Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2578: Get Abs That Pop: The Perfect Core Workout & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday’s Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page.  Mind Pump Fit Tip: Get abs that pop! The perfect core workout. (1:52) A STAPLE supplement for mental health. (17:35) Parenting blunders. (23:23) Shilajit for gut health! (28:48) The MOST rewarding partnership. (34:19) The protective effects of religion and the father’s impact on their child’s spiritual practice. (37:42) Navigating the ethics of bringing back the dire wolves. (46:36) #Quah question #1 – Is there a specific range of caloric surplus for optimal muscle growth? Is there a specific range for a caloric deficit to not lose muscle? (58:04) #Quah question #2 – What would you recommend I eat before working out? I am typically not hungry and only have a coffee before my morning workout. I have read that eating something before working out could be beneficial. I am 53 years old and currently doing a 90-day transformation program. I always work out in the morning before work. (1:01:35) #Quah question #3 – What are the best natural ways to lower cortisol? (1:04:09) #Quah question #4 – How can you not lose upper body gains or become too imbalanced while training after suffering an injury? (1:05:51) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off! (4/18 - 4/20:  Easter Weekend- Free Green Juice Crisp Apple & Kids Easy Greens with any 2 product purchases!) ** Visit Rock Recovery Center for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Ben and Tom know firsthand the struggles of addiction and alcoholism. With years of experience helping thousands of individuals, they offer a free consultation call to discuss your situation. Whether you’re personally battling addiction or have a loved one in need of help, they’re here to guide you toward the support you need. By filling out the form and scheduling your call, you’ll also be entered for a chance to win a free 60-day scholarship at Rock Recovery Center, their premier treatment center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Don’t wait—take the first step today. ** April Special: MAPS HIIT or Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #2085: Abs & Core Masterclass Creatine for the Treatment of Depression Mind Pump #2392: Steps to Overcoming Addiction with Tom Conrad & Ben Bueno Real Recovery Talk The Role of Parents in The Spiritual Formation of Their Children The Impact on Kids of Dad's Faith and Church Attendance The Reason Why Children Are 800% Worse When Their Mothers Are Around Joe Rogan Experience #2301 - Ben Lamm Mind Pump Apparel Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Thomas Conrad (@realrecoverytalktom) Instagram Ben Bueno (@realrecoverytalkben) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Jordan B. Peterson (@JordanBPeterson) X/Twitter  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump. Today's episode we answered listeners questions, but this was after our intro. Today's is 54 minutes long the intro we talked about fitness studies Science around nutrition exercise Sometimes current events. It's good time By the way If you want to ask us a question that we can pick for an episode like this

Go to Instagram at mind pump media. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi organifi makes incredible supplements and products that help you improve your health. Today I talked about their Shilajit gummies. Shilajit is an Ayurvedic compound. It's been used for 3,000 years to reduce inflammation, boost energy, balance out hormones, improve brain health and cognition. It's all proven by studies.

Go check them out. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Go check them out. Go to organifi.com That's organi fi.com forward slash mind pump use the code mind pump get 20% off this episode It's also brought to you by rock recovery center This is a rehab facility if you or a family member or friend are struggling with addiction go to rock recovery center comm forward slash mind pump See if they can help you out by the way, every other month they're going to give away a $60,000 scholarship, that's four months,

where somebody can go there and get help breaking their crippling addiction. Now this episode, we also are running some sales this month, sorry. MAPS hit is 50% off and so is our Extreme Fitness Bundle. They're both half off. If you're interested, go to MAPSFitness is 50% off and so is our Extreme Fitness Bundle. They're both half off. If you're interested, go to MAPSFitnessProducts.com and use the code APRIL50 for the discount.

Here comes the show. Get abs that pop. You want a six pack that shows. We're gonna go over the perfect core workout. You can make it happen. Let's go. We haven't talked about this in a minute. I know, I know.

This is a, I like this one too because You can make it happen. Let's go. We haven't talked about this in a minute. I know. I know. I like this one too because probably at least half my trainer career, I went about this the wrong way. I don't know why because maybe it was because I don't remember learning the right way in like a national certification. I don't remember that. I don't think that's where you got this. Right. And it's, we all like our lemmings, you know, we see that somebody does something a certain way. We just follow right around without ever

questioning it. Like, Hey, maybe there's a better way to go about this and, uh, not to get ahead of ourselves on what you're going to get to. But I'll tell you the mistake that we all do is that all these crazy exotic movements for high reps and no rest periods was the formula. It was like, how much can you make your abs burn? Yet I understand the science on every other muscle, but why would I apply that methodology to my abs? 100%, like the abs, all the muscles of the core and the abs in particular are like any

other muscle. If you want them to be visible, you need to build them. You got to be lean, of course, but you got to build them. And the way you build those muscles is the way you build, same way you build your biceps or your delts or your glutes or any other muscle. But for some reason, we confused core training or at least we considered core training to be separate. Like, okay, oh, you want to build, you know, your qu we considered core training to be separate. Like, okay, oh, you want to build, you know, your quads, you got to go heavy.

It's more conditioning. Get stronger. Yeah. You want to build your chest, go heavy, get stronger. Oh, you want to build your abs? Do 500 reps. Yeah. Like somewhere, somewhere. Why? Why did we do that? I don't know. I'm not quite sure why, but that's just nothing. They build. And I did this. So I figured this out personally.

Now, first off, everybody has abs if you're lean enough. So I just want to say that because you can develop incredible core muscles, but if your body fat percentage is too high, you're not going to see them. So that's just straight up. That being said, if you develop your core muscles well, they will be visible at higher body fat percentages. You don't have to get nearly as lean to see lines in definition because there's the muscles there are well developed

and I figured this out again as an adult years into my training career, I Wanted better six-pack. I would get really lean and get myself down to at this point I never got really shredded but I got myself down to like 9% body fat. And if I flexed, I could see a six pack. But when I was relaxed, I was lean, but I couldn't see a six pack. And I remember thinking like, what is it with those guys that walk around with a visible abs? Like it doesn't make any sense. And believe it or not, it was from watching Rocky IV. And so Vestasone was doing Dragon Flags. It's an old Bruce Lee exercise. It's a very high resistance exercise. It's super, super difficult.

And I started doing them and within weeks, my abs were trying to pop out and then it dawned on me, it wasn't a special exercise, it was just, it had heavy resistance. And so I started to apply that with the rest of my core training where I actually was training them like muscles I was trying to build. In a very short period of time, my abs turned into bricks and you could see them at higher body fat percentage.

So I think that's the most, that's number one is use sufficient resistance to develop the muscles of the core. Yeah, if I had to be completely honest, I used to think it was a really stupid pursuit, mainly because all the guys I knew that had abs, I could just like knock them over just by barely touching them. And it was just like, it was, to me, it was like, you're going to get skinny.

You're just going to be a waify little weenie, you know? And just to get girls or whatever the case, right, but you know, to actually build and gain that kind of muscular strength with it, and like you mentioned, Rocky, so that kind of shifted my mindset towards it, especially like Predator and all these big Jack dudes that actually have abs, but you know,

in the very beginning it was just like, oh, here we go. Yeah, I mean, let's say you're not, you don't care about having a shredded midsection, and you are more athletically minded, building the muscles of your midsection are gonna be incredibly protective, just like they would be anywhere else.

So whether you wanna see them or not, first of all, what I'm saying, you'll see them more if you do it this way because you develop them, right? The abs will start to pop out a little bit rather than you just look at them flat. The obliques will start to develop more to where you could see that line, you know, that V line at the front of your body. They develop more, but those strong, those muscles when they're strong, but you know what's interesting about this Justin? I noticed some of this years ago going to Italy. I went to Italy and I looked at some of the sculptures there and then we went to the Louvre in France.

And these are like, these are old sculptures. Some of them go back to the Roman times and you would see what they would depict to be like Hercules, for example. Now they didn't have bodybuilders back then. So what they were doing is they were depicting what they knew to be functional looking strong muscles. The strongest body they could imagine. Yes, and this was based off of people in the Colosseum, gladiators or soldiers, wrestlers.

At that time, you would have these fights between gladiators and stuff. And what they would display is they'd have, you know, strong arms, strong shoulders, a whole deal, but they'd have well-developed core muscles. Really blocky, yeah. Especially the obliques. The obliques were really well-developed. And I looked at that and I said, they're basing this completely, this has nothing to do with modern ideas of aesthetics.

This was like, this is what gladiators kind of look like who tend to kick everybody's butt. And it was these really strong, well-developed core muscles. Your core, when it's strong, you can run faster, you can hit harder, you can kick harder, you can punch harder, it protects your spine. It's one of the most important musculatures of the entire body. Well, to give flowers where they're due,

I think that this is the example we see this in CrossFit athletes. Yeah, they always have this, right? They do, because they load and lift abs heavy, and they're strong and functional. And a lot of times, the average viewer thinks that they're all really lean because you can see their abs, but it's more the case that they've developed their abs and that you see them

when they're competing. You can actually still see their ab muscles and that's because they directly work on them. They do all the things that I know you're going to go into as far as how do you develop a good looking core or abs. I think that was the thing that was neglected. I definitely fell in the category of the way you saw my abs was I just got lean. That was the formula.

I was the wafy guy that Justin wanted to fight. That's his impression. But then we became friends. I don't know, it's weird. Good thing we met after high school. I know. For sure would have fought me in high school. I was saying.

100%. Yeah, so use resistance. In other words, a good set of an ab exercise or core exercise with a hard, heavy resistance of 10 reps is gonna be far more effective than 50 reps of your ab burning. Even five, Sal. Even five.

You can go as low as five. Five, slow and controlled. I mean, some of the best results I ever saw was actually, I remember when I learned this and I went, man, I'm gonna take it to the extreme. Like what stops me from doing like two to five reps slow and controlled and loaded and, oh, and by the way, start easy and light with the first time you do that

because I remember. You get the cramp. Yeah, oh yeah, overreaching a little bit on that and then oh having some of the ab cramps with the worst too. I knew this was working for me when I started to get a pump in my core. I didn't think I didn't of course you can get a pump in your core but I don't realize it because I never trained it this way when I started training this way I'd get a pump in my abs in my midsection I was like oh yeah of course it's a muscle just like anything else. So the next part, use resistance, right? Train them to build. The next thing to understand,

and this is very important, is understand the function of the muscles, in particular the abs. This is where people mess up. And I think this may be, Adam, why high reps became the way, is because if people load their abs without understanding the function, they start to feel in their back, starts to hurt. And that's because people think that if you fold the body, if you fold the upper body and the lower body, they think you're working the abs. But what they don't realize is you could do that at the hips, which is the hip flexors. And one of those hip flexors attaches at the spine.

So if you were to look at a body standing upright, there's a hip flexor called a psoas muscle and it attaches at the thigh and it goes through the body, attaches at the spine and it folds you forward or brings your legs up like a leg raise at the hips. And so what'll happen when that gets fatigued is you'll feel it in your low back. You'll be like, oh, ab exercises hurt your back.

A lot of people say don't load up your exercise to hurt your back. It's, it's the psoas muscle. So the function of the abs is not to flex you forward at the hips. It's to, it's to round you and flex you forward. Roll you up at the spine, at the lumbar spine. So it looks very different. So when you're doing a heavy ab exercise, don't think just fold forward or bring my legs up, think, bring my pelvis and roll it forward or bring my legs up think bring

my pelvis and roll it up or roll my body up roll up towards that where that lumbar spine is that's bringing the the top of the abs where they're attached at the at the rib cage to the where they're attached to the bottom at the pelvis you're you're contracting the abs not folding at the hips once you understand that then when you load and you do it right, now you've got it done. The best visual that I ever had was like, most people know what a spine and vertebra look like. And so if you can imagine taking that and if you were to try and roll the vertebrae

in front of you, that's what you're trying to do. You're not trying to fold it, you're trying to roll it up. And so think of trying to roll your spine up or curl it up if you're doing a reverse crunch, that's what's going to engage the abs. It's like the perfect sit-up for that. That's a great one. You can really isolate and you could feel you know each ab get engaged. That's a great one and by the way some people even when they do ab exercises wrong like they're doing leg raises but they're just you know folding at the hips'll say, I feel it in my abs. Well, the abs are stabilizing, but you're not working them.

You're not really working them through a full range of motion. All right, so let's go through the exercises and we'll explain why we picked them, why we think these are the best exercises or a good combination of exercises for really developing and building the core muscles. Again, so they're visible at higher body fat percentages. I'll start with the first exercise, the reverse

crunch. I like the reverse crunch. By the way, you can modify a reverse crunch to make them super high resistance. So you could do them on the floor flat or I could go up an incline bench where I'm holding on to a bench or handles and I'm rolling my back up. The reason why I like reverse crunches so much is because it's hard to mess them up. I like doing these for up. The reason why I like reverse crunches so much is because it's hard to mess them up. I like doing these for clients, I used to love doing these for clients. It actually taught my clients how to work their abs.

Now a sit up, especially if the feet are anchored, people can start to mess that up and fold up the hips. But when you tuck your legs and roll your way up a bench. Yes. It's more conducive towards that sort of rolling function. Totally, totally. 100%. And you again, if you wanna make this

a high resistance exercise, because you have strong ab muscles, just do it up an incline. Do it up to a real high incline. It'll be really, really challenging. You'll do a few reps and you've got yourself a high resistance. You're great at resistance for that.

That's right. Next up, side chops. This is good for the internal and external obliques, that rotation. I love side chops so much. It's the, it's my, now you'll see a lot of like twisting crunches and that gets the obliques too, but it's not really directly working the obliques, like rotating with resistance. There's two ways you could do this.

There's the way where your feet are planted and you're just rotating. Or what I believe to be the better way to do it is to rotate but then also pivot on your feet. With the hips. Yes, it's just so much, they both worked obliques really well. They both have value.

They both have value. The planted has an anti-rotation component to it, which is extremely valuable. And then the pivot has a full rotational component to it. So it's like, I explain it the same way I explained to somebody who teaches dumbbell rows. There's a way to teach a dumbbell row where you incorporate rotation in the spine.

And then there's a dumbbell row that you're in a fixed position. It's not one is right or one is wrong. They both have value for different reasons and it really depends on the client's desired outcome. But I do you do see trainers trying to pick apart other trainers and say one is wrong the other. It's just like if you can perform. It's about the intention. That's right. What are you trying to use it for? Both have value based off what the goal is. And so if you can do it with control

and not hurt yourself, it's an exercise. Another one, this is not an exercise you see often, but when you do it right, man, it is incredible. These are called active planks. I did a video of these years ago on our Mind Pump TV channel. One of the first viral videos ever. Yeah, and it's really, it's like you're starting in a plank, but you bring your hips down,

and then you come up and you crunch at the top. This really works the abs and works the obliques and the stabilizer function. It is a high resistance exercise. You can make it really high resistance even if you're really strong, just by really intensifying the crunch at the top. I still laugh at some of the physios on there

that were talking about sheer forces. Please dude. I know. So am I. Good times. And then lastly, this is kind of a counter rotation is really a protective way of developing the strength in the internal external obliques. One easy way to do this is you would stand with your feet wide apart, you'd hold a cable that's pulling in one direction, you just extend

your arms, it gets more challenging, you extend and bring it back in. So you're just stabilizing and counter rotation is your ability to prevent your body from rotating at the lumbar spine which is protective. You need that. Yeah and that's another thing like you'll see renegade rows and you'll see people perform things like this in a plank position. The real value of that is the anti-rotation component to it. And so once you start seeing all of this swaying left to right, it really devalues

what you could be getting out of it. The advice that I would add to this is, like we said when we first started this conversation, that it's like building any other muscles. So if you really wanna get incredible value out of these tips, it's, you know, when you are actually reverse dieting, build, like go through a building phase, right?

So add calories or go on a mini-bulk while training these low-loaded reps, and then cut and then reveal. Good point because I think people would start doing this when they're cutting. That's what happens a lot of times and then they're like, oh yeah, I didn't really know step-by-step. Well, of course you're in a calorie deficit and you're trying to build your abs. It's no different than building a calorie deficit, trying to build a butt in a calorie

deficit or trying to build biceps or chest and it's no different. And so reverse diets are increase your calories, go after building the abs like we're talking about and then go on a cut and watch what you see and I bet you'll be really impressed with what your midsection looks like. Totally. All right, so I want to talk about our favorite supplement, talk about creatine. Another study came out showing creatighten's benefits for depression. In this study, they compared Creighten plus anti-depression treatments versus just the anti-depression treatments.

Creighten dramatically increased the efficacy of anti- In combination? In combination. Wow. In combination. So it enhanced it. I think what we're going to see, I will make this, I'll say this pretty confidently, I think the medical community, we're probably five years away from this being a staple,

a staple for mental health. I think that they're going to give it to older people anyway because it's healthy, but I think this is going to be a mental, like- It's literally a brain nutrient at this point. Yeah, and you need higher doses for that by the way for the brain they're finding that studies the studies are finding that doses 10 to 20 grams are needed to cause the the saturation of the brain whereas with muscle about five grams or whatever what what's your prediction then on how do you see this getting to a point like

that like do you start to see it in like these like old people homes where you start seeing like the places start giving it to their patients or like how do you see that making its way into where it becomes like a staple? Like you're trying to fortify it and everything? Yeah, there you go. I think at first it's gonna be in like,

you know those, what are those drinks, those shakes called Insure? Insure, like stuff like that. Yeah, like you know they have these deals with medical treatment. Right, a protein creatine will be something like that. So I think what you're gonna start seeing it that way, I think nutritionists, dieticians I should say,

are gonna start recommending it to some of their patients. But I do see this, I see, I think forward thinking therapists are gonna start recommending this. Because therapists, obviously, they're registered and they're under certain regulations, but there are therapists out there that are forward thinking who will recommend things like going outside and do some exercise. They were doing that before the medical community really caught on. They've been doing that for years.

I could see them saying, hey, let's have you start taking creatine. Well, it just makes sense if they have the ability to prescribe medicine. It's like to be able to give alternatives and preventative type of methods that are less risky. It's like, to me, it's a no-brainer. They did, there was one study, this was a famous one,

actually it was popular, I think it was maybe a year ago, where they sleep deprived people, and for one night, and half of them, they gave 20 grams of creatine, the other half they didn't. The 20 grams of creatine essentially erased the negative effects of the poor sleep. Now that's one night of bad sleep.

Okay, so if you're listening to this, doesn't mean you can just have shitty sleep all the time. Take creatine. Yeah, but what you're saying right now is that something I would consider now. I mean, the fact that I already have these gummies by my bed here all the time. Yeah, but what you're saying right now is that something I would consider now? I mean, the fact that I already have these gummies by my bed and here all the time, I already am taking in five or so grams. Would it be worth my while when I have that random up night of sleep to double it up? Interesting. And take it, take it through. Here's the thing, high doses of creatine will

give you diarrhea. Yeah. So spread it out. If you take it all at once. Spread it out. That's one of the cool parts about the gummies. Have three in the morning, three in the afternoon, three like spread them out. What I've been doing and Doug look this up for me look up creatine for sleep deprivation. I want to find that study. What I've been doing, so I've been experimenting. I've been taking creatine since I was 16, non-stop. It's one of the smartest things I ever did with supplements. With all the dumb stuff I've done with supplements. I actually think it's one of the reasons why. Every once in a while your addiction pays off.

I actually think it's one of the most protective things I've done because I'll go get my blood tests and stuff. I'm like, everything looks good. That and weight training and you're like, everything looks good. Okay. Look, a single high dose of creatine improves cognitive performance during sleep deprivation by enhancing brain energy metabolism and mitigating fatigue related cognitive decline. Now, does that mean, Sal, the studies showed

that it erased all the negative impacts? Not all, but it was significant. So at least, okay, so. You're able to think sharp, to remember things. Okay. Yeah, that fogginess. Right. Yes.

So at least it improves that. There's actually, okay, it's better than caffeine. It's better than caffeine, according to studies. So I've been, by the way, the sleep was, let's see, creatine's effect peak after four hours and lasts up to nine hours. In other words, it's like it's in your system. So you're probably better taking a little throughout the day

to give it that trickle effect, which is better for your gut anyway. So I've been experimenting with, on low days if I forget, 10 grams, but probably closer to 15 to 20 a day. And I think I notice. I really do think I notice a difference. I've been ramping my, it's been consistently 10 at least

and then trying to do 15. How long have you been taking it? A couple weeks. So it's been 10 is like the minimum I've been trying to stick with. But yeah, when I got to 15, I did it like all at once. That's the effects of that. But yeah, spreading it throughout, I had no problem at all.

Yeah, so what I've been doing to help me remember is I'll take some creatine with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I don't forget. Actually, I have a family member who had chemo recently, had mouth cancer, terrible radiation, the whole deal. I've been sending him shakes and helping him with nutrition. He can't open his mouth too wide, so he can't eat too much yet. He lost all his teeth.

Now he's got dentures in there and we're getting him to gain his weight back. I'm like, the other night I was sitting there and every once in a while I'll check on him. And I'm like, why haven't I recommended creatine? And I looked up studies on creatine for people post cancer and they're like, oh this is probably a very good idea. So I'll let you guys know what happens to help him rebuild his strength and energy. You know, by supplementing with that.

So yeah, we'll see what happens. Speaking of diarrhea, terrible transition. Wow. No, so I, parenting blunder I wanted to share. I thought like, although my wife probably doesn't appreciate when I share parenting blunders on our end, but I just think it's of value because it caught me off guard.

So my son was obviously having some sort of digestive issues or stomach stuff. We thought maybe he had the flu bug, but he was totally normal, didn't have any runny nose, any other symptoms, but was having diarrhea and stuff like that. And so it's like, first day, no big deal with, oh, maybe he just, he had a day where he was with me and I let him eat out of bounds a little bit. And so he had more sweets or stuff that he would normally have, so we probably attributed that. And it's like, okay, day goes by, still having it.

We're like, this is weird. Maybe he does have a bug in his, not like the fourth day of kind of battling this. Katrina finally calls our doctor and he's like, well, what has changed in his diet recently? And she's like, nothing's changed. And he's going through, you sure go through like, and he was going through the day and she's like, well, what has changed in his diet recently? And she's like, nothing's changed. And he's going through, you sure go through like, and he was going through the day and she's like,

no, he eats consistently. And she goes, he goes, well, take me through everything he's had the last 24 hours. Doctor's such a good doctor, by the way. And she's going through everything. And he goes, oh, he goes, how often do you give him gum? And she goes, oh, well, we've been giving him gum every day lately. This is all it's all bro. It's the it's the gum Yeah, that is disrupting his his gut

Is it the sugar alcohols in there? Yeah, it's like it's definitely not I wasn't giving him healthy gum I was giving him the he said there was actually stuff to show that the winter green or mint this stuff in there You can cause disruption in his stomach. So it's like xylitol and all those things. And so, we literally just introduced him to gum. He's never had gum before. I let him have it. I was just like, you know what, he asked about it.

And I said, sure, have it. He was great with it. He didn't- Is that what it was? Yeah. Wow. And I would have never thought that. And it's totally the only thing that's changed in his diet the last two weeks.

And we've let him have it every day. Cause he's so excited. I'm like, Oh, he likes it's gone, whatever. You're going to have to get him the old school bazooka. I mean, he was so, he was really, I mean, what I love about Max is such a cool, he's such a good kid. And he, and we, and we we've communicated with him so well that we can, we like communicate with them like, Hey son, the gum has been upsetting your stomach.

That's why you've had some of these accidents and we need to take a break from it for at least a week to see if it gets Better. Okay, you know Questioning or nothing like that. He's been fine. And so and then sure enough already, you know 24 or 48 hours later Already started to get right back great, but I would have never guessed just one I was like the kid chew pounds of it. So that, but no piece of gum every day, piece of gum every day for the last like two weeks was enough to start to do. Does he have any other dietary things that can all bother him? Not really. We had a little bit when he was

really little, like he had eggs a little bit, whivers it, but he passed that he outgrew that. So, so far he's, uh, he had more when he was little, when he was really little, we would notice if he ate outside of his diet a little bit, he would get kind of skinnier too, but that's all normal baby kid stuff, right? So as a young kid now, he really has no restrictions, or we haven't seen anything.

Now, granted, he also eats really good and clean and consistent, so it's not like he eats out of bounds very often. And if he does, I normally see a difference in his stool right away. If I let him have extra sweets or eat off his meal plan. Like, and the reason why I talk about it, or I think it's interesting to talk about, I was just telling Katrina that, you know, it's so crazy. Like as a kid, I was oblivious to all this. I didn't have any understanding

of it whatsoever. Then obviously you, you, you go through my training career and everything that I've learned over these last two and a half decades around nutrition and our gut. And I go, man, it's so cool to see a kid who we were so consistent with the way we fed him. And then now he's at an age where I kind of allow him to play those things and how quickly I can see difference in behavior, how quickly I can see a change in his stool, and then to be able to also communicate with him and let him know like that's what's going on. And then again, it's not like a big fight or a pull over. And then I'll enter too like, man, I wonder if I would have just kept on letting him have gum. Eventually his body would adapt to that crap. And then you wouldn't notice.

Like that could have been possible. But it was surprising to me that it was the winter, was it wintergreen or spearmint? One of those, the doctor said like that can upset his stomach. And then also- Great doctor. Yeah, he was- He's troubleshooting.

I mean, Katrina shopped around before we got up and she really wanted a pediatrician that was open to our holistic approach to a lot of things and he's been nothing but support that way. He's, he'll tell her there's times when like we're like, man he's been running a fever, flash of a laser and she'll call him and he'll be like, no, no, no, no, let's wait, let's wait, don't give him any medicine. Yeah, like he's always like, tries to tell her like, that's you who feels that way, tough it out, he'll be okay, he'll be okay and so he'll be like tell tries to tell her like it. That's you who feels that way tough it out. He'll be okay

He'll be okay. And so she'll be he'll be I think he uses Benadryl occasionally That's what he'll use it for stuff of that But he's not a big fan of like most all the medicine things have changed a lot since we were kids, right? They should throw an antibiotic throw an antibiotic everything everything. Yeah, I used to take them all the time I don't even like there's times I'm like, I'll just give him coffee comes from cough syrup and she's like no He says he says, doctor says not to give him that yet. Speaking of gut health,

you know what has benefits for gut health? It sounds like it does everything when I bring it up. Shilajit. Oh, oh, Shilajit. No, no, no, Shilajit. Shilajit, by the way, okay, so for people, that's got to be the number one thing people ask me about. I've talked about Shilajit.

Our partners at Organifi have clipped, you know, have cut clips of me talking about it and put it out in ads, and I think it's just, people are really interested because it's exotic. Is that, you think that's what it is, is because it's so, I think it's, I would guess it's because most people had never heard of it. They'd never heard of it, and it has a lot of studies,

a lot of studies behind it. It's been around for a long time. I mean, if I go through the list of stuff, like there's studies that show that it helps with brain health, it helps with increasing ATP, so energy. There's studies that show it helps regulate hormones, in some cases raises testosterone, helps alleviate pain response.

There's actually studies that shows that. What class would you say it's in? Is it like adaptogenic? I guess. Yeah. Cause that's. Herbal, herbal mineral. I've heard of being called because it's high in minerals, but it's not, it's it really what it is.

It's a weird. Yeah. There's so many benefits I've heard from it. It's a weird subplot. It's like, it's a, it's a, it's a substance that's been used in Ayurvedic medicine for something like 5,000 years. Okay. They've been using it forever. And it's like this tar, people, it's really,

if you look it up, real Shilajit, by the way, not made in a lab, there's lab-made Shilajit, which is fake, it's not real. The real stuff, they gotta go and get it from the mountains and it's this tar-like goo and it's broken down plant matter. It's high in something called fulvic acid. Fulvic acid seems to have gut health benefits. So people always ask me about it,

I'm like, Shilajit, is it really? I'm like, well, the data supports it quite a bit. I mean, I've been taking them, we have the gummy ones from Organifi, I take them every day. But it's an interesting- It seems like, and I don't know if it's similar or not, but like, you know how topsoil,

or like how it's like really rich with mineral, like the plants, they grow like substantially because of it. It's almost like the human version of that or something. Yeah, it's in the Himalayan. You have to go to the Himalayan or Tibet mountains to find it. To harvest it. And it's literally oozing out of, it's okay, so it's classified as a mineral pitch.

A sticky tar-like resin that is a natural substance formed from the decomposition of plant and microbial matter. And I said 5,000 years, it's been used for 3,000 years. You know what I like about ancient medicine? Okay, what I like about it is, although we have studies supporting it, that's a lot of anecdote.

If something's been used to treat libido, or energy, or fever for 3,000 years, I don't need a study. Well, they have to have a few people like, oh, this works for it to catch any kind of fire. Any traction. Any traction. And then for it to stay.

So, what an interesting thing to think about. how many things did we do for thousands of years that we've dismissed and we don't do now that was did anything ever passed the thousand a hundred years for that matter. Well, any that's passed, we did it for a hundred years and it was a word even like bloodletting and stuff like that. But they figured out there is like there might be some benefits to bloodletting, but that didn't last, right? Didn't last. There's better methods. Give me something that lasts.

Fasting. So fasting is one of the first, it's one of the first medicinal treatments and they, you know what they use it for? Seizures. And it works for seizures because it throws you in ketosis and certain, many forms of epilepsy will respond really well to when the person is running in ketosis. And certain, many forms of epilepsy will respond really well to when the person is running off ketones.

And so they identified that, oh, you're having seizures. Don't eat. That's an example of something that works again. No, give me an example of something. Oh, something used that long. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get at. It's like, your point you're making is like, what I love about something that's been thousands of years

is all the anecdote, right? A thousand years means there's a lot of anecdote of people that have tried it and it worked for them. But then we don't do it anymore. Yeah, exactly. I'll be like that. Well, there's stuff that's illegal now. Like I know they use cocaine for a long time. Yeah, but let's be honest. If there was no, if there was no law that said it was illegal, don't tell me that you,

that wouldn't be something that would be utilized. You'd utilize that. If you had access to cocoa leaves and plants, you can't tell me that's not something that we would use. It's just because we've decided that that's gonna be illegal because people abuse it and all the other reasons. But I mean, it would have been used to. You ever look at old ads from like the early 1800s on like cough medicine?

Doug, you could pull it up. Look at the ingredients in it. It's like cocaine, heroin, it's for kids, you know? For two things, you know? I mean, let's be honest too, we haven't really moved away from that. We've just pharmaceutical companies have just manufactured it, added with other stuff.

And then we put a name that people can't pronounce on it. And what they don't realize is they're really doing crystal meth. And that's really what they're trying to do. Look at that. Cocaine toothache drops for kids. What's a Novocaine? What's Novocaine derived from?

Oh, I don't think it is nova cane connected to cocaine? I wouldn't be surprised. Doug, look up, look up. Oh my God, why have I never connected? Dude, that would be weird. Are we just being stupid because they sound similar? Yeah, it's just the similar name. I mean, it's a numbing agent that used,

and they use in the dental world, like. Yeah, but I don't know if it's the same thing. I think it's made in the lab. Well, it's probably derived. Yeah, but it's probably derived from the properties. Yeah, put the Google. Yeah, it's probably derived from the properties. Yeah, put the Google... Is it a similar molecule? Google is cocaine and novocaine related.

I mean, while you're looking that up, I'll tell you things like your heroin point. I mean, we use opiates. Oh my God. That's where oxycontin and all those, and Vicodin and all those are derived from that. Speaking of which, I got to say this, man. One of my favorite, most rewarding partnerships that we've created at Mime Pump, it is not a type of cocaine. Sorry.

Okay. Yeah, there you go. Sounds similar. Okay. All right. There you go. All right, everybody. Just the name.

Yeah. One of my favorite partnerships, most rewarding partnerships is with Rock Recovery Center because, so people don't know this. We, so Tom and Ben both help run this facility, it's a rehab facility. It's one where you literally go and you stay there and they help people break addictions. They also have a podcast where they talk about addiction

and it helps lots of people. They don't make any money off the podcast. They do it because they keep getting messages from people saying, this helped me with my brother, this helped me, whatever. And they're really good guys. We actually interviewed them on our show and they decided to work with us to talk about the rehab facility.

What they do is they give away a sponsorship every other month as part of the promotion type deal. But the reason why it's so rewarding is Tom will text me and he'll give me updates on people who have found them through us and how well they're doing and how they found them and what they were dealing with. And it's like, man, you hear those stories? And it's just like, oh my God, I can't, I can't. You never know what it's going to hit.

I have, I'm not going to say too much because it's private, but I have somebody I know who dealt with addiction and I know what their parents dealt with, and I know just how scary it was for so long. And they broke the addiction, they now actually work with people and try to help them with addiction. Now they actually help others. But there was a six year period, probably,

maybe a little longer, where, I mean, I watched these people these parents I watched them age like oh yeah it looked like they age 20 years the toll it takes on a family I can't believe it's so crazy but to have like somewhere to point people towards and they're good they're good people well they're really trying to what I mean I what I was what I really liked about them when we first all became friends was that they're trying to disrupt that space they are there's a bit of a stigma around those recovery places that they've got a bad name for themselves

of like just basically like a mill, you know, just trying to turn, just getting the patients over and over and just trying to profit, make money. And obviously to your point about the podcast, like they're coming from a place of like they both were recovering addicts, right? So they went through it and it's like their way of giving back and trying to help others. And the podcast mission behind that is to try and really guide people and help them. And when we talk, I talk to them a lot about the business and their content. That's, that's where they come from is like, what are ways that we can help this community more? And so it's cool to see that.

And it's cool to get to hear the behind the scenes stories. We've had quite a few people from Mindpump have reached out to them. By the way too, even if you're not the person, we've had people that have reached out and worked with them and tried to basically apply for the scholarship for another family member or friend. So it doesn't have to necessarily be, you don't have to be the addict who's applying for the scholarship.

If you have a family member or a friend or someone close to you that's suffering from that and you want an opportunity to potentially get the scholarship you can fill that out. What's the name of their podcast? Can you find that for me? I want to give them a shout out. Yeah let's get that and then I'll make sure to give them a shout out. But just great guys. They were on our podcast. For us it was episode... I think it's Real Recovery Talk. Real Recovery Talk. That's it. Thank you so much. Can't believe I forgot that. Really good. All right.

I read some crazy statistics yesterday that just, I've heard of statistics around what I'm about to talk about, but I dug a little deeper on some of the data and it's so crazy. So here's where the whole rabbit hole started, right? I'm going to be, I have this group that I meet with every other week of men, and it's like a men's group, but it's Christian based, okay? And we bring up different topics, and it's stuff that men need to focus on, help with, whether it's being fathers, husbands, whatever. And one of the things I was looking up was just how to help be a better father and deal

with the things that children are dealing with quite a bit now, namely anxiety and depression. So anxiety and depression in kids, and we've said this many times on the show, has just been exploding. It's just been exploding and there's lots of people pointing as to what is the deal? Is it because they're not playing outside or hanging out with each other? They're not on social. They're so much on social media, this, that, and there. So I looked up studies and there was one study that showed, they studied kids and the most protective thing that they found with all these kids was whether or not the kid had an active religion or spiritual practice. It was extremely protective so they didn't follow the same trends as the other kids when it came to the rates of anxiety

and depression. And there's lots of explanations why, you know, is it the community, is it the purpose, the meaning, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter what the reason is, it's that these kids were heavily protected. And that led me to thinking about like what kind of influence does a father have when it comes to that? And I remember reading data a while ago, and I had to confirm this.

I thought it was very fascinating. The odds that a child is gonna grow up to follow a spiritual practice or religion is significantly higher if the father follows it versus if just the mother follows it. Do you know how big of a difference it is? More than half. If a mother follows a, let's say a mother goes to church regularly, okay, the odds that one of her kids, but the husband doesn't, the dad doesn't, just the mom. He stays home and watch football. Doesn't do anything. The odds that the kids will grow up

to do the same thing are one in 50, okay? If the father goes to church regularly, the odds that the kids will do it are about 70%. So from one 50, one out of 50, to three out of four, seven out of 10. Yes. How insane is that? There's more, trip off this. And then I'm gonna really-

How high is it when both do it? This gotta be really high. When both do it, then I'm going to really- How high is it when both do it? This has got to be really high. When both do it, then it's through the roof. It's got to be like eight or nine out of ten. Yeah, then it's through the roof. Yeah. So here's where it gets really crazy.

When a child is the first person, so this one was on being Christian, but I think it applies across the board. But this was just because the data was done on the most popular religion, which is in America, which is Christianity. So if a child becomes the first person in the household to become a Christian, there's a 3.5% probability that everybody else is going to follow. If the mother becomes the first person to become a Christian, there's a 17% chance that the rest of the house will follow.

When the dad becomes the first person, 93% chance. Wow, 93. 93. 93. 93. Now here's why it's tripping. What's a trip about this? I was showing this to my wife, and we were discussing what Scripture says about leadership, right? It says stuff about the husband, the father, being a leader, in particular about being a spiritual leader. And we were tripping out because when you think of kids, moms and dads are both influential.

But moms are very influential, especially when there's a lot of things my wife has way more influence over my kids than me. Because she's, if there's gonna be one person out of the home more, it's typically dad. But for whatever reason, when it comes to spiritual practice, dad has incredible impact. And it's really, it's such a trip to me how it all

comes together. Oh, I always, I mean, I felt at least that's how it hit me when Arthur Brooks did that speech. Yeah. When he did that speech, and what I interpreted it from that, because most kids think of their dad as a superhero. Until they meet somebody else who can overthrow

their dad, or they're up for a very long time at least, they think dad is the strongest man alive, can do everything, right? Your kid normally thinks that way. And so for your kid who thinks this about this all-powerful person in their life, to bow their head, to pray, to follow something else, to submit to something else is just this, you know, subconscious switch for a kid to go like, whoa, this thing that my dad is doing must be very powerful, incredibly, because that's the most powerful thing I know in my life. Seeing him in reverence or seeing him in prayer or seeing him submit to something must mean this

thing is a really big deal. I think that is probably what I would think is what causes a great portion of that. Yeah, I've been thinking about this. Of course, I'm a Christian, so I think it's just the way we're supposed to do it, so I think that there's that power. But I do think it's really interesting. And then for people who are secular, like if I'm speaking to myself two years ago, if I'm speaking to Sal from two years ago where I didn't have faith, I think that the way

I would have reached myself is say, well, what are you doing instead of that? Yeah, because- That's the Jordan Peterson talk we saw. That was powerful too. It was because you need, I think it's important to have a- That moral fabric in that outlook, that complete game plan. Yeah, like what's the bigger than life picture that you have? Well, otherwise, that complete game plan. Yeah. Like what's the, what's the, the bigger than life otherwise, something else is filling that void. Something else.

Something is going to fill that void. So you, when Jordan Peter, we had a great, that was the live event we saw Jordan Peterson and I'll never forget. Um, the one of the best parts is actually when he'd take fields, the live questions from the audience, I liked that better than even his, his speeches, not to take away from his speech, But somebody asked him if you could go back and do anything different about raising your kids and his wife was on stage with him, what would the two of you do? It was a great moment because you watched him kind of joke with his wife, I thought we did pretty good or this and that. And he really pondered on it for a minute. And then his answer was,

if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have taken my kids to church more consistently. And then his reason for that was coming from the kind of secular place, because he's like, I know there's secular people that are going to scoff at that or be like, you know, why or whatever. And then he goes, my challenge to you is then, well, what are you doing every Sunday from 9 to 10 a.m. with your kids to teach them, to raise them, to give them those morals, to do those things? It's what you're doing with your kids to teach them, to raise them, to give them those morals, to do those things. It's what you're doing with your kids, which I didn't realize this, because I just didn't realize it,

is what you're doing is you're creating a worldview. So when you grow up with a worldview, that helps direct purpose and meaning and the directions that I go. Otherwise, your worldview is painted by probably media, probably social media, probably your school, which is fine if you like your school, but it's not fine if you don't.

Or do you even know what your school is teaching your kids? So it's like, they'll get their own worldview. And what does the media teach us that the worldview is? Well, the media is trying to sell you something always. So it's probably gonna teach you sex, it's gonna teach you yourself and you and you're the star and it's gonna teach you all this kind of twisted stuff and that's just what ends up happening.

And so I think that's one of the things you gotta consider as a father. So when I looked at that data though, that was a trip. I could, you know, if there was a little bit of a difference but I'm like, I can't think of many more things where the dad has that much more influence over the children than mom. That's such a radical difference, it's not even funny.

So my wife was tripping over it, because she knows, she raises our kids, I'm not with them nearly as much, I spend a lot of time with them nearly as much, and she's like, man, there's very few things that have, you have that much more influence over them. I love data like that, I think, again, I'm just such a fan of

Celebrating how different each of us are. Yeah, you know I'm saying it's like the one I brought up the other day of Where's your kid most likely to act out what parent nine hundred nine hundred percent more likely in front of mom Yeah, which is not it. That's not a bad thing. It shows that they're safe Yeah to be able to challenge challenge learning That's part of growing up is challenging boundaries and taking risks and chances. And so moms provide this feeling of safety and home and comfort that I can't provide that will allow my son to challenge boundaries and grow as an individual.

Now that I'm sure for a mom, it sucks sometimes that she's got to deal with that, but it's a compliment to what she brings to the table that I could never replace and I can never be and so I think it's I think it's a cool thing when we learn more and more about the uniqueness of each of us you know yeah oh yes speaking of like morals and whatnot what do you guys think about bringing back the dire wolves oh so explain this. This was an extinct species. Yeah.

And how did they bring it back? Did they alter DNA? And so, yeah. Uh, and I was just listening cause Joe Rogan actually had the opportunity to bring, uh, the company that, um, I forget, it's colossal or something like that. I forget the name of the company, but their intention with it actually changed my opinion about it a little bit because they did take a lot of steps to make sure that it was ethical.

So anyway, long story short, they took and extracted DNA from a skull, from like the labrador tar pits. And I guess there's this skull, like a part of the skull from like the labrador tar pits. And I guess there's this skull, like a part of the skull, like near the ear that like has his most dense with DNA. And they're able to actually like map out the genome and all that kind of stuff. And then, and they successfully read and brought back like a dire wolves.

How did that, what did they do with that DNA? Did they take stem cells from another wolf? I believe so, yeah. I believe that's how they did it. So what's the reason? Was it to repopulate a... Yes, it's a conservationist perspective. So their thing is that because of, and here's the controversy beforehand was like they were

bringing back wolves, it's like Yellowstone, for instance. And there was this unrest because a lot of people that live close by ranchers and whatnot, we don't want wolves. But what they found out was it actually changed the river patterns. It changed the ecosystem to where all the elk actually finally like, because there's a lot of old and dying off and disease-ridden overpopulated elk.

And so it actually brought those numbers into balance. And it did actually start like the theory of it actually started to play out. And so I think it I mean, half of it is like, you know, they're they're they're kind of meddling in terms of like, they said that they wanted to go kind of in a, reach the youth to get excited about like biology and like, you know, because of like Jurassic Park and all this kind of stuff. But the dire wolves were brought up in Game of Thrones. And so they're like, we're going to bring in like the scifi kind of interest along with this particular species. And it was only like specific to the North America.

And so it was really interesting actually the perspective he had with it because it was like, I just thought they were just being like mad scientists and like trying to, cause it all started with the mammoths. So mammoths, you heard about the permafrost and how they're trying to bring mammoths back. And so their company was part of that.

And they were trying to bring back like mammoths. And they actually created like a wooly mouse, which I never heard. There's wooly mouse. Actually, I haven't even seen it yet, Doug. If you could look that up and we could see like images of it. I guess like these things are like stupid cute. Like people want to like buy them they're not gonna sell them they made like 36 of them and I have no idea dude but like I need to finish the

podcast to like you know break it down completely but that is cute but yeah what part of me part of me wants to see a t-re. Part of me wants to see a T-Rex. You know what I mean? Part of me wants to see one. But part of me is like, what are you doing? You always say this that I think is so true, because I don't know where I stand on this thing either. I saw the article when Dylan sent it over,

and I'm like, you know, science always asks, can we not should we? And then of course there's, and I saw the article too, like it's, it's, uh, it's, it's wrapped in this, you know, we're saving the, and bringing back. Make no mistake, they spent a lot of money on PR and researching how to present. Right, right. And so it's like, okay, but you know, we, unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore and we've evolved and moved on from that. And maybe it's not the best idea for us to do these things. Like, and again, I'm not saying necessarily no either. I like, I don't know where I'm at on when we, when we're, when we're trying to play God. Yes.

You know, I just don't, I don't know. That's where I have a problem and that's my line. Yeah, I feel like it's like, it's, this is, we're, we're getting, we're getting into a thing that I probably would have never thought we would have gone into as it gets kids, like that, where we are like, you know, bringing back certain species and you know, what's next and what are the boundaries and when is too far and you know, and what happens when the wrong, I mean,

it's a, it's like every, uh, evil cartoon movie or like it's in the wrong hand. You know, we've seen all the movies where this goes into pure disaster. Uh, I guess, like you said, I think they're on a really good PR mission because they actually kind of started to muddy the waters for me in terms of like, well, maybe this isn't as bad as I thought. Because here's the other thing.

So he was talking about some of these museums, they have basements and vaults with all the stuff they've collected over the years. It's not even properly cataloged. You'd think it'd be all digitized and you'd think it'd all be in this nice files on the computer and he's like, none of it is stored correctly. A lot of their initiative now is to get government to really put effort towards like cataloging all the species on the planet. You know, and like in their genetic mapping and that whole thing. Right? And so then my other cackles go up like, you know, oh, so now we're going to have all of that genetic sequencing and we're going to mash them all together.

Isn't there a company? But it makes sense too. It's like a movie. It's like the arc. You know, it's like, oh, so we have all, you'd think that we would have already at least had this all categorized. Isn't there a company that already lets you clone your dog? I think there's a company that lets you do that. There is.

Yeah, you can absolutely get that. So like your dog's getting old, you're like, oh, I don't want to get rid of Fluffy. And CRISPR exists and they can genetically edit things now and like, you know, the scientists have got trouble trying to do you know the scientists you know you know you know for sure that our government does it and definitely governments like China are doing weird shit yes stuff for sure bro if you're able imagine imagine how close we are to this okay if we already have this crazy AI technology that can take all the all the algorithms all the

things that sals communicated on mine on mind pump all the stuff that's in book if we get to place where we can take your DNA and recreate another one of you you take all the AI technology that would knows how to answer how you would answer bro I mean you're laughing right now but that's we're real fucking close to sound never has to die technically for everybody you know know, you can have genetic advancements. The potential we have now is unreal. And this is an example of that, like bringing extinct animals back, you know, and they can keep going.

And the other one was the ground penetrating radar and like lighter and like how you can actually use that same technology now to just find and map everything like subterranean, like on Earth. Imagine what that's gonna do. I'm just, I just, Our history. I'm thinking like worst case, like narcissists, right? Like they're like, you know, do you want kids?

Well, no, I'm gonna raise myself. I'm gonna clone myself and raise a little me because I'm awesome. Well, don't we already have, For sure. Don't we have already a little taste of that too when you go do these fertility things and you do the

What's the highest level? In vitro one you can decide if you want a girl you can decide if you want as far as it goes No, I think I can yes. Well, no, I know that but I think they don't do they let you pick eye color I think you do get to pick some look look up. I think I'm not sure that's You don't get to pick sex Put I'm not accessible yet, but yeah, I put my wife's calves. I want my triceps Find out what we can pick I know we could pick some sick because I remember that the doctors are telling us I'm something like Why I can just choose if I want another boy or you could choose gender. Yeah, I know that but yeah I don't think they like eye color is not an option

Yeah, they won't let you go. I think there's no else anything else laws anything else an option. Yeah, I mean, I think they have laws against that right now. Yeah I know I mean the ethics have not caught up yet. Let's be honest like we like I don't know if it ever will But let me ask you guys this I wonder if this happens like the uber wealthy and connected when they go to in vitro Do you think the doctor is not like look bro? What color eyes you want bro, you know, mean? Because they know how to do that. I got you. Yeah, yeah. Don't give me tall horns.

There is way shadier. Hey listen, her uncle's super short, make sure that they don't get those. There is way shadier shit happening than that. There's definitely, of course you could probably have, find somebody who would be willing to do that. If you're capable of it, there's somebody who's willing to do it.

While it's increasing, intelligence or high current technology and ethical considerations limit this practice. Wait, but you can mess with intelligence and height? No, no, no. I think that they don't let you. Height is something as of late.

I know nothing about any kind of drugs or things that are available for people. Like, you know, procedures and surgery. Like, there's surgeries people are opting that kids into because they think they're going to be some superstar athlete to get them height. There is height surgery. It's becoming more and more popular. How about they break the femur?

Yeah, they break the femur and they add like an extra like three or four inches. This is all new to me, dude. What the fuck? Wow. I think you can go to South America to get that. Do you guys know that? Is that where it's at? I think that there's American tourists.

One of my friends was asking me about something like that. Look at where are my height surgeries available? Sorry, I got you all over the place today. Yeah. It pops up immediately for Doug. What are you doing? Welcome back. Your kit's on its way. I noticed he was confidently wearing flip flops all the time. I think it's South America. I think you can go there. Hey, US as well. US too?

Yeah, it's expensive here. Wow. Las Vegas. You know what they do? But you know what they do? They break your femur. Yes. And then they slowly, they create a little gap between the femur, let the bone to grow in it.

No, they insert, like they insert a thing. Oh. Yeah, they just insert a thing. They basically break it, and then they insert it. What? Yes. Dude, height surgery, increased static. They do all kinds of weird shit.

They put like a lifter, lifters in you. Yeah. Weird, dude. That's really weird. I mean, you know what's funny, though? Is it weird because it's so new to us? Is it, no, if you're an alien, I mean, you know what's funny though? Is it weird? Cause it's so new to us. Is it, is it, no, if you were an alien, okay. And you come down, would you think that's more weird or bolting big

ass things on your chest and your ass? Like, what would you think is more weird? I bet the aliens would be like, Oh, it makes sense to be a little taller. It's more functional. You can reach things. You don't say like, what do you do with these? Yeah. Like, well, well, if you well, if you were like an alien

and you came down here, what are more weird things that we do? I mean, that's not that crazy when you think about some of the stuff we do. It's just all weird. What if people thought like ears, like big ears, were sexually attractive? Imagine the surges we get to.

Oh my god. Thank you. Ooh, those are nice, Justin. That's what you get to us, bro. It's so interesting. Look at my wax. Yeah, dude. Oh my god. That's too much. Hey, Mindpump has apparel. I bet you get dust, bro. Look at him on wax. Yeah, dude. Oh my God, that's too much.

Hey, Mind Pump has apparel. I bet you didn't know that. Shirts and pants and bags. We have exercise equipment. We have new stuff, by the way. Go to mindpumpstore.com. If you wanna see the new stuff, scroll all the way to the bottom.

We have some new arrivals. Check it out. Back to the show. First question is from mandaberrett1717. Is there a specific range of caloric surplus for optimal muscle growth and is there a specific range for caloric deficit to not lose muscle? I'll give some channel. You talk about this really well and actually it wasn't until I heard you communicate this did I realize how little you really need to eat

in a surplus? I think there's a big myth around how much extra calories you need in order to grow. And I think that has more to do with this, hard gainers in general, okay, someone who's trying to build muscle, just have a hard time hitting the calorie intake as it is, and so they think they gotta eat so much over, but the average person,

what, 150 calories over? Yeah. Yeah, and as long as your protein's high. So the reason why a lot of calories tends to be anabolic is because of the protein sparing effect, meaning if your protein isn't super high, higher calories makes the protein you are consuming more effective, I guess, for lack of a better term.

So it could be 150 calories, 200 calories. If you've got like, if your body builds a lot of muscle very quickly, which, you know, maybe 400 calories, 300 calories, that's just based off experience. But when you look at the data, you don't need to be in a huge surplus. The issue is people tend to not be in a surplus consistently. They don't hit their protein targets.

And so we tend to aim for a bit of a higher weight. Usually behind. Yeah, as far as the deficit is concerned, you know, a lot of this depends on how many calories you're currently eating. Like if your body's maintenance calories is really high, you can have a larger deficit and not lose muscle. If your calorie maintenance is low,

even a small deficit can cause muscle loss. Like if you're a woman and your maintenance is 1600 calories, like I'd cut you to 200 calories, we're gonna risk losing muscle because your calories are so low to begin with. Yeah, this okay, I tell clients to be careful this, is that if you put yourself in a calorie deficit, and it's impossible for you to hit the one gram goal

you always hear us talk about, then you easily could lose muscle. But if you can reduce calories and still easily hit your one to one ratio protein that we talk about all the time, then you're gonna be okay. You can easily go, like you said, you could easily do a four or 500 calorie deficit

and still probably, especially if you're lifting weights, still maintain muscle. But it has a lot to do with your calorie intake and how many grams of protein can you still eat in that deficit. And so if I have a client who's kind of low calorie already, I actually prefer that client to stay closer to maintenance so we can hit protein. And I know what ends up happening if we're eating what we consider maintenance, there's periods of time when they're actually in a deficit.

There's periods of time when they're a little bit of a surplus. And so I'm hoping for that kind of Goldilocks zone because they're already low calorie because I can't take that client who's at 1500 calories and reduce her down toilocks zone because they're already low calorie. Because I can't take that client who's at 1,500 calories and reduce her down to 1,200 and not think we're gonna lose muscle. Yeah, but you know, generally speaking, what you'll typically see is to gain 500 calories above maintenance to lose 500 calories below maintenance.

But you know, I hope, I want people to understand that there's such a wide individual variance. And even with what we said, said look if you're sending a good muscle building signal a Small surplus will allow you to build muscle if the muscle building signal isn't great any the largest surplus is just gonna cause Fat gain so what's most important here is that you're at least in a surplus or deficit However, big or small probably small typically better But that you're you're sending a sufficient,

especially with gaining I should say, that you have a sufficient or effective or appropriate muscle building signal. That makes those extra calories really, really effective at what they're supposed to do. Next question is from Susan Kennedy. What would you recommend I eat before working out? I am typically not hungry and only have a coffee before my morning workout. I've read that eating something before working out could be beneficial. I'm 53 years old and currently doing a 90-day transformation program. I always work out in the morning before work." You don't need to especially if you work out

really early in the morning and if eating before your workout doesn't make you feel good. That being said, I've had clients who work out really early in the morning, and I still had them eat a little bit, and they felt better, and I mean a little bit. Like they'd have like some fruit and some fruit, you know, something like that. But if it's really early in the morning,

it doesn't matter, eat after your workout. Really the big issue is are you hitting your calories, your proteins, your macros? I was just gonna say that I don't have enough information to answer this well because it's not necessary. You could totally never have that breakfast, train in the morning, be completely fine, build an incredible physique, be healthy,

be fit, be all the things. But there's other things that I'd be more curious about. Like for example, what are your cravings and appetite like? How easy is it for you to hit your grams or protein? How does your stomach feel if you eat something before you workout? Like there are other things that are more important than just eating before a workout that I would want to know before I would coach this person on, oh, what should we do in order to mitigate those problems or help you towards those goals than just your age and that you're working out and you're

on a 90 day transformation program because you don't, as you could not ever eat breakfast and be very healthy, very fit, have great workouts, build the body you want, but there's more questions that need to be asked here, I think. Yeah, I don't see anything about struggling with performance in our workout or anything like that. Otherwise, yeah, I would probably indicate, like, well, maybe we do add just a little bit of,

you know, calories ahead of time, especially for food especially from my first meals after my workout every morning but I do have a decent amount of water with some electrolytes in it before I work out but I don't work out too early if I ate first then it would push my workouts tough to do the only reason why I find like personally why eating early is so important to me is I get behind on my protein yep so that that's where this is a part, I would wanna hear that. If she's like, oh no, I hit my protein intake every day and I just have coffee for, I'd be like fine, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal.

But if you told me, oh I struggle hitting that 130 or 150 grams of protein every day, Adam, and I also skip breakfast, oh, there's our problem lies right there. You gotta do that, now you need to start having a breakfast. So it really, there's other variables in here that matter far more than the, than the things that you gave us. Next question is from Bhenagar7.

What are the best natural ways to lower cortisol? Yeah, there's a myth that you need to lower cortisol. What you want is... Good balance. Yeah. You want a good cortisol profile. So cortisol should rise in the morning, and then it should slowly lower,

and then be at its lowest point in the evening before you go to sleep. Issues with cortisol happen when you get an inverted, you know, when you get the inverted chart, right? When your cortisol starts low in the morning, you feel like you're dragging and dragging, you're taking a bunch of caffeine, and then it starts to spike during the evening,

you can't sleep. But when it comes to cortisol management, which is a better way to ask this, I would say, what you want to do, good sleep, avoid caffeine, avoid alcohol, make sure you eat adequate number of proteins and fats for sure. For some people, carbohydrates help. Strength, exercise appropriately, overtraining, being too stressed causes issues here. And then ashwagandha is the one supplement

that's gonna show. Just gonna ask you, what about food or adaptogens? Yeah, ashwagandha is a really good one for helping with cortisol. But it's not gonna help you if you're overtraining, you get crappy sleep. Caffeine is probably one of the biggest offenders for this, for people, where they just have too much throughout the day.

And some people are just, they just slow metabolizers of caffeine. And so what may be okay with one person for some, and else causes too much of a stress response. I think you're right though. I mean, there's a misconception that like, we just need to eliminate cortisol. Like it's like this.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, but that's what's being purported a lot. Like I've heard even more influencers like, oh, to lower go in this diet where we lower our cortisol And it's like you just need it to be optimized Next question is from Ronan Jones How can you not lose upper body gains or become too imbalanced while training after suffering an injury? Oh, this is this is a Think we overthink this. You know what I used to think?

I used to think, oh, if I can't train my upper body, if I continue to train my lower body, I'm going to create a larger imbalance. What the studies and data show is you'll actually reduce the amount of muscle loss in your upper body by training your lower body. Yeah, it influences your upper body muscles. It's so weird. My favorite studies are the ones where they'll take one arm and then incapacitate it and they'll see how much muscle they lost and they'll take another group where they do the same thing and the exercise the other arm and

exercise the other arm actually reduces the muscle loss on the arm that's incapacitated. Really interesting. Well, I mean, first thing is I think of like isometrics and just, you know, like Well, I mean, first thing is I think of like isometrics and just, you know, like things that are not like, uh, going to cause damage that you can do that, um, you know, we'll actually preserve muscle. It will serve you to continue going about your training,

working around your injury, waiting for recovery, rehabbing, like you should the shoulder in this situation that this person's got a shoulder dislocate, right? When, like you should, the shoulder in this situation. This person's got a shoulder dislocate, right? When, when it recovered, what's amazing is how fast the body catches back up. Real fast muscle memories. Oh man. I remember, I remember when I had my knee surgery and I remember looking at that leg and he went, this is going to take years to get back to it.

It was, it was that dramatic of a difference. Cause I knew how long it took to build the right leg up. I remember years and years to build those legs like that. And then I look over this one, I went, my leg has never looked like that. Never looked that bad. Was it where your knee was bigger than your? Yes. My knee, my knee joint was bigger than my quad. I mean, and I had so much loose skin from it.

I could do this. And so, and you, you see that and you go, Oh my God, I'm never going to catch this up. It came back. Just walking built back. Came back like that. It was so fast. So when you get injured, especially people that have been lifting before, the body, it's the most, I mean, you saw a small example of that when you saw me get back that 20 pounds of muscle in a month that people didn't believe was true. It's like,

yes, it is. It's very true because I've already had that on my body. If you've had muscle in your upper body, you lose a bunch because you get injured. Oh, it'll come back super fast. Totally. Look, if you like us, come find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump. Justin, you can find me at Mind Pump to Stefano

and Adam at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout

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