Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2571: How to Be a Great Leader & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach three Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: 7 attributes of a great leader. (2:09) Ginseng, the master adaptogen. (43:27) The guy’s frustration with the current state of the trainer space. (45:57) The differences between farmed vs wild-caught salmon. (52:25) #ListenerLive question #1 – Why does NASM recommend static stretching before resistance training if it turns on your parasympathetic nervous system? You guys say not to do any static stretching before your workout. (56:19) #ListenerLive question #2 – I’ve recently hit a plateau despite staying consistent with workouts and diet. I understand from your podcasts that sometimes increasing calories for 2-3 weeks can help break through a plateau. The problem is that I am on a GLP-1, my appetite is still low, and I can’t comfortably increase my intake much. Do you have any other suggestions or strategies to help break this plateau, considering my situation? (1:08:46) #ListenerLive question #3 – Do you have any advice on how to push past a mental and physical plateau? I want to be a good role model and show my boys that age is just a number, and that a man takes care of his body to care for his family and others. (1:22:31) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Joy Mode for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Enter MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order. ** Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** New users who sign up will receive ground beef in every box for the LIFETIME of their subscription + $20 off their first box when they use code MINDPUMP at checkout. ** April Special: MAPS HIIT or Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 - Book by John C. Maxwell The New One Minute Manager Mind Pump #2470: Personal Trainers & the Gym Industry with UFC Gym VP Don Cardona Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off ** MAPS Prime Webinar MAPS Prime Pro Webinar Online Personal Training Course | Mind Pump Fitness Coaching Train the Trainer Webinar Series 7-Day Overtraining Rescue Guide | Free by Mind Pump Media Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Don Cardona (@dc.fit1) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Bishop Robert Barron (@bishopbarron)  Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump. In today's episode, we had live callers call in.

We got to coach them on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 53 minutes long in the intro. We talk about fitness, call in, we got to coach them on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 53 minutes long in the intro. We talk about fitness, current events, fitness coaching. It's a good time. If you wanna be on an episode like this where you could call in, we help you out, email us at live at mindpumpmedia.com. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors.

The first one is Joy Mode. They have a product that you take 45 minutes before sex. Improves blood flow, improves your performance. By the way, you can take it as a pre-workout as well because blood flow helps all your muscles, not just the one down below. Anyway, check them out. Go to tryjoymode.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump at checkout. Get 20% off. This episode is also brought to you by ButcherBox. They deliver grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, to your door, pork, chicken, all healthy meats and proteins

to your door at great prices. Go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. New users that sign up will get ground beef in every box added for the lifetime of your subscription for free plus $20 off your first box, but you have to use the code MINDPUMP at checkout. We also have a sale this month. MAPS hit and the Xtreme Fitness bundle of programs are all 50% off. If you're interested go to MAPSFITNESSProducts.com and then use the code April 50 for the discount. Here comes the show.

T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Ah shit Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the show. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Ah, shit, Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week. Three winners this week, two for Apple Podcasts, one for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winners are Katie B613 and T-Polo. And for Facebook, we have Danielle Daniel. All three of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com, includes your shirt size and your shipping address,

and we'll get that shirt right out to you. One of the best skills you can develop in life, period, end of story, is how to lead. Yes, everyone at some point has to lead and do so effectively. We're gonna talk about the attributes of a good leader. I'll start with the first one, and I've heard this before,

and I'd like us to break it down, that leaders lead from the front. They lead from the front. That, when I first heard that, what I pictured was, you know, because I'm obviously a guy, right, and I'm picturing like a war going on, and there's a general, and he's on his horse,

and he says, charge, but when he says charge, he goes. Yeah, there's also that meme where there's a general and he's on his horse and he says charge but when he says charge he goes Yeah, there's also that meme where there's a guy like kind of in the back like whipping everybody in front Yeah, right and then the guy in the back kind of pulling everybody. Yeah with the ropes. Yeah, it's good visual Yeah, but we got it. Let's back up for a second because I said earlier This is an important skill. There's this common misconception we're, this is an important skill. There's this common misconception, this generalization that some people are leaders and some people are followers.

And I get that generally speaking, but the truth is in life you're gonna have to learn how to do both and the important one, one of the important ones is how to lead. Whether you lead your children or a friend or coworkers or your spouse or in the fitness space as a coach or a trainer. Being an effective leader with your clients

is so important to helping them get to their goals and results long term. Yeah, I don't buy the leaders are born thing, right? And maybe there are certain people that are born with certain gifts that make them maybe better than the average person, or maybe they start further ahead at the beginning because they have some natural gifts that play into leadership.

I definitely think a lot of it is a learned skill. I mean, a big part of that was my journey of leadership. So in my mid-20s, one of the first like books I really started to pick up and read was a recommendation from somebody, John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within was the very first book I read and then I went down the rabbit hole of, of, of leadership, uh, reading such a, it's such a, such a powerful thing that, that carries over into every aspect of your life. Um, and it's a way without you ever having to say anything that garners respect and gets people to follow and that you as a father and in your family, you as a leader in your business or whatever craft you, you don't got to say anything.

If you lead from the front to your point, you take, I mean I remember this very clearly because it wasn't until my mid-20s that I started reading like this and I was already leading teams or managing teams of trainers by the time I was 21. It wasn't until I was like 25, 26 when all these readings were happening. I remember a very distinct thing that I made an unconscious effort after reading that and the importance of leading from the front was, okay, you guys remember this, very common in the gym world, especially in a big chain like 24 hour fitness They put you in a club that's failing or not doing well and hopes that you're gonna do better

You do good for a year or two and then they're like, okay You've figured out now you're on to another bad club and that's kind of the the formula is if you do really good at your Job, you don't get to stay there very long that they want to put you somewhere else And I would come to this new club And I'm the new guy and the trainer to 15 20 trainers there have already established now on the bus So I have the authority they're supposed to listen. That's right They're supposed to do what I say and listen to me and you know I'm the one who's managing them and I've earned that right to be there, but I still

managing them and I've earned that right to be there, but I still treated it as I still have to earn their respect and I still have to show them that I'm a leader without saying anything. And so I really wouldn't talk to much of them for the first 30 days or so of working there and what I did was I'm gonna do their job, just let them see. Like they need to see me do what they do and I'm putting it on as a goal for myself, like I need to be the best in here. I got to be the best trainer and let them see that. If I do that, I'll immediately start to get their attention and their respect and it can't tell you how much more powerful it was than the opposite that I would see in the company, which is the people that I've got a manager title, therefore I come in and tell

everybody what to do. Yet they don't let those people see you leading from the front and they would just be challenged with leading those people because they didn't respect you. Good leaders are, are, depending, it doesn't matter where you're leading. Again, it could be a fitness coach, could be as a parent, uh, it could be in work. Good leaders are simply people that other people want to follow.

And a lot of that has to do with the example, an example I'll use from the gym. I had a great manager once. One of the things you were asked to do in gyms that trainers in particular hated being asked to do was to clean the gym. Okay, so when you're a trainer in a gym, especially for a new trainer,

you're like, I train people, that's what I do. And now you're being asked by the corporate office to maintain the cleanliness of the gym when you have porters and people that you pay who are supposed to clean the gym. Now, if you know anything about running a gym, you know that it needs to be cleaned constantly. So you could have porters in there,

but it just needs to be cleaned constantly, and it's impossible with just the porters unless you have 15 porters working 24-7. It's not gonna happen. So the staff was asked to do so, and trainers in particular, because we're the ones out on the workout floor, but when you ask trainers to do something like that,

you're met with resistance because, well that's not what I do, that's beneath me, I'm supposed to just train people. And I remember having a manager as a young trainer who had a water bottle, a spray bottle, and a towel, and we had a meeting, and he said, all right guys, follow me, we're gonna clean equipment. And he went to the toilets.

He went to the worst place to clean and he started cleaning. And all it did was make you wanna follow. Because your boss, who's your boss, who's higher than you, was willing to do the things that he's asking you to do. In fact, he was doing the more challenging things. And that's what leading from the front looks like.

It looks like being the example, it also means that you're called to a very high calling. In other words, as a parent, to give you a good example, as a parent, if you want your kids to be on their phones less, you want your kids to act a particular way, speak a particular way, eat a particular way, whatever, if you're not leading from the front, good luck. You're not gonna be effective. Your kids are not gonna

want to follow. It also gives you a lot of latitude if you're not the best communicator. Some people just have a way, I mean Sal you're this way, you have just an incredible way with words and communication and not everybody has that skill. I'm sure many people hear you, man, that guy, he could just put it together so well. I can't do that. And even if you can't, if you just show by your actions, you can garner a lot of that respect

and get people to follow you just by simply doing that. Even if you don't have the words sometimes to put it together. I mean, I see we see examples of this in sports all the time that is so cool. Like Michael Jordan was actually known by his peers as a bit of an asshole. Like people, he was not nice. He demanded, expected a lot from, but he was the first one there, last one out, worked harder than everybody. And so even though he was an asshole, even though he didn't communicate so

well, like you just had to respect him. You followed him. You followed him because he did all the things that you were supposed to do and he did it more and did it harder and did more of it. Like, and so as his peer or somebody following him, you can't help but do that. And you've kind of put up with the fact that maybe he's not the nicest or the best communicator because he's truly leading from the front. And so there's a huge advantage of doing that even when maybe you're not the best, like you don't have the great, we've all seen those leaders who have the great speeches and they say the powerful things and you're like, oh my God, I'm bought in. Like I haven't even seen him do anything, but because he said it so well, I'm into it. Well, maybe you don't have that skill, but you do have

the ability to, you know, do your craft or do your thing from the front and that will garner a ton of respect. Right next is that leaders, really good leaders or people that you want to follow tend to have unshakable principle. They are consistent with their integrity and their principle. Now what does this look like? What it looks like is not that they're necessarily consistent but rather they're consistent when it's not to their advantage or even more powerfully when it's to their disadvantage. A good example would be like you have a boss who has really strong principles and communicates them often and then you see this boss presented with an opportunity that would

be very profitable. That would make them a lot of money. But you witness them turn the money down because it counters their principle. The kind of respect that that would garner from you is probably tremendous. I know it would be for me, if I saw that, it'd be like, oh my gosh, that person doesn't break their word or their principle for anything.

They just turned down a bunch of money because their principle is so strong. That's the kind of person that people tend to wanna follow. And this, as a trainer and a coach, is extremely important as well. For me, one of my principles as a trainer was maintaining a good relationship with my clients, which meant losing money sometimes.

This meant sometimes I would force a client to take a free session because I was five minutes late, because that was my principle. And they'd be like, oh, it's not a big deal, five minutes, who cares? So, no, no, I'm giving you a free session. I'm gonna give you a free session because that's what I stand by.

And it was the, my principle was the relationship was the most important thing. It was very effective. Yeah, and I mean, this sort of also points out to the fact that like you take on if there's a problem or if there's something went wrong, that's your fault. You're the one that takes the brunt of that. You're the leader.

You're the one that inevitably is able to shift everybody around that and let's solve this. Let's fix this. I will take this on. And a lot of times too, you have to eat a session because maybe you were in the right and you signed off and explained the whole thing. But the client, for long term, if you just eat this session, you're going to have a much the longevity of having them still do the program is is what the, you know, the desired outcome is with that. So it's about desired outcome. And it's also about, you know, being able to, to take the failures on full steam and be able to work through them and problem solve. I have an example of this with my mom. I just remembered my mom, she would never lie, ever, when I was a kid. Her principal was always honest, honest, honest.

Yeah. And there were moments when she could lie to the teacher as to why I'm missing school or what the mistake, and it would have been a silly white lie or lie to the guy at the counter. He was sick yesterday. Yeah, or lie to the guy at the counter. My daughter's only three, so we get a free ticket

or whatever, and my mom was always like, no, I'm not gonna lie. And I never remember my mom lying ever, ever, ever. She was always so honest. It was so powerful to see that, you know? I mean, what does it stand for, something or you'll fall for anything? I think that's part of it.

When you stand for nothing and you'll fall for anything. Yeah, yeah. You know, I just think that, I feel like that's such an admirable thing. It's rare when you see someone like that, it stands out. You know, and Justin, what you're pointing to is that, you know, first key to leadership is everything is my fault. A leader will always take that responsibility of no matter what.

And when you see it, it's so cool. I mean, again, I love sports analogies with this stuff like that. You see great teams, great leaders of teams, you know, that the, let's say a game just went really bad and everyone was dropping the ball and not doing this and getting penalties and you'll see the really great leader or quarterback or coach that gets up in front of the cameras and there's like it was my fault. You know even though none of it was right they didn't they didn't they made all their commands respect they did all their great passes they did they played great but everybody around them, they still stand up there in front of everybody

and say, it was my fault, I let us down, I didn't lead us, I failed to do this, I should have seen this. Man, that's, how do you not get behind somebody who does that? You get somebody like that and you want that person to lead you because they have that type of attitude. It's so powerful.

That's right, leaders are also purpose driven. They tend to be purpose driven. What I found following good leaders, leading other teams myself, was with the effective leaders that I followed, if they gave me a sense of purpose and meaning behind what we were doing, I would drag myself across glass for it.

I would make it happen because the purpose was the most important thing. If I felt because the purpose was the most important thing. If I felt that, it was the most important thing. This is very important in your entire life. So, an example for coaches, right? The purpose that you have is to improve the quality of the life of your client and to make sure that they're healthy.

Now, they may say they wanna lose 20 pounds. They may say they wanna look good in a bikini. But if you make it about health and vitality and quality of life, and this is forever, this is lifestyle, this is, we're gonna figure out how to make this work for you for the rest of your life. Even if they tell you, I just want to lose 20 pounds, I just want to look good for summer.

But if you're driven by this purpose, they will follow. This is very effective for coaches and trainers. And this for me was extremely important as a trainer and it was one of the keys to helping my clients create this kind of lifelong relationship with fitness and health. You hear us communicate this often on the podcast as it relates to fitness.

But again, think of the people in your life, think of coaches, you brought up sports, some of the best leaders that, when you ask somebody to think about good leaders in their life that really had an impact, oftentimes you're here and bring up a coach. And it could even be a coach that coached you during a season where you didn't win the most,

you guys didn't win a championship, maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But one of the things you probably remember was the purpose. You felt the sense of purpose and meaning behind every game you played and every practice you did. And it was, it was just, uh, it was bigger than the game and the practice itself. I think that's, that's what it can be. Yeah.

I had a lot of personal experience with us, with coaches that were great, that, um, really driving home the message of becoming a better man, becoming a better husband, becoming a better father in like, that has nothing to do with football. But it did, it had everything to do with it because it shaped us and our character in the way that we were driven to perform at a high level and grow and become a better human being overall. And so it keeps that bond you share with the other guys, it becomes deeper and it's more meaningful.

It's focus, vision, gives people a target, right? To stay, there's so much noise and other things going on that it really helps people hone in on this is our purpose, this is our reason, this is why we do what we do, don't allow these other things to distract you. It reminds me of running a business with your core values. That's our purpose. When we sat down and we agreed, what are the five most important things to us?

Let's listen. We debated back. No, these are our principles. When you think about that, how many times have we got distracted with opportunity or money or another business idea and it's always served us to come back to our purpose. Why do we do this? And like when we do, we just had Sal shared a situation just recently that happened with us. So it still happens to us even 10 years later where we get distracted or we get our eyes off of our purpose. And when we get recalibrated on,

oh, this is why we do this, we revisit those core values. And if it doesn't align with one of those core values, then you're off on your purpose. So, so important to leadership, staying focused on the goal, direction, the target. This is so, so important. Yeah. This reminds me of during COVID, it was a personal story for us. That was a very scary time for anybody who worked in fitness because the gyms were the first to close, last to open. We're a fitness podcast. People use gyms to follow our programs.

They listen to our podcasts when they're working out. Everything's shutting down. And I remember we had a little panic, we had a little mini panic. Uh-oh, what are we gonna do? And what we did is we sat down and we had this like, okay, well what's our purpose? It's to help people become healthy.

Let's dedicate every episode to helping people walk through this challenge of being isolated, walk through this challenge of not having access to a gym. Let's not make people crapped out or scared like everybody else was doing, talk about whatever. Let's see if we can be the positive voice in their life. And that was literally purpose driven. It actually turned out to be

a very successful business strategy. But the purpose wasn't to make money through it, it was the, which has always been our purpose since we started the show. And again, like Adam says, if we move away from it, we definitely pay for it. Next up, leaders are adaptable. Leaders can lead when times are good, when times are bad,

when the scenery changes. If you're a parent, you're gonna have a toddler, you're gonna have an adolescent, you're gonna have a teenager, you're gonna have an adult child. If you're married, you're gonna have times that are good, times that are bad, times that are challenging, you're going to lose your job, there's going to be people that you're going to lose in your life, there's going to be times when you're making a lot of money and everything seems to be going well. For business, you have to be adaptable because almost anybody can lead when things are easy,

but can you lead when things are hard or can you lead when things are hard, or can you lead when things are unpredictable? And so really good leaders look at the landscape and sometimes they say, I don't know, but I'm gonna stick to these principles and I'm gonna continue doing the things that are important, and that keeps you effective as a leader. It's inevitable you're going to have challenges, setbacks, things you thought were going to

work out and not work out. Your great leaders in the speed of this is what makes you, separates you from a lot of people is the ability to accept that it failed or it's not working and then adapt and pivot really quick. Of course. Those are the best. I cannot think of how many situations or examples of people that thought this was gonna be a brilliant idea

and then it didn't pan out the way they thought. And then because it didn't pan out the way they thought, they just threw their hands up and then it never worked out. The great ones don't care. Oh, it's not a big deal that it didn't work out this way. I'll figure it out. I'll adapt to the situation and pivot.

This is inevitable in leadership. This is when you're in a fitness journey. This is going to happen like it. Yeah, everybody's fitness journey. You're gonna have a plan or if you're gonna be successful You're gonna need somewhat of a plan. You're gonna have somewhat of a plan You're gonna be following that plan and maybe if it's working out great, but it's at one point You're gonna hit a roadblock. You're gonna hit a challenge everybody Yes and are you going to just throw your hands up and then give up because it got hard or because you have a setback or didn't go the way you

thought it was going to? No. You have to adapt. You have to adapt. You have to pivot and keep going, keep moving forward. Your great leaders have this ability and this ability to do this with speed. Yes. Next, leaders encourage, they don't discourage. Now, think about the times in your life when you had a teacher, a coach, a mentor, maybe a parent, or somebody that you just eagerly followed. Now, that doesn't mean they weren't honest with you. They didn't show you areas you could improve, but it felt encouraging. It feels very different than being discouraging. I remember one

of my first mentors told me something that I'll never forget. He said reprimand in private and when you're going to talk well about someone, do it in public. In other words, if someone's doing a good job, make sure you say it in front of their peers. And if they're doing a bad job, take them aside and don't embarrass them and talk to them separately.

And I think that goes along great with this. And now think about the opposite of this. Maybe you had a boss that did the opposite of this. You did a good job and they either didn't acknowledge you or it was kind of quiet, which is cool, okay. But then maybe you did something bad and they love bringing it up in a meeting or love telling you in front of your peers.

That is probably not encouraging. And that's somebody that maybe you'll do what they tell you because you're supposed to, but you're not really following them. So as a good leader, by the way, you brought up a good point, Adam, a fitness journey, a lot of that is you leading yourself as well. So you can also lead yourself.

And so you can encourage or discourage. So what does that look like? Well, like, oh man, I had a whole pizza last night. Well, there's a way I could talk to myself about that that's encouraging, or there's a way that I could talk to myself about that that's encouraging, or there's a way that I could talk to myself about that that's discouraging. Now I do wanna say this, discouragement can be a short-term motivator,

because you're through shame, it never lasts long-term. You can't hate yourself into being amazing. It just doesn't work that way. At best, you'll hate yourself into doing what you want, but you just hate yourself, which feels like crap. I mean, if you've been listening to this podcast long enough, or you've listened to me doing the interviews about business, you probably know what I'm going to say right now because

One Minute Manager was the most impactful book I ever read. It's a one day read. It's like 50 pages or something like that. You can knock it out in a day. It completely shifted the way I led. At that point, again, I told you, the reading kit happened later, or midway through my training,

or my leadership career as far as management. And this flipped the model. I said, I never had heard of somebody leading like this. And the short version of the story is that the whole idea was that instead of pointing out the things that people were doing wrong, which by the way, up into this point, I thought that's what a manager kind of did. It's like, hey, I'm now in this authority position.

I'm the best of the best. I'm supposed to teach these other trainers to be good. So when I see them do things that are wrong or not good, make sure I point it out, make sure I help them figure it out. And this flipped that model on its head completely. And the point of it is that, OK, instead of ever looking for the things that they're doing wrong, always look for something that they've done right

and make sure you go point it out. And I remember when I read that book and I went, wow, that's so paradigm shifting for me. Let me go apply this, and then let me actually track and measure it." And I did. I tracked and measured this and I shared this where back then was the Palm Trio. And I put all my trainer's names. That's how old we are. I know, right? I date myself there. And I had all my trainer's names in there with alarms every day. And so an alarm would go off at 10 o'clock in the morning, it says Justin Andrews.

And I would have to go, what I did was at that moment, I stopped whatever I was doing, I found Justin wherever he was in the gym, and I made a point to point out something that he was doing well. Ideally, I point out something that just happened. Like I just saw him with his client doing something and I point that out. But even if I couldn't draw from that,

I'd draw from something earlier in the week that I saw him do. And I just, it would be that brief, walk over, hand on his shoulder, hey, I just want to let you know I saw the way where you were with Suzanne the other day. Man, I just want to tell you thank you for being such a great trainer, leading like this and representing our brand so well. I love when I see you do stuff like that. Walk away.

That's it. And I started doing that to all these trainers and the impact that it made on the business and how much easier leading became when I did that. It was so cool. Such a cool thing. I remember you bringing that up with the survey, right? To like what, you know, if the employees felt like they could have any kind of criticism, always like, I would like a little more encouragement. It's like you can never give enough of it. And I've taken from that even into parenting. It's like, you know, to be able to, especially the in public stuff too, of reprimanding and all that

and kind of taking it aside and not, you know, embarrassing and shaming. It's like, that's a huge thing. That's something that impacted me a lot as a kid. And you remember those things. And so to kind of like correct and not make such a huge public display of that. And then also to just the constant encouragement to motivate and prompt better behavior. Yeah, that the book you're talking about was the same time. One Minute Manager, I read both those back to back. And that story you're sharing was so powerful too, because it was they interviewed all the top Fortune 500 companies and the bosses and the leaders,

right? So the CEOs, founders, and they asked them on a scale of one to five, one being bad, five being perfect or whatever that, how well do you encourage your team, right? And your people. And of course, these are Fortune 500, these are most successful people. So they're like, fours and fives, right? We know that's important in leadership. We know that's important and so I do it so I think the average score is like 4.2 or 4.5 for all them. So then they went back and they interviewed all of the employees to all those leaders, asked them the same question. How often does your manager or your leader encourage you for this and that? Well the score came back like 2.3. And so that was at a time in my

career where I thought I did that a lot too and it was like wow, even though I would score myself four or five on that, but that means my people would probably score me a two, which means I'm still not doing enough of it. So how does this look like from a fitness perspective? Well, let's say you're a trainer, and I'll get to if you don't have a trainer

leading yourself in fitness, but let's say you're a trainer. Your client comes in and you say, hey, this is your sixth workout in a row, you haven't have a trainer leading yourself in fitness. But let's say you're a trainer. Your client comes in and you say, hey, this is your sixth workout in a row, you haven't missed one. Or, man, you did another rep, or I noticed you're more stable, or you know what, your skin looks different, or I like your energy, or I just like your consistency,

you're doing a good job. That's what that looks like. By the way, your clients know when they're not doing something right. You don't have to keep pointing it out. They'll bring it up, and when they bring it up, then you can talk about it. They'll tell you, they'll ask questions. You don't have to keep pointing it out. They'll bring it up and when they bring it up then you can talk about it. They'll tell you. They're more likely to bring it up anyway. That's right. Now what about yourself? Well you're on this fitness journey. It is not beneficial to

make a list of all the shit you're doing wrong. That's terrible. Rather look at the things you're doing right. Well I ate a whole pizza yesterday but you know what? I'm aware of how bad I feel this time. I never noticed how bad I felt. I just went right back into doing it again, but right now I'm actually feeling bad about it. I'm actually, I think my behavior's just starting to change. That's what encouragement looks like, and it feels good, and it leads to success,

whether you're leading yourself or you're leading other people. To highlight what you're saying right now, the most powerful thing that happened when I started doing the Encouragement with Old Stuff is the way I finally figured, oh my God, this is working, was it was about a month and a half later, kid named Anthony Burks, great trainer who worked for me,

comes walking in my office. I'll never forget this because this was what solidified like, oh my God, this is working, to your point, Sal. As he walks in and he comes running to my office and he just starts divulging all this stuff that he wasn't doing. I haven't done this and he was telling me why he hadn't done it and he was apologizing and promising me that he would fix it and work on it. And I was like, man, where did that come from? And then I looked down and I realized that I had missed his words of

encouragement for that week. And what all it took was me not coming around and telling him what a great job he was, that he felt this incredible amount of guilt. I didn't place on him. I just didn't make, I actually just made a mistake of missing my consistency of what I was doing. And he right away felt this need to come show that. And what was so powerful is because when you're leading somebody and they come to you asking for help, they're ready to learn. They want to learn, they want to grow, they want to change. You're going to be effective. Yes, you're going to be effective. It's not always effective when you go tell somebody they're doing something wrong. In fact, most times it's not when you point out what somebody

else is doing wrong. But when they point out to you that, hey man, I'm screwing up here Sal, or I'm having a hard time with my diet, you have some other advice or something else I can do or something better, then they're open to grow, they're open to learn, they're ready to receive. That's good leadership. Totally, leaders also show respect and care. Now I have, I got a story around, I've told this on the show before,

but I'll tell it again, because it was the, aside from people in my family, you know, my dad, for example, like the first real outside my family member leader or mentor that I had that was really effective and impactful was Don Cardona, which I've had on the show. And the story I share where he exemplified encouraging me and he showed respect and care is a story of the first time I ran the weekend for him.

So at this point I'm a trainer for probably five months or so I'm the big for probably five months or so. I'm the big dog, the new trainer that's crushing all the whatever records. And here comes in this new general manager and he says, all right, Sal, I want you, and at this point I had moved over into sales because I wanted to be a general manager. So I'm no longer a trainer, but I'm managing sales. And he says to me, I want you to run this weekend, Sal. It's a big contest this weekend. So it was a big regional contest in the company,

the region made up of eight clubs or something like that, and whoever won would get a certificate and get acknowledged. So he's like, I'm gonna let you run the weekend. I'm an 18-year-old kid, I'm hyped, it's a big club, I'm like, let's do this. And for sure I wasn't gonna lose. So in comes the weekend, and I'm neck and neck

with this really big, brand new club in Mountain View View and I'm in one of the older clubs. And we're going neck and neck and I remember it was like towards the end of the night, we're going to close the book soon and I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to win, but I'll be damned if I lose. In walks this guy and he's inquiring about a membership for his family. So I give him the tour of his life. I sit him down, do my sales thing. We're talking.

At the end of it, I do everything I can. He says, you know what, I'm just gonna go home and think about it. And at that moment, or at that time, we had this separate contest where we were giving away a barbecue set, and in the middle of the club, we had this floor model of this really nice, expensive barbecue that you could win through the separate contest.

Well, as a young, you know, just impossible to corral, pit bull kid who thought I could do anything, I said, wait right there, let me come right back. And I went in the middle of the club and I literally wheeled this barbecue into the office. So if you sign up today, I'll give you this free barbecue. He's like, done deal. A barbecue alone was worth more

than the membership that he bought. Done deal. He walks out, I win the contest. I'm the big dog in town. My ego's bigger than the gym itself and I'm awesome. Don shows up the next day, I get congratulated, everybody's like, great job. Later that day, the member, I'll never forget,

I'm working the front desk, he pulls in the front with his pickup truck and the barbecue's in the back of the truck, and I remember thinking, oh shit, what's gonna happen now? Of course I'm a young kid, I don't think of repercussions at this point, he walks up to the front and he goes, I'd like to speak with the general manager. And up walks Don and I'm kinda standing in the back listening in, and he goes, I'd like to speak with the general manager. And up walks Don and I'm kind of standing in the back

listening in and he goes, hey, I got the barbecue yesterday but it's not working. I need to figure out why it's not working. And Don goes, barbecue? And then he realized the barbecue and the display is missing in the club. And he goes, who signed you up? We go, oh, Sal.

And he looks at me and I'm like, I'm dead, I'm fired. Like I just gave away this barbecue. And so Don handles the situation, fixes the barbecue for him, takes care of it, takes me in the office and he sits me down and he talks to me for an hour. And he says, I love your passion. I think you're very talented. I think you have great potential in this industry,

but you can't do certain things. And we sat down and we talked and he showed me a lot of respect. He showed me a lot of care, he showed me a lot of care, and he was extremely encouraging, even though I had made a fatal mistake. And then he showed me grace. And I remember he never told anybody,

and he let me get away with it. And I ended up following that man everywhere he went for the next few years, and I ended up breaking records, all that stuff. But he did such a good job of showing those things that he earned. I would've followed him anywhere. I would've followed him into a volcano

from that one moment and then other things that he did. And that's what this will do. So when you're leading yourself or leading others, the encouragement and the respect and care, like when you feel like your boss cares about you, you've probably had a boss like this in your life who actually gives a shit about you? You're like man. You want me to do something. I'm gonna do done. I'm gonna do it

So power nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Yes it's that quote stuck with me for so long and it got me a really long way in in leadership because there was a there was a period of time there where most of people I was leading were smarter, more experienced, and what won them over and allowed me one of the things was that I did, I truly cared about them, I cared about their success,

I listened to what they, like, so it seems so basic and simple, but yet so powerful. I've shared the story before of the impact that Dean Pappas made on me, who was a regional vice president at the time. He probably has no idea, because we've only maybe talked a total of an hour in my entire life, and yet he made this impact on me so much because of the way

he gave me respect and the way I felt that he cared. Similar story of breaking records, doing all kinds of cool stuff. I'm in Hawaii, which means I'm in the top tier people that won the trip. And he had sent over a drink at the bar over to me and then walked over. And he actually started off with saying,

I know I recognize you, I don't remember your name, remind me. Isn't that your name. Remind me. Isn't that great? Yeah, remind me. And the reason why that was so powerful was because I had just came off of a, we used to have these big district meetings where the entire district comes in. So you're talking about hundreds, maybe even thousands of people, hundreds for sure of leaders and managers all come to these monthly kick or quarterly kickoff meetings. And I'd run into the presidents and DPs and

And they in you know If you're there and someone your boss introduces you as Doug this guy who and and then they would they would blow smoke You could tell they blow they weren't real. I could tell they didn't know who I was and oh, yeah You're doing a great job. It was like this guy has no he has no idea what I and you could feel it I could totally feel it. This is a guy I get it. I'm they're busy I'm nobody you know to them in this huge company and you would feel that right and. This is a guy, I get it. They're busy, I'm nobody, to them and this huge company. And you would feel that, right? And then here is this guy who's at an even higher level

than all those people. And he's only met me like one or two other times, back when I was a young trainer and just getting started. And here I am now as a manager at this trip that I won, sends over the drink and starts the conversation by admitting that he doesn't remember, but he knows he recognizes. and then when I tell him, oh,

Campbell McKee, I remember and then he tells a story and I'm like, wow, that was so powerful and it stuck with me to have the humility to say I don't know or to say I don't remember. He respected you as a person. A hundred percent and then he cared enough to send a drink over and have a conversation with me. and he cared enough to send a drink over and have a conversation with me forever impacted me. And it was like, and that's how little a time it could possibly take that you could make an impact on somebody else's life.

That's right. Justin, I'd like to ask you, because you've had some great, I know you've had, or if I asked you, can you name a couple coaches or one coach in your life that made a huge impact? I bet the person you name is the person you felt like cared about you outside of sure the game. Yeah

Yeah, Doug Morris Andy Lambert. Those two are like in terms of coaches It they they were very impactful because of what we talked about off the field, right? Yeah, it was always like Yeah, like a personal level I could tell them like struggles and things going on in school. And you just saw like, again, it's the integrity piece, like to the point where like we, you would spit on the ground and they would have a problem with that, you know?

And like, it was just, we don't do that. All these things is just the example that they portrayed is like, we just don't do that as men. Like, things. It's just the example that they portrayed is like we just don't do that as men like in like it was very like formative for me because it was like, you know it He commanded that respect without having to really Be he was very charismatic, but he wasn't like a very he didn't he was a dominant portrayed out Yeah, like he wasn't like controlling about it or anything. It was very much of an inviting type of charisma. There was moments where we got heated and there was corrections that needed to be made

on the team. So I saw a lot of how the conflict, how that was resolved and the way that they handled all that. So all of that stuff made a humongous impact on me and then, I mean, Adam for me in the fitness industry, I don't know if I have anybody else really. That's awesome. Lastly, and this is really important, and this I think separates great leaders from good leaders,

is that great leaders know how to follow. They really know how to follow and you see this when you have somebody that you follow that mentors you and you see them give respect to somebody that mentors them. It's incredibly humbling. Watching my dad treat his, my father to me was a superhero when I was a kid, watching him show respect to his father, watching him get up out of a chair because an elder walked into the room, the way he greeted certain people, he showed them respect which really made him so effective. I'll never forget Arthur Brooks in his talk when we were at the event with, Bishop Barron event, and he talked about the data showing how if men go to church regularly, the odds that their kids will follow

in their footsteps and become, for lack of a better term, religious as well is 75%. And that's the highest. If anybody in the family is going to influence their kids in a way to follow their footsteps when it comes to their spiritual beliefs, it's the highest. If anybody in the family is gonna influence their kids in a way to follow their footsteps when it comes to their spiritual beliefs, it's the Father, and He explains it. And He says, you know, as a kid, the most powerful man or person in your life is your dad, right?

Everybody knows your dad's like, he's this bigger, alive person. And then you go to church, and you see your dad bend a knee and submit to someone bigger than him, and just how powerful that is, I'll never forget that. And this is a skill that I think some people have to develop because if you're used to being charismatic

and the guy that everybody follows, and then you are in a situation where you could benefit from falling for someone else and you don't, you're not gonna be very effective. By the way, as a trainer, there were many times my clients led me. In fact, I often would ask them how they felt and what direction they feel like they would go

and I'd follow their lead in many ways and it only made me a much more effective coach and trainer. It fostered that trust and that relationship that made things just so much better. This is like getting into like the next level of leadership. Do you have the ultimate confidence and humility at the same time? Yeah. You know, do you have that ability to know you're great, to be great, while simultaneously being humble enough to allow somebody else to lead

you or ask questions, right? I was fortunate that I was forced into leadership at such a young age that I kind of had to do this. Again, I admit all the time that I was not the smartest, not the most experienced. Here I am, I'm having to lead these people. I could have taken one direction, which would have been, I'm the boss, do what I say, and see where that took me. Or I could just, you know what? Everybody knows it. This trainer I'm talking to right now, he knows he's smarter

than me. He knows he's been doing this for 10 years. He's got way more of an education than I do. So let's not pretend like I'm just going to be out with it. Like I would come to that trainer and ask nutritional advice to ask exercise science. Like, listen, I can lead this team and yet you can be better than me on a lot of things. I, I, we absolutely can do it. Good leaders have that ability to get people to go with them while simultaneously always being able to be humble enough to ask questions or allow others to lead in moments. And that's how I learned. I learned that way because I knew that I had these peers that were better, smarter, more

educated, more experienced than I was, yet I had to lead them. So one of the things I wanted to do was to empower them and to show them that I'm confident enough in who I am and why I'm here to also still ask questions and admit that hey you're better than me at this and that's awesome let's work together. That's awesome. This is reminding me of just how frustrated I am right now with the online trainer coaching space and the people who are so you know so called teaching and coaching trainers. I'm gonna get to that in a second, I just don't wanna forget it.

But before I do, before we get too long to the episode, I do wanna talk about a study I brought up or some studies that I've been looking on ginseng. So you guys know the herb ginseng. This is like the- Been around forever. This is the master, they consider it the master adaptogen. It's been used for, if I'm not mistaken,

thousands of years in Chinese medicine. And when you get real ginseng, and you get standardized ginseng, 7% or 5% of what are called ginsengicides, I think they're called, the compounds in ginseng, what you see is this really powerful adaptogenic effect. It helps with blood vessel health, blood flow. It's good for libido just testosterone production and men and women

Energy, but in a non stimulatory kind of way. It's it's it's probably the most widely used Herb I would say in all of alternative medicine. Is it an anti-inflammatory? Anti-inflammatory cognitive function. It. It's like adaptogen was probably, that term was probably invented because of ginseng. Because of ginseng. Now the reason why I was studying it and really going deep and I know a lot about ginseng but I really went deep on it was because of Joymode's product.

So Joymode's product which is like a pre, I guess you call it pre-sex supplement but I use it for workouts because it improves blood flow. Every time I take it, I just feel good. But there's no caffeine, no stimulants, nothing. It's great energy. And it's got citrulline, it's got a form of organine that helps with nitrate, which helps with blood flow. But it's gotta be the ginseng,

because I've taken those before, they're good for blood vessel health, good for blood flow, but it's gotta be the ginseng. Every time I take it, I just feel really good. And for me, it's like the best pre-workout additive, with caffeine, without caffeine. You've got us to take it before, I actually like it even before we podcast.

I always think, I just took it before we podcast. Because it doesn't make me jittery or anything like that at all, but it's just a good uplifting. I've also used it before sex. I have too, have you? I've used it for before sex. I have too, have you? I've used it more with sex than I have anything else. No, I don't, so I haven't. You guys notice a big, well, one time I did actually.

It's noticeable. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing too. I was like, it's not like, it's not Viagra difference, which I've messed with stuff like that before, but it definitely makes a difference. If you try it without, and then you try it with, you'll see a difference. It's 45 minutes before is what they say. You'll feel a difference. Yeah, I take it normally and then you try it with, you'll see a difference. You'll feel a difference.

Yeah, I take it normally about an hour before. All right, back to trainers. Increasing girth. That's just it. Ow! So, so frustrated with the trainer space right now. So we've just moved into coaching and training trainers and then we've also done now we're also moving into actually offering coaching to

people although that's kind of we're gonna slow grow that but I'm so frustrated because I see the space and talk with okay we just talked about this principle purpose driven right trust care respect right I see none of that no no you know what I see? Here's the purpose. Make this much money in this time. So dumb. Here's the purpose behind fitness for 99.9% of trainers. It's to make people healthy because I love what I do and I want to improve people's quality

of life through fitness and health. If you're a trainer because you want to make a lot of money, you're on the wrong field. Not saying you can't make a lot of money in training, you can, but if your purpose isn't truly helping people, you're not gonna do well, you won't last, because this job will be so painful and challenging for you, it just won't last. There's other ways you can just make money and just worry about money.

Your purpose, if you're a trainer and you've been doing this for longer than six months, is because you really wanna help people. And here we have these people, these guys, girls, whoever, who are like teaching trainers how to be better trainers and what are they showing my new car this private jet I'm thinking about buying look how much money I made look I go I'm some successful you are an idiot stop get out of our space it's very frustrating and what they're doing is they're luring in these poor trainers

and coaches into their stupid schemes, here's how you know their schemes by the way, that a lot of what they promote are challenges, 30 day challenges, here's a look how much money you can make in 30 days and this and that, and they don't teach these trainers how to build a long lasting business. Longevity is just the hustle of what we can produce

in a month. And the purpose is making money? Like what is, it's so disgusting. The crazy part about this Sal is that that I think you listed eight qualities or so of leadership. If you focus on that, the money actually does come. If you master those eight things about being a leader, which is like, I promise you, you're gonna make,

I promise you'll make a lot of money in almost any industry that you do. I don't care if it's personal training, I don't care if it's tech, I don't care what it is. If you master those leadership qualities, that becomes like, okay, I heard all those things, I'm gonna go be good, I'm gonna learn to be great at those things, and put the work in that it takes

to be good or great at those things, the money comes. The money will come. Yes, it's a little bit longer. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it's gonna be hard work. Yes, it requires consistency. So does getting in shape. And you as if you're a trainer, you know this, this is the stuff you preach to your clients.

So give yourself the same advice. Anyone who's selling you on making 10,000 or $100,000 right away that's using money as the driver for you to be successful is not gonna to be a long-term thing, even if they can show you that. Because by the way, the next level or layer to what Sal's saying is there's a lot of people that are good at algorithms and are good at funnels and can take somebody who's never done any of that, teach them a few things to make a quick buck, but then it quickly

goes away. And I guarantee someone listening right now has experienced this where they hired a coach or they hired somebody like this who taught them a quick way to monetize and make money didn't teach them the principles that will make them a really good leader, but focused on the outcome, making money and might've had a little success for a few months. And then what happens? I'll read to you, this is a coach, okay, who wrote in to us. I've been, they're looking for some advice. I've been in the game since 2019.

I've scaled to 15 to $20,000 months pretty consistently. That tells me, by the way, they have some months that are big and whatever. Most of my sales have come from my personal Facebook friends. I'm almost at the 5,000 person limit. My question is this, I've been doing challenges and scholarships, this is what they teach,

pretty consistently since about 2021, but they are pretty burned out since I've been doing them with the same audience for X amount of years. My dilemma is I'm afraid I've burned through all my warm leads, notice the language, on Facebook. My Instagram is dead regardless afraid I've burned through all my warm leads, notice the language, on Facebook.

My Instagram is dead regardless of posting content consistently. I know, and they're talking about a particular company, I won't say who they are, I know X model is running challenges and scholarships frequently and they work if you haven't done them for years. So this person's burned out. And by the way, they applied it as successfully as you possibly can, and this person now, we are at risk of losing them as a career coach who can, who has a career in fitness for the rest of her life. This is exactly what happens if you follow what they tell you and you're the top 1% of

the people that follow. Most people burn out within a year. This is no different than the client who loses a bunch of weight really quick. The wrong way. The wrong way. It is no different. They cut the calories, they start running, seven days a week, they're doing all this, they're eating nothing but chicken salads,

and they have initial success. And then the inevitable happens. They hit a hard, that is the exact same thing in business. You are just burning through all the few leads or people that are paying attention to you with the desired outcome of just trying to make quick money as your purpose. And then what ends up happening is that dries up, you plateau.

And then where do you go from there? It is the exact same thing. The challenges and the scholarships are cutting calories and running, trying to cardio it off. So yeah, it's very, very parallel to that. And just like the client, the right answer is the slow, gradual. That's the right way is take your time, build muscle, practice the movements, create good

habits and behaviors. The same thing goes with the business advice. It's like, this is not a quick fix. It may take you a long time to get up to that dollar amount but along the way you're gonna get good. It's no different if you're trying to lose weight right now and you run across an ad that says lose 30 pounds in 30 days with my patented super pill fat-burning extra crazy workout program. I think people now know that's bullshit. I think they know now, but if you don't, it is bullshit, okay?

It's the same thing as when you see these guys or girls preaching they're gonna build your business as a trainer, oh, by the way, I'm getting out of my new Ferrari, or I just bought a jet, or get out of here with that crap, leave the fitness industry, please, because you're killing these opportunities for these people who really want to make a difference. Alright, I'm gonna change directions

so we're not so negative. I was reading about the differences between farmed salmon and wild salmon, and first off, way higher protein in wild salmon because it's leaner, so immediately raise your protein, lower your calories by eating the same amount of salmon if it's just wild, just like it is with beef, right?

Grass-fed versus. It's also, was it lower in fat also? It's because it's lower, it's leaner. It's leaner, right? Here's the other part. So there are things called persistent organic pollutants that have been linked to things like type two diabetes, maybe cancers.

Levels of certain kinds like PCB 16 times higher in farmed fish versus wild fish. 16 times higher. Yes, so if you like to eat fish or salmon often, you could be taking something healthy but have kind of a high amount of these chemicals that have been connected to problems, and it's not a little, it's not double. It's 16 times more. It's tough, man. I've seen, have you seen some of these videos now

coming out of how they try to make the fish look fresh and they dye them red? Just so, yeah. It's fake. It's fake. It's so frustrating. Yeah, where's the good quality sourcing you know it's it's it's very very much something you need

to consider especially with fish because of again like a lot of the toxins in the environment yes yeah do you guys do you guys get the wild salmon from butcher box yeah yeah we do I like that it comes in the like single serve packs or whatever so it makes them super easy and we give it to my kids once or twice a week. It's cool, because you just take one out, defrost it. Super fast cook, really good. What I haven't done is smoke it, which I want to do that. Have you smoked it yet?

I haven't. Yeah, either of us. So I was telling Everett, Katrina's best friend, he's a chef. And we actually had scheduled just a couple of weekends ago for him and I to smoke and we were gonna smoke the butcher box salmon. I ended up bailing, I can't remember what came out.

How long would that take? I'm not sure, a few hours probably. Yeah, if that, because you figure smoking a steak takes a few hours. Smoked salmon is good. Salmon should, I would imagine, cook a lot faster. That's my favorite kind of salmon. Yeah, I prefer it that way.

Oh yeah. Yeah, so it it that way. Oh yeah. Yeah, so it's on my list to do it, because just being honest, I've never been good at cooking fish, and I'm really particular about it, and so. You know what Doug taught me with salmon? Of course, it's true for me too. Doug and I went to this years ago,

we went to this marketing event before Mind Pump, he ordered salmon, and he said, make sure that it's medium rare. You can order fish like that? And that's like the secret, especially with salmon, people overcook it, it's gross. If you leave it so that it's kind of like medium rare, so much better, so much better.

I mean it makes sense, I mean we eat, you eat it raw, so why not? Why not put it on the more rare side and then versus, because it's terrible when it's overcooked you have some super dry yeah yeah it's all how much how much time four hours oh it is four hours still okay nice does uh uh treger have a recipe they do okay so may all just follow that i was waiting for i was waiting to be taught by a chef to see what i could do but maybe i'll maybe i'll smoke it up myself and see we will have a little smoke off Doug the new place. Yeah

Full spectrum hemp oil extract high in CBD, but also has other cannabinoids and terpenes What does that feel like when you take it when when you get the real stuff? You feel calm you feel, you feel uplifted. Ned is the best. Take it, 45 minutes later, you took something. You know you took something. Go check him out. Go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com forward slash mind pump.

Use the code mind pump, get 20% off. Our first caller is Shane from Canada. Shane, what's up, man? What's happening? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good. Yeah, super surprised to get the email yesterday from Canada. Shane what's up man? What's up man? Hey how's it going guys? Good. Uh yeah super surprised to get the email yesterday uh from Doug uh but glad I got the chance. My question was regarding um the NASM certification so I just completed my CPT with NASM which started it back in November with the intention of kind of just doing some part-time

training on the side, but now I've started a new job. So that's kind of put on the backburner. But my question was specifically around something you mentioned about static stretching before workouts in a recent episode. And in the OPT model, if you're familiar with that part of the NASM program, the stabilization endurance phase, they say the static stretch muscles that were identified as overactive during the assessment process before training, which I thought was contradicting kind of what you guys were recommending,

so I was just hoping that you guys could clarify that. It's not, and there's more detail to this as well, by the way, so in that model, there's foam rollings involved you do some static stretching but then you activate afterwards before you work out okay so what a static stretch by the way static stretching isn't always something you shouldn't do before workout so to give you an example if I'm getting someone to do a barbell squat and they're so tight across the pecs and delts

that it makes it difficult for them to hold on to the bar, static stretching the pecs is a good idea because it tells the CNS to relax a little bit in that area. So the pecs aren't going to be pulling forward so hard when they're trying to hold on to the bar. That being said, a static stretch followed by dynamic or activation is okay because the whole key is to get the CNS to connect. Static stretching dampens the CNS signal and improves elasticity but it also dampens the signal and needs to be applied precisely. So in general we tell our audience is to avoid static stretching and to do priming. And priming is a safer way for people to generally get their body set up.

Now for trainers who know what they're doing, you can static stretch the right areas to complement. With corrective emphasis, which is really the difference with that in terms of like your general person, static stretching, kind of a broad stroke of generally like static stretching their entire body. This is where you need to actually tense up the muscles to produce the amount of force that you need in your workout. So it's problematic, especially with the hamstrings as well too, when you're setting yourself

up for running, for instance. So again, this is more of a nuanced conversation with that, but generally speaking, if you focus more on dynamic stretching, you're probably gonna have a better result in terms of just getting through the workout without problems. Another way to think of it, or easier for the average person to understand what we're talking about right now is And it stays aligned with what we've said from the beginning which is you don't want to static stretch a muscle You're about to go activate as the prime mover if you're about to do an exercise and that's the prime mover

So let's say chest you don't want a static stress the chest like Sal gave an example where you would static stretch a chest Well, the chest is not the prime mover in the squat. So I'm not really worried if I kind of deactivate that for it to relax so I can get them in a better position so that their legs can drive, their glutes can fire properly in good form with good posture. The same thing would go for another exercise that you've got another muscle, an antagonist muscle that's getting in the way because it's overactive for you to do a different prime. But you don't want to static stretch the prime mover. You don't want the muscle that you're about to call upon that needs to fire hard, to fire efficiently. You don't want to, for lack of a better word, put it to sleep by static stretching.

You can static stretch other muscles that are getting in the way of that prime you were doing good work and when you know what you're doing this is applied. Like we absolutely, even though we tell the audience generic like don't static stretch before, of course there's situations where we know exactly what we want to relax, we want to activate, to go in there. But really you can get a lot of this accomplished by just doing good mobility and like what we teach in prime for your clients and you're gonna you're gonna accomplish what you're trying to accomplish and I think it's confusing when people like when NASM talks about static stretching before

you work out and that's why I think there's this this why we still see trainers doing it. Remember this is a certification for trainers So they're teaching you how to individualize Your setup they're teaching you here the static stretch Overactive muscles if I say that in a podcast most people like huh? They also have you activate before you lift anyway, so even even to counter some of what we're saying We're gonna work out chest. I static stretch my chest. Well now I'm gonna go bench press. What do I do? you activate before you lift anyway. So even to counter some of what we're saying, we're going to work out chest. I static stretch my chest. Well, now I'm going to go bench

press. What do I do? Some isometrics on my chest. So I have to prime it. Turn it back on so that I can kind of have a good firing situation. This is my bodybuilders. You see bodybuilders will static stretch a muscle. They're working intraset or in between sets. You'll see them do this. So they'll do a bench press, then they'll static stretch their chest, then they'll do a bench press. Anything that's inhibiting the movement, you know, you don't want to address that correctively to set yourself up, but like in terms of the actual warm-up, the priming sequence going into the workout, that's different.

So when it makes sense, like when you're doing a squat, if I have overactive calf muscles and my toes start to like flare out and then my ankle mobility is not as good to do like combat stretches, forehand and stretch my calves out and form all my calves and then stretch my calves. To an extent, right? But here's the deal. Are your ankles in a strong, active, supportive role in your squat? I mean, yes or no, what do you think?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, right, so now with the chest, I'm just holding onto the bar. But when I'm squatting, my ankles are flexing and extending to an extent. Combat stretch is not a static stretch. Combat stretch is active. So you could statically stretch

your calves and get more range of motion but you also run the risk of losing ankle mobility and stability because you've got more range of motion but it's kind of turned off. Well if you did it in the order you just said, if you stretch your calves and then did combat stretch you'd be okay because the combat stretch you're getting it firing and activated again right so that you could do that. Right, does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Okay, there you go.

There's a lot of nuance. It's nuance, yeah. When you talk about individualizing the setup, this is why Maps Prime is so great. Maps Prime, the average person could do the compass test and then depending on where they fail, depending on which test they fail, it'll direct them to movements that'll generally apply to them. It's about as individualized as you can

get without having a trainer do it. Otherwise, nothing beats a trainer. If I'm training somebody, I can do a priming, stretching, warm up with the client that no general anything can touch because I'm individualizing it. But on that, again, with that regard, Maps Prime is like, there's nothing that will, that you can apply to everybody like the Prime Compass and the Prime, you know, the Prime priming sessions. Shane, you have Prime and Prime Pro already? Just Prime.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we'll send, we'll send Prime Pro over since you're a trainer. I think that'll, that'll help too. Yep. Yeah You got him. How long you been a trainer for? I literally just completed my certification Wow Are you in our course? Are you working? No, I've looked into it. I've done some of that done two of the last three free webinars. Oh good It's been awesome. Good. So keep coming. Are you gonna be working for a gym or for yourself? No, I plan on just doing it myself. Oh man

Our course will really help you bro. So Not just the course but the support team that we have. Right the network and everything. If you're a new trainer And you're gonna work for yourself The odds are stacked against you because it could be very difficult But if you learn how can be very difficult, but if you learn how to build your business, you'll have a very successful career. So I highly recommend looking into our course

and then working with our coaches and the group calls because they'll go in and really help you. You're gonna build your business. Otherwise, it's gonna be very difficult. We don't market this as part of it, but this is part of it is that you get support calls with Kyle and Anne weekly inside that group. So as you're going through your business and you have challenges, you show up to those weekly calls and you can ask them, hey, I've got this going on.

So not only are we getting these trainers all certified and it's also CEUs for your certification, but then it's also the support along the way, which is what I think we put a lot of the energy and effort into is that we don't just set you and let you go the support along the way that which is what I think we put a lot of the energy and effort into Is that that we don't just set you and let you go It's the ideas that we really help you scale and build your business So hopefully we see you in there soon. If not keep coming to webinars at least Yeah, no for sure. Thanks so much for the podcast and all the information out there. It's been a huge influence for me We'll send prime pro over you see how that too. Okay. Thanks so much. You got it, man. Well send Prime Pro over. You said that too. Okay. Thanks so much.

You got a shame. You make sure he has Prime and he wasn't bullshitting me. Yeah. I tell you, if he doesn't touch us in him Prime, here's the one you said you had. I, you know, I gotta say, you know, for, for trainers and coaches listening right now, the, the success rate for trainers who work in a big box gym isn't that great, but

it's infinitely higher than a new trainer starting on the train to build a business on. So hard, dude. A trainer who doesn't have a client-based experience, doesn't have the mentorship you get from a big box, then goes to try to start their own business, the fail rate is exceptionally high. So if you're going to be a trainer and you're gonna do this on your own and you're not a part of our course

or a good course like ours, which I don't know many that I really trust, like you might as well stop. I'm just being straight up because the fail rate is so, you might as well go try and open a restaurant and never have cooked before. I actually, do you guys know a trainer

that started one-on-one and didn't start at a big box? The only ones I ever knew in my entire career were trainers, I had two trainers who came to my studio as brand new trainers. They wanted to pay me rent, I gave them, and they wanted to start off for free. I gave them two months for free and I coached them myself. And that was a lot of intense work.

Yeah, yeah, that's different. That's like, that's a new one. But I, but he ended up mentoring at a gym underneath somebody anyway. So it was like, everybody that I've talked to that have done this, yeah, it's so hard. It's super. It's hard to do it in a big box gym. Where they give you everything. I would even, I'd go even further. So the only trainers I ever saw successful privately, one-on-one like that, were already

the top trainers. So my advice always to trainers that are thinking about it is, listen, if you can't prove to be the top 10%, okay, you don't necessarily have to be the number one guy or girl, but you need to be the top 10% of the team or the staff, or it's going to be exponentially harder by yourself. So a good goal, why you have the support of a company that's paying for marketing, paying for your overhead, all those things like that, giving you tons of leads that you didn't have to pay for or go find, your goal should be first to go prove that you could be the best

person in that situation. Then that type of trainer is the one that's successful when they go off on their own because they get it. And even then it's because they get it and even then it's hard And yeah, and even then it's still different They will most I mean Justin will tell you that Justin was a top trainer At a facility and then he's gone out and did it on his own and I'm sure if you asked him It was a whole new learning career. Here's what we're gonna do because because I know Shane seems like a good guy He's a brand new trainer wants to do it on his own. He's gonna fail. So here's what I want Doug

I want you to have our team reach out to him and offer him the discounts and stuff that we shut down with the last webinar. And tell him if you get started today, I'm gonna put pressure on his ass, cause he's gonna, otherwise he's not gonna do it. That we will give you the discount, all the giveaways, all that stuff that we did with our last open enrollment,

which ended on a hunk of the two months ago. We'll give it to him today if he gets started now, because he will fail without this. Our next caller is Cassie from Washington. Hey, Cassie. Hello. Hello. How you doing, Cassie? Hi, hello. Nice to meet you guys. Thank you so much for taking my question.

So I guess I'll just read kind of what I wrote in, because I'm a little nervous. So I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. As a busy mom, a full-time nurse and a student, I felt completely overwhelmed when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, especially being on the other side of the diagnosis. I didn't know where to begin with my health and fitness journey, but your podcast, your programs and the support from my fiance gave me the direction and structure I desperately needed. Without my impump, I truly would have stayed lost. Thank you for your advice or thanks to your advice, your

training and guidance. We've completely changed our lifestyle. We meal prep every week. We commit to regular strength lifestyle. We meal prep every week. We commit to regular strength training. We're currently running Muscle Mommy and Loving It and we've become more mindful on nutrition and movement. And on top of that, I'm also on a GLP-1 medication to help manage my diabetes. Because of all the efforts combined, I've lost almost 60 pounds going from 269 to 211 and I feel stronger and more energized than I have ever been Best of all I can keep up with my toddler now Sorry, I'm a crier

Now I do have a question that I love your insight on I know you've spoken about GLP ones before on the show Especially the idea they should be cycled or used temporarily your insight on. I know you've spoken about GLP-1s before on the show, especially the idea they should be cycled or used temporarily. But since I was prescribed one for type 2 diabetes, I may not have the option to come off of it, at least not yet. The medication has helped me regulate my blood sugars and A1C has come down significantly, but the doctor and I are being cautious. I've recently had a plateau. Despite staying consistent with workouts and diet. I understand from your podcast that sometimes increasing my calories for two to three weeks can help break through a

plateau. The problem is, is that I'm on a GLP one and my appetite is still a little bit low. And I can't comfortably increase my intake that much. So I was wondering what other suggestions or strategies you could have to help break through this plateau considering my situation. I'm getting married in 2026 and I would love to lose at least another 50 pounds if possible. But I want to do it in a sustainable and healthy way, especially without just turning to a higher dose of medication. And thank you again for everything that you've created. Your impact on my life has been tremendous.

Cassie. Oh, thank you for that. Thank you so much for that. Great job. And you said you're getting us over here emotional. Yeah. Great job. Are you using the name brand that's the preloaded ones already or are you able to draw your

GLP-1, your prescription? Is it preloaded? Yeah, I'm using the name brand Manjaro and I get it from the pharmacy. So, we worked with a group of people on GLP-1s, and a lot of them ran into the exact same situation where they would lose an initial amount of weight. So they'd forget. And then they'd plateau.

Okay, how long is your plateau, by the way, Cassie? It's been about three months. I've been in a teeter tottering between like 211 and 220, and then I also do before and after pictures with my measurements as well. And I feel like nothing has really decreased. It's kind of just staying about the same. Okay, so that's definitely a plateau.

Are you tracking anything, your calories, you know what you're consuming every day? Yes. Yeah, so it's a little bit, I had to like come to a science because obviously listening to your show, I know calories are important and protein and all of that. So I track it by days.

So the first day that I do my shot is day one. So from day one to day three, my calories are pretty low, anywhere from 800 to 1000, just cause I can't comfortably eat anything else. And then from usually like day four to day seven, that's when my appetite kind of increased and I also schedule my workouts on those days. So I'm able to eat more calories and actually get through my workout. And so I eat anywhere from 17 to 2000 calories. Okay.

Okay. So let me add this up. So there's three days at about 1,000, right? Okay, so three days at 1,000, and then four days at, on average, what? It's usually consistently like 1,700 calories. Okay, so let me do the math here a little bit. So 1,700 times four, plus 3,000.

About 1,350, right? Is that what that is? Yeah, roughly. Divided by seven, about 1,400. Okay, you're gonna have to reverse diet. We need you to reverse diet and start getting stronger. So there's a couple ways we could do this. One way is to see, and you have to do this with your doctor, say hey, can I try reducing my dose a little bit

so that I could start building a little bit of muscle because I've plateaued and I don't wanna eat less. And I know I'll plateau even if I do eat, like this will happen Cassie, if you do eat less, you'll start the weight loss again but then you'll plateau again and it'll be a real hard plateau. And I mean, there was a woman we worked with in the group

who had plateaued for, it was like a year and she was averaging 900 calories a day because she had kept increasing the dose and dropping her food intake. So a Reverse diet would look like this. I'd want you to to increase your calories by about a hundred calories a day on average Okay, and continue to strength train and I want I would want you to do this Till we could get your average because right now your average about 1400 calories I'd like to see your average get up to about 1800 or so calories or 2000 and then we could start cutting again. Now what prob, what tends to happen with a significant percentage of people is through the reverse diet process they

actually start to see fat loss again. Okay, but other people don't see anything. They just, they don't gain weight, they don't lose weight, but they're increasing their calories. And then we can start cutting again. That may require you to lower your dose, but you need to do that with your doctor. And literally tell them that exact thing. Say, hey look, I wanna be able to eat a little more, I wanna build some strength, I'm already eating so little, I wanna go through a period of increasing my calories

just a little bit, build some muscle so I can get my metabolism moving a little bit, and then I'll bring it back to the original dose to cut my calories just a little bit, build some muscle so I could get my metabolism moving a little bit and then I'll bring it back to the original dose to cut my calories again. So work through your doctor that way and then through that process what's gonna look like through this weight loss process is a step ladder of that. So you're gonna then you'll see some fat loss again then we have to reverse diet. Then you'll see some fat loss again and some reverse diet. So it's gonna be a bit of a process but that's the the most effective way to do

it. So in a perfect world we we're targeting about 1500 calories and about 135 to 140 grams of protein in that range. That's like a perfect world. So that should be kind of what you're aiming for, for right now. And the protein is really important, especially if we're trying to reverse diet and build muscle. If we get 1500 calories, but you're only getting 50 to 60 grams of protein, it makes it really difficult. So it really prioritized. And with the extra 100 calorie salads wanting to eat, it'd be great if it came from something like Greek yogurt

or something that's high protein, or a couple, an ounce or two more of meat or something. That would be a good strategy is just simply bumping it with a little bit bigger piece of meat or with something like yogurt whatever is easier for you to get down but this is really common when we went through the the when we took all these people through glp everybody went through yeah either you were seeing great success and drop in the middle of the dropping part or you were at a part where you hit the plateau because we had a lot of different people at different stages and it was inevitable that almost everybody was going to have to somewhat reverse diet at one point and it's

hard when you have the preloaded. When you have the ones that you draw your own amount then they could you know they could just tell their doctor hey I'm going to take a little less and then they just would pull out less. I know when you have the preloaded ones I don't know how they might just have her inject less squirt out the rest yeah throughout the rest. Yeah I don't know how. They might just have her inject. Less. And squirt out the rest, yeah, throw out the rest. Yeah, I don't know, I'm curious to. But I would talk to the doctor. Yeah, and I hope, I hope, I really do hope that this doctor is well versed, open minded to this

because the doctors that I've talked to that have been doing GLPs for a really long time, they're aware of this, know this. If this doctor is relatively new to it or just, or is in the business of keeping you on it forever, this is where this can be a challenge. If you can't lower your dose, and you still find it difficult,

you can try reverse dieting with like shakes, or things that are easier to put down. So that's a second, not as good option. I prefer the first option over the one that I said, definitely. And how long did it take you to lose the first 60 pounds? So I've been at it for a little bit over a year from January to January and now in March, so just a little bit over a year.

I lost 60 pounds. So like the first nine months and then it kind of plateaued afterwards. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Listen, I don't want you to worry. This is expected and like literally we did a group. This was like the most common thing.

And because we had this group for, I think we had, how long have we had, three months? Yeah. We had people who started with us, who had been on a GLP-1 for a long time, who had been six months or a year into a plateau. Literally there's one person who had plateaued for a year. They reverse dieted.

A month and a half into it, they were able to start seeing fat loss again, after being plateaued for a year, they reverse dieted. A month and a half into it, they were able to start seeing fat loss again after being plateaued for a full year. So it's, this is like, like expected. We have the strategy. It works. Also expect this, Cassie, as you are reverse dieting, even if you don't see the scale go down, it's a massive success if we can be eating more and not gaining. So also be open-minded to that response not everybody Reverse diets and then also they see weight come off some of the clients We reversed a hundred then a hundred more than hammer and they're not seeing any movement on the scale

But they're now eating 350 more calories a day and without any weight gain. Yeah without any weight gain, which is a huge success It means that metabolism is remit because then what I could do to that client is go Hey, look at now. Let's cut that 350 and watch what happens again, then you will lose. And so that's kind of the game that we are playing right now. So don't be discouraged if you're reverse dieting and not losing right away on the scale. That's normal. And it's okay, it's actually a good sign.

If you can get those calories up and we don't put any bad weight on, that's a really, really good sign. Yep, yep. So okay, so for a year you've done this, this is the last three months, have you, are you open to, are you open to working with a coach through this process? Because you're, if you reverse diet, get the fat loss going again, you will plateau again, you'll have

to start the process over, so it's gonna look like that through. So are you open to working with a coach through this entire process? Yeah, I mean, whatever can help. Okay, I'm totally open to it. Okay, Cassie, I'm gonna have someone call you because I there's our coaches are versed in this. They work. We know what they're doing with this. I'll have somebody reach out to you at the very least. They could give you some more individualized advice that that we you know, they can spend a little more time with you than we do here on the show. Okay, perfect. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. You got it. By the way, are you following any of our workout programs?

Oh yeah. Muscle Mommy. Muscle Mommy. We're doing Muscle Mommy now. Last year, I think the time I saw the most fat loss, we ran power lifts. That was the first time I lifted that heavy at all. That's awesome. And it was awesome.

That's right, that's right. Okay, good. That's so good. All right, this will be good then. I'd love to hear back from you. Yeah, that's right. Okay good. That's so good. Oh good, all right, this will be good then. I'd love to hear back from you. Yeah, let's get through this plateau. Don't worry about it. Yep.

Keep it up, Cassie. Thank you. All right, thank you guys. Bye. Such, this is so good for people to hear who are in a GLP-1 experiencing this or who are thinking about going on a GLP-1. They don't talk about it.

No, this is just, look at, this is what happens when you radically cut your calories and you have a lot of weight to lose. Eventually you hit this wall. And you have to use or manipulate or work with your metabolism to make the fat loss consistent. And it's just the thing that happens often, especially when there's a lot of weight to lose.

I just hope that the doctor works with her and understands where she's at. And just, it's, it's like, it's like a 50 50 shot on who she's got. Yeah. Um, it was always, I mean, at least I found it difficult with the people that we worked with, if you had like Monjaro or the preloaded, the preloaded was, is tough versus this is what the benefit of going through the, uh, compound, the compound pharmacies is that you can control your dosage, you know, and so I think that This is that this is the area of GLP one that I think will look back five ten years from now and be like we

made a mistake on how we know how we did this because The fact that we put all these people on a generic dose is crazy to me because of how just the, just the, you know, maybe a few hundred people that we've worked with and been around that have gone, gone through this. There's such a wide variance of experience. Some people, it crushes their appetite and they can't eat. Some people get nauseous and can't even keep food down. Yeah people can't, doesn't even curb it at all until they start ramping the dose up. And so that's a huge difference.

And there's some people that were turned off by it because they were nauseous like you're saying, but that was just because the dose was way too high. That same person could have had a great experience if they took a fraction of the dose and had great response. So it's really unfortunate that we have these preloaded pens that we're giving people all the same dose because it's very, very unique to the

individual. Our next caller is Joe from Maine. Joe, what's up, man? What's going on, Joe? What's up, buddy? Hey, what's up, guys? How you doing? Good. It's a little surreal for me. I've listened to you guys talk for literally thousands of hours and now I'm actually interacting with you, which is pretty awesome to be, to be quite frank. Uh, I know time is precious, so I'll get right into it. Uh, so I want to thank you guys for your amazing content. Uh, you guys have helped me become the best version of myself, which is just great. So, uh, a bit about me, I'm 36 years old and I work as an assistant bakery

manager for a major groceries chain on the east coast. I'm also an NCO in the army reserve where I take on a mentorship role helping soldiers improve their physical fitness while maintaining high standards myself and on top of that I'm a father of two young boys two and a half and one years old. I discovered mind Pump in the summer of 2017, shortly after graduating from basic training at 28. Before that, I had been lifting for about two years and continued consistently for a total of 10 years. I stayed dedicated throughout that time

until the past two years, and while I never stopped training, staying consistent became much more difficult with the birth of my first son and then nearly impossible with the birth of my second son. My training dropped to less than 50% of its peak during MAPS Aesthetic or 50% of its volume, leading to noticeable losses in strength and size. Beyond the gym, missed gym sessions, I felt the decline in my physical and mental well-being. About five months ago, I started a job at a grocery store,

which includes a wellness program that subsidizes my home gym. This allowed me to build a solid training space. Since then, I've made significant progress in regaining my strength, size, and overall health, both mental and physical. But I seem to have stalled. I want to blame age for the aches and pains

I never experienced before my sons were born, but my real fear is that I've lost too much strength and mind muscle connection to fully return to my previous abilities. Everything just feels harder than it used to. I still follow many of the habits that got me to my peaks, such as tracking macros and counting calories, though not as strictly as before. The added stress of two young children, a full-time job, my side hustle, and the army has led me to take out more than I'd like. That said, I do an average of 20,000 steps daily and currently train on a two-on, three-off, three-on, two-off rotation due to my wife's schedule, with variation on either side depending

on the schedule. Do you have any advice on how to push past this mental and physical plateau? I wanna be a good role model for my boys and show them that age is just a number. A man doesn't make excuses and takes care of his body so he can take care of his family and others. Joe, you're winning already.

I can already tell you you're a good example. Yeah, you're winning already, bro. You know, trying to compare yourself to your previous peak before you had kids. It's a losing game. And before, I mean, you're a father of two. You got a wife. You got a job.

That's a lot of sacrifice, man. Different season of your life. Yeah. And you know, when kids get older, you'll get more time. But that's a lot. I know what it's like to have two little ones. It's a lot of work. And you're there to support your wife and sacrifice yourself for your family,

you're doing a great job, brother. You're probably crushing it, and I would say, you might even be just pushing it too hard. The mentality of pushing through the plateau is gonna cause you to probably overdo it. And if you're feeling aches and pains, that's probably the case. Because of the, just all of the added pressure and stresses

of all the other parts of your life, your body's just, you're not gonna be able to tolerate or handle as much training volume as you did before, you know, before you had all these wonderful things in your life. So if anything I'd say if you're feeling aches and pains you're probably overdoing it. But other than that Joe, you're doing a great job and you're already a great example for kids. You don't need to be the jackedest guy in the world to be the best example. I think that-

I see that, yeah, you're going to work, you're responsible, plus you're working out. Sounds like you love your kids. I think you're doing a great job. What always helps me with self-awareness around this is I always realize that my greatest strength is always my greatest weakness. And so what has made you so good and a badass and able to do all the things that you've

been able to accomplish do this I mean this that's a strength of yours and but then you also lean on that like if you're not running at that hundred percent then you're failing and it's like you're not bro you're just because you're not maybe crushing and accomplishing everything you are accomplishing at peak version of you you're not sub you right now you're not maybe crushing it and accomplishing everything you are accomplishing at peak version of you, you're not sub you right now. You're just at a different season in your life. Your priorities have changed. When you didn't have two little ones and a family, your priorities were totally different.

And I don't even have to tell you that. I know you know that because as soon as you had those kids, it changes your life. And so you're just a different version of you right now. And you're in a version right now that other priorities take precedent over being the crushing the gym like you have before. This is why I love maps 15. I think maps 15 should be called like dad program or something. I think that's like the, the better, the better branding for it should be that. I just think it's when you're at that phase of your, your journey, especially early years of kids, it's different when they're getting into junior high

and high school and kind of self-sufficient. But yeah, you will. But right now, with the amount of work you're doing and the stuff with the Army you're doing, and to like, bro, that's a lot. You're doing more than you used to. So here's what happens, Joe. Here's what happens with, this is the challenge,

for young men and young women, okay, is that with the metric we use to gauge how well we're doing is based off of, it's basically one metric. So what you're doing is you're judging yourself based off of what? Strength and performance in the gym? Okay, but what else are you doing? Like what other amazing things are you doing right now that you didn't do before? And so if you look at the complete picture, Joe today is a badass,

Joe of yesterday was just a selfish kid. If you really compare the two, right? You're actually more of a badass today than you were back then. So the metrics, you gotta look at the whole picture, and I think you're doing a great job. And again, if you're feeling aches and pains, MAPS 15, I'm gonna tell you right now,

you're probably gonna be blown away by following a program like that and the gains you make from doing that. You're not gonna step back or you're gonna go forward with that. Also. It's about volume. Also what happens a lot of times

when you're pushing this hard and you feel like you need to do more, it's also what causes the bigger fluctuations. Right, because you're redlining and you're trying to do more and you feel like you're not doing enough and you push, push, and then you get these signs of over training, aches, pains, and then you go,

you have a day where it's just, maybe it's just, oh, you were overwhelmed, you were stressed, and then you binge, or you over, because you're running on that red line or running on e all the time whereas if maybe you actually pull back and kind of coasted through your training like a maps 15 type of program you realize it's it's so much easier for you to accomplish what ends up happening a lot of times is our clients get stronger they feel better they have less of the crazy swings

left to right because they're not trying to do too much and a lot of times that's exactly what their body needs at this current moment. Yeah. Yeah. And that foundation you already built, think about that. You're just, you're just basically, um, priming that you're, you're getting yourself with that muscle memory. You're, you're just consistently kind of triggering that. Um, and you don't have to do that crazy amount of intensity like you used to have to do to be able to resurrect that. So really it's just about finding that that good balance, that right dose now where your body's like we're in a healthy place and you know

we're gonna allow you to have this kind of force production. You know what I'm seeing too here in your question Joe, you're about to become a master fitness trainer for the Army and you're working with others with other soldiers and you know this may turn into a fitness career above and beyond that, you're gonna be training a lot of men who are gonna go through what you're going through right here. So this is a great, this is gonna really make you

a good trainer. I mean, it's one thing to train somebody without kids, without tons of responsibility, it's a completely different thing to train somebody who is building a business. I got two kids, I got three kids, I got a mortgage, whatever, which by the way will be a majority of clients. So this would be really, really good for honing your skills as a trainer as well.

Yeah, I 100% agree with everything you guys say. It's one of those things that I knew and then I just need to hear you say it for some reason to really kick it in. I do have a bit of an update on my original question if you guys wanna hear it. Yeah, please. All right, so after sending that email, I asked myself why I wasn't already utilizing

the knowledge and tools you guys had given me over the past seven years that I've been listening. I realized I was not only using one tool out of the toolbox, which was volume, I was trying to perform like I did seven years ago, which I'm just not at my peak. That led me to act. So I finished up my bulk. I transitioned into a fairly aggressive keto cut where I went into strength training and that reduced a lot of inflammation. It also had the added benefit of then I couldn't eat takeout anymore because I was on keto.

The diet is so restrictive. Following the cut, I took a two-week vacation. I reduced intensity. I used your overtraining rescue guide and I still prioritize steps and moderate activity. Then when I got back from my vacation, three days, four days ago, I started MAPS Symmetry at a slight surplus to help even out my body.

So I also have 15. Is that something you would recommend for me to do next? Yeah, 15. Yes, yeah, totally. I like 15 for you right now. 15 performance, yeah. I think 15, you'll be surprised at how much strength and how good you feel with that much

strength, especially since you've already alluded to us that volume has been the main tool that you've used. Yeah. And you walk so much. Yeah. And you're an active, you're going to be surprised by a MAP 15. I love for someone like you to run MAP 15 because most people, the part you'll struggle with is like, this is not enough.

It sounds counterproductive. But it will be. It will be. The opposite. It's going to serve you. But it will be. It will be. It's gonna serve you. So, but overall, I mean, that's great. Continue with symmetry and then Maps 15 or just go straight to Maps 15. You know, you're okay with symmetry, but I'd like to see you jump right to 15. Yeah. I'd like to see that. I think jump to it, yeah, just for the experiment of it. Yeah, by the way, how'd you feel after the week recovery the the the one week recovery rescue guide?

I felt fantastic. I did I what I think helped the most is just being outside Being outside getting sun and like relaxing and not trying to do everything all the time Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No jumping jump into 15 and then let us know how you feel in a month or two Yeah, I'll be surprised if you don't feel amazing. Yeah Okay. Yeah, you're killing it Joe. Yeah. Good job, man. Yeah For other dads watching right now, by the way, yep Awesome, all right, Joe All right. See ya. Thank you

Yeah, it's a tough transition when you become a parent, because everything's different. Nothing's the same. Well, it's also, I mean, I've never been an army badass. I like to think that I was kind of a badass at lifting, you know, physique guy. And when you've reached these levels at certain seasons of your life, it's hard not to dry. And so we're taught not to compare to others, right? We're taught like if you're like, that's the first layer is like learning that stop looking at everybody else's parents.

And then then you move to this place where, yeah, I'm competing with myself. But then you realize that there's only certain times of your life too, where you can even compete against the best version of yourself, especially when you've reached peak levels in an area or a discipline. And so you've got to understand that, you know, I'm not going to beat, you know, you know, single Adam with no kids, with no real job other than to train and be a bad ass and to compare to that is only doing myself a disservice. Like, so again, even though that is a little bit different, it's similar. It's just like peak army fitness single badass dude, you know

what I'm saying, of his life and strength and how he crushed the gym probably. Trying to compare that when you got now a grocery store job, you're doing volunteer army, you've got two kids, probably a mortgage. Are you kidding me? Like, you're a different season of your life. 100%. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump with Stefano Adam. Mind Pump Adam.

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