a class, having people recognize me, and I got a target.

Yeah, I know. Everybody wants to keep the shit. Oh, it's the purple belt guy. Let's get him. If you have muscles, I have definitely felt that too, even just going into one of those places and then all the guys looking, immediately mean mugging you,

and I'm just like, dude, I'm just here to learn. You're in a threat right away, and I'm just like, dude, I'm just trying to figure this out. Well, if you really start looking into it, keep me at least in the loop. So, yeah, so I will have the option. I'll tell everybody what's happening. If you think that, yeah, I'll talk about the whole process.

Yeah, no, I think it'll be really, I mean, I think it's a really cool evolution to the show and stuff like that for people to see that side of you. Well, I'm gonna warn people, if you choose to go on this path and you choose to, you know, if you step into the faith and you walk, it's hard, it's hard.

He never said it's easy. He'll give you peace, but it ain't easy. It's a lot of challenge, a lot of pain, a lot of struggle. Well maybe CrossFit had just put it out there to God too. Yeah, I knew you were gonna work your way to get that in there. Justice has been dying.

Too many prayers. Bro, they're like this. Well we need that. They're selling. Because of the attrition? Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think that's usually what happened. What happened? Too many prayers. Bro, like this. Well, we selling, they're selling. Because of the attrition? Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think that's the only reason they've just had a member, uh, after Greg Glassman came out with the George Floyd stuff, the sexual harassment stuff. I mean, they've just been on a, it's just been the kind of the perfect storm for them. I mean, I think that they peaked 2019, 2020 stuff happened.

He's outspoken that didn't, it just didn't help. And it's been on this kind of downward. They were at peak, peak affiliates. They were at 14,000 units and now they're at 10,000. So 40, 40, 40 or 60. My math right? 60% reduction. Yeah. Doug, 40, 40% reduction. they're at ten thousand so forty forty forty or sixty lost for my right sixty percent reduction yeah Doug no forty forty percent reduction yeah I think it's a little different than that but yeah something around there yeah is that right

well you take a hundred you say fourteen thousand yeah for ten thousand ten thousand yeah I have to do the math well half half of half of all it's one fifth so twenty five percent is it one I think the point is it's four thousand units gone yeah that's crazy I know it's a lot that's a lot of selling yeah so they're trying to sell what do you think you're gonna do you think someone's gonna buy them and try and apply more so did you know did you get the twenty eight and a half percent I'll see court almost of course so it's like an alias affiliates not even a franchise right so it's like what areoose affiliate, it's not even a franchise, right?

So it's like, what are you really buying into other than just the name and the trademarking? Yeah, the brand. Well, they get, they get a, it's the brand and French every time everybody who has a cross fit on it get paid. Oh yeah. There's 10,000 that's automatic residual. Whoever buys it. It already sold. Did you know that? No. So it's sold already. Berkshire or whatever. Yeah. So it's sold back in, let me get my facts straight. I think it's 20, I'm gonna step down as CEO, 2020. 2020. 2020.

Is that what it says? He stepped down in 2020. That's what I know, but they sold, they actually sold. And this would be the second time it's being sold. Yeah, same year it was sold. In 2020. Okay, so yeah, it's sold, he stepped down, and then now they're trying to sell again. I mean, I'm curious about what it sold for and then what it's gonna sell for this time. And I mean, not that I ever I wish anybody's business failed. But I mean, boy, I have to say we were talking for a very long time and trying to tell people that it's a fad, it's a trend, it's a sport, okay? It is not a good way for most people to work out.

Doesn't mean I don't have friends, doesn't mean that I don't appreciate how cool it is, all the things, but it's just when you think about the ideal way to train the average person, never once did I go in my CrossFit bag to train a client. And I had that, by the way. never once did I go in my CrossFit bag to train a client. And I had that, by the way, we all went through it before any of you all drank the Kool-Aid. All of us trainers did it. I did it when it was started in Santa Cruz.

Before anybody knew what it was, we were fucking around in my gym doing this stuff. And I- It was already problematic when it went through the workout. I remember going like, this is not for my clients, it's cool for us trainers with egos to compete with each other, but it was like this is, I'll never use this for training any of my clients.

But I have tremendous respect with for CrossFit for the things that did change in the strength training. And we give the kudos. Culture wise. We give the kudos, they single-handedly changed squatting and deadlifting for the average person. They made it cool, and they made women lift weights better than anybody else. Nobody even used the word PR until they came around.

And they brought back the importance of the culture of the gym. Yeah, each one of these modalities, they all have their flaws. Like bodybuilding is one of those things as well. Like if you're going to go extreme and you get this association right away with like, oh, I got to be a mass monster and here here's how I gotta do that by taking all these drugs and everything involved and then. Shot across the belt there. You know, yeah.

Appreciate that. Yeah, well. I will say this though, I 100% used the programming of bodybuilding with many of my clients. Yeah. So that's where CrossFit's always been flawed in that area. Yeah, I don't learn anything from their programming. None.

No. But bodybuilding, I mean, I'd make the case that that style of training is probably one of the best ways you could train people long term. Nothing has contributed to strength training like bodybuilding. Bodybuilding is the original contributor to strength training, and there's incredible value to take from some of the principles of bodybuilding. CrossFit did change some things, it's just the programming.

Well, it also brought back something else that was important, given it's Kudos too, is like, true functional training had kind of lost its favor. And that's where bodybuilding didn't do a good job. That's right. Bodybuilding was all aesthetic and all based off of how we look look and it lacked performance and mobility, training in multi-planes. It lacked that and CrossFit really went hard

in that direction. I really think there's something in the middle that is a beautiful kind of marriage where it's just like bodybuilding training most of the time integrated with this occasional block of functional type training. And I think that, if I looked at, I would take MAPS performance and a bodybuilding type of a program and the toggling back and forth would be a great- Yeah, there's elements. Yeah, there's elements in there.

Yeah, you're right, sexy athlete bundle. We have that, it's called a sexy athlete bundle. And that's really one of the best ways to train the average person that likes all of that. You like what CrossFit gives you as far as the type of body it gives you performance wise. That's everything we did in Mass. If you guys remember that, that was the reason why we wrote Mass Performance. Was we came out early. A lot of the audience that hasn't been listening for 10 years doesn't know this.

It was an answer to it. Yes. We talked so much shit about CrossFit early on and its programming that the audience was like, okay, well, what if I like doing this and I like doing that and I like the things that CrossFit gives me, how would you guys program it? And that was Mass Performance. That was the birth of that program, was exactly that. Absolutely. All right, I gotta mention this, by the way,

because we're supposed to talk about Z-Biotics, but I didn't have any this weekend. Have you guys drank without it recently? Yeah. Suck. He can't, I can't. Yeah, it doesn't fit. I won't even, so there's time.

I had one and a half glasses of wine. One and a half, okay. I had it twice, you know, two different days. And I feel it the next day. When you do the Zebiotics, they call it pre-alcohol now. Way different, way different. It's remarkable the difference. It's the only thing that'll get me to have a drink.

If we're somewhere. Oh, if you don't have it Yeah, I don't even want to mess with it Yes, Katrina carries it in her purse most all of our family members have it at their house And so if I'm gonna enjoy even if it's just a drink or two, I don't have to go ham and be drinking five six Oh, yeah, I don't like to go ham. Yeah what I sometimes one or two drinks sounds nice to me But then I also know how I'll feel afterwards if I don't do that So always if I messed up my sleep and then the next day I fell off, my heart rate is different

without it. That's what diagnosis is, right? Like I go to bed and it's like my heart, I'm like, I had one glass of wine. You're running a lot harder for sure. Oh, it sucks. Element is the best electrolyte powder you'll find anywhere. It has the right amount of sodium. Most of them don't have enough sodium to make a difference.

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How you doing Amanda? Hi, oh my God, this is so exciting. I am super, super nervous, so I'm just gonna read what I have here if that's okay. Don't worry, Justin is too. Okay, so thank you guys so much for all the content you put out. I started listening to you guys in 2020

after Brett Contreras was on one of your podcasts, and I haven't stopped listening since you guys are amazing. Thank you so much for all the things you do for women's fitness. It's amazing. You've changed the way that I look at everything. So I really, really appreciate it. So my question, do body proportions or body type play a significant role in the way someone is able to change their body through resistance training? For example, I have an extremely short torso, really long legs and really long arms. And I feel like it makes it extremely difficult for me to lose weight in my midsection. And it takes a lot longer for me to have the appearance of muscle gains in my arms and

my legs. I'm wondering if there's any validity to this or am I just making an excuse for not working out hard enough or being disciplined enough. My stomach is my biggest insecurity and has been since having my daughters. My youngest is five and I have a nine-year-old and I really want to get rid of my stomach and not be one of those moms that has a 20-year-old and is still blaming their kids for their stomach. So any suggestions would be wonderful. Yeah, so of course, yeah, definitely body proportions, length of limbs, muscle belly length, your ability to build muscle. A lot of that's influenced by your genetics.

The length of your limbs, for example, in your torso, that's set, right? We can't change that. But you could definitely work with it. I mean, I'm seeing you now here on camera and you look pretty fit. You've got really nice looking shoulders and arms. How long have you been working out? For like 10 years, minus having, when I had my girls. But let me tell you, it's deceiving because I realize

that I look very thin, like on top, but I do have a midsection. My legs are long and lean as well, so I feel like I'm just, there's not very much space between my ribs and my hips. So I know when people look at me like up top, they're like, oh yeah, she looks fit, perceiving. Yeah, well, I think you probably are fit

if you've worked it out for 10 years. But my whole point with that was just, we can be a lot harder on ourselves than is necessary. Nonetheless, getting leaner is the same strategy for everybody, generally speaking, right? You want a high protein diet, calorie deficit, strength training, that kind of stuff. Do you know what your body fat percentage is?

I was just gonna ask, what's your body fat percentage? Well, I went yesterday and got an in-body, which I know is not the most accurate, but it said it's 23.9. You're great. Yeah, you're a good percentage. You're at a very good body fat percentage, healthy. I mean, you could try getting below 20, but then you're playing with, you know,

where it starts to get really hard to maintain. But 23% is an excellent body fat percentage. Which I don't want. I don't want to be in like an unhealthy position at all. I just so badly want my stomach, not even to match the rest of me. Like I'm not looking to have a six pack, nothing like that. Just not have it look like I had kids.

Or like, you know what, I don't know. Is it body fat or is it the muscle? Yes, it's body fat. Okay. I really, it's body fat. Okay. I really, it's body fat. Like it's, there's, it's there. Now was it, that changed after you had children you said? Yes, yes.

Okay. And that's the only thing, I mean, I weigh 150 pounds right now, I'm 5'7". And when I had my girls for both of them, I didn't go above like 165, I've always been at this weight range, it's just my stomach. Yeah, I know, so is it. Are you, so okay, how many days a week do you strength train above like 165. I've always been at this weight range. It's just my stomach. Are you so, okay. Uh, how many days a week do you strength train and what does

that look like? Three days a week. I'm doing muscle mommy right now and I'm on the third phase, which is, this is the first time I've worked out like that. And it's fantastic. So last time you checked hormones, hormones can affect fat body, fat. Never. I've never done that. Oh, okay, that's worse. Would you be open to, so you have two kids? Yeah. Are you done having kids? Yeah. Oh yeah, so hormone therapy is another route, and it can change the distribution

of body fat on your body. So sometimes people will see this as they get older or after they have children, where they'll store it in places that they didn't before. That can sometimes be connected to things like insulin sensitivity issues, thyroid issues. Now you don't have to be like, if you go to your general practitioner,

they'll test you and say you're all within range. This is Dr. Lauren Fritz's story. Yeah. Did you follow her after our episode with her? Do you follow her? I'm still catching up. I have not seen that one. Oh, jump to that episode. Dr. Lauren Fritz, and she talks a lot about after having kids and her hormones going off and doing all the things and not being able to lose stomach fat, going to her normal general practitioner, them saying, oh, your hormones are fine. But then actually going to a hormone specialist,

getting it balanced out and figuring that out, and it was life-changing for her. So she talks all about that on her social media. She was a great interview, and we sent a lot of people her way. That's definitely a worthwhile place to check for you. Yeah, because what they'll do is they'll look at what's optimal.

Not that you're at range, but let's try optimizing. So could be some thyroid, progesterone, testosterone, typically combination of two of those. And then what you start to notice is fat distribution starts to change in the body. I do want to circle back to what Sal really said to you though, like 23% is, so to give you some perspective, you know, most of my career, I had a training staff of 15 to 20 trainers underneath me, at all times five to seven of them were females. A lot of them, many times competed in women's bikini. The best shape ones I had carried themselves around 19% body fat.

I mean, and they were fit as hell, lean, year round, looked incredible, 19% body fat. So 23 is a really good place to be. You're not in an unhealthy at all. You're in a fit place. But I get you could be storing, you could be hormonally storing extra body fat in your stomach area for the reasons that we're talking about right now. So it is worth exploring that. And I think Dr. Lauren will be a really good person to

look into. Yep. Okay. Do you think that I should try to cut at all or that's... You can definitely cut. I just thought... Yeah, you can definitely try cutting and I would even... Sometimes fat storage in the midsection, it can be correlated with maybe some insulin sensitivity issues.

So you could try cutting and you could try doing a cut with a lower carbohydrate diet to see if that makes a difference. Now that's not like, you know, a cut is doing the big thing. The low carb part is doing something real small. But see if you notice a greater effect or something. There is also that possibility too Sal. I mean, have you ever done anything where you've done like an elimination diet too to see if there's foods that- I have, as far as diet, honestly, I am very good about making sure I get my protein and beyond that I pretty much eat whatever and I eat definitely in a higher calorie range. I'm not restrictive at all so I've just always been scared to go into a cut because I don't want to ruin and make

things worse. Yeah, I see. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, you know, I mean, you could track for a week, just don't, no judge, and then see where the calories fall and then go into a 500 calorie deficit. Maybe try dropping the carbs a little bit and see how that affects you. How long would you do that for? How many weeks would you do a cut like that for?

If you're gonna drop, if you're at 23%, we wanna drop off 3%, probably six weeks, six to eight weeks. Oh, okay. Amanda, are you in our private forum yet or no? I am. Okay, good. If you just update us in there and tag the guys,

we'll keep an eye on it. So just let us know the feedback. I've had this too with some of my clients. You can have low low levels of like inflammation happening from foods that you just don't agree with, but you don't realize it that will just, sometimes it's not fat, it's just water retention and it's bloat and it feels like it's bloat all the time.

And you could have something in your diet on the regular and you don't even realize it because it's not like it's really messing you up, but it's enough to just keep you mildly inflamed all the time. And that mild inflammation, a lot of times, especially in the gut area, people perceive it as fat. And it's like, oh, I'm fatter. And it's like, well, really is you're just kind of always inflamed because you have this food that is always reoccurring in your diet that your body just doesn't 100% agree with. So there's so I would I would explore hormones. And then I would also explore like, you know,

tracking food for a while and starting to try eliminating some of the things that are most commonly intolerant to people and see if you notice differences there. And a lot of times you'll this is obvious if you do like a one day fast. And after a one day fast, all of a sudden your stomach looks way flatter and it's like whoa, that's a good idea. So that a lot of time just eliminating all food for 24 hours. Yeah, if it looks like you lost 10 pounds of body fat because of that it's like, oh, well, maybe because you didn't you didn't lose 10 pounds of fat in 24 hours. You just brought down all the inflammation and so

maybe you have something in there. That's kind of an easy way to Are you have you ever worked with a coach? maybe you have something in there. That's kind of an easy way to check it out. Have you ever worked with a coach? Are you open to working with a coach? No, I haven't, but I mean, yeah, I think it would probably be good. Yeah, you know, you would be a great candidate just because you've been doing this for so long,

you've got a great attitude. I'll have somebody call you. We have coaches that work for Mindpump, so I'll have somebody reach out to you because through this process, you kind of figure out what's going on. And I don't think this is gonna be, I think this is a very solvable issue.

For sure. It's gonna be one of the things we're pointing at right now. It's gonna be either hormonal, something like that. It could be just a slight calorie deficit or it could be a food you're intolerant to that's just always been in your diet and simply getting rid of that food group could solve something for you.

So it's solvable for sure. All right. Awesome. Thank you so, so much. This is amazing. You got it. Yeah. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Take care. You know, the hormone one is a big one. And women notice this more than men generally, and not that men don't experience this, but what women will say is something along the lines of, suddenly I started getting body fat in my midsection. All of a sudden I'm getting body fat in areas I

never gained body fat before. I've especially heard that if there's been like after the second kid. Yes. And it changes like drastically. And I know like my wife even experienced that too. It was a complete shift. What's your opinion on why I've heard the same thing that second kid seems to do it. Yeah. I've heard so many women talk about the first kid, I didn't know it was the second kid. Why do you think it's the second kid that does that?

Well, there's a few times in your life that this would be my theory, right? There's a few times in your life you'll actually add fat cells to your body, um, puberty, and then a third trimester of pregnancy. So that could be part of it. It could also be insulin sensitivity. I mean, being pregnant and then suddenly becoming pre-diabetic is relatively common. And then also sometimes it's this, the second or third or fourth kid tends to be correlated with the fact that the woman now is in her mid to late 30s. Mid to late 30s you start to get closer to

perimenopause, hormonal changes, and that changes fast forward. I would add also that a lot of times the clients that would express this to me, they went into the first pregnancy in incredible shape or the best shape of their life, they went into the second pregnancy. Yeah, they ran it back to back sometimes. Yeah, and nowhere near the same, and so coming out of it seems to be, I'm sure it's probably all those factors.

But the hormones play a role in fat distribution, and again, as trainers, we would dismiss it quite often. Oh, you didn't just suddenly change, because we were taught that it doesn't change, but it definitely does. Our next caller is Randy from Tennessee. What's up, Randy? What's going on, Randy?

What's happening? Warren, gentlemen, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for having me on the show. It's super informative show you got. I've been really enjoying listening the past six months as I started listening.

Awesome. Thank you. Brad. Got a question about, relates to sleep here. If I could, I'll just take a minute to give you the quick context, so you know where I'm at and how I came to this question. If I could, I'll just take a minute to give you the quick context, you know, where I'm at and how I came to this question. I'm in the army. I've been in for about 12 years. I've been training weightlifting and running for quite a while because it pertains to what we do in the army. I ended up going through a period of overtraining

back in the fall, September through early December, just making the typical mistakes people make when they over train doing too much volume Pushing myself too hard on running and weightlifting and wearing myself out. I even end up Injuring my lower back a week before Christmas. It was doing barbell bent over Rose Looks like it's a bulging disc is what the issue is So that point I knew I had to stop everything I was doing just stopped all exercise for week and a half Actually did the over training rescue guide which helped quite a bit bit So thank you for putting that out. That was super helpful and at that point All of a sudden my sleep started to get really good right around the week of Christmas was getting solid eight hours a night

Good quality sleep waking up feeling fresh Everything was good to go. I thought it was because I stopped over training because that overtraining can affect sleep And then I started doing a maps 15 performance and maps prime the first week of January, to start doing something while still on my back to be able to heal. And then all of a sudden, the middle of January, my sleep started to get real bad again, I say again, because I do have a history of insomnia and I have mild sleep apnea. So it's far from the first time I've had real

problems with sleep. But at that point, I couldn't figure out what would cause me to start waking up in the middle of the night and just couldn't go back to sleep. And I thought everything was the same. I thought nothing had changed. Couldn't figure out what might have changed that affected my sleep. And all of a sudden it dawned on me that there was one thing that had changed. This was right after y'all made that episode about eggs, talking about all the nutritional benefits of eggs and the anabolic effects and stuff.

After that, I decided to try starting to eat six eggs a day. And then all of a sudden my sleep got bad. And I thought, is it possible? What are the odds that even a lot of eggs can actually affect sleep? Have you all heard of anything like this before? If you're intolerant to them. Yeah, it's possible. It's possible, but not likely. Not probable, but it is possible. Right, food. Well, if you have an intolerance to a food, depending on the severity of it, you'll get a mild immune reaction.

So it'll raise cortisol, it'll raise kind of inflammatory markers, which can definitely influence sleep and cause your sleep to get worse. So that's an easy test. Also could still be recovering too. It's unlikely because typically sleep issues are not a result of an intolerance.

Usually when there's an intolerance that's causing the issue, the person knows because it causes digestive distress. But it's definitely possible. Eggs are one of the most commonly, especially egg whites, one of the most common foods that people are intolerant to. So the easy test, cut them out of your diet and see what happens.

Yeah, I tried twice, I tried cutting them out for just a couple days and there was no change. I could try longer. I had already been eating about two eggs a day for six months prior with those issues. Probably not. I don't know if maybe they increase that. That's probably not at them, bro. Probably not,

but cut it out for, cut it out for at least 10 days to see if it makes a difference. And then you said nothing changed. Were you still doing maps 15 or did you, did you ramp up? I was doing maps, 15 performance and maps prime. I do like the pre primers, they do the math, 15 performance exercise and the post primer. And that was all I was doing every day. No crazy runs or anything like that too, on top of it? No, no, nothing like that.

Have you ever, have you taken, are you? I was baffled as to why my sleep got bad again all of a sudden. Have you tried taking magnesium before bed? Yeah, I've been taking about 800 milligrams of magnesium for bed for probably a year now. Okay. And then any life stressors? Yeah.

Oh, well there's always life stressors. Yeah. Nothing, nothing new though. So nothing new or now if, are you, are you able to honestly say like, I don't know if maybe it's bothering me more. I mean, it could be eggs again, but it's typically not. It's, it's so, and again, cut them out, again, cut them out for 10 days and then see how that is. Otherwise, I would look at other things.

I would try long, static stretching before bed. What does it look like, your ritual before bed? What do you do before you go to bed? I'm sorry, say again? What does your ritual look like before you go to bed? Like, I'll read the detail. For long time since, since I first, uh, struggled with insomnia, summer of 2022, I've been doing like all the standard sleep hygiene practices,

like no blue light an hour before bed. Um, having a wind down routine reading for about 30 minutes before bed helps something wind down. I, after y'all had made that episode talk about five things that can help sleep, that's when I started doing a static stretching for a couple minutes We're good. I tried tried the eating more carbs at dinner thing I'm taking taking a lot of supplements. I'm basically taking all this stuff. That's in the the legions lunar supplement I happen to already have all the components that on hands. I'm taking those separately basically taking that

Yeah so the part the reason why Sal's asking of trying to dive into the stress part is because it's what's interesting to me Is that that can always be a factor? Well, you took you took a week off and you got the best sleep ever, right? So it sounded like you really need it sounded like you really needed that. Oh, yeah So you get this great sleep then all sudden you pick up math 15 Which is definitely where we'd probably put you as far as the protocol of lifting. So you didn't go crazy on the training.

But if the rest of your stress bucket is already tip top and then any sort of training is tipping it over, it could start to affect that. So really evaluate, I mean, I would even test that again, like the eggs, test that, and then even test taking another week off of training again. And if you get great sleep again by not training, you might just be, it could also be still recovering from the injury, that stress on the body.

If you're still pretty injured and you're still kind of gritting through it, and then you got personal stress going on, and then you're also training, that could be affecting it. You could just be at the top of your stress bucket of all combined stressors and even the little bit of training right now. And so, you know, maybe do a week of like mobility only, like recovery type training, more working inward, stretching, that type of stuff, maybe just not avoid weights and see what happens.

And if you just think about that, and if you see a positive change again from cutting back, you might just have a lot of stuff going on right now, then the combination of the injury and all of it together is just too much and your body's trying to tell you. You know what would be a good test for you would be Dr. Cabral's cortisol test just to see what that looks like throughout the day. I think that'd be a good test for you to see if your cortisol is inverted. Yeah. And that- I was wondering if there might be some chemical

or a hormone off that could be a two. That would be the starting point. But that's been tested in the past. Cortisol is all being looked at. And it's not been a problem. Yeah, Dr. Cabral has a cortisol test that you could take. And so what you do is you do saliva first thing in the morning, then it's like before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner,

and then right before bed. And we're looking at our patterns of cortisol throughout the day. We just all did ours. Yeah, we just did ours. in the morning, then it's like before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner, and then right before bed. And we're looking at our patterns of cortisol throughout the day. We just all did ours. Yeah, we just did ours. Yeah, I'd like to do that. Yeah. So, if you talk about stress or stress could be an issue.

I've been going through major life transition the past year, divorce, resetting myself from that. So that's a factor too. Yeah, I mean, you got it. And that's just it. Sometimes we don't, especially a guy like you, I'm sure you've been trained to handle a lot more than the average person. Yeah. And so you don't think of those things as like a major, I mean, that's a major stress in most everybody's life.

And then you have a major injury. So, I mean, the easy way to test that again is to take a week off. And if all of a sudden you get great sleep again, bro, from taking that's a clear sign that you're just you got a lot on your plate right now and this is a time in your life when yeah your training should start to look more recovery based than it should look like trying to push the weights. Right yeah I did think about that only only hang up with that is I have to take the army combat fitness test on April 7th. Like I take a break now might impede my training to perform to train for that.

How hard is that test for you? Yeah. For me, not really. There's, there's, I do really well on all the events. I got the max score in almost all the events when I last took it in September, except for the ball throw the one you have to throw a 10 pound medicine ball behind your head. Okay. I just have a hard time throwing it far enough, but that's technique I can practice. You can practice the test, you know, three weeks before. I'm not worried about passing the test. Okay. Yeah. Then you're,

then I wouldn't worry too much about it then. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to Dr. Steve. What's Dr. Steven Cabral's website, Doug? Is it? Steve. Yeah. Stevencabral.com. Yeah. And look at his cortisol test. S T E P H E N Cabral. Yeah, StevenCabral.com. Yeah, and look at his cortisol test. S-T-E-P-H-E-N, Cabral. Yeah. Yeah, I know a little about cortisol. That'd be interesting to do that test, see what happens.

Yeah, just see if it's inverted. Sometimes you'll get like this low cortisol in the morning, it's hard to wake up, you gotta take caffeine to get going, then it starts to elevate it and it stays high at night, which totally messes up your sleep. Waking up in the middle of the night is a telltale sign. I mean, there's three main things, right? We try out, try getting rid of the eggs,

see if that does something. I don't think it's that. The other one would be- That would seem unlikely. The other one would be resting. I think it has something more to do with all the stressors, bro. I think, I think if you took-

Well, the cortisol test will show that. Yeah, the cortisol test will show that. In the meantime, though, you could take a week off of training and see what happens also. And I think that's gonna be a clear indicator if you all sudden get great sleep. So, you know play with those things Yeah, okay. That sounds good. All right. I love to hear about it. Let us know how it goes. Okay Yeah, yeah, I can I can definitely do that. All right, Randy. Thank you. Thanks. I'm gonna appreciate it. You got it

You know major divorce major injury worse. major injury. Did he say divorce? Yes, bro. He just went through a divorce this year. These are major life things. I think he said major life changing, bro, a divorce. Oh, bro, you're gonna be stressed out for five years. I mean, have you not said that that was one of the most

stressful parts of your entire life? Oh, easy, nothing more stressful than that. Yes, so. And it lasts for like five years. I just think, you always gotta remember, when you talk to a 12 year military guy, like their definition of stress is different than the average person.

He's like, nah, I'm fine. Yeah, you know what's weird about it too. It still functioned. True story, when I left, when I finally made the decision we got divorced, the next day or two days after I hit a PR in most of my lifts, that wired stress turned into performance, and it fools you.

It fools you for a while until you burn out, you burn all that out, and then you start hitting some body. I think he knows he was already a chronically over trainer. He knew that. It led to a major injury in his body. He has a major life changing event. I think even Maths 15, it's just he needs a little more time.

He needs a little more time and a slower, and I bet you his even version of Maths 15 is different than that person, the normal Maths 15 person. Yeah, who knows what that is like. I bet he gets after it even in that, I mean, it's a military. Do you got to think how you do anything, how you do everything, right? So I think that, I bet if he takes a week off of training again, he gets good sleep. And that's probably what's happening.

Our next caller is Tim from North Carolina. What's up Tim? What's happening? Hey, greetings from North Kaka Laki. What's up man? How you doing? Great man. How can we help you?

Well, I had a question. I'm 54 years old and obviously sarcopenia is a real concern as I progress in age. And it seems like for some reason, all of my social media feeds keep getting bombarded social media feeds keep getting bombarded with ads from these supplement companies selling a myostatin blocker. If anyone's not heard of that, basically it's, myostatin is supposed to be the protein that hinders muscle growth after a while is supposed to be part of the reason you plateau in muscle growth. And, um, and, uh, on the, on the ad it shows these pictures, these super muscular cows. And they're like, why are these cows keep building these muscles?

You know, it's cause they don't have myostatin. And, um, you know, I'm getting very cynical at my old age and I'm like, come on guys, you know, I'm like, is this just another supplement fad? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yeah, I'm very familiar with myostatin. So those studies were done a long time ago and what they did is they genetically modified animals, although there is a Belgian blue bull that was bred this way and they're incredibly

heavily muscled, that's probably what you see, and it's due to the myostatin gene being inhibited and they did it through breeding. They didn't know what they were doing, but they bred them that way. But you can see the studies on mice, on dogs, and it's radical, it's ridiculous, it's crazy looking. There's a whippet, which is like a very skinny, fast dog, and there was one that's like myostatin inhibited and it looks like the Incredible Hulk became a dog.

It's really crazy. Nonetheless, so that flew all over the bodybuilding and fitness world, and so they're trying to sell you supplements that do that. Well, they don't. They don't do it like the genetic modifications do. If you want the most effective myostatin inhibitor, creatine. Creatine has been shown to do that but that's not why creatine really makes you build

muscle. It's not because it inhibits myostatin to some you know crazy degree. Well in a true blocker you would die right Sal? I mean so you wouldn't die you would you would you would it would be crazy. It would be it would make steroids look like, you know, Flintstone vitamins. But no, there's no supplement out there that does this. It's all fad marketing, it's all crap. The stuff you hear us talk about is the stuff

that might actually help. Creatine's at the top of that, everything else is far below. But you know, when it comes to sarcopenia as a man, if you lift weights, you're fine. That's your no You got to do it's not gonna happen. Yeah, it's not gonna happen if you if you continue to strain train You won't you won't have to worry about you know losing bone density or lots of muscle mass Okay, awesome, I appreciate your time I kind of was thinking through that That whole thing even even, even if it

did block myostatin, then you were able to, you know, grow crazy muscles. You'd eventually get to the point to where your muscle strength would override your your tendons and ligaments and supportive tissues and you'd be popping tendons and ligaments. For sure. I mean, we see that happening even with steroids. Yeah, because steroids grow the muscles so fast they can't keep up. It'll be interesting to see, or it would be interesting to see that.

There's been a lot of speculation that pro bodybuilders, I mean I had one in the studio yesterday, I had seven time Mr. Olympia Phil Heath in here, and he was talking about, I mean you see pictures of him playing basketball, and he looks like an amateur bodybuilder. The speculation is that some people genetically have this gene relatively inhibited and those are the genetic freaks that we see out there like the Brock Lesnar's where they just, you

can tell when they're a baby, you can tell when they're five years old. They're just stronger and more muscular than everybody around them type of deal. So- Their potential is much higher, yeah. Yeah, but we have, no, we have yet to find a medical intervention aside from actual gene therapy that would do that effectively. And then, you know, Adam brings up a good point.

If we do that to somebody who wasn't born that way, I'm sure there are gonna be downstream effects and potential negatives. Like, what does that mean for the rest of the body and their health? But you know one day when they do figure that out, which they probably will It'll make anabolic steroids look like Vitamin C that's how that's the that's how crazy the potential is but there is no supplement that does that so Awesome, yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time guys. Excuse me. And, uh, and, uh,

I just wanted to kind of get this on, on people's radar, because if I'm seeing it, I can't be the only one. Yeah. You know, there's a, I know that a lot of people will just see an ad that with big promises and they're like, Oh, let me order that. And you know, and number one, it won't deliver the promises. And then, and then number two, you never know, cause it's unregulated and you never know what's in all that stuff. So there might be, you know, something in it that you have a contraindication

to, or potentially make you sick or even worse. Usually Viagra. Yeah. Just sprinkle that in there. Could be mess with lace with fentanyl or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Appreciate that, Tim. Thanks for calling in, man. All right, dude. All right, thanks, guys.

Have a great day. I mean, I knew as soon as I saw those studies come out, and like, oh, this was, by the way, those are old. Those myostatin studies now have to be at least 15, 15 years old. I mean, I knew when I saw them was like oh you just they figure out how to do this and people We're gonna start seeing you know 300 pound quarterbacks, you know So I know what those ads look like I haven't seen any yet I've seen on the internet but not like on social media. They're crazy looking pictures

I mean, I they do have like crazy scared to death to take something like that. I mean that level I mean, that's 20 year old. Do you be scared to death to take something like that. I mean. At that level, I mean that's. With a 20 year old, do you be scared to death? Yeah, even 20 year old. Really? Miles Stanton, have you seen the Whippets and the fucking, that's a little crazy. 20 year old Sal would have been like, I'll take some of that.

Oh, you're crazy, bro. 46 year old Sal's gonna be like, I'm taking it. But it's funny, you know, we interviewed Phil Heath and you talked to these pros and these, you know, and they're just, they just build muscle on accident. Yeah. It's just ridiculous, so. You barely have to try. If you like the show, come find us on accident. It's just ridiculous. So.

You barely have to try. If you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump. DeStefano and Adam is at Mind Pump. Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin

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