Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2593: Six Weird Lifts That Make You Strong AF & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: May 9, 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: Six Weird Lifts That Make You Strong AF!(1:39) The importance of a good night’s sleep. (18:31) Creatine to improve brain function. (24:59) A check-in with Mark who was a former winner of the Rock Recovery Center scholarship. (26:21) Calling out poor trainers in the space and the importance of building your business the RIGHT way. (39:03) Social media does NOT reflect reality. (44:33) Adam’s ribs are the best. (47:02) What makes a trainer or coach effective. (49:51) Crazy stats with Adam. (55:09) We are heading towards an existential crisis. (57:01) Like father, like son. (58:55) #Quah question #1 – How can I work on getting deeper into the squat position? (1:00:45) #Quah question #2 – As a trainer, are you still learning something new every day? If so, what? (1:03:40) #Quah question #3 – How do you transition to a healthy relationship with food, after counting macros and being regimented a long time? (1:07:08) #Quah question #4 – Tips on coming back from being sick. I've been out with double sinus and ear infections since 4/17. No lifting, no anything for 12 days. Lost 5lbs and feeling weak. What do I do, same workout, lower weights? Lower weights, lower reps? (1:10:36) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** New users that sign up will receive 2 grassfed and finished filet mignons in every box for a year + $20 off! ** 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. ** May Special: MAPS 15 Performance or RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code MAY50 at checkout ** Mind Pump TV - YouTube The effect of acute sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the hormonal environment Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation Mind Pump # 2392: Steps to Overcoming Addiction with Tom Conrad & Ben Bueno Reach out to Mark via email: [e-mail] Real Recovery Talk Podcast - Mark Took a Chance… and It Changed His Life Andy Elliot IG post Mind Pump # 2217: Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Ask Mind Pump Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** MAPS Prime Webinar MAPS Prime Pro Webinar Intuitive Nutrition Guide | MAPS Fitness Products  Mind Pump # 1397: 5 Ways to Maintain Muscle When You’re Sick or Injured Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Thomas Conrad (@realrecoverytalktom) Instagram Ben Bueno (@realrecoverytalkben) Instagram Andy Elliott (@officialandyelliott) Instagram Jordan B. Peterson (@JordanBPeterson) X/Twitter Jordan Syatt (@syattfitness) Instagram Joe DeFranco (@defrancosgym) Instagram Tom Bilyeu (@tombilyeu) Instagram Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink) Instagram Jordan Jiunta (@redwiteandjordan) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we answered listeners' questions. People wrote in and we picked some of our favorites, but this was after our intro. It was about 60 minutes long in the intro We talked about fitness and diet studies and science around supplements

It's a good time by the way If you want to write in questions that we can pick from go to Instagram at mind pump media Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is butcher box today We talked about their ribs which are amazing. By the way, if you go to butcher box calm Today we talked about their ribs, which are amazing. By the way, if you go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump, that link will get you two grass-fed and finished filet mignons included in every box that you sign up for for a year, plus you'll get $20 off.

Go check them out. This episode is also brought to you by Rock Recovery Center. This is a rehab facility that we really love the owners, the people that run the facility. In today's episode you actually heard from somebody who won a scholarship and they're still giving them out so if you go to rockrecoverycenter.com forward slash mind pump you can fill out an application maybe get a 60 day scholarship for you or a loved one everybody can get a free consultation so go there ask questions will help you out. We really trust them.

Also, we have a sale this month. MAPS 15 Performance and the RGB Bundle, 50% off. If you want one of those programs or the bundle, go to MAPSFitnessProducts.com and then use the code May50 for the discount. Back to the show. Let's be honest here, some lifts you should brag about, others not so much.

We're gonna talk about six weird lifts that literally mean you are strong AF. Beep! I didn't say it. So, no, let's start by saying there are definitely- No leg press on here. There are definitely, exactly, there are definitely lifts that I think elicit respect when you're strong at them.

And then there's other lifts like, oh cool, you can standing calf raise the whole style. Nobody cares. Cool, Smith Machine anything. Yeah, so it really doesn't make sense to nobody. Everybody knows the bench squat deadlift, right? Overhead press. Well, those are like the main powerlifting.

Yeah, that's right. And they compete, which is why, I mean, aside from that they have incredible value and we talk about that. But I love this topic because these are ones that people wouldn't assume that I think we agree have tremendous value and should be focused on getting strong.

And if you do. And you don't see it in the gym. No, most of these are super rare to see in the gym, yet getting strong in them have incredible overall benefits. I would add if I saw somebody doing any one of these lifts with good weight and control, I would consider that person just strong. Yeah. Like just overall strong. Like I know that that person has incredible just overall impressive strength.

And again, Adam, you pick the common ones. Like you see someone deadlifting and squatting a lot, maybe overhead pressing a lot or benching a lot. Like you know that person's strong, more than if they were using a machine to do something. Right? These lifts that we put down here, like if you get good at these,

you're just a strong human being. And it means a lot for your entire body. In fact, what you'll see is carryover into other lifts by getting good at these lifts. And they're weird because nobody does them, although I think people should do them. And they are very challenging to do. Yeah, and I mean, that's the thing is it takes,

it takes a lot of stability and mobility to even get into the position for a lot of these movements. And it takes you outside of that condition. I just, I work at a desk job, everything is kind of fixed and so to move outside of that takes a lot of actual work just to get into that. And a lot of these are really old time movements that at one time they were a popular thing

or they were something that people would do to show impressive strength. Back when a strong looking physique really was, what was important about it was it meant you were strong. It wasn't just about you look a particular way. Like back in the day, strength athletes, strong men, strong women, like the fact that they looked strong was a side effect.

Like what could you actually do? In fact, some of the most impressive strong men, strong women, like the fact that they looked strong was a side effect, like what could you actually do? In fact, some of the most impressive strong men were people who were like small or didn't look strong, like the mighty Adam, like some of the feats of strength that he did. It was impressive because he would get these much bigger dudes on stage even attempt what he could do and they just simply couldn't. So we'll start with the first one. This is an old-timey exercise, but man you're good at this like you just have incredible spine stability and strength in your core, your obliques, your arm, your shoulder. It's just you're just a strong human being. That's the one-arm bent press. This one is this was one of

the primary ways that strongmen used to compete with each other is how much could you lift with one arm above your head and the bent press was the technique that they use because they found this to be the best technique to lift the most weight. This was Eugene Sandow at one point was able to do close to 300 pounds with this lift at a body weight of 185 pounds. By the way this is before forget steroids this is before supplements. This is before creatine, this is before protein powders. One of the most uncomfortable lifts too.

Yes. And just to be able to bend in that direction and place load properly. It's such a technical lift to be able to pull off, but once you actually work into these positions, you find that distribution of force is so advantageous for lifting even more weight. So anything overhead to be able to actually bend

in that position and use gravity and really lock out as you're distributing that force down throughout your entire torso and connect it to the hip, it's pretty cool. Now, communicating this to, what comes to mind for you guys, I know what comes to mind for me is like clients that, when I think of like weakness somewhere or common injuries, and the ability to do this lift and to do it well

and be strong in it, how does this help the average person? I wanna communicate to them, like think about the stuff that you used to hear a lot. Back pain or shoulder pain. Yes, you need this absolve. Right away I want to communicate to them. I think about the stuff that you used to hear a lot. Back pain or shoulder pain. Yes, you need this absolve. Right away I think of QL stuff. Strong QL, strong obliques. How often did you hear of QL injuries

or issues with clients? Especially dead lifters, yeah. And I remember hearing that so often. And if you get good at this, it's like bulletproofing your low back, I feel like. The quadratus lumborum is actually meant to be a very strong, very strong muscle. The problem is a lot of the back strengthening exercises

use the QL in a stabilization sense, but not really directly loading it. It's like a deadlift. My QL is supporting the sides of my spine. But in a bent press, like my QL has to hold on to my spine to prevent me from folding in half like my QL has to hold on to my spine from, to prevent me from folding in half sideways. And then the shoulder mobility with this, like, this is a crazy range of

motion with the shoulder. You get strong in the bent press, you'll develop a bulletproof shoulders and cannonball shoulders. One of the body parts that the old time strong men would develop very well was their delts. If you go back and look at pictures of these guys, again, they weren't doing laterals and rear laterals and, and they weren't even training for round else, but it was just a side effect.

They had bodybuilder like site, like delts because of this. Everything was vertical. They weren't doing a lot of horizontal pressing and so bench press didn't exist. No, to be able to get the weight from the ground up over your head was like the ultimate goal. And back to your able to get the weight from the ground up over your head was like the ultimate goal. And back to the point with like the clients, like, you know, bulletproofing your shoulders, you think of the, I think of common areas that clients would injure is low back and

shoulders. And so a movement that, you know, really strengthens and supports that, right? You get that strong stability and range of motion in the shoulder for the bent press. You get that with the low back and QL stuff. Like man, for the trainers that are listening, if this is a movement that you've never really practiced or become proficient in, the value of you learning this and then you teaching your average person who may not think that this is a movement from such a great movement for them to get stronger. Totally.

Next up is the snatch grip deadlift. So this Olympic lifters will do this. They will do this because a lot of their lifts start in this position. And so literally it's a deadlift, but with a wide snatch grip. Really wide grip. And you're getting low. You're getting low into a squat in order to deadlift this. And so talk about range of motion

This I never trained this until I followed map strong This is in map strong and it had a huge carryover to my traditional deadlift because it Started me in a lower position and that wide grip boy the trap activation from this is trap activation Lats getting there like it really does like put pressure Even more so on your back and getting that low squat positions totally different. I also think that again I'm gonna try and tie this back to you know Why the average person gets just tremendous value from when I think about you know deadlifting an object I mean, I just went through moving my house and

In I thought about, I actually thought about snatch grip deadlifts as I was doing things because you don't always grab things in the perfect deadlift position. You know, a lot of times you don't, right? You're usually deeper, you're grabbing something larger, trying to move something. And so, you know, putting yourself in, of course the ability to do a standard deadlift, lots of value, but also be able to grab and get in a deeper position, grabbing at a wider, the carryover and being strong in that position just has so much value in your everyday movements in life.

Totally. Next up, go ahead. Well, I was going to say we could have also replaced this with like a rounded grip. Oh, rounded back lifting. Rounded back lifting, but yeah, same kind of a value. Yep. Next is the pistol squat. This is a one-legged squat. Now, what's required to do a pistol squat, besides being strong, because it's a one-legged squat, is great ankle mobility. Because the knee does have to travel forward, you have to be able to sit up nice and upright, and the

other leg needs to be able to sit out straight in front of you as you squat down. This is a martial arts squat. A lot of martial artists will practice this and get good at this. And a pistol squat's just difficult to do, but when you get good at these and you can add, if I see someone doing a pistol squat, holding something heavy, I mean that's, to me,

one of the most impressive lower body workouts. It's impressive they can do this with their body weight. I mean this is impressive if you can do this on each side equally, cause that's another thing too, is that you will typically find a major discrepancy for between left and right on people. Somebody will be able to do this movement maybe on one side, but then not the other. And so training yourself to be able to do both of the, both sides equally, uh, just incredible strength and stability and mobility great hip

strength and stability great ankle and hip or ankle strength and mobility just an overall incredible move and you can really develop if all you did let's pretend you didn't have weights at all or access to them getting strong in a pistol squat will develop the best hypertrophy lower body exercise body weight. Yeah. It's a crazy display of control of your body. Totally. Totally.

Next up, one of my favorite exercises. In fact, I used to do this a lot when I was doing judo and jiu jitsu. It was a one arm clean and press. You could sometimes, you'll call it a circus press. I love this. I love this exercise. You know, doing a clean, it's a great exercise. Barbell cleans require a lot more skill than a dumbbell

clean. And so what's the value of that? Well, the value is you don't have to spend as much time learning the technique. You can get into it quicker and get the explosive power benefits faster, which is why I like it so much. This again, real life stuff. It's so funny as we're going through these, I didn't really think about this until we started going. I'm like right away, I'm like able to draw to like, I've been moving so much stuff. I'm like, oh yeah, this was when I did that.

Like there was a point where I built these really heavy outdoor chairs that have like all the mechanism to spin and move so they have all the metal, really heavy, like for what they are. And I had to carry them all the way across to the other side of my backyard. And so I had to rip them up off the ground, flip them up and then bounce them on my head. And I just thought this is totally like a clean and press up over my head. And then the ability to do that with good strength and stability. Again, it seems like a silly exercise or unique in the gym, but when you think about how you're going to have to, like nothing looks like a perfect barbell or dumbbell.

That's not a movement. Like there's no other movement that's closer to that in the gym that I've done than like a circus press of doing that, right? It's the closest to like resembling hard labor. Yeah. Right. So if you're like farmers is why, you, they get to highlight all the time how like farmer strength It's they're picking up really heavy like odd shaped objects

But they have to get off the ground and put it over the truck or put it Into the barn and you know and all that requires like this this crazy strength communication with the body to pull off Yeah, this is a one-armed clean and press will give you explosive power in both the posterior chain and in the shoulder, which for athletic purposes, super value. There's a great core stability around something like this. I think that's the kind of unintended consequence from being able to be good at this because if you can pull a decent amount of weight off the ground, clean it up to your shoulder and press over your head on one side and not the other,

the core stability and core strength. And again, emulating real life. When you're out there trying to carry something or do something in real life, rarely ever you're gonna have the two even amounts of weight distribute on each side and be able to do it. It's like you're normally grabbing one. You're never super balanced.

Never. And so, so good to train this. Again, speaking to the trainers, if you haven't become proficient at this to teach your clients, tremendous value to getting good at this and teaching them this. Next up is the Turkish getup. Now this was an old school exercise that Turkish wrestlers used to do, that then became popular with MMA fighters for a reason.

Being able to take, to be laying down, take something, extend your arm and stand up with it all the way up. Like obviously a grappler is going to benefit from having that kind of strength because you're grappling on the ground. And maybe you need to stand up or move while there's weight on your body. There isn't a muscle that isn't involved in a proper Turkish getup. It requires whole body strength, but most importantly, whole body stability,

isometric tension and stability is super involved. If I see a guy doing this with just a 50 pound dumbbell, let alone a 100, I've seen people do it with more than that, it's impressive, regardless of what they look like. It's like, whoa. Yeah, and it's seen people do it with more than that. It's impressive, regardless of what they look like. It's like, man, that's a lot of weight. Yeah. And it's just like, it requires such incredible focus. And I think that the value of it too, which is overlooked a lot, when we do lifts in exercise, it's only a, you know,

a few seconds at most, right? To pull off that exercise and to stay tight and really under control. But the, I mean, this exaggerates that. Totally. So you really have to stay under tension and stress and pure focus and communication with your body to pull this off, which is why I love it so much. I mean, of all the ones we're talking about, this is my favorite because I think this is the one that if you just did this and got really strong, you take care

of a lot of stuff. There is, you got to think about this, all the way down to your ankles, to your hip, to your low back and core area, to your chest, to your shoulders, to your forearm. I mean, every part of your body is, like you said, and it's slowed down and exaggerated, like you said, and it's slowed down and exaggerated, like you said, and so you have to break this all the way slowly and mechanically down and get proficient at it, and you're going to be strong in all those areas. And so if you just-

All the angles matter. Yeah, and we've talked about this before on the podcast, as a trainer, a great thing to have your, you never lose as a client. I used to tell my advanced age clients like, we always want to be able to get up off the ground. And so a good thing to practice is just the ability to get up off the ground with no hands. And that's just your body weight. This is how you progress that, right? So it's like, okay, you've, you can get up off the ground. Well, how do you get proficient at that? The Turkish getup

is the greatest example of getting proficient at getting up off the ground and everything that it requires and then getting strong in that area. I think it's the most well-rounded movement of all the movements we talk about and would love more people, seeing more people doing it. You just don't see it that often in the gym. Now last is what I believe to be one of the greatest examples of just overall core strength. And I first saw Dragon Flags done on Bruce Lee movie. And I don't remember which one it was.

It might have been Enter the Dragon, but he was demonstrating this. And as a kid I was like, whoa, look at that. And then I saw it again in Rocky IV, of course. Bruce Lee did it, Rocky did it, I'm gonna get good at these. And when I did these, and I got good at them, my core became so strong, I felt bulletproof.

My abs became blocks, and I felt like I could do anything with my core. Like every other core exercise was easy in comparison to this. You're able to do six good, slow reps of this, like you're really strong. So this is like one of my favorite core exercises. I mean, your core is the most important muscle

in your body besides your heart. And it's the foundation to all movements. And if there's a breakdown there, there's gonna be a breakdown down anywhere else down the kinetic chain. And so getting strong and like a dragonfly, just, it just lays such a solid foundation for all other movements and pursuits from that.

And so it is such a great exercise to get really good at. Probably one of the harder ones of everything we did to learn. Oh yeah. When I look at the list, I'm like, that's probably the toughest to get really. One of the hardest ones. Yeah, because it's not just core. You have to stay super tense all the way to your toes. Yeah. Your entire legs have to be tense and on fire and be able to control that and reign that in. And so yeah, it requires so much strength.

It's awesome. Oh, it's huge. All right, so I found a study on, just to change gears here, on the effects of one bad night of sleep. You guys want to hear it? Oh, yeah. One bad, just to show you how important,

I don't want everybody to freak out. You're gonna crap me out. Yeah, I don't want everybody to freak out, you know, cuz everybody has it one night, you know Everybody has that bad night of sleep. It's not a big deal in that sense but I think this this is good because it kind of highlights the effects of sleep on the body and How important it is and so you can add this up like what if this happens on a regular basis? Like what's that? What that going to look like? So I'm going to pull it up here, but it's pretty remarkable just how much it affects

the body. So one night of total sleep deprivation. Okay. So they took somebody with pretty bad and had him give them a real bad night of sleep. There was a reduction in muscle protein synthesis by almost 20% and cortisol went up 21%. That was one night of bad sleep. One night of bad sleep. Just from doing that. Oh, by the way, testosterone dropped by 24% in that same study. You know, we had a caller recently. It was a really good call and good question. And a fitness lady, she'd been working out in pretty good shape and trying to get to the next level. And you know, we were talking about, and sleep was her big Achilles heel.

And then she was also asking questions around macros and protein intake and the strength protocol that she's running. And I thought it was a really good question for us to talk about because we haven't really had a lot of people where we, I think, expanded on this. Of course, we talk about the importance of sleep. But sleep is so important that you have somebody who's asking a question about body fat loss

and macros and strength training, all those things. And my advice around it is derived from the result of the night of sleep than it is what's the best macros, what's the best meal, what's the like, I don't care until we salt. That's how powerful sleep is. So in other words, your diet, your exercise, everything at that point should be geared towards getting better sleep. Right.

That's going to give you the best results. That was what I was trying to communicate to her was that I don't care. I mean, I know you hear us talk about this is how many grams of protein you should have for optimal building muscle, but that's not the lens that we're looking through when we're trying to get better. In fact, what it looks like is try this meal that you eat, you know, and then tell me how you feel. And it's like, oh, that really helped.

I got some of the best. Okay, let's move in that direction, regardless of it's 50 grams of protein, 20 grams of protein. I don't care about that. I care more about that meal or those combination of foods resulted in a better night's sleep. And then the same thing goes for your strength training protocol. Yes, these may be the best movements to build muscle.

And this is some of the best programming right here. But I noticed when you scale back here or do this type of a workout, you get better sleep. Let's move in that direction. In other words, what's gonna be better for muscle building may be static stretching. Because that might put you to sleep and not strengthen your- Right, and that's hard for people-

Keeping in parasympathetic state. It's hard for people to wrap their brain around that because we highlight diet and exercise so much and it's obviously important. But that's how important sleep is and how detrimental it can be if everything else is all aligned, but that's out of whack, you're just spinning your wheels. And so getting that aligned and yet having maybe a less perfect diet and

routine, but great sleep many times will result in better results. It's such a, so just so people understand what a big deal it is, every animal that we know of, definitely every mammal has to sleep and if you believe in evolution you would, you would, by now there would have been a, we would have evolved out of it because it's, you're asleep, you're not productive, you're not collecting resources, you're vulnerable, you're super vulnerable and yet you have to do it. That's how important collecting resources. You're vulnerable. You're super vulnerable, and yet you have to do it. That's how important it is. You absolutely have to do it.

In fact, I don't remember what the data was, but it was something like a few nights of total sleep deprivation, so no sleep, increases your risk of psychosis. Yeah, like quadruples it. Like half the people who get no sleep for something like five days will experience psychosis. So it'll make you go crazy.

In other words, you'll go crazy before you, you cannot drink water for that long and not die, but that long of not sleeping, you may actually kill yourself. Yeah, and into your earlier example with the lady that called in, it's like anything she does that's normally a good habit to include exercising, nutrition like if it's not centered

around kind of bringing her into that pair of sympathy, it's a negative result. It's, it turns into this like exacerbating the problem, which is you wouldn't even think about that because it's, this is a good thing to highlight. This is something I'm pursuing is, you know, establishing good fitness habits. And I'm like still at least maintaining this, but if I'm not Actually getting good sleep. It's just like it doesn't have the result that normally would so it ended to give an example Of what you're saying. It's like this she She her body needs say 130 grams of protein for optimal building muscle. That's what we figured out her macros

Let's just say for argument's sake. Uh, but we have found if she cuts out her eating by 6 PM, it dramatically improves her night nights of rest because, uh, when she eats later, her digestive system still going, keeps her up at night and it ruins some of her sleep and it's six o'clock at night and she's under protein by 50 grams. She's way under her protein intake. I don't care. It's like you're still better. You're so it's, it's, and then she's going, should 50 grams. She's way under her protein intake. I don't care. It's like, you're still better. So it's, and she's going, should I take a protein shake?

Cause I could get a protein shake. No. Can you interrupt your sleep? No. No, it's past six o'clock. We've already learned that keeping you eating your last meal by six or earlier has profound benefits on your sleep. I know I tell you that you need to eat 130 grams

and you're only at 70 today. So we're under eating protein today I still don't want you to have that shake at seven o'clock at night. Just eat your protein take That's an example of where the sleep takes the precedent over what we the science says about macros and building muscle And so getting that point across I think more people need to understand that that's how valuable Sleep is towards their results that get, because we do, we tend to focus on all the other things so much. Meanwhile, it's like, oh yeah, I don't get good sleep.

It's just, it's always been that way. And it's like, well your results would probably significantly improve if you cared as much about that as you do all the other things. Speaking of sleep, there's some studies that have been done on creatine. So, creatine, and I've talked about these, right, where sleep deprivation, some studies that have been done on creatine. So creatine, and I've talked about these, right, where sleep deprivation, some of the effects can be

really negated by just taking creatine. Oh, that's right, it has protective qualities. Well, not just protective, here's what's trippy. So for the longest time, what did you understand about creatine? For you to start seeing results, you got to take it for how long typically? Like a week, two weeks? Okay. The studies are showing a single high dose of creatine you'll get effects. Just one dose. In fact, in this particular study, one

dose of creatine improved memory, processing speed, and stabilizing brain pH levels during sleep deprivation. So peak effects were at four hours and lasted up to nine hours, even improving processing speed beyond non-sleep conditions. In other words, they took people who were sleep deprived, gave them one dose of creatine four hours later, they actually performed better at certain mental tasks than even people who weren't sleep deprived. So this is a great now. I don't think this is a long term solution, but if you've got this meeting or a test or whatever and you had a bad night of sleep,

take a few doses of Creightene, time them so it's roughly four hours before what you're gonna do, and you'll get a boost in brain function from doing that. That's actually really cool. That is really cool. Yeah. Yeah, super cool. That's really cool.

Anyway, so we have somebody who's gonna call in who went to Rock Recovery Center. So Rock Recovery Center is a rehab facility we're partners with. We love the guys that run it, Tom and Ben. We love their approach, we trust them. And so what we've done is we've talked about them and they offer scholarships to listeners,

people can go on their website and apply for rehab or whatever. And Mark, who's about to come on, was one of the first people to respond. They took Mark in. He is now, I believe, almost nine months sober from alcohol, and this is like a check-in where, let's talk to him and see what's going on. How's it going, man?

Good, doing really good. You look good, dude. Yeah, good to see you, dude. You look good, dude. Yeah, good to see you, dude. You look good, bro. Yeah, you too. Yeah, sorry, give us an update. How long are we in on this? What's the journey been like, my friend?

So tomorrow's actually gonna be eight months. Wow. Wow, dude. God, I can't remember how fast that flew. Yeah, it really did. So variety date was September 1st, is September 1st. Yeah, so tomorrow's the eight month mark. That's great. And so you started back then, you heard about them through us, right, on the show and that's what got you in there? Yeah, I started listening

to Mind Pump in 2017, I believe, and it was pretty consistent. I actually started with the very first episode that was available on Spotify and eventually caught up to you guys. I wasn't listening as much at the time, but I was at work and I just needed something to throw on and that was I picked a random episode and it was yeah, it was when you had Ben and Tom on. That's awesome. Mark how long did it take for you to really start noticing like a change in how you felt how you were thinking and like what were some of those early changes when you first when you first went in? Oh so that was consistently almost daily early on. I felt better and better every day. I mean, it was bad physically. I mean, I couldn't even really eat early on. It was bad because it hurt.

I was poisoning myself every single day. It got to the point where my body was rejecting stuff that it needed. So early on, that was the big stuff, being able to eat normal again. Just the difference of being hydrated again was a huge difference. And then the, like mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that kind of stuff, that happened over a course of months.

I mean, honestly, I don't think that's done yet. I feel like I'm still hitting milestones, uh, just as far as how I feel in all those other aspects physically, I'm doing great right now, but, um, but yeah, I'm, I'm regularly noticing that there's, there's differences and I'm, I'm it's, it's good. I feel good. That's so awesome. What, what finally, what. What was the final straw?

What was it that made you make the decision finally to go to, because we know you chose Rock Recovery because you heard about them through us. But what was it that made you go like, I need to get some help? I had a moment of clarity. I really looked at my situation and the direction I was going and it occurred to me that that was that was gonna be it. I was either

gonna end up quitting on my own, I was gonna end up in prison, or I was gonna end up in the ground. And that those were the those were the only finish lines I could see. And it was scary. That was a really, really scary realization to have. And even then that wasn't enough. I mean, I listened to the episode where you had Ben and Tom on, probably four or five times.

I emailed Rock Recovery and heard back from them. I was offered the slot here and even then it took my family, it took four or five really close friends of mine to give me the push I needed to commit to it even after that realization because it's a big step. It's a scary thing. It requires humility to get to the point where you can openly admit that you need help and that you can't handle your situation anymore. Is there a way, if somebody's watching right now, let's say there's somebody that was like you, they're struggling with addiction.

If for somebody on the outside, when they look in, they see somebody who's destroying their life, struggling with addiction. For somebody on the outside, when they look in, they see somebody who's destroying their life, destroying their body, they're in this crazy cycle and yet they don't want to leave it because they're scared. What is that? What is that fear? What is it that holds you in that makes it so scary

to leave that situation even though on the outside it looks like the obvious thing is to stop? What do you think it is that holds you in that? Honestly the biggest thing was I for me I felt like I had dug the hole too deep. I have something that I've heard a lot since I've been here is if you find that you've dug yourself into a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. And I felt like I kind of had stopped digging to some degree, but I really felt like it was just too deep and that I wasn't going to get out of it. And honestly, I probably wouldn't have on my own,

but I wasn't sure if I could get there even with the help. It was, and then on top of that, the humility of having to say, I need help with this. I cannot do this on my own. That's, there's a lot of pride involved. There's ego involved. It requires a lot. It's a big step just to get to that point where you can accept the help.

Sure. Looking back at the eight months and all the things that you've had to do, I know there's a step process you go through. I know there's been support from Ben and them over there. Have there been certain things for you that, like looking back, you go like, man, thank God I had that, or that's been pivotal to making it all the way through this? Are there certain things that you can look back at and say, like, yeah, I didn't realize how much that would help me? Oh, absolutely. So they mentioned when they were on the podcast that they do take the health and

fitness side of things here pretty seriously. And I was looking forward to that because it is something that I've been involved with to a pretty deep degree at different times in my life. I did not realize how much that would play a role in how I felt while I was here. It's therapeutic, there's no other word for it. I physically felt better, I felt stronger, hitting milestones on my on like my squat that I haven't hit in a couple of years.

That was, it was motivating. It felt good. It, it affected how I felt about myself. It, it, it, I really underestimated how much that would play a role in how I felt. Yeah. I'd say, I'd say one of the different things that they do there versus other places is that, uh, they, they understand fitness on a different level.

And it's a big part of what they do in the rehab process. What did you say? Oh yeah, absolutely. They, so there were like group workouts that you're able to do a couple of times, I think three times a week we were able to do if you wanted to. And then you have access to the gym, you have a free membership, well, I had a free membership while I was here. So it's, a lot of it is on you to take advantage of it though. Like it's, I've, you, it's not, it's, it's not handed to you. You, you are given all the tools that you need and, and it's up to you to make the most of it.

And honestly, the only real regret that I have from being here is I know I could have done better with some of that and taken advantage of some more resources that were given to me. But I mean, that's hindsight. There's also probably a really good reason for that, right they don't push it or force it on you that you got to come To the you got to come to the realization to want to do it and yeah It's more of an invitation which I think there's the psychology that I think is so important if you it's like forcing

Somebody to do something then eventually they're gonna rebel and not want to do it versus hey Here's these options for you. Hopefully you take advantage of them and if you you do, you do, and if you don't, you don't. It's great to see, bro, how you literally look. You look great, man. You look like you got 10 years younger, your skin looks good. Great job, man. Yeah, you look healthier, you look happier,

you have a glow, I mean, it's pretty cool to watch the transformation in the last eight, nine months, man. So cool. And I will say, let me add this, dude, that one of the last eight, nine months, man. So cool. And I will say, let me add this, dude, that one of the strategies of, depending on what you believe, the enemy, or your flesh, or your psyche, is when you look back and you've done something great

is for it to say, you could've done more, you should've done better, to make you feel like crap again. And I'm gonna tell you this right now, they're lies. Don't believe them. The truth is, you're here, you did it, you're moving forward, you're doing a great thing. Keep going. Yeah, I Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, it has been like a lot of

Single steps and there there've been a couple of times where I've kind of turned around and looked at where I started and where I'm At and I can't believe how it added up. It's it things are going really well. I've got myself under control. I've got, my life is headed in a good direction. I landed a job doing something that I never probably would have gotten into if I didn't come down here. And I love what I do. I'm wrapping cars now. Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow, dude. Oh, awesome. Great job, man. Well, I appreciate you sharing this with us, dude. This is like so great to hear, man. I'm so glad to hear that you're where you're at, brother. Yeah, I hope your story inspires somebody else that's listening right now. Yeah, I do as well. And I wanted to put it out there too. If anybody's considering coming down here and they do have questions that they want to talk about

it, I'm reachable. I can put my email out there if they want, if you guys want, it's mark, M-A-R-K dot Mahan, M-A-H-O-N eight nine at Gmail. If anybody has questions, anybody wants to talk about any of this, I'm more than happy to do so. I was very skeptical coming into it, but I'm a huge supporter

and proponent of doing this. It's easily the best decision I've made. Awesome. Good job, man. Right on, Mark, appreciate that, man. Thanks for calling in, brother. Absolutely, thank you. All right, we'll be in touch, man.

Take it easy. Sounds good, take care, guys. Pretty cool, right? Looks great. I know, way different. Yeah. Remarkable guy. I wanted to ask him what it was that prevented him from

Because from the outside it's really easy to look at someone and go just stop Can't you see like your health is deteriorating you've destroyed your family. You've lost your job. Whatever. Yeah, why don't you just stop? It's obviously much better. So it's always like why don't people just stop and he was very honest He's like I felt like I'd already dug too big of a hole. I was too far down. He was in too deep. I'm sure a lot of people feel like that, where you've gotten so far that it's, I mean, I feel this way to bring it back to what we do

with helping with people with health and fitness and losing weight. It's like you- I've got so far to go. Yeah, you have so far to go. And then when you actually kind of attempt making some good choices and the needle doesn't move, or even worse, sometimes goes the wrong way a little bit,

like, man, that's so discouraging for somebody. And it gives you the effort, throw your hands up, like, why do this anymore? And so, yeah, I know. My heart always goes out to somebody who's battling with things like with addiction. And to be honest, again, drawing it back to fitness, I know my heart always goes out to somebody who's battling with things like with addiction. And to be honest, it's again, drawing it back to fitness, it's not much different than this

addiction that we have with food. You know, is very, very similar and maybe even more insidious because we justify it that you need food. This is accepted. Yeah, it's well, it's way more accepted and harder to see. Nobody's out there seeing you eat going like oh you have a problem or an addiction but clearly you do if you're carrying yourself 50, 60, 100 pounds overweight but sometimes the hole feels so deep that it's so hard to get out. But I'm so

glad to hear of his success. It's so nice to hear man. Yes. Now they're doing great work over there man. They're doing really good work. I wanna, so there's this clip that's kind of going viral a little bit in our space with some of our friends, like coaches and trainers, and it's of a guy that has long annoyed us, we just haven't brought him up, but I think he's just terrible, just terrible representation of the fitness space. It's Andy Elliott, and it's a clip with his daughters

on stage. And he's luckily, I'm glad to see he's getting ripped for it because what are you doing? He brings his daughters on stage, show everybody your six packs, he's nine, one is nine, one's 12. But he also just, the way he, he's the same guy that would bring a dude up on stage

and try to like motivate him by lift up your shirt, you're fat, you know, type of deal. Yeah. What are you doing? Such a douchebag. I know. Listen, if you're a used car salesman, stick to selling cars, dude. Just like, I can't, this is what I don't like is that the guys that blend their profession with fitness thinking they know what they're talking about, which is fitness.

Like, you couldn't be further from the representation of health and fitness, yet you think you do. And the approach is all wrong. It's ironic that that's going viral right now because we just recently had a guest in the studio that was telling us about their experience with them and how he owes him all kinds of money and how he scammed him. And so it's like, you know, we all had that, we'd seen his

stuff going around and you said we didn't comment, we didn't really comment on anything before, but it's like, I feel like we have the gut instinct always with people. There's a lot of stuff happening in our space that's kind of like this. I still get it. I feel like we're cleaning out the trash a little bit. Does it feel like that? I hope, man. I hope so. Like there's somebody else, you know, I just of like this. I still get annoyed. I feel like we're cleaning out the trash a little bit, doesn't it? I hope, man, I hope so. Like there's somebody else, you know, I just saw them today, I'm not gonna say too much because people will put two and two together,

but literally the video opens and he's got stacks of cash in front of him. And he's teaching them to teach you how to be a build a business as a trainer and look at all this money. What are you doing, dude? What kind of people are you trying to attract? It's the lowest-combatant nominator. Oh, God, it's so like, plus it's weird.

It's like, I don't know, I think most people look at that and go, what are you doing? That kind of insecure, like, you know? I mean, it really works on the young teenage boy, but is that really the person who's investing in that? I don't know. I don't know, dude. It's frustrating.

I wouldn't want to work with someone like that. I mean, there's this temptation to do that because of the attention, and we are in this attention economy where the platforms pay you for attention, you get the validation because of the attention, and so there's an allure to wanting to use tactics like that, you know?

And so I think a lot of people fall prey to the thing that I, I, I feel so blessed that there's always been four of us to kind of counter each other. I mean, we've had, all of us have had ideas at times and collectively we've all sat down, eh, it's not really us. That is in line with our core values.

And even though we've, and you've, you've talked recently about, we kind of stepped away for a while, and we reached out to somebody who was recommended to us, who did really, really well with the YouTube algorithm, and we thought, you know, are we being naive by not learning more here and hiring a professional who can teach us to be better with the algorithm,

and if it's rooted in our Desire to help more people can it be a good thing and you know We did that for like six months and and guess what we did see more views the irony was We made less money because was lower impact and and that's exactly right and it's like getting back to judge And so for the entrepreneurs or people that are aspiring to be entrepreneurs out there, I can't stress enough how important it is to go about building your business the right way, and if you lead with truly trying to help people and serve others, you will be rewarded for that.

Trust the purpose, trust the purpose and the results will follow. That's what I like to tell trainers and coaches. It's slower, but you know, it's just like with coach clients. But it's real. It's slower, okay, it takes a longer time coach clients, but it's real. It's slower Okay, it takes a longer time to build it's sustainable, but it is sustainable. It's a career won't be a flash in the pan You look it's like this guy you bring up. It's only a matter of time before he's gone

Yeah, he's he and he made his money is just like a lot of the MLM scam artist type people is like they and in this era You the swings are harder so you do have this they have an opportunity to fool a lot of people really fast and and they do things that go viral and get click click bait right like crazy and so for a moment you think they're really successful and they're a good example of somebody who's having a lot of success financially but it only lasts so long it's only a matter of time before you start hearing stories like we're hearing behind the scenes of like, oh yeah, he fucked me over. Oh yeah, he fucked me over too. People at last are honorable with integrity. That's right.

You know, and you see this a lot, like even like your Andrew Tate's of the world where they they're badass. They're, they're tough guy. They're something that a lot of these like weaker guys look up to and they want to aspire to something like that, but they don't have any honor. So it's not going to last. It's unfortunate because that's what gets all the attention and all of the glitz and the glamour. But at the same time, to aspire to be something more, to have true integrity and to have purpose,

that requires the longer path, the longer road. It does. Do you guys think that it has a lot to do with just the period of time that we're in right now? It's because these mediums that we communicate with is so, still new. When you think about Facebook and Instagram, maybe for somebody who's in their 20s or 30s, it feels like it's been around forever because for them it has. But it really hasn't, it's not that, and when you look back in our ability to communicate

to each other and reach each other. It really is not that old. It hasn't been around for a long time. And so, you know, do you think 10, 20 years from now we look back and we laugh at the time, when oh yeah, I remember when people would do things like put stacks of money in front of them and to get your attention, to get people to buy stuff from you

and rent the fake private plane and rent the fancy car. It's definitely comical to me. We asked Jordan Peterson something related to this about social media. The problem is not, the problem is that social media. Doesn't reflect reality. It doesn't, and what it does is it rewards

the sociopathic narcissists, because they're the ones that get the attention. In the real world, they get their ass kicked or they would get excommunicated, but on social media, they get a lot of attention. What a good point to bring up, which, so your answer to me is that it probably won't change. No. Yeah. It probably won't change.

No, here's what, okay, I'll give you an example. Pressing like the animalistic human behavior button that keeps you there. Here's what'll happen, right? For a second, the guy putting the stacks of money will work, but then everyone's gonna be like, wait a minute, that's fake, looking authentic is real. So then the narcissist will go and pretend to be authentic

and they'll still play that game. It's like, you remember? They can go with it. Well, you're seeing that already even with the example that you gave of that Andy Elliott clip is you have people that are virtue signaling that are calling it out, they're like, well, you're kind of the same for me.

Yeah, no, we see you do similar things. It's like, wait a second, you're kind of that same guy. What do you think about it? And you run in circles with the same. It's like wait a second you're kind of that same guy what do you think about it and you run in circles with the same type of people and so you're trying to get ahead of it yeah yeah but you're trying to jump on the bandwagon of calling it out right now yeah I mean I I've been saying this for a while now to people this fake authenticity you know I'm saying you know grab your camera pretend like you're crying or maybe you are crying but you grab your camera. Who the hell does that? I've never once thought to my like why I'm crying like something actually makes me so

sad that would make me cry. Wait, wait, let me get my phone. You just have a distorted view. How does that happen? If I was crying and when you guys pulled out your phone to record me, that would be the end of our relationship. That's why I mean I do like, I do like highlighting the people and speaking of that, we just had our good buddy Jordan Syatt here, such a great person, right? Like we need more people like him, like Joe DeFranco, and there's a lot more that we've talked about before,

but those two recently. Bro, how funny was it though, when you had us all over, hold on a second, hold on a second. So embarrassed, dude. You had us all over your house for a barbecue, and Jordan said, it's Jewish, right? You didn't even think about this, right? And so you're making your- Getting down on my baby back ribs, dog.

You're making your butcher box ribs. Yes, dude. And you gave them to him. He's like, is there pork in this? Yeah, it's delicious. So Doug and I had, for the audience- He had to wait forever for food. Oh man, I wasn't there for food.

Everybody was eating ribs. Poor Jordan was eating salad over there. for the audience. He had to wait forever for food. Oh man, everybody was eating ribs, poor Jordan's eating salad over there. So the audience knows, Doug and I had originally planned to have this cook off. And we had Jordan Siet and Dr. Brink in town. And it was like, oh, this will be fun. We'll have it at my place.

Well, Doug and I, yeah, Doug will get down with one of his recipes. I'll get down with mine. I do the butcher box baby ribs. I've got it down to a science, at least I think. And so I'm like, oh, this would be good. Never once did it even cross my mind, like, oh, I wonder if Jordan eats pork.

I should probably consider that. You know what I'm saying? Did you offer it to him like twice? Oh, yeah. No, I'm like, and I was like, come on, dude. Get in. Get in. You know what I'm saying?

They were hot and ready. Throw some bacon on it. And then when he asked, and I know he asked already knowing, it was more to let me know. Are those pork? And I'm like, oh yeah, they're pork. Fuck. I said, hey, Doug's making some steak and chicken over there,

bro. We have some ham sandwiches over here. Oh, dude, I felt. I got bologna. Yeah. What a good sport, though, to not punk me over it. So that was only my second time having those, because I never make ribs, I don't even know how to make them,

but they're good, bro. They have, you said they're the best ribs. I have, we've been with ButcherBox for a long time now, and there have been many times where I get on a kick and I'm cooking them and I've already ran out of them, so I gotta go buy from Safeway or Costco. And I've bought all kinds of other brands and I even got online and looked up some of the best

like and had them shipped to me. And just, I don't know if it's the heritage pork or what it is about them, but no other baby back. It's what they feed them. It's what they feed them. It's so tasty. I mean, honestly honestly like ever it actually Requested that for his birthday this year for the meal. He just he loves the those ribs or anything else

I mean Katrina and I sometimes that's what I think you made it for him. I've been trucking I think and then he was oh man. Yeah, they're good. Yeah, and it's it's they're easy It's not there's a little step three step process I do that very most people are familiar with the three two one cooking ribs And I season it real basic and it just boy they just turn out amazing I got to read to you guys a post in our forum that I saved where we had somebody post about chat GBT Yeah, and About programming it yes, dude

And I'm so glad they posted this because it gave me an opportunity to comment on what's, what makes a trainer or coach really effective. So the post is this over the past few months, I conducted an informal case study comparing two training programs, one designed by chat GBT and the other was maps performance. And so they prompted chat GBT with like create a three month designed by ChatGBT and the other was Maps Performance. And so they prompted ChatGBT with like Create a three month progressive training program,

you know, this, that, and the other. So ChatGBT spit out the program and she's like, let's see which client does better, who does better. So my comment under that was the following. I said ChatGBT nor Maps will ever outperform a good in-person trainer who can modify on the fly and consider all factors, including, this is most important, the psychology

and personality of the client. And then I wanted to make this a point. People buy Maps programs because they trust me, Adam and Justin, not because they're the best in the world. They also happen to be good, but we don't sell them to someone until the consumer has built a relationship with us by listening to our podcast. My point with that as a trainer is this.

A trainer who's, let's say on a scale of one to 10 in terms of knowledge and just in terms of skill, right? Let's say on a one to 10, they're a seven, but they've earned 100% of the client's trust. It's going to be more effective than a trainer who's a 10 on a scale of one to 10, who has a five on a scale of trust. So the trust factor and considering that, and also the psychology and the personality of a person

is so much more important than anything else. And this is what makes a program effective. This is what makes a trainer effective. It isn't that they have the best skill, that's important, but it's that they know how to work with the client, the client trusts and follows them. That's what makes them super effective. And all the day-to-day nuances

that only the in-person trainer, right, or the person who's training the client can be able to modify to. Like, obviously we write a program and then we give it to you. And if we don't talk to you, uh, day to day, I, and now we don't have that opportunity. We thought a lot about this. I remember when we created these.

And so a lot of that is thought out when we write exercises the way we do and we, and we lay out phases the way we do. And then also why the podcast exists. It was always thought, okay, the idea of the podcast is to understand that even as great as our programs are, they're still incomplete without understanding all those nuances. So the podcast is designed to fill those gaps

so that somebody is listening every day, they're also following a program they go oh shit that's where the guys are talking about where I should probably scale back to two sets instead of three sets oh this is when they mean I should probably do mobility day even though it's technically a foundational day like oh okay I get like because it is it's all it's a little audibles it's a moving target always I've never trained a client where I wrote a program and we just followed it.

Never, never, never, ever. In fact, it's like a business part of, part of what I got. Yeah. Part of as I got more advanced, the trainer, I stopped writing programs. It was like a waste of time. It was like, why am I going to write this whole thing out? Because I know that I'm going to end up audibly like in the next week. So it's like, I have an idea of where we're going. We look at our consumers and we've sold thousands and thousands and thousands of maps programs over the last ten years

Okay The people that get the best results with our programs are the people that buy our programs and then continue to listen the play listen The podcast why because they have a good program and our programs are good and I'll put them up against any of the program Yep, they're well written. They're well programmed, any strength coach, any fitness coach will tell you they're well written programs. They always get good reviews, we know what we're doing but it's the people that continue to listen to the podcast and allow us to essentially coach them indirectly. When they listen to the podcast as they follow our programs they get the best

results because they get insight and they know how to move and change things and not skip a workout when it's important and they know how to move through those roadblocks. That's the combination. It's the Mind Pump podcast plus the math programs. That's the winning formula right there. Yeah. The program itself just takes you to the place where you start to learn your body. And that whole process, it's gonna take all that insight

from your own feedback your body's giving you, but also too, knowing how to navigate through that takes coaching, and so we need to combine that together. So we understand, coaching's another additional, that's a big ask for people financially a lot of times to commit to that. And so for us to be able to put that out, the only way we put it out is to be able to reinforce that with us continuously educating and figuring out where's the sticking points,

where are people falling, where are people confused? How can we highlight this? How can we address this and help people through these obstacles? And if you don't hear us talk about on the podcast, go to ask to ask mind pump calm, right? That's what I keep trying to tell her Okay, I have to switch gears. Okay. I have a Jesus stat for you stat That's kind of me. He told me this when you into the bathroom. Oh, dude, this is crazy. What is it? Yeah You ready for this? Yeah, okay If you made seven thousand dollars per hour every hour since Jesus walked the

earth, Jeff Bezos is still richer than you. Yeah, that's not really a Jesus step. I knew I'd get your attention that way. Cool. Isn't that crazy though? Have you heard of that? Yeah, I've heard that. You have?

Yeah, I have. Maybe he can take you up into space for 10 minutes and turn turn you in that before. How much money that is? I've heard, they used to do some really cool ones. Even more. They used to do ones on Michael Jordan on how much money he's made. I remember like there, there was one stat. If he dropped a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket, it would cost him more money to bend over and pick it up than to keep going. Yeah. So I always thought that was like a cool stat.

But $7,000 an hour, which none of us in here can even fathom what it's like to make $7,000 an hour. That's pretty crazy. Since freaking Jesus walked the earth, you still would not be as rich as he is. That's crazy. Yeah, when you think of that, it's like that level of wealth,

you couldn't, it would be a full, I would have to hire somebody to spend my money in order to even feel that I'm spending my money. I don't know, that doesn't make any sense. See how much those yachts that they have, those hundred million dollars? That's what they, they have to buy it to fill it. They have to buy those just to feel that they're they're going

They're spending something just park them and keep them cost millions of dollars a year and it's only gonna increase I mean they said that once like AI really is in full force because if you're somebody that has the platform where it's actually gonna Thrive we're gonna have our first trillionaires. What what did you guys think of the conversation with Tom? Bill you on AI we had a we had a cool big Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. Yeah, you could definitely tell he said a lot of people on his show. Yeah talk to him. Yeah, I enjoyed it I mean, he's he's we're heading for an existential crisis. It's Yeah, we're having it's the big grill in the room. Yeah, like I want to talk about it Do like you're gonna have everything you want It didn't make me didn't make you feel I mean because he's way more into that stuff than we are right admittedly right we would sound like none of us are

I mean you guys are a little bit of sci-fi guys but you're not like super AI nerds where you're like going down the rabbit hole like he is he's interviewed some of the brightest brilliant people in that space and to hear him confirm a lot of what I feel like we've been communicating yeah you know that we are one we're heading towards a plugged and unplugged society like that's down the road to real quick here, you're going to have everything that you want and we're going to be, and we're going to be more sad than we've ever been, which is, I think if you think people need

to wrap their head around it too, I think I can't, I keep saying that because I think you need to wrap your brain around that because now I, what are you going to do? Yeah. I get, if you're somebody who's struggling right now and it's you're from you're fighting for paycheck to paycheck I know it's like to feel like that I know that that's you're like who gives a shit give me that problem you think in your head but let me tell you something right now like you think that and then you and then then this happens and it's it really is going to be very depressing for a lot of people that haven't found purpose in other things in their life than to try

and fight to survive or to get by or to pay their bills. When that stuff all becomes solved, we won't be happier, which is, it's sad to think that. Well, we were already showing that. I mean, we're more anxious and sad now, the data shows, and we have more stuff than we've ever had. What do you think's gonna happen when we have even more stuff? You think it's gonna get better? Yeah. It's not. We don't, we're not sad and anxious because we don't have enough stuff.

Yeah. We're sad and anxious because we don't have purpose and meaning. So we've lost connection. Speaking of stuff, I'm so glad to bring this up because I dropped Everett off with his friends and they're, you know, they're hanging out and I'm trying to kind of pull back a bit and have him like explore, kind of do things on his own. And so he was like downtown Scotts Valley and that, you know, give him a little bit of money to go buy stuff and do things. And he ended up going to the dollar store and we go to pick them up and we see like

him and his buddies are all kind of walking around town and what they buy at the dollar store. It's like, okay, can you imagine what it looks like? Let's say like Lake Havasu or like New Orleans or like what they're carrying in terms of like a drink. Oh yeah. The long, the long skinny, like it was all like margarita thing. He's got American glasses on He's got like a little hat and like They literally look like they're on spring break Shaking water out of this thing and then everybody's like honking, you know

Like oh my god, this is such a like a foreshadowing for me. Oh, yes. Yes, it is. He's frickin 12 Around the corner, dad. That's a kid. I was dying, dude. He's still drinking. He brings it to the dinner table and it's his favorite cup now. Oh, god. And it's literally like-

This is long ass margarita cup or whatever? Yeah. It looks like you went down to Cabo or something. We've all done that. Yeah. We've all had a drink in a stupid cup. Yeah. That's great.

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Watch what happens. Again, free 30 day trial. Go to brain.fm forward slash mind pump. Back to the show. First question is from Big World Small Kiwi. How can I work on getting deeper into the squat position? Yeah, that's, the name's got me left. That's too many innuendos up.

I mean, we have to find out first of all what the limiting factor is. This is a big motivation for Maps Prime to do a full assessment. More often than not or at least in my experience the most common thing right here is ankle mobility. Yeah. Almost almost always somebody that can't get into a really deep position. They think it's normally their hips or their back but it's normally there it's and that's because you start to compensate in the hips and the low back and or the knees,

but it's because the ankles don't have the mobility to have the knees travel forward. And so then you feel it other places. And so a lot of times the average client connects it like, oh, I have knee issues, that's why I can't squat deeper. Oh, my hips feel tight when I go that low. And it's like, but those are all compensating because you lack the ankle mobility. Yeah totally like focus on improving ankle mobility through

movements like the what's the what's the one that you like to do Adam? Combat stretch. Combat stretch do that one on a regular basis and also practice on getting into a low squat throughout the day. So hold on to something if you need to or place your back up against the couch or hold on to some straps or like some TRX or suspension trainer straps.

Get into a deep squat position and then try to sit there, not relaxed but rather maintaining stability and try to practice this throughout the day. That's the fastest way that I've seen to get into a low squat. Then when you train and when you're exercising with the squat, lighten the load substantially like half, and then go a couple inches deeper. That's it. Just a couple inches deeper and practice on getting stronger in that deeper position.

You can also pause at the bottom of the squat with weight on your back, uh, with lighter weight that tends to help as well. Yeah. And just to add to the ankle mobility, uh, and to reinforce that a little bit further, like really pay attention to your pressure points. So, and I know Brinks pointed this out a couple of times with me, uh, and also, um, Jordan, Dr. Jordan Junta's, uh, pointed this out to me a lot too.

The big toe is a big part of this whole equation in terms of stability around the ankle. So to be able to articulate your toes and work on that and also maintain those pressure points between the big toe and the pinky toe know, reinforce that and regain that sort of ground force strength is going to help tremendously. And then, yeah, of course, all the other kind of steps apply in terms of gradually bringing that depth and treating it like it's an entirely new exercise. Next question is from Jen Garner. As a trainer, are you still learning something new every day?

If so, what? You better be. Yeah. I mean, if you're training people, you're learning something all the time. This is my favorite part of personal training. I'm assuming this is directed to us though. Yeah, so.

But yes, the answer is yes. Yeah, now we're not training clients anymore. But regardless of that, I still would say yes. I mean, we just recorded a podcast. Sal brings a study damn near every time. 90% of the time, I haven't heard of the study. So I'm learning there. Justin just got back from having another expert trainer

work on him for his shoulder. I'm sure he picked up and learned some stuff. I'm always deep in what we're doing on the business side for the trainers and how to help them scale their business. So even though they did not translate into biomechanics and nutrition, it's also helping trainers be better trainers. Like, I mean, we're, one of the things that,

that attracted all of us together is that pursuit of growth. We all have different things that we might have specialties in or things that we're into, but the thing that we have in common and why we get along so long so well is because each guy is always constantly growing and learning every day in some aspect that serves the overall business and mission. Well yeah and we're all trying to teach constantly on the ground. So you have to learn. So you have to learn it. And you have to find a new way to relate

and have that really resonate. And so we talk about what seems like the same exact topics all the time. But there's always something, some other angle, some other way we can present it that may be more effective and efficient. We're seeking that out constantly. That's such a great point, Justin.

I'll give a direct answer, or I mean, it's example of something like that that just played out. So we just had all these trainers come in to our studio. We've had Prime and Prime Pro forever. If you've been listening to the show for long enough, you've probably heard me shame hundreds of trainers that if they don't have it and why you should have it Something came to all of us teaching prime and prime pro or prime

this past weekend and that was boy we really need to hold a Certification course on it because as much as we thought we simplified it to make it as easy and applicable To the average trainer a person to use. We realize in this seminar setting as we are having someone like Dr. Brink and ourselves teach these trainers how lost still some of them are. And boy, even though we've communicated this a million times, we've got to go even deeper on this. And so we're going to put together a certification course for the coaches and trainers. We're going to teach them

even in more in depth on a subject that I thought we've covered a bunch of times. I learned that this last weekend. I assume that we did such a good job with that, that everybody was using it so well. And it's like, oh, wow, this enlightened me on we could be better about how we communicate this and teach others. And so we too are learning how to be better about how we communicate this and teach others and so we too are learning how to be better communicators around something that I thought we've communicated really well. So yeah, no, the learning never stops here. No, and really, really good, effective, successful trainers tend to have a thirst for growth and learning.

So I think this is like, as a trainer, you love people, you love fitness, and you love learning. And that's a great combination for success. Next question is from A Waters. How do you transition to a healthy relationship with food after counting macros and being regimented for such a long time? I mean, one word slowly, but really what this looks like is you're so focused on macros and calories That what you need to do is move out of that and focus on other things in regards to the food So bring yourself off slowly and you can do this with like two days or three days off of no counting

And look out for the binge right look out for the oh the rains are off I can go as crazy as I want but just kind of come off of it and then pay attention to all the other attributes and values that the food brings you. How does this make my energy feel? How does this affect my exercise performance? How's this helping my digestion? Eat very presently, so be present with your food. And start connecting the dots with all the things

that the food does for you, aside from losing body fat or building muscle, but connect it to all those other things. And make this a slow process of transition because it can be difficult to break these chains. And when you start to do this, you will find yourself being a little scared. You also may find yourself going off the rails a little bit because what kept you in the rails were the macros.

So it can be a back and forth process as you break free from this control. Because that's what this is, really. It's this control relationship with food. A couple things. One, we have an intuitive eating guide that we wrote specifically to help people through this process.

Two, this really does depend on where this person currently is with their relationship with this. If I have somebody who is highly addicted to weighing, measuring their food and tracking, like they never miss type of deal and telling them to cut cold turkey and go into intuitive eating is really tough. And so what it might look like to that person is like, Hey, let's, let's just track protein, you know, but we're not going to worry about the other calories for a little bit or let's do it, you know, a couple of days of the week, but let's let go on one day, you know? And so, you know, it looks different for every person, depending on how much you're addicted to this. And this is back to what makes good trainers and coaches is the ability to read where this person

is at and meeting them where they're at and knowing that the ultimate goal is to get away from tracking, measuring, doing all those things. But if this person has wrapped their entire identity around that for so long, it's really tough to cut cold turkey because any sort of shift in a direction they don't like is going to freak them out and send them back the other direction. And so you really got to meet people where they're currently at, no different than when

we're helping somebody with weight loss or any other goal of not throwing too much on their plate at once. One good step strategy is to experiment with different kinds of diets so you still have a little bit of the sense of control, but now you're paying attention to how it feels to go with no carbs for a while and how does it feel to eat paleo for a little while or how does it feel to go on an elimination diet for a little while. What you're trying to do is connect the dots with how you feel, mental performance, and sleep, and mood, and really start to learn how to really

value food for its entirety, not just for macros, and not just for calories. Next question is from Skaper Girl. What are some tips on coming back from being sick? I've been out with double sinus and ear infections since April 17th, no lifting, no almost anything for 12 days, lost five pounds and feeling weak. What do I do?

Same workout, lower weights, lower weights, lower reps, et cetera. Yeah, you'll gain back everything you lost very quickly with almost no effort. So in other words, you can go to the gym. Very slowly. You can go to the gym and go through the motions, just kind of feel everything.

And you're probably going to need to do that for a little, maybe a week or less, maybe like three, four days and listen to your body. The first real workout is going to get you pretty sore, that's normal after you take 12 days off. But whatever, if you lost five pounds of muscle, it'll come back very quickly. It could come back in a few days actually. And I'm not exaggerating, but whatever, if you lost five pounds of muscle, it'll come back very quickly.

It could come back in a few days actually, and I'm not exaggerating, but do it slowly. One of the mistakes people make after sickness, they go too hard, too fast. Always. And cause problems. Always, I think the mistake that we all make is this. I mean, I've been doing this for.

Get excited. I've been doing this for so long, and every time this happens, and I tend to do this a lot, where I'm in and out on kicks, I'm on a hardcore kick for a lot, where I'm in and out and on kicks, I'm on a hardcore kick for a while, then I'm off for a while, I do this all the time. And every time I come back, I almost always overreach. I almost always, and I even have the conversation with myself,

I don't have to do very much. I haven't done anything for a couple weeks now or a month. Just a little bit, just a little bit, and yet I still tend to overreach. And so yeah, whatever you're thinking, do less. And that might sound crazy, but you don't, if you haven't been doing anything for a couple weeks now and you're coming off of being sick and just recovering, it's not going to take much to stimulate that. So a MAPS-15 type of protocol is probably, MAPS-15 protocol and light is probably

what I would recommend. So do one or two exercises go significantly lighter than what you would and I'd probably do that for a week maybe two and then you'll probably be back to where you were totally look if you like the show come find us on Instagram Justin is that mind pump Justin I'm at my pump to Stefano Adams at my pump Adam thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your

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