Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2596: Five Ways to Build Muscle Without Adding Weight to the Bar & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: 5 ways to progressively overload the body without adding weight to the bar. (2:00) Can sodium curb your carb cravings? (24:55) Arrival fallacy. (27:08) Salt water vs chlorine. (31:54) ADHD medications and the impact of the modeling of the brain. (37:02) Mind Pump Group Coaching is back! (52:49) The euphoric feeling from Ned. (54:25) #ListenerLive question #1 – What is the best way to eat to get a bigger chest and shoulders and more of an upper body for function and fashion? (56:13) #ListenerLive question #2 – Is there something that you would suggest for someone who has limited weights to progressively overload? (1:13:59) #ListenerLive question #3 – What are your recommended best practices when training youth athletes? (1:20:54) #ListenerLive question #4 – Should I continue to strength train 4-5 days a week if my sleep is poor? (1:29:59) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Mind Pump Group Coaching Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off ** May Special: MAPS 15 Performance or RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code MAY50 at checkout ** Why Your Tempo Matters When You Workout! – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #1535: Should You Squat Below Parallel? Mind Pump #1282: The #1 Key to Consistently Building Muscle & Strength (Avoid Plateaus!) Mind Pump #1050: Mark Manson- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mind Pump #912: How to Change Your Mental State with Music Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also, try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump Ask Mind Pump What is EMDR? – Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Benjamin Bikman (@benbikmanphd) Instagram Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson) X/Twitter 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, right? In today's episode, we had live callers call in

and we got to help them out on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro is 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness, science, muscle building, fat loss, current events. It's a good time. By the way, if you wanna be on an episode like this one, email us your question at live at mindpumpmedia.com.

Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Mind Pump Group Coaching. We offer group coaching because we actually have trainers. Mind Pump has trainers now. We got two groups opening up, 50 people each, that's it. Go to mindpumpgroupcoaching.com, sign yourself up. The two groups are, one is fat loss, the other one is muscle gain.

This episode's also brought to you by Ned. This is full spectrum hemp oil extracts. High in cannabinoids like CBD. Today I talked about how they literally do produce a euphoric feeling. I love Ned. You can feel it. It's the one CBD product you can feel.

Go check them out. Go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com. Forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Get 20% off. We also have a sale on some programs this month. MAPS 15 Performance and the RGB Bundle, 50% off.

If you're interested, go to MAPSFitnessProducts.com and then use the code May50 for the discount. Here comes the show. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Ah, shit, Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week. We have three winners this week. One for Apple Podcasts, two for Facebook.

The Apple Podcast winner is sure break Jake and for space Facebook we have hope to Bowie and Costa Papalas all three of you are winners in the name I just read to iTunes at mind pump media comm include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you Progressive overload is crucial when it comes to gaining muscle and strength that's what all the studies show but is there a way to progressively overload your muscles without adding weight there are there's five ways that's we're gonna talk about today progressively overload your body without adding weight it's such a good conversation because I think that there's so many people that assume

that progressive overload just means adding weight to the bar. And yes, there's a case to be made for that and I think we're, I think we all utilize that. But in my training career, I can think of many other ways that I would progressively overload the bar or overload the body without adding weight to the bar. And I can think of many cases where that was the more appropriate way to overload the body than to just add weight. It's eliminating a lot of the risk involved because you get to a certain point where it's like you're looking at a substantial amount of weight that's, you know, you're only gonna get so much benefit and the risks are really high. Listen, this is super important to understand because if you do this right, you do a good job and you're consistent and this becomes a lifestyle, you're going to be hitting the face with this at some point because you can't keep adding weight to the bar. At some point the risk versus reward becomes, well, too risky, right?

You're squatting a lot of weight, adding 20 pounds to the bar now dramatically increases your risk of injury and the gains you get from that extra 20 pounds aren't really gonna be that substantial. Where do you go? So this is a problem, or should I say this is an avenue you wanna go down right out the gates. Now for trainers and coaches, this is crucial because if you're the trainer that just adds weight to the bar, you're not gonna be a very good trainer.

You have to figure out how to overload the muscles or how to tap into this without adding weight to the bar. And like you said, Adam, I think the ways that we're gonna cover in many cases is more appropriate, is better, more effective. 100%. I'm trying, I was trying to think when you first wrote this, like, you know, if I actually had to like,

do like a pie chart of all my clients and I said like all these different ways and And obviously weight adding weight to the bar as one of these ways to overload the body. I don't even know if it takes up The majority I think I think more than half the time if not more I utilize other tools just because we the average person that we we dealt with was middle-aged overweight Pretty new to weightlifting. Pretty inexperienced. Yeah, pretty inexperienced. Not like I was training a bunch of you.

Like if I was training you guys, then of course we would be probably mostly adding weight to the bar for a big portion of grip. But even us, and this was the point I wanted to make to you Sal, is that I think we're guilty of progressively overloading with weight to the bar when we probably should go the other direction because the return we've already reached all of us

in here have reached a level of strength. We're we're really not squeezing that much more out by adding more weight to the bar and in fact it would behoove us to do that even if it's not just purely the point you're making about injury like

yeah, I when you put 400 or 500 pounds on your back to squat, and a little bit goes off, that puts you at risk for injury. But even not just that, just, it's just stressful on your body and your joints. And even if you don't get hurt, like a serious injury, that that extra wear and tear everywhere else on your body for the return that you're getting from it, does it, is it, is it really that much better than if you would have just used another method of overload? I wanna be very clear, because someone may be getting confused. Progressively overloading your muscles

means they get stronger, that's true. Every one that we're gonna cover today means you're getting stronger, but that doesn't mean there's more weight on the bar. So I'll explain, let me go with the first one, right? Here's an easy way to progressively overload your muscles without adding weight to the bar. So I'll explain. Let me go with the first one, right? Here's an easy way to progressively overload your muscles without adding weight to the bar. Let's just say you do curls with a 50 pound barbell, okay?

And that's hard for you. 50 pound barbell's hard to do 10 reps. And you get stronger. You're like, you know what? Should I add weight to the bar? I could. I could add five pounds to the bar, which means I'm stronger.

Or I could make the reps go slower. Or I could slow'm stronger, or I could make the reps go slower, or I could slow down the reps. I can make the reps take an extra second or two on the way up and on the way down, so that now I'm doing the same amount of reps with the same weight, but it's much harder. Now, the way I'll pose this is this. Slower reps with the same weight,

does that require more strength? It does. Somebody who could squat 300 pounds and take five seconds on the way down, five seconds on the way up, is stronger than somebody who squats the same weight, two seconds up, two seconds down. So you're still getting stronger,

you're just not adding weight. You're eliminating a lot of the momentum involved with that. And yeah, and it's also, it's a more focused kind of discipline type of an approach, which again, it bodes well for a beginner, but also too, if you're trying to challenge, you know, the normal way that you're approaching weightlifting and even us, you know, seasoned vets in the gym could change up just the tempo of it and really receive a totally different experience. I also think that if your overall goal is like real world training, you're not, could change up just the tempo of it and really receive a totally different experience.

I also think that if your overall goal is like real world training, you're not, this is, we're not talking about the person who's chasing a PR for their powerlifting meets, right? Everybody else who wants to look good, feel good, be strong in real life, challenging with like slowing it down and the other things you're going to talk about. Like that, you don't, we don't live in a world where when I go to pick up the couch, I stop my buddy before grabbing, hold on, let me get my four seconds down

and then two seconds at the bottom, then we grab it and make sure we come up in two seconds. Like you don't do that. Like sometimes you have to get down and you're working your hands and you're holding that position for a little while. Sometimes you do it slow, sometimes you do it fast. Like there's lots of ways that you want to be strong

that in this perfect four-2-2 cadence or whatever you move the barbell in. And so moving it slower, moving it faster, all these way pausing, all these things that you're gonna talk about, I think are so important for protecting the body out into the real world. Right, and the muscles aren't perceiving the weight

on the bar, or should I say they're not perceiving its objective weight, it's the tension. And slowingiving the weight on the bar, or should I say they're not perceiving objective weight, it's the tension. And slowing the rep down increases the tension. Here's how I used to use this with clients. When I would have a client that I'm training, and my target rep for them ranged, what's this say, 10 reps,

and I'm watching them and they're on rep eight, and I'm like, uh oh, they could do probably four or five more. The next few reps I slow them down. Isn't that, I mean they've shown that that's like the biggest movers in mechanical tension in terms of muscle building. So you could definitely meddle with that without a lot of weight.

Yeah, oh yeah, I'll tell people right now, do four second negatives on all your lifts and you're gonna have to go lighter, period. Well, I used to do the same thing with my client that you just described and I think this is a good skill for everybody to learn to do, because I don't't know if you go to enough gyms with different machines and weights and have days where you have good rest not so good rest and training you're going to find that many times in your life you're going to choose a weight that ends

up feeling lighter than what you probably could have done and like having that skill to be able to slow down, to just slow down. So that's how I train today. Like I don't even really, like I don't find myself, yesterday was the first time I trained in a while, like almost 30 days. So I know I'm weak. So I know I'm much weaker than what I was when I was riding the swing of things. And I'm getting ready to do lap pull down and I'm not going like, God, am I at 180

right now or am I at 120? Just pick a weight. And then make it hard. And then I make it hard. It doesn't even matter what I pick. And so I just, in fact, I don't even remember what it was. I just slid it in. Now I knew better than I slid it in my PR, you know what I'm saying? But I just picked a lightweight that I know that isn't going to hurt me. And then as I was doing, I was like, oh, that was really easy. And so the last like five reps, I just, I squeezed, I paused. Grip it harder. Yeah. You can set yourself up, you know,

really work on the mechanics of the whole thing and intensify that process. There's all kinds you can do. That's right, the weight on the bar only matters because of the tension it provides. And you can increase the tension by simply slowing the reps down. And so now you've progressively overloaded your body

or the target muscle without having to add weight to the bar. The next one is to increase the range of motion. This one's a big one, especially for certain exercises like squats. Like a lot of people have challenges doing a really deep squat. So if you always squat down to parallel and you find yourself like ready to add 10 pounds to the bar,

try squatting one or two inches lower, that's all. Just an inch or two, don't go crazy with the depth because maybe you can't control that much. Go a little lower and watch what happens. I remember as a kid when this really was evident to me, as a kid we learned as early trainers that the safe way to bench press, and I can't believe they taught this,

it's such a, they don't teach this anymore. I taught this for a long time. I don't think they teach this anymore but this was something, they don't teach this anymore. I taught this for a long time. I don't think they teach this anymore, but this was something that, you know, in the late 90s, I learned my certifications. They said the safe way to bench press was to come down to where the back of your arm is. 90 degrees. 90 degrees, right?

So your arms are bent in 90 degrees, arms parallel to the floor. So when I would stop my bench press, I mean it was like a good, I don't know how many inches, that 12 inches off my chest. And we were taught to bench press that way. And so I bench pressed that way for a while, and I got my bench press up to, I don't remember what it was,

but it was high, it's 300 pounds, something like that. And my buddy's like, you're not going all the way down. I'm like, what's the difference? He's like, try going all the way down. And I brought it down and that was it, man. Yeah, I'm like, I need help. Lift this bar off my chest. I couldn't believe how much weaker I was

with just a little bit more of a range of motion. So longer range, by the way, what they taught was dumb, fuller ranges of motion so long as you control them are also better for building more muscle, by the way. But longer ranges of motion challenges your body differently. It adds more tension in areas where you're not as strong. And if you could do a squat to parallel with 200 pounds,

going down two more inches, it's like adding 10 pounds to the bar. That's what it feels like. I would add to the movement so I think this matters in all movements but I think the squat is number one. A close number two Justin will probably appreciate this with what he's been doing right now is a full range of motion overhead press. Oh yeah. Those two right there which people call that the squat of the upper body right is the over is the overhead press those two I Neglected range of motion for so long and I had to do what you said I had to lighten the load in

order to increase the depth on the squat in order for me to bring the bar all the way down and all the way above my head and the those were some of the greatest gains I ever saw in my legs and in my shoulders was starting to practice. Aren't those like two, the most visible, when you see it, some average person that comes into the gym, whether or not they've continuously lifted overhead or they've squatted to depth. You can immediately see it's a stark limitation that they have and then they try and compensate with it immediately. But those are those two, it's just glaring to

me always. Me too. And I'll add to that, for the people that don't care about the aesthetics, like maybe I do, because I know I speak from that perspective a lot of times, it's also the two things that bulletproofed my low back and hips and my shoulders more than anything else. When I started to full range of motion shoulder press and full range motion squat, a lot of the aches and pains and tightness that I had going on in my shoulders, necks and my hips and my low back, gone. And now all I have to do, it took a lot of corrective work, took a lot of working on

that range of motion. Now all I do is have to show full range motion shoulder press, full range motion squat, and it keeps all that stuff at bay. Yeah, so your body, your muscles will get really strong in pretty specific ways, meaning if you train your particular range of motion, most of the strength you gain is in the range of motion that you train. So when you go outside of that range of motion, it's a brand new range of motion. You'll tap in newbie gains. In fact, of all of the ones we're gonna talk about today, this one right here in particular is connected to more muscle growth and gains.

In other words, two exercises done identically, except one has a greater range of motion, the greater range of motion is gonna produce more muscle growth. So this is a great way to add resistance, right, to progressively overload, but it's also a better way to build muscle, period, end of story. So, number two, this was my second,

this was my favorite one. Next up is to pause the reps. Pause the reps. I love this one, especially for exercises where, like for me, barbell squats, if I train them regularly and I'm careful, I can get pretty strong. But my squats are always an issue for me. And with my squats, when I get past a certain

Weight for myself. I know I start playing in the territory of injury or aches and pains And it's just because mobility for me is not not always it's typically not like this big focus I'd have to do lots of mobility work to really get to this point But I don't and so I get stronger and I start to notice issues So one way I've gotten around that is, rather than adding weight, is I pause at the bottom of the squat. So I'm feeling really strong today,

rather than going up to 375 on my squat, I'll keep it at 315, and I'll hold the bottom for five seconds. And it's as if I added weight to the bar. The hardest part of the movement. And that's where we're summoning the troops. We're staying there to try and get more effective and efficient at actually recruiting muscle fibers.

And so just even back to your bench pressing visual, it's like getting that depth and then holding that at the bottom part of the lift and really squeezing and owning, recruiting, so that way you have the strength. Now you can build upon that so much more effectively. What's it? So does that does this also? overlap with the research in regards to like Isometrics and the gaining the extra 20 to 30 30 percent in both directions

Yeah, so you take someone like you for example who may not be able to get asterisk squat But you can get a little deeper than parallel and then you also pause down there Are you getting some of the benefits north and south 30% more so than you would just, just come right back up. So that's a huge value in the south right there. So let's say you're somebody like you and that squad applies but apply this to any movement. You can't fully get that in range.

So you pause at those in ranges and you're at least getting some of the benefits north and south of that. Now for muscle building, well, two things. First off, you could pause the rep anywhere and south of that or whatever you wanna look at. For muscle building, well two things. First off, you could pause the rep anywhere. You could pause it at the top, squeeze. You could pause it at the bottom, hold. It has to be under tension, so don't pause the rep. At the end ranges, it would probably be

the most beneficial though, right? The stretch for muscle, right? So for muscle gains, it's the stretch. But that doesn't mean avoid the end range of motion, fully contracted position, because that's beneficial as well. Nonetheless, always have tension is what I'm trying to say because what you don't want to do, for example,

with the bench press is bring the bar down to your chest and let it sit on your chest. That's what we're talking about. You want to pause it but hold and support the weight while you're doing it. This one's one of my favorite ones. This is one of the ones I do on a regular basis. When I'm in a set and I feel stronger than the rep range that I thought I was

going to hit, I just start pausing and I'll pause in the stretch typically. And it's, it's, it's amazing. It's really amazing. I mean, again, it's like you are, you're incorporating the value and we've taught nauseam on the show about isometrics. And so you're including that just a much safer way to intensify something and gain that extra access. And you're just signaling you're strong, you're safe, secure in the joints. So that

way too now it actually like allows your body to produce more force. Right. Next up is to go faster, actually lift faster. This is the riskiest of all the ways to progressively overload. But what you do is you take a weight that you can move relatively quickly and then try to see if you Can move it faster. This is like Olympic weightlifters do this. So an Olympic weightlifter who move let's say they can lift 135 pounds let's say they could throw up 135 pounds It takes them one second to do it if they can do it half a second. They've exerted more force They've they've actually progressively overload even though it's the same weight

They've moved it faster. This one's especially important for athletes. You get good at this, it makes you dangerous on the field because fast strength is what translates. Everything happens in a split second. That's right, that's right. And so to be able to recruit and maximize that recruitment process, the really high level,

and have that explosive strength on command is such an advantage, and you can train that way by working on your velocity and working on that kind of speed in your training. Speed, power is the pinnacle, right? But I've just thinking about as you were discussing, because I'm envisioning like you making this decision, right, yourself personally, and knowing where

your level of strength is at right now. And I don't know where your current heavy squad is at, but I know you're north of 400. So let's say, you know, it's a day and you're feeling, you're feeling good and you're like contemplating 400 and something pounds or more on the barbell. Or do I put it down to 135 and do something explosive? Even though typically we're in, we were taught as trainers as speed power is the pinnacle. This is the top. You would actually teach regular grinding strength before you would teach speed power,

speed power is the pinnacle. You have to own all the other stuff before you do this. Right. But at what point does it actually, does that kind of change a little bit? Because I would think at your level of expertise and experience that the decision for you to drop down to 135 today and work on some speed power with 135 versus slapping on 450 is lower risk than the 450.

Yes, yes, but I would only do this if you really own the lift really well because then it could just become dangerous You can throw lightweight real fast and hurt. Yeah, but do you get what I'm asking right now? I like what point exactly what because obviously when I take another example So the audience can understand where I'm getting at with this question I'm just posing a question to create a conversation that I was just thinking right like you're a beginner you've only been lifting for six months and to create a conversation that I was just thinking, right? Like you're a beginner, you've only been lifting for six months.

And- It's because of the maturity of his skills. Exactly, like you're only been lifting for six months, I'm not gonna go speed power with that person. No. They're- This is probably more valuable for the experienced lifter. This is probably more valuable

for somebody who's been doing it for a while. Right, and I guess to your other point with that, it's valuable for him to create novelty with that, but is it like necessarily a big shift in his training to be able to now just focus exclusively on that and go like aggressive with speed training? Of all of these, this would be the one I would say, save this for the people who are advanced, for sure.

For sure. Next up is, and this is like bodybuilders or experts at this, is just intrinsic tension. This is just, and this I can do really well. I know Adam can do this really, really well. Justin can do this really well. This comes with experience, but you could give me a weight that is 90% lighter than what I would normally do,

and I could make that weight, through tension, feel heavy. You could give me, I mean, I could overhead press for reps, let's say 135 pounds. Could I make 50 pounds feel just as hard for 10 reps? I could. I could with tension and the speed of the rep and squeezing the bar and feeling where I need to feel it. Bodybuilders are experts at this.

You could watch a pro bodybuilder who's got more muscle on their body than anybody you've ever seen, who's obviously could lift a lot of weight. And for the inexperienced lifter, if you've ever seen a pro bodybuilder lift, I guarantee you this has happened to you, because this happens to me. The first time I saw a pro bodybuilder workout,

I was a teenage boy, and I remember being like, he's not as strong as, well he's not strong at all. He's barely lifting any weight. Not understanding that what they were doing was making those reps count so much because they know how to create tension. So that right there, you know, an increased effort.

And not that other athletes don't have the same thing either, but I know like for a bodybuilder, because it is all based off of the way you look, you cannot risk getting injured. And so I think that's what really drove them. And that's not to say there's not examples of bodybuilders that break this rule, right? You have bodybuilders that were doing-

Ronnie Coleman was there. Yeah, yeah, and what was the other? Dorian Yates. Was the white boy with the bald head that was always doing crazy intense lifts. Branch Warren. Yes, Branch Warren, thank you. Yeah, there's definitely examples-

Still works out like that. Yeah, I know, there's definitely examples. It still works out like this. Yeah, I know, there's definitely examples of guys that are like totally, but for the most part, most bodybuilders are just like, why put more weight? Dexter Jackson. Their attitude is why put more weight on the bar if I can get more out of this.

Get the same with lighter weight. If I can build as much muscle with less weight. And they're great examples of utilizing all the other ways of progressive overloading besides just adding weight to the bar. Yes they add weight to the bar too but like you said I this was something I prided myself on like my early years in training like I used to love to go find the guy who I thought looked at a shape and that was lifting really heavy weight. I go do the exercise with a quarter the weight he was doing and be looking all shredded and knowing that he's looking next to me,

knowing that he wants to look like that, but I'm doing it with half the weight and going like, wait a second, am I doing it to start up a conversation because you don't have to move this crazy amount of weight to build a ton of muscle on the bottom. And I think too, this is something that falls in this category,

but it's a little bit more I guess on the old school or like athletic side of the fence where you're adding a little more stress testing in terms of balance so for instance like I'm adding a lightweight but I'm adding a little bit more of a chaotic influence of forces so there's a lot more so say I'm doing a little bit more of a chaotic influence of forces. So there's a lot more. So say I'm doing a bottoms up kettlebell press. And now I'm fighting two lateral forces, rotational forces and, you know, normal gravitational forces while I'm also doing it. And so I have to stay completely tense while I'm doing the same thing with adding a longer lever to something and so for like a

Single arm press but with it with with the barbell barbell, right? That's a lot more challenging a lot harder But it's it's not necessarily like a ton more weight. It's just you have to be more focused and concentrated attention Yeah, no, you're you're talking about where you're now you're so I saw when Sal put the five up We did an episode that it was the nine ways to progressively overlay and there's things like instability is another way to do it. Instability is right so if you you you create uh you know instability in a movement and just the and now you're having to deal with these outside forces to make the unstable that you now have to intrinsically fire that's another way intrinsically yeah intrinsically, yeah, enhancing your tension. Yeah, so you could subcategorize some of these into other categories to stretch it beyond just five ways.

There's more than five ways to press it over the body. It's funny you brought up the long lever. I remember seeing bodybuilders do laterals with a barbell. And I remember thinking how dumb they were, now realizing just how smart they were. Yeah, yeah. Because with the barbell, you gotta keep your hand level and be steady.

I was doing side bands with that too. I used to do those, bro. We used to do the lateral raises with the straight bar. Yeah, with the barbell curl bone or whatever. Yeah, dude. Oh my God, that's so funny. Anyway, I gotta bring up something very interesting that I've observed, and I didn't realize

that I've observed this until we just had Dr. Ben, what was the last name, Doug? Big Men. Big Men on the show. So that'll air later, but he was talking about how they're gonna do this study, and he reminded me of something. So we partner with Element.

This is electrolyte powder, high in sodium, thousand milligrams per can or per dose. And I noticed that, and I noticed this with clients back in the day too and myself, high salt or sodium, no calorie, either foods or beverages are great ways to curb hunger. Great ways. Bodybuilders know this.

Bodybuilders would love to snack. What's one of your favorite snacks? We would salt the hell out of stuff. Yeah, and what was your favorite? Beef jerky for sure. What about a pickle? Oh yeah, pickle, oh yeah, for sure. Oh, like five calories. But it's salty. so that was part of also much so I would sodium load

In prep and I would eat two large dill pickles on top of my already high sodium diet to push it even further I remember doing this that the few times I really really really try to get super super shredded. I would have salty Low calorie foods or I would have salty, low calorie foods, or I would add salt, what I used to do, I used to get sparkling water, and I would add salt to it, and I'd drink it, and it would really, it would handle my appetite. The dill pickle thing is actually a really good hack

that we've never really talked about on this podcast, because you're also getting, I mean, you're also crunching on something. Yeah, you're crunching on something, it's pretty good size, and it's super low calorie Like it's not hardly any calories high in high in sodium You so it keeps your mouth busy. There's it's got a lot of surface. So it's not like so yeah I think that's such a hack for somebody who were a diet food back in the day like a real popular one It should be it's just it's a smart. It's a smart and you add in the fact if someone's low calorie

They're probably low sodium too. And so probably good for them Yeah, staying hydrated like that too. So it's interesting that we don't Hear or see more it talked about more often because in the community that was like a well-known thing that you you ate dill pickles I'm like we should look to body blows more for some of these hacks I feel like I'm like full circle. Yeah, it is full circle, you know what I'm saying? I feel like we're getting, it's the comeback man for us. Anyway, I gotta bring up a topic. We were talking about progressive overload.

It reminded me about a fallacy. I didn't know there was a name to it. It's called the arrival fallacy. So this is the fallacy that when you arrive at your destination, you arrive at your goal, that you're gonna be so happy and satisfied. Like, I remember when we had Mark Manson on the podcast. Here's a joke.

He had depressed after that. Depressed because he hit the best seller. Yeah, he's the author of Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. That's an old podcast episode. We interviewed him. I remember him saying the most depressed he ever was was after accomplishing this massive goal of him. It was shortly after too.

Yes. And so I was reading about this and really we're wired this way. We are wired to progress. We're not wired to arrive. We're never, so one of the examples I heard being explained was like diet. Like I'm trying to lose 30 pounds

and my goal is to lose 30 pounds, therefore I'm gonna avoid these foods and do this workout and then when I'm there, what's my reward? I never get to eat those foods again. Like that sucks. And so people fail all the time. This is why we talk about the journey so much.

This is why we talk about all the ways that we train the behavior, why it's about discipline and not motivation. But I do find this fascinating. I heard Jordan Peterson talk about this and he said that you have this framework, this motivational framework that is geared towards progressing.

But once you arrive, the motivational framework breaks down at a biological level. Like we are wired to desire things. We are not wired to get them or have them. It's a trip when you think about that. How crazy is that? So when I'm thinking about some of the tricks,

for lack of a better term, that I've used for fitness, like how do you work out forever? Like how do you stay consistent for the rest of your life? One of the things that I do, and I know you talk about this and Justin, you talk about this, one of the things that we do is and I know you talk about this and Justin, you talk about this, one of the things that we do is we just, we change the goal.

So there's, because there's always something that I can progress at. So it's like mobility, so much there. Yeah, dude. So it's like mobility, strength, fat loss, muscle gain. And if you keep doing that, I think that helps that motivational framework. I think that's a massive hack because,

and the longer you've been doing this the better you get at certain things you always move away from another one so if you get super strong guy I guarantee you're losing some mobility you get super performance guy and I bet you don't get as much grinding so there's always something that you can be getting better at that's why it's a journey and that's why too it's embrace the almost like you're starting over feeling you know this is also why and you I know you guys have heard this, people have listened to the show for a long time, probably tired of me telling the story, but the, one of the most powerful moments that I've shared in business was the phone call to Katrina, bitching

about my day, you know, and her stopping and waiting till I was done and then saying, would you have it any other way? I just think that was such a powerful moment for myself because at after her saying that I went, you're so right. Like if it was all it was easy. And every time I tried something, it worked and I won, then it would be lame. What makes it so great is that it is hard that I do fail that it does. I get frustrated. Like I think that us as humans understanding that in all aspects, not just fitness, but obviously fitness too, is so powerful. It's so powerful just to, cause then when you're in those moments, cause they're

inevitable in anything that you do, you embrace it more, you allow it to happen and you go, this sucks right now. Or challenge. Yeah. No, you go, this sucks right now. Or challenge. Yeah, no, this is shitty, I don't like it. But the fact is, if it didn't have this part of it either, then the good side of it wouldn't be as good. So I was thinking about this

and its relation to finding purpose and why religion in particular is so good. It's actually the ultimate way that we found in the data, this is secular data, at finding purpose. It's because your aim is at this infinite good. You can't ever catch it. You'll never be as good as him. However, it comes with, especially in the most popular

faith in Western societies, which is Christianity, it comes with ultimate grace at the same time. Because you'll always fail. You're always gonna fail. And nobody likes to fail, but you're getting grace along the way and you're aiming for something that you'll always fail. You're always gonna fail. And nobody likes to fail, but you're getting grace along the way and you're aiming for something that you'll never accomplish. So it gives you this ultimate sense of purpose.

Really interesting. It's a system that we have that is geared towards progress and that system breaks down and dissolves when you arrive. So there was a quote I heard. It was, woe to the man who accomplishes his dreams only to realize he dreamed the wrong thing. Oh boy, oh boy, that's a terrible place to be. You know what I mean?

No, no, such a good point. I'm gonna bring it back to the salt because you brought salt up and it just triggered something that I wanted to talk to you guys about. So I'm changing my pool to salt water right now. Oh, your swimming pool. Yeah, I'm about to. So you were saying off air, easy conversion for you.

Yeah, yeah, luckily it is. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. My pool guy said that we have the setup to make it pretty easy and it was very inexpensive for me. So why, is it just because chlorine's messing with your skin? Yeah, I'm already ultra sensitive to it. So it was something I should do

no matter how expensive it was gonna be. I should make the investment considering I have a pool now. But what really tipped me over was, and I saw this, I saw a clip and they were touting some study and I was like, no fucking way, it can't be that crazy. And so then I went down the rabbit hole, Googling and looking it up and I found a little bit conflicting with what it said, but most all of it was 60 to 80 percent and this this podcast thing I don't remember when I first saw it but they were saying that they did a study where they basically chlorinated a pool with the amount of whatever amount I don't

remember what the measurement was and then everybody swam in it for like an hour then they tested the pool again all the chlorine was. Meaning that it got all absorbed into their skin. And then I was like, that's crazy. That much gets, we are- Really? So within 15 minutes of being in a pool, your body eats up, and this is where there's a little bit of 60 to 80% of the chlorine.

Your body absorbs it all? Yes. I've never heard of that. Yes. I heard some weird facts. That's weird. The smell of chlorine is really like the main smell of it is really just urine. That's an old trick to get your mom to your mom told you to so you don't piss in the pool dog. That's what that is. That's like the old blue dye. You know what I'm saying? When your mom used to tell

you that like sure don't piss in the pool or else it's like if you blue dye. You know what I'm saying? When your mom used to tell you that. I'm sure. Don't piss in the pool, or else it'd be like, if you smell chlorine, son, that means someone's pissing in the pool. You're like, if you smell that, and it's really pungent, there's probably a lot of piss in the pool. Yes, the body absorbs chlorine when swimming in a chlorinated pool. See, that one says 64%.

I've read everywhere between 60% and 82% was it. Your body absorbs approximately 64% of the chlorine it comes in contact with. Yes. So within 15 minutes, it was sucking up 60. Hold on a second, what would that do to the body? Bro, and it doesn't just expel it.

That's the worst. In your skin? Yes, yes. Does it go into your bloodstream? Does that kill your microbiome? Well, it definitely kills the microbiome. Yeah, I went on the rabbit hole all the long term. It's not good, let's put it that way.

It is not good. I didn't realize that at all. And, okay, so shout out to whoever it was who DM'd me. I actually had a couple people DM me the same thing about the spraying the, what was it on my skin? The vitamin C. Oh yeah, vitamin C. So I'm ordering that so I can get that.

I know you can make it at home, but I'll just, I just bought, found something to buy it. And then on top of that, I'm also gonna go to salt water. After I read that, I was just like, that can't, bro, your skin taking up that much chlorine in 15 minutes and my little son swimming in it all time like that. Doug, what does chlorine do in the body when you absorb it? I know. Yeah, I mean there's all kinds of symptoms here. I mean those are the ones I'm, you know, I understand like your skin gets irritated, you're a little messed up. But that's weird, I didn't know that.

You're absorbing it? I know, I didn't either. Well that makes me not wanna go on a boy. That's a creepy fact, that sucks. I mean again, this is the cool part about salt water, right? So even salt water uses a little bit of chlorine. They don't use, it's very minimal. They still have to use some.

Yeah, they still have to use some, it's very minimal. Like our jacuzzi in Tahoe and Barsetti are both salt water, but they still use a couple tablespoons of chlorine versus the ones that are like the other ones they use like jugs of that shit. So a lot. And then the thing that yours like your skin is like a sponge to it. It just like sucks it all up. Will that make it easier to swim in your pool too right? Because it's more buoyant? Because of the salt? Yeah. Yeah, salt does that. I should. I mean it does when I do a salt bath, I can feel it. Oh no, it always does that.

For example, one of my bucket list things is to go to the Dead Sea and float on it. What a stupid thing. That's so cool. Well, no it's not, it's cool. I wanna go all the way to the Dead Sea just so I can float on top of the water. Yeah, dude.

No, hey listen. It's so random. Salt lake. I don't think it's got as much salt in it. You don't think so? No, dude. Look up Salt Lake. I mean, yeah, Dead Sea is ridiculous.

Yeah, because my aunt and uncle, first of all, I'd go to Israel for many other reasons, but I wanna go. Yeah, but it just sounds funny, you say it like, I'm gonna fly all the way over, there's like a float in some water. Don't you think that's cool? I'm like, bro, I'll just throw some salt in a bath,

I'll just do the same thing. Dude, my aunt said she went in there, and she's like, if you're not careful, you can't get your feet back down to the sand to walk back She's like you'll float and then you'll be stuck. Yeah, dude. That's float so high on the water Well, I know how it is those deprivation tanks right like that you go That's a weird that's a good example of what it feels like. Oh look at the difference 34% in the Dead Sea Great Salt Lake is 5 to 27 percent depending on the season, so you're not even getting close.

Yeah, that's good, that's gonna be fair enough. What Justin said is, yeah, would probably trump all that. If you go in a float tank, I bet you that's more powerful than any of them. We've all done that. You guys do that with us? Yeah, and you're like super boring on that. I thought that was so fun.

You can't even, you couldn't sink to the bottom if you tried, so that's how boring you are on that. I had a friend, I changed subject, I had a friend I was talking to yesterday who had a little concern because their friend is gonna put their younger kid on ADHD medication. And I'm diagnosed with ADHD, so we were talking about this. And they're like, what do you think about kids

being on these? And I'm not a doctor, so this is just my personal opinion, but I think we're being a little bit, I don't think we're being honest if we don't think it's going to impact the modeling of the brain, the growing brain, because you have medications that alter the chemistry of the brain, either through dopamine or through other ways,

dopamine the most common one, right, like Ritalin. And it's got to change the way the brain develops because of this higher exposure to dopamine. I find it interesting. It's really interesting. Well, I mean, Ritalin and Adderall is like crystal meth, isn't it? They're related, yeah, they're methamphetamines.

Yeah, it's just a controlled dose of it. I mean, it's the same thing of what OxyContin is to heroin, right? I mean, it's just it's just a controlled dose of it. I mean, it's the same thing of what oxycontin is to heroin, right? I mean, it's very similar to this So the idea of giving a kid a drug like that and by the way I'll never forget the first time I tried that I was in my 30s. Yeah, so I never I've never had anything like that Although I thought that I've had ADD of the you and I both have talked about that I remember the first time I think it took a five milligram

I don't know what the low the low low dose is Holy shit was that and to think that we give that to children. Well, what kills me is it's like a lot of times It's I mean, okay, of course, there's gonna be severe cases and we're you know, we do need medications So I'm not like dismissing that but but just to get a kid to sit still, that's the entire goal, is just to have them do nothing and sit there, adjust your education, adjust your entire plan, make it interactive, push back on the teachers to do a better job.

What's the percentage of boys versus girls on ADHD medication? Oh, guys, you have to be way higher. the other thing that, so I was actually looking at this also, Sal, and the other thing that I was curious about was just how much the amount of iPad and video gaming and YouTube exacerbates this in kids. And what I found, which was very alarming to me, was how little research we have to show that and in fact If you just google search it it tries to dispel that really quick Like if I was a norm just a normal dad or mom who heard that and you want anyone went does give video games

Good for my kid who's got ADHD with that like they don't Every with everything that pops up does not say anything bad whatsoever and I just think that that's crazy to me. I think the thought that these things that that get that program your kid to want to keep doing it want to do it want to do it in loops has no change in their brain chemistry or their potential behavior. You mean it you really think that like I don't need a fucking study to show me that I can I've seen it firsthand in my own son brain chemistry or their potential behavior. You mean it? You really think that? Like, I don't need a fucking study to show me that I can. I've seen it firsthand in my own son, what it looks like when that's in his life and when it's not his life. And it's obvious.

I can observe things. Yeah. So if you Google it right now, Google, Google video games and ADHD and what they, what they do say is that kids that have ADHD are more likely to potentially get addicted to video games, but not that video game playing and screen time has any sort of correlation to. I know people, I know kids who grew up with some trauma, much higher rates of ADD, ADHD. Some people would say it's like a learned trauma response in some cases, I've read that before. I think it's interesting because,

now there's always extreme cases, like there are for lots of different things, but school is not designed at all for the kid who needs to move while they learn. And there's adults like this. Which is most boys, like come on. Yeah, so that's a lot of the fuel behind it, is my kid needs to sit still.

That's it. Okay, so imagine that, and then, okay, anybody who has seen Cocoa Melon, or watched any sort of, name the Mario Brothers video game, whatever, any of those things, and the amount of lights and movement and screen cutting and it's, it is, it's sucking, it sucks the brain in. And so you, you have a classroom that sits the little boy down all day long to where he's

not moving, but twice a day for 15 minutes or 30 minutes for recess or what that, and he's having to keep his attention. Then he gets home and he's in front of these YouTube channels that are screen cutting like crazy. So his brain's firing a million times mile faster while his body is sitting still all day long. And you don't think that changes shit up? What?

I also think this, how able are you guys? I'll just ask you guys, alright? Obviously successful men, built businesses, you guys have families. Let me ask you this, how hard is it for you to pay attention when you're sitting down and learning stuff you don't wanna learn? Can you pay attention when you're learning boring shit?

Or stuff you're not into? What, like, I feel like that's normal. So if my kid is sitting in class, if my kid's sitting in class and they're being, you gotta learn this, you gotta learn this. And then my kid's like, I'm not interested in that. When I'm not interested in something, good luck. Well, and Sal, back to my point.

And then I think that's exacerbated when the tech they're getting is feeding that dopamine hit so fast, so hard all the time. So it's like, when I'm not at school, I get these constant dopamine hits like crazy in my video game, in my YouTube channel that I watch all day long. Then my mom and dad want me to sit in a classroom that I got to learn about boring history or boring whatever. Like no wonder they can't sit still for that hour because they're just thinking of where else they can get it next. Yes. Where

can I get that? And so maybe there's not a direct correlation between the diagnosis of ADHD and video games but you cannot tell me that allowing kids to be on YouTube and allowing kids to be watching things like Coco melon to be doing things like that like that and then and non-stop screen time and then put them in a school setting and then not think that that's not making it worse is crazy wasn't So I know we had the creator for brain FM on the show a long time ago And he was talking about this big initiative to create Like FDA get approval for them to be be a viable option instead of taking 80 ADHD Medication I don't know the way the way I look at it is viable option instead of taking ADHD medication.

I don't know, the way I look at it is, first of all, if I'm doing something, if I'm being told to do something that I'm not interested in, it's very hard for me to pay attention. I think it's true for everybody. I think that's true for anybody. For me, definitely very true.

Good luck. You're sitting in a class all day long. Classrooms are not designed in particular for boys. I wanted you to look up, Doug, like boys versus girls on ADHD. I know it's much higher. Not only that, too. And also, you're going to put them on medicine, which is altering their brain chemistry. That's the point. That's what it does. Their brain is still modeling. It's still building. And there are certain permanent things that happen

that you're building as a kid and adolescent until you hit the age of like 25, right? And those, you can't change much afterwards. That's why you can learn languages as a kid and not have an accent. And so what you're gonna do is you're gonna flood the brain with certain chemicals. That's gonna affect the long-term development

of that brain, it has to. And why do we have to look at this like it's a deficiency? This could be a superpower. You know how many entrepreneurs that I know are very aware they have ADHD? Find what their interest is and watch what happens to them. That's right. And they attribute their success to their ADHD. And a lot of them will say that. They'll say like, I'm very aware that I have this, and I've learned to focus it on the things that I'm into, and now I have a superpower.

It's like, instead of, but no, let's take a drug that's gonna like, just kill that. Three times as many boys as girls. Let's look this up. What percentage of entrepreneurs have ADHD versus the regular population? I believe it's 80. It's crazy. It's much higher.

I believe it's 80, it's real high. It's a much higher percentage. It's a superpower. We're teaching these kids the things that they have a problem. We all have varied degrees, it's real high. It's a much higher percentage. It's a superpower. We're teaching these kids the things that they have a problem. You don't have varied degrees. They're bad, but it's like, no, they're doing shit they don't like doing.

And then again, I'm adding the video game thing because I just think that exacerbates all this. It makes that kid really difficult to sit still. What is it? It's 20, 30%. And then Doug, look up the average population. What percentage do you have? It's much higher for entrepreneurs, I know that. Yeah, I percentage you have, it's much higher for entrepreneurs.

I know that. Yeah, I don't know, it's an interesting conversation to me. And I know that there's varying degrees, I get that, but I know that, I know diet affects it, I know it does for me, I know for people around me. Yeah, look, 4% versus 20% or 30%. So, okay. Diet, exercise makes a big difference.

You take these boys that are having trouble sitting down and have them do things that are active. I didn't even add that and that's another talking point too. It's like if you allow your kid to eat highly processed foods and sugars and stuff. Have you seen food dyes in connection? Yes. You talked about noticing a difference in your kids behavior by having the red dye. So okay, so think of that as a good kid, right? He's got, he's got school that is boring as shit. He's got to sit down on his own. He's got parents that are super busy. And so he's on screen a lot. The stuff he's watching on screen is explosions, fast move, Cocoa Melon type shit and video games jumping all over the place. And so he's

getting hours of that a day. And then on top of that, he's feeding himself processed foods and food dyes and things like that. And then like we're mad at him because he can't sit through fucking biology or whatever the kid is learning at that age, history or whatever that is like boring as hell for an hour. Like, no kidding. It's boring for me. It's boring for me.

You know what's crazy to me is we don't think about this with animals. If you have a dog that you keep inside all day long and then you bring him to the vet and you're like, this dog's crazy. He's jumping on the furniture. Chewed up my shit. He's chewing on things.

What'd they say to you? And the dog's like. Did you excise him? Are you taking him outside? No. Oh, he's got ADD. No, it's gonna be like, dude, get him outside. Medicated.

Sedate him. I know, dude. So many things, so many problems that we're medicating are really just symptoms of a lifestyle that just. Okay, so as parents, okay, list off the things that at all costs you're trying to avoid. I understand Justin made the point,

he covered our bases for there's exceptions to the rule or there's gonna be somebody who I understand, right for the most part as a dad right well like antibiotics the Adderall like one of the things that we've we're giving to kids that we just are you know laws a fair by yeah handing them out like candy that you think about as parents like at all cost like by the way if my kid needed a life or death thing to take an antibiotic, my kid's getting an antibiotic, I'm gonna give it to him. But then at the same time too,

if I can do it the natural way, any way possible, I'm not gonna give him an antibiotic. That's one. Or even like pain medication. I mean, I've seen it with other parents and there's like just a skin knee and they're given, immediately given them pain medication. Like what are you doing?

We're setting them up for long-term codependence to this. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think it's really interesting. I think we're in a society where we see symptoms of poor health and the solution is to medicate it, not to address the poor. It's the first thought. Not to address the poor health.

And I mean, and kids are not doing great. Although I will say this this they are trying now to reduce the amount of prescriptions for These methamphetamines for kids because people are calling it out. Like this is a lot you guys We're gonna put that many kids on these drugs these addictive drugs that really affect dopamine system I definitely think that any parent before you put your kid on that, you should fucking take a couple of those pills.

And by the way, you should take double whatever you give your kid, because your kid is a quarter the size you are. Take it and then actually think about if you want to give your kid that. To me, that's a good challenge. Like you want to give your kid this prescription. You know that they weigh about, whatever,

40 to 80 pounds, whatever their range is, you weigh double or triple that, so whatever your weight is, you take two to three times the dose that they want your kid to take, and then just fucking think about that. Like just, that's how powerful that stuff is. I would love to see what percentage of kids who are homeschooled are on medication

versus those in school. Because I wonder how many parents who homeschool their kids just change the way that they teach their kids based off of the fact that, you know, my son has a tough time when I try to do it this way, so I'm gonna do it this other way. Well, and also it's more intentional because they're working with them constantly, right?

So they have that allotted time spent with them versus like, I think this probably happens a lot more with the parents that are both working or both, you know what I mean? What's the stat on that? That'd be an interesting status. How many of the kids on that are both working, or both. You know what I mean? What's the stat on that? That'd be an interesting status. How many of the kids on ADHD have both working parents that are busy like that?

I wonder. You know, you were talking earlier about the entertainment that is geared towards children, like Cocoa Melon stuff. My kids, my wife's really, really strict about TV and entertainment, but the one thing my kids can watch in limited amounts of is Mr. Rogers. Yeah, you said that. And Mr. But the one thing my kids can watch in limited amounts of

is Mr. Rogers. Yeah, you said that. And Mr. Rogers, if you watch it now, it is painfully slow in comparison to TV for kids now. It is painfully slow. And my kids can't handle more than 30 minutes max, and then they wanna turn it off, because they're like, let's go do something else.

But if I put a YouTube children's show on there, they'll watch that for hours. I shared this with you guys with the original Nintendo. I noticed that with regular Nintendo with Max. So Max can't play any new video games. Well it ends too. It ends. Oh yeah, you die.

It's just boring as shit. Yeah, there's not an endless loop. You get three lives. If you ruin those three lives in a short amount of time, it's like, you gotta start over. It's not an endless loop. You get three lives. If you ruin those three lives in a short amount of time, it's like, yeah, start over. It's not visually stimulating. It's like they barely had figured the graphics out. So the science that has gone into video gaming

wasn't there yet. So if he wants to play video games, yeah, let's go upstairs and play. And I swear to God, every time we stop playing, I'm not done playing. I'm ready, I wanna keep playing. He's like, I'm over it, dad. Like, he's not interested.

But you let him sit with his friend who's playing like the new games that these kids play I'll sit there for he'll sit there for as long as you let him sit there It's the sandbox versus a real, you know The old school physics is what was highlighted in that right and he had to figure out like You know what the best combo was and it was a really frustrating But what it taught you was like overcoming challenges, which I don't think that's stressed at all in these new video games.

It's just literally how long can we keep them all there so we can capitalize on this. Such a great point, Justin. The old games stress the physics, the challenge, the not giving up, keep doing it over and over again, because if Mario, you couldn't figure out how to do that, you had to do it a thousand times over. The other game is it's designed to give you rewards

and keep you coming back in the open loop thing. By the way, it's not because old game designers were like these altruistic. No, they just didn't know yet. They just didn't figure out how to make it. They didn't know. This is what we knew, yeah. No, no, yeah, they didn't know any better.

It's just no different than when we first created Process Foods. It wasn't like, let's get everyone addicted to this. It was literally like. Oh, more people are eating this. Yeah, yeah, it was probably, it was actually rooted in probably something very good. And then we realized like, oh wow, people were becoming a little addicted to this. How can we manipulate that? And how can we make more money? That's why I prefer old games too. I'm the same way. It's just like, I feel like

they'll walk away from it because it's like, it's frustrating. You suck at it and then you get better and then you get excited. Cause it's like, oh my God, actually you like accomplish something. You never feel you accomplish something. These new games. No, it just then you get better and then you get excited because it's like oh my god actually like accomplish something You never feel you accomplish something these new games No, no, I just pull it just pulls you in like, you know I want to I'm gonna change directions and bring up our our new Group training that we're doing coming up. That's right. We got we got another we got two groups We're gonna open up. So we did an experiment with this and it turned out so well I think we're gonna continue doing this

So well, we did we did we did the original GLP one had great feedback from that then the the boys ran another group which is almost almost done transform which we've had incredible groups of 50 people essentially it's around 50 people you get in there and you get coached by mind pump trainers and they meet with you weekly and they coach you through your fitness journey. And the two groups we're gonna do, one is for muscle gain and the other one's for fat loss.

We have two groups this time, running at the same time. So if you're interested in fat loss, we have one, and if you're interested in just building muscle, we have another one. And we keep the groups small on purpose because we want good service, but we doubled that we could do two groups now because we have more trainers now.

We're slowly adding trainers to our roster. So we now have two groups that we're gonna be running. So fat loss and muscle gain. We have to bring up that stat though. Was it like the average was like two inches around the waist? Yeah, the average person in our last group, which was a combination,

they went through a reverse diet, then a cut, and they're not done yet. So that was like, to me the average person lost two and a half inches around their waist. Pretty awesome. And that's mostly through the reverse diet. No, no, it's been exciting.

So this is mindpumpgroupcoaching.com is where you can go sign up. But it's only 50 people for each. After that, we're done. But we'll run another group later on for maybe another goal. I thought I saw Doug did you scroll down oh yeah do we have Ned as a commercial today? Oh I gotta tell you guys with Ned man I got to tell you I haven't used cannabis in so long right but Ned has really become a great

way for me to get that kind of euphoric feeling that I'm looking for. I can add to that. Yeah so I'll use Ned when I'm trying to be creative or in a social setting in some ways. And I'll use it. Do you think you feel more of it because you're not smoking and so you have? And it's also cleaner, it's not like I'm high, I'm not like that, but I get this nice,

calm euphoric feeling from the NED. Is it the one they call de-stress? So I like all of them, but I typically will use just the regular net Yeah so that one I Because I've been trying to scale off of like taking edibles and like you know the whole thing before because it did help me Sleep and it helped me calm down the end of the night

So just been doing drops of of the de-stress is you know instead of that and you know first there's a little bit of a You know a big difference. I didn't feel it, but then like over you know the a week of doing this now It's like oh I get in that state and it's starting to kind of really kind of take it's like yeah I'm getting this nice you I get a nice euphoric feeling from that nice calm euphoric feeling It's and it's it's hemp its hemp oil I think you feel it no matter what even if you actually do smoke like I do But I actually think that it's probably more obvious when you're completely off.

I imagine that you probably feel a lot more of it. Yeah, and again, I don't get the negative effects. It's not cannabis, so I'm not hammering my body with THC or whatever, so. Mm-hmm. Elemente is the best electrolyte powder in the world. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar, and the right amount of sodium.

Go through our link, drinkelementt.com forward slash mind pump, and get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is James from California. What's up, James? What's happening? Hey, how's it going, guys?

We're doing good, how are you? Oh, excellent. I really just wanna say I've been really inspired by your podcast and the pumps anabolic and it's been very informative. Listen to your podcast on the commute every day and inspirational. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. You got it. What you got for us James. Oh, so you got my in my in my email I sent pretty much a 52 old man, um, athletic, I would consider and pretty out there as far as doing cycling and surfing etc.

And since I turned 50, um, so my belly's getting bigger. And so I've been working for the past couple months on dumping almost like 200 grams of protein into my into my body. I weigh 235. And I just came up with that number randomly because I want to get a bit lighter on my feet on my surfboard and get rid of the belly fat. I also want to of course, be looking better but function and faction as far as being stronger upper body having more of a chest and so I've been lifting three nights a week going

very low reps very low weight and then also doing a bunch of pick classes or aerobic classes and I know it's a marathon not a sprint but I've been going at this for about two months and specific questions are, you know, going from 235 to 200, but yet wanting to get a bigger chest and shoulders and more of an upper body for function and fashion. You know, is that number makes sense at all or? The 200 grams makes sense, but let's back up on the programming right now. So let me make sure I get everything clear.

You're you're lifting weights three times a week plus you're doing hit classes. And then are you also doing the running and swimming and surfing and all the other stuff in addition to that? Yeah on the weekends. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

We're not gonna build a chest like that James. Are you are you are you following any of our programs? I was I had the maps out of ballot cause I never lifted weights before and my awesome roommate, she got me this, she got me this, the program and I didn't know how to lift weights. So I've been following it, but not to the T.

I've been going in and doing everything to do with chest, biceps and shoulders, low reps, like eight to 12, three sets, not going to fail. I'm talking like just the Olympic bar, like really slow, just getting the most out of it. Yeah, no, that's not gonna work. So, okay, so follow MAPS Anabolic as it's laid out. The intensity does need to be a little higher, okay?

So it does need to be a struggle as you're working out. In other words, if it says eight reps, the eighth rep is a struggle. Now you might be able to squeeze one or two more out, but the eighth one is a struggle. If you don't have sufficient intensity, it's not going to do much for you. And then we would want you to eliminate the HIIT cardio classes. Now your weekends, keep that up. You love doing that. But stay away from all the HIIT cardio type. Now your weekends, keep that up. You love doing that.

But stay away from all the HIIT cardio type of stuff and just focus on the strength training. And then let's get to the diet part. You're eating 200 grams of protein a day. What does that look like? Okay, so in the morning, one glass of Metamucil, no protein, but one to two cups of Greek yogurt with no sugar, with some blueberries, and one like Aussie bite, yogurt with no sugar with some blueberries and one

like Aussie bite, like a little cereal crunchy thing. It's got eight grams of sugar. Um, so I haven't measuring it. I know I need to, but that's almost like 20 grams of protein, maybe 30 with the, with the nonfat Greek yogurt. And then, um, a cup of coffee with plain cream or milk, but I've been looking at, cause I'm a surfer. I'm a big fan of Laird Hamilton, but I know you I just discovered you guys have the paleo valley, but some sort of protein coffee supplement. Okay. And then liquids. I'm starting the day off. I have a three quart jug of water that put tea bags in. So I'm drinking that by the end of the day as far as liquids, one or two sparkling waters, one or two cups of hot tea, and I throw in one of those Fair Life chocolate protein drinks,

you know, this is all Costco materials, that's 30 grams of protein, so like I'm at 50. Then at lunch, I learned this by watching Bobby Fisher shopping at Costco, but it's two cans of tuna with a couple cottage cheese, or it's two cans of sardines with a small hunk of cheese, or it's one can of chicken with 30 grams of protein. So the two cans of tuna is 60. The two cans of sardines is 44. The one can of chicken is 30. And then I'll add two hard boiled eggs to any one of those for 12 grams. Okay. And then dinner, let's just get kind of boring and not sustainable,

it's two frozen salmon burgers or one large burger, right? Those two salmon burgers are 40 grams of protein, the large burgers about 20 grams and with either of those, another two hard-boiled eggs at 12 grams. And then you guys, one of your podcasts, the proteins, you know, the five, whatever the podcast was, it was great. But, um, uh, eat the proteins first, then, then the veggies, et cetera, then the starch. So I'll have a salad with cheese and occasionally those burgers may end up between two slices of homemade sourdough bread and a handful of chips so yeah that's my protein intake for the day. Do you know what your total calories are averaging? I have not totaled the calories. So what I what I want you to do is stick to whole natural foods for

this to work which means also avoiding shakes. The reason why we tell people hit high protein, well there's a few reasons, but one of them, especially when you're trying to lose weight, is it produces satiety. But when you take it in supplement form like shakes and powders, you lose a lot of that effect. Powders and shakes are good for people who struggle with hitting their calories. But for people who want to cut or lose weight, whole natural foods is going to do that much more effectively.

That also means no bread, no chips. You're going to eat things like potato, rice, meat, fruit, vegetables. Yeah, sweet potatoes. Sweet potato, yam, that kind of stuff. If you stick to just whole foods, so foods that are one ingredient, so salmon burger, I don't know if you're making it yourself, no you're buying them, they're frozen, so it's a bit more processed, right? So like salmon, just salmon would be more whole. Now the other option, if you don't want to go that route, would be to have to track your calories so we can see what you're consuming on a regular basis And then go from there because with without whole natural foods, it's it's people tend to overeat and

Then the workout part stick to maps anabolic don't do the hit cardio and then on the weekends go into your activities That's where I'd start. That's where I'd start with you James how different is the the current diet than kind of how you were eating just say a month or two ago All right, you said you've been doing this for two months So take me back three four months ago, like how radically different is this this this food intake compared to what you used to eat? Thanks great question. Yeah my whole life. I've just eaten whatever I wanted pretty much and it's usually been yogurt and some you know, like Pretty much and usually been yogurt and some you know like

Cereal with the yogurt. It's been Trader Joe's salad salads Caesar salads, etc And then dinner is just kind of in random whatever you know, yeah, whatever A lot of pastas really late night, which I know is bad, but I've never put thought to it up until like January. Yeah, that helps. I mean, that helps me a lot. The reason why I asked that, we just recorded an episode that we're gonna, I think release in a couple of weeks here that we're talking about, there was two trainers

and how we take a client, say like yourself and the step, step one, what do we do? Step two, step three. And one of the mistakes as a young early trainer we would make is, you know, sit down with a guy like you and go like, all right, here's your calories, here's your macros, eat these foods and radically shift you from what you've done your whole life to all of a sudden something totally different.

And the reason why this doesn't work, now it may work temporarily, but why it doesn't work long term is it's so unrealistic from how you ate. And so what I'd do instead is I'd find out kind of how you ate and then I would make one or two tweaks. I'd go, okay James that's okay right there but let's just add this to that and that's better or let's eliminate this and trade that for that. But keeping things similar but slowly modifying in the direction of eating the way I need you to eat in order to hit these goals because if I don't do it that way, you do this like, oh I could do this, I switch

over and then you're eating all these foods you're not used to eating and you're not seeing the results fast enough and eventually what happens is the client throws their arms up and say well F this, I don't look any better or feel any better than when I did three months ago eating whatever the hell I wanted and that was way less stress and less work and then they go back the other direction. The other thing to consider is if we're eating in a calorie surplus and hitting our grams of protein and hoping to build our chest but then we're doing activity like hit cardio and moving and trying to burn all the time, they're like conflicting goals.

One of them is trying to burn and lose and lose and the other ones to you know build muscle and the body doesn't do that at the same time. It's either in it's either anabolic meaning it's already it's trying to build muscle or it's catabolic it's trying to break down and burn body fat and so we want to make sure the way we're eating and training kind of aligns so that you get the most out of your results. So one of the things I would like to do if you're open to it is I'd love to put you in the private forum so that as we're going through this process the guys and I can kind of step you through it on kind of how we would do this. Are you on Facebook? Can I do that? Yeah that'd be great. I appreciate that. I guess you know walking not crazy like afterwards eating

after you eat you know been doing that but I guess I guess I'm not knowledgeable although I'm learning you know yeah I want to I want to I want to build for looks and also for surf training and being stronger you know but but I also enjoy the cardio so I love to do cycling and cross-country skiing and in the in the in the classes I enjoy the cardio. So I love to do cycling and cross country skiing and the classes. I enjoy the classes, kickboxing, etc. It's been good to get me. I don't want to but you're saying that those two make, make things not work out as far as building muscle and that they conflict each other.

They do. And so it's not that we have to eliminate it forever. It's that okay, hey, let's let's focus on a goal So let's say you again, let's say I you hired me and we just got started and we agreed Okay, you can you give me the vision and I can see what you want You're like you want to lean down that waist But we want broad shoulders and a chest and be strong and you want to be athletic and be able to do these sports Look and feel good all the above but when we go about it just like building a house look and feel good, all the above. But when we go about it, just like building a house, you know, you tell me you want this the big beautiful vaulted ceilings and

the French doors and all stuff that, and I'm like, hey we got to lay the foundation first. Let's go build the foundation and then I'm gonna get, I'm gonna build you that house but we're not, we're not focusing on the French doors and the vaulted ceilings when we haven't even laid the foundation yet. And so that's kind of what we would want to do first is like, okay, let's build some muscle and let's build your metabolism. Let's do that first because that's what's going to benefit this look and this athleticism that you want. And so the way we're going to go about that is hitting that protein intake, doing it through whole natural foods,

and getting strong in the gym. And that means we're not going to waste a lot of time doing HIIT cardio and all this extra activity. Now Sal made a point to say hey if you love you know your stuff on the weekends we never want to take that from a client so even though it's not really serving us on the building muscle part it's something you love to do and you've been doing it forever there's no reason for us to eliminate that because it's a part of your lifestyle but anything you're doing outside of your normal lifestyle in order to get these goals right now should be primarily focused just on building muscle

and building your metabolism first. And so that's hitting the grams of protein, doing it through whole foods, lifting two to three times a week, getting strong, pushing the weights to get strong. That's gonna lay the best foundation for you and then we start to structure the rest of the house. Just gonna prioritize it so it's a block

where this is our focus right now of building muscle and then we start to structure the rest of the house. Just got to prioritize it. So it's a block where this is our focus right now of building muscle. And then we can build upon that, the endurance and, you know, get back to, you know, a little bit more of those other styles of training that you'd probably prefer, but to get you stronger and really maximize your muscle potential, you have to prioritize that first. Build the muscle first, then cardio next. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

James, have you ever, I know this, you're just now getting into weight training. Have you ever considered maybe hiring a trainer to actually take you through all this stuff? Yeah, I, I, I have, I have, and my gym's up at college of San Mateo and those, that staff up there is incredible. And so I gotta give a shout out to them and I may hire one one of their trainers because they're they've been very inspirational and awesome. But I don't teach your salary. Yeah, I get it. You don't even buy here. God do it on my own with with your program and stuff. But the nutrition I think is really, you know, it's going to be the hard part. What's sustainable the next year, the next five years, you know, what

and getting this 200 grams of protein into my mouth each day has been sort of like, wow, I almost feel like I'm overeating. It's like work. It's gonna feel like that even more if you stick to whole natural foods. With the trainer, you wouldn't, you know, for someone like you, if it is a large investment,

work with them with the intention of learning the exercises, the technique, and feeling comfortable with them is how I would do it. Yeah it's not not hiring them like get me all the way to my goal it's more like let's learn as much. Here's this program you know I'm following it I really want to be able to do am I doing this right and if they say no okay well what do I need to do to be able to do this right what is it supposed to feel like like get comfortable with the movements and the intensity so that you can move forward. James, do you know about our askmindpump.com or AI?

I don't. Okay, you'll love that, man. So every time you have a question related to anything, nutrition, exercise, whatever, if you go to askmindpump.com, it's an AI tool that we built years ago, and it will actually respond as if you're talking to one of us.

And then it'll also recommend episodes and YouTube clips where we go deep into that conversation. So as you're going through this and you have questions about anything, we've probably got the content up there. You just go to askmindpump.com. And so if we're talking about doing this as inexpensive as we can but getting the best bang for your buck and the most knowledge, the forum I'm gonna put you in there for free so we can we can be close to you and then the second thing I'd say is go to askmindpump.com and use that resource with our program and then follow the

programs as they're laid out, trust that process and then when you have questions either post them in the forum for us to respond to you or use askminepub.com and then we're gonna do our best to help you through this process. I greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys, thanks for the inspiration. Yeah, thank you. Keep it up, James.

He's never strange to him before. Yeah. He's part of the challenge. Totally. Yeah, as he was explaining it, just figuring, just learning what it should feel like alone. It's a big hurdle to him. Huge difference, yeah.

And then, you know, this is good, this is good for us to hear when somebody listens to our show for not a long period of time, who has no experience, to hear what they think we're communicating. So he heard the get protein, which is true, but a lot of the ways he was doing it was with shakes and stuff and he's trying to lose weight. And he also was really trying to structure and figure out, like, this is what I'm eating

every day. In fact, he made that comment. He was going for convenience, which is understandable. And he also made the comment, like, oh, this is getting kind of boring. You're like, all right. That's what I heard. So right away, that's why I jumped on that because I was like, man, this is getting kind of boring. You're like, all right. That's what I heard. So right away, that's why I jumped on that because I was like, man, this is, and we talk about this.

This is why we don't put somebody, take somebody who's never really tried to follow a meal plan to putting them on a meal plan. It's just unsustainable. Instead, I would peer into his breakfast, let's say for example, and go- Beef it up. Yeah, and what he's been doing consistently.

Instead of radically changing it, I'm just gonna tweak it. I'm gonna add something to it or maybe trade something out, but try and keep it close to what he's been doing consistently. Instead of radically changing it, I'm just gonna tweak it. I'm gonna add something to it or maybe trade something out but try and keep it close to what he's done his whole life because that's more realistic with someone like this. All of a sudden you tell this guy, deep cans of tuna and frozen salmon, I mean that's only gonna last so long.

I mean even if he gets good results from that, he ain't doing that shit for the rest of his life. Yeah, tuna and cottage cheese. I wouldn't say,'t keep that up. So, I mean, hopefully, and to the audience that's listening, I got to get back to, I mean, I know when we launched it, we talked about it a lot, but we haven't really talked about it, and we're obviously getting thousands and thousands of new people every day practically coming in here.

So ask mindpump.com. And let me tell you, it's been so wild to watch it. I don't know how often you guys get on there or not, but it's evolved over the last four years. Like it just keeps getting better. It was great from the jump, but now it's like really, really good. Well, we keep adding content, so it helps to beef it up. Yeah, no, so if you're not sure, use that.

And then this is also an example. I know he's a teacher, but man, if this is something you're really serious about, you wanna make a change for the rest of your life, probably one of the best investments you could ever make. Period. Yeah, period. Yeah. I mean, just you work with a trainer for three, four months to navigate forward. You know, to start with the right foot, it'll save him years of struggle. Yeah. Our next caller

is Kyle from Texas. What's up Kyle. Welcome back. Not a whole lot. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I had originally asked the question about getting more, um, Cardiovascular endurance, being able to run more, uh, while still gaining muscle. Uh, this is about three or four months ago. You guys had suggested, um, just running maybe two or three times a week, two times a week.

And you know, while I'm weight training so that I don't take away from the weight training, uh, but can still increase that. And that's basically what I've done. I've really just done one longer run once a week and my time has continually gotten less and I've continued to gain muscle. So all right. Yeah. Good job, man. How's it? So tell us a little more. Yeah. Uh, is weight maintaining or are you like, have you checked body fat at all? Like, what do you, what do you, what are you seeing? What do you notice? Uh, according to, according to the scale, if it can, you know, the, it has the sensors that sense the bottom of your feet, if it

can sense through my leathery soles, the body fat stayed about the same, right around 26% or so, which I know is high. I'm going to work on getting that down here eventually. I started my story. I don't know, I started working out regularly in August of last year and I always waffled between 190 and 200 pounds and felt overweight at 26% body. I felt like I get sore. I have a sit down job after everything up until two years ago. I always

was in an active job. And so I was between 190 and 200. And once I started exercising regularly I gained about 40 pounds. So I went up to, I'm about 230 pounds right now, between 225 and 230, and I feel a whole lot better, and I still fit in the same clothes, except some shirts, my back won't fit in. But it's not my stomach anymore, it's my back. Yeah, okay. Big old lats. All right, good, and you were following Maths 15, right?

Yes. I was following Maths 15, yes. I started off trying to do my own thing, and I gained a little bit, but then once I started Math mass 15. Yes. I started off trying to do my own thing and I gained a little bit but then once I started maps of teen actually I think back when I got to the I got through the That 15 One I had to cut back on sex because I wasn't sleeping well That's right. I remember One I had to cut back on sets because I wasn't sleeping well. That's right. I remember

Yeah, I mean I'm the kind of person that I'm kind of low-key most time But if I get to you know, once I start picking up weights, I'm like, you know, I got to do I got to do one more, you know got to go gotta go hard and so yeah, I overdid it with with it sometimes but So yeah, I overdid it with it sometimes, but. And now this, since last time we talked to you, you've gotten faster at your running and you've seen some strength gains? Yeah, still seeing strength gains. I'm kind of a nerd, so I made my stretch

so I can keep track of what weight I did with each thing. Oh, give us some numbers. Yeah, give us some numbers. Yeah. Give us some data. Um, well, so I have a limited, limited gym. I have dumbbells up to 50 pounds. And then, um, I have like this old fashioned, uh, it's called a solo flex. It was like before the boat flex was. And yeah, yeah. So, um, It was like before the both legs was Yeah, yeah so

That actually has come in handy for heavier things like bench presses and that sort of thing Obviously the weight is just rubber bands. So I don't know what the weight is on those but Rose I'm exceeding my 50 pound dumbbells. I'm attaching a band now Doing a 50 pound dumbbell for Rose with bands and I mean curls I can I could do eight reps of strict curls with 45s so what did you start at I haven't is what I started probably 30s that's great. 25. No, it would be 20. The strict would be 25 that I started at. I could throw the thirties around. Well, let's let's say let's set

you up with maps 15 performance next so you can continue on this path. Okay. Yeah. Well, that sounds great. Yeah, let's send we'll send that. Is there something that can I ask one more question? Yeah. Yeah. Is there something that you would suggest for, because I have limited weights. Um, so I've started just, just this last week for like deadlift. I mean,

I have a 50 pound dumbbell so I can do a hundred pounds, but is there something that you would suggest other than switching? Cause what I did this week is I started switching to one legged, doing one legged dead lifts for squats. I'm doing Bulgarians. Just because I'm exceeding the weight that I have at my fingertips. That's a great option because I'll tell you what,

getting up to 50 pound dumbbell single leg is a nice workout. And you'll get pretty damn strong getting up to that so fact of you and I look back to someone okay the best I ever felt was when I was really getting strong in my single leg deadlifts like that so you can get pretty far with just you for a way okay okay sounds good all right well thanks for all you do I mostly wrote in just to thank you guys for for that. You know, I have eight kids, a ninth on the way.

I'm a full time pastor and a work full time insurance agent. So that's right. That's right. Life is busy, but it's it's easier when you feel better. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, I'm glad it's working out for you. Yeah, it's awesome. I really remember you now. Yeah. Yeah, I remember remember you now. Yeah Everybody remembers the kids not me

For you man, thanks Cal good job, I know my kids Surviving is winning. Reminds me of Total Recall. Forget getting stronger, can you survive? You don't need weights, just grab your kids. Each time you have a kid, it's progressive resistance. Just throw them. Yeah, he's doing good. I think at this point, he's progressing in performance, which is good. That's always a good measure.

The next phase for him would be to be able to add some exercise equipment. That and probably tightening the diet up. Of course. So he's at a place now where if he really wants to drop the body fat percentage. He has to. Yeah, it'll be the diet. Yeah, it'll be the diet. Our next caller is Tracy from Wyoming. Hey Tracy. Hello Tracy. Hey, how are you guys? Good, how are you? How can we help you? Hey, thanks for having me on the show. I'm a big fan. Awesome. Thank you. So I'm a group fitness instructor and a newish personal trainer. I have recently, besides training women of all ages, I recently started training a lot more youth athletes, specifically middle school girls, like little wrestlers and track stars and swimmers.

Um, and so I've been experimenting with different formats, playing lots of games and then squishing like circuits of good lifts in the middle of games. But I'm curious what your experiences are with youth athletes. What works, what types of programs you've used in the past. Oh God. You thought so young athletes, 12, you said, right? 12 years you've used in the past. Oh, God. So young athletes. 12, you said, right? 12 years old.

So you said 12? They're anywhere from nine to 14. And what's the average level of interest in them in exercise? Because that makes a big difference, right? If I work out with a kid who's 11, because the parents hired me and they don't really want to be there, there's a completely different strategy from the 11-year- a kid who's 11, because the parents hired me and they don't really want to be there,

there's a completely different strategy from the 11 year old kid that's like, I want to do this because I like my sport. Totally. Yeah, my swimmers, for example, they're all on the USA swimmer team, so they're very motivated. I have them in a group, they're all friends,

they compete with each other, that seems to work really well. And then with my one-on-one athletes, it's more of if they get that positive reinforcement from their coach or their parents, and they're like, oh my gosh, you have so much more power on your double whatever axle in figure skating, you know? Yeah, a lot of this is gonna be focusing on basic exercises

and a lot of teaching and instruction and perfection, or perfecting I should say. So it's like. Simplify the hell out of everything. Yeah, so you have like a deadlift let's say, and you're gonna break it up into three separate parts of the movement, and you're really gonna, it's like practicing a technique.

Like we're gonna practice it over and over and get really good at it. So it's not like you're doing 10 different exercises with you. It's like you're doing two. Maybe two exercises, and most of the session is really perfecting the exercise. I like the games and you're doing that kind of in between, but yeah, I would probably reduce the amount of volume

of what your focus is with the exercises and really kind of sharpen a few, like real foundational movements to teach them, so that way they can kind of build upon that as they go. But yeah, I mean, like suspension trainers, I don't know if you use them or not. That's a real helpful tool, you know, with kids to kind of get sled. Yeah, just to direct their body a little more. I know that's a big issue is really they're just, you know, have to get that body awareness established first and control. And so that's why it's slow reps and sometimes isometric holds and some of these things. To start with that is usually what I would steer

towards initially and then start building their way towards loaded type of exercises. But really, suspension training is great about increasing intensity while being able to kind of manage that appropriately. And the thing to consider is like, if you're training a kid who needs to improve their activity level or increase their activity level, it's different than when you're training an athlete who's already doing a lot of practice and training. So the consideration is like,

how do I get them to prevent injury? How do I help stabilize their body? Versus the kid that's like, you know, my son plays lots of video games, I need him to work out, he needs to be active. It's a totally different approach, completely different. Would you guys take- Right, I don't really have many of those kids.

Yeah. Would you take, say, in a session where she's got a handful of these kids that are all these ex-athletes, would you guys take like, just say the squat, and then break it up in three parts and do like an isometric hold in them? So it's like, they'd come,

I'd have them all in a group and go down halfway in the squat, hold, and they do like an isometric hold for five to 10 seconds, and then we come out. And then we do a hold at the bottom for five to 10 seconds, and then they do full squats. And so maybe take complex movements like squats, lunges, pushups, all these different movements and break them up in like different parts with isometric holds in there. And then that's when they're in the isometric hold, that's

where as the coach or teacher, I'm walking around and I'm kind of moving their bodies. Oh, chest up a little bit more, you know, pull your shoulder blades back and I'm going to critique where they're at in the isometric hold and how they're holding their posture. And really dive into, like really break down the squat into all the, and you could do that lots of different ways where they start at the bottom, then come up,

but take a movement and kind of nerd out on one movement and use isometric holds for your ability to walk around and critique all of them. That's kind of a secret hack. Yeah. And another thing I guess that I would kind of like pile onto that, which I think that's a great advice, um, would be to further educate the kids in terms of like having, having them buddy off, like group them off. If you have enough kids,

you can have them kind of in pairs where one is watching their form and you're kind of teaching them what to look for with the next kid and they can kind of in pairs where one is watching their form and you're kind of teaching them what to look for with the next kid and they can kind of help shape and guide them as well so you're not like kind of running you know from one to the next to the next and also it empowers them to learn it more effectively. Cool way to do that especially when you're teaching like hinge patterns, squatting, stuff like that is cheap PVC pipes. Yeah, we do a ton of those. Okay. With them at the beginning. Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, using those is like, like Justin's tip of contact or like having one

coach the other, you teach them how to hold the contact points. So one's watching it for the other, for the other kid. So I mean, that's kind of what I would really focus on just one or two things. Tempo training and yeah, have them all really go by that, you know, the count. So you might even have like a beeping kind of timer for them to hit those positions and hold. I hate the tempo, I just know it. Well, think of it this way, Trace.

It's like, if you're taking a kid and you're teaching them how to do a layup or how to play basketball, what you're doing is you're breaking it up into different movements to learn the full technique. So first we're going to practice dribbling. And we're going to get really good at dribbling.

Then we're going to get good at walking while dribbling. Then we're going to get good at running while dribbling. Then here, stand under the net. Let's practice getting it in off the backboard. So you're breaking it up into pieces to learn the technique. So that's what you're doing with these athletes, which again is different than the kid who's inactive who just needs a workout. These kids don't really need a workout.

What they need is to really learn the skill of the bench press and the deadlift and the overhead press and the squat and a row. They need to learn the skill of them. So your job is to get them to learn the skill of these lifts and that's going to pay them back in dividends for their entire life versus what a lot of trainers do with athletes, they think it's another workout.

I'm just going to work them out, which I don't think they get tons of value out of. I really don't. They don't need that. They're not the... No, they can go play. They can go to do more practice and go play. Right. The overweight kid who doesn't do any exercise whatsoever.

They got to move. They got to move in circuits. They got to keep them moving, keep them active. That's the best thing you could do for them.. They gotta move they gotta move in circuits. They gotta keep them moving keep them active That's the best thing you could do for him the athlete who's trying to improve in their sport moving along. Yeah. Yeah, it's you sharpen their skill I appreciate the isometric and the tempo Thank you. Yeah, do you have by the way as, as a trainer, do you have Maps Prime or Prime Pro? Yeah, or Performance 15 actually would be a good skeleton to go off of.

Ah, that's a great one. Yeah, do you have any of those that we just mentioned? No. Let's send you Maps 15 Performance. I think that there's some good movements in there that'll help. I think it's most appropriate. Yeah, you could really pluck from that

and kind of arrange your schedule with it. What? Oh, thank you so much I appreciate it. You guys are good. All right, Tracy. Thank you. All right Thanks Yeah, that's it. That's a Like one of the biggest mistakes I think that trainers make with high level any kind of athlete or even a client Who like this would happen with me with clients forget kids I'd have these clients that were like these high, like they were just very dedicated to,

like I had a triathlete who was an Ironman competitor. And he worked out a lot, he worked out a ton, cause he's an Ironman competitor. And then he hired me to train him, and the big mistake I made initially was, I gotta work him out. No, no, no, he's working out a ton. I gotta help solve some of the issues

that are coming from his training. And so the workouts with me looked very different than they would with someone who never exercises and they need to get a good workout. For him it was like stabilizing and strengthening and watching the volume. And with these kids, you're teaching them a new sport is what you're doing.

You're teaching them the sport of strength training so that they'll learn the technique and the skill. They're getting plenty of workouts. I mean they could do a whole 15 minutes or 30 minutes of just taking off or this jump, like right, the explosiveness of a sprint. Like you can really pull apart a movement and make the entire workout about that, you know?

Our next caller is Lisa from Ohio. Hi Lisa. Hey, how are you guys doing? Good, how can we help you? Great. So about three years ago, I started struggling with sleep and I had some traumatic events happen in my life. My sister had passed away, my younger sister,

and then I was studying for school and then I think it was like maybe a couple months later I took the COVID shot and I'm a hypochondriac so as soon as I did it I was like oh my gosh I think that I have a blood clot. I think all these things that you hear about taking the shot and long story short none of that happened but it caused me to just be so fearful and with all those things happening I wasn't able to sleep. caused me to just be so fearful. And with all those things happening, I wasn't able to sleep.

Like I struggled with falling asleep. And then I think for like probably months, I would wake up all through the night and then I couldn't fall asleep. But like the last year I can now fall asleep, but I wake up all night long. And I've been to the doctor, got my hormones checked and they put me on the restroom. I did a little bit of testosterone

but none of that has helped and I've been working out consistently, probably for a year and a half, a lot of strength training. I don't do a whole lot of cardio but walking but I just feel like nothing I do helps with it. With the sleep? Yeah. And are you doing the normal checklist offenders, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis? Yes, I don't do any of that. When I do drink it's even worse so I try to eliminate that as much as possible but I try to eliminate that as much as possible. But I try to go to bed same time every night.

Just anything I've done, I've Googled and nothing has helped with that. So my question to you guys is, should I continue to strength train four or five days a week? The only thing I haven't done is a sleep study, but I've probably spent 1000s of dollars on supplements, magnesium of all kinds. And still nothing helps. And I feel like I have not been able to get any weight off. Like over the last two

years, I've probably gained 15 pounds and I'm not great at tracking my food, but I don't feel like I eat terrible. So I'm sure that a lot of it is the fact that I don't sleep. Yeah, that's all of it. I would cut the strength training down to like three days a week. And then I would look into therapy that could help, like EMDR therapy might be helpful.

It's really, really effective for dealing with trauma. I think that's probably, just based off what you're saying, the most likely culprit for your sleep issues. Have you ever looked into EMDR? I have not. Okay, so it's very well established, lots of data supporting it, especially for dealing

with trauma. It really helps with what it does essentially is allows the mind to feel safe enough to deal with some of the issues that might be plaguing you. What happens with certain traumatic events or issues is they stay with you because it's too painful to fully process and I'm not an expert in it but that's my understanding but I would look into therapy and EMDR in particular at this point because it sounds based off what you're saying sounds like you did ever you've done a lot you've got all

the sleep hygiene no caffeine not the alcohol you're exercising you're not doing tons of cardio. Yeah, so that's what I would look into therapy to really deal with that first. Okay, and as far as working out, I've always just done videos online, but I feel like it's been a one size fits all. So I have my own home gym, and then I kinda quit that about two weeks ago, and I've just been doing my own strength training routines.

But do you have any suggestions for that? Yeah, let's do MAPS 15. I think MAPS 15 will be appropriate with your lack of sleep. I like that. Yeah, let's do that program for now and let's see how that feels. Okay, and as far as nutrition,

do you think I should just stick with counting protein, whole foods? Yep, yep. I mean, you look healthy. You do look healthy. Thank you. Yeah, I think you're doing- Especially considering someone

who's having trouble with sleep. Yeah, I think you're doing very well in spite of, I mean, poor sleep, chronic poor sleep is- Killer. Is absolute devastating for people's fitness progress. And honestly, that's how, if I'm coaching you around nutrition and exercise, it's all, so I know that, of course, you might want to lean out

or that might be part of the goal, but the main goal is to get good sleep. And so the food decisions, all those things, like I'm starting to really unpack, like, okay, when you eat these dinners, is your sleep better or worse? And like versus how many calories or protein is it? Like it's more about that. It's like, let's really start to peer into

what types of meals you have at what time. And you know, if you notice positive or negative effects and that's how we kind of decide. And then same thing with the workouts. Like my workouts now become, okay, when we train this way and we do this much volume and intensity does it make your sleep better or worse? And trying to, instead of like going,

oh, I wanna lean out, does this macros or is this workout program gonna, no, it's more like, let's solve the sleep thing because all those other things will follow if we get that unlocked. And so that's kind of what we're peering into when we're making the decisions around nutrition and exercise.

Okay, that makes sense. Cause I've just been so frustrated because I'm like, okay, I'm finally working out on a consistent basis. And you know, I keep reading and hearing you need to work out in order to sleep better. But I don't think that mine started with hormones. I think it was more the trauma of the stress of finishing school and then um, you know, losing my sister and then taking the COVID shot.

It was just all at once. Yeah, do you mind if I ask how long ago your sister passed away? Three years ago. So it was three years ago in March and then I was studying for some exams after I finished college and then like a month later I took the COVID shot and like I, like I said, I thought,

oh, I think I'm dying of everything. Yeah, you're in a vulnerable place. Your sister is younger than you, so she was young. That'll place a ton of obviously challenge and maybe fear and anxiety. I lost somebody who was young in my life and it actually caused some PTSD in me because for me, this was my experience, when they died, it felt like it came out of nowhere.

They got sick and died. And then I became very hypochondriac. I thought I had everything I felt was something because how could this happen to this healthy person? I had this long period of time with this kind of anxiety. And that hypervigilance, it's not going to let you sleep because your body's in this kind of like, I got to be ready. I got to be ready.

And so relaxing is almost impossible. So, yeah. So I, um, so I got to the point where I could fall asleep, but I'm telling you what, I haven't slept through the night in three years. Like I will wake up anywhere between five to 20 times. Um, and then I just feel like it affects everything. Like, I'll be concerned about my nutrition working out. And then, you know, I have a 15 year old daughter that is watching me, so I'm trying to be the best, you know, influence on her when it comes to working out nutrition,

but, you know, I think, okay, I gotta get the sleep taken care of first. Yeah. Because nothing else is working. Yeah, with trauma, the best, from my experience, my research, I'm not an expert, again, but this is just from my research, the most effective secular treatments include EMDR, and then if you have any kind of spiritual practice,

the data shows that to be very powerful. So people who have a very strong faith and working with their community and through prayer and just that also in the data shows to help a lot. So, if that's you, I would combine the two, maybe even find a practitioner who follows the same faith as you who does EMDR, which they're out there, and then you can combine the two and it can be, so. If you go to a church, you can even ask them.

They might even have a list of therapists. And EMDR is not like this weird, like there's quite a few people now that practice it. Okay, yeah, because I've never heard of that. I'm a Christian. My pastor has prayed with me. He at first was like, let's check your hormones. They seem to come back fine, So it's just not fine. Yeah, ask them if they have a list of therapists

who they like. Okay. Because it's really strengthening, right? To work with somebody who's a therapist who also follows your faith. I think that combination makes a big difference. So there you go. Yeah, do that.

And then EMDR, and you can read up on it. It's literally the acronym is EMDR, look it up. Okay, all right, I'll do that. Thank you guys so much. And then you said to do the MAPS program then, starting out? Yep, we're gonna send it to you. Okay, thank you guys so much.

It was a pleasure meeting all of you. Let's put you in our forum too, Lisa. I'd like to follow along, okay? Okay, thank you so much. You got it, thank you. All right, take care. Yeah, trauma affects sleep. That's like one of the first things that affects.

Yeah, and the main point that I wanna draw home is that when I have a client that's like this, and let's say she wants to lose weight, or she's- Yeah, everything's geared towards the sleep. Yeah, everything's geared towards the sleep. So- If you don't fix that, forget it. Which does sound like different, right?

Cause it's like, we're always talking about grams of protein and eating that it's like, no, like I'm going to really start to unpack like, okay, you ate this. How did you feel? And what time did you eat? How did you feel? I'm like, everything's more, how is the, how is that improving or not improving our sleep? And then we can build the macros and all the stuff later.

Let's first solve that. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump. DeStefano, Adam is 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 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 5-star rating and review on

iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.