Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2637: The Best Supplement + Workout Program Combos for Results

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Summer Stack — The Best Supplement + Program Combos for Results Summer Stack — The Best Supplement + Program Combos for Specific Results. (1:31) #1 - For muscle mass: Whey protein + creatine. (4:51) Program: MAPS Anabolic #2 - For targeted sculpting: Essential amino acids (for calorie restriction), creatine, and whey protein. (10:21) Program: MAPS Symmetry  #3 - For mobility: Omega 3s + water. (17:19) Program: MAPS Prime Pro #4 - For athletic performance: Creatine, caffeine, and beetroot powder. (23:18) Program: MAPS Performance #5 - Stress reduction: Ashwagandha + magnesium. (27:00) Program: MAPS 15 #6 - Fat loss: Green tea extract (EGCG) + essential amino acids. (31:10) Program: MAPS HIIT Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Our Place for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. Our Place offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. ** Special Promotion: Summer Stack ** 50% off the selected MAPS programs using the code STACK at checkout. ** Mind Pump # 2497: The Amazing & Weird Side Effects of Creatine Mind Pump # 2432: The Truth About Essential Amino Acids with Angelo Keely Mind Pump # 1790: The Secret to an Attractive & Functional Body The Effect of Omega-3 Fatty Acids on Rheumatoid Arthritis Possible Effects of Beetroot Supplementation on Physical Performance Through Metabolic, Neuroendocrine, and Antioxidant Mechanisms: A Narrative Review of the Literature Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off** Therapeutic effect of high-dose green tea extract on weight reduction: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we're talking about summer stacks, supplements, plus workout programs for each of the most popular fitness goals. By the way, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor from Our Place. Look, here's the deal and this is becoming quite evident. We are exposed to Forever Chemicals on a crazy basis. What are Forever Chemicals? These are

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to lower my exposure to these damaging chemicals. By the way, if you go to fromourplace.com, use the code MINDPUMP, you get 10% off. You also have a 100 day trial with free shipping and returns. So try it out for yourself and see how much you like their stuff. By the way, in today's episode,

we talk about a lot of different programs that we recommend. Each one of the programs that we mentioned is 50% off for this episode only. You can find them at mapsfitnessproducts.com but you have to use the code STACK. All right, here we go. Let's talk about the summer stack, the best supplement and workout program combos for different goals. All the popular goals that people have. What supplements you take and of course, most importantly, what's the workout gonna look like? Give me jacked and tanned, Sal.

So should we go, so maybe instead of going one by one and somebody who's listening has no idea that number seven is their goal, maybe list off all the goals real quick. We're gonna talk about all the common goals, right? We're gonna talk about building muscle, so maximum muscle mass, targeted sculpting. So this is kinda like building to a lower degree,

but just more specific. Yeah, right. I wanna build my chest, I wanna build my butt. Weak body part type stuff, right? We're gonna talk about mobility, improved movement, reduced joint pain, flexibility. We're talking about athletic performance. Stress reduction, this is a big one.

What should I do for being overstressed? If you're overstressed, your body doesn't get results at all. And then of course, fat loss. Fat loss being the number one goal people have when they start working out. So we are going to start with muscle mass. By the way, the supplement recommendations are based off of what the best data that we have shows.

So we're not gonna go, we're not gonna recommend anything that doesn't have good data supporting it. And what I mean by that is- It's not exotic either, yeah. Yeah, what I mean by that is the data needs to show end result. Not just like there's an increase in this marker, decrease in that marker, but do people actually see

more muscle, better athletic performance, better mobility, you know, fat loss. Not just fat oxidation or muscle protein synthesis, which can lead to some of those goals, but doesn't necessarily tend to pan out sometimes. And so I think it's important to parse out. So we're gonna talk about the stuff that has been shown in the data,

actually do something, or at least contribute to the goals that we're gonna talk about. I actually really like this conversation because I don't know about you guys but at this time of the year the family text messages start to kick up and they look just like this they look like hey Adam I want to do whatever said goal is and almost all these goals I've heard all of them of course and then after I tell tell them which one of our programs or the way that you should train or whatever,

the very next follow-up question they go is, well, what supplements should I get? And so I actually think this is actually a good idea, that I think that this could be something that us or listeners who have family members that get this question a lot will be a quick, easy, easy, dirty way to get to that answer. And I like the way you organized even the supplements

because I tend to always downplay that part to my family is just like, listen, you don't really need any, but they always go, well, I know that. I know what you say about supplements, but since this is my goal, which ones would you take or whatever? And so then I go, well, then I'm gonna take this and that for these reasons.

And then we're gonna recommend as part of this workout plans, what are the best workout plans that we have for these specific goals based off of both our experience, but also the reviews that we get from, we've had tens of thousands of people follow our programs. We have a really good idea now of which ones people continue to report back and say,

well that program was really great for this particular goal. So we're gonna start with muscle mass. Gaining muscle, now I do wanna say, you wanna gain muscle, nothing we're gonna say here will work unless you eat enough food and protein and calories to make that happen. If you don't have- And do enough rest recovery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don't have- And enough rest recovery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don't have the adequate nutrients to build new tissue, it's just not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. So that's a period. Well, I mean, I think this is part of why you have whey protein as one of the recommended supplements on here is that we know,

and if you've been listening to the podcast for very long, we talk about how common it was that somebody was grossly under eating protein. And not from the point of unhealthy, they're gonna die because they're not eating enough protein, but if you're going to build muscle, you wanna speed your metabolism, there is a difference.

There's an optimal range of protein. And so one of the first things I always had to do, male or female, was bump their protein intake. And most people struggle doing that through Whole Foods. And so this is where like a way protein shake came in handy was I could immediately bump their protein by say 50 grams just by saying, hey, change nothing, just add a 50 gram shake every day.

And I'm already gonna start to move them in the right directions in regards to building muscle. This is why, so look, at the end of the day, here's what the optimal protein, this is what the data shows for protein intake and building muscle. This is why, so look, at the end of the day, here's what the optimal protein, this is what the data shows for protein intake and building muscle. It's, and we're going to round it up a bit, but it's about one gram of protein per pound of target body weight.

The data on this is clear. Like if you eat that versus half of that or less, everything else being the same, you'll build more muscle. That's very, very clear. Now like what you're saying, Adam, the studies on whey protein are amazing in the sense that people will add 40 grams of whey protein to their daily life, people who work out, and they build more muscle. Now, why is that? Because nobody's hitting the protein targets.

Yes, it helps with that. Now, if you're hitting your protein targets, then adding whey protein isn't probably going to make that big of a difference. But again, in the studies, what they show is they take a bunch of people who work out and all they do is they say, add a 40 gram shake of protein, of whey protein to your diet, and then let's come, let's measure you in, in three months and see what happened and compare you to a control group who has a placebo and the whey protein group built more muscle and got stronger. Both of these are complimentary for that.

I mean, creatine, wh with protein, both of them. I mean, it's like, it's hard to get a lot of creatine from red meat. And so, you know, this is another thing. You want to bump that up a bit more. They found over time, even like increasing the amount has provided different benefits even for your brain. So it's like, you know, it's a valuable supplement,

you know, on its own. Well, going back to, you know, what this is like for me with my family and recommending, it's a little bit harder for me to get my family to adhere to a specific diet where I tell them to eat all these things, whereas I know that they're all under eating enough protein in order to build muscle. And so simply just recommending the way shake is an easy thing.

That's it. Just add it. And why I like this is because I've learned over time like just so not to waste my own time and their time is like let me give them the thing that here's the program here's the one or two supplements I think that move the needle the most for your specific goal go do that and then report back to me and so that gives them something to go work on I know if they go apply those one or two things that they're already gonna see good change. Now then if they continue to do that, I can get more granular with the diet and other things that are

helped. But this right here would give them structure a lot of times. And easy. It's easy. It's one step. That's right. Follow this program. Eat a have a protein shake, have some creatine, and then you're gonna start to build muscle. And you guys are mentioning the other one, which is creatine. Creatine for building muscle is the king. It's the king of supplements. Now, it's not better than diet, not better than exercise, but in terms of non-diet-based type supplements,

creatine will build more muscle. It will make you stronger. It does, you do gain more lean body mass. You do have improved performance in the gym. And now, to what Justin was saying, when creatine first came out in the 90s, it was like this huge, like, oh my gosh, this is something that actually builds muscle.

That's all we thought it did. We now know creatine to be this longevity supplement, this health supplement. It's great for bone health, it's great for your brain health, it's great for your organs. It's actually a healthy supplement, but it's the best, it still is one of the best supplements for muscle mass.

So if you add, for most people listening, if you add whey protein and you add creatine and you're working out, you're gonna get better results. Now as far as workouts are concerned, the king of all of our programs when it comes to muscle mass, kind of across the board, generally speaking, is Maps Anabolic.

It still is. It's still the most popular. It's still the one that people will write in about and say, oh my God, I followed all your programs. You know, Maps Anabolic, we released that nine years ago. Secret sauce is phase one. That's it. And it builds great muscle.

It's a two or three day a week full body routine, focuses on the big compound lifts. There's different rep ranges in each of the phases. And it is an incredible muscle built to the point where, again, tooting our own horn here, but people get stuck in maps and a bullet because they fall in love with the muscle. Which I don't think this is a program to do over and over and over and over and over again, because it doesn't train different planes of motion, doesn't have a lot of rotation, there's no or very little unilateral work. But for muscle mass, oh yeah, like three months, mass anabolic, protein, creatine, eat your calories, get good sleep.

That's bang for the buck. You're going to build muscle on that program. Next up we have targeted sculpting. Okay targeted sculpting is I want my body to have a symmetrical look. I want to have balance to my body. This is the beauty of muscle building. Bodybuilders talk about symmetry and balance right? So when a bodybuilder goes on stage the one with the most muscle isn't the one that wins. It's the one that looks the best, who also has a lot of muscle. Now, what supplements are good for that?

Well, it's the same ones that we just talked about, that build muscle, because when you're trying to develop symmetry, what you're trying to do is develop and build weaker body parts to create this kind of aesthetic look. Creatine and whey protein are kings in this category, but I'll add one more because targeted sculpting oftentimes isn't this big calorie surplus.

I'm not looking for maximum muscle mass. Right. I'm looking for shape. So I don't want to just gain a bunch of muscle with that while also potentially addition additionally gaining body fat. Cause I'm in this huge surplus. I want to kind of shape and sculpt my body. Uh, essential amino acids here are quite valuable.

Essential amino acids in studies have been shown, especially in calorie restricted diets, to do a phenomenal job of preserving muscle. Now the question is why essential amino acids, why not just more protein? It's fewer calories. So essential amino acids have some calories, but 16 grams of essential amino acids is going to be less calories than 40 grams of whey protein So it allows people to fall into More of an appropriate caloric intake

I also love this recommendation because when I get a family member client friend whatever that wants to do this this goal I tend to to recommend eating in a maintenance calories now So the audience understands, maintenance is never true maintenance. Maintenance means I'm keeping you at a caloric intake that you're constantly dipping in and out of a surplus and in a deficit. There's moments of time in the day

when you're a little bit in a deficit, there's moments of the time of the day where you're a little bit in a surplus, and over the scope of the entire month, that's what we're looking at. We're looking at moments in time, and hopefully if we did a good job of being at your maintenance, there's an equal amount

of time that you're in a surplus that you are in a deficit. It's much more precision-based. Right, it's much more precision, which this is where the amino acids come into play as I think a cool recommendation for an extra supplement. It's not a have to, it's not a must, but it's like we know that because we're keeping calories right at that maintenance, there's gonna be must. But it's like, we know that because we're keeping calories

right at that maintenance, there's gonna be periods of time when you're in a deficit, and because you're in a deficit, by taking that, we lower the chances of you risking any sort of muscle loss in those calorie deficits. And so we maximize the ability of being able to keep the calories low without losing any sort of muscle in pursuit of balancing the body. I like that. Yeah, yeah, and by the way the way with creatine we didn't talk about dosages.

Five to ten grams a day is what's been used traditionally but now as like what Justin said the data showing up to 20 grams a day divided up in multiple doses has brain health effects but for muscle about five to ten grams a day. For whey protein 30 to 50 grams a day is great for most people. And essential amino acids you're looking at anywhere between 10 to 16 grams a day. And again, that in the data has been shown. By the way, essential amino acids are the amino acids that your body can't produce. So your body can actually make certain amino acids,

but there's some that you need to consume. If you don't consume them, you're dead, right? You're going to perish's so you're not taking Complete proteins when you're taking essential amino acids You're only taking the essential ones that your body can't make and that has this really great Muscle preserving effect, especially in calorie restriction now as far as programs are concerned For this kind of targeted sculpting and balancing map symmetry symmetry. Map symmetry is the one program that we have, and I think it's the only program that I know of,

I'm sure there's some that are out there, but I've yet to see a program that's mostly unilateral focused. So with map symmetry, most of the phases, except for the last part, everything you're doing is unilateral. You're training one side at a time. And this has this really profound effect on balancing the body out.

One of my favorite things about having a large audience, having people follow our programs is when people write in and tell us what they, what's happened. And we had people, there were many people that send in their Dexa scans. This was crazy. And these were people who were already trained. So it makes it even more remarkable. They send us their Dexa scans. This was crazy. This was cool. And these were people who were already trained. So it makes it even more remarkable. They send us their Dexa scan. What Dexa scan does is it can scan lean body mass,

fat mass, bone mass, but it gets very detailed. It could show lean body mass in your right arm versus your left arm, your right leg versus your left leg. It could show not just total mass, muscle, or lean body mass like a typical or traditional body fat test would do, but rather where is your lean body mass and then how does it change? And here's what happened with these people.

They would send us their DEXA scans. By the way, if you do a DEXA scan, one side is never identical to the other. There's always gonna be a little bit of a difference. It's just the way it is. But these people were sending it in, they were gaining muscle, but where they gained the muscle was crazy.

They didn't gain the muscle on both sides, they gained it on the side that was smaller than the other side. And they maintained on the other side. Right, so someone would come back and be like, I gained three pounds of lean body mass, but look where it went. It went to my right quad, which is slightly smaller

than my left quad, it went to my right delt, which is slightly smaller than my left delt. went to my right delt, which is slightly smaller than my left delt. And we've seen enough of these DEXA scans to where we're like, wow, this is pretty remarkable. So unilateral training, like whole cycles of it, right? Not just like, oh, I do an exercise here or there, but like whole phases of unilateral training. It really allows you the opportunity

to address all these compensations. That's right. And it's really hard to see it if you don't train that way for that amount of time where you go through a full cycle of like really trying to You know build and develop that that weaker muscle and and to really address the fact that you know, you're you're actually Lifting for the movement to produce the movement, but you're not really like building up that muscle. Look, if you've been training for a long time and you're doing traditional exercises, even

if you're strong in your balance compared to the average person, if you're lifting weights and you've been doing it for a year, two years longer, you're far more balanced than the average person. The average person is way stronger on their dominant side than their left side. Average person who lifts weights is far more balanced, but even if this is you, when you're using barbells and even if you're using dumbbells, but you're doing up at the same time, which is not really unilateral training, your body can compensate in ways that even for a trained experienced trainer like me, I

can't see. I can't see this. Yeah. But when I go to pure unilateral training, things start to become more evident. The body picks it up and adapts, and you build muscle where you need it. And so that's what develops this kind of

targeted sculpting effect. So creatine-weight protein essential amino acids, map symmetry, that's what's gonna do it for that. Then we have mobility. The ability for your body to move through different ranges of motion, the extensibility of muscles, your pain that you have in your joints. A lot of this can be worked on or controlled through the manipulation or should I say the

management of your inflammatory signaling systems. If your inflammatory system is healthy, this isn't an issue. Most people don't necessarily have a healthy inflammatory system. And a lot of that has to do with the fatty acid intake that we have. So in modern Western societies, our omega-6 fatty acid intake is much higher than it should be. So we have kind of this Adiwack inflammatory system and this produces inflammation.

Omega-3 fatty acids in studies, omega-3 fatty acids are essential, but for the typical Westerner, supplementing with them reduces inflammation and improves mobility. Yeah, with clients and their diet, when they actually clean up a lot of their diet, some of the joint pain actually absolves.

That's right. Yeah, as a result of just lowering the inflammation. So sometimes it could be dysfunction and the training habits, but for the most part too, diet plays a role as well. It's one of the best studies for people with arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Made-out analysis done in 2017 showed marked improvements from about one to three grams a day of essential, of omega-3 fatty acids.

So it's great and even healthy people, right? Even if you're healthy and you're fit and you eat a healthy diet, I mean we've had... What's the statistics? Over 60% of people are deficient? Yeah, we're just not getting enough. And supplement, like one to three grams a day is not as easy. It's easy to supplement with. Within two weeks, you start to see improvements in mobility.

So you might not even feel pain, but we'll notice that you can go a little deeper. The restriction, maybe. In your squats, yeah. You warm up a little faster. It's an easy, it's a healthy supplement. So that's the number one supplement. This is great.

This is my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law this year. So everything from the supplement recommendation down to the program that you'll recommend for this I mean, this is my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law this year, right? So, everything from the supplement recommendation down to the program that you'll recommend for this is like, you know, where do I start them? And I think of the client, using them as an example, this is the client of mine or family member of mine who's wanting to get started in the summer, get going on something, but their main complaint or their main thing they talk to me about is just chronic pain, joint pain. You know, my low back hurts, my knees hurt, my shoulder. I just had this shoulder issue. Adam, what do I do?

This is where I start them. Let's tamp down. Let's get the inflammatory signal down and then let's do something like mobility work to start your progress. What I know about that is just simply by doing that, getting them moving, moving properly, we'll start moving them in the right direction. We can start having them train weightlifting down the road, but I'm gonna start them off in like a prime pro type of routine. That's perfect. Yeah, by the way, the second thing you

would want to use is you want to be well hydrated. Drink about a half a gallon of water a day. This one's crazy. This is silly because it's like water. Yeah, I mean, and the data on this is pretty remarkable. You take people who drink adequate water, which is everybody. Everybody drinks adequate water. Nobody's really dying of dehydration, you know, in modern societies. But when you bump them up to what would be considered optimal, which for most people is around half a gallon I would say, it's general, but maybe a gallon if you're a bigger, stronger person, work out more, sweat more.

You have improved mobility, you have more lubrication, your muscles are firing better, your central nervous system doesn't feel like it needs to protect movement as much. So water, omega-3 fatty acids, and then you mentioned MAPS Prime Pro. So MAPS Prime Pro is a correctional exercise based program. It's not a program in the sense that you don't follow it as a workout, but what you do with Prime Pro is you pick the areas or the joints that you feel issues with or the mobility issues that you have and you pick movements out of Prime Pro and you practice those daily. And what it does is because a lot of immobility is simply your central nervous system. Like a string.

It is tightening things up because it doesn't feel stable. So imagine the central nervous system is like the central control center that's controlling your muscles. And if it feels like the knee's a little unstable, ankle's a little unstable, shoulder's a little unstable, back is a little unstable, what it does is it tightens up the muscles in those areas to limit movement. It's actually trying to protect you. And so you feel stiff, you feel tight,

you feel a little bit of pain. Why? Because those muscles are kind of tight all the time. Correctional exercise strengthens the body in ways it's supposed to, which improves stability, which tells the central nervous system to lay off. This is what physical therapists do. You go to a physical therapist with pain,

they do correctional exercise. That's why now your shoulder can move well without pain. It's because you did correctional exercise. Even though we don't market this as a muscle building program, for the right client it can be. For when I think of someone like my mother-in-law, who is older, right, she's in her 70s,

she is deconditioned, these isometric contractions that you're getting in Prime Pro is a great place to lay the foundation. I mean, similar to symmetry. Symmetry, the first phase, is isometrics. And so they're gonna bring down that inflammation. They're gonna already start to get better connected to these muscles. So even though we don't market it as like this,

cause it's not the ideal muscle building program, it sends those people though, that are coming from that place, that are being deconditioned, that have chronic joint pain, that want to get moving, that want to get started, and want to go in the right direction. This is a great place to start those people before they even adopt a weight training program.

It's like, start right here, and this is typically how I recommend them. I have them start there, get in the routine of doing these mobility drills. They're going to start feeling better and actually starting to build and fire these muscles, then we get them ready for like a muscle building program. That's right.

By the way, if you're following your own workout, you can add the movements from Prime Pro for your problem areas as part of your warm up or on days you're not working out. Now we have athletic performance. Creatine again, of course, creighten is the king of supplements for many, many different reasons. It is shown, it is proven in thousands of studies to improve athletic performance. For acute athletic performance,

in other words, is there something I could take right now and in 40 minutes have an improvement in athletic performance? Caffeine. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant. It improves wakefulness. And it is, in terms of immediate improvements in athletic performance,

it's the best. Now the thing about caffeine is probably everybody listening to this is already using it. So if you're not, give it a shot, but I'm sure you're probably already using it. And then next, the last supplement I'll say is beetroot powder. This one's pretty remarkable for endurance in particular.

Like measurable. And this is the nitric oxide side, right? Yeah, dude. And it's, now you could eat a bunch of beets or you could buy beetroot powder, but this will improve your stamina and endurance to the point where they can measure it in studies. And it's consistent. It's actually a consistent improvement in endurance. By the way, beetroot powder's also good

for cardiovascular health. Part of the way that it improves endurance is it helps improve blood flow and nutrient deficiency delivery. So isn't this the main ingredient that is in Organifi's red juice, right? Yes, yeah. And that has enough, like you talk about beetroot powder,

like some people I guess could go directly and just go do that, but if you had the red juice from Organifi, that has enough to do it Okay, that's right. And then for workout Maps performance. This was the program that we created this about seven years ago This program was specifically designed for people who like to work out But they love athletic performance. They don't just want to look good. They want to move good They don't want to just look fast. They want to be fast, right? They don't want to just look good, they want to move good. They don't want to just look fast, they want to be fast. They don't want to just look explosive,

they want to be explosive. That's a specific way of training. Traditional strength training improves athletic performance across the board in comparison to someone who doesn't work out. But for the person who's like, no, no, I want, on the weekends I play basketball, I go mountain biking, I go swimming, I play volleyball,

I don't want to just work out in the gym, I want to be able to perform. It's heavier movement focus. That's right, I play volleyball. I don't want to just work out in the gym. I want to be able to perform. It's a heavier movement focus. That's right. And so I think that's a big differentiator. A lot of the other programs, you're gonna focus a little bit more on specifically muscle groups and building them up and compound lifts obviously,

but this is a lot more, the inclusions of different movements in different directions just builds up a lot more the inclusions of different movements and different directions. Just builds up a lot of strength and support. So then you can have your weekend bouts where you're playing a sport or you're doing something kind of with acceleration. You don't feel like you're going to be injured. I really think of the family member or client that wants it all. This is the direction I point them in. And what I mean by that is like, if you've all the things that we've kind of talked about

already, including athletic performance, you're like, well, I kind of want to build some muscle and I do know I need some mobility, but I also want to be able to run and play with the kids or I've got that weekend athletic thing I like to do, like this is the program, because it addresses all those things. We've talked about this many times on the podcast.

It's arguably the one program that you could probably follow indefinitely. Yeah. And you're, you're going to build muscle. You're going to get more mobile. You're going to improve your metabolism, improve your speed, endurance. Like it really is the kind of all encompassing program. Now it's not the max muscle that you could possibly build. That's like anabolic or something, but if you kind of want it all and you're listening and going like that, it's math performance is typically where I tell my family member or friend that

I know that is still wants to do athletic things, does care about building muscle. Although it's not just about the way they look, they want other stuff. This is the program that I point them in. And then we get to stress reduction or I'll put it differently, improve my fitness although or even though my life is a bit stressful. Chaotic. Busy. I have kids, I have a job.

Minimalist. Yeah, I'm like, look, I want to work out, but I get, it's just I'm going to over train or I don't have the time because I'm so busy. What supplements and what program work great for me. Supplement-wise, ashwagandha is the king of adaptogenic supplements for stress. It has the most data to support it. Every time they do a study on it, it reduces anxiety, reduces stress, reduces stress markers. This is a master herb or plant that's been used in Ayurvedic medicine for a very very long time Ten years ago. It was a bit exotic these days

I think everybody's heard of ashwagandha because of the studies and the data. It's great about 300 to 600 milligrams a day And you'll notice improvements by the way because of its effectiveness On reducing the or I should say improving the body's ability to adapt to stress It's been shown to build muscle and strength and some people as well on reducing the, or I should say improving the body's ability to adapt to stress, it's been shown to build muscle and strength in some people as well. Why? Because oftentimes what's preventing you from building muscle and strength is that your body's overwhelmed with stress. So adding something like ashwagandha can definitely make the difference.

What about something like, for this person, I think of magnesium, and I think of myself personally, just what an improvement it's made on me, especially with my sleep quality, and since that's one of the main things that is impacted when you're low on magnesium, over 60% of the population is low on magnesium, and so I think of somebody who is minimalist or trying to reduce stress as magnesium

being probably a go-to supplement that I would recommend. It's a majority of people are deficient when they're tested in magnesium. When you're deficient in magnesium, your central nervous system and your body's ability to adapt to stress is severely hampered. Magnesium is cheap and effective and most people need it. First off, our food has been depleted of magnesium. So when you look at your fruits and vegetables and foods, the amount of

magnesium that's in them today versus 50 years ago is significantly lower just because of farming practices. Most people on top of it don't eat lots of magnesium rich foods anyway. Supplementing web magnesium can make a big difference with stress. In studies, they show that people who are deficient, which again is most people, you supplement with magnesium, reduces cortisol or at least gives you more appropriate cortisol, and reduces markers of stress. As far as workouts are concerned, this is easy, a MAPS 15. Yes. Easy. 15 minutes a day of strength training. By the way, one of our most popular

programs, because I think most people are in this category. Yes. The average person who has a family, has kids, has a job, this is a game, it's a balancing game of stress, everybody. That's like the number one thing we need to realize. Now I know people sometimes don't understand that because they think of stress as being like this, oh my God, something terrible happened to me.

It's like no, stress is you're not getting the best sleep, your diet isn't perfect. It can be low level. You're, you know, you've got stress at work, you come home, you got kids you gotta raise, you gotta pay your bills. Then on top of it you're trying to work out, which is a stress on the body.

MAPS-15 is an appropriate level of strength training that produces results and it's minimal stress on the body because it's only 15 minutes a day. I'm glad you said that because when I think about who is probably most of our listeners, which are middle-aged entrepreneurs, moms and dads. To me, this is probably the one that fits the best category. And it does enough, like, you know,

there's enough rotation unilateral type stuff too, where we address balance in the body in there. It's very minimal when you talk about stress. It's a great starting point for a lot of people. It's also probably a great place for a lot of people who think that they're hardcore and been training forever and overdoing it that they should probably go to and it's like the the feedback that we've gotten from this program is insane. I mean I know what I personally went through how surprised I was by the

results I came from but we continue to hear the feedback from the audience that goes and does this program and is blown away by How little the volume is yet how great of results that they're getting from a hundred percent now we get to fat loss All right So fat loss is an interesting one because when you look up fat loss supplements like a million come up But what does the data actually show like what? Supplements or compounds actually on their own What supplements or compounds actually on their own show some fat loss? I hate to say this, but very, very little or few.

The one that comes up near the top is green tea extract. There's a compound in there called EGCG. I'm not even going to try to pronounce it, so it's just EGCG. This is a compound that has health benefits for your brain, cognition. It's good for longevity and here's what it shows. Now the numbers aren't gonna sound crazy but I'm again the context is in comparison to every other supplement. Okay when they've done studies on this was one study in particular for 12 weeks where they gave

a green tea extract in fact I think they gave them 200 to 500 milligrams a day of EGCG is what it showed and they did nothing else. What you saw was about two to three pounds of fat loss in 12 weeks. That's in comparison to the placebo, which was zero. Okay. And I'm going to tell you something right now. You take somebody, you tell them to change nothing, add this, you're going to lose a couple of extra pounds of body fat in 12 weeks. That's a miracle in supplement land.

Right. Supplements don't do that. So EGCG is the one that can give you- Substantial. Yes. So if you were going to lose and, and you know let's say you were gonna lose because you're in a calorie deficit in 12 weeks, you're gonna lose 8 pounds, well it could be 10 pounds because you were supplementing with EGCG.

The other one that I would add to that is the essential amino acids and they're for the same reasons that when we talked about symmetry, even more so though for this client because this client the only way you're losing any fat is if we're in a calorie deficit. There's no way you're, like you're not gonna lose, consistently lose body fat if you were in a calorie surplus. So we have to be in a deficit. And if we have to be in a deficit,

we're more than likely gonna sacrifice some muscle during that process. And if my job as a trainer is to mitigate that or make as little as possible through that process, this is to my advantage. I don't add any calories, but I make sure that the essential amino acids are up, so that when we do, and the studies show that. The studies show that the clients that take this

while in a calorie deficit lose less muscle. It's not a really expensive supplement, and so if there's any other supplement I'm thinking about for the fat loss client, that's the one. This is one of the number one supplements we recommend to people on the GLP-1s. Yes, for that reason. For that reason right there because you go into GLP-1 especially in the first month or so, your calories get real low if you take you know more than what may be ideal of that muscle. This helps them preserve. Because what your

body does when you take when you're in a calorie deficit is it tries to match the new caloric intake by reducing its caloric output. It does this a few different ways. One of the ways it does it is it pairs muscle down and essential amino acids help preserve that. As far as programs are concerned, look, all strength training programs are great fat loss programs if you're in a calorie deficit. If I was talking short term fat loss, like Sal, I got eight weeks fat loss.

I want to make this happen as fast as possible, as effective as possible. I don't like talking that way just as a personal trainer. I don't like to communicate in the fastest possible short, you know, let's do this as quick as possible type of deal. But that's what people want so I'm gonna caution you, always think long-term but in the eight-week period for just pure fat loss, it's gonna be a MAPS hit. It's gonna be a MAPS hit. It's's gonna be a MAPS HIIT. It's strength training that is done at a rapid pace,

short rest periods. By the way, this is HIIT training done properly, so it's still a good expert workout programming. It's not just a string of exercises slapped together because they look cool. It's like this is gonna compliment this exercise, it's gonna compliment this exercise. We're gonna get some strength benefit,

we're gonna get some muscle benefit, but you're gonna burn a lot of calories in a short period of time, that's gonna be a massive... The one caveat to me is so long as that's not how you already currently train. Yeah, that's why I said eight weeks, right? Yeah, so if you are somebody who doesn't typically train this HIIT style, then I do think that in a short period of time this can be a beneficial switch for you, an interruption to the typical programming that you would do and a great way to ramp up the fat loss in the next eight weeks.

If you already run that, then almost any other program is probably going to be a better route for you for fat loss. But since most people who probably listen to this podcast don't train hit, I don't think it's one that we promote that often. Here's a cool little hack for the next eight weeks. Follow that and you'll see those results. That's right. And because of these programs that we're talking about in this episode, every one of these programs you can get for 50% off if you

go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code STACK. STACK you can get 50% off either one of these programs or all the programs if you want all of them. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and 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,

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