Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2673: Eight Bro-science Hacks that Actually Work & More (Listener Coaching)

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: 8 Bro-science Hacks that Actually Work (But Not for the Reasons You Think). (1:45) The Mind Pump Butcher Box. (27:39) Swear box challenge. (28:47) Legendary bodybuilder showcase: Bill Pearl. (32:04) Miraculous surgery. (36:05) Blame game. (39:33) Athletes popularizing the Sugar Diet. (41:17) The heaviest man. (44:12) Improve intimacy in the bedroom with Brain.fm. (51:26) Interrupting your day with gratitude. (55:17) Building your dream home. (57:49) #Quah question #1 – Should you train even if you're sore? What are the benefits or disadvantages of training when you're sore vs. when you're not? (1:03:45) #Quah question #2 – I have clients who work out early in the morning.  With all the studies being released on the negatives of women working out fasted, what would you recommend them eat beforehand? (1:06:09) #Quah question #3 – What are your suggestions for mitigating burnout as a trainer? What are some ways you've learned to "refill your cup" after pouring into others during the week? (1:08:18) #Quah question #4 – How do you think you'd hold up in an apocalyptic situation? What would be your first moves? (1:13:56) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** Available for a limited time, a curated box pre-filled with Mind Pump’s favorite cuts — no guesswork! Butcher Box members who sign up through Mind Pump will receive: $20 OFF their first box, Free chicken breast, ground beef, OR salmon in every box for a whole year! ** Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** August Special: MAPS 15 50% off! ** Code MUSCLE50 at checkout ** How to Undulate Your Calories for Faster Weight Loss & an Improved Metabolism Bill Pearl: Master Of The Universe - Old School Labs The Woman Who Successfully Performed A Cesarean Section On Herself FedExCup Playoffs: Ben Griffin rebounds from wild start after a ‘creatine overdose’ at BMW Championship - Yahoo Sports Seahawks' D.K. Metcalf eats a bizarre candy-filled diet Mills Darden - Wikiwand What’s the most you should pay for housing? Here’s a breakdown by salary, from $30,000 a year to $120,000 Elite Trainer Academy – Podcast Sore muscles…what does it mean? – Mind Pump Blog Trainer Bonus Series Episode 1: The Successful Trainer Mindset Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mike Dolce (@thedolcediet) Instagram Mark Bell (@marksmellybell) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) 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, right? In today's episode, we answered listeners questions. People went to Mind Pump Media on Instagram, wrote in questions. We picked four of them to answer.

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Use the code Muscle 50 for the discount. Back to the show. Bro science hacks that actually work. Listen, it's not. for the reasons that they say, but they do work. We're going to break it down today. This is my type of episode.

I like this. Let's go, bro. Yeah, I'm the expert today. Sit back. Let me go over these real quick with you guys. You know, I, this is, I like this because, one, obviously,

I fell in this category of the meathead guys that were lifting and bodybuilding and all those things like that. And I learned a lot. And this is, remember, this is later my career. So I've actually,

I've got a lot more knowledge at this point. And I've trained people. Yeah, I've trained people. I have the education, I have the experience. I have a lot more knowledge. I kind of know like, and I remember having these conversations with a lot of my bodybuilder buddies that would be giving me tips on the competing time and dieting and all the things. They'll be like, that's not how the science works.

But be going, okay, that makes kind of sense. Let me try that or do that. So, and it also, not to go off on a tangent, it really is what helped me in the, the marijuana space because this is very, very similar. There's a lot of bro science in the marijuana space of just passed down knowledge that has made it from generation to generation. And I

remember being in that space and hearing it was like I'm going through both of them at similar times. And so the parallels were just fascinating to me because they're both science. And the people are giving good advice for the plant or for bodybuilding. But the way they're describing the science, I understand. That's not how, that doesn't make sense. No, I'm glad you said that because the reason why it's called bro science is because you

have bros telling you why you should do a particular thing. And then you say why. And then they give you the, their explanation is a little weird off. It's not actually correct. However, you want to ask yourself, why has it passed down? Why is it passed down from generation to generation? Why have bodybuilders done certain things for decades like clockwork? Is it just because of the culture is it because the the big rip bodybuilder before said it so therefore i'm going to do it no matter what and i used to think that's why uh later on i realize that's not why uh bodybuilding is just as competitive as any other sport and they want the competitive advantage and when you get to know bodybuilders what actually happens when you meet these people is they're actually the most

willing to experiment they're so willing to to their detriment they're willing to experiment uh the problem of course is when they break it down and they explain and why it works, and it's totally wrong. However, there is a reason why they do it because it actually does work for some people for different reasons. We'll talk about the first one. Bodybuilders are promoting or touting the value

of eating small meals throughout the day for decades. Bodybuilders will say, look, eat five small meals a day or six small meals a day. And then what they'll say is, this stokes your metabolism. Rams of your metabolism. Thermogenic effect.

There's a thermogenic effect that if you eat protein all day, long you'll build more muscle than if you eat less frequently this is what they would say now that's not true it doesn't stoke fat burning because you eat small meals the thermogenic effect the thermogenic effect is basically connected to the size of the meal so three large meals three large thermic effects and it's minimal six meals that are small six small thermic effects all comes out to the same and then protein wise uh if you eat protein every five hours or so there really is no additional benefit from eating more frequently.

And even then, the benefit's kind of small. So they were wrong on that, yet small meals does benefit quite a bit of people. And it helps, especially with fat loss. And here's why. You've probably heard us talk on the podcast, well, definitely if you've listened for more than five episodes, on the value of eating high protein diet. High protein, protein, first of all, does burn more body fat when calories are controlled. It contributes to more muscle.

When you're into calorie deficit, it preserves more muscle and it's appetite suppressing. It does lower your appetite, reduce cravings. If you're trying to eat the upper limits of the protein intake that will give you these benefits, it's kind of hard to do in two or three meals. Typically, you need four or five. I mean, if I took a regular average female and told her to eat 150 grams of protein a day,

that's 50 grams of protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's a lot of protein. It's easier for her to do 25 or 30 in smaller meals throughout the day. I'll sell it even more since this was when, I remember this was one of the myths that you were debunking when we started the podcast and I was in the thick of carrying my meals around. And so I remember having to defend this.

Like, okay, here you guys on this podcast talking about how this doesn't matter. Here's Adam carrying around his six-packed backs everywhere he goes. And let me tell you the reason why that was was because one, to the point about protein, two, portion control. When you're dieting, man, there's no way around feeling hungry. If you're in a deficit, especially consistently, you're going to be hungry. And there was something about knowing that, oh, every two hours, I just knew I had. Psychological benefit.

Yes. I knew that, like, who, I'm hungry right now. That's okay. In 45 more minutes, I'm going to eat again. You know what I'd eat? And then I'd eat. And then before you know it, about an hour, I'd be hungry. It's okay, one hour.

I'll be eating again. Like, so there's that psychological benefit and the fact that it's easier to control portion size that way. I think I found that very beneficial to a lot of my clients that, you know, you'd be surprised. you know, what a 500 calorie meal looks like. And most people, American portion sizes are so distorted. And so I felt that it taught my clients really good portion control and made them realize how much they were underestimating what they were eating in the past. So I loved it for portion control.

I loved it for hitting protein intake. I loved it for the psychological benefit of, I know I'm going to get another meal real soon here. I know I'm going to get another meal real soon here. And so even though it didn't science the way that. We explained it back in the day as bros with the thermogenic effect and stoking the fire and all these things. It did have massive benefits that I found worked well, not only personally, but with a lot of my clients. Now, there's one more reason I'll add. If you are convinced of this and you are making yourself and you're getting five meals a day,

you're probably prepping your food. Yes, that too. You're not going out to buy food five times a day. If you're eating five meals a day, you have to be prepped. You're prepping your meals. And so you have prepping, you're hitting your protein targets, the psychological effect of, oh, I get to eat every couple hours. For a lot of people, this is quite effective. Now, when you add this to a bodybuilder who's eating 200 plus grams of protein a day, who's in these calorie deficits, definitely going to prep anyway because they're bodybuilders.

Now it makes a lot of sense. So this is why it works for a lot of people, but it's not for the reasons that they said. The next one is the value of the post workout shake. Now, they're going to say what they've said in the past and supplement companies took this around with it. Anabolic window. Yeah, as they're like post-workout, you have this anabolic window

where you activate these receptors. You become more insulin sensitive. And you need to feed yourself right away so that the muscles get filled back up with glycogen. Those amino acids get in there and you recover and build faster. In fact, it would sell this so hard that they would say your workouts almost wasted if you don't take a shake afterwards. Now, there's some truth to what they're saying,

But at the end of the day, does it make a difference? No, it really doesn't make a difference. It makes a difference for high-performing athletes who are about to perform shortly after, especially if they have multiple workouts in a day. This helps the body replenish glycogen quicker. But most people don't work out. If they work out at all, it's once a day.

It's not two or three times a day. So that science doesn't add up. But here's why this tends to help with people. When they do this, they get extra protein. Yep. It's not lunch. It's not breakfast. It's not dinner.

It's an extra 30 grams or 40 grams of protein a day. They get that higher protein. intake, which we know and the data contributes to muscle, helps with muscle preservation and a calorie deficit, and it has an appetite suppressing effect to an extent. So the post-workout shake, for a lot of people, does work. But again, not for the reasons I've found that post-hard workout, I could slam a 40-gram, maybe 50-gram protein shake real quick. By the time I drove to my house and showered from the workout, I was ready to eat another meal again. And for chasing macros, which is what I found myself doing a lot when I was trying to hit my protein intake,

it became huge with trying to hit the protein intake that I need to. So I found this very beneficial for clients that struggle with hitting protein intake, which is 90% of your clients have a hard time. So the post the post workout immediate shake benefited him for those reasons, not because they hit some sort of magical window and helped them build more muscle. It's that they became more, they ritualized, okay, because we know the benefit, we know the what the research says about habit stacking. That's right. And they ritualized working out with getting that extra 40 grams of protein.

And since 90% of the population don't hit the optimal amount of protein, ritualizing that workout with a protein shake, added an extra 40 grams to their day, which benefited. That's right. So like all my clients that I would have them do this when I thought the benefit was for the wrong reasons, early trainer meat, right? They all got benefits. Why? Because they got extra protein. It wasn't it wasn't anything magical about that post workout period. Next up is the drinking the gallon of water all day long.

And we used to make fun of bodybuilders. They'd walk around the big jug water all day long. And they'd say it's to flush out their system. It helps absorb protein. They need it to flush out their kidneys is what they would say. The truth is you don't need this much water. That being said, a gallon of water does seem to help people with appetite suppression. Water, you can have what you need.

And then there's optimal. and optimal water is more than what most people drink. So, yes, if you feel, if you drink based off of thirst, you're not going to drink too little water. You're not going to have dehydration. That's what people say. You're going to be dehydrated. You're not going to be dehydrated.

If you drink water when you're thirsty, you're not going to get dehydrated. However, what you need versus what's optimal is often different. And drinking more water, what I found with my clients, is that typically ate less. They drink less other calories. And they tend to feel a lot better. In particular, their mobility.

This is what I noticed with a lot of my clients. Oh, yeah. cognitively like you get that brain fog and then realize like if I'm drinking water I could actually think more clearly I have a little bit more energy and really it's just like a good reminder that if you're not consciously thinking about your day where I need to like pursue water it can get you can get way behind and so to just have that is kind of like this it follows you around and reminder constant reminder to drink water I mean I was so pro this that I had my 60-year-old lady, engineer, skinny dude.

I had them all carrying jugs of water around. And the reason why I did was because what I found was that every client that said they were drinking a lot of water wasn't drinking nearly enough water. And all my clients that thought they were drinking about a gallon of water weren't even close to drinking that. Quarter gallon was the most. And so what I, and it was always just an exercise for me. I didn't make my clients do this indefinitely.

It was, hey, this was part of the teaching process. When they first hired me, it would be something that, hey, I, just want to do this for the next month so we can kind of get an idea of where you at see what what it did was it brought awareness to them it brought awareness to how little they drank and how inconsistent they were that and how much they drank other fluids that were not so ideal for them so what i found was it replaced the sodas the juices all the other things and it gave them water said and it made them aware of how little and how much more they should be drinking this and then there was also the side benefit of they had to pee a lot and so i found they wouldn't be moving more off

By the way, we tracked this with body bugs. Burn more calories. Yes. They were more active. An extra 500 steps to do. I mean, listen, anything that, any, when you're dieting with people and to suppress a little bit of the appetite is beneficial. To keep them active and moving is beneficial. To keep their mouth busy, whether it's chewing gum or drinking water, is beneficial.

And so even though, again, we did the, the bodybuilders or the bros did not explain the science behind this very well, had tremendous value. and I figured that out as a, you know, advanced or a trainer that had been training for a long time and became a staple with all my clients. Next up is fasted cardio. So what the bros will say is if you wake up in the morning and do cardio before you eat, your glycogen is depleted and you're just going to burn body fat. And then you can see the science. There is more fat oxidation when you do cardio in a fastest state.

Now, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. The calorie deficit matters. Whether you do cardio fasted or cardio fed, whether you're oxidizing fat while you're doing cardio or not, doesn't matter. At the end of the day, calories being equal, same fat loss. Makes no difference. Except when people did fast and cardio, they did get leaner. What's going on here?

It's a discipline. It was extra activity. Yeah. It's all it was. You're disciplining yourself to get up that extra hour early to do this activity, which then, you know, sets yourself up for success, better success throughout the day. Did you see the conversation I was having with Mike Dolce about this? Yeah, so I guess he, you, there's a clip of us, and you're talking about this exact point, and we're talking about that it's a splitting hair difference.

It's not a big deal. And he makes the argument that there are, a lot of the research on that is flawed, and there is a slight difference and benefits still to doing it. So there is some science to prove that fast-incorbit. Now, the rebuttal I had to that is like, it's still splitting hair difference. It's so splitting hair. Yeah, it is positive. There is some, there is some. It makes sense to the bodybuilder who's going to.

He was trying to go from 3% to 2.5% of body fat. The general pop, the biggest benefits. So I just want to make sure I make that clear. So, yes, I'm aware of the research that supports it and says that it is. But you're talking about, if you're making that as an argument, you're splitting hair difference on how much more beneficial it is. But when you add the other benefits to it to me, then it makes a lot of sense. Because from a habit perspective, which is what I found with this,

is why I was a huge fan of fasted cardio. And it was because I didn't get up at 6 o'clock in the morning, ever, unless I was doing fast at cardio. I mean, my alarm is set at seven or seven 15, depending on what I have going on that day. And I never get up at six in the morning. But when I was prepping for a show and it was that time in my phase of leaning out and I was started fasting cardio, I would get up at six o'clock. And just simply getting up in the morning and starting the morning with an hour of activity that I normally would be resting has tremendous benefit. Not to mention how I also found I would be more active throughout the day. So there's another, there's a, and this is, and this is

to measure in a study. This is behavior-based. That's right. So what I found was if I just got up and mozy, like how I do right now, get up, alarm goes off at seven, like slowly make it over to the coffee and drink it. I move slow. And then it's not even until probably like noon here. Do I feel like we go for our walk?

And like, okay, now I'm caffeine's in me. Now, like, I just move at a different pace. When I would get up and start today and break a little bit of a sweat doing like a fasted cardio, the rest of the day, I'm already moving. It sets the stage. It does set the stage. And if something's going to get in the way of any kind of structured workout cardio, strength, training, whatever, it tends to not happen first thing in the morning. Now, if I leave this for later in the day, especially after work, things get in the way.

I'm a little later at work. I got some stuff. I got to put out some fires. I got to go pick up the kids. If I wake up early to do cardio and I've decided that's what I'm going to do, I'll almost never miss it. So long as I wake up, I'm not going to miss it. It's uninterrupted. Yeah.

And then again, it's extra activity. When people did fasted cardio versus cardio later in the day. Now, all things being equal doesn't really make a difference. But it typically doesn't work out that way in the real world. The fasted cardio turned out to be extra activity. So this is why it works. Now, if you need to get better sleep, more important, right? So don't get crappy sleep so you can do fast at cardio.

It's not a good trade. But if you get good sleep, you go to bed early and you're doing fast and cardio behavior-wise, activity-wise, it tends to be beneficial. next up the bros love what some people will label as junk volume or finisher sets so when you watch a bodybuilder workout what they'll tend to do is they'll tend to do like one or two like big gross motor movement effective exercises then they'll do like three other exercises and the deeper they get in the workout the more of these exercises become kind of isolation easy exercises pumping yeah and they'll say i'm trying to squeeze as much blood into the muscle now here's why that can be beneficial Again, now we're not talking about, like, don't replace your big gross motor movement exercises. These can't replace that. But here's why this is beneficial for a lot of people. It adds extra volume and very little stress.

Yeah. And now, now when it comes to volume, there is a sweet spot of where you're going to get like 85 to 90% of the results. But to get the extra 5, 10% is extra volume. But what happens here is you're trading recovery for volume. Now you're playing this dancing game. How do I squeeze out an extra 5 or 10%? out of my workouts, but don't compromise my recovery so much that it screws everything over. Well, I know how.

While I'm doing my pecks today, I did the big exercises, I'm going to go do a single arm cable squeeze or sit sideways on this machine and squeeze this upper part of my chest or whatever. It gives you the extra volume and it doesn't cause much damage at all. And so you can squeeze out that extra 5 or 10% of results. In other words, if they were still, if they were in the gym for the same amount of time and they did the same amount of exercises, but they switched the exercises out from these finisher type exercises and replace them with barbell bench press, deadlifts, squatting.

They'd be overtrained. They'd be burnt. And so if you're going to spend this much time in the gym, let's say you're the type of person who likes to train five, seven days a week, an hour to two hours in the gym, this is where this type of training has tremendous benefit. That's right. Because what it does is it manages the intensity. Totally.

It does not overtrain you the same way that it would be if you were doing all these barbell lifts. And so here's another example of we didn't an example. explain it the best way, but somebody who's doing that high of volume of training needs to have exercises that don't do as much damage or else you will absolutely overtrain the body. Totally. All right. Next up is supplements. Lots of supplements. Now, most supplements actually have very little value when it comes to building muscle and burning body fat. Some have some value, but not a lot. But yet, body builders just take a ton. Now, part of that is because body

most take everything. They'll do anything that they think is going to work. But here's what we find. in the data. When people structure their supplements, it tends to contribute to better behaviors with diet and exercise. And especially if the supplements are scheduled throughout the day, it tends to remind them that they're on this discipline path of fitness. So it's like I got my a.m. supplements, my afternoon supplements, my evening supplements are for sleep. You know, it tends to happen if I have supplements for sleep. You know, it tends to happen if I have supplements for sleep. I tend to go to bed on time, tend to think about it. My afternoon ones, you know, it's hard to eat a garbage meal after I took this supplement that it cost me $90 a

month. So I'm going to take that. So it tends to contribute to behaviors that really are what move the needle. It's an immovable routine that they build and establish. That's right. Supplements are definitely a part of that. I actually think a large portion of the success that people report from supplements is due to these reasons. Totally. It is we already see, we know what the research says about how much it actually moves the needles in the, in the pursuit of building muscle or burning body fat. But where, and I remember, I know you guys remember this, especially it's a little bit different now in my life because everybody sends shit for free to me, so I have it all at my disposal. But when I was a kid, and I went and spent half of my paycheck, $150, you know,

on supplements. That's a lot of money. Yeah. You're not missing work out. I'm not missing my workout. I'm not missing my diet. I'm not going to be wasting this. It really, it really kept me on track, especially when I got a new supplement that I was trying, because I was, I was like, I got to see if this works. And I'd spend $150. I better not just wasted by the email version. women would go get a trainer. That's a way better way to do that. I mean, I think even for like, I mean, switch it over to fat loss supplements for women or like sleep supplements like you're saying. I think it's just a placebo effect for both sexes that if you are spending this money on this thing, you're just more aware of it.

And you're more and because you're more aware of it, it's going to create better habits. For that reason, and this is why still to this day when I talk about supplements people say, listen, if you have it in your budget, I'm all for it. I mean, like, spend the money to hurt you. Yeah, because it's it because even if it's only. a one or five percent help towards the goal, what it does behaviorally for a lot of people, we know how much, how beneficial that is. And I think that actually is probably a large portion of the results that come from. That's right. Now, here's another one. And this one, you know, I don't recommend even labeling at this, but I can see why there's some value with this. So these

are the cheat meals or cheat days that they would have. Now, this is a psychological break. It's a break, and I don't mean it in a negative sense. I mean, it gives them a break on the ultra-discipline that they're on throughout the week and allows them to get back into the routine. So instead of eating super perfect all the time, oh, Saturday, Saturday I have a cheat meal and I'm looking forward to that. And they move towards that

and they stay consistent because they know they're looking forward to that. Is there some physiological benefit? There is a benefit to injecting higher calorie meals into your diet, especially if you're in a calorie deficit. It seems to help with performance. It seems to help with muscle preservation and some fat loss.

Now, here's where I don't like it. This can definitely turn into a restrict binge behavior where it's like I restrict all the time and then Saturday comes along or whatever and then I just eat until I make myself sick. So I wanted to put this point in here because I wanted to talk about this because what I find and you kind of touched on it right there and I think this is the main takeaway from this. It's less about the cheat day or cheat meal and it's more about the benefits of undulating your calories. We know what the research says about that and the benefits of doing that. And one of the things that people tend to do when they get on diets is they get to, they have a strict protocol and they follow it just consistently all the time. And it's one of the ways that they have success is just like, this is what I eat every single day. And I think there's a lot of value in interrupting that, in interrupting both psychologically and physiologically.

So I think that part is the part of the quote unquote cheat day that has value. I don't like labeling it at cheat day. Because it's your diet. It's just part of your day. I would teach clients or I would insert these as like just. just high calorie days. I'd say, hey, Friday, we're going to have a high calorie day, add that extra meal or do that, you know, those extra carbs.

You could do that without the crazy, highly processed food. Right. That's where it gets crazy. And that's why I don't like where I think the bro science or the bodybuilding community went wrong with it is labeling it, cheating, because just the connotation that comes with that is not healthy and good. You're better off just having some interruptions in any diet with a high calorie day. One high calorie day is not going to put pounds of body fat on you.

No, if anything, it'll give you. energy and strength for your workout. Exactly. And so I think there's lots of benefit to anybody who is dieting to briefly interrupting that every other week or every week with this meal or meals in a day where you have a high calorie day to interrupt that both psychologically and physiologically. That's right. Last, flexing. The bodybuilder will flex muscles all the time. Now, here's the value of it. Now, here's what they'll say. They'll say that flexing sharpens the muscles and causes and creates a harder look or a harder look.

uh here's why that's probably true i don't think it's necessarily unless they're flexing really hard i don't think there's really a physiological benefit necessarily aside from the fact that no athlete on earth can activate a muscle like a bodybuilder no athlete on earth can activate their right lat or their left rhomboid or the right rear delt or their quad or their inner thigh or the outer glute like a bodybuilder and part of this is because they flex they sit in the mirror and they flex in fact i think they've refined that neural network I think that's a, and we talk so much about the, how often have we talked about the benefits of the CNS, and you are practicing that communication between the brain and that muscle, you can't tell me that's not beneficial.

And tell me the carryover, right? When you go do an exercise, I want, this is a back exercise. Part of the muscle recruitment process. In my back, and I can feel this in my chest versus my shoulders or my glutes versus my quads. That has to do with learning how to connect to these muscles because, look, you take the average person who works out who doesn't flex, they probably can't even do a lat spread. You tell them to activate their lats without using a machine or weights

and they can't do it. Bodybuilders, they can activate any. You could point to a muscle, not even touch it, and they'll be able to activate it and it's from flexing the river. Well, you take away the mirror. It's just isometric poses.

And then it's very valuable. I mean, all resistance training is flexion of the muscles with some sort of resistance. That's all it is. So, I mean, I used to use that line and explain it to clients. It's like, listen, that's all we're doing

is flexing the muscles with some sort of resistance, whether it be bands, weights, isomet, whatever. but that's what you're doing. And so the foundation of that is learning to flex that muscle. And if you can't do that very well, you're, we know that too. Like the, you will not get as much of an exercise than the person who can actually flex that muscle.

You take two people doing the same exact exercise, same all, all things equal. One of them knows how to flex that muscle. One of them doesn't know how to flex that muscle. You'll get better results. You'll get better results that way. Yeah, I remember I had a client once. They weren't a bodybuilder, but they, they had issues with scapular winging, which is not a super common issue, but if you train people for five years, you'll run into it. And I taught,

I taught them how to do a front lat spread because it taught them how to get the scapula to flatten out and to spread out. So we literally sat in front of the mirror and practiced this compulsory bodybuilding pose. But it helped with controlling the scapula when we were doing certain exercise so they didn't get that, that winging, which was pretty cool. Anyway, are you guys, are familiar with the mind pump butcher box box? Yeah, our box that we got on the website. It's amazing. So if people aren't familiar, you could go to butcher box. It's all of our favorite stuff they put in there.

We curated it. This is the best cuts that we like the most. So if you go to butcher box and you go to the mind pump one, you'll see our box. It's got rib eyes. It's got bone and chicken thighs, steak tips, baby back ribs, the gluten-free chicken nuggets and the flat iron steaks. That's like what we have all the time. I like the gluten-free chicken nuggets, by the way.

I eat so many of those. Do you guys, the kids still eat them a lot? I fight my youngest all the time for them. It's a staple. Oh, bro, that's my family members. Everybody's like... It's a bit of a cheat I feel like because it's such an easy go-to for Katrina and I for Max.

Like, all else fails, that's a... You just throw them in there? Yeah, it takes 12 minutes in the oven to heat them up like that. I love it. But I've become addicted to them because they taste so good. It's... For comparison, if you've never done it, somebody, you have to eat a McDonald's chicken nugget

and then eat that back to back. I'll tell you what, it'll ruin ever eating a chicken McNugget from somewhere else after that from because it tastes like a total different thing. thing. Oh, totally. I got to tell you guys about, so I got some comments. Remember what I said on a previous podcast? I'm going to try and stop cursing. And I challenge you guys. Oh, I forgot to ask what I never saw what happened to the comment section. So people were, people are now like, like if I said a bad word or whatever and everybody's like, why don't they, you know,

contribute or do the swear jar. You guys don't want to do it. That's fine. Because that was my idea was, oh, that's kind of like peer pressure us. Yeah, which is worse. I mean, listen, audience. We'll go the opposite. If you listen to our show, the last way you'll get Adam, Justin, or Doug, especially Adam or Justin, do anything, is by pressuring them. They'll go in the opposite direction. I'm very similar. But anyway, I have a new way of doing this. That's what I'm going to do.

So, and I'm going to say it on air. If you guys want to edit this out, that's fine. But if I get caught saying a bad word ever on the podcast, comment underneath on YouTube, do a timestamp on it, and we'll give you whatever program you want for free. I'll send it to you. Okay. For everybody or for the first person. For the first person.

First person. First person that calls it out. Get some free things, Doug. Like, Doug's over there. So if you hear me say a bad word, you just timestamp it. You're the first person in there. I'll send you free program. That's fun.

Is that all right? Yeah, yeah, it's fun. All right. I'm trying to think since you brought that up. Well, it qualifies. Because some people have a distorted perception of like bad words. It's got to be a real curse word guy. Yeah.

Can't be like damn or something. Come on, guy. It's got one you get in trouble with. Like your mom would put soap in your mouth over. Oh, I would have gotten soap with that word. With damn? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Really?

Yeah. Doug was leave it to Beaver, dude. I mean, I had a really strut up bringing it too, but damn wasn't one of them. What about another language? Like, Scheisen. What does that mean? Shit. In what German?

Yeah, true. No, I don't think that counts. It has to be in English. So you guys, I'm a little pesty on it. Since you said that, which was like a week ago or what I'm trying to think, have you caught yourself or have you noticed it? I think I have. I'm pretty sure I have.

So this is a contest. Because I know you've been actively trying to not. Really trying. You know it's funny? You're really bad off air. I know. I catch myself. I told my wife, gee, shoot.

Yeah, so my wife is in on it with me, right? So I'm like, let's try, let's try this together. And she's worse now. Dude, she's like a sailor. Because you're aware of it. Because she's just, yeah, like left and right in front of the kid. Like, what's going on, babe? She's like, you shouldn't have told me.

Now I'm even worse. Anyway, I'm really good. See, I'm really, I'm really good with Max. But I have, when I'm with the boys, which is what I feel like I am in this situation. It's only time. I get it. I get it. Then we have all kinds of other people listening, but that's not how this is this shows.

The show was built on a car, getting to peer in on a conversation as if you weren't in the room with that. Yeah, if I was like in the car with you on the way to school with your kids, like, I'm not going to literally say. I'm definitely not that guy. So I feel like you can. But I understand like, yeah, if you want to put yourself there. Yeah, but this is different. We're in a conversation. Half of the dynamic of, of this.

You guys are trying to tell me. No, I'm not. I mean, I'm all for you. I'm justifying myself. Half of the dynamic of this was always like this. You're getting to peer into a. a real conversation with me and my buddies. Well, I'm trying to do this off.

I'm filtered. I'm trying to do this off air too, though. This isn't just for the show. I think it's a good thing that you're trying to do. That's better. Yeah, that you're trying to go that route, especially if you think you do it quite a bit like that. Next level will be, I'll let you guys punch me in the arm if I said. I'm not going to do that yet, because you guys are going to wail on me.

I know Justin will come out of nowhere and just blast me or whatever. Anyway, I looked up, are you guys familiar with Bill Pearl? He was one of the, one of the strongest bodybuilders in the 60s, I want to say. Do you guys know who he is? Yeah. Okay, you know where he was. You know, you don't know who he is? Yeah, I think, I know the name.

I'm just trying to think of a picture him. So he was like, Arnold was like a huge fan of Bill Pearl. And he was known back then for being one of the strongest bodybuilders ever. And this was in the 60s. Did they use steroids back then? Yes and no. Some did. Some didn't.

But the amount of steroids they used back then. So minimal. Wouldn't even be, there he is right there. I mean, you can see just the physique that he built. And that's like early 60s, I want to say. I mean, he was, he was. He was the Arnold before Arnold, right? I mean, he was like the first big guy like that.

Bro, the genetics. It looks achievable. Oh, it's insane. And again, if you want to talk about steroids. They didn't even use the steroids that they used back then wouldn't even qualify as TRT today, just so people understand. Like five milligrams of D ball was if they were taking a day to, if they did take anything at all.

But I have some of his lifts, which is pretty insane. He benched 450. And I believe this was in 1962, which was insane. legit. get 460 he did a 605 pound squat so you do reps with six five and a 310 pound seated shoulder press behind the neck wow insane he's not doing finisher exercises no no you want to know what his workout look like yeah what's his yeah what's his yeah tell me what his workout look like it's crazy he had a body parts he did he did a split but it's a he was the first bodybuilder one of the first

bodybuilders to because back then prior to the 60s every every bodybuilder worked out full body it was always full body full body you know three days a week four days or whatever yeah he was the first one to combine that with like a split so what he would do on monday would be full body then tuesday chest and back then wednesday full body then thursday legs and shoulders then friday full body body body then saturday arms fool and we'd rest on sunday it's a lot isn't that insane he would do 18 to 20 sets per muscle per body part in each of those workouts that's crazy in each workout in each workout Oh, my God, that's a lot of all. Yeah.

That's a lot of all. It's crazy. When you get, like, you get people with those kinds of genetics, they just ramp up. And for whatever reason, their bodies can handle. You know, to that point, Sal, that's probably one of the, probably one of the more challenging things for us to talk about is that there's such a wide range of what people can handle. And most of the good information in, I'm saying good information that's even out there, came from these bodybuilders or people that were already anomalies.

Yeah. Like, and it just didn't work with your clients. No. Like, I don't know, I don't know very many, that would crush me.

Couldn't, yeah, none of my clients. I mean, just so the audience, do you, I mean, this is how I knew before we all met,

and you sent me anabolic over, how I knew how on point it was, because I had, I just really figured that out with my clients, like, this is it. Like, just a handful of movements, two, three days a week. And they are, 99% of people will be best.

Yeah, they're going to do. And which, when you look at it and remember when we used to, the critiques we saw us get, this is not enough. You know, we get people that thought it was enough. And then, I mean, this whole thing, this whole movement was built off of the results that we gave people from Mabstinaabolow. It blew people's minds. It blew their minds on the results.

And frankly, the fitness fanatics were just doing way too much. They were. And the genetics of some of these people, like Serge New Bray, He was in the pumping iron series. He was the French black bodybuilder. Everybody says like the best aesthetics of all time. He was known for doing up to 70 sets per body part in training. Now, was that excessive?

Probably. But the fact that he recovered and he looked the way he did from that, it just points to how insanely different genetics can be at that level. Yeah. 70 sets is just... Tolerate that. It's crazy. You guys want to hear a crazy story that I just read?

It was, it's one of the craziest stories I've ever read. Really? Uh-huh. And it's true. I don't know when this happened, but I read it today. And it was just insane. So in rural Mexico, there was a woman, Inez Ramirez Perez. She was in labor, 12 hours of labor with no access to medical care, no means of transport.

And she had lost a previous child to a complicated delivery. So she's in this remote area trying to give birth. She was in a one-room shack in Ozaka's mountains. No electricity, running water, basic sanitation. She's 40-year-old mother. She had six kids already. She's trying to give birth. The closest clinic was 50 miles away.

So you know what she did? Because she was having this baby wasn't coming out. She had three glasses of strong liquor. She took a six-inch kitchen knife. Oh. And she gave herself a C-section. Oh, my God, bro. And she relied on her knowledge from butchering livestock.

Shut your face. So she made three vertical cuts. She consciously was doing this. On her own. On her own. She made three vertical cuts totaling 17 centimeters. And she squatted down. And this actually would get the baby to kind of move in a position that was safer.

And she used a faint light, lasted over an hour. And she was able to get the baby out. She survived? How did she survive? Hours later. So she had, she, she, her six-year-old son went to look for health. For health. Six-year-old son?

Six-year-old son went to go find help. Wow. Hours later, village health assistant Leon Cruz arrived, found the mother and baby alive with her conscious, attending to the child. Oh, my God. And so that he used this simple needle and cotton thread stitched up her extensive wound. After an arduous eight-hour trip to the nearest hospital, they were astonished to find no infection, minimal blood loss, and a fully intact uterus.

Wow. This was documented in the international... Serney's looking out for her. And this is documented, an international journal of gynecology and obstru. That's amazing. What year? What year? I don't know when this happened.

We should find out. But could you imagine? How do you not pass out? Like, that's cool. It's a miracle. This is miraculous. I mean, she's got six kids. Like, just think of the love you have for this child and for your other children where you're

like, I'm going to do this. I have to do this to survive. And the fact that she didn't hurt herself or the baby during this process. It happened in 2000. Whoa, year 2000. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

That's crazy. Yeah, I was reading it. emotional, just thinking about this poor woman by herself and no electricity, just figuring it out. Talk about the brilliant for her to be able to know how to even, where to start to do that. I mean, I think it's miraculous. But, and now, here's the other side of it. That kid can never act up. My mom brought up. She brings up when she delivered me. She had a hospital. You got no equity at all. This kid is, yeah, never. Nothing. You know what I did to some kid to get to bring you to this world, buddy? Yeah. Yeah. You better not. That's in 2000s. The kids. The kids. The kids. It's 20-something years. It'll be interesting to see where the kid's at today.

The kid better be a millionaire. Something. That can better be doing something special. Yeah. I would love that. That's true. He better be something. Yeah, you got to do something, dude.

He's 25, 26 years old now. I love to know what he is, or is a boy girl. I didn't say. Be interesting to know about the kid. I would love to hear about the kid now. God, stories like that, man, when you read stuff like that is just... That's intense. It's a wuss.

Oh, huge. On yourself? I don't know if I mean, I for sure, could do that. I found that to be so just so incredible. You guys see the story on the golfer who overdosed on creatine? That's so silly. That's so silly. I saw Justin brought it up.

Well, he didn't bring it up on the show, but he brought it up in his notes. He didn't talk about it. He blamed taking too much creatine on his loss. And I didn't listen to it, but I got a bunch of text messages from my friends that, of course, they're like, is this possible? No. No. You know what happens when you have too much creatine? Diarrhea.

Yeah, diarrhea. That's what happens. What happened was he was dehydrated. What happened? He choked. He choked. this game. He's psychologically messed with himself.

Yes, that's a hundred, the fact, I'm sure he's getting roasted, uh, roasted by it too, because most people that know about creetian are going like, yeah, no, that doesn't, that doesn't, uh, that doesn't happen. He was saying he was shaky and stuff, probably from dehydration. Yeah, I'm surprising to get rid of nerves, because you're in a, in a pro golf tournament. I mean, that would probably be also possible. You know, and too, like, I don't know, and you take a, a sip of something and it's like a clump and it's like, you know, and you're expecting it to be, like, liquid.

Yeah. And it kind of throws you off in your rhythms a little bit. Like, I've had that happen before. And it kind of throws you off a bit, but it's not like... It's because you eat so fast. I mean, even if... I do, okay, even if all that was, like, true that something like that happens, do you bring that up?

I know. Blames it on the creature. Yeah, what do you do? Like, you just take it on the chin. You're like, if I got beat today. Like, oh, man. I might tell my caddy. I was all in my head.

Yeah, I might tell my catty or my wife or someone close to me, like, oh, man, I had that creatine. It was sitting in my stomach and it gave me this, but I am not in an interview going, like, blaming it on the 18. Meanwhile, half these, like, these pro leagues are, like, sponsored by Taco Bell. That'll, well, mess it way worse than too much crazy. Or at least blame it on some, like, better drugs. You know, we were talking about genetics earlier about bodybuilding genetics.

I just find it so fascinating the, the pro athletes that can eat the way they eat and look the way they do? Yeah. Some of them. Who's that football player? I bought them up before. Metcalf. DJ MacCath. He's candy. He's candy all day long. So you know that, okay, so

all day. Dude, this is, this is who popularized this sugar diet now. So that, that his thing was such a phenomenon. Like, I don't know how many years ago that interview went live. Maybe we can look up. DJ Metcalf interview about sugar or candy. It was a couple of years ago that, that, that, and that, so it's been this, like, everyone controversial. Like, no way you really, he literally like, eats a couple bags of candy a day. Like, that's his diet. And he's like, wait. I mean, if you haven't seen him. You look at him. He's like a freak of nature. Yeah, yeah. And supposedly, it's been recorded, documented, and prove that that is exactly how he eats, which remember just recently, our boy over Mark Bell was doing the sugar diet. And now there's doctors coming out

talking about the benefits of the sugar diet. I never really looked into that. But I was like, yeah, because I was like, curiously, why would you promote this? Here's what I know. I don't even care what the science says of the potential benefits of it. I know the addictive properties of the sugar and stuff like that and what a trap that is sure. I have never in my life ever worked with a client where we dramatically increased their sugar and it made things better. That's never happened. Well, you had to eliminate everything else. You know, it's like, uh, three, he eats one meal a day and three bags of candy a day. Yeah. That's crazy. Isn't that wild? It's, it's the real, like, especially if you're not like crazy cardiovascular. Show a picture of him, Doug. Yeah, he's like

ripped. It's, yeah. Oh, I said DJ. That, not, Dick, not DK. I told you guys. I've told you guys I've had I had a guy that worked for me he was a picture of him yeah I know he looks crazy I had a a porter that worked for me um and he had the gnarliest looking arms like huge triceps just look jacked all the time and I was interested I was like what is he this guy do and I asked him I'm like what do you do for like what do you eat I mean his workout was kind of normal so it was nothing special there I'm like well what do you eat all day long and I remember he told me his diet and I believed him because he didn't make much money in fact I know he didn't make much money

because he was a porter. I know how much he made. And so he says, I can't afford much, but I have, it was a breakfast sandwich in the morning. He'd have like a Pop-Tart or something for lunch. And then for dinner, he might have like ramen. And this guy was crazy. Justin and I worked with a guy like that. Justin and I worked with a trainer like that.

He literally skipped breakfast, had Taco Bell for lunch. And I forgot what his dinner was. McDonald's. Yeah, it was trash. Because I would drive him home and I'd give him rides all the time. And he'd be like, like, pull rear to McDonald's. I'm like McDonald's. Yeah.

Like, I don't know. He's just shredded. Yeah. Shredd. Strong, jacked, you know. And he was older, too. Like a young cat was like somebody in there's strong. Dude, yeah.

He was in his 30s back then when we were, this was when we're in our 20s and just genetics, dude. I know. There are, listen. Everything working for him. Speaking of which, like, I do think, you know, when you look at general obesity, people will say, oh, it's, you know, it's genetics. No, it's not. It's so common.

And it happens so quickly. There's no, like, crazy change in our genetics. But when you look at extreme obesity, there is a genetic factor. There is a genetic factor. When you're looking at someone who's weighs 500 pounds, 400 pounds, 600 pounds, 600 pounds, there is something going on there that is different than the average person. Of course. If you offered me a billion dollars or to make it even harder.

You couldn't even get to 350 who tried. Right. Even worse, if you said everyone you love is going to die if you don't get up to 400 pounds. I couldn't. You'd struggle. It just wouldn't work. My body wouldn't absorb all that food. It just wouldn't happen.

epigenetic potential, right? Like, you could unlock it. Their body just captures energy and stores it. And there's just like the genetic freaks we're talking about who are shredded eating candy. There are those people that for whatever reason, they just, and yes, they may eat a lot of food, but a lot of people can eat that much food. And they'd be overweight.

They'd be obese, but they wouldn't be 600. Yeah, yeah. I just found the heaviest man in history. You guys want to take a guess? Like up to date to current date? Yes. Like the heaviest man. The record was over a thousand.

pounds. Yeah. Mills Darden. Mills Darden. Look him up. Is that the one they had to like literally chainsaw the walls and everything to remove him from his house? I don't know. You know how much he he he, he, he, he, when they weighed him, how much he weighed? What? One thousand one hundred and 19 pounds. That's great. How long he lived till? I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe you can find him, Doug, but what, what I want to know somebody that, that's that overweight, how long they ever, what's the record someone who's over 500 pounds lived. They typically don't make it past their 40s. Of course not.

Yeah. He actually was born in 1799 and died in 1857. How long? Wait. So that's like 58 years. That's not bad. Not too bad. At all.

Do you know that sumo wrestlers? Doug, what birthday is that they have a big celebration for sumo wrestlers because a lot of them live, don't live very long? I don't know. Is it 40? Well, like they celebrate. There's like an age that's like they make a big deal about it. Now, you got to understand he was also seven foot six inches tall.

Well, yeah. Seven, six? Yeah. What a massive... Could you imagine a seven-foot-six, one-thousand-pound human walk? You know what's crazy, though? What year was this? How...

This is back in the, like, 1800s. How the hell did you get that many calories? Yeah, nobody ate that much food back then. Where was he getting it from? And who was feeding them, dude? Like, that's crazy. He'd be drinking oil. That's wild.

There he is. Look at the size of the guy. He was a genuine... He was standing up, right. I get next to Andre the Giant next to him. Oh, wow. Wow. They put a picture of Andre the Giant.

Yeah. Yeah, because he was a, that's a big. He's a legit giant. That's a big dude. You know what's crazy about that, especially. So he probably had giantism, right? He probably grew to that from that disease. Pituatory.

Had to. That's what, that's what Andrews Giant had that, like, to be that size, you have to have like some sort of disorder, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. That's insane. What's crazy, too, is that he lived that long as well. Today, you would still, it would be insane to see that today.

But imagine what that looked like back then when the average man was 160-something pounds. I know. I mean, we talk about this all the time. Crazy. Unless you go to basketball games, you never see somebody over seven foot tall. So you've seen somebody seven foot tall is wild. Well, the tallest man in history was in the, was it the early 1900s? I forgot his name, 8 foot 11.

Eight foot 11. No one's come close to that. That's the same possible. Nine foot tall. Almost nine foot tall. Look up his name and let's see how. He's in the wax museum. I've seen him before.

Right there. Yeah, Robert Wadlow. Oh, yeah. He's in the wax museum. Yeah. You guys ever been to the Wax Museum before down in L.A.? They have them in London, too. No, no.

Insane, right? That's crazy. Anyway. I just saw a picture somebody had, there's a famous female swimmer, right? Not a swimmer, runner. And they had her next to a male swimmer. Oh, the leg difference? Yes.

And she's on the ground like this with her legs up, and her legs are almost the full length of his entire body. Yeah, yeah. It's wild, dude. Have you ever seen when they compare Michael Phelps to like a world I remember who it was It was like a runner

Yeah world record marathon runner The opposite They were both All torso Same height but then Both tall But Phelps's legs Because at that level

genetically you're gonna have short legs And a long torso And then of course At the marathon level You're gonna have long legs And it was such a wild disparity Michael Phelps Must look interesting in person

Right Because he's how tall is Michael Phelps And how long are his legs though He must look interesting Yeah. Because I remember when I saw this picture, I was like, whoa, that looks, it looks weird. He's like six, six, is that right? Six foot six foot six.

I want to say he's the most winningest Olympian. Oh, yeah, most decorated. Six four. Six four, how long were his legs? What was his in scene? It's like 30? Yeah. Something like that.

That would be funny if it was like 30. It was kind of funny. I was just watching this clip and it was a podcast talking about this one actor. And I'm sure you guys have, you know who it is. Like, even like stepbrothers, he was the guy that was like the annoying brother that was, you know, the kind of the asshole. Oh, the Severance. Yeah, and he's also the Severance. He's the main guy.

So I had no idea. He grew up in Santa Cruz. Oh, really? Yeah. And so, and I looked into it. He actually went to my rival school, Harbor High. And it's just funny that he was, like, talking about all these, like, local stories and everything. But I was like, I wonder if I can, you know, somehow convince him to tell Wally to put

this freaking video out. Oh, the one that you made. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to start hitting them up and be like, you know, I want to pull his. Everybody needs to see that. Yeah. It was a 30 inch. I'm going to keep bringing it up. 30 inch. Bro, that's wild for a six foot four. Because average guy with a 30 inch end seam is what, five 10? Is that? Is that? Well, I'm probably a 34 and I'm six. And I'm 32. What's yours, Doug? Probably 30, I'm guessing. I mean, by jeans, I get 30, 32s. That's so weird. Yeah, that's what's showing me. Yep. Ha, ha, ha. It's youth, Doug. Yeah, I am young. Hey, you know, we save hell of money that way, though. You know, swimmers, top, top level

swimmers are the only athletes at that level. So at the top level of athletics, athletes are generally good at most, they're generally good at just athletics. Like, you get an NFL player. He's going to be better at basketball. than most people. Yeah. Top basketball player. He's going to be better at sprinting. Yeah, there's no,

it doesn't translate to these other sports. Swimmers, terrible at everything else. Yeah, it's not going to work. They typically are not good at last sports. I mean, that makes sense because that big old long torso only works well in the water. Imagine Michael Phelps running. He's 6'4 with a 30.

Be slow. Yeah, he would be slow. I mean, I would think he could throw a baseball just decently. Oh, I bet. Yeah, I bet he could throw a ball. Yeah, but you know, you know, it would be like, you've ever been to one of those baseball games where they have the mascots racing each other.

Yeah. And they're like really long. Yeah. That's a little tiny life. Yeah. Adam, I was going to ask you, a long time ago, you had a very unique way of using Brain FM. Do you remember? Oh, are you talking about sex?

Yeah. Have you done it? I haven't in a long time, but we used to do that all the time. It was such a. What was it focused? Just locked in. Yes. Yes.

Locked in. Listen. I, you haven't, we haven't talked about. You're not thinking about the business. We have. We have not talked about this for a lot. It, it make, okay, so you know that when you play that to do work, right? Yes.

And this is what it makes you hyperpresent. For sure. It makes you. Hyper present. You don't get distracted. You don't anything else. Part of intimacy is that, like one of the, one of the, I think, in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion, a massive marriage hack. I just, I mean, listen, if you start this first, put your phones down.

Yeah. Like, I've already connected. Don't check your phone while having sex. No, even not even right before that. Like, like a mistake I've learned I've made in the past is like, it's like a rule that I've had to teach myself. Like when we come into my bedroom, I just put my phone away from me because I've had times where say Katrina's showering or with that, it's bedtime with that. And I'm like messing around my phone. It literally takes me away from her and us.

Of course. That it ruins the intimacy. And I really have to like get back in the moment to like even be aware of like what's in front of me. And so I think that it helps you hack into that. So if I literally challenge anybody who wants to improve intimacy in their relationship, the Brain FM hack of like focus in the background in the bedroom is a, I mean, start with get the phone out, right? Like that's the first thing is don't get on your social media before.

When you're about to lay in bed with your wife or whatever. But focus while having sex is, is, was badass. Just have a good boombox. Like, hey, babe. Yeah. What did that sound? What's it doing to me? I mean, there are a lot of people, I was never this person,

but I know a lot of people like to have music on in the background when they have sex anyways. There's probably something. Yeah, I wonder what the percentage is. Look at the research on that. The worst person. How many people like? Hey, who would be the worst person in this room would pick the worst music for sex?

For sure, Justin, bro, for sure. Death metal. This gets me in the mood. You guys have great taste. You guys, right, dude. Yeah, right, dude. You got Enya playing and shit, dude. You got country western, I don't think so, dude.

Death metal? I don't know, bro. I would play death metal to get my, my wheelbarrel on, if you will. Whoa. What percentage of people like, that's a great, I bet that's a common question. Like sex or like music on during sex?

47%. So half the people like that. And is there any research? It's like all R&B, right? It's like 68% of those who do listen to music during sex. say it helps reduce performance anxiety. Oh, that's what you have. Yeah.

So I have performance anxiety. Oh, no. It helps you focus. No, do you guys, I actually have a playlist. So you have one, like, specifically for just in case. Yeah. Just in case? Dude, yeah, it's like, it's almost like stripper music.

I mean, don't be honest. A lot of, like, a lot of like. Saude. You do saudet? Yeah, a lot of saudi type stuff. Really? Yeah, yeah. I'm like, remember that type of music?

I do. I don't play any music. Yeah, yeah. It's like, that's like, that's like, that's total, love making music for sure. No, not really. I like that sounds of, that we're making up the heavy on the bass. The sounds of silence. No, I was not, no, I've never been like a real yeah. Yeah, I don't bust that out. Yeah, that's not, it's not a, that's not a typical move of mine. But I remember when we were playing around with Brain FM back of the day and I was like,

oh, this is like a kind of a, I remember you should talk about it. It is a hack. I tried. It's great. It is. It is a hack. I mean, I know this shouldn't go with the commercial, but you, you, you, a little bit cannabis with that. It's like the ultimate. Come on. The ultimate. The ultimate blend you know what I got I got an update for you guys on uh you know how I was doing that like every other hour I would pause oh yeah yeah yeah yeah man I had this such a great practice I had a great experience the other morning I I woke up um and my son wakes up early so I can't do what I'm normally going to do but because of that practice you know I pause and I pray and I thank God for whatever blessings are happening and I was just like oh man I get to spend more time with my son

Then later in the morning, my daughter wants me to drop her off at school. And normally I would drop her off at this one stop that a bus picks her up. She's like, can you take me all the way to school? I said, is it the same amount of time? She's like, yes, it is. Well, it turned out to be helotraffic and not. But while we're in there, I was getting annoyed for a second. And then I did the thing where I paused.

And I'm like, oh, wait, I'm in the car of my daughter. We had this great conversation. It changes your outlook on things. I felt so blessed to spend the extra time with my teenage daughter and the extra time with my son because I paused to pray about what I feel, what I'm grateful for. And I saw the blessing, which I normally would have missed. I totally, I think you appreciate that tip or you sharing that because I've actually applied it since we've talked about it quite a bit and have found the same thing.

It's crazy. Yeah. And what it really hacks into that I think is different than the traditional way that you hear people talk about gratitude where it's like this end of the night type of deal is that it interrupts the day. and you become grateful for a lot of other very small things that you would miss. You would miss had you not, had you not tried to practice it through the day. You know, I'll add to that another thing that I've been trying to do.

So forget, I think it was Arthur Brooks that was talking about it on our podcast or another podcast or I'm talking about. And like one of the keys to happiness is, you know, learning to want less. Yes, right? It's not about getting more. It's about wanting less. Yes, exactly. That's like the ultimate hack to happiness.

And so another practice I've been trying to do is that, and it could be as silly as this, I want a pair of new sneakers or there's this new car I like. It doesn't matter. When I find myself wanting a thing or a new whatever, in that moment, I try and go, like, stop and then be grateful of the things that I have. And just practicing that is, you just reminds me that. And it's just another kind of gratitude practice. And I think it's just such an important thing that at some point you get to that level in your

life when you start to appreciate what you have versus always reaching. And what I'm wrestling with, because I was sharing this with some of my family members that we were talking about this. And one of the things that I was telling them was just that, you know, if you ever looked at what percentage of the, well, first of all, what the percentage, I don't know what the average of, this would be a cool stat. Doug, what percentage are most people's gross income that goes to their living expenses, their house? So, so you're just, living expenses or just their home? They're home.

Okay. So they say you should keep it around 30%. So that's like a good, good advice is to. 30% of your gross income, more than that should not go to your cost of home. But I think the average is like 80. It's like something really, really high. And so a good like Dave Ramsey type of advice would be 30% of your gross income should be allocated towards your living expense, i.e. rent or whatever.

Rent or whatever. And so what does it say? So this is on housing costs. You want something else besides that? That's what I wanted was housing costs. 30%. It says on average, that's what they spend is 30%. Wow.

I would not think that the average, I don't think that's what the average person is. That's a lot, though, dude. That's a lot. 30% of income is a lot for a lot. Well, think about what, think of most family. Now, it's not on gross income or net income. That's a good question. That's on gross.

That's the 30% rule that suggests, okay. Yes, that's a good rule to live by. That's not what, I don't know if that's right right there. average American spends around that, at least not in my circle, almost every family or friend I know, their rent or their mortgage is more than half. I know. That's that number I think is, I think it's giving you what the guideline is, what the advice is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so my point is I was talking about this with my family of like, you know, how low of that, that percentage I've gotten down. In fact, the last two places I've moved, I've downsized my

places and just, and I feel happier today than I did any other time. And if you would have asked me my 20s, the vision would have been this crazy, bigger, bigger, more, more, and more. And I think as I've gotten older, I've gotten happier with less. And I think in return, I've been happier because of that. And it's a, it's not something that just happens over night. It's a practice. Like, you have to actually make an effort to doing that. And it's, my dad used to tell me this all the time. And he grew up poor, you know, as poor Sicilian. And he talked about how happy they were, being together all the time. And we didn't have these huge bedrooms would be in and we would go outside and everybody would be together and the you know

the neighborhood was together and he would talk about how um you know how unhappy people are with all this stuff because he saw when he came here it was like man people have so much stuff but why are people unhappy i know it's crazy yes he Doug's pulling these now i'm reading more stature pulling up there this is for california oh okay so it's definitely higher in california okay yeah i was like most of the people i know they're they're spending a good chunk like half of their money that they that they make is going towards their living living expenses which of course because our housing prices but i mean i've significantly reduced that um and was explaining to my family member how low i have that but way way below 30 percent and it's like i'm happier there than

and i said i recognize too the the the freedom that that causes it allows me we've had challenges within the business and ups and downs it's like when you keep that so low and you're so comfortable with that being so low then those times don't become as stressful as i to i mean that used to be something that when you're when you need every paycheck to survive and get by like that i know people that you have both husband and wife they have kids they're both working and they're both have good jobs and they're both gone all the time because they they have to live in this expensive area with this particular house and they have to pay for daycare and it's like man that's most can be and they're and they're not doing well and they're stressed out

It's like, it would be better off for you to find a place to, who cares about this. You have this expensive house when you're not with your family and you're so stressed out anyway. Well, you brought that stat up the other day that I was really fascinated by was just the size of the house that's on average today compared to what it was. It's more than double than what it used to be. I mean, people used to live and be just as happy as they were. 11, 1,200 square foot house was the average in the 1960s. Yeah. And they had bigger families.

And yeah, exactly. So it's like we had more kids, bigger families. And you lived in a, what happened? I think it was half is what you, when you came up with the number. It was like half of what the size we are now. And then if you look at the footprint of a house and where people actually spend their time, that's like a lot of waste of space. Well, that's what you and I agreed when we went when we came this way.

Because again, going back to what I thought, you know, I thought was more bigger. Like, I want all these rooms, all the stuff. And we, you know, we had a pretty good size house, the two houses ago that was at least the biggest house I ever lived in. And I mean, I'm talking about rooms that, I mean, nobody touched. Nobody touched, dude. I'm like, what a waste. Yep. What an absolute waste.

So when this place came around, it was like, hey, let's really think about how we use a house. And that's what we need. Yeah. Let's, and let's do our best to make it the way we want it. So we use it. And nothing more than that. And let's see what how. And that's how this place is right now.

It's like, we use every room of that house. Every room of that house on a weekly, even the guest, we have one guest room. But I've got family or someone over on a weekly basis that are, and even us, we still use that thing. once in a while. And so, and it's a significantly less footprint. Yeah, there you go. 1500 to what was it back? That's the median. Yeah. That was back in 1960s. Yeah, and now it's like over 2000. It's over 2200 square feet.

Hey, real quick, we have another podcast hosted by our fitness manager for personal trainers only for a trainer or a coach and you want to become the best personal trainer and learn from the best trainers. It's called the elite trainer podcast. Go check it out. The first episodes are with me or Adam or Justin or Doug, but there's more. Again, it's the elite trainer podcast. Go find it on Spotify or YouTube or iTunes. Go check it out. First question is from Clow Clow lifts. Should you train even if you're sore?

What are the benefits or disadvantages of training when you're sore versus when you're not? Depends how sore you are. Like, if you're really sore, you probably take the day off. But if you've got like normal soreness that kind that lasts like a day, a really low intensity workout probably helps recover faster. Yeah. Blood, blood flow. Yeah, I was actually going to say, no matter what you train, you modify the intensity based off a house or the sort of this, right? So even if I'm really sore, you go stretch. Yeah, then it's like, that's what the workout looks like. The workout looks like mobility, real lightweight, if anything, and just kind of moving through getting the other.

The blood flow going and stuff like that to facilitate recovery. If I'm mildly sore, then it's like, okay, maybe I'll get a little like a machine workout, lower intensity. Like if it's even more, it's like, so I think that's a good way to do it is. that like you work out, but you learn to modify the intensity off the level of the soreness. And if you're, if you're sore to the touch, hitting a heavy workout again is not beneficial. No, I remember when I was, I want to see. And that's the mistake I used to make. Yes. I would, I would be like sore of the chest and it's chest again. It's like, we're hitting heavy, hard chest again. It was like, that was no wonder if I didn't see no process.

No, I remember I was 15 and I really overdid it. Like I typically did at that age and my legs were so sore that I tried to stay home from school. And I remember my mom came into my room. We got in a big argument. And she's like, let me stretch your legs out. And she wouldn't leave unless I let her do it. And that she did. And I stood up.

And it was like way better just for moving. But yeah, I've, this, you know, trigger sessions, the trigger sessions, maps metabolic. They facilitate recovery. They're low intensity. They're banned workouts or mini workouts. And they help speed up recovery. So now, if you're like always sore, always stiff, this is like chronic, you're

fatigued. You probably should take some time off. You're over training. you're overtrained. That's right. Yeah, yeah. If you're, this is chronically happening, then you, I mean, this is great conversation for that because, again, I think this was me. Like, I think I was all, I was chasing soreness. So, I mean, that's how bad and overtrained I was was that, like, I was upset that if I wasn't sore to the touch, which is such a backwards way to think of it. But I think a lot of people fall into this trap. Some of my best gains were when I would have a light workout on a muscle that was sore and I had maybe overdone it, I would just get better results. But the workout was so. light and so easy. Next question is from good juju gains. I have clients who work out early in the morning. With all the studies being released on the negatives of women working out fasted,

what would you recommend them eating beforehand? This is very individual, everybody. If you have a client that gets lightheaded, they just don't feel good, they seem to need something before they work out, something light and easy beforehand. I mean, I've had clients where they would eat a banana with some peanut butter. Yeah, that's fun. You know, before they work out. And then I had many clients that just felt good.

They felt good because they worked out so early. They felt better working out fast. I don't work out. I don't eat before my workout. I work out typically 7 a.m. or so. And I don't eat until afterwards. And I feel great doing it this way. So it's super individual.

So when it comes to these studies, you've got to be careful. Yeah. Because the individual variance is pretty wide. I think what you're seeing with these studies is chronic, like women who are chronically fasting. It might be what you're seeing And probably ignoring all the signals Their bodies are trying to give them

Yeah I mean this is an example of like The studies mean nothing to me here It's like this And so does the sex Doesn't matter if she's a woman Doesn't matter if this is a man It's like I'm asking my client

How they feel And if my client works out fasted And feels great Worked out fasted I ain't changing the damn thing But if they're if we're working out And they're complaining Fatigue, dizzy

Low energy like Yeah like that We need to do it We need to make And what it might look, some clients, it looks like scheduling a big dinner. Some clients, it looks like a banana or a shake, half hour on the way over there. Some clients, they get up, like every client, the strategy has been different, but it's

purely off of feedback. It's 100% off a, let's try this. How do you feel? Now, I've had also had some clients that will have exhibit would seem to be symptoms of needing to eat. And then what we did is we just had water with electrolytes. And really, that's what it was. They woke up and had no fluids, just dehydrated.

Nothing. give them some water with electrolytes, and then they were suddenly feeling great. So it's super wide. So don't be one of those trainers where you read a study and then suddenly you apply it across all your clients. It's going to be a big mistake. Next question is from Magala Dodds.

What are your suggestions for mitigating burnout as a trainer? What are some ways you've learned to refill your cup after pouring into others during the week? Oh, wow. This is a good one. This is hard. Yeah, this is a tough one. You know, there's two,

Two strategies. I used to train a lot. I trained a lot of clients. Depends what stage you're at, too, as a trainer. I trained a lot of clients. I mean, for years, I would train. This is what made me move up to management. 50 sessions a week, and I did that for so long. And there were definitely times I would feel burnout, and there were two ways I would deal

with this. One was just a mental shift. What did that look like? The conversations that I would have with my clients were ones that I found valuable to me. And in fact, this is just a hack for trainers in general. Find your clients, find ways to find your clients interesting and find ways to learn from them while you're training them.

And then it almost feels like you're getting the value out of the session. So I would train everybody's interesting if you ask them enough questions. That's just one thing I found as a trainer. But I have clients that were surgeons and doctors or executives or stay-at-home parents. And I would just ask them questions and ask them more questions. And my older clients, it was always questions about wisdom or what was it like when, you know, you were selling houses in the 1960s in this area, what it looked like or, you know, with the surgeon, tell me about what happened yesterday. Did you have any crazy, you know, patients or procedures? And then it didn't feel, it felt like I was, I was interested.

I was having a good time. And that helped quite a bit. And then the second thing is you take some time off. Yeah, you get pushed too hard. You got scheduled time off. Yeah. And I think that's the part that we just, you know, we get kind of in that mode. I got to just work and I got to assert.

service all these people. But two, for me, I used to just schedule times where I could go to workshops and learn a new skill and learn something that I could bring back to my clients that would just spark a different conversation with them. But, you know, going further into this is why I asked about like the stage they're at because maybe you're at the point now where you got up the price point of your sessions. Good point. And start moving towards reducing volume. Yeah. Which was huge for me because like opening up. that extra bit of space I had more time to work on outside my business and really enjoy the quality of these sessions with people that I enjoyed to train. Yeah, a lot of thoughts here for me.

Like, one, this is what made me move out of personal training. Like, it was just a lot. It was like a, I fell out of- It's a lot of energy training people. It's a ton, a ton, especially if you, if you're on and you're a chameleon and you really are giving it all to every client, like, that's a massive energy suck for sure. And so I, I enjoy. moving up. But I used to toggle sprint cruise, sprint cruise, sprint cruise. So like, I mean, it was very common in a pay period. I would service over 200-something sessions. So that's over 50 hours a week of clients. It's a lot. And so I would go through these, these sprints where I sprint really hard like that. And then I would cruise the next couple weeks. And during the times I was

cruising, that's when I might be working on a certification, wakeboarding, doing something that's like more selfish. So I had more time for myself. And so I rarely ever just was full throttle for months at a time. I would do these, these kind of. And because you're a trainer and you can, you can control a lot of your schedule, sometimes that looks like 14 days in a row of work, but then I would take four days off or I would take, you know, then that next week would be like half the client load. So I would do things like that. I had to. Otherwise, I would get, you know, what else helped me a lot too is, you know, if I was training 10 clients in a day, nine or 10 clients in a day is my workout would be in the middle of the day.

Because if I train, if I train. Yeah, I always trained in the middle day. That's how I became a middle of day. Yeah, because five, about five clients in a row after that, I'm starting to get a little fried. And then if I worked out, I was ready to go for another four or five clients. I actually think that's, I would guess most trainers train in the middle of the day like that.

I mean, my whole career, that's why I became up. I used some people that trained first thing in the morning, and then they go eight clients straight. By the time you're at the end, you're, yeah, you have no energy. Yeah, no, I found the midday workout. It almost makes it feel like it's too many days versus having one long day like that. You know, it's crazy about this too

because I know you guys were very similar. When I was going, going, going, going, sometimes one day off made me feel more burned out. Because I'd take that one day off. That's why I like to go sprint and then cruise because I'd rather go 14 days in a row and then have a week where it's really light.

Because one day off was like, okay, I'm just, and I got to get back into the grind. Yeah, it seems you have a rhythm. It was weird. It was almost better to just go straight. Yeah. And then I think Justin's point about where you're at charging right now is such a good point because if you're training

that many clients that you're getting you can charge more yeah you could probably charge more and then and then yeah inevitably you're going to lose a couple clients but you know my challenge what that was is that because I could and I should have done that from a business perspective but I had clients that I just felt so responsible and loyal to it's hard that it was like okay you know it's funny it's such a good that's such a good conversation to have to for the trainers that are listening right now. It is hard, and that is a common thing that you're going to feel. But you know what? Most people respect and understand, especially if you

position it that way. Like, man, I hate to do this to you, but I got to do this and I understand if you can't or you don't want to, but I'm moving up my sessions and it is what, you know what I'm saying? And so most people are, and the ones that can't afford it can't do it, we'll say they can't. And then the ones that understand will normally move up. But it is

a good book for that. Crucial conversations. It's a tough conversation. It's hard to have, but if you're going to scale and build, you need to learn how to do it. Next question. is from Kevin O.G. How do you think you'd hold up in a apocalyptic situation? Do we get each other?

Be your first moves. Do we get each other? We're alone. Because if we're alone, we're fucked. You know what? It's funny. As we were going, I saw this question, and I thought,

what, because I have no apocalyptic skills. I disagree. I have one skill, and what I, it's sales skills. And I would, I think what I would do is I would somehow sell myself into, okay, well, I'm going to help you guys do this thing. So I'm a relationship builder. So I'm going to go build some relationships. So very similar.

Yeah, yeah. You'd like assume a whole cult, like ready to go. Oh, I guess you could put it in that category. And then I would be your, I'd be your dealmaker. I'd be convinced the other tribes to join us and make the deal on what they get. Create the structure and the, you know, the idea would actually building shelter.

Yeah, he would be the hunter shelter. But the problem is I won't be doing it for anybody else. Like, I'll be like, gone. Yeah. I'll be out in the wilderness, dude. I'll be like face painted and everything. He's like, hey, you'd ever see those, like, you know, if you take like a farm pig, but they go in the wilderness, they quickly go feral? Yes. And they turn into a bore?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Justin. If the apocalypse. Shark guys are coming out. Yeah, just, it would be a week before Justin would turn into a straight up caveman. Yeah. I would be bad. No, we would not do, we would not, or I wouldn't, I shouldn't speak, I should speak for myself, I would not do good whatsoever. I mean, I'm pretty resourceful and I would, I would probably, I would do my best to figure it. I wouldn't just definitely give up, but I am not, you know, Ben Greenfield, been training myself to bow hunt and to do all these things, these important skills in case we were in that situation. But I think we would lean into our strengths, our mouthpiece. I can make some deals, you know what I'm pretty good,

a relationship building and, you know, maybe that would work something. Give you some food. Yeah, yeah. What would you do, Doug? What's your skill? It's a good question. I honestly don't know. You're probably the most prepared. I bet you have like a whole country It's repaired, actually. He is. Hopefully it doesn't happen. Yeah, no. So I'm coming to your house.

That's why he would survive because he has the things. He's got the guns. He's got the food. He's got the silver. He's already been prepping this whole time. He's a prepper. I'm slightly a prepper.

Yes. That's true. I believe that. Look, if you like the podcast, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump Media. I'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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