Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2568: The Top 5 Most Overrated Health Hacks & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: The top 5 most OVERRATED health hacks. (2:02) Shout out to Callum Ferris! (31:22) Does carb-timing make a difference? (33:20) Is your child addicted to drugs? (41:12) Isometrics for pain. (48:51) Permitting yourself to fail. (52:46) Eating your greens to reduce inflammation. (59:00) Improving mobility and flexibility. (1:01:34) #Quah question #1 – What’s the recommended tempo for the 8-10 rep range? Would you change it for raw power or muscle endurance? (1:05:45) #Quah question #2 – I have done a round of MAPS15 Advanced and loved it, and then got excited to switch to Anabolic for the change in my weekly schedule. However, after two weeks, I felt my recovery was tanking hard after long days. I’m in Perimenopause and I’m resigned to the fact that I have to go back to shorter daily sessions instead of 2-3 longer sessions per week. What do you recommend I do? MAPS15 again? (1:09:52) #Quah question #3 – How important is it to line up your feet perfectly when squatting and deadlifting? How do you line up your feet without overthinking it? (1:12:45) #Quah question #4 – Where do you see AI in 5-10 years in relation to strength training programming, nutrition plans, and mental/emotional support? (1:15:13) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Rock Recovery Center for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Ben and Tom know firsthand the struggles of addiction and alcoholism. With years of experience helping thousands of individuals, they offer a free consultation call to discuss your situation. Whether you’re personally battling addiction or have a loved one in need of help, they’re here to guide you toward the support you need. By filling out the form and scheduling your call, you’ll also be entered for a chance to win a free 60-day scholarship at Rock Recovery Center, their premier treatment center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Don’t wait—take the first step today. ** Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off** April Special: MAPS HIIT or Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Stop Your 3 Hour Morning Routine – Alex Hormozi Use the 3-2-1 Formula for Best Sleep Results | Cabral Concept 2526 Mind Pump #2522: Athletic Training Secrets With Alex Whitehair The Effects of Natural Daylight on Length of Hospital Stay Mind Pump #2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Delaying post-exercise carbohydrate intake impairs next-day exercise capacity but not muscle glycogen or molecular responses IS YOUR CHILD ADDICTED TO DRUGS? Mind Pump #2392: Steps to Overcoming Addiction with Tom Conrad & Ben Bueno Intra-somatosensory cortical circuits mediating pain-induced analgesia Justin’s Road to 315 Push Press Mind Pump #385: Dr. Terry Wahls on New Dietary Research Visit MASSZYMES by biOptimizers for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP10 at checkout** Why Your Tempo Matters When You Workout! – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #1827: The 3 Best Rep Ranges to Build Muscle & Burn Fat Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Alex Hormozi (@hormozi) Instagram Alex Whitehair (@realgame.athletics) Instagram SJ&Ferris (@sjandferris) Instagram Thomas Conrad (@realrecoverytalktom) Instagram Ben Bueno (@realrecoverytalkben) Instagram Terry Wahls MD (@drterrywahls) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind there's only one place to go Mind pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano Adam Schaefer This health and entertainment podcast this is a mind pump today's episode people wrote in questions We picked from their favorite ones and then we answer them on the podcast But this was after the intro the The intro today was 64 minutes long. In our intro today we talk about fitness, science around diet and supplements. We actually had, we showed it in the podcast today

of a woman whose son is going through rehab. It was really, really touching. That happened in the intro. Then we got to answering the questions. By the way, if you want to write in a question that we can pick, go to Instagram, at Mind Pump Media, that's where you do it. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors.

The first one is Rock Recovery Center. They specialize in helping people break free from addiction. We know the two guys that run their program, we trust them, it's amazing. Here's what they're doing, by the way, for our listeners. If you need help or someone you know needs help, go to rockrecoverycenter.com mind pump. They will get on the phone with you, answer some questions, and they will pick somebody

to give a four-month, $60,000 rehab scholarship to. It's pretty amazing. Again, it's rockrecoverycenter.com mind pump. This episode is also brought to you by Organifi. Today we talked about their green juice. I'm going to be using it regularly to see if it impacts my inflammatory system or if I get less inflammation. Anyway, Organifi has lots of good supplements. Go check them out. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I. Excuse me. O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com. Forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Get 20% off. We also have a sale on some workout programs this month. MAPS HIT, 50% off.

And the Extreme Fitness Bundle, which includes MAPS HIT, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Prime, that bundle is also 50% off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code APRIL50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Every time you turn on social media, there seems to be a new health hack that's gonna dramatically improve your

health, help with longevity, reduce inflammation, make you feel better. Here's the deal, most of them are terribly, terribly overrated. We're gonna talk about the top five most overrated health hacks. Let's go. I'll start with the first one. Overrated. Can I preface this first before you like ruin all of our partnerships? Well let me say the first one. Let me say the first one first. That'd probably be smart.

We gotta say the first one before we lose people first. Then we'll get into this though. Okay so morning routine. I think that's gotta be one of the top most overrated health hacks. Okay, why are they overrated? It's not because what we're about to talk about doesn't have value. It's that they're overrated? It's not because what we're about to talk about doesn't have value.

It's that they're overrated. It's not one of the big rocks. That's right. To me this is the thing, because obviously we're gonna say some things and people are gonna be like, wait a second, you guys promoted this? You said, yes, all the things we've ever promoted,

we use and we like. But one of the things we've always been very consistent on this show is telling people what are the big things that move the needle. That need to look here first. You know, this is like secondary. It's ancillary to this. 100%. So I know that's, we're going to get some pushback on these, but I love it. It's a good discussion. It's staying true to how we've always communicated these things. Doesn't mean that they can't be valuable. Doesn't mean they haven't helped some people along the way and been a big deal for them.

But generally speaking, there is really a handful of things that really move the needle. And if you just did those things, you would be 90% healthier and fitter than everybody else if you just did that. And all the other stuff, okay, are like nice to have. That's right, so all the things we were talking about, starting with morning routines, are overrated

because you see so much content around them that you think they do more than they actually do. Now part of this is, the reason why these things are overrated is A, either because they sell a product, which, look, all companies have to profit. There's nothing wrong with that. But what that can do is that can skew the information that you receive or how much of the information you receive comes from things that are profitable, which makes you believe because of the amount of content that

that is worth more than it actually is. Now with morning routines, they tend to get a lot of views. So people like to post their morning routines or talk about them, and it's like this thing that you do and it sounds like magic. But the truth is, there's some value in them, but it doesn't outrank all the other important things. And it's gotten ridiculous with morning routines.

The most viral thing on internet right now is the guy's morning routine. It's going crazy. And everybody's, I mean the reason why it's going crazy too is everybody's making spoofs of it and you know making fun of it well, it's gotten so crazy because You know nine out of ten people who see these videos are like dude. I gotta be at work at this time I got kids to get up my kid woke up in the middle And I have to do like I gotta wake up two hours before To make all the stuff happen like is that okay? Let me let me put it to you this way

Getting more sleep is far more valuable for 99.9% of people than waking up two hours early to do the perfect morning Have you guys ever heard have you guys ever heard Alex from Ozzy go on this tangent? No. Yeah. Oh you serious Yeah, you guys Dylan you have to cut that in right here because I want these guys to see that edit. His take on morning routines is, I think, probably one of my favorite. He loves to compete against somebody that has that mentality, right? Because what if they don't get that? Yeah.

What if they don't get their perfect scenario morning routine? Now they're fucked. Their whole day's fucked. You know? What do you do? How do you navigate? So I'm 100% in that camp. I've also always, because I know there's a lot of people too that try and connect it to the correlation of millionaires and they all have this get up at 5 a.m. do this. And I'm not that guy. I never have been that guy. And I've tried to be that guy so many times

of like, just never been a morning person and never been able to stick to it and be consistent with it. And I have tried, I've fallen for the propaganda of man, this is what's keeping me from the next level. You know what I'm saying? Like I can't make enough because I can't get up at four o'clock in the morning and do these things,

you know, and so for the longest time, I definitely tried to be that guy. I'm proud of two things right now, just listening to you talk. Sal, your transformation getting into Christianity, and Adam, his transformation in conspiracy theory. Yeah, yeah. Those two things.

Yeah, it's great. Well, a lot of convergence happening. Yeah. No, I think so. What you find, the reason why you see the data that shows that people that make this much money or have this much success tend to have a morning routine is what you're probably looking at

as what's called reverse causation. The kind of person that tends to succeed also tends to structure and plan things in their day and prioritize things in their day and prioritize things in their day. So that oftentimes includes some kind of a structured morning which allows them to get more work done or allows them to do, or also what it also does is it tends to encourage them to go to bed early.

Because here's why I think this is overrated. People will lose sleep to try to get their morning routine. Oh no, even though I'm going to bed at midnight, I gotta be up at six so I to get their morning routine. Yeah. Oh, no, I even though I'm going to bed at midnight I got to be up at 6 so I could do my morning routine No, but like more sleep is 10 times more valuable than your morning routine or the point that Justin was making is like you Don't like you missed the iced bath or you miss the you know, the the the first, you know Look at the Sun for 15. Yeah Yeah, whatever your steps you have, you miss one of them and it throws your day off.

Or you look at it already, you start the day with a failure because you didn't accomplish this thing that you've put so much credit in. Oh, it's so valuable and it's like, no, you should be able to perform on no rest or whatnot. You should be able to perform, like rushing out your door some days and other days where you've got two hours to slowly wake up and do your,

like. Well your time was just the inflexibility because of the fact that you make it so important. Yes. You make it so important. Yes. No, 100%. Next up, you kind of mentioned it, cold plunge.

Now, is there value to cold plunge? Yes, but how important is it or impactful is cold plunging to eating healthy, getting in sleep and exercising? It's not even in the same universe. Okay, now why is cold plunging so popular? Well you could sell products around it and also it looks cool, it's really hard, it's something people like to brag about I think. There is some value to it for things like inflammation, immune system boosting, but when it comes to inflammation and immune system boosting, are there things that are far

more impactful? Absolutely. And so for that reason, cold plunging is overrated. People think it does more than it actually does. And again, it has value, but it doesn't have the kind of value that I think that people subscribe to. I love cold plungings and I also 100% agree with you saying that. I actually just got asked a question the other day on my live questions. I only have so much time, Adam. What is better for me to do, cold plunging or sauna? I said all the research points to sauna.

As far as health benefits and the ROI on your time, you get way more benefits for that. That's what the science says. It doesn't mean I don't like cold plunging and I don't see the benefits from it. It's just, it's so, and I think it's so popular, Sal, for the same reasons why OCR is popular. It's because we live in such a soft society that doing this hard thing is like this big accomplishment for so many people. Because let me tell you, it is hard to get up in the morning. The retention for going in the sauna is much higher than with the cold plunge. There's

a lot of value in cold plunge and there's a lot of science wrapped into that, but in terms of adherence, you have to kind of balance it out. It's going to be a real challenging one to maintain. And when it comes back to the way Sal started this conversation, it's not the big rock. If you're somebody who's already built cold plunge into your routine, you love it, it's done all these benefits, we're not, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the person who's trying to figure this out. That's like, I hear all these things online that are so good and they all attach to studies and research that say it's so awesome and they're going, I don't know where to start and they're overwhelmed. The stuff we're

talking about right now, don't waste your time with. Also too, yeah, you can just use your shower and gradually go cold and then whatever the resources. If I'm constantly, if I wake up and I'm taking a shower, I'm gonna do that every day, if I can just start gradually bringing that temperature down and get a lot of the same values, now I don't have to buy, really invest in this whole elaborate operation.

Yes, but again, it's just overrated because people perceive it to be much more impactful than it actually is. It's not gonna change your life like fixing your diet, not even close. True. Next up, our favorite overrated thing to talk about, which is supplements.

Supplements get a lot of air time, they get a lot of articles, they get a lot of promotion, they get a lot of promotion because they're money-making products. So when you're a fitness company or a health company or a fitness expert or influencer or whatever, part of the way you make money is probably gonna be around selling products

and many of those products are gonna be supplements. And so when you look at an influencer's content, a disproportionate amount of the stuff they talk about is probably going to be related around studies and things that talk about or support supplements. And what it does is it skews just how important supplements are. because that's a big deal. If you have a nutrient deficiency, in other words, if you're not getting enough nutrients to thrive, you're not getting enough vitamin D or magnesium or vitamin K or vitamin C, you're sick. You have symptoms of a deficiency. A feeling that is definitely life-changing. But above and beyond that, supplements are maybe 1%,

maybe, when you look at the whole pie of what impacts your performance, your fitness, your health, it's maybe 1%. People love them, they love taking them. I am a supplement addict, admittedly, but it's overrated in the sense that they just don't come close to the boring stuff that we talk about. Again, exercise, diet, sleep, you know.

This is why I've always liked the analogy of supplements are like a spoiler on a car. And there's a reason why every race car has a spoiler. The down force it creates adds to the ability to get traction, take corners. But the percentage of what it does for that race car compared to the suspension, the traction, take corners, but the percentage of what it does for that race car compared to just the engine, the suspension, the tires, the engine, the driver, the all the other things is just it's not even in the same universe. So the guy that has the great car, the great driver,

all those things that doesn't have a spoiler will crush the guy with the best spoiler in the world that doesn't have all the other things working for them. So I've always loved the analogy of looking at supplements like that. Yet, every driver, every pro driver has one of those on their car because it does create downforce, it does help. But it's after you've checked all the other boxes where it makes a difference, then okay, then I'm gonna check that box. Imagine you're gonna play a game of tug-of-war and there are four people to pick from. Three of them are 250-pound strongman athletes and Three of them are 250 pound strongman athletes and one of them is a toddler.

Are you gonna, and you have to pick three. Who are you gonna pick, the toddler or are you gonna pick the three big dudes? You're gonna pick the three big dudes. Now, if you could use all four because you're already picking the three dudes, you can throw the toddler on there. It'll give you a little extra help

but it's not gonna come close. That's literally what supplements are. They're just overrated. And how do I know they're overrated? Because here's what happens. Somebody asked me for fitness advice and it's one of the first questions they asked me. I get more messages from friends and family members

about supplements that they've heard me talk about than about diet and exercise. And these are people that don't eat right and don't exercise. I got my cousin sending me a text, hey Sal, I saw this ad for whatever that you were talking about this. And I'm like, is it worth it? Well, I mean, are you eating, Ry?

How's your WX? And they don't want to hear that, right? They just want to hear about the supplement that I talked about. It's like, look, if you're not, how about this, hit your protein intake. That's gonna crush any supplement I talk about. Any supplement I talk about.

It's always so hard for people to wrap their brain around this because in the same breath I can tell you, I use supplements. I love supplements. I use them all the time. Yet, I have never advised somebody when they asked me they need help with something that this was the answer. Supplements have never been... Everybody's life that I have helped, changed or dramatically

shifted their body composition, it has never been due to the supplement recommendation given, never. Yet, I use them and I like them. So, and I can balance the two of those. I can say, I like playing around with supplements, there's certain things I like to take, I feel better when I take this thing. But when it comes to advising somebody

who I'm trying to help, it doesn't even come close to what moves the needle. That's right. Next up, blue light blocking glasses. Blue light blocking glasses are overrated because when you compare them to simply not being on electronics or being in the dark for a little bit before bed, it doesn't even come close.

It's literally like a bandaid over a gaping wound versus not getting cut in the first place. Okay so so blue light blocking glasses better than nothing but not being on your computer or on your phone before bed. Yeah much more impactful. Way better way better. Now why are they overrated? Because people don't change their lifestyle. Yeah they don't turn the electronics off. Because they're like I got the blue light blocking lights will fix everything. And it does make a little bit of a difference, but it doesn't come close to You know not turning those things on the first place

I mean, I think this is why there was such a huge market for this and why it got really popular again is because We've become so addicted to these tools right iPhones and iPads and televisions and Heaven forbid we put together a night routine where we shut it all down by six o'clock and then we go buy candlelight or we turn all the blue lights off and have something like a salt lamp. Like heaven forbid we do that.

That's just too much to ask or too much to do. I'd rather spend the $100 on the high tech glasses and just throw them on but keep my behaviors. And so that's why there's become a market for it. And that's the value that it has. If you know that about yourself, that you're going to struggle and have that, well, then it's a decent aid, right? But it's a band aid is what it is. When there is a free solution that's superior. And I feel like, which is also how these things fell in this, again, overrated category. Does it mean that I don't use it.

Doesn't mean that I don't see value in it. It just means it's so overrated because there's a free solution that's better. If there's a free solution that's better, I would always want to communicate that first. And then it's like, listen, and if you know you're not going to do that, okay, sure, you can have a pair of those and then throw on. That's why I got a pair on my bed right next to my nightstand. My goal always is to not have to use them and to not be on my phone. But then there's times where I'm like, oh, I got to grab this thing.

So I have them right next to my bed so I could throw them on. Then I can get on my phone. Next, fasting. Fasting has some, some great spiritual implications or applications, I think, done in that context with prayer or meditation. I think there's a lot of value there, but fasting for health, fasting for fat loss, fasting for what a super overrated calorie deficit gives you pretty much exactly the same benefits. It's been sold as this like incredible cell autophagy and it helps your body with

longevity or whatever. And okay, well, compared to calorie deficit, same exact thing. Increased growth hormones. Super, super, super overrated. This one to me is a bit comical on how overrated it is and how big a suckers we all are. Because they've been doing this for thousands of years.

Fasting has been around for not hundreds, thousands of years, Fasting has been around for thousands, not hundreds, thousands of years people have been fasting and they never once thousands of years ago was it for weight loss. What we have found in the last 50 or 60 years is because man and this is how this is a lot of times how science works like man humans just keep doing this thing. What is it about it? Let's dive into it. Let's read it. I'm like oh wow there there's a lot of health benefits that came with it. Oh wow, now let's attach a diet or something to it and sell it to make it even more popular. But the truth is we've been doing it for a very long time, but not for the reasons that it's marketed to you. We just found out-

Consumerism just twisted it. Yeah, we found a way to monetize it and they've done an incredible job of marketing and selling to us. Again, doesn't mean I don't use fasting. I think it's an incredible tool. I've used it with multiple my clients. I use it personally myself, but not for the reasons or how it's being marketed for fat loss. I think it's a terrible idea. It's better for the spiritual aspect of detachment. The practice of detachment in my opinion is incredibly healthy for all people. Not what we've attached it to as far as the science of all the things that Sal pointed out. 100%. All right, now let's talk about some of the most underrated health hacks. Pre-bed routine.

Like a pre-bed routine is so underrated, it's so much more important than your morning routine. Something that sets you up for good sleep has such crazy ramifications down the line because good sleep is so powerful. That's where all the magic happens. It's so powerful for your health. So doing a pre-bed, hour before bed routine that helps with improving your sleep, something that helps improve your sleep is always, always super valuable. Here's the thing too, there's a lot of other byproducts that happen or positive things that happen

because of the morning routine. What ends up happening, or evening routine, if somebody puts together an evening routine, okay, and it's a good one, that means they're shutting electronics off earlier. So the detachment of that has already got enough health benefits, not to mention it's going to help you fall asleep. You also will have to shut down your

eating earlier than what you normally would. That's got all kinds of research and benefits to it. That's going to improve digestion. That's going to improve your sleep. You then are going to get a great night's sleep, which then set you up for a great morning and great success for the next day. I mean, the downstream effects of disciplining yourself, which by the way, doesn't cost any money, disciplining yourself to put together a night routine literally trumps all the other things that we said are overrated.

You have, you put together what the people listening right now spend $0, but put together a good evening routine, like the three, two, one, or something before the end of the night, that trumps all the other things that we just said were overrated. Combined. All of it. Combined.

Just get that down and the positive benefits you will get from that and that's what makes those other ones overrated and that's what makes this so underrated. Now I'm going to blow people's mind, okay? I'll say this very confidently. 80% or more of the benefits of the pre-bed routine is because it makes people go to bed on time. So when they go an hour before their bedtime, here's my routine, they know they're gonna go to bed on time. So most of the benefits of the fact

the person's going to bed on time. Inconsistently, yes. Next up, walking. Walking, walking, walking. The data on walking daily, often, and its health effects for longevity are incredible. There's a few reasons why. One, we could still do it without crazy dysfunction, so the injury risk of it's low.

Two, it's not a crazy workout. People don't need to change and structure it. Something you can just do whenever you want. Three, you can do it all day long. Blood sugar. It's got all those great benefits for health, insulin resistance, for mobility, for digestion. This was so underrated as a trainer. I used to underrate this as a trainer.

The biggest mistake I made as a trainer, there was a lot of mistakes, but one of the top three mistakes I made was underrating walking for my clients. If I could go back in time, this would be one of the things I would change. This is why this is one of my favorite ones as put listed as underrated because I also made that mistake. It would have

fallen in the overrated category for me. If you asked me in my first two years as a personal trainer, that's how naive I was to how, but this is, I was so on the opposite end of the spectrum of understanding how powerful, how valuable something that I used to scoff at when people told me this is what they did for exercise has now become the number one first thing that I recommend before anything else. So before I even tell someone to do some sort of a MAPS routine or follow a diet a certain way, I encourage just walking, starting them there.

It's such a good place to start everybody and to build on. And it has so many good downstream benefits from just creating that as a habit. It's funny, because even when we had Alex White hair on and I didn't even put together, like when I was an athlete and I was like, you know, at my peak, how completely sedentary we are. And we would train really hard,

but then the whole majority of the rest of the day, you'd take all the rest of the hours where I'm sitting down. Mush out on video games. Just mushing out. Yeah, and again, because you're younger, and I could kind of rebound, but if I would've just added a consistent

just walking for recovery, man, my performance would've increased substantially. Totally. Next up, sunlight. Sunlight is incredibly underrated. Go outside. The studies and the data on how this impacts your mental health, this sunlight would be, if we could sell it like an antidepressant or anti-anxiety drug, it would be a blockbuster.

That's how underrated it is. That's how powerful it is. By the way, we've known this for a long time and for some reason we forgot. anxiety drug, it would be a blockbuster. That's how underrated, that's how powerful it is. By the way, we've known this for a long time, and for some reason, we forgot. But it wasn't that long ago, maybe a generation or two ago, when people were like, man, I don't feel good. I feel kinda down, go outside.

Literally, that was the recommendation we used to hear all the time. Go outside, go for a walk, get some sunlight, see how you feel. Immediate mood elevation. That's it. It's so powerful that lacking it is an almost guaranteed way to cause depression. That's what the data shows. I felt like I mean I knew this But when I had max I this really became super apparent to me

I like and there's something about that right like I mean Being a coming-up parent is one of the greatest like self-awareness tools, right that we have and so Coming a parent is one of the greatest self-awareness tools that we have. Sometimes it shows you how numb we can be to even our own feelings or what's working or not working for us. We're so distracted and everything else. I wasn't paying attention to, how do I feel when days I get four hours of sunshine and then other days when I get no out? I wasn't really connecting those dots. I knew the benefits of sunlight. I know that, but I never really tried to peer into that until I had a son and I watched it until I could see it in front of me and I saw the patterns and I went, oh my God, that was one of the biggest self-awareness tools for me to realize like how much sunlight, and anybody who's had a kid,

pay attention to the days that you take your kid out to the pool and in the park all day long and Then compare that to the day that they're in the house watching TV or indoors all day long and tell me you don't see a Significant difference in their behavior and their sleep and their attitude or move everything. Yeah, that's how radically it changes I think it affects inflammation. This doesn't like go away when you turn five or something. Your body wants that. It needs that. It's forever important and we just have found a way to try and supplement it or subsidize it and be distracted and not pay attention to it, but it's very important. Yeah, there's a study that showed that hospital rooms where there was a window that faced the rising sun Yeah, patients that stayed in those rooms left the hospital a day or two faster Mm-hmm just from the sun rising and them being exposed to something

Yeah, next up whole foods like literally just whole natural foods foods with one ingredient Super underrated. This is how underrated it is Okay foods with one ingredient, super underrated. This is how underrated it is, okay? If all everybody ever did, if they did nothing else with their diet, if all they ever did was only eat whole natural foods, we would solve the obesity epidemic by itself, by itself. Now, it wouldn't make people more fit or strong, they'd still need to exercise,

but in terms of being overweight, this alone, by itself, would solve the problem. You see a significant drop in obesity just from this. This is so powerful that this became, after my years of being a trainer and a coach, after years and years of working with people, this became my go-to.

At the very end, this is all I would do with people. I'd say, okay, here's what we're gonna do. Just eat whole natural foods. Let's start with that. Nothing else? Yeah, let's just start with that. And people would lose 20, 30 pounds just from doing that alone.

I wouldn't have to tell them to do anything else. Well, we speculated off air before talking about this. Could you imagine if we could just convince everybody to eat whole foods, walk every day, and train, weight train one day a week? Oh, well. How, like now you're talking. We'd fix most of them.

Now you're talking, you got everything. Now you are, you're fit, you're strong. You have a little bit of endurance with your ability to walk and stamina, like in compared with what you, the benefits you get from whole foods. Like that is not even getting into macros and trying to measure and track anything. That's not even getting super sophisticated with the training program or how many exact steps that's literally like go walk every day, strength train one time a week,

eat whole foods, will like radically change 90% of most people's lives. There's natural satiating limiters when you eat whole foods. That exists. Yeah, it exists, it's in the fiber, it's in the protein from the animals, it's there already, and so, you know, like there's, once we get into the engineering

and ways to really increase sales and you see that with a lot of food products, it becomes a different thing. Processed foods are engineered to be like drugs. The best studies we have on diet, the best studies where they can actually put people in a lab, watch them, control them, crossover, are done on processed foods versus whole natural foods. The difference is about 600 calories with the same feeling of satiety. Meaning eat as much as you until you feel satisfied.

When it's processed foods, it's 600 more calories a day. That right there is the obesity epidemic. Period. End of story. Lastly, easily the most underrated health hack, easily is hiring a coach. If everybody knew, if the world knew the value of working with a good coach they would do nothing else. They would literally do nothing else. It would be the biggest most booming business in America by far. A good, there

is nothing will give you a chance at solving your fitness and health challenges forever. Nothing comes close than hiring a guide that knows what they're doing. There is nothing more valuable. A coach is worth their weight in gold. No supplement, no routine, no online anything. Nothing comes close to a good coach. Good coaches literally change lives.

We know this. They're more valuable than our lives. We know this. They're more valuable than our podcast. We know this. Shorten your timeline towards success. It's like, it's crazy that people don't consider a coach. It's like, that's literally like the biggest hack if you have any hacks. It's such a bummer because I think at face value

people see how expensive it is and they're like, oh, that's so expensive. But if you calculated all the things that you spent money on, attempting to lose that weight or to build that body. On a hope and a win. people see how expensive it is and they're like, oh, that's so expensive. But if you calculated all the things that you spent money on, attempting to lose that weight or to build that body. On a hope and a whim. Right, all the gimmicky machine,

the newest machine thing that came out, or all the supplements, or all the diet books, or all the challenges you've, if you added up all those and whatever that dollar amount was, you invested that. You're not even adding up the healthcare costs, loss productivity of poor health. Not even adding that, dude. Just adding up the things that you've actively spent your money on in hopes that you were going to get this return in your physique.

Even if you just spent a fraction of that on a coach or trainer, five sessions with a really good coach and trainer will give you the return 10 times on just that. Even if you don't get to have them for an extended period of time, just the knowledge that you can get from those five. Now I do think it does matter the quality of the coach. That's why I said good coach. Because that's the challenge. Because unfortunately, and I guess this is the other part of this or the challenge for the consumer who's like nodding their head like, yeah, I agree, but how do I know? And so that's the part that takes a little bit of work, right?

A little bit of research or going to a trusted source that you can trust that, okay, they would recommend a good person for me. Because if you got me at 20, I mean, I might have helped you a little bit or gave you some decent stuff, but if I got you today versus then, the difference of what I could give you in five sessions versus what I could probably give you in five sessions 20 years ago is a significant-

This is why we're devoting so much time to coaches right now. Is we're trying to create the standard and make it so that it becomes, people are more aware of what constitutes a good coach, what the right philosophy is, what the right ethos is. And this will help people get good coaches. And it'll also get coaches to become good coaches. All right, I need to ask a favor of our audience,

so we typically don't do this, but I talked to you about this yesterday, Adam. So Margaret, who works our, she does our customer service, and she's, I gotta just give, I just gotta say some nice things about Margaret. She's so, she loves what she does so much. She loves the people that she helps so much. She goes so above and beyond what she's supposed to do

for customer service to help people. Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, I mean, she does such a great job. Anyway, she was in contact with this gentleman whose son is a huge fan of the show. His son is 15. His name is Callum Ferris, and he has high-grade glioma cancer, like the 15-year-old does, and he has high grade glioma cancer,

the 15 year old does, and he's a huge fan, the kid's a huge fan. And so she was asking me advice and we've sent this kid apparel. And so I'm like, can we do anything or whatever? Is there anything we can do? And they asked for prayers. They're asking for prayers for their 15-year-old son,

Callum Ferris, and for people to visit his Instagram to support him. He's got a personal Instagram, but it's great. You can see the kid working out. He's wearing our gear and a lot of it. I mean, I went through and I was wiping away tears. Oh, the coolest thing that I would love to see are, I mean, how cool would it be if this kid,

overnight, gets thousands of followers? Please, please. And people and people supporting what that could potentially do for his spirit. His Instagram is SjandFerris. So S-J-A-N-D-F-E-R-R-I-S. Calum is his name. If you're a Christian, pray for him to heal. But everybody get on his Instagram and just give this kid

so much support. It would really, really brighten up his day. It would be cool to see how many people rally behind that Sal and actually go do that. I mean, listen, small thing to ask. Not asking for money, not asking if you're doing anything. Take a moment of your day. Just let him know we're thinking about him.

And support that. Super, super awesome. All right, I'm gonna go back to fitness. Study came out. I love studies that challenge my previous understandings or views. There was a really good study on carb timing. That's right, carb timing. So let me pull this up for you. So in the study, they were trying to see if,

does carb timing make a difference? Like consuming carbohydrates post-workout versus later in the day. Now here's what we've seen in other studies. So initially it was like yes, right after your workout, have some carbs, have some proteins, speeds up recovery because it gets glycogen to replenish in the muscle. Other studies show, many studies show,

glycogen gets replenished just the same. Okay, whether you do it right after you work out or whether you do it hours later in the workout. And so the difference was, if you're gonna work out in an hour or two, definitely eat carbs right away, replenish your carbs faster, otherwise it doesn't make a difference. Here's how cool this study was.

This study looked at how carbohydrate intake post exercise affected next day performance. Oh, okay. So two groups, one group had carbs right after the workout, the next group waited a few hours then had carbs, then they trained the next day. So both of them should be fully replenished. Is there a difference in performance?

Yes. Really? Yes, there was. The delayed carbohydrate group experienced a 30% reduction in next day high intensity. 30% reduction. Despite similar muscle glycogen levels, they completed five fewer intervals

and reported higher perceived exertion. Can I say it? Go ahead. Another one for the bros. Bodybuilders. Another one for my bros. Another one for my bros. Another one for my bros. By the way, it was-

This is, hey, let me tell you, that in the bro bodybuilding community, we've been doing this for a long time. For sure, that's been a brutal thing. 80, 90% of my carbohydrates, I always centered around my workouts, pre and post. That's wild. And-

Now, I always felt it in the performance of the workout itself, like the before, right? And that's what studies show. But as far as like, if you were to ask me what's gonna happen. Yeah Here's no and they had similar day. I'm gonna do that similar glycogen level Okay, so the study is cool But to me the the thing that got me to do it it just seemed logical That I just trained really hard and I depleted my I just took that sponge and I wrung it out completely and it is ready

To suck up everything that it possibly could right now. It just made logical sense to me, that would be the most optimal time to load it with all of these nutrients like carbohydrates and protein, and the bulk of it when it's wanting it the most. Then later in the day, when it's satisfied,

I would try and mitigate the amount. Just made sense to me. It makes sense to me too from parasympathetic angle, right? So like that's another way to get into that state. Is to eat. Is to eat. And again, yeah, replenishing the stores, providing the materials to really start

that process occurring. Which probably is what speaks to why they got it. They got to that parasympathetic and recovery process much earlier than the person who waited and delayed that. Maybe I mean we're speculating right? Yeah we're totally speculating. I think that's a fair theory. But had you asked me, hey what do you think is going to happen in this study?

Because here's what happened. They both trained hard. One group had carbs right after. The other group waited three hours, that's all. They just waited three hours. Then the next workout was the following day. So again, previously, historically, if it was a workout right after, an hour after,

I would've said, oh yeah, eat right after. Let me, since we're here, this is such a cool conversation for me because this was something I used to do. I didn't speak about it a lot on the show because again, there wasn't a lot of science to support and I'm not going to be telling people what to do that I don't know how to articulate the science of why I do it or why it works. But I have always done it this way. When I am training to build in bulk, I follow this kind of a protocol. Most of my carbs around my

workout, shuttle them all in right then and there, and that's what I do. When I'm on a cut, I go the opposite direction. I actually push the timeout. Because when I am in a cut, I'm not trying to make progress. I'm not trying to have the best workout the next day. I don't give a shit if I'm trying to lean out. And the delay of eating is just,

it would spread out the time between my meals, and it was easier to eat less calories out that way and so I used to allow myself the hours to go by before I would feed when I'm in a cut and that helped me stay in a low in a cool it's more anabolic on some level maybe but here's what I here's the interesting thing I would like to see a study that controls the calories to see if there's a fat loss benefit from one or the other. Because I can argue on the opposite side, Adam.

I could argue, if I wanted to, I could say, well yeah, but then you'll perform better the following day, which would lead to better fat loss. I mean, who knows? This is just interesting. No way, I mean, when you think about, you know that when you were trying to do fat loss, okay, the performance in the gym does not matter. The work is done in the calorie deficit. Yes but what that is where the real work is and I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that people

make is thinking that the the labor they do plays a big role in fat loss. Nothing is more powerful than being consistent with the diet and you know this being in a deficit. One of the hardest things to do is discipline yourself to consistently stay in that deficit. So creating this, maybe the science doesn't support being more anabolic. Maybe the science doesn't support that I would have better performance next day. But what it does support is if I carve out three hours

that I don't eat when I normally would have ate at least once and then almost a second time, it's easier for me to hit my calorie times. That trumps the science. Well, yeah, I'm not arguing that. What I'm arguing is if they did a controlled study where the calories were the same, if they're identical, same calories. Oh, I don't think that my way would win if you controlled that.

Part of why I do it is the psychology. That's right. Which I think trumps everything. Yeah, that trumps everything. That's right. Which I think trumps everything. Yeah, that trumps everything. That's my point. So the science obviously says the benefits, this new science is supporting eating most of those carbs right afterwards.

What I'm saying is that- That promotes more hunger. I would use, exactly, I would use that as a strategy when I'm bulky and I'm building. When I would switch to cutting, I would actually counter the science. Even though the science supports I should probably still eat a bulk of my carbs,

it didn't matter at the science at this point. I know how hard it is to stay at a 500 to a 1000 calorie deficit day in and day out. So I would stretch the window out so it'd be easier to decalibrate. And by the way, for people listening right now, Adam is speaking like a coach. And when you're training people,

the most important thing you look at is what like a coach. And when you're training people, the most important thing you look at is what influences their behaviors. Way more important than what's actually happening. It's way more important, right? Because if what Adam says is true, which I agree, it keeps your calories controlled easier, that's gonna trump whatever other value you may see. Nonetheless, study's interesting.

I would've never guessed that. It's interesting, and to your point, what sucks is that I actually think that my point would lose in the study. If you took two groups and you controlled the calories. But that's because it's controlled. I know, and this is an area of why I don't like, or this is where I like to discuss this stuff

with people so they understand. It's like there's times, in my opinion, where it makes sense to follow the science. Like eating right after a workout right away to bulk and build because of the benefits of your performance the next day and how many more calories I can eat because I'm eating right away

and then I'm gonna eat again, makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, it was logical to me to do that even before the science completely supported. When I'm trying to cut, creating these a little bit longer windows between eating makes a lot of sense. The most important thing in man. Right, even though the science may not support

that the best for building muscle or burning body fat. Yeah, I know, totally. All right, so we're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna cut to, so I listened to the first, like four minutes of a podcast today. So Real Recovery Talk is a podcast about addiction, and it's hosted by our friends Tom and Ben, who help run Rock Recovery.

So they help people get off drugs. But anyway, they have also have a podcast, it's been on air, by the way, for like seven years, really good podcast. They had a woman on their show who heard about them through our podcast, it was like a miracle how it all came together to bring her son to them to then get treatment. I listened to it this morning.

It was powerful. So powerful. We typically don't do this. We're gonna go ahead and cut to you so you guys can hear what happened and so you can hear for yourself. All right, so let me do a little bit of introduction here. Ben calls me.

I'm in the gym and says, hey, there's some lady at the front door from Mindpump. And I'm like, what? This was early in the morning. This was early in the morning. I was like three minutes before you got to the door. So anyways, I got to the front door and Laura's there and she's in tears. And we're like, okay, come in. What's going on?

And Laura, you found us from mind pump. Cause you've been a listener of mind pump for a long time. Yeah. So actually haven't been listening to mind pump as long as they've been around. And I think I did like a search on Spotify and then found mind pump about a year, year and a half ago. So anyway, uh, Wednesday morning, I was going back on past episodes trying to catch up on all the things I missed and they were talking about marijuana. And I guess

Sal had been a proponent of legalizing it. And then he was like, you know, I think I need to backtrack a little bit because there's new research coming out showing this, that, you know, yada yada. And then they said, you know, we need to reach out to our friends at Rock Recovery and, you know, get their spin on this. And he slid the plug in about the scholarship. And you know, now this is Wednesday morning and I had been praying for Randy for years and I was just, you know, constantly asking God, help me. I don't know what to do.

And I immediately was like, oh, I should probably reach out to them sometime, but didn't reach out immediately, didn't go to the website. Fast forward, Wednesday night, Randy wasn't home. Now normally when he wasn't home, I would be on the streets, driving around, looking behind alleys, praying not to find a dead body. But this time, over my sons, my two older sons telling me, mom, you have to stop. And my friends, you have to stop. So I didn't.

I didn't go searching for him. Come to find out by Thursday morning, he was in jail. They picked him up for trespassing. I still don't know the details of the trespassing, but what I do know is that previously throughout the years, police would pick him up or they would call me. They would have found him at a gas station. He would tell me he was just, you know, taking a rest. And they would say he was passed out, you know, from being drunk. So I would always get these two different stories. But he had been stopped by the police multiple times over the year.

So this time he was actually in jail. This is my first experience in all of this. I've never had anyone, you know, in jail. And I remembered that experience in all of this. I've never had anyone, you know, in jail. And I remembered that episode. And so then I went directly to the link, went to your website, started filling out the application for the scholarship program. And then by the time I finished, I went down and I saw that you were literally five minutes down the road, two and a half miles from me. And here I'm thinking, the first I was thinking, okay, I think I can handle a flight to California. I can't afford to get him into a program, but I know I can muster up between my sons

and I a flight. And so I was trying to plan all that and praying to God, please. And so I stopped filling out the application. I've never hit submit. I got in the car and I came down here and was here at the door like three minutes before you guys opened. But just the fact that all of that came,

I mean, the way it all came to be, that was God tapping on my shoulder saying, I got you. Right. I've got Randy, I've got you. And yeah, for you guys and for Sal and Justin and Adam and Doug and Katrina and all of them, he used all of us to help this one person. You guys are an answer to a prayer. He used you to help my son

and I will forever be in your debt. That was, I mean, crazy. Crazy story. Crazy, crazy story. It's hard not to get emotional. Made me emotional. When you hear that and the fact that she was literally two miles away from the facility.

I mean, gives you the chills. You know what's crazy about this is the part where she said that she goes out looking for her son praying that he's not dead. I don't know if you guys, so I know someone, I don't wanna say too much, because I don't wanna reveal who they are, but I know someone who struggled with addiction

and I know their mother very well, and it was like five years of hell. Oh my God. Five, now this kid got delivered out of it and they're now actually help other kids, other people with addiction. But during that period of time, like I can't even imagine, you know, going through that.

But those guys at Rock We Cover are so, they're such good guys, they're so good, they truly care about what they're doing. So, one of the best places. Yeah, no, it's been a really cool journey. We've known Tom and Ben for, they were huge fans of the show a long time ago and we have had them on, we've been on their show.

So they've been good friends for a long time. And I remember when Tom and I were first talking about working together and I thought, I don't, that's a, I've never thought that would be something that we would talk about, but I'm like, I believe so much in what you guys are trying to do. Yeah, we'll figure something out if to help and support it. And at that time, I really didn't know what it was going to look like. I had no idea what to what to expect. I didn't know what he would be able to offer to the audience or how he could support it. But it's really turned out to be something really

cool. And this is just an example that it's only been a short time that we have been working with them and already start to hear some of these. We have another guy who's already like, how many months now is he deep into the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two months or... No, no, no. He's like eight... Oh, no, no. I'm sorry. He's nine months. Yeah, nine months. Nine months sober that he's been in it. And so it's been really cool to see the people that listen to our show that have then found them and then have had success with it, especially with those things, because a lot of those clinics don't have a lot of success. And a lot of those clinics are in the business of recycling clients. And that was what connected Tom and Ben to us is that, I mean, we gravitate

towards disruptors of industries, right? Like we think we're a disruptor of an industry. They are trying to disrupt the industry by really change that perception around these recovery centers. And they are really truly trying to have success with these people to where they never come back again. And it's good to see that because I had a really bad taste in my mouth

around these clinics after I saw that documentary Body Counters, is it Body brokers body brokers. Yeah, I remember I talked about on the show I don't if you guys remember like hell years ago. It was like five six years ago Yeah, and I had no idea what a hustle and how dirty it was And so it was so cool to meet someone like Tom band who are very aware of how dirty it is and they're trying to change That for the good and to see things in stories like this and Fold's been a really cool journey. So I got something for you Justin,

because you are the isometrics guru among us and there was a study talking about, isometrics are great, we've talked about them on the podcast, they work really well for connection for strength Stability super safe is this incredible way to to amplify your training But one thing that isometrics do that I knew even before meeting Justin and really diving into isometrics Just as a trainer They're really good for pain

Isometrics are just really good for pain. Somebody with knee pain, like if I put them in an isometric quad contraction, it would oftentimes reduce the knee pain, right? Or if they had shoulder pain, if I can get them in the right position, create an isometric there. Sometimes it's like immediate. Crazy, so I went into it, like what is it that's happening? And I thought it was, oh, it's correctional movement, it's helping immediate. Crazy, so I went into it, I'm like, what is it that's happening?

And I thought it was, oh, it's correctional movement, it's helping the body move more. Isn't there some sort of a radiating effect that happens? Isn't that what's going on? With the isometrics, there is. There is an irradiation effect. Yes, so it's called cortical inhibition. So there's actually, there's a real phenomena

that's happening. I always thought it was through getting the person to move better, because now they're moving better, the pain's, and I think that plays a role, I definitely do, but what they're showing is that what you're activating are these cortical areas that release inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA, serotonin, and they activate the natural opioid system.

Rick relaxes it. Interesting. Yes. So chemically, you're literally stimulating that by the amount of tension that you're producing. So you're releasing natural pain relievers, natural opioid opioids. Oh shit. I didn't know that. To the area.

Like localizing it. Right? To the area. Crazy. Okay, so that makes me think this. That's so rad. That's super interesting because I understand the benefits of how that feels when you do something like that.

Isometrics before bed? Like why would you not do that? I mean I would think that would create- If it doesn't get too stimulating. That's the thing. That's the only concern. Some people do well with that though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think static stretching also has an effect like we're talking about might be a little better for before back It's more more person. It'd be interesting to compare the two then yes now that you I mean for pain relief I'll be honest with you like for pain relief in my experience Static stretching can help isometrics were like magic every time if I could get the person the right position Sometimes a challenge right like just creating the isometric contraction that they can do that doesn't hurt. But when I could do it, it was like. Are you guys seeing all the other fitness influencers and everything starting to move and talk about it more?

About isometrics? Oh yeah. No, really? Oh, now they're jumping on the wagon. I get lots of DMs. Well, that's good. Yeah, no, it is good. And people going like, man, you guys called this one.

It's like, well, I like to take the credit for isometrics, but isometrics has been around for a very long time. It was a lost method and modality, but yeah, it's- But super underrated. Impacted. Yes. I mean, even myself, I didn't use it a lot early on. I didn't understand the value of it until much later. And again, we talked about some of the underrated things today, like walking, like isometrics, as far as types of training for people. Just because too, everybody can do it.

I don't care how injured or how immobile or how old you are, I can incorporate where I can. Or how advanced you are. You'll get benefits. Right, or even how advanced you are. It benefits anybody That's the thing. It's great. Yeah, like you said like doesn't matter your age doesn't matter your ability doesn't matter Like yeah, if you're a beginner advanced

Because it'll fit in there like because it too it's safe. So you can literally, you know generate that yourself Intrinsically and you can you can manage and mitigate The amount of intensity that you have so now I want to ask you Justin because you're you're obviously you're filming yourself on This fitness journey the goal is a two a three hundred and fifteen pound push press. Yeah, which is ridiculous You're using you're using isometrics quite a bit. I am and especially in this first phase in the first month I was incorporated in it quite a bit. And really too, I'm trying to train my central nervous

system to respond and really produce as much muscle recruitment as possible. Because I have to go, I have to exceed my current level. And so to be able to do that with rapid result, because it's a short window. I have three months, right? Like if I was like, I'm going to do this for a year and I'm going to string this out, it's going to look a lot different. If I'm trying to do this in a very condensed amount of time, like isometrics is like, I have to, like this is, this is one of those

things because you know, the, the recovery rate of it is so much greater. Like I can, I can do that. It's not going to damage muscle tissue and any other kind of tissue like lifting heavy weights would. What are you doing more, overcoming or holds or is it equal? Both. Both. Yeah. But the yielding isometrics, I'm probably doing a bit more.

So yeah, so I'm pushing into objects. Is that yielding or overcoming? I'm pretty sure that was, yeah. Over I'm pushing into objects. Is that yielding or overcoming? I'm pretty sure that was, yeah, overcoming is where you're holding. That's right, sorry. Yeah, so yield, because I saw one where you had the barbell and you were pushing it up into the wrap. Yeah, I'm pushing on the safety bars. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. How long do you hold that for when you're doing that?

Yeah, so it's typically between five to 15 seconds. Okay, so it's just, ah, and then bring it down. Yeah, because any more than that and now you're like,, yeah, it's, you're going to fry your, your endurance is gone into, you're going to hold your breath and like get dizzy. So, so this is funny too, by the way. I don't know if you were in here, Adam, we were talking and Justin, obviously it's a lot of training and he's got this huge goal and he's like, I need to get motivated. I need an enemy. I need somebody to chase.

He's such a negative motivation person. So I told Justin. This is where we all differ, right? I was actually talking about this on my series a bit. See, the problem is, I identified a problem, Justin. You're so liked by our audience that every comment is so encouraging. Yeah, you need more of my people.

What you need are some of our fans to talk shit to you. Why are you trying to bring all this in? Because it'll work? It will work. OK, so obviously, anybody who watched my series. I like the encouragement. Anybody who watched my series saw all the challenges and hurdles I had.

What are you encountering? Anything that has been frustrating or challenging a little bit right now? Like, tell me a little bit more about what's going on inside of you. I think it's overthinking and it's psychologically, I wrestle every day whether or not I can do it. And I think like, I feel like I have a good plan,

but I just don't, I've never displayed all this publicly. You know, it's like, I work best in the shadows. I like to do my own thing and I like to experiment and see where my limits are. And to put it out there like a tangible number and have that as the determiner, whether it's a success or failure is kind of like it's psychologically messing with me. Yeah. And every time I work out, I want like my tendency is like, well, I want to check and see if I can do it, you know, and I have to press myself to that like right away. Yeah. Like I don't like the patience is really challenging

for me. You know, something that Sal said to me that really helped during my series, when I think it was probably the second time I got agent. I said something that helped you? Yeah, yeah. Every once in a while you say something really smart. Cool. He said something to me that, it resonated, right?

And it made me, because I had similar pressures of like, man, I've put this goal out to go do this. Now I knew I could do it or I felt confident I could do it, but I'm like, there's a lot of pressure that comes with putting it out there, documenting the whole thing, putting a timeframe on it. And so I can totally relate to that. And then of course, I started getting these injuries and I was like, well, this fucking sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And then of course, you're thinking to yourself like, this is just going to make me look like I don't know what I'm

doing. And so, Sal know, Sal said to me, he goes, bro, he goes, listen, he goes, the fact that you're not maybe getting the results you want, or you're not succeeding, or you have setbacks is more relatable and more people are gonna learn and get more value from it than if you just smash the goal. Even though your ego tells you that's what you want to go do. So giving yourself that permission to not hit it and to fail is actually a really empowering thing that it's like, hey, what you're doing and what you're teaching or showing is so valuable and let's be honest, many people set goals and don't hit them. Most people.

That so the fact that that might happen to you is totally okay. It's how you deal with it along the way and how you respond to it and what you did to get there and whatever, there's where the gold and the value lies. And so giving myself that permission to fail or know that, oh, this may not go the way I think it did, really helped me through that pressure that I was, that extra pressure I was applying to myself that I probably didn't need to be applying.

So again, I'll say the same thing to you. I think that- I'll have to hear that a few didn't need to be applying. So again, I'll say the same thing to you. I think that- I'll have to hear that a few more times because it's not going to sink. Because what people are getting already, I think from watching it is really valuable. It's real. Just watching you work through that process has been really cool. And I think that they're getting tremendous value already. Whether you hit 275, 290, 50 is actually really irrelevant. I mean, it's cool and it'll be cool if you hit it. Yeah. Cool. No. Yeah. And I appreciate that. I like

my logical brain says that, you know, like, and I can, I can totally hear that, but my other brain is like, you know, back into athlete mode where you, you just like all hell or high water kind of a thing. And so yeah, it's kind of balancing both of those. It's tough and I think that's what really is the challenging roller coaster I'm on right now. Well your body's transforming. This guy's looking like he's dealt with. Husky.

Yeah, dude, that's going on. Anyway. I'm going for beefcake. I gotta ask you guys, what's the number one thing you guys notice when you do a good job of increasing your vegetable intake? What are the top few things that you guys notice?

Consistent energy, I don't have the dips, it feels like. I have this nice kind of- Digestion, me too. Yeah, I would put digestion up there too. Do you guys notice an improvement in inflammation? I do. Yeah, me too. Big difference in inflammation.

I don't know if I've connected that. So there's a couple things that affect my inflammation. One is if I eat foods that are intolerant or if I eat junk food, I could definitely feel more inflamed. Then if I'm eating healthy, but I include a decent amount of, especially greens, I do notice less inflammation.

So the reason why I bring this up is because I'm trying to connect the dots between vegetables and inflammation and organifies green juice and inflammation. Is it gonna make as big of a difference? So I'm gonna start using it regularly. I'm not doing a good job of vegetables And I'm trying doing all this deep stretching right long story short. I'm trying to improve my mobility I'm preparing myself to potentially go back to jujitsu. I'm not flexible at all, so I'm doing everything I can. So what I'm now doing is I'm trying to leverage my diet in a way that helps with mobility,

which reduces inflammation. Yeah, so I'm gonna start using the green juice regularly to see if that makes it. This is always how I've used the green juice, is I remember who was the doctor when we first started. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. When we were at the other studio, the very first two. Dr. Terry Walls. Dr. at the other studio, the very first- Dr. Wall.

Dr. Terry Walls. Dr. Terry Wall. When Terry Wall, Dr. Terry Wall came on our show and talked to us about the amount of vegetables that we should be intaking. And it was nowhere near- It was an excessive amount. Wasn't even near my best day. It was just like so enlightening to me. And then I- She's the one that reversed her MS.

And then I, yes. And then I remember after that, really being conscious of that and going after way more than I ever had. And I I remember after that really being conscious of that and going after way more than I ever had. And I remember how good I felt eating more vegetables than I've ever ate in my life. And it was very obvious to me at that point, like, oh boy, I can eat this. Now the way I do it, I still try that. My goal is always to try it. But then when I don't, because I've recognized the benefits of that, it's like, this is where

I make the effort to like, okay, at least I'm going to get this green juice in. So that's kind of how I look at it. It's like, my goal is to try to get three to four good sized servings of vegetable today. The reality of that is, I miss that a lot. And so that's where the green juice has come in incredibly handy too, because I've already seen the benefits of when I'm consistent with that.

And again, we always recommend people go through the Whole Foods, right? We had this, that's how we started this podcast. That is what, but here's an example of where the supplement makes sense and helps is that. It's a priority right now for me, because I need to improve my mobility, otherwise I'm gonna come back injured.

So we'll see how it works. For sure, I mean, are you signed up? 90%, I'm giving myself a month to really, really, I'm only lifting twice a week, so first time in. Oh, so how, so we're, okay, so did you already use up your two days this week? Yeah, I saw you in here Monday, so. Yeah, because I feel like you already,

I thought I should have trained already at least once. Once, so Monday and Thursday. That's what you're doing. I may do three days a week, depending, we'll see how I feel, but right now it's two days a week of strength training, and then it's three days a week of, it's gonna be things to improve my mobility, but I'm starting with flexibility, and so what I'm doing on's three days a week of, it's gonna be things to improve my mobility, but I'm starting with flexibility.

And so what I'm doing on those three days is I actually go to where I have access to a sauna, and I do 30 minutes of static stretching in the sauna just to improve range of motion. Now why the sauna? It dampens my CNS and allows me to get deeper than I normally would. It's brutal, but I mean literally, I never do 30 minutes.

It's also like killing two birds with one stone too. You get the benefits of what sauna's great for. It's easier for stretching. So I'm just in there just, and I know what kind of flexibility I need for jiu-jitsu because I did it for so long. Hip flexibility is one of them. I need quad flexibility because you'll sit back

on your heels when you're in someone's guard or whatever. My quads are so tight. And then there's rotational flexibility I need to work on. So I'm working a lot on those things. I can't wait to see how you feel and look from reducing dramatically the amount of volume that you've been doing for as long as you've been doing. I think that.

Well I'm gonna encourage you guys not to point it out too much. Well I'm telling you right now. He doesn't want to think about it. Well no'll get, well I'm telling you right now. He doesn't want to think about it. Well no, there's two directions I could go with this. One is where I'm like obsessing about it. Two is this could easily turn into a pride thing.

So I could have turned away from one thing and then turned it into a look how cool I am, look what I can do, I can transform, and I can move, and I can whatever. And pride is a nasty What do you need from us? You know hugs, okay No, you guys know I'm telling you guys what to do. I'm gonna tell you guys the truth

I swear to God love you guys. You guys are the best you guys always know what to do. Yeah No, we'll figure it out. Yeah, well, I will be The right attitude the right way. You're not trying to prove or show anything. This is all for your own personal journey. And so I'm just personally curious because I think what you're going to get and reveal from it is, you know,

even though that's not your goal, I think the fittest, healthiest version of you is going to be revealed. I know mental is healthy for sure. Yeah, and that's for sure. We already know that you're gonna get that. I know mental health is healthy for sure. Yeah, and that's for sure. We already know that. I actually think, just like you always preach, the chasing health is going to give you

even the better aesthetics. It's gonna reflect on your physique. Who said that stupid quote? I know, so I just, I think that's one of the most interesting parts. I mean, and I also get it, because although we're different in a lot of ways, and I have not the same extreme version of addiction

to the training and stuff like that as you do, but this has been a thing for me for like the last 10 years. It's been a thing I've been watching and paying attention to and I've kind of played with the extremes of not working out for long periods of time. And then, and I've been on both ends of the spectrum and it's pretty wild. It's really cool though because we've invested so much of our lives into training and building all this muscle that you've got a lot invested, you know what I'm saying? You've got a lot of security, you've got a lot of financial security in the muscle role.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with it as time goes on. Very encouraging comments from listeners and stuff on the whole episode. I'm reading the comments, they're so encouraging. So that's really good, it's really good to hear that. I didn't do it for that, I didn't say it on the podcast. I said it on the podcast to make it real.

But man, it is really encouraging to hear people's feedback. So really appreciate everybody. Good, digestive enzymes will help you break down your food, get better digestion, get the protein, carbs, and fats to your muscles and your body to get better results. The best digestive enzymes on the market are Masksimes. We love them. They are for fit people.

Go check them out. Go to buyoptimizers.com. That's B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump10, get 10% off. Back to the show. First question is from Paulo Ruaca. What's the recommended tempo for eight to 10 rep range? Would you change it for raw power or muscle endurance?

So the tempo refers to the speed at which you perform the reps. Okay, so that's what this person's asking. There's benefit to different tempos of lifting. A slower tempo would be like, you know, it takes you four seconds to lower the weight, then you bring it up for two seconds. A fast tempo would be obviously the way it sounds, right? You go down and up very quickly. They're all valuable, they're all

beneficial. However, I will say this, for most people the risk versus reward ratio is best with a more controlled tempo generally speaking. Now if you're an athlete and you want power, you're advanced, you have great stability, great control, like you could do explosive on the lift part and that's gonna give you some power benefits but I mean I'll be honest like 99.9% of the clients that I trained we use the controlled tempo because it's just, risk versus reward, it's the best. It's a low risk of injury in comparison to other tempos,

and you still get great results. You build muscle, you still get great, the return is still great on it. Yeah, we used to have this really, and I can't remember if it was from NASM or which one of my national certs it was in, but they had a really cool four quadrants and there was like power, strength, hypertrophy, endurance. Each one of those represented the rep

ranges, single rep max, three to five, eight to 10, and then 15 plus. That's the four quadrants. Each one of them had ideal tempos for each one. Hypertrophy typically is like a 4-2-2. Your power is a 1-1-1. So there are these generic tempos that tend to lend themselves well for types of training. That being said, there's a case for manipulating all of those. And there's also a case for what Sal said, which is, depending on what level my client is at, I'm going to take the tempo 422, right?

That's a really slow tempo in comparison to the rest, for all these phases for right now. Because right now, I'm going to mess with the rep ranges, but I'm going to keep the tempo slow and controlled for a long time in their journey until they get to a place where they can really control weight and they really understand the movement and they're really good at that. And they've reaped all the benefits of the year, two years that you're going to get just from simply manipulating rep ranges and exercises.

Now I'm talking to this person, they've been with me for two, three years, and it's like, hey, let's explore what power looks like. Let's do like one, one, one. I mean, this client is now very advanced. They understand what's supposed to be working, firing, they get the form, technique. They've already gone through plenty of cycles and rounds of manipulating rep ranges.

And so now we can start to play with tempo within the rep ranges. And there's a case to be made that you can mess with what is normally a power tempo in a hypertrophy phase. If you've never done that, then you could do that. And it would be novel and then therefore would have some benefits. So tempo is a great tool,

but it's one of the later things that I do, I kind of wait to really start to manipulate that, I'm with Sal, most of my clients I choose a really slow tempo until you get the mechanics down really well. Build the control first. Yeah, 100%, and you know, again, just to put it differently, right, if your form is off a little bit with a controlled slow tempo, you're probably okay.

But then you do that fast, you're gonna cause problems. So the fast tempos, the power tempos, they, you risk, only use those if you've got it down. You've got the technique, you've got the skill down. Then use those fast tempos, and then the fast tempos are amazing. Otherwise Otherwise I'd stay away from those because if you're not perfect with your form slow it's gonna be bad when you're fast. Next question is from Kristen J. Leish. I have done around a Maps 15 advanced and

loved it and then got excited to switch to anabolic for the change in my weekly schedule. However after two, I felt my recovery was tanking hard after long days. I'm in perimenopause and I'm resigned to the fact that I have to go back to shorter daily sessions instead of two to three longer sessions per week. What do you recommend I do, Maps 15 again? Yep, Maps 15 performance.

You can go between Maps 15 performance and Maps 15. And when someone says, by the way, Maps 15 advanced, what they're referring to is Maps 15. In Maps 15, there's a barbell version of it that we refer to as the advanced version. Okay, so, no, no, no, go back to it. By the way, I get the whole I resign myself to this fact because-

It's not a less than situation. You're gonna get great results. You did get great results. Go back to it. It it's not a less than situation. You're gonna get great results. You did get great results. Go back to it. It's what fits best with your situation. Look, I'm at the point now in my understanding of fitness and strength training where I think it's probably best for most people

to do short daily strength training sessions versus two or three longer ones. It's the culture. Yeah, it fits best with most people's lifestyle. I also think it fits best with recovery and results. In other words, you could do two 45-minute sessions a week or do one 15-minute every day, same everything. I think the short sessions are better for most people.

I really, really do. Yeah, this is one of those things where I feel like Kristen knows this, and she knows the answer, because she's felt it. She already felt it. She knows it. I think it's just looking for the permission or the like nod that yeah, that's what you

should do. You absolutely should and your body is telling you that and you know to the guy's point, it's not lesser. You're going to get better results and you doing anabolic or aesthetic or muscle mommy or some other one is not a better program for you and your bodies are tight and you'll get more results. You'll get more results. You'll get better results by following MATS-15. So you could, if you wanted to, toggle between

MATS-15 and MATS-15 performance. So if you want to get a little bit of a novel stimulus because there's different movements inside of that, but they both follow that shorter protocol, there's totally nothing wrong with that. There'd be benefits to that. So if you're not gonna go back to MATS-15, which is totally fine too, Math 15 performance

would be a great way to kind of toggle back and forth between those until you're in a period of time in your life where you feel like your body can handle more. And I gotta say, even the original Math 15, it was so well put together and so balanced. You know, all of our programs are valuable, but we'll tell most people to move out of one after a while because it's got strengths and weaknesses.

MAPS 15 is pretty well balanced, and especially if you followed up with MAPS 15 performance, you're gonna have those short daily workouts. You could forever go 15, 15 performance, 15, 15 performance. You've got all your bases covered by those two programs. Next question is from Ernie Meyer. How important is it to line up your feet perfectly

when squatting and deadlifting? How do you line up your feet without overthinking it? Well, just make sure they're together. I mean, make sure they're balanced. Is it important? Yeah, you don't want one foot in front of the other because that could cause problems. So they should be lined up, but I don't know what shoulder width. Yeah, you don't want one foot in front of the other because that could cause problems. So they should be lined up,

but I don't know what you mean by overthinking it. Are you measuring it? I mean, there's a lot of debate here on foot position for squatting and deadlifting. There's a lot of national certs that advocate for perfectly neutral, straightforward toes. Then there's a lot of people that talk about the most- External rotation is good for neutral, perfectly neutral, straightforward toes, then there's a lot of people that talk about the most, having a slight external rotation.

Oh, is that what they're talking about? I feel like they're talking about lining them up where they match, like spacing. No, no, no, no, this person's talking about that. That's what I get from this, and that's normally what is asked or where people overthink. Yeah, they can be turned out a little bit. How far out or do I keep them neutral?

And so here's, there is, like the first thing that I always like to teach the client is I don't even tell them anything, but I just have them walk up to the bar and I look at the way they just naturally stand. What's most comfortable immediately. Exactly, and a lot of times, most people have a slight external rotation.

Now what I do want is I do want them to look even on each side. I don't want the left one to be wide open and then the right one is narrow, right? Cause then that shows me there's a glaring discrepancy. Yeah, from left to right. And then I'm actually not even gonna do any bilateral with that person.

I'm gonna do a lot of unilateral and fix that. But let's say you walk up and you have this kind of external rotation. That's where you're squatting and deadlifting from right now. Now that being said, have this kind of external rotation. That's where you're squatting and deadlifting from right now. Now that being said, that's kind of your normal natural position. I think there's tremendous benefit in learning how to squat with your feet in all different positions.

There's benefit to shoulder width apart. There's benefit to a narrow stance. There's benefit to a sumo stance. There's benefit to an open stance, a more neutral stance, there's benefits to, and I would like to be able to perform those movements in all of those stances. So I think where we overthink this is like critiquing each other and being like, that's wrong,

like you shouldn't, your feet are too open. It's like, if you can perform it with no pain and good mobility and good work, it's an exercise. And so, and all of them are exercises. So I think there's value to learning to be able to squat and deadlift in all those foot positions. Next question is from MF Swellness. Where do you see AI in five to 10 years in relation to strength training, programming, nutrition plans, and mental emotional support? Oh, this is a good question. I think when it comes to general strength training

programming and general nutrition planning, it's going to be far superior to Google is. It's far superior to just going online and trying to find things. Do I think it's going to be better than a good experience coach? No. Now, let me kinda go a little deeper. Let's just say for argument's sake,

and this could be possible, who knows? I mean, AI is really trippy right now. Let's just say in 10 years that AI has the programming know-how and the diet programming know-how in terms of knowing how to adjust and individualize based on the person. They're just as good or better than a coach. Do I think they're gonna be as good as a coach?

No, because the human element is so valuable in coaching. It's, in fact, I would say it's the most valuable thing. Like what I told my clients to do is valuable, but the way I did it and the way I connected to them was more valuable than the actual what I did. Now, when AI is indistinguishable from a human, that's a completely different conversation. Well, as it currently stands, it's based off of your input,

which is inherently a flaw, because we know as trainers, we have to probe the right questions. We have to really dig in further to find out more information. A lot to really like dig in further to find out more information. A lot of times that's not even revealed. We can just know based upon you know experience where this is all the trajectory is leading this client. So we'll make micro adjustments and a lot of times too is what you present the client to shape and cultivate the behavior in a better direction, which I don't think AI is sophisticated

in that regard either. So two great points you both made, and I have thoughts around both of them. Yours, Justin, is actually how I think AI is going to be really neat in the future. Imagine that you had an app that had a series of, the same series of questions you used to ask your client. How'd you sleep last night?

How'd you do on your diet today? How do you feel right now? Right, that from there. You keep logging all that data. Yes, you keep logging that data, and from there, the AI then modifies the intensity and the exercises based off the feedback that's being prompted.

I think that is gonna be neat, and I think it could get pretty damn good. I think it could get so good, it's probably better than a lot of trainers, like 90% of trainers. There still is gonna be that and I think it could get pretty damn good. I think it could get so good it's probably better than a lot of trainers like 90% of trainers. There still is gonna be that 10% that are elite level that's gonna be hard for a but AI could replace 90% and then only leave room for the 10% that are super elite. That's to your point. Your point, even when it's indistinguishable, will we still get the oxytocin benefits? So when I say

indistinguishable, I mean, and I don't know if this is possible, Adam, but let's just say that's the thing. If it's identical to human interaction, then it doesn't matter. But I don't know if it'll ever be identical. Right, I don't know if it'll. And there's a trust factor here too.

Like, two people could give me the exact same advice. Okay? But one of them I know and trust. That's gonna be more valuable. Or even the person I know and trust gives me a little worse advice, but it's better for me because that's the person I know and trust.

So the human element is so important in that regard. Like as a coach and a trainer, what makes a coach and trainer valuable, 10% of it is that they know what to tell you to do. Literally, I'm not exaggerating. That's 10% of it. Now that's a big percent, but still that's about it. The 90% that makes a really good coach

and trainer really good is they have the trust, the connection, and the person really feels that they have their best intentions and trust them and goes with them. That's what makes a really good coach extremely invaluable. Will AI be able to do that? I think it's gonna take a long time, theoretically maybe, but until it can do that, no, it doesn't matter.

We already know there's already, like a human who is talking to or communicating with another human virtually versus in person doesn't cause the same in person is different. So I would think that even when AI gets really good and these robots are really good, I would question. No, it'd have to be a humanoid that looks and feels exactly like a humanoid.

So exactly, so indistinguishable that you have no idea that you think you're talking to a human, I would think for it to produce those same chemicals, right? I mean, so I don't even know if that's possible. And if it is very interesting, then we have a very interesting conversation debate. But I mean, I think it could get close and I think it could help. Just like would any of you guys want to see video conversations go away? I mean, it's been an awesome tool for me. I mean, I love that my son gets to connect to his grandmother five hours away every single week now

because of that. But I also recognize that I couldn't only do that and I couldn't rob him of in-person meeting his family. There was a recent study where they took a bunch of patients and their medical history and they sent it to a group of experienced doctors, and then they sent it to AI. And the AI outperformed the doctors in diagnosing.

Now does that mean the AI is gonna be more valuable? No, I think it could add to the value of the human element of the doctor. Now, if you have a shitty doctor who has no human element, and they just tell you what you got, well okay, then go of the doctor. Now, if you have a shitty doctor who has no human element, they just tell you what you got, well okay, then go with the AI. But if it's like a, that human element is the thing that makes the difference between a good coach

and a bad coach or a coach and just information on the internet. So what I think is good coaches are- It's gonna replace a lot of bad actors. Well this- Yes, and I think good coaches are going to use AI. Yeah, that's what I mean. They're going to use AI to help them.

Oh, it's going to be integrated. Yes. There's no doubt. There's no doubt it's going to be integrated. It's going to be an incredible tool. So the science nerd, Sal, would say to you then define that because is what the human element define that for me because could we develop that? In other words, human is empathetic and understanding

and reads emotion, like what if you could program it to be empathetic, to read emotion, to know how to, you know what I'm saying? Like it reads body language. Language, temperature. You could, but you have to, but it would also have to be in person and appear to look, smell, feel like a human

to be the same. Because there's a human element that comes from being in person, from touch, from gaze, from... So now when we can create AI robots that are completely indistinguishable from humans, we got a whole other set of problems. This is the, nobody cares about this.

At that point it's like, what's going on here? Yeah, we for sure are really close to like this, I mean I already think that if you're- What do you speculate it looks like in 10 years? Cause like I keep thinking it's kind of like something that's talking to you in your ear. Yep, that's what I think. And it's just like real time,

like kind of just little micro adjustments. Like you might want to consider resting a little bit longer. Yeah, I actually see it as a caddy to the trainer. That's how I see it. It's not to the individual. I think it's a- It's like you're Luke Skywalker,

but you have Arthur. Yeah, the first version of this in my opinion, the first version is in my opinion is going to be a tool for trainers to use to be better at diagnosing, better at prescribing, better at their job. It'll be them better. That will be the first version.

Maybe the evolution of that is an actual humanoid robot that comes in and does this type of thing. But the first, I think, is gonna be a tool. I feel like that's 50 years out. I don't feel robots do that. Yeah, you're right. I think so too, I do too. I don't think we're close to that yet.

I think we're really close to these cool apps, cool tools. That you could talk to. Yeah, because how cool would that be? We're not that far from an app that could take all the data and information that we used to ask our clients. Sure. And then literally-

Clone us. Exactly. And then it's like, OK, when my client tells me they got poor sleep, they're in a bad mood, they had stress, and I had this plan, I now cut that in half. There's very good principles. There are these famous, terrible studies that the Soviet Union did with orphans where they had nurses

without the orphans and then they had that would just get hugged and get fed and the difference in how they thrived was insane. Remarkable. They did one with monkeys. Psychopaths, non psychopaths. They had one with monkeys where they had a furry pretend monkey and the monkeys went to and and hugged it and needed that touch. So there's a lot more that we don't understand with that human element. But if you're just looking at information, I mean it's gonna be great for just information.

Absolutely. It's here to stay and trainers that aren't finding ways to adopt and utilize it will get left in the dust. Totally. For sure you're gonna get passed by because even if you're a badass trainer, the trainer who's not very good but has learned how to use AI within their business will surpass you.

That's what I think. And I think what you'll see is at the top will be really good trainers who also know how to integrate AI into their business. That's what will be successful. If you are already cocky and think you're such a great trainer, I don't need that. And you don't adopt and use it,

you're gonna get passed by lesser trainers that know how to use that tool. Right, look, if you like this show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump. DeStefano Adams at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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