Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2661: Nine Old Forgotten Training Methods That Can Make You Fit and Tough & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Nine Old Forgotten Training Methods That Can Make You Fit and Tough. (2:40) Top 10 job aspirations for Gen Alpha. (28:32) Being a caretaker. (33:06) Doing fitness for God’s glory. Previewing Sal’s upcoming YouTube series. (40:40) Just as good as whey. (48:02) High hopes for the Elite Trainer Podcast. (49:09) Getting your dream car. (50:38) Cleaning up language. (54:57) We're Hiring: Mind Pump Personal Training (In-House and Remote). Apply today! (1:01:06) #ListenerLive question #1 – Would it be beneficial to introduce lifting aids as part of my one-rep max test? (1:03:09) #ListenerLive question #2 – Does having a degree immediately make you a more qualified coach and individual? (1:10:30) #ListenerLive question #3 – In optimizing strength or hypertrophy for a given lift, does progressive overload take precedence over total weekly training volume for that lift? (1:23:59) #ListenerLive question #4 – What would you guys recommend as far as programming for a client I find difficult to communicate with and get him to move in the ways I want him to? (1:32:59) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for buy one, get one 50% off for new customers, and 20% cash back for returning customers! ** Elite Trainer Academy – Podcast August Special: MAPS 15 50% off! ** Code MUSCLE50 at checkout ** Power of Visualization The Surprising Career Aspirations of Gen Alpha: From YouTubers to Game Developers Mind Pump Personal Training – Apply today! Visit Hiya for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Receive 50% off your first order ** Trainer Bonus Series Episode 1: The Successful Trainer Mindset Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Joe DeFranco (@defrancosgym) Instagram Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc) Instagram Cory Schlesinger (@schlesstrength) Instagram Max Schmarzo (ATC/CSCS/MS) (@strong_by_science) Instagram Ben Bruno (@benbrunotraining) Instagram Elliott Hulse (@elliotthulse) Instagram Paul J. Fabritz (@pjfperformance) Instagram Brian Kula (@kulasportsperformance) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, 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. All right, in today's episode, callers called in. We got to coach them on air. We helped people with fat loss and muscle gain and their health.

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All four of you are winners. I just send the name I just read to iTunes at Mind Pumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you. People have been training their bodies for a long time. Oftentimes we forget methods that people use back in the day that produced tremendous results.

We're going to talk about some of them today. Some of them may be valuable to you, maybe the lessons in them. Some of them maybe not so much. But today we're going to talk about nine old school forgotten training methods that they used to do back in the day to get fit and especially get tough. Let's do it. You're trying to get my attention.

These are creative, dude. Well, no, what I did. I'll tell you what I did, right? I was reading about, and I got, there's more that goes to this, but I was reading about how fighters in the late. He's like Ross training methods. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, early 1900s, up till about 1920.

How did those guys train? Like, what were the things that they did to get their bodies ready for... Look, of all the sports that we can think of, that we could talk about. If I had to pick, like, just the most tough, raw, tough... Like, it was fighters of those eras. Yeah.

Like, the rules were... Was it there was no rounds? There was no rounds, right? It was just until the guy submitted her. Yeah, right? Oftentimes, and then they narrowed down. all over. Then they nerded it down like 45 rounds.

Yeah, I was going to say. And in order for, you know, now boxing, oftentimes knockouts are because the ref steps in to stop the fight. Yeah, yeah, KKO. Do you know what it took for the ref to stop the fight back then? Oh, yeah, no, of course. You know, eyeball would have to fall out of your head for them to even come in. Crazy carnage.

Oh, it's insane. So I looked up old-time fighters like Jack Dempsey. I don't know if you guys know what Jack Demsie was. He was a tough, tough guy. And I looked up his training. surprised you didn't look up Rocky Marciano. Marciano came a little later, but I'm very familiar with Marciano as well. But I'd say the era of Dempsey, once you get past that, boxing started to become more modernized.

Well, I mean, Dempsey is still boxing. This is his stanza. It's like if his picture looks like this, yeah? Yeah, well, I don't know if Dempsey was that. Yeah, pull it up, pull up, Jack Dempsey. Yeah, maybe that's how they pose for pictures. I'm trying to think right now. Well, that's what I mean.

He's like the last generation that would pose for a fight like that. By the way, and you know, and I'm going to listen, if you're listening to this and you're like, look, I just want to get in shape, there are things we can learn from them. So obviously, if you're not a boxer, that doesn't mean you're not going to get value. Otherwise, I wouldn't have brought this up. By the way, do you know why they held their hands the way they did? Do you know why they did that? Yeah, look at that. That's Jack Dempsey.

They held their hands that way because old-time boxing, you went for the body more than the head. Because you hit in the head with the little, with the leather. They had leather. You break your hands. You break your hand, you're out of the fight. Yeah. So they would go for the body more than the head to take you out. And a good body shot will definitely do that.

So that's why they held the hands so low was to cover their body. Nobody was jabbed into the forehead back of those days, you know? Didn't have as much. Okay, so here's some of the training methods they use. And then what I would like us to do as trainers is talk about the value and maybe how the average person who wants to get fit can apply or not some of this stuff. Okay. So the first thing. And we've seen this somewhat become popularized.

It's not popular, but we've seen now variations of this in MMA. It's been emulated, yeah. Which is chopping wood. Yeah, chopping wood became sledgehammer on the tires. Yes, yes. Now, chopping wood, here's why that's such a, and fighters for a long time found this produced really, really explosive power. And for the average person doing something that emulates this. So you can do this in a gym.

Many gyms now have a, they'll have a tire that you can, you can, you know, use a sledgehammer. In fact, it's not even a sledgehammer anymore. In fact, they make tools now

that you can use to hit tires. You want to talk about a core workout. This will get your core very strong and very functional. Well, hips, core, and rotation. I mean, you get the, and that's what throwing a punch is.

I mean, you, that's throwing a punch right there. And so you get really good at powering from your hips, core, and rotation. And that's, especially that lateral chop that, yeah, if you're actually chopping wood and chopping a tree and being able to organize all your muscles at once. And then, you know, it really is the acceleration training.

There you go. Power, which doesn't get expressed that much. But if you can organize your body to produce like maximal power and then speed with it, it's so useful in sports. Yeah. Modern training, modern popular training methodologies are really good at developing strength and the upper and lower extremities. but they don't do a good job of connecting the two at the trunk. So if you're not able to connect the upper and the lower body well with a trunk that can withstand rotation

that can be stable when it needs to be in strong, what needs to be, what the result is lots of back issues, a lot of lower back injuries, which is what you see oftentimes with people who are really strong in the gym, then they go do something, you know,

like throw a frisbee or go play with their kids or twist a little quickly to grab the shampoo bottle. they're like, how did I hurt my back? I work out all the time. It's because they're not connecting very well because your trunk, your core is funny. Like, not knowing it, like, because that was my favorite chore.

Like, I would chop wood, like, all day long. I would prefer it over anything. And so that was my big thing I would do growing up. And then that totally translates, especially in football where they call it, it's like that snap, that initial spark that you have to have that in order to be able to be, fast enough so you can you can evade somebody coming at you or you could enforce like this type

of power onto somebody yeah by the way the reason why uh one of the reasons why this is so effective is when i'm hitting a sledge hammer or chopping something i can cause the acceleration but the object that i hit helps me decelerate yeah if you just swing an axe without hitting anything prepare for injury because you have to then slow down and decelerate but if if i have something that's going to stop it, I can learn to generate as much power as I can, and the object that I'm hitting actually does the deceleration. That's why that's different than just twisting as fast as you can. It's like that wee boxing where you're not actually punching something and then your bicep gets hurt. Yeah, like, they hurt their shoulder. That's right. That's right. Next

up, and we're going to, we're going to apply this to someone who's just working out, but they did a lot shadow boxing in water where they'd go underwater and they'd now um i was just sprinting in my pool yes yeah yeah for fitness you know what's great about going in water is it's low impact every motion you do in there has resistance because water's thick so walking running um you know you could practice exercises leg swings in the water uh it's a very safe way to exercise your body this is why and i think water training has gotten a bad rap because it's so safe that oftentimes when you see people exercising

water it's the elderly I think that's why I got because people see elderly people doing it. It's like all your silver sneakers are in the pool doing the pool exercises. So it must be because it's easy. There's no value in it. Not true. If you're advanced and strong, you just push harder and you

move harder. I told you guys when I worked with the San Jose City College, we went in the pool and worked on our sprinting for at least like 20 minutes or so. It was brutal. And you're just like all out effort because you're supported. It doesn't put that crazy impact on your joints. 100%. So it's, it's a very great way to exercise. The thing about exercising in the water, don't get fooled. It's not just for older people or obese people or people in rehab. It's one of the few, there's very few things like this. There's

very few things in fitness that will provide value to both beginners and extreme advanced. oftentimes it's like oh this is maybe for more advanced this is really mostly valuable for people in the beginning stages underwater or in the water type training uh is valuable for everybody because if you're stronger and faster you can just push harder move quicker and if you have injuries or you're older you just move slower and it's got that safety uh you know part of it next up uh hand strengthening you know what they did uh they did a lot of bucket carrying and they would also squeeze clay throughout the day. I think this is valuable because if I took, if I took 50 gym fanatics, I bet you they all

miss hand strength in relation to their body strength. I bet you most, although their hands are stronger than the average person because they lift weights, I bet you their hands in proportion to the rest of their body are still weak. They're still going to be weak. And you're missing out. It's your limiting factor. Yes. I mean, if you can get your hands strong and your grip strong, that just translates.

every single lift you're going to do, especially the barbell. People think it's all back exercises, by the way. That's not true. Go do a bench press and use wrist straps, the ones you would use for pulling, on the bar with a bench press, so your grip is real tight. Tell me you can't lift more weight.

I know. Yeah. It's crazy. You don't realize that because you don't understand an account for just that minimal amount of lateral or rotational force opposing it. That's right. That's right.

I would put shoveling concrete and or bales a hay here. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like the same category. You just wait until we get to number seven. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, it's interesting, you know, as a kid, when I used to help my dad in the summers,

he did, he worked blue collar and he was a tile setter. And oftentimes he would take me when they were doing a lot, like, when they were floating floors, like lots and lots of, uh, of cement on the floor. And I was, you know, I was the 14 year old kid. So my job was just get the buckets and, you know, bring them over here with, with, you know, gopher boy. Yeah. And man, my hands, I mean, I'll get blisters and whatever.

My hands got so strong from doing that that when I was when I'd go back to lifting weights I could I could just feel the transfer even on pressing movements which people have no idea yeah no idea Here's another one Running they did lots of running But they would run in heavy boots Now I don't know this one was funny that you had this

This is the one that I thought was so off right here I don't know if there's an application for the average person I think people are so terrible at running that if I put them in heavy anything It's just gonna make things worse Yeah I could see the value of this for somebody who's a, who really wants to toughen themselves, maybe a soldier. Is it also because it helps you stand the balls of your feet because you have heels? You know, boxers at that day just did hard things to make them tough.

Yeah, that's, that's all I would amount it to. Yeah, so. I don't know that there's, you know who runs in heavy boots a lot? Soldiers. Yeah, military. A lot. They don't give them running shoes. They're not like, here's your, here's your balanced out.

This will correct your pronation. Use your new balance. They're like, here's your boots. You're like, here's your on clouds. Yeah. You're going to go. Run your ass on. also.

I'm teasing my buddy. We were at a country concert this weekend, and he shows up in his on clouds. I'm like, bro, could you be more 45? Oh, my God. Is he able to lose, like, you know, pop-up chairs? I know what I did. I put my hands around his way,

so I'm like, you have back support right here? It's like, fuck off, man. Now, I will say what you could take away from this is... The comfy life. So long as, you know, you've checked all the other boxes, I do think making daily things, a little harder. I do think there's some value for some people. I'll use myself as an example. So I'm not one to advocate wearing a weight vest. I think wearing a weight vest can provide some

value. But I think for most people, what they're looking for, there's better ways to do what they want without the weight vest. Like someone's like, oh, I want to burn more calories. Better way to do it. Oh, I want to get stronger. Better way to do it. But if somebody goes backpacking, if they do rucking, I think it's good. But I do think there's value if you check all the boxes. You already walk 10,000 steps a day. Let's say you already do a 45 minute walk every day. You're fit and you just want to make it harder because there's value sometimes in doing things that are harder. I think wearing a weight vest would be an example of like what they did with the heavy boots. Just like crazy incline. Yeah. And I've been doing that. I've been doing that recently. Three or four days a week,

I walk to, there's a park that's like a 30 minute walk there and back and I take my kids and I put on a 30 pound weight vest. It's not so heavy that it's like, but it's harder. And I can definitely see the value. I mean, my favorite use for it when I used to wear a weight vest was doing dips and pull-ups. Of course. Just because it's like, it's awkward in any other way, too. Like, you have that belt and you have hanging weight. It's like, that actually makes sense to me. It does. It does. All right. Next up, again, I don't know if this applies to people. Punching hard objects. Now, you know what's crazy about this, by the way? So just, here's a fun, this is a fun little science fact. Old school martial artists did this,

Muay fighters, karate fighters, and then boxers did this. They would punch hard objects to toughen their hands, their shins, their feet. And we now have the science to support what they did. They would produce micro fractures in bone, and the bone would heal back stronger. So if you look at bone, if you look closely at bone, a cross section of bone, there's like this kind of honeycomb, like, you know, organization, right? There's spaces in between how the bone comes together where there's like air, air, air, pockets almost that's where you create the the micro fractures and then what happens is those pockets of air get filled in with more bone that's got to be such an art you know because it's got

to be the right amount like the condition they call it condition i remember doing this too for moitai for for my shins and they called it like you know shin conditioning yeah it's like conditioning to beat the shit out of my shins but like yeah to be able to get it to a point where you can heal and then it can actually calcify, and then it becomes harder. But then it's like, okay, but am I going to get arthritis really bad, like later on in life? Like, I don't know, but it did make sense, and I did get harder shins as a result.

You know, this reminds me of LLS training for marijuana plants. So it's low-level stress training. Oh, yeah. And what you told me about this. What you used to do, and it's very... You learned a lot through that whole thing. You've seen the geeky science. Every once in a while you apply.

It doesn't make sense. It's what this is. You're making micro fractures. You're like twisting it a little bit? You take the stem and you'll be very careful because you kill the plant if you break it. So you have to, you just enough and you can hear it kind of go and pop just a little bit. And then what happens is like a knuckle will form and then the stem will get twice as strong and twice as thick and big. Which you have, what's it called?

Yeah, low level stress training. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I believe that was the term. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Well, I think the application here for the average. person is just that doing things that are challenging, and this is a physiological example of it, but mentally this doesn't make you more resilient. You become more resilient. And that's a great

physiological example. You can actually look at the bone and see that they become denser and harder through years and years of what they would call conditioning or whatever. But this is what happens to your mind. This is what happens to your body. This is what happens to your behavior, your tolerance for stress. If you're somebody that is easily overwhelmed with stress, you know, challenging yourself a little bit does have the as long as you're not overwhelmed by it does have the ability of strengthening you essentially making you tougher making you tougher all right next up this one's interesting because you see fitness people doing this one and i know they do this for the views but fighters had a real reason for doing this and these are medicine ball drills what you would you would get hit

in the in the oh i hate this trend i know i hate this trend this is this is the trend of the punching each other in the abs where they guys do crunches. This is not an ab workout. Everybody thinks this is an ab workout. No, it's not going to build your abs. It's not going to make your... But you know what it does for fighters is it conditions, it trains them, I should say,

on how to take a blow. Yeah, to brace for a punch. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And to be doing it while breathing and exercising and stuff like that is there's a technique to it. The reason why that annoys me so much is because... It's so specific.

It is very so specific. So it's like, hey, if you're a fighter and you're doing that, I got no problems. You want to be able to take punches. No problems with that. but if you're just some kid trying to get abs is a stupid way to do it. Unless you work in a gym

or someone's going to punch you. And I know that's 95% of the Instagram viral videos that went that way. None of these guys were fighting. If you're fighting, it makes total sense. It makes total sense why to do that. But that's an example of one of those things that is a very, you know, it's like the

also the other trend. The trend were, remember when it became popular to wear the, you know, defamation. Yeah, deprivation mask. Yeah, you get on the stairmaster. It's like, Well, I mean, if you're a UFC fighter, it makes a little sense when someone's going to have your arm around your mouth

while they're tackling it. But all the rest of you fools, this is not beneficial. So, yeah, I think it's one of those that are very specific if you're going to use someone. These three in the middle are the, I think, they're like. Least them out of all of them. Now, number seven, I think is really cool. I think number seven is really cool. Fighters of that era, they would actually go do heavy, hard labor.

because it made them fit. They would go do blacksmithing or they'd go chop trees down or they'd go lay bricks. Now here's why I like this. There's a lot of kids watching and listening to this right. And I say kids.

These are teenagers, maybe early 20s. And you need to get a job anyway. And you want to be fit. You want to be fit and you need a job. Instead of getting a job working at the front desk at Chipotle or whatever, over the summer, you want to get some fitness that you'll also get paid.

for that also will make you tough go do some mix concrete yeah that's it i mean i i apply this more now in in it was not till probably my mid 30s that i started doing this but it just dawned on me at one point that there's these times where i would leave my house and go to the gym to go walk on the treadmill for an hour or whatever and i was just like what am i doing like i may as well clean the house or wash a car or you know do pull weeds or yeah scrub the tile and like there was just so many things that I could always do at the house that was like manual labor that also made my house better cleaner or whatever it's like what am I doing like if the desired outcome is like this kind of low level calorie burn that I would go do on the

treadmill like so that's how I am now there's times where I know that I'm trying to create more activity in my day where I won't even go to the I won't go to the gym I'll find intentionally find something that's labor around the house so it's like oh I may as well do this thing right now because I'm trying to kick up. And I wish that was taught to me younger because as a kid, if I was playing in the middle of sports season, trying to get in shape, do those things.

If my parents sold that right to me, they probably could have convinced me to do a lot of shit around the house. They definitely got that with me. Threw me out. Yeah. I mean, I had to do a lot of that labor too, but they weren't selling it to me like

it was going to improve my game or else I would have. It is a paradigm shift. It's a massive paradigm shift. You're walking. on a treadmill and you're going nowhere. You're doing it for exercise, but the point is you're not going to a destination. You're not accomplishing anything else. It's not productive.

You could go do something around the house that you have to do anyway. Right. But the paradigm shift for somebody who's fitness minded, suddenly will make it enjoyable. Yes. That's what happens. I remember when this happened to some of my clients. When the body bug first came out, this was one of the first movement trackers,

calorie tracking, you know, how many calories are burned type of deal? It was one of the first devices to do it. I had clients that were like, Oh my God, I'm doing more stuff around the house now because I can see now how beneficial the activity is. And it just was a paradigm shift. But this hard labor one or heavy labor one is a great one. Like if it's in summertime, you're not going to school

and you're like, I need to get a summer job. Instead of working at the mall, go mix some concrete or go. Build up that work capacity. Go find a local farm, dude. There's always work to be done. And they're going to give you and you're going to get some skills that are valuable. When I was in high school, that was the thought process.

Although I wasn't looking for it for exercise. I just did, I like, in my town was so small. That's all it was. Yeah, you either worked at fast food, which I was like, there's no way I'm going to be in a fast food line where my friends are going to come mess with me every day. No way I'm doing that.

I'd rather do the labor. And so you work at a farm. So everywhere there's, even if you live in a city right outside of your city is probably some farms. You go find a farm. There's probably somebody looking for work, for sure. Next up,

and I think this is just a great way to do cardio, especially hit cardio, is jumping rope. Jumping rope is a phenomenal workout. Now, it is a skill. If you've never done it, you're not good at it, start slow. But it strengthens your feet, your ankles. Of course, it gives you great.

It's actually good for shoulder mobility. People don't realize that. For shoulder stability, it's really good. Being able to hold the rope where it is and spin. Just organizing your whole body to produce that one movement and clean and, you know, having a really good form. Yep. Because every time you attempt it, you get better and you get more

fishing at it so then it's like it kind of uh compiles from there so yeah i just start doing this again just to try and like keep some kind of like speed and snap you know with my feet yeah and i have yet to see someone who does a lot of rope jumping who doesn't have great castes good looking calves i mean i have a couple buddies that they were big and they swear by the all time yeah every time i see me training my calves like bro just jump rope yeah so i there's not a lot of things that i'm like really uncoordinated with that's one of those things is it really really Yeah, I think part of it was because for the longest time, I had no idea that there was different rope sizes.

And so I was probably using what everybody, the rope that's a short one? Yeah, the one that everybody else jumps up on the six foot three. I'm hitting the back of my head all the time. I was like, this is stupid. I'm not doing this anymore. And then it was like years later, I figured out like, oh, there's, there's rope sizes.

Yeah, not all just like standard. You did the leather rope without shoes and barefoot. Oh, yeah. So you pay for it. Yeah, but you got to build up to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. person goes barefoot with another rope. Well, I'm saying there's levels, dear.

You're talking plantar fasciatus city or whatever. All right, lastly, and this is an interesting one because there's a lot of value to it. I don't know if people do this a lot anymore. Athletes still do it. It's visualization. You know, it's funny, they've done studies. There's one of my favorite studies, it's a basketball study. Yes.

It's a free throw study. Yes. It's such a cool study. And I don't remember what year they did that, but it's relatively new. It's not like an old, old study. It's a few decades old, isn't it? No, I don't think it's that old. It's less than that.

Yeah, it's more like that. yeah it's it's relatively new and uh they took three groups they took a group that i forgot how many they shot maybe doug can find the exact numbers here but they shot a certain amount uh and then they had another group that uh i did i think significantly more than that and then another group that just visualized it didn't do any of it and thought about doing the shots yes and the one that like shot about doing the shots ended up with like as good of a percentage like a equal like yeah showing yes it was fascinating uh are you looking it up Doug I am.

Yeah, free-throw visualization. Visualization. It was in the University of Chicago in 1996. Oh, so you told you. No, you're right. Yeah, so there's three groups it looks like. The first one, don't touch a basketball for 30 days. That's it.

That's it. Nothing but visualized, right? No, no visualized. The second group was told to practice shooting free throws for half an hour a day for 30 days. And the third group was to come to the gym for 30 days, spend a half hour with their eyes closed simply visualizing hitting every free throw. So after 30 days, the first group, who did not practice at all, showed no improvement, as you would think.

The second group had practiced every day and showed a 24% improvement. The third group who had simply visualized successful free throws showed a 23% improvement. So almost identical. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. I mean, it's as valuable as just practicing, which is crazy. Now, of course, you're not training the muscles, but you're training the central nervous system.

Your brain doesn't know the difference. That's the point that's so fascinating is because you know that obviously practicing the repetitions is because the muscle memory part of it is going to be beneficial. There was no doubt that second group was going to improve because they practice it. What's fascinating is that the group that didn't practice at all actually gain that much benefit. Well, here's the application. Do both is the takeaway. I was just going to say, here's the application. Like, there's a lot of exercises.

There's a lot of exercises that are technical, you know, squatting, deadlift. Overhead Pressing, Olympic lifts, especially. And you're going to go do them because you're working out, right? You're going to go squat because you want to develop your legs. You're going to go deadlift because you want to get stronger in the posterior chain or whatever. But also visualizing will probably add to how fast you get good at that exercise. And what this looks like, what this would look like in my experience is you're going, you're on your way to the gym. You're going to go, or tomorrow's your workout.

Just sit and think about getting that perfect rep. and getting in the groove and knowing where your feet are and how you press off the floor and where the bar sits, that is not hokey. It actually works on the day of shows it. Or do that when you're supposed to be resting. In between sets. Oh, great point, Justin.

You know, I wonder how much of this, because I guarantee anybody who is a pro bodybuilder that's listening to this, this is your life. So this is all you do. It's the only time in my life I ever thought about working out that much. And you, you, we're, no one's really talking about the, we talk all about their programming, their diet, all stuff like that. like how much of their benefit is coming from just the thinking about lifting all the time.

Like I can't imagine what it is if you know that the just thinking about the free throw has made a difference. I have a list if you guys. Oh yeah, you're going to list? Yeah, yeah. Since we're doing lists right now, I saw this and I thought, oh, this would be funny to ask the guy. So these are the top 10 jobs gin alpha want to be when they grow up. And I think gin alpha, Doug, can you look at with the exact age? They're like adolescent to the early teens.

Yeah. Yeah, my son to maybe Everett's somewhere around there, I would guess. Oh, so that young? I think so. Let me see. Let's ask Doug what Gen Alpha is. Yeah. So it'll tell you what year they were born.

But what do you guys think, why he's looking at that up, what do you think specific jobs too? Okay. So when you think of it, don't think of a general job, think of a very specific jobs are the top 10. I have all 10. I think a YouTuber would be a, wouldn't be in there. Okay, YouTuber is number one. Yeah, of course. Wow.

Say, what, Gen Alpha is what? 2010 to 2024. Okay. Okay. So someone could be 15 right now. Yeah. And they're Gen. Does that cover too, like,

streaming? No, no. Just like, it's literally a YouTuber. It's like, it's one thing. So you say streamer? Twitch streamer is number eight. Okay. So YouTuber's number one.

Streamers number eight. Throughout some more you guys got. Ooh. I mean, you got. Door dash? No. My son's like, I can't wait to door dash. Just to give you a little bit of a hit.

There are some traditional jobs on here. Not many. but there are some, like what a kid in the 80s would say, too, probably. Firefighter? No. Okay. Astronaut? Social media influencer.

I thought I saw influencer on here. I'll give you TikTok creator, Doug. Oh, God. That's number two. YouTubers one, TikTok creators number two. You're missing number three and four and five and six and seven. Podcaster. No?

Oh, yeah. No. They don't listen to podcasts. Not yet, yeah. They're going to do it. I don't know, bro. Give me them. That's weird.

So, app game developer is four. Sure. Doctor and nurse is still number three. Okay. So that's still up there. Number five is still entrepreneur. Oh, good. Six is artist.

Seven is professional athlete. Eight, Doug Nailed, online streamer. Nine is musician. Ten is teacher. But YouTube. Of all of those. So, like, two are realistic. The rest are just.

The rest are just bullshit That's true Oh man Like name the ones that are realistic in there Entrepreneur Yeah Teacher That's about it

Maybe app game developer Is a realistic Like working as a developer Yeah If you if you I mean Okay so three of ten Yeah

I suppose Yeah the rest are YouTuber Yeah right Okay TikToker yeah right Artists Well maybe if you're You know professional

I mean Online streamer Yeah there's quite a few Of a musician Quite a few of these Are like somebody tells me. Artist musician, nah, dude, that's, that's passion, but it's not like, oh, I'm going to be a career. If somebody ever says to you, like, hey, what do you do for a living?

Oh, I'm an artist. You know what I hear? Unemployed. Broke. Yeah. Broke. Oh, you're unemployed. You have a job. I love it. I'm into it. But I know it leads to broke scene. It's pretty crazy to think that wanted, because I bet you in the 80s, you said firefighter. I bet you in the 80s. Astronaut was firefighter. Astronaut. I wonder if that list is out there. Maybe look for, in the 1980s, top 10 jobs that kids wanted that kids wanted i wonder pro wrestler would have been in there you think so in the 80s i mean i definitely like your i like your firefighter for sure i like cop in there for sure those were two probably the 80s that were still pro wrestlers got to be in there you think

so bro the eight do you guys remember of course i want to be like a navy seal you know when i was a kid did you really i didn't even know they existed when i was a kid that i always i knew green beret when i was a kid navy seal's a rambo because that's right oh ramba yeah your entire education of the kid is sitting around Rocky and Rambo. Well, not mine. That's where most of your knowledge goes from the distance from that. So in the 80s, popular dream jobs were athlete, doctor, teacher, and musician. Oh, all the same.

Yeah. Well, boys often aspired to be firefighters, engineers, astronauts. There you go. While girls wanted to be doctors, teachers, scientists, or a chef or a baker. All many other common ones. So what I was looking for is what replaced TikTok and YouTuber, right? Because that's one and two. Well, a movie, an actor, I guess, would have been, what they would have said back then.

They didn't say that, though. I know. That's funny, man. That's all right. Actors, nobody cares. Detective and Investigator was a Paco one back then. That's interesting. Yeah, what was so popular in the 80s?

Was there a show that we watched that was real? Inspector Gadget. I showed my kids out the other day. I think it's hilarious. Dude, I got to tell you guys. This just reminded me of something I did over the weekend. My wife got, she went on. Where were you guys all this weekend?

Did you go somewhere? I was just taking care of Courtney and all we go. Oh, that's right. She had the appendix removed. How is she? How is she? She's good now. I mean, it's, yeah, you know, it is after a surgery.

You think it's going to be no big deal. And it's like, you know, she couldn't even like, it's all core related. Everything. Everything hurts. So it's just, she's in a lot of pain still. It took my buddy two weeks go back to work. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was scary. And then it's good because we got answers and then we were able to do it that same day. Good. And then come home. But yeah, it was like. a lot of, I was, like, putting my little nurse hat on. Are you a good caretaker? Are you, like, Adam?

Yeah. You're like, did you say like me? I really like, I really like was outside of my normal self to try and like overcompensate for that fact that I'm not like that nurturing. I mean, Katrina said he was, she went and she went and saw Courtney and she said, you know, Justin was like he wouldn't even leave her side and didn't want to leave. He was going to sleep out in the parking lot. Well, her point of reference is you. Her point of reference is you. He was smiling.

he was there Katrina's like it's more like I'm not there to suffer with you I'm not there to make you things and fluff your pillow No I'm with you I'm terrible Hey the one thing though

You're a terrible patient too Yeah I am both I am both but Katrina I mean we talk about this a lot right Like I'm I'm good if you ask me What I'm not good is to just to do it That I'm not like so she and she I said that and I feel like in our relationship

We've communicated that enough It's like, hey, that's fair. Like, you just got to. And because what she's bad about, too, is my, and I'm sure Courtney's like this. She's tough. I can handle it. Like, you know, my wife is, I got it. I'm good.

Right. So she has that D1 mentality goes into everything she does. So she'll act like she's not really hurting or that sick until she gets snaps at me. And then I'm like, whoa, what's- Courtney toughs it out a lot. And then she has a very specific way in an order of sequence of things. Because she's a nurse. So she has like, what are you doing bringing that to me?

If I don't do one of those things in that sequence. It's like, I'm like, okay, well, figure it out. My wife, she's very good at telling me. She doesn't feel like good. Jessica's got like a list. So just tell me, can you, yeah, rub my feet? Not like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. No, no, no, you're not doing a good job. She did say I did a good job, though, so I, you know, I came through. So we're, you guys do well, bro. Listen, I'm all joking, bro. When your wife was really sick, you were, you were there,

that was like, I thought of you actually said the whole thing. I was like, oh, my God, dude, because that's so long. And it was scary. It was scary the whole time. You didn't have answers. I had seven days in Mexico, dog. Seven days.

And it was a scary seven days. Seven days in Mexico with a language barrier. And it was she, and you didn't know, I mean, it was scary. Oh, yeah, I didn't know anything. I mean, and all I'm hearing is that she could go septic and die. And to see, she was not there. Like, the first, the first day and a half, she wasn't even coherent. So I can't even get feedback from her.

I don't speak Spanish, so I'm like trying to do that whole thing and figure it all out. Then I'm like texting you and all my doctor friends like, what does this mean? Like, oh my God. And then, yeah, I dragged on for seven days. Yeah, that was the thing because I was trying really hard to like communicate to all her. She wanted me to communicate all her friends or family and like, and I had like, you know, 10 different threads going at the same time and it was just like towards the end, got her home and everything settled.

And then like I kind of like stepped outside and I started like, you know, I don't know. It just was like, it all kind of rushed at once, like, what had happened. It kind of sunk in. And then I get, like, angry in, like, and so I had to, like, take it outside on my own and kind of vent out and like. Oh, I snapped on the family. I had to, like, I told everybody, like, you know, do not talk to me. Talk to somebody else about, like, nobody cares more than I care. I'm here.

Nobody's more connected to, like, medical professionals than I am in this family. So I don't want anybody's, like, everyone was trying to give me opinion back home. I'm like, dude, I do not, that's not what I need right now. Oh, yeah. Like, I'll call you an act. Like, trust me, I was calling my friends that I wanted their opinion on that stuff. You got a call from me, but the family that all started everyone, and they care, right? So I get it.

I understand why. I'm scared. But in that moment, I'm just like, oh, I couldn't handle that too. Caretaking is considered one of the most stressful things that people will go through. When they list the most stressful things you'll go through, I believe it. It's long-term caretaking, like taking care of it, like an elderly parent. Yeah. And they'll show, like, Katrina said when she came home,

she said, she had Justin look like he ran a marathon. She's like, I could just see how exhaust, exhausty was. It's tough, man. Had to keep going. Well, it's physically and emotionally. That's why, you know what I'm saying? Well, if you care about the person, it's not like you're just hired to help them, you know?

It's like somebody you actually care about. I mean, I don't know where you felt this afterwards. I mean, I, the thing for Katrina and I get, and because maybe it was so life or death situation, And boy, the connection that it gave us afterwards. It was like, and she admits that up into that point, actually she just talked about this weekend. We were opening up and sharing some stories like this.

And she brought this up. And she's just like, you know, I have to admit that before that day happened. Like, I didn't think you love me that much. It wasn't until that moment that she realized like, oh, yeah, no, it was great. I think that's why it brought us on a deeper level. Well, that's all, I mean, anytime you go through something really challenging with your partner. at the other end of it can be incredible. Well, especially if you're terrible like I am,

like I'm terrible at expressing that stuff and showing, saying that stuff. And then, but of course in the moment, like, of course, I would take a bullet for her or do whatever, right? So it took that for her to see it and feel it at the level. So a lot of that's my bad, right? Leading up to that, I hadn't made her feel that way enough.

But that moment, it gave her that though. So now that she's checked that box. like okay there's no question in my mind like would he be there for me type of yeah we went through that yeah we had a little bit of that I think the the silver lining really and I told you guys like kind of the state of wherever it's at with it's been a bit like confrontational a little bit of friction between Courtney and him as he's going through puberty and like changing all this kind of pushing her away from being the little baby you know he just want to be known as a little baby and all this and so all

this happened he was asleep i you know we were about to podcast and i took off and then went home and picked her up took her to the er but uh ever was still like in his room and was asleep and didn't know this was happening i was like leaning on uh Ethan to really kind of help get all the things and prepare her to help you know bring her to the car and so he found out as like we had gone and like we were at the hospital and he's like what mom's at the hospital and like it he freaked him out and it was great because he came in after she kind of came home from the surgery and all the stuff and was just like broke down. He's just like, I'm so sorry. I've been so hard on you. And, you know, and it was like, it was great because it's like, you know, puts it in perspective.

It's like, dude, like you almost lost your mom, like, you know, in your mind. Right, right. So he really took that to heart. Oh, that's wonderful. So that ended up being a good thing at the end of all of it. It's always great to see how God can turn tough, hard things into. He can turn it around I totally hijacked your story, sorry. I was reminded of Justin's thing,

so that was just thinking about that weekend. So what happened? Well, so we had a couple things. So Friday, I filmed the first of the series that I'm going to do. Oh, you filmed it. Yeah, I filmed it with Dylan. So let me ask you guys this.

When was the last time you guys saw me get really visibly nervous to be on camera? Never, bro. You love the camera. Never, yeah, never. It's never happened. You're only, if I ever see you, It's only to get on stage.

Right, right. And even then, do you guys see me like shaking? No, no, no, no. I've never, okay, day one, when Doug filmed me for MAPS and a bullet, this is when I knew that this is, oh, this is something I can do. He put me on camera. I felt very, right away, very comfortable. I don't know what it is, but never bothered me whatsoever. Anything I do on camera.

In fact, you put me in front of a crowd in front of a camera, and I look at a camera, I won't even be nervous anymore. Don't know why. I have never. And my buddy Chuck, he's one of the pastors of the church I go to, because, you know, the whole topic of the series is like, how do I, how do I gear, how do I do, how do I do fitness for, for God's glory? Not for mine, not for anybody else. Like, it's always been for me, right? It's always been this kind of like back and forth, this functional thing. And he warned me. He goes, bro. He goes, it's going to be a lot harder than you think. He goes, it's going to be a lot harder than you think. And so sure enough, dude, first off, morning of, literally morning of, Dylan is supposed to meet me at my. house at like 645 because we were gonna we were gonna damn he made you get up at that time that's the time I work out bro you see what sound you're a champ bro Joe's a chat I'm like eight doing like three o'clock I'll see you yeah I know he's a champ dude I'm so glad he's the one on the other side of the camera by the way but we I was originally going to go to Santa Cruz fitness the Santa Cruz gym yeah that

was the plan right that was the plan but I woke up in the morning and the night before I was just disturbed about it. I guess it would be the word that I want to use. It was just kind of consuming. I had it in the back of my mind, but it was consuming. It didn't feel right a little bit. It was just like,

I'm going to do this thing. It's going to be hard or whatever. Wake up in the morning. The morning's going great. I don't remember what happened with Jessica, but she said something to me and I just laid into her, which I'm like, what am I? And I just totally hammered her and started this big fight.

And, you know, shortly after I'm like, oh my God, that was like, why am I such a, what's going on here? Try to repair that. a little bit. Then we, I'm like, hey, Dylan, I want to go to the studio because I know the way I feel. And if I'm in a gym like that, it's even worse. Right. Take me to a place I feel like home. So we come here and, uh, this is 100%. I'm being 100% honest. Uh, we go out here and I'm like, Dylan, I got to go to the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom for 20 minutes for like I'm going to throw up.

Oh my God. Yeah, dude. Wow. Visibly like, I'm like visibly shaking and nervous. I'm like, what am I don't know how to do this. Uh, like, I'm praying like, okay, what is this going to look like? and we did it on all the way here he's filming me and i'm i'm talking in the car about what i'm trying to do i don't know what this is going to look like i'm going to try and submit and let go and again and so it was it was interesting we did it and it was great uh when we did it and dylan is uh again like i said he's a right guy for for the job but really weird really really weird that i that happened never felt like that before you feel like extra vulnerable with this i mean there's a few ways to look at it i would explain i would i would i would i would have

I would imagine there's a part of you that is wrestling with your old tendencies of what you'll want to do and what you're supposed to do. And then you're also being filmed while working that out. And you get to privately normally do that and you have to publicly do that now. That's part of it. You know, that's part of it. I guess the secular side of me would say that, although I can get vulnerable talking on here. And it doesn't bother me. the other that here's this here's a spiritual side so if you're not uh religious you can tune out

or think it's silly those of us who are believe in this but there's also the spiritual side of it where when you get uh closer to uh to moving towards god or you're gonna maybe potentially even influence people in that direction that you become a target and it it was like i said i've never not only have i never felt that kind of nervousness in front of a camera i can't think the last time i felt nervous like that ever geez it was really weird It was strange. It was really, really weird. Unlike you.

Did you get a sense of relief afterwards? The sense I have. Or did you just drag, God, I got to do this again. The sense I, there's two. I have a very strong sense of purpose behind it. Okay. But I also have this understanding that it's going to be a tough season.

It's going to be a three-month period where it's going to suck. Yeah. And it's probably going to be all over the place. So I don't know. But it was interesting. When does it go live? When you go in live, don't? I think the first episode will be.

Yeah. This week? Oh, cool. So by the time this air is, it should be. It should be, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to, and I'm going to, this is me thinking out loud a little bit, right?

I'm going to include a few friends who've also had a relationship with fitness that's, that I think will, will convey it well like Dennis Roberts. Oh, nice. He's a one of the, he's a world-class jujitsu fighter, fought in MMA because he's been so, and I've already asked his people permission, because he's been so single-minded in the past, he's injured his body and hurt himself in ways that. Yeah. You know, he says maybe could have been avoided.

Yeah. I'm going to have Johnny Sebastian on. Pro bodybuilder. Also probably wrestles with the same thing as he did. Right now he is for sure. I was going to say. He's definitely wrestling because he's in prep right now, in fact, for a competition. I'm going to have Chuck, who's one of my good mentors, you know, Christian mentors.

So we're going to talk about it. He also likes to work out, but really just from a theological standpoint, I can ask him these questions. And then I'll probably have some with you guys where we're going to sit down for 20 minutes and I'm going to ask you guys what my problem is and you guys can tell me I can't wait for that one I can't wait for that one I sold it to you I've already got a list I've been actually working on it's funny you're going to do this I've had I've been writing a list off the whole like grocery list that's literally what I'm going to ask you what do you guys do you guys I'm stupid because I trust you guys and we get to film it so anyway so that's that's what's going

I was going to what I was going to talk about so that was your weekend you did no then Then we, my uncle who passed away, you know, a few weeks ago, we put his ashes with my grandparents. So we also did that. So that was also on my mind. But it was really nice, man. I got to tell you guys. It was by my house where the cemetery is. And my wife very graciously offered up our home for the whole family.

And my wife did such an amazing. She's so, she's so gifted at creating a space for people when they're going through difficult. times my family's so grateful and she did that man we you know all i did was order the food that we had but she organized the home and where people would sit and the music and the energy and the children can you know play over here and my whole family was just like man you guys and they're thanking me too and i'm like i did nothing my wife did all of it so you got to thank her uh so it was a very painful but also uh healing time it was like the final like this is it yeah we're done with all that stuff so yeah that's good but other than that that's it that was this weekend anyway I wanted to talk

about um legion's egg protein I think I brought it up on an earlier podcast I love it I love have you guys used it I have not it's relatively new right they didn't have it before yeah no I haven't had it it tastes do we have some here I think I took it we did I did I did get a bag I have one I don't have you been using it done I have I love it tastes good too it tastes super good The amino acid profile on it is incredible. It's just as good as way for building muscle, recovery, all that stuff. How would you guys compare it? Because Wade, his way tastes bomb.

So how would you? I think it's better than way. So I used to, like, I used to get the old. It's got better mouthfeel. Yes. Like, I used to intentionally pump egg whites into my shakes just for the mouth. Not because I was trying, oh, there's 20 more grams. No, it's more like.

It gives you a little bit more of a creamy. It frost the, like, smoothie. It makes it even better. So I imagine it would have a taste like that. Yeah. So for people who can't digest dairy very well, and they want, like, a high-quality muscle-building protein, that's a great alternative. I had a concern before I started taking it, though, was it's going to upset my stomach? No.

No problems. Same here. Speaking of you, Doug, are you next on the fitness podcast? Yes, I think it's going live today, which is when we're recording this episode. So it's already up there. I don't think it's up yes, going up this afternoon. Well, it will be glad by this airs. This time is airs. It all have already been up. I know Dylan's putting it up this today or this afternoon or whatever. So you're next. I'm next. And I'm talking financial things. I'm talking about how to structure your business, you know, whether you should form an entity or not form an entity, some tax things. I mean, for full disclosure, I'm not a CPA, but I do have a lot of experience. And that's what I'm sharing. You know your stuff. I really, I really hope, I mean, I have high hopes for this podcast because obviously I don't expect to.

to be the size of mind pump because we're not going out to the general population. We're going for very specific. For training coaches. Helping trainers, coaches, and any health professionals that want to scale, build their business or even start being a personal trainer. So, and the point of having all of us like that is to be very well-rounded. Obviously, there's many things that's not related to knowing personal training that requires this business code.

And that's why I'm so glad he has Doug doing that because there's so many things that he does. That's a blind spot for coaches and trainers. Big time. Oh, yeah. It is for a lot of entrepreneurs. Just, yes, exactly. Especially trainers. Yeah.

The trainers do not know any of that stuff. I have never met a trainer who understood that very well. Ever. I didn't at all. So, yeah. Pretty crazy. No, excited for it. I got, I also got to talk about my brother's success in the new KariBot.

Oh, you're sharing it. Yes. Yes. Well, so, okay, so my brother, he cracks me up, right? Great father, good man. He's been doing really well at work. he's a financial advisor and he's he's he's conservative with his money very much so he does a good job he takes care of his family he could have bought that car a long time ago yes he takes care of his family

he's not one to go just like be flash or whatever but he like you adam he loves cars yes like he gets he genuinely gets joy yeah out of you know cool cars fast cars whatever and he's been probably for the last year or two talking about the corvette zero six oh longer than that i was talking to him two years two or three years ago at the Christmas party and how bad he wanted that car. Yeah. And I knew he could go buy it then, but the market was crazy.

Yeah. He found one for a crazy deal. He got a steal. When he got that, just to give some numbers of, I specced that exact car and I was going to buy it. And the reason why I didn't was after I did the whole thing. So I got an allocation.

I got all excited because this dealer said, I got one, someone gave it up. You can have it. Spect it out. Look identical to that. Everything he had on it, I put on it.

So it was so crazy to see. that's what he got. And then at the very end, the dealer hits me for a $25,000 market on top of that. And I'm like, F off, dude. I'm not going to pay super car money.

It's not a Ferrari or Lamborghini. It's awesome in that caliber, but I'm not going to pay that because they won't hold their value like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Like, I want to pay what it's worth, not pay it over. So, and he got it for,

I think, $60,000 less than what I was earmarked to get it for. Steel, just a steal for that call. She's so happy about it. He keeps talking about it. So, yeah, shares it with everybody. Brings it to the house. And that's the first time I've driven that caliber of like a race car.

I've been. Oh, he lets you drive it? Yeah, yeah. He let all of us drive it, right? Man, that's scary fast. Yeah. Bro, you hit that. We're on the freeway and you hit it and it pulls and then it pulls harder and then it pulls harder.

And I'm like, this is crazy, bro. This is a lot of fun. I told him, like, there's no way you'll drive the speed limit in this because it's boring. Yeah. How could you possibly drive the speed? Anyway, it's pretty awesome. Didn't they release, like, three versions of it? Well, the new ones.

So part of why he got a good deal finally, and this is what I was waiting for the same thing for this car, is that once the new ZR1 and the ZR1X or whatever came out, which those are now being built. Because this is a 670, but naturally aspirated V8. It's no turbo. Oh, it's naturally aspirated. This is what was, they took Ferrari's 458 engine and put it in a Corvette.

So it's literally the same thing. Is it? Yeah, same thing. It is the exact. That's what, and what an incredible pool for Corvette Chevy to do this is they, that's what they did. They went out, which, by the way, is one of the most valuable Ferraris that will hold forever was this is the last naturally aspirated Ferrari was the 4-5-8. And that engine is known as one of the greatest V8s ever built. They, Chevy goes and takes it.

They bought one, completely took it apart, reverse engineered it, and built their version of it. But it's the same thing. I mean, horsepower, the way it puts it down, the way it feels. That's how badass that car is. So it's like you're getting a, I mean, other than the shell, you're getting a Ferrari type of car. I got to say, I'm so proud of my brother, though. He does such a good job. He's such a good dad, and he's done well.

And now he's got one of his dream cars. But I will say this, too, it is funny because he's a giant dude. He's a big dude. He's like six two. As he fitted. Bro, seeing him get in, bro, I just laughed at a lot. He's a big ass guy. Yeah, he's just, how does that go?

Bro, it's on the floor. You need some serious mobility You get super reclined To just like roll in Oh yeah Yeah So the Porsche has like more room Like more roomy

Yeah well yeah Because I well mine you sat in It has the bucket seats And there's nothing to the bucket seats So if you get like conventional seats You lose some of that head room Yeah So like for certain cars

Lamborghinis like this One of the things I don't like If you're as tall as I am You're like this The cockpit the cockpit so tight Your head's like this For a time Yeah, the little ones.

Yeah, but I can't remember the Corvette has better, a better room than most of those supercars, but similar times. So I got to tell you guys about a challenge, not a challenge, something I'm going to try and do, and I'd like your guys' help. If you guys would like to join, which I doubt you would, we can make a bet on it, which I think will be fun. We'll let the audience try to influence everybody. I'm going to try to stop saying curse words.

Wow. I'm going to try to stop using that kind of language moving forward. Yeah. So Justin and I got to kick it up. I knew as soon as I said that, it's you guys is impulsive. I can't always. Bro, I don't, I live by that. I don't trust anybody who doesn't swear, bro.

Thank you. I don't trust anybody who doesn't swear. That's been my MO. I don't know if there's data to support that. I don't. I don't care about the data. Look at Doug's skeptical face. Very skeptical.

I grew up around a lot of people who didn't swear. And they were some very trustworthy people. So, I don't know. Those are the ones that the most skeletal. Yeah, they hit a lot. I don't know about that. I think it's more a moral code than that, you know. I mean, there could be other reasons, but.

I think you can make points and connections without it. I agree. I think you can filter yourself for sure. And it's just, look, I was asking myself, it's like, do I need to? No, I don't. So let me try. Well, anyway, the challenge is I say to you guys, if you guys want to put a jar on the show while we're recording, and every time you say a bad word, you got to put $100 in there.

I'm not going to play this game. But you can. All right. I don't have a desire not to. I like that part of me. You don't want to make that money? No, I like that part of me. Do you think you would lose that?

Is that why? No, it's because I like that part of me. Like, I keep saying to you. I don't want to give. But to win a jar full of hundreds. I don't want to give that up. If it was something that I, if I did. What if we put 500 every time?

Would it matter? Really? I'm not that motivated by that. No, no. No. Sorry, Doug. I mean, I'm competitive, all the things, but that's not. Yeah, if it's overdone, it's late.

I agree with that. I agree that, and I remember when we first started the podcast, I swore way more. We all did. And it was, admittedly, it was nerves. And that's, normally, swearing is a sign of that, is, you know, less intelligent because you can't find the right words, nervous. But I don't feel that way anymore. Like, this is so, you know, I'm so comfortable doing what we do. If I swear, I swear, you know, it's not because I'm nervous or can't find the word.

So you're turning the competition down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, I'll hold you accountable if you want. I'll put a jar out there, and every time I'll make sure you put... Who's going to take the money? I'm going to give it to you guys. Maybe Doug, because Doug seems to be prolet. You might as well.

You took all our money for the driving machines. I'll be happy to take it back. Is it a good investment? Do you guys still stand by that? Forever. I still used it. All right, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to not say bad words.

Were you a lot on here? What? On here? Do I say a lot? On the show? Yeah. Not a ton, but I'll throw a man. Some.

Yeah. Much better now. You had more. vulgar stuff. Yes, back in the day. That's what he was more known for, was saying vulgar things. That I have, I think that's worse.

Of course. Yeah. I feel like a good swear word in the right place to add humor. I like how you do this for your hand. Like it's, like, it's a, like, it's a very small. Yes. Like it's a,

yeah. I mean, I guess, uh, there was, I, I know that I made a conscious effort when we had Max, like, so I don't swear around him. You don't? No. He never hears a bad word? Oh, really? Yeah, I'm very aware that when we're at home, I don't swear. Oh, wow. So, but when I'm with my buddies, 100%.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's part of my storytelling is that. You take that away from me, I might be a terrible storyteller. You don't want, do you want that? Do you want that? I'm a good storyteller, don't you think? Yeah, I don't know if you're bad, if you're am I a good storyteller? Okay. I don't know if the cussing is what makes it a good story. It adds to it. Yeah. That's character. Well, if it's going to, if it's going to impede your ability to tell awesome stories, I agree. Okay. Keep saying. I like challenging the Ned Flan out there. Yeah.

You know, that was, can I just tell you, that depiction on Ned Flanders, it's such an amazing job. It's so good. At painting people who are trying to be moral

as, yes, as terrible people. Morally virtuous people who stick their nose up and everybody else. That's what I'm not about. So I will take down

all the Ned Flanders. Meanwhile, you are a very good man. Yeah, that's all, I want that to speak for herself. Yeah. You don't want the self-righteous.

And that's kind of where I'm at. I feel, Justin and I are, a lot like you. There's an area where we're in common because, and I think you do the same thing. Like, when I'm around kids, like, I get really annoyed. I never swear for my kids. Oh, yeah. I'm just like, dude, that's not, there's a time and place and when I'm with my buddies, and we've built this around

this being like with my buddies, uh, you're Doug and you are probably would like it that way because it would probably reach a larger audience. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because I mean, if you want to people, we'd be very Ryan Seacrest and you'd be happy. No, we'll never be that. But look, here's the deal. It's not for me. A hundred percent. what you're saying. If you really want to help people achieve health and fitness

and you want to reach more people, you just, you would stop cussing. Otherwise, I'm trying to sell it. If the love of helping people outweighs your urge really to say bad words,

maximizing your potential. You know what I mean? Help. Because I really want to reach as many people as possible to help them. But that's all right. I'm going to meditate on that.

I'd be curious about this conversation say three or four years ago. Yeah. Well, like how resistant we would be different. Well, I mean, where you would be,

Sal. Oh, I would be right where they are. Exactly. So it's a matter of timing. Oh, yeah. You see what I'm saying? Because I had this conversation 10 years ago.

And guess what? I was very patient. I don't know. And little by little. Justin and I found Jesus a long time ago. I'm not sure that's going to make a difference. That's why it's like, yeah, it's crazy, dude. Doug's a good, he's a good splinter for the Ninja Turtle.

He's patient. I'm very patient. Right now he's mad because I'm messing up his thing that he's doing. No, no, that's fine. It's good to have people on my team. Doug's like, you just missed the night. So we were going there. Eventually they come around, Doug.

They do. You plant your seeds and, you know, we get there. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. I'm rooting for you, though. So, yeah. I appreciate it.

How much? On a scale at zero to F. Like a seven. Okay. A seven rooting for you. Thanks for you. I appreciate it. I am all for you.

Love you guys. Yeah, working on, always being a better dude. That's a good thing. I like that. Just put your money right here when it happens. Figure out what we'll do with it. It's not a big deal. All right.

Yeah, we'll have a pizza party. By the way, we need more trainers. Oh, Doug. We're hiring a, uh, A lot more trainers. And can we talk about the distance ones? Are we going to talk about that too? Yes, we can bring that up.

We're going to hire also trainers who want to coach people virtually so you don't necessarily have to be here. But, okay, I want to put a big butt there. Massive butt. Okay, yeah, one, we want more in-house trainers. That's the number one focus is people that are. And there's perks to be in-house. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it'll definitely be much better to work here than it will be remotely. But what we've recognized is what's happened as. we've taken on all these applications is there's been a few trainers that, you know, Kyle and I would be talking. I'm like, man, he's really good or she is really good. It's such a bummer. They can't relocate. I hate to miss on an incredible employee just because of their constraint to move all the way across the country. And so that was kind of where we moved to this. Okay, let's be, we're going to be even more picky for that just so you know. Way more. So being in-house is one thing. to be remote, we have to really, really like that person. And so, yes, we're accepting applications, but we're looking for somebody who is very much so bought into the brand, very good at what they do, or going to be very good at what they do in order to get that. So, but yes, remote location and also in person.

And it's mindpumpjobs.com. That's where you can apply. Correct. And that's for trainers only. It's not for other jobs here. Okay. No. Most multivitamins for kids are really just glorified candy.

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That's H-I-A-Halth.com forward slash mind pump. On that link, if it's your first time, you'll get 50% off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Sophie from Minnesota. Hi, Sophie. Hello. Hey, guys. How's it going?

Good. How you doing? Good, good. Well, to avoid rambling, I'll just read off my question. I'm 28, and I've been lifting weights in some form for the last decade. I have been pretty consistent with strength training, though, for the last three years, about three to four days per week. And right now I'm really trying to push the limit on my one rep max, so for squat bench and deadlift.

So about 10 weeks ago, I think. started a 12-week cycle that ends in a one-rep max test for each, and I want to do everything I can to maximize my results. I have no experience using lifting aids like belts or straps, and I just was wondering what your guys' opinion was on introducing those. So I'm curious if you thought that would be beneficial to introduce as part of my max test, or if there's a certain body weight to bar-ball weight ratio, or it becomes safer to lift with those aids. And then for reference, I'm 130 pounds, 5-8, and my current maxes are 185 on the squat, 200 on the deadlift, and 90 on the bench press. And before you guys ask, yes, I am eating in a surplus and consistently hitting protein.

Awesome. Nice. Thank you, Sophie. All right, so there's a myth that those aids increase the safety of a lift. Here's what happens. If you put on a weight belt, okay, you can lift more weight. So all it does is increase the weight that you can lift. Therefore, the safety is the same.

So because of the stability that creates in your core, the only time I recommend those things to people are when they're going to compete in a competition that allows them. So if you're going to do a powerlifting meat, then I would say use the tools that they allow in the meat because you also have to learn how to use them properly and effectively. because they do change the biomechanics a little bit. Muscle recruitment patterns change. When you wear a belt, for example, your core pushes out against it to create stability. When you don't wear a belt, it's different.

So that would be it. Now, if you're not going to compete in a sport that allows them, there's really no use in using them. And yes, you will lift more weight with them, but those things are why you're lifting a little bit more weight. So it's not really something. somebody who hasn't already. The fact that you haven't, you, you're strong. You're already strong and you're not, you're not going to get any benefit other than saying that, oh, you left, you lifted 10% more with the belt. If you were winning a trophy for it, that'd be a different story. But if, you know, you were my client, I would, I would encourage you not to start

using it. I mean, I look back at my journey and regret that it was something that I included because you get depended on it. You get really strong. I know what I can lift with a belt. And so I can't lift that without a belt. And so there's this part that psychologically I mess with. And yet I don't compete. So it's just like why did I ever do that?

So a lot of what you hear us communicating is because I think we feel like if we could go back and do it again, we would have done it different. Like if I would, the day I was in your shoes, because there was a time when I was in your shoes and I hadn't done it yet. I wish I wouldn't have done it because it didn't serve me at all, right? other than saying that I lifted this number. I think you are also, even if you lift less weight, I think you're stronger because you are,

you're doing that intrinsically yourself. You're not using an artificial tool in order to do that. And that mimics more realistically how you would lift something in real life too. Are you going to compete? Yeah. Or is this just not be? No, I have no plans. I've just, yeah, I think my progress on my maxes have been kind of slow.

Like over the last three years, them like 10 pounds on each. And I just wanted to see if there was something that could help me get that extra kind of push. Have you used any kind of variable resistance to add bands or chains to your lifts or any kind of like fractional weights? I haven't. Not since college. I was a college tennis player and we used to do a lot of strength and conditioning playing with like speed squads, resistance band squads, that kind of a thing. But since then it's been pretty just traditional. I've done some tempo work like pause

squats or like a slow decline. Yeah, that's the direction I would go. I agree. I think using like chains or bands in addition to the weight that you're using really effective for breaking through plateaus. And then programming is where I'd always look, right?

Are you following Maps power lift or are you following your, like what kind of program were you following? I've been following stronger by the day by Meg squats. I'm not sure if you guys heard of her. How long have you been following it? That's what I've been using the last three years. So she's pretty powerlifting focused.

And then this cycle right now is just focused on one at max testing for this 12 weeks. Okay. Let's send you MAPS power lift. When you're done with that, then follow up. Yeah, try our version of it. It'd be cool. Yeah, usually for powerlifting. I mean, there could be a lot of reasons why someone plateaus.

But programming sometimes is one of the reasons. So we'll send you math power lift. And when you're done, you can try our programming and see if it makes a difference. okay yeah how uh just had a curiosity like how how much weight is normal to be gaining on your maxes like over time for an experienced weightlifter like should you be progressing you know 10 pounds in a year or is there a normal that's impossible to answer right yeah like there's so many factors that can influence that sure uh but you know i think if you're following good you know at this point you've been lifting for a long time you know if you were to add you know in a

three-month period, you know, 10 pounds to your lift. You're doing great. 10's a good amount, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Well, thanks. You got it. We'll send you mass power lift.

That way you got some different programming next time, okay? Okay, great. Well, thanks, guys. Thanks, Sophie. Right on. Yep. Yeah, I'm going to just kind of address what you touched on, Adam, that if you use lifting aids, like belts, wrist wraps, you know, knee sleeves, that kind of stuff, knee wraps,

especially. If you use them often, what'll happen is you'll start to train your body to fire its muscles and operate well or should I say it's most familiar against resistance with those aides. So what happens is you change your recruitment patterns, you take them off in the real world, you go to lift something heavy. Your body goes and it reverts to this pattern that you train all the time, but now you don't have the belt on. Now you don't have the wraps on. Now you don't have the wraps on. Now you don't have the knee wraps on, and then you can cause problems. So it can actually cause issues. Racing is completely different with the belt. Very different. Yeah, it's a completely different process. So it's almost like it's, it's, it's competes with what you're doing without it.

So therefore it's like a completely different response that you're training, uh, which isn't going to be beneficial for you to jump from one to the other. No. And in, in fact, uh, you know, I would say, uh, it's detrimental for many people. It's a very tough habit to break. It's real hard to tell yourself, I'm going to go down 50 pounds in this lift because I'm not using a belt anymore. Our next caller is Jordan from Florida.

Jordan, what's happening? You're doing, Jordan. Hey, guys. How you doing? Good, man. Good, man. What's happening? Not much, man.

I'm very happy to be on here. I've been a long-time listener of you guys. It's very exciting. And, you know, so just to jump into my question real quick, because I know I got a short time and it kind of has a little bit of backstory. But essentially my question is, what qualifies a coach or trainer

and specifically on degrees versus certifications? So a little bit about my backstory is, you know, I didn't finish college. I was kind of an idiot growing up, but even after I just didn't like learning like that. And so when I moved the first, Florida, you know, my goal was to become an athlete performance coach. That was the only thing I was interested. And so when I got here, I started looking into a lot of online

certifications, got certified as a trainer, got a NASM certification, and then honestly following you guys and Joe DeFranco's podcast, like I got like stacks and stacks of books from you guys. And you guys pushed me into the NCI, so I took a couple courses from them. and, you know, did some internships, interned at Elliott Holtz's gym here in Florida, and now I work at overtime athletes and train athletes full-time. So, you know, getting into that, that's kind of just like my background. And, you know, I feel very fortunate. I've been coaching here full-time five years.

And now we work with other coaches, and I help other coaches learn about athlete performance programming. So what spurred my question is, you know, about a month or so ago, I was seeing, I looked, I saw an Instagram real and there was a coach who he had his PhD, multiple masters, but basically he was just saying is, you know, all coaches need to have a degree, period. And, you know, he, if they don't, they're completely unqualified and all that. And all that, I just left the comment on there and was just like, hey, well, here's my experience. And, you know, we, at our gym we have interns i've had i've been here long enough um with oTA that you know i've had multiple coaches come through that had masters had bachelors and they didn't end up being good coaches and that's all i was saying well this guy just like proceeded to attack me in the comments and even start DMing me attacking me calling me unqualified telling me i'm uneducated and all this stuff um so that i was actually kind of hilarious but that's kind of what's for my question and I just want to kind of share that.

That's the background of it. So I want to reach out to you guys. I'm just kind of ask you, you know, what qualifies a coach, right? You know, degrees versus certifications. And again, like I said, I've gotten a lot of information just from your podcast, from DeFranco's podcast and certification. And so, yeah, that was basically what my question was. I would judge a coach's qualifications if I had to pick one thing.

by their experience and who mentored them, way over anything else. If you told me right now, I got no certifications. I got no formal education, but I worked under Joe DeFranco for five years. I'd be like, you're awesome. I'd hire you over the guy with a PhD and exercise science. For sure. So experience crushes all of it. Now, education's important as well.

This industry. Formal education for coaching and fitness training. the ROI and it sucks. You go get a four-year degree and you're going to get, you're going to take away from that what you would get in a certification oftentimes.

And experience crushes all of it. So the person you were talking to sounds like someone who's a little jealous of what you're doing. Insecure, dude. Yeah, that's an insecure dude. And they're trying to disqualify competitors because they're probably struggling, getting clients because other trainers

are outperforming them. And they're like, but they're not... A weak thing to do. Yeah, but they don't have... I have formal education. That's, yeah, no. You put, you, you know, you compare a degree, a basic, say, you know, sports medicine degree to, like, going through Jordan's shallow certification. You're going to get way more for training athletes than you would in that degree.

In four years of school, compared to the guy who goes through the certification with Jordan, you would get way more. You would get way more by just watching, listening, and learning from a Ben Bruno, from a Joe DeFranco, from Max Smarzo from Corey Slesinger. That's like, that's way worth so much more. If you're, hopefully you're following all those guys because. Yeah, I do. I know all those guys. Yeah, I mean, they're the best in the business.

There's a reason why they've been on this podcast. We've known a lot of PhDs. And it's not to say that all PhDs are shit, but those guys impress me way more. And some of them have their degrees and some of them don't. But to be honest with you, I don't even know off the top of my head which one, do and don't, because that's the last thing I'm paying attention to, is their formal

education, it's their experience, and then also their results. I mean, look at like Ben, Bruno, who, you know, a lot of people talk shit about, but look at the athletes that he's trained in the results that he's gotten these athletes and these athletes that continue to train with them. There's a reason why that is, is he's created a brand for himself without any of those other things, you know? I don't really, yeah, no, and, you know, I mean, I was insecure about that starting out for a long, a while, you know, as I was trying to gain experience. But, you know, one of the internships I did, I interned under a guy who had his master's degree. And I think this is what kind of broke that for me was, yeah, I interned under him and not to like, to my own horn.

I was just so unimpressed with him as a coach. That kind of, you know, broke that for me. And then it wasn't until I interned at strength camp under Chris Barnard. that's Elliot Holtz's former partner and he's the owner of overtime athletes who I work for now and have been here for five years and now, you know, five years later

you know, we have our own coaches certification. We work with a lot of athlete performance coaches around the world and I have dozens of online athletes I work with and guys from Georgia, Bama, Michigan State. And

I just sounded funny talking to that guy. It's not like that guy hurt my feelings, but I just, you know, after that whole episode, I was just like, I could train like this for like 30 years, but according to that guy, I would still be unqualified, I guess. There's no direct path from college to training. I mean, I can't even point you to a curriculum that is that dialed in in comparison to, you know, a certification that's more robust like your Jordan Shallows or something that's actually like very heavy with anatomy and physiology and function. And really, that's all you're going to get anyways from the college experience is

maybe a little bit more anatomical information and, you know, biomechanics. But even then, that's a lot of memorization. That's a lot of understanding of, you know, the human body. But the actual application is everything. And the actual working with personalities and, you know, human psychology, it way surpasses that kind of information. So I've had both. And I've, I've leaned so much more on application and mentorships, I just think it's way more valuable. Especially with pro athletes and athletes in general. I mean, they just, they break the mold. So, you know, training general pop, I have like certain things that I can say are that I found in common with training, but then train an athlete and it's totally different. Like, the rules

get thrown out the out the window because it's different for them. They're, they're different breed. And they have different goals. And when you're when you're training for high performance like that you have different things that you're taking into consideration than the average Jane or Joe that wants to come in and lose 15 pounds. So yeah, no, it's, you're on the right track. It sounds like you're falling the right people. You've been mentored by great people. Keep getting what I tell you and encourage you to do, because what can happen, okay, so let's talk about the one thing that can happen to somebody like in your situation is you can get in your own little bubble of this is like how Elliott's team and they do everything and then it becomes dogmatic, even

for you, like be open-minded to learn from all those guys that we talked about because there's something to take from all of them. And I don't believe one of them has it all figured out. I think they all bring something to the table. And you being the person who's open-minded enough to learn from all of those guys, boy, you're going to be better than anybody that you currently work with right now. If all those guys that you currently with only follow under OTA and their philosophy, it's like, yeah, you want to know that philosophy. But then you also want to know the Jordan Shallows, the Ben Brunos, the Max Marzos, and learn from, you know, PGA performance. Like, those guys are the best in the business.

And if you haven't already, I'd lean into getting some courses from some of them because they all got great courses, too. I'm actually looking at what, Jordan Shallow's pre-script, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I've been looking at that one. I've talked to a couple of their guys, and that's definitely the next one on my list. I'm still trying to figure, because you guys pushed me a lot into NCI.

We actually worked with Jason Phillips when we were building our online programs. program and I'm still trying to finish a lot of those programs I got, but you guys pushed me a lot into that. Yeah, they did really good with nutrition coaching. That's what really attracted us to Jason and his team is that in the business side. Yeah, they're really good on nutrition, really good on the business side. I feel like as far as scaling and making money, that kind of deal. But as far as like education for athletes, I mean, I don't know if you, if, have you trained more basketball, football, but yeah, I think mostly football, baseball, basketball, but, you know, it. Again, I've worked with, I work with athletes all around the world.

And, you know, I got, like, a guy kids in Ireland that played Gaelic football. And so some sports I haven't even heard of before. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Paul Favreitz has got incredible stuff, too. So if you haven't gone through it. Ryan Kula for speed, you know, doesn't really, yeah, I can't think of anybody better. Yeah, dude, you get, you get tutelage or mentoring or courses from all those guys. You're going to blow away 99.9% of every PhD out there can sports performance, dude.

You will. just clinical it's different. Keep doing that, dude. You know, allow that, because I know what it's like,

I had the same insecurity when I was a trainer because I was the least educated, least experienced, was a great motivator for me to get great, you know, so allow that to drive you to be great,

you know, and to learn more. No, believe me, I'm constantly reading books and stuff. And yeah, I'm trying to look up every sports performance coach

in the business, even if I'm not doing a certification. So, Yeah, I know all those guys. And, no, I really appreciate it. And appreciate you guys. Again, my wife did a couple of your programs after we had our kids. And, you know, your MAPS prime pro was a huge one.

I really loved as well. Awesome. Thank you. But, well, last thing, before we finish off, you know, first, first sound I just want to say, praise God. I've followed you for a while. And it really loves, you know, everything you've been sharing the last couple years, man. Appreciate that.

And Adam, for you, last little thing, I just want to say, peanut butter goes on the bread first. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Big contention there. Only men do that. Only men. Hopefully, hey, hopefully your wife is one doing all the cooking and stuff of the house. Yeah, she is. But she agrees with me.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Good woman. A lot of dishes over at that house. All right, dude. You're right. But hey, really, really glad it was really excited to jump on. And great to talk to you guys and really appreciate it.

Thanks, ma'am. Keep it up, bro. Take it easy. Absolutely. Thank you. The irony is we often get messages from professors who use our content now to teach. I love that. That's my favorite thing.

I know. You know? Talk about full circle for us. Well, definitely for you and I. We have zero. I can identify with that. I mean, that was a big insecurity for me. It was a, you know, I've talked probably a lot about my money insecurities.

I also had the education insecurity. Those were two big ones for me for a big portion of my career. Yeah, I think, too, for me going through that experience, like, I would get so frustrated because it was just, they were just lecturing, and so much of it was fluff and fat that I would just cut out. And I'm like, just teach me what's actually going to work and is usable. And it was never the case. And so I was just sitting there held hostage, it felt like.

and I just didn't enjoy it. So, you know, again, I think it applies into, like, a really clinical setting. Yeah. If you're working in with, like, physicians and, like, it's in that kind of facility setting, you know, there's really good programs in that regard. But for general population and for sports performance, you're not going to get better than mentorships. Our next caller is Corey from Kansas. What's up, Corey?

We're doing, Corey. I'm well. How are you all? Good, good. How can we help you? Good. Hey, yeah, so there's been a few episodes lately. guys have talked about the importance of keeping track of weekly load. So my question comes

in with that in relation to progressive overloading. So in optimizing strength or hypertrophy for a given lift, does progressive overload take precedence over total weekly training volume? For example, in the context of Maps Phase 2, or Maps Anabolic Phase 2 and 3, where the rep ranges are higher, I often hit the top end of the rep range, and than increased load, which is typically five pounds per dumbbell. However, upon increasing the weight, I usually fall short of the previous week's rep count, resulting in a net decrease for weekly volume. While I'm achieving progressive overload through increased weight, overall volume drops.

So from a programming standpoint, is it more beneficial to prioritize load progression or to maintain increased weekly volume for continued adaptation? here's the problem with tracking a total volume it's not perfect so if i squat uh 50 pounds for 200 reps i've done more volume than if i did you know three reps with 500 pounds okay so obviously we know which one's gonna build more muscle so i don't i think you're overthinking a little bit uh if you're you're progressive overloading and you know you are so you're you're doing the right thing yeah i i would base it off a feel. Is it more important for me? Do I feel better going a little higher in the reps with better form? Or do I feel a little better going a little lower in the reps and going

heavier? This is where it's not perfect. So this is where you kind of have to decide for yourself. We don't want to live and die by progressive overload because it does, it's not perfect. It doesn't work perfect. And you can't always progressively overload your volume. I wish that linear progression be amazing. Yeah, if that were the case, you know, I'd be doing, you know, a thousand and stats per body part by now. I've been working out for so kind of toggle between the two. You also have to factor in, even though we're thinking like in a weak snapshot of total volume, you also have to think of where you're at daily. Like so let's say today you're supposed to progressively overload, but that was a rough night of sleep last night of all the days that week.

Like, you know, and you so you're like, and the smart thing to do is to not overload the body on that day and probably step back and you'll actually take steps forward versus, oh, today's the day I got to add volume or I got to progressively overload. Therefore, I push anyways. And then you actually go five steps backwards. So it's like there's also that factor that you have to consider in a moment like that, right? Not just the total volume of the week. It's also how do I feel today? I mean, the generic way I did just worked really well for me when I was competing was I was just tracking total volume in the week. And my goal actually was not always necessarily to increase. It was sometimes just to maintain. It's just like, I just don't want to go backwards

Because what I found was when I tracked it without like trying to progress with just watching my own behaviors, I did a lot of this so much where I was like, oh, I wasn't even, a lot of times I was going backwards in a week and I didn't realize. And so I just would set a goal like, hey, the end of this week, I want to make sure I just accomplish the same amount of volume. And sometimes I might add a set, but I try and do it on the days that I feel best to do that. And then overall, look at the week and go like, hey, I accomplished the same amount of volume or more than the previous week I'm winning. And so I just didn't want to go backwards, but I would use the day that I was feeling best in that week to potentially increase that volume. Also keep in mind, this is Adam competing peak shape, like, you know, he lives. It's the only time I did this. Didn't have a job except in the way he focused on.

Yeah, the results. And it doesn't work forever. And sometimes drop, oftentimes, oftentimes reducing volume and load results and better results. Oftentimes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a lot what's kind of inspired this question, Adam. is you've kind of recapped over the last few months

or reference back to your series that you recently did. And one of those moments was talking about just keeping an eye on weekly volume. And I've had that exact same scenario where I look at it and be like, man, that was a great workout. And if I look at it from the totality of a week, it's like, oh, I fell short a little bit there. So, yeah, you don't want to live and die by it. It's just one of many factors that you can pay attention to it.

Yeah, I actually think, I think there's just a lot of benefit in paying attention like you're doing right now. I think there's a lot of value and just kind of try. tracking. And then things tend to make sense. It's like, oh, okay, well, that's probably why I really didn't progress this month is I had two weeks where I actually went backwards in volume. You know what I'm saying? Like so I think the awareness around it is is probably the most valuable thing versus like, oh, how important is it while you, unless it was a full-time job for you like it was for me during that time. Like, it was that serious that I had to get on stage and be better than I was last time. Therefore, I've got to do this thing. And so that's the only time in my life

that I really truly track volume like that because it was, you know, at that time, my job. Absolutely. This process is both a science and an art. So you want objective measures. You also want to base it off your feelings and you want to use both. Neither one is perfect.

So if you felt like you had a great workout, you probably did. You know, you probably did. But sometimes feelings are wrong too. Like, oh, my God, I'm going backwards. then you look at your workouts over the last month. We're like, actually, I'm progressing. Yes.

So you want to use both, but don't live and die by either one. Gotcha. I do like, yeah, I do like the idea that you're, you're peering into it, though, because I think it can be very, it was enlightening for me. I had never really tracked like that. And then it was like, it was enlightening at the least. And I think just kind of like tracking food, someone who's never tracked food.

And it's like, just track it and see what happens. I'm not saying you've got to measure away everything for your life. It's like, you know, it's very enlightening. because we assume or think a lot of times and we're off and we're wrong. So I think that part of you just doing that, I think is valuable. Very good. Awesome.

All right, ma'am. Good. Cool question. Yeah, cool. I appreciate you guys. I think you guys get shout-offs all the time for the great work you do. Obviously, I want to acknowledge that. But also comment on how I think the three of you together and Doug, too, you each bring a separate dynamic to the group

and it makes this show just, it just knocks it out of the park. I can relate to each one of you. you throughout the course of a show probably five times over. So I appreciate everything you guys do. Thank you, Corey, for sharing that. We were just thinking about firing Justin. So that I'm glad to keep them. Keep Justin.

Come on a chopping block, yeah. Justin, we need your little daggers that you kind of throw in there. Everybody, I like those digs. I'll work on it, dude. You know, how to do it natural. Thanks, Corey. Thank you, guys. Have a good one.

You got it. Yeah, Justin makes us like a bullet. That's for sure. If it wasn't for Justin, we'd be annoying all the time. You know, I'm glad. I'm glad to ask that question. That's a good question. It's a good question.

Yeah, because you can get so caught up in tracking that, like, that becomes everything. And then you start to, you know, like it's helpful at first. Like you said, insight is valuable. But it's not per-it really is, listen, if I did the volume for squatting 50 pounds 200 times, do that. 50 times 200. That's a ton of volume versus 500 pounds for three reps. Now, I know which one is going to make my, make me stronger, build more muscle. and it ain't the 50 pounds for 200 reps.

So it's not a perfect formula, but it is one of many metrics that you can kind of pay attention to and watch how it trends over time. I literally, I love it as a just peering in. Not as a, to your point, just the science of like, oh, whoops, I need it. I have to.

It's like, no, it's like just good to know. If you've never done it, I mean, I think it's very similar to someone who's never tracked calories. If you've never tracked before, I think it's a good exercise. And I don't encourage you to do tracking calories for the rest of your life. I don't think that's a way to live.

But I do think everybody at some point, barring you don't have some sort of eating disorder, it is very good for you to track and just see and get an idea. And I think that part of the exercise is the most valuable. To live and die by it as it, this is what I have to do today because I'm at this much volume. I don't think is a good strategy for 99% of the people out there. But I think peering into that, I mean, it was very valuable. able to me. I had been lifting a very long time and feel pretty confident in my program when I do it. And then when I peered in on the volume, I realized like, oh, wow, I have these

patterns of how I train and I could see how that would- Go into those patterns. How do I interrupt this? Yeah, exactly. And I could see how this could lead to a plateau for me. So that became this kind of little mini goal I gave myself, okay, just don't go backwards at them on volume because that would already be different than my previous patterns. And that was enough for me to be able to bring a more muscular, better physique to every time I got on stage. Our next caller is Adam from Minnesota. What's up, Adam? What's up, Adam? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good. How can we help you? Um, so I'll just read off my question. Um, off of this email here. So, um, I train at my college, um, at the wellness center

on campus. And, um, I started working with a client who's got some, I'm not 100% sure what it is but it's some sort of disability it's really hard to communicate with him and um he's super unstable has a lot of imbalances and so i've tried to use some of the things from maps prime and prime pro um but a lot of them are really difficult and queuing him um to getting you know moving how i want him to is hard um so and some things that we have been able to do are like farmers carries overhead carries, just simple stuff like that. So what would you guys recommend, you know, as far as programming to get them to be able to progress to do like

squat, bench, deadlift, you know, the big exercises like that? And then also be able to move him and to be able to focus more on losing the weight that he needs to. He may not be ready for that. We're unaware of his disability. Do you know what it is by any gas? or anything? Yeah, I don't know for sure.

It's hyper-mobile at all? It's some form of autism, I think, because, you know, communication's hard. I'll have to tell him, you know, repeatedly, you know, four, five, six times to do something, and he still might not, you know, do it. Yeah. And I have to break stuff down super specifically for him to do it. You're doing a good job. Yeah, yeah.

Based on what you're saying, consider this. It's a hard client. Yeah, based on what you're saying, you're saying. saying right now, the most important thing to consider is that he has a good relationship with exercise. That's number one. So if he shows up and it looks like he wants to be there, big win. Big win. Now, this is going to sound oversimplified, but it's actually quite true. So long as you don't hurt him, you're doing great. Okay. So anything you do with him, a lunge, elevated push-up, he could lift an empty bar off of a rack so it's only thigh high having him sit down on a bench and stand up as a squat all fine all totally fine so you really can't go wrong except for hurting him and progressing him too quickly

the struggle is it sounds like the struggle for you is you're questioning the whole thing um but i think you're doing i think you're doing how often have you been seeing him or how long well so um We started in January, middle of January, and then we went through, it would have been the middle of June, or the beginning of June, and then we both moved back home. There was only my, both of our freshman year of college, so we both moved back home, and I'm going to start it up again with him in about two or three weeks. I'm moving back. Has he been consistent that whole time? Yeah. How often was he seeing you? We're doing twice a week.

And he shows up to every session? Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, you're crushing it, bro. You're doing a good job. So you think he's got a form of autism because he's having a tough time communicating, understanding, making eye contact the whole deal? Yeah.

So he's probably incredibly uncomfortable, and yet he's showing up to see you. So that means he likes it and he values it. Huge win, Adam. Yeah. Great job. I think the struggle is our innate kind of nature of wanting to progress our clients and move them along to these like desired goals that you might have for them like even even to backload squad or to do these things uh but really like meeting them where they're at and just staying there

and staying there finding out what works uh whether it's supported like you get into the squat rack you have them hold on to things the whole time you're lifting there's nothing wrong with that and and to progress just little bits of whether it's just with weight uh control balance um and And that's really where you need to just focus on his comfort and ability to control himself and feel, like, encouraged that he's making progress. This is a really good question for us to answer because I know that most people that listen the podcast hear us talk about how good squatting is and deadlifting and overhead pressing and the goal is to always try and work towards that.

But I think it's good for you to hear that. There's a lot of my clients. We never got there. Yeah. And I'd like to think I'm pretty good at what I do. There's just some people that that's so far from them that getting them to just do farmer carries. And a great huge win is going from farmer carries holding dumbbells in both hands to all of a sudden be able to do it in one hand and keep their body stable. Like that for somebody like that, that could be a massive win.

Or can we walk across the room doing walking lunges without tipping over? It could be like a massive win for somebody like that. And so, yeah, you could potentially spend the rest of your college career training this person and they never get to squad. It doesn't mean you failed as a trainer at all. Like, it sounds like that he's got a lot of challenges with stability, focus, all the above. And to Sal's point, the best thing that you can possibly do is to get him to enjoy what you guys are doing. And if he's enjoying it and you're helping him make it a part of his lifestyle, that's a big win, right? 95% of the whole thing.

Yeah. Are there, I'll give you some tips. I've trained people like this. Is there a sled? You know, I've had, I've had clients that their workouts didn't change for a long time. But it was such a win that they showed up. And I've got a few clients I can think of like this where they just showed up and they were just there. And I could see, oh, they were showing up.

They're consistent. And they started to enjoy it. And it took us years before they really were able to try to progress certain things. I'll give you some tips. Are there things that you bring up that he then starts getting real verbal with and starts talking about? Are there subjects he like starts just piping up and wants to talk to you about? Yeah, sometimes like talking about his classes. He does animal science.

Good. Ask him. Ask him about that. Oh, dude, if he likes animal science, like have you looked into like some animal flow type of movements like where he's like crawling and doing stuff like animals if he's really like so that's where Sal's going. This is how I would try and go. That's right. Find something he's excited about. interested in. If he loves animals,

you need to talk about it, it's like, dude, let's do some animal flow. Yeah, this is called a bear crawl. Yeah. You know, this is based off of a gorilla's movements. But also, while in between the exercises, ask him about things that you know, light him up. And it just gets him more excited to show up and talk with you. And then the side effect of that is exercising and he's showing up.

But the fact that, just based off of how you described him, the fact that he was two days a week consistent for six months, You want. Huge. He's getting value out of it. Huge win. Basically, it's don't hurt them and see if you can get him to move in ways that are beneficial.

And that's it. Don't overthink it. Yep. Yep. All right. Cool. Trying to think of anything else. Again, just like everybody else says, you know, thank you guys.

Really enjoy the podcast. I took your course for my C.E.U. That was really valuable. Awesome. Oh, good. Awesome, man. Yeah. Appreciate that.

Thanks, brother. How did you enjoy it? Yeah. So you're in our forum, too, then, right? right yeah yeah so like keep us posted as you're going through stuff like that there's a lot of other great trainers in there too that uh have probably had similar challenges and so you might get some ideas so use that for him dude use that form to to prod everybody else and see what they might have done but i love the idea of like uh teaching finding an animal flow that he likes you know

that could be fun for him uh and he you might connect there and like sal said man you're getting him to show up consistently and move his body in beneficial ways he may never squat and deadlift. That's okay. That doesn't mean you failed as a trainer. Keep doing what you're doing. I think you're doing a good job. Got it. Cool. Right on Adam. All right, man. Thank you. Thanks, you got it. I had a client once. Good question for us to talk about. Super good. I had a client one. And new trainers, this is hard to understand because you're just like, he's got to get better. He's not getting stronger. We're not progressing. I'm failing. And you hear us communicate a lot. Right. We do push people to like, hey, the goal should be getting a squad. Of course. But you give me a different person like this. And it's

going to be a different conversation. Yeah, yeah. I had a client once that showed up, had a severe, I, to, I guess, to use the, this doesn't 100% describe it, but he had like a bit of a psychotic break and severe depression. And literally, when he showed up, we would find a time when no one else was there and I had to turn the lights off, play no music. And it was like a eight-month period where we would go in the corner of the gym and we would do like two exercises.

And that was all he could handle at the time. And that was it. But he was showing up. And it was a huge win. And then over the course of the following few years, he started to slowly progress and come out of it. But within that initial eight months or however long, I think it was about eight month period of time,

like he would literally, it was quiet on the floor, like two exercises for the whole hour. I mean, I had clients like this, right? I didn't have a lot, but I had a few clients like this. And sometimes it looks like there's one exercise they like doing. And I just found ways to challenge that. exercise. And so if like let's say the farmer carries that, there's a lot of different variations of farmer carries that he can do that if he likes doing it, you can progress it slowly and

show him wins and get him excited about. And that might be all you do. It might be just all these cool. I did that with step-bos. I had a lady with MS. And it was like just her, I had to hold her and she had to hold on to me. And that's how he started. And then after that, it was hold on to the squat rack. And then it was, I'm not holding on to it. And now it's like we increased the height. And it was a huge. I was like a year long process to get there.

And it's like, dude, massive, you know, progress. I had one kid like this who just had difficulty connecting speaking. But when I asked him about Minecraft, he would go off. Every session, I would ask him about Minecraft. Oh, I mean, I love, I'm so glad. Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. Connection.

Because, I mean, to me, right away, If he's fascinated with animals, animal flow would be such a fun, cool thing for him to learn and teach. And it may only be one or two different animal flows. And that's all we practice and we get good at and we have fun with it. That's right. Yeah. So don't overthink it.

You're doing a good job, Adam. Not everybody's going to be able to barbell back squat and deadlift. It doesn't mean you're a failure as a trainer. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. At Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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