Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2714: The Best Exercise Combos for Each Body Part

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: The Best Exercise Combos for Each Body Part. (2:02) Risk vs reward. (20:00) Nothing builds bone like strength training. (28:39) Defining a hypocrite. (31:39) Comparing a Megalodon to a Great White. (35:23) Planet Fitness is listening to market trends. (42:08) Fall asleep and stay asleep with Brain.fm. (46:47) A wild story involving Al Capone and the Mind Pump Speak Easy. (49:24) Stranger Things is going out with a bang! (53:44) Mind Pump’s favorite Crisp Power flavor. (55:17) Reflecting on powerful dad moments and the value of fatherhood. (56:35) #ListenerLive question #1 – Should I be keeping the same weight across the different rep ranges, or should I be increasing? (1:10:36) #ListenerLive question #2 – I want to find that sweet spot to have consistently great lifts. Any advice? (1:22:22) #ListenerLive question #3 – I feel like I’m in a plateau, not really seeing the gains I want to, particularly in my glutes. What would you do from a nutrition standpoint, and see if you had any program ideas? (1:29:49) #ListenerLive question #4 – I want to try to lose some of the excess fat around my waist. Is it time to start cutting calories? (1:41:50) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** Visit Crisp Power for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP10 for 10% OFF. Give your snack game a serious upgrade. Crisp Power Protein Pretzels deliver super crunchy and delicious snacks that are up to 28g of protein, low carb, zero sugar and high in fiber! ** October Special: MAPS GLP-1 50% off! ** Code GLP50 at checkout. ** Mind Pump Store Exercise Video Demos – Mind Pump TV Sal Di Stefano’s Journey in Faith & Fitness – Mind Pump TV The Wild Story Of Al Capone Kidnapping Jazz Legend Fats Waller Visit Paleovalley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Discount is now automatically applied at checkout: 15% off your first order! ** Mind Pump #1827: The 3 Best Rep Ranges to Build Muscle & Burn Fat Muscle Mommy Movement Mind Pump #2691: 7 Red Flags That Your Workout Isn’t Working (Listener Live Coaching) Mind Pump #2712: The 5 Biggest Fitness Mistakes Middle-Aged Women Make that Destroy Progress Mind Pump #2382: The 5 Biggest Challenges With Cutting & Bulking Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dexter “The Blade” Jackson (@mrolympia08) Instagram Denis Roberts (@denis_kokushi) Instagram Benson Pulikkottil MD FACS (@dr.reconnoisseur) Instagram Dr. John Delony (@johndelony) Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) 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. In today's episode, Callers Called In, and we got to coach them live on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro was 68 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fat loss and muscle gain, the best workout.

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why not show it by rocking one of our shirts hats mugs or training gear over at mindpumpstor.com I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. The difference between a good workout program and a bad workout program is vast. One gives you incredible results. One gives you nothing, but what makes a good workout program a good program? Is it how sore you get?

Is it how much you sweat? No, it's the programming itself, the exercises, the order, the sets, the reps, how it's programmed makes a huge difference. here's what we're going to do right now. We're going to talk about the best exercise combos for each body part. You want to train your legs, your back, your chest, your shoulders, your arms. What do we think are the best exercises for those body parts and in what order? How do we combine them for good workout programming?

Let's go. Left right, cross, up. Now, okay, I want to be clear because are we talking about in a single workout? Yes. Okay. Because we get into the whole programming thing. This episode will be five hours. Also, why this matters is because another way this could have been said is like these are the top two exercises

per muscle group, but it's not that. It's like in a workout, which makes a difference because you're not going to do something like a barball back squat and a deadlift in that same workout. Right, right. So I think that's important to note because someone's going to be like, what? That's not the best exercise for your legs and say, well, no, you're doing one of the best exercises and then another one that goes really good. Totally, totally.

All right, I'll start with legs and I'll give you, of course. Here you two. Yeah, of course the exercises will change depending on the individual goals, prior injury, all that stuff. But I'll give you generally just a good exercise combo for a workout program for legs, okay? And it can look like, it'll look like this. It'll be barbell squats will be the first exercise. So you're going to warm up, obviously get into it.

You're going to do your working sets of barbell squats. Then you're going to do your Romanian deadlifts. And then you're going to do your hip thrust. Now, I can change the order if the person wants to focus on glutes. If they want to focus on glutes and they have a tough time developing glutes, I'll do the hip thrust first, and then I'll go squats in Romanian deadlifts. But those three in combination, phenomenal combination in one workout, I found. Not only that, but you could use that as your base and then just every once in a while,

take one out and switch with something else. Yeah, good point. For example, like, maybe I've been barbell back squatting consistently for a couple months, and it's like, I'm going to get rid of barbell back squats for a period, and I'm going to go Bulgarians. Great point. So it's like, but still keep the other two the same. Or then I'm going to go, I'm going to keep my barbell back squatting.

squat, but, you know, maybe instead of, like, Romanian deadlifts, I do something like, um, what's our hyper extension or leg curls or leg curls or something like that. And so just swap out of the barbell back for front squat. If I want to emphasize my quads more, you know, I'm so glad he said that, Justin, I would love your, because I just gave a kind of a general hypertrophy muscle. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. Okay. He would probably put something functional or like a lunge or step up. Yeah, I prefer lunges mainly for the functional aspect of two. Plus, it's addressing a lot of instability that I think that people

need to really account for which leads to further dysfunction. By the way, with this combo, a front squat would be just fine. It is more anterior, meaning it is more quad than a back squat, but because you have the Romanians

and Marble... You are, and so you could actually, you know, do a cycle of back squats. The reason why I say that is nobody does front squats anymore and it's such a good exercise. Yeah.

I almost never... I see everybody... So I always bring it up because I always forget, myself. Nobody, I see everybody back squatting now, which is great. It wasn't like that not that long ago. So that's phenomenal. It's crazy when I still see no front squats though. Nobody front squats.

They're hard. And it's hard. Yeah, yeah. It's different. And it keeps you upright. And it really does have a different effect on life. You know what's so funny about that though? Isn't this a trip when you know what it was? I would say I probably front squatted or goblets clotted with more clients than I did barbell back squat. Of course. So it's a bit ironic, right? That we say that.

A lot of my clients had them go through that. It's a better position. They are hard, but it helps keep them more upright. It's back squatting requires a little bit more. A lot more core involvement. So you're kind of targeting that. Thoracic mobility, shoulder mobility, all that stuff. Yeah, no.

Front squat is actually the first type of squat and I would do with a broomstick. Yeah. So interesting that, you know, okay, we've made huge headway in seeing people's barbell back squatting in the gym, which is awesome. And I would never want to shame somebody or tell somebody not to do that, which is amazing.

But it's a bit ironic when you think about When you think about the programming That we did for clients during our training career I would say I did way more front squats And you never see that So there is still an opportunity there For the listener and people It's like to get really good at that movement

And to you guys's point It's like it's hard, it sucks But that's, I mean It's really good stuff That's where the gold is right Is the things that are the hardest And suck the most typically is where the gold lies In program especially when you've been training

for a while Different story when you're brand new. It's like you don't have to do the hardest thing in the chair. You probably don't, it's not even appropriate for you. Yeah. And so, you know, you can get a ton of results from a lot of exercises that are not as good, which is great. You may as well take advantage of that. But for the lifter who's been lifting for a couple years, if you haven't ran through a cycle of,

I'm going to get really good at front squats, huge opportunity there to see tremendous gains in your physique and strength, stability, your core, all things. All right, let's get to back. So one of my favorite back workouts. We're going to put deadlift in there for back? Yes, it's going to be deadlift, then to either pull-ups or pull-downs, depending on your strength level.

So deadlift, pull-up, pull-downs, and then some kind of a machine row or a chest-supported row where you could get the mid-de-back. That combination is phenomenal. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go deadlift, I'm going to go lap, pull-down, and I'm going to do dumbbell row.

There you go. I get a little bit of functional stuff with the rotation and their anti-rotation in the dumbbell row. I love after a heavy deadlift to do something. Like one arm over a bench? Yeah. So then I, and I loved after a heavy deadlift,

I don't want to do pull-ups. Yeah. I'm just not going to be able to get very many, you know what I'm saying? And so I like after a really heavy compound, deadlift like that to just focus on the lats by doing a lap pull-down. So I love deadlift, lap, pull-down, dumbbell row.

Yeah, so I said chest supported row, very similar. Great combination, great pump. You get the whole back. Exceptional workout. Yeah. Deadlift, obviously, for sure. I like the chest supported row at the end, too. So, yeah, I would, and I mean, I do like cables, like seated rows. That's great. And that's just one of those that, because of the demands of like a deadlift. That's why so much. Yeah. I tend to like lean. Oh, I mean, Deadlift has such a huge movement and garners so much effort that, you know, the following exercise or two that you do for back. Well, that's why I said chess supported. I'm glad he said that, Justin, because someone may be wondering why chess supported

or why hand on the bench, dumbbell rows. You just did deadlifts, and deadlifts really worked the posterior chain at the lumbar. You wouldn't do barbell row in the same day you do the deadlift. Exactly. It's just too much on the lumbar. So, like, remember what I go back to what I just said in the last series is this is great.

That's a great foundational three movements and then just pulling one out here and there. Well, if you were to pull out the deadlift, that now gives you the opportunity to put in a barbell row inside. inside there as the compound lift, and that's what I would do something like that. Yeah, I guess I forgot a lap pull-downs. I guess I'd probably agree with that

because it's a little less demanding. Awesome. All right, next chest. Here's a great combination I love. A barbell incline press, a flat bench dumbbell press, and then an incline fly. I love that combination.

I think it hits the chest fully. I like to focus on the upper chest, aesthetically speaking, but also from a functional perspective. I think it's great. Now, you can swap out the dumbbells for barbells on either exercise. But I do like the flat bench dumbbell chest press for the full range of motion.

I mean, I'm changing the dumbbell fly for a peck deck or a cable fly. Okay. Just for the getting all the fully contracted position, you have about three movements there where I'm not getting that. And I just think that ender range motion squeeze on the chest is for, I'm also coming from a development. Yeah, I get it. That's not the most functional necessarily. Yeah, I like dumbbell flies with that. I would even probably do dumbbell flies on an incline bench as well just because functionally it just feels like I can open my chest.

You know, the value of a dumbbell fly, because I hear what you're saying, right? So here's what Adam's saying, and this is true. When you're pulling with the machine or cables, the weight is the same all the way through. So there is no change in the resistance. Now, when you're using dumbbells, when now dumbbells are up here towards the top, there's really no resistance on my pecks. The resistance only happens as I bring my arms out. Now, that being said, loading a peck or a muscle in stretch position produces a lot of hypertrophy. Yep.

Functionally speaking, which is kind of funny, there's probably advantages to the cables because I'm developing all the way through. Right, right. From a hypertrophy perspective, I've actually found dumbbells that might be a little bit better because of the stretch,

but this is my own observation. Well, functionally, the instability of the two also has value with shoulder stability and stuff like that. But are we like splitting hairs here? Yeah, I mean, sometimes I follow up like a bench press with like a chest focus dip, mainly just two so I can get that.

Oh, yes. The deep grinding strength that way. Yes, 100%. I wonder if I, would, that's an interesting thought, because I would probably start with that. Really? Yeah, I think I would start with the floor bench. Yeah.

I like the dips after the incline. Yeah, after incline. I love that stretch you get at the bottom, at the bottom. Yeah, I'm roasted after that. Like, if I do loaded dips, I want strong enough. Yeah, I mean, so barbell, an incline barbell press and loaded dips to me are in like very equal categories

and so I think of it the same for the upper for the, like we talk about deadlifting and squatting for the upper body I rank it at that high so it's like it for me doing them the same workout yeah doing the same workout

it's not possible absolutely could do it absolutely have done it but it can it has that much value it can carry the top exercise of the work and that's kind of how you look

or at least how I look at it when I look at I'm doing two or three movements for a single muscle group because that's what we're talking about right now. We're not talking about like a full body routine right now. We're talking about doing two or three movements in the same workout. If I'm doing that, it's like I'm always thinking of like what's the king.

It can be pre-taxies. Yeah, what's the king movement that I want to focus on? And that's going to be, and I would consider the loaded dip, the barbell bench press, the barbell dumbbell press, all your presses, barbell or dumbbell, or probably a weighted dip in the category of king of movements there. And so that's the one. and then the other two are... I totally agree.

Yeah, it's kind of how I would look at that. All right, let's get to shoulders. I have two absolute favorite shoulder workouts. There's two of them, and they look just like this. So we have either an overhead press. Typically, it's a barbell, then go to rear lateral, then go to side lateral. That's my three exercise combo there. Or an upright row to rear lateral to side lateral.

That's my other three exercise combo. Those are my two favorites, and I've used them for myself. I've used them for clients, for hypertrophy, for making big round shoulders are just it's amazing oh this will be where we're all kind of very different i bet because justin's going to go very rotational involved i'm going to sit i'm going to sit i'm going to sit my ass down and i'm going to be i'm going to do i'm going to do heavy dumbbell presses to start off with i'm definitely going to do the like a cable reverse fly for me is just one of my favorites for the for the rear delts and then maybe like an upright row those are like the so instead of lateral upright row

yeah yeah so i'm going to go upright i'm going to go upright row i'm going to go seated dumbbell press and I'm going to go my my cable bent when I bend over and I I pull through that full range on the rear del just that's like one of my favorite workouts yeah yeah I definitely do like obviously a barbell press first like overhead press standing also standing yeah and and then probably do more of a rear lateral and then lastly yeah I'll probably do like a either like a one arm or like an alternating a rotational kettlebell press yeah shoulder breast that's great you know It looks so different, right? You have this very functional perspective with shoulders.

With Adam and I, there's a little bit of a kind of a commonality, which looks like press rear side. Yeah. Press rear side. Now, why rear before the side? Why rear so soon in the workout? It's technically focused. It's a bigger part of the shoulder.

It does. You develop the rear delt. Your shoulder looks round. Everybody thinks it's the side belt. It's the rear del. In fact, I will sometimes start with that. Yes. It's important, too.

It's really keep, you know, tracking properly. And I think it's, to me, that's one of my favorite things to talk about with the shoulders because I think it's neglected and overlooked for most people. I think it's an afterthought. I think a lot of people treat rear delts like lateral raises like lateral raises. Yes. You know, it's just like, can you throw in the lateral raises, whatever, light, just touch them. It's like, no, man, rear delts you can develop.

And so sometimes they will lead my workout. And it makes your shoulders are crazy. Oh, and it does. And it just, it brings the shoulders all together. I tend to treat the laterals as kind of like the red-headed. stepchild it's the last because if you do a really good press that's heavy loaded so that and you've got a really good rear dealt movement in there yeah you're getting your laterals are getting touched in there or you do like an upright row which kind of encompasses both like you you get a lot of that and so

which is different from when I started as a kid as a kid laterals was like yeah I did a lot of lateral raises I had this attitude of well my when I bench and stuff I get a lot of anterior shoulder stuff anyways and when I row with back stuff I'm getting rear anyway so I'm getting rear anyway so So it's just when I, shoulders used to look. That was when I got the comment of weak shoulders. So don't, so don't do that, kids. Don't just focus on. By the way, side note, shaming people has benefits.

Adam's shoulders got amazing after they got shames. Yeah. We need to start bullying each other sometimes. It's motivation. All right, let's get to biceps. So I have a couple combination that I really love for biceps. Standing dumbbell curls, alternating, supernating. I like the suponating action of that.

Then I like an incline curl where I'm laying back and get a stretch. my bicep and then finish with the concentration or a spider curl to get the squeeze at the top. The other option I have is a barbell curl, hammer curl, preacher curl, which is the other one. And that one, to me, made my arms feel the strongest. That's what I was going. Oh, really? Barbell curl. Yeah, yeah, hammer curl.

And then, like, what's the one called? Incline curl. Client curl, yeah. I love that. Yeah, I'm starting with supernated, alternating dumbbell curls, seated because I'm lazy. And then I'm going over to preacher curls. and then maybe like spider curls, those three together. I love that.

All different elbow position. You got the supination in there. By the way, it's funny, we're all talking about it. How often do you guys see anyone doing suponating dumbbell curls? They're not that common anymore. Not anymore. It's kind of weird that you don't because I, I guess when I was doing arms all the time back in the days, I felt like that was a very staple.

Because that's what bodybuilders did back then. But now I don't see anybody doing anything supinating. That's part of the action of the biceps, everybody. Like the turning of the hand, the bicep, is what does that. So that's part of the ax of the biceps. So involving a supinating exercise. I've also been such a fan, I've always been a fan.

Unless I'm pressed for time, I like to alternate because the little bit of lag of time between, I can load more. And so I can curl more. I also like bicep focused chin up. Oh, God. Brutal. So that would be like, yeah, you're taxing one. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's brutal.

That's a great one. Sheetening forward, shoulders hunched to squeeze the bicep. Yeah. That don't make your arm. Underrated for sure. Not done. rarely ever see somebody do a movement like that always I'm excited if I see someone I'm like oh my god okay

this dude knows what he's doing like you never see a movement like that everybody thinks that's a back exercise but when done properly it's a bicep exercise yeah absolutely could be a bicep all right triceps I have a three exercise combo that will blow up anybody's tricep it just does close grip bench press overhead tricep extension either with dumbbell or a easy curl bar so you get in the stretch

tricep press down with the squeeze that combination right there it will light up. No qualms for me. You like that one? Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a close grip bench press was life changing for me when that was introduced to me. Like I just, I never seen my, my arms blow up like that before. And I felt like I did a lot of the other stuff before that.

And so that was, dips would be the easy switch out there. Way to dips. If I'm going to go like real taxing with that or on the rings. Either one of those can, I could go back and forth as the king exercise for the, for the tricep, and then I agree, like, whether you do cable, dumbbell, an overhead extension in that stretch position, and then to kind of finish it off like a tricep push down or any variance of that is, yeah, great, great exercise combo. There you go. So everybody's got just the major body parts that you could train some good exercise combos, try them out. And you can really run those. And like

I said, just every four weeks or so pull, yeah, pull one movement out and alternate with something. And, you know, if you were, if you're being really good, you're thinking like Justin, you know, at least every other time and one of us every time. In other words, like, I'm one day, or if I'm always bar about back squatting, I'm going to go, okay, I'm not doing anything that addresses any rotation or stability. So I'm going to do something that's unilateral or moving, you know. If you're going to think laterally, too, with legs especially, do like caustic squad or lateral lunge, throw that in there to replace that. So, yeah, every once in a while, rotate one of those out and give yourself a move. movement that challenges stability or a different plane of motion to really stay balanced functionally because I think the mistake that you could do in what I did for sure as a younger

kid lifting is so bodybuilder focus that that's all and because you're going to get great and even if you are aesthetically driven you're still going to get the aesthetics from those movements and because of the novelty of it and you're also addressing the stability in different planes and that'll keep you going longer. Great point. Speaking of which I've had to switch my workout focus to more kind of hypertrophy bodybuilding again because I was going heavier for a little while. I was having fun with that.

I started deadlifting again, but then my joints start to talk to me. It just, it happens sooner now, you guys. It now happens sooner in my training where I have to kind of back out. And I can do it for about three weeks until I start to feel my elbows, my wrist a little bit, my knee or my hip. So now for the past, you know, a few workouts. I wish it was, I wish it was just chronic pain that you kept me from that, what it is for me. I get injured. I've been getting so, I got injured so much.

much in the last couple years that I've just I've totally bailed on really really going super heavy on it maybe just be consistent for a while with just straight body yeah and that's just it is I haven't I haven't what what has happened is ramping up too fast to that really totally heavy stuff and then injuries happens it's like I now I've just told myself it's like there's no reason for me to be doing that it's all ego for me to do that it's like so which is why I don't even like lifting when there's anybody in here because that's when I have a tendency I was talking to Adam the other day, like, it was just laughing because did the lamest workout I've done in a long time.

He did hip thrust, right? Yeah, hip thrust. I was like, Sal be so proud. I wish I had a video of that. I shit on hip thrust all the time. And I was like, you know what? Because I've just been dealing with this chronic pain, like, occasionally, and I'll wake up.

And I'm like, I got to really just focus on this. And then also to include other things, too, to address this. stability. So bringing back Bulgarian split squats, doing a lot more like Cossack squats and kind of going through like a lot of these like, you know, what not big gross motor movement type exercises, but yeah, it was just funny. You're doing a lateral bandwalk. Lateral bandwarks. Yeah, doing all that stuff. Trying to build it back. It helps. Dude, jump roping and like getting, you know, more acceleration training back. It just exposes all these, uh, kinks in the chain. Dude, that's jump roping.

You're not like a 160-pound guy, bro. You're a moose. Nothing petite about you. It's all flopping. You know what? It is. Part of it is because people are like, oh, you guys are fitness guys.

How can this happen? Well, part of it is that we have all this built-up muscle memory and strength that when we go back to training heavy, the risk versus reward ratios gets thrown off very quickly. So I haven't deadlifted in a long time months. because I'd torn my hamstring. It was my first major injury, actually, my entire life. And so I was like, I'm just going to take it easy.

Actually, I'm going to skip this exercise. Didn't deadlift, didn't deadlift. Started easy, maybe way back into it. And I'm getting filmed for my series. And part of me was like, I'm not going to deadlift on my series because this is an exercise I'll get carried away with anyway, especially if I'm on camera. At least that's what I thought. And as we're going, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to start deadlifting.

And actually what happened was the camera actually kept me in check. Well, that's why I told you guys about my series. When I was doing my series, I felt like it was a really good accountability for me to stick to what I said I was going to do and know what's best versus like what my ego would want to creeper do. Well, I thought it would do the opposite.

I thought because I'm on camera, I'm going to want to push the weight. But the reality was getting hurt on camera was a way bigger fear. I'm not going to get hurt on camera. So I slowly. Watch Adam do that enough times. So you know, we did.

So the first. I know. I saw Adam. I have me like three times. I mean, like, oh. Most viewed videos. Oh, God. A lot of my rally.

No, so we were pulling and I'm like, you know what? I went, I don't remember what I did. I went up to, actually, I did three plates. And then I went up to four. And then I went to four. I, like, really ease my way up in the way. And even this week, I took off from, I'm going to take deadlifting off completely. So, but again, when you start to get really strong, the risk versus reward ratio starts

to get thrown off. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to continue to push strength past a certain point. I'm not going to get a lot of benefit from going up to a 600-pound deadlift. I'm trying to feel in all the gaps. I'm not even close to that. I'm not even close to that. Maybe it would work up to three plays. I'm not even like not even messing with anything beyond that.

Because that's, for me, that's when any sort of injuries happen is beyond that. Anything below that? And that's so, you know, we forget like. It's still good. That's such a good load. So like for, if we're talking longevity or just overall strength, yeah, I'm not impressing anybody. Yeah. With those numbers, but let's be honest, like that is, I'm not, you don't need any more horsepower

than that and anything you're ever going to do. And I am, I got to say though, bro, that's like, I love bodybuilding workouts. I love having a good pump. Love it. But I love being strong. I love lifting really heavy more. It's just, of course. I could care less about the pump when that happens. I mean, that's always been my driver. Yeah, dude, like, if I'm lifting heavy and I'm just like, my got chalk on my hands and I'm just seeing what I'm moving. And it's, crushing me. I just, yeah, and I just feel, I just feel great. I mean, I get it. You guys were the ones that really kind of pushed me into that direction, and it was very addicting. It was super addicting. But I, I really have to blame you guys for all the injuries I've had. I didn't

have no fucking injuries before that, dude, you know what I'm saying? They never be, honestly, it's, it's, it's, you're injury free forever. Injury free, dude. Injury, other than like a real, like, that's fine. You do that. I blame me for my tumors. Yeah. Seriously, though, and it's, hey, It says a lot about, Dexter Jackson is one who's famous for being just like, for, and, you know, chasing the pump,

not lifting PR heavy like that. You can build a hell of a physique through just good intensity, volume training, and it does not have. You push anything to, you know, to a point,

and you keep pushing it. You're definitely sacrificing longevity. Yeah. I think what also, what probably, I mean, there's nothing like, I mean,

there is this adrenaline rush you get when you pick something up really heavy that somebody else can't lift. You know, there's something about that. It feels good on the ego. You also, I think what also was addicting for me when I went that direction was the gains did come on faster than probably any time anything I'd ever seen.

So that's also probably really addicting is like when you're really pushing strength, you feel solid. It does. Yeah. You do feel like the, I mean, it's a very loud signal that the body's going, we need way more muscle than we have. And you tend to versus, I really believe this. And it would be interesting if there's studies to support this theory is that, I mean,

volume training will definitely like tell the body it needs muscle but it doesn't seem to be as loud of a signal as the you're going to lift something grinding super heavy that almost seems like it's a super loud signal it's like oh we need a lot more and the other part of it too is for the average person the first few years of training that's the most important thing you do is you get stronger yeah it's just after that once you get to a certain level of strength then it you get diminishing returns you know to go from i can only pick up 100 pounds off the floor to picking up 250 pounds, exceptional to go from 250 to 300. Now the results start to weigh in a little bit.

And as the higher the weights go, the more diminishing the results happen from it, and the higher the risk of injury. Because you're off by a half a percent of your technique with, you know, 500 pounds on your back. Like that could, that could cause some of your injury. You know, because you guys kind of like have two directions that you'll kind of navigate with that. It'll be like heavier that'll go back to like bodybuilding and squeeze. You only have one direction.

No. I realize I have two But like it's What are there? So the other one is Smashing things So it's like That's the same direction

Justin Heavy crushing weight Or smashing Dude like punching something really hard kicking something really hard Jumping really high One's crushing your spine The other one's crushing a tire bro

Both of it's crushing I have two speeds guy Hard and hard Hard harder So what are you doing Are you hitting a bag Yeah yeah Start the punch

And get some Moiai back But like I think it's I think really it's just like the physical contact portion of it because I've do I don't think you guys really how long I would drill like just constantly like hitting and and working on my tackling technique and and working on just like smashing my entire body into things so it's like you you become like that just gets ingrained in you like that's just like your operating system it's so funny because that's your personality it's how you text we were talking about this yesterday it's all making sense now we talked about just and having

sex. I'm surprisingly gentle. And hard when I wanted to do. No, calm down. Sorry, Doug. Sorry, Doug. You guys brought it up. How do you do anything?

I get no complaints. You know what I would love to do? Have you guys ever gotten a bone density test? Does it have not? On the Dexter scans? Is it not on that? You've got, that's so random. What made you think?

Because, and here's why. You think you got osteoprosis coming? You feel a little waify? I think you're all right. No, because who was it? Somebody, one of our friends in the fitness space talked about how their bone density came. Oh, no, it was Dennis, Dennis Roberts.

Yeah. Our buddy, the jihitsu guy came to watch our truck. He got a bone density test, and he said that it came back, and it was like his bones are twice as strong as the average humans. I believe it. It got me curious because I've been strength training since I was 14. Yeah, but he's also taking, interesting. Taking hits.

Bro, nothing builds bone like strength training. Yeah, but he's doing it. both, though. Don't you think that's going to... Oh, of course. All that contact. And he's also genetically a monster. He's a genetic free, too. I'm not saying I want to compare them. I just am curious to see where my bone density is.

I mean, it would be interesting to see how you would, how you would compare to somebody like that who's not only strength training, but also taking... I just want to see how I am. Like, where's my bone density? It'd be, I'd be fascinating to see, like, and compared to the average person. So, what... I always felt like...

Do we have any studies to compare, you know, because I mean, old school techniques is, like, you know, kicking a tree or hard things like that to build up that? Yeah. You know, how much of that compared to somebody who just squats really heavy, would you say? So the difference is this. When you look at, when they do scans of like old karate, so karate is a good example because classic, yeah, classic Japanese karate, they, they conditioned the hands and they would hit boards. And you'd see these old guys.

And nobody really does this anymore. Maybe there are people that you're not going to find a karate school like this in most cities. But the old school ones, you'd see these instructors and their knuckles would be like distorted and huge. And essentially what you're doing by hitting things is you're causing micro fractures. So if you look at a bone under a microscope, it's kind of like a honeycomb shape on the inside with little pockets of air. And what happens is those little honeycombs, the bone in between starts to fracture and the little pockets of air fill in. and the bone gets more and more dense. Yeah.

And so this is what you'll see in a scan of like a tie fighter shins or femur or. It's almost like, they say like deadening the nerves, which, but you just don't really feel that impact as much. Yeah. So, but strength training strengthens bones as well in a different way. I would just be fascinated to see. That would be. Yeah, because I don't know.

I don't swim very well. That's what my excuse is I have dense bones. I get the pool. I'm going to use that excuse. Yeah, I'm a terrible swimmer. I just feel like. my body's not, like, made for that. No, it's not, I don't feel buoyant.

Adams swimming. Adams, like a boat, dude. His hollow bones. Speed bones. It's all that body fat. No, it's not, bro. But I would be curious. I would be very curious on that.

Anyway, hey, I, I read something the other day. Sometimes I like to see what, like, the root definition of a word is, because I think it's very telling of what that word means, you know, necessarily. Because I think, give an example. Oh, so I'll give an example. So I'll give an example. So I was reading the Bible. and in there Jesus will refer to

like the Pharisees. You hypocrites. He uses that word quite a bit. Hypocrats. That word came from the Greek word and I wrote down. I'm going to read what that word is and what the definition is. The word is hypocrites which means an actor or a stage player. So hypocrite

pretending to be something you're not. You're an actor. Yeah, pretending to be something you're not. So whenever actors try to tell you what to think, just know what you're listening to, these are all you know, isn't that interesting? That is interesting. But I mean, it's I think that's how we would call. I mean, that's really what you're saying about somebody who is a hypocrite, right?

They pretend to be one thing. Yeah, they pretend to be one thing and they're really something else would be how you would define that. Because I'm always interested in when we, the root of something is different than how people tend to, like it's morphed over time. Like the origin was something like that. But it's like, oh, that's interesting. We really don't use it appropriately. People tend to use it this way, but it really means some of this. And I'd have an example because I can't remember.

Well, did you know, do you guys know that the word, you know, how people refer to a baby in utero as a fetus? Fetis literally in Latin means baby. So it just means baby. It's the same definition. Oh, interesting. See, that's a great example. Yeah, there's an example of something that we...

It turned into just like organism. Yeah, yeah. We define it like it's a clump of cell. People use it like it's a clump of cells where the origin of the word... Fetus literally means baby. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just we've used it in a way that kind of takes it away from that word or whatever. I find that more interesting.

I find when there is a word that it's very clear what the origin was. And over time, we've bastardized it or changed it or we use it for something else. And then we all just agree. You know what I heard yesterday? We had Dr. Benson. We interviewed him. Yeah. Do you know what he said is politically incorrect to say now?

What? Homeless. Oh, yeah. Homeless is pretty incorrect? You can't say someone's homeless. You say bomb again? Huh? We say bomb again? No, no.

You say hobo. No, I say bomb. It's bummed I use it. Sal is correct. Salis corrects me. You can't say bomb. No, because he was, when you're doing, when you know, he works in the ER, works in emergency, and if you were, if you can't say, oh, this person's a home.

Yeah, like he had to be real careful about how he described him. So what do you call them now? You guys without home? No. I think what did, uh, what did you say, Dylan? Dylan came up with. Soften that. Unhoused and houseless.

Unhoused. What's the difference? What's the, why? Why do we do this? Homeless and unhoused We are so concerned about everybody's feelings. No, we're creating situations that don't, that don't exist. I don't think a homeless person, I don't think if you're a,

you know, you're homeless projecting their, I'm unhoused. Yeah, I'm unhoused. Like, nobody cares. These are people who have homes who have nothing better to do, but try to make people feel bad for using a word that's normal. It's just crazy. That's weird. Is there, there's probably, there would have been something

that happened pivotal that caused that to happen, right? It doesn't just happen overnight, so something to happen, right? I almost feel like it was a political. Well, yes, that's always the case. Yeah, you got a theory, Doug? You look like you say that. I kind of do. So you have a word that starts to have negative connections to it over time.

They just create a new word. So I'm trying to think of a good example of that. But, you know, there are some words that are inflation. Yeah, inflation. Yeah. How can you improve that? Yeah. Money grew.

Yeah, exactly. Abundance. That's a good thing, dude. Anyway, did you guys bring the, the megalon, megaladone tooth home? Not yet, I have mine here. Oh, my God. I got it.

I got to bring it home from my son. So, who was so excited. So it was like a fan, right? Yeah, yeah. It was Tyler's client, I believe, right? And he goes diving deep, and he finds these. Yeah, off the curse. I had no idea their comparison with the Great White.

Bro, that's a huge, it's as big as my head. It's, it's, like, if you just, it's, like, If you just, like, think about the size, the pure size, because that tooth just dwarfs like a regular, like white, great white. Well, what it is holding one. Look at this. So, so you, you looked up, Doug, and you remember what the number was, how many of those are in, in that Megalodon shark's mouth?

200 and something. There's a lot. So 200 and something of those, and that thing weighs at least two pounds. Everton told me it was like five rows. The one I have is bigger, though. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so, yeah, that's like, mine's bigger and weighs about two pounds. I mean, let's just say, I mean, you could say it's one, one and a half, whatever,

but 200 and some of those in a 400-pound mouth, imagine the power of that crushing down on something is, that's- Well, first of all, wasn't a Megalodon the size of a school bus? Yeah. Yeah. So he's not even going to bite you, it was just going to swallow it. Yeah, no. I didn't, I didn't even know that it was that big of a size compared to a great way. That's probably what they eat.

I actually thought Great White was one of the bigger sharks. I didn't realize that. Well, Megalodon doesn't exist anymore. So, okay, that's why. Did you think of Megal... I would never go in the ocean. Bro, we just covered the other day. We just covered the other day that there's more undiscovered parts of the ocean than anywhere, anywhere else.

It's like, I know. And a guy's diving down and finding these fossils. That would be amazing, dude. I've heard of my life. You thought for us to die, thank God we cleared this up. You thought Megalodon's still swimming? I have no idea. I didn't happen to this point.

I didn't know that there was one that existed that was bigger than a great white. I mean, I just assumed the great one of. They have found giant squid, though, and that was supposedly myth. Bro, were you like about to, like, we're not going in the ocean ever again? Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I'm any more or less scared of a great white versus, you know what I'm said. I think I'd be equally terrified. You know, T-Rexes don't exist. I had no idea.

No, that's an extinct thing. Oh, man. That would be terrified. I mean, I had no idea. Yeah, have you seen, there's giant squid that are, that still exist that are massive. Yeah. Massive, bro. How big?

How big are we talking? Like, I don't know if it was, uh, Japan. It was off the coast of Asia where they've actually found and like, like, pulled in. Yes. Like sperm whale will have attack marks on them. Sperm whales are huge. Yeah. And they'll have suction mark attacks on them and they'll measure the size of it.

And Doug, look up how big these giant squids are. Yeah, they can go up to, uh, 43 feet. and 600 pounds 600 pounds bro I want you that megaladon is crazy but these exist actually yeah now

well they did at one point right oh they did there's a mysterious creatures around the part of the ocean you guys don't know about too careful how much shit you talk right now if you could look up a report

it's in Australia like off the coast they had found like I think it was a great white that got like a huge bite out of it and it was like they couldn't explain like what kind of creature could produce this huge bite. They don't think it was a killer whale?

No, they didn't think it was a kid. It was bigger than that. So maybe when megalodon is swimming around. Well, there's been a couple of reports like that that there's like off the coast. He's going to keep from the yeah. I know. I don't know. I didn't throw you a bone, but like I did read something about that. So what would, give me, give me what?

So more of the story, there was like one of the tracks. So they had like a you know, one of those trackers that that they put on for scientific research. and it swallowed it. Like, because the thing is, like, something swallowed it and brought it down to the depths of the deep ocean.

And they don't know what it was. Oh, really? Yeah. Really? Something giant swallowed it and took it to the bottoms, and we have a tracker for that. I read about that. I know, right?

Yeah, you just do it. Just like his dinosaurs don't exist. Yeah, yeah. Bro. Wait, wait, maybe this two things. So according to our carbon dating, how old are these megalodons? How big?

I'm curious, I know it was school bus size, but what would that weight-wise be? I mean, that thing had to be tons. Oh, yeah, bro. Multiple tons. Have you seen the movie Meg? That's showing a megaladon. Oh, is that what that's supposed to be about? Yeah, there's one alive and it was attacking.

Oh, interesting. Well, you know how much stuff comes true about movies. Yeah. They know something we don't know. So between up to 94 tons. Ninety-four tons? Yes. Bro.

Yeah, I know. Yes. A ton is 2,000 pounds. That's insane. Yeah, that's huge. Holy. That's a big old shark. Bro, that's so, that's so big.

If it bumped into something, it would like destroy me. If you're on a yacht, it'd eat buildings. If you're on a boat, you're dead. Bro, you're on a carrier. It puts a hole in that thing. No, I'm serious. Like, I mean, think about that for a second. 94 tons runs into a carrier.

It's probably putting a hole in that thing. A little bit of a bump, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Steel. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Crazy.

The way Killer whales, you guys know how Killer Whales, you guys know how Killer whales what they do to Great Whites, right? They go for the liver, don't they flip them upside down. So they organize, they flip a Great White upside down, which kind of makes them paralyzed. And they, they like surgically remove the liver and leave the rest of the shark. They eat the liver. Yeah. Crazy.

They eat the liver and leave the rest of the shark. The nutrient dense liver. They know where it is. Leave all the rest. They leave the rest. That's interesting. Isn't that crazy? That's crazy, right?

Yeah. I mean, it has to be so nutrient dense to be worth attacking something like. like that and then leaving all the rest. It is. Wow. I know. I didn't know. I saw one.

I know this. They're so smart. My son was asking me. So I'm like, let's watch some videos. I know. I've seen, I've seen those videos of where they're like getting seals and things like that. They work together.

Yeah, the ice. Or the bump the water. Yeah. And they all knock it like certain ways to then flip the seal. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's crazy. That's funny, too, because we think of killer whales as being like cute.

Yeah. But they're way worse. Well, they don't typically attack humans. You put them in captivity and you dance on them. Different boats, like you're pissing them off. Doug, do Orcas attack humans in the wild? Not in the wild. That's why...

I haven't really heard of any situations like that. No, they don't. That's why it was such a big deal when, what do you call it happened? When they did attack... Blackfish? Is that the documentary? Yeah, yeah. Right?

I mean, that's because it's... It's happened in captivity, yeah. That's what I mean. That's why it was such a big deal is because, like, everyone's like, they're not supposed to attack humans, but, you know, also is different when you put them in captivity and do stuff like that with them now. Interesting. You know, we had a caller earlier.

I got a comment on something. And I looked this up off air. So I wanted to bring it up on the show. She said that her planet fitness has barbells in the squat rack. Yeah. And you made a comment at him. And I was going to say more, but I'd like hold it for the show. You were like, they're listening to the market.

Yeah. So I went online and I looked up, does Planet Fitness gyms use barbells? And a lot of locations do. Wow. Interesting. A lot of, and it depends on the location. And I think you're right, bro. I think they're a little experiment of not putting barbells in

because we don't want people deadlifting and stuff like that. And now the popularity of strength training is growing so much that the average person is now wanting to deadlift and squat. That speaks volumes. It speaks volumes. It's also brilliant. I mean, you got to give them the, I mean,

even though we kind of shit on the company a lot because of like the way they marketed. I mean, literally, and the reason why, if you haven't heard us talk about before, it's like, when you're designed, Outcome is to help people, get people fit in shape.

I think that's a good place to be if you're a gym or you're a trainer, I think with that. But when your desired outcome is to organize a business that you don't want your customers to use the gym but still pay you. Because you can't profit if they all use it. That's right. So people have to understand that, that like, that model, if you're, if you're, if 50% of your members were successful and showed up, it doesn't work.

It works because they put the price so low. They are banking on you not coming, but still paying the membership. That's a bit, you know, like, that's not, to me, that's a, that's a, I don't know, I don't like the way that feels. Yeah, yeah, that would be like us selling something, uh, intentionally wanting our, the thing that we sell to people for them to fail. Like, like, we do, we help trainers, right? If we were putting something out that is almost like sabotaging their business and, and the, and then our whole business is about pumping more of them through it just so we can make money, but then really the information we're giving them is hopefully, going to make their business fail. The irony is the more, this is literally how it works.

The more members they get that don't use the gym, the lower the prices can go. Yep. That's literally how it works. And this has been the gym model, generally speaking, for big box gyms for a while. Planet Fitness just took it to a whole new level to the point where they, this is what they did. Here's what I want people to understand because people thought, oh, that's funny. No, no, no, they were strategic. They did commercials.

You can find them on YouTube where they would paint the stereotype of a bodybuilder. where they're in there with their pink tops and they're clanging weights and then they set off a lunk alarm which Planet Fitness some of them still have in there and they're like you know you got to get out of the gym we don't want you in here. Now here's the strategy with that.

A, there is some fear about working out around body blows but it's not that big of a fear you guys it's not like this thing that's keeping people away from the gyms. That's not really what it is. What it is is they're trying to talk people into using the gym who aren't going to use it and talk people who are going to use it a lot into not going to their gym.

So it's like we don't want people who work out a lot. And then they throw in the once a month free pizza thing for you to go like, well, shit, if I just eat pizza, $9, that makes, I mean, it's a wash. That's right. And so it becomes a, oh, okay, well, it's a payment no matter what, regardless of I'm using it. And so that was the, so anyways, that was the whole point of me sharing that was that, that's why we trashed them so much early on. But really cool to see that the market has spoken and that enough people that even go to their gyms are saying, hey, we need, we need barbell. Sometimes that's the only option in that area, you know, and it's, it's been frustrating because it's like, you know, They only have, it's like Smith machines the closest. And it's like, it's not the same thing. So the prediction, so the prediction for me is that they used, yeah, they use that strategy, the original one that we were talking about, pizza, not, or not wanting the bodybuilder in there to grow and build and to separate themselves in the market, which was probably very brilliant. Now I think you will actually see them totally build and structure towards what everybody wants,

which, I mean, look for functional fields in their necks. Look for things that attract the crossfitter or attract other people. people that go because now they have a big enough piece of the pie that they can start to shift and steer the market a bit. And so I think that that's where they'll go. Doug just looked up. They discontinued the free pizza back in 2020. There you go. Wow. So they're totally they're totally pivoting. That was a lot of heat for that. That's why. It just makes no sense. It's like, hey, you know, come to our, you know, alcohol anonymous club, free drinks on. What's going on here? What are you guys doing? Yeah, I didn't realize they

stop that in 2020. I thought they were still doing that. But I mean, again, more of the listening to the market. They probably got a lot of heat for that. I want to talk about something. I want to change directions here because we had a caller talk about this. And we often talk to people who have trouble sleeping. And we typically talk to people who have trouble falling asleep. But another very common phenomena is people who can fall asleep just fine, but wake up at 3 a.m. and they can't go back to sleep and they feel restless. So what this feels like for you, if this is you, this is what it looks like, you go to sleep just fine because you're exhausted, and then you wake up three, four hours later.

And then it's a bunch of back to sleep, wake up, back to sleep, wake up. Look at the clock, go back and see. Look at the clock. And it's all night long until the alarm goes off and then you feel exhausted. And this is a problem that I don't think is often addressed. And there are a couple potential solutions. So one, I saw the sleep expert talk about this. And I thought it was brilliant because it made sense.

I haven't tried it yet. But you have nothing to lose. If this is you and you've tried everything, you got nothing to lose, give this a shot. So what he said was, is he said, typically what people will do when they wake up at, you know, 2 a.m., 3m., whatever, is they'll wake up, look at the alarm clock, close their eyes, and try to go back to sleep. And then they end up doing this game of, I have three hours left before I have to wake up. I have two hours. I can't go back to sleep. And they're just trying.

He said, listen, you're awake. You can't go back to sleep. get up. He said, get up, but keep the lights really low. Don't turn on bright lights and do something. Very counterintuitive. He said, do something relaxing like read, like read a paper book in bed. And he said, and then when he feel sleepy, go back to sleep. And this particular expert said he had way more success with that than having people just try to stay in there. I'm super curious to hear, I mean, because you also gave her the advice to try Brain FM, which I think is a great piece of advice. I did that because Brain FM's data shows that it all, it doesn't just help people falsely.

it helps them stay asleep. Yeah. And so if you play this in the background, either in headphones or, I know they say that, you know, they don't say do this, but it works as you play it in the background.

Yeah. Throughout the night. And it helps. It helps people stay asleep and not wake up. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to see if she goes and applies those two things and if one helps her more than the other.

Yeah. But she hadn't tried Brain FM. So, I mean, she had done a lot of the other traditional things. So I'm actually really excited to see Brinv because, I don't know, every family member, friend, person that works,

I've introduced that too. I've never met somebody who says, oh, it was negligible or I didn't notice a difference. Everybody knows the difference. It's literally how much of an impact it's made. And some people, it's dramatic. That's what I use on planes every time, every single time. I use in a plane and it's like, makes a big difference.

So anyway, I read a crazy story about Al Capone. This is totally, you know, at a left field. But it was an interesting story. I looked it up to make sure it was true. I love old gangster stories. Dude, this is a trip. So trip off this, right? there's a musician

famous jazz pianists Fats Walt Waller So Fats Waller was a He's famous people Were into jazz, no he is There's always like a Fats I know Isn't that funny

Back then your name would be Something rude Pirate John Yeah Anyways name was Fats Waller Famous Jazz player right He was kidnapped He was kidnapped by Al Capone's mobsters

So they literally kidnapped him to surprise Al Capone for his 28th birthday. And then when he got there, when he got there, they're like, we want you to play for him. And so then the rest of the night, he played music and got super drunk.

And apparently they all started treating him well. And then they dropped him off, hammered, and with thousands of dollars worth of tips. And he never pressed charges. Wow. How terrified was he initially? Bro, they literally kidnapped him for his birthday.

Happy birthday, you know? Take off the blindfold to tape. You're going to play right. play song play isn't that crazy Tommy guns isn't that wild but he earned thousands

of so they of course they tip the hell out and just paid him a lot of money and I guess he got into it and his story is that he had a good time yeah

could also be scared but uh that is a random what are you what are you following or paying attention where something like that comes up in your feet

I don't know that's a really I think I just click on this stuff and more of it pops up yeah I went to a couple of those speakeas when I was in Chicago the real one

I wish we had stuff like that here it's Elaine though we have a city and we're not we don't have stuff like that i think san francisco has one or two they have they have different kind of species i love that kind of history yeah yeah yeah i'm sure right dude it's not like like what justin's talking about we need more of those where were we all together where we went to one that i was austin oh was it austin it was austin oh i remember that one deloni told us about that place was that him yeah yeah yeah and it was like this it had a no signs or anything and you could go in there They played like jazz and stuff.

I love that lounge. I mean, it's kind of similar. I love that lounge feel of a, not like a bar. That's my ideal kind of bar where it's more of like a cocktail. Yeah, you're sitting, that place that we went together, Doug, Vesper. That's in Willow Glen. Well, what's great about it is that it really, I don't know, induces the conversation because, and this is, I mean, I've even found this from my own house.

This is why I love playing jazz at my house when I have company because I like music. I love music. but even my favorite music I like to personally listen to is not conducive for conversation where instrumental stuff It powers everything Yes, low level instrumental stuff

in the background that's easy listening It just, I don't know It like it creates that environment of good conversation and talking versus, you know, listening to words in a song and so I've completely when I have parties or have people in my house It's easy to listen to love Chicago

There were so many jazz and blues clubs like that that were really like unique and uh you know you obviously had to know somebody who knows how to get in there and uh i remember seeing like um like b b b king's daughter and like they'd just be random really cool artists that would you know i would you know i would love to have something like that like that's like a that's like a dream or a or a to own yeah i would love it doesn't need to make money literally just needs to just pay for itself i would have a gym first i see i would rather have to speak easy oh come on you guys got to give me a gym or you have gyms all around us and plus

The gym is work for me, dude. Being in there will remind me a work. Yeah, I need a separation. And I'm not saying I went like a really cool custom gym too. I just had one just dream. I want either a supplement company or a gym. You dream about doing more, building more work around your work. That's like, that's not the dream, though.

I just want to. Having a private, like, elite club that you have to knock on a door, be invited by somebody that, you know, that you have special, special artists because you've got connections and relationships with people that like that that that come in and play for a small intimate group of 50, 60 people like, oh yeah, good food and stuff. I would love to do something like that. That would be kind of cool.

Dude, did you guys hear about like what they're doing for Stranger Things? No. This last season? No. I got so excited. What? So each episode is going to be anywhere from like, like 90 to 120 minutes.

So longer. So they're, and they're treating them like each is a blockbuster movie. Eight blockbuster movies. back to back. Now, are they all connected or are they all separate? Yes, they're all connected. And it's all falling in the same like storyline, like that they're trying to go out with a huge bang.

So this is, okay, so this is interesting because this is something that I think, I, I actually think podcasting is really what has sent media and stuff in this direction that we historically have had these like sitcom, short attention span things. And we're proving that we can, we enjoy these longer form storylines. Longer, more complex storyline. that you can really follow because yeah when it stops

it's like oh that sucks I cancel my Netflix well yeah maybe just for that I know I watched one or two of those seasons but it's it's not my that's not my jam

did you get into it I did I think I watched season one two yeah that's me I watched one or two I was like it was kind of like it lost me after a while it wasn't I mean I get it

if that's the stuff you guys are into that type of stuff yeah I'm not totally I won't keep it whatever I got to talk about Have you guys noticed this? Well, I'm into it. It's the fuck you guys.

Tell me all about. You guys always shit on my stuff. I really don't care of you to like my stuff. Listen, you got a lot of people behind you. I'm not going to talk shit. You know what I'm the most popular series. Yeah, it is. It's for sure possible.

Have you guys noticed how quickly we just got a huge shipment of the, the crisp power protein. Gone. I went yesterday and get some for myself. Gone. I do not like. Jerry, when you listen to this, this is like part of the deal. I thought we talked about this.

You know, you're supposed to, she's supposed to carve off stuff for the founders. And then, because with the staff we have now, something good hits the, hits our place. They're gone. And we don't police it. So it's just like, what's your guys favorite flavor? Flaming hot. And the cheddar. Yeah.

Yeah. She's cheddar. They're really, they're, they're, I heard Doug say when we were looking up that today about them, that they're, uh, cinnamon one is a real popular one. It was good, but it wasn't the, I didn't think it was the best. No, I think it was the most requested one of them. That means, meaning that they didn't have it and people were. Like someone said, make a cinnamon one.

Okay. You know what I ate it? I couldn't help but think pouring milk in it, like making a cereal out of it. That's what I felt like when I was eating. You know what I would do was I would dip it in peanut butter or something like that. Cinnamon and peanut butter? That might be all right. Justin puts people on.

He's all cheddar, dude. I would be into it. I sent him over this cheddar, this cheese macaroni cheese recipe with like cheese it's crunched. It was like disgustingly like good though. There was a part of it. I would eat it kind of want to try that, you know? Taco Bell is the king of that.

They'll combine things. What are you doing? Dude, I was going to share with you guys a dad thing. I did share a little bit yesterday with you. You know, when these, obviously I'm behind everybody, right? So I'm the last dad. So I'd shared recently how cool it was that my son can beat me at something. It was like, like, it's funny as these dad moments happened to me that just, I'd never

crossed my mind that that would be something that like gives me so much. You didn't let him win. He actually... Yeah, no, that's... And there's a huge difference. Like, obviously, he's six. I've been playing games with him since he was a little kid, but come on. I mean, that's, you know...

I'm doing everything I can to let him win so he has fun and enjoys it. But, like, where now I'm, like, really trying to win and I'm getting beat. And so I actually, like, look forward to coming home. Like, you want to play your new? Let's go. You know what I want to play? You know what I'm saying? And it's like, excited.

So that's a really cool thing for me. I think I was bringing up, though, which is also interesting. I shared way back when when, when... how watching certain shows on TV changed for me because if I saw like a kid, you know, a child get taken. I was watching like, remember I told you guys, almost cried. I was watching a medieval show

where it took the firstborn son. I can't do that. And it's like how weird totally different now. It's weird how something like, I mean, I'm 40-something years old so I'm pretty aware of my personality, things I like, things that affect me emotionally. So when new things that I would have never thought of

driving home yesterday and like fighting back tears, listening to Katrina to talk to me as she's reporting back the uh she was on she i didn't make the the zoom call but our school does uh you know zoom call like parent conference stuff to go over your son and she's like literally repeating back to me like everything the teacher said and like hearing a teacher talk about your son is like their favorite student in the class and for all the reasons and then also to commend her parenting because it's just like oh man just it took everything for me not to cry like listening to that because I think you know as a parent you're you're always thinking of like

you there's part of you at least I think everybody is like you know you know you're going to screw something up what are you not going to what are you going to miss what are you not going to do enough of what are you know overreach on like as a and you're just hoping you get it right that he the kid's not a fuck up or he's not this bad kid or he's not like I mean listen I hear it there's other kids in the class that I know that you know like it has a reputation like oh that kids always get I feel bad for parents I do I do I and so I there's a a part of me, I'm like, oh, man, if that was me, like, I have a, I have a close friend. Some kids are just, bro, like, torrent bunches, dude.

Or this, I couldn't, like, she talks about, she's like, it's so cool that we, because, again, another thing that this school does, I really like, they do all these things to include, not just the education part, but the life skills, things that they, they include. And I feel like every teacher, parent conference, I learned something new. And this teacher that, this new class he's in, she intentionally rotates their seats all the time, purely out of the to put them in uncomfortable situations and have to meet a new kid and be friend and she just talks about how every time you know that she's like he's he everybody likes him everybody wants to be friends with them and then Katrina's like well you know that's all great

she goes but our concern we don't want our son to be a push over and she's oh no no he's he'll tell you if he doesn't want to do something and he's she goes that's one of the things that we love about he's so self-aware like he will communicate to another kid like yeah I don't want to play with you. Like, you're too, you're too rough. Or, and she's like, and he's so sweet and nice about it, but then he's also so assure of himself and who he, oh, man, just melt me inside. And I know, like, my heart breaks for when you hear the stories of these kids that the parents have that hard time with, or I have a friend who, the, they got their report from their, from their teacher. And they said, like, yeah, sometimes she sits all by herself at, in nobody. Oh, God. Oh, God.

And I thought. And I told Katrina, I'm like, I don't know what. what I would do if they report it back to me that my kid is sitting at recess, lonely. Like, I don't, I think I would be, I would want to pull him out. I almost feel like, and I don't even know if that's the right thing to do, I'm like, if I heard that nobody wanted to play with my kid and he was all by himself and to think that I'm putting him in there for six hours a day or whatever, and he's sitting alone, like, man, I don't know what I would do. I feel like I would figure away to homeschool if I had to hear something like that.

Yeah, the other night, I was praying with my three-year-old before bed, and she She's so cute. She puts her hands together and clenches her little face and does this thing. And as I'm praying and I'm almost done. And she goes, and thank you for my brother and my papa. Amen. And I'm like, oh. Thank you. So cute. I love it. Yeah. It's a trip. I mean, I was definitely not the guy who thought I was going to be, you know, kids and that thing. I mean, I knew at one point I probably would. But to see all the things that change about you as. as an individual, this is why I think everybody who has them when you don't tell you, oh, you just, you'll see, you'll see, you just, you can't describe it, you can't explain it. We were talking about this yesterday, how we were talking about how some people just have this incredible tolerance for chaos and sacrificing their own needs, and these people have, like, all these kids, and it's like, how do they do this? I have, we know people, friends of ours, were like, seven children.

They raised seven kids themselves, but now, the, older and the kids are always over with their kids and they have this full home. I got to think that that's... And I'm like, that's such a wonderful payback. I got, as I say, I got to believe that that's the ultimate delay gratification of parenting because there's nothing about parenting that's easy, right? It's hard. It's a lot of work.

It's very sacrificial. That's what makes it rewarding is that. And part of that rewarding process is the outcome is like, I get it now. It's those, like that, all those stuff that led up to putting the work in to Max to being the kid he is to hear that from a teacher is that's what that's it that like that amount that feeling that I got is so powerful that I can draw back on it and it makes me emotional on how much it's impact and I imagine it'll still be that way a year two years from now which that makes all the stuff before worth it and so I can only imagine having seven and going through so much ever and then

to get them to come back and to be all together talk to these people like how did you do it like how do you go how did you handle that like where else chaos and you just just do it just do it you know, but it's so wonderful. I feel like it's just, it's not, but that's a lot. We grew up in the 80s and 90s, and even today is, it's an interesting time, I think, uh, with like fatherhood. I don't think it's, uh, I don't think it's celebrated, uh, or shared, uh, it needs to be a sense of pride.

It should be. Men would talk to each other. How many children do you have? It was like a sense of pride. Like, you could support that many kids. You could father that many children. And somehow society has convinced us that it's this, oh, you have.

four kids you got no life oh you must not be able to boy life must be tough for you you know type of deal which is it's kind of wild it's wild how it's sold it's been sold that way it's so wrong it's so because all of the other things and admittedly that in my 20s that i think i chased after are so short-term and unfulfilling even i mean i've done a lot of cool shit yeah and and and in the moment those things i still was go oh that was a blast or that was fun but nothing in comparison to a moment like yesterday like that there's it pales in comparison and so you but yet we we we everything in the movies everything we talk about a lot of the stuff that we drive to the people that we follow and admire you know are are always talking sharing or showing off all the all these materialistic things

that we we we tend to celebrate so much when it's like oh man if you only knew the the fatherhood thing is a million times a million times better than the coolest thing that you can think of right now when I meet another dad and I hear that they have kids and I especially if I see them being involved with their children like immediate respect I don't care about anything else like immediately I'm like respect well it's fun to see especially with like a group of friends where you know they've been single for so long and all of a sudden they're having a kid and then they have a kid and it's like just to watch the transformation not just of them having a kid but their own personnel their depth their growth through that whole process they change and it's like usually and pretty much

always for the better. And it's just like, you just see that, that experience. And then, yeah, you reflect on what it's done to you as an individual and like how you've changed

and, you know, your place in this world. What do you guys think? What do you guys think is it, the parents that it doesn't do that too? Obviously, we're like, there's obviously shitty parents. Yeah.

Right? There's obviously that situation. So if it was so impactful for all of, for all of you, right? And you know what that feeling like. It was, what is missing for the person who doesn't speak that way? Yeah, besides the extreme stuff like drug abuse and severe trauma,

I think it's having a tough time accepting that it's not about you because having kids is not about you. You sacrifice, and sacrifice is a word. If you sacrifice, people think it means you're trading something better for something worse. Like, oh, you've got to sacrifice. No, it's a worthwhile sacrifice, but you have to accept. To trade and it's a way better trade. You accept, like you have children now.

it's not about you anymore. They're resisting the change. They're trying to maintain this self-identity that they had going into it. Yeah, and you think that has more to do with the individual or maturity or boat? What do you think? I think it's a mature individual.

I think it has to do with family that helps. And I think it has to do with how society has painted it. Because when you have encouragement from the people around you and society, I think that would help. Because I do. I do. I do question this.

Had I not live my 20s and 30s to the, to what I thought was the fullest and doing all those things, I wouldn't be able to draw back on that comparison. And so is it maybe you stepped into fatherhood sooner before you had that? And maybe there's not enough people telling you that. I don't know. I think you're pointing to God's grace, Adam, because I think if you had a child early,

you would have been a great dad too. I don't think you would be as wise or have as much money, but it would have been just as transformational. You would have been just as transformational. You would have loved your kid just as much. So this whole myth of like you got to be ready And there's an element of truth to that Don't get me wrong

But except that it's going to be a long season Of it's not about you And so you can't do the stuff that you did before But it's worth it Yeah but do you I mean to Justin's point Like do you think that Let's not use me an example Because I agree with you

I think this what I'm not having my dad Probably laid the roadmap For how I was going to be a dad Probably early on right but if I didn't have a lot of experience or somebody else like me didn't have a lot of those experience before would they wrestle a lot with the

oh man but to get to do the Vegas trip and I always want to and I'm not going to do that oh my boys are all flying and doing this and they're constantly wrestling with that I'm missing you know FOMO of my young buddies that aren't married that are all doing those things and I'm married with kids and I'm missing again I think it's a perspective I really do

and I think if we had more societal support community around. Yeah, like, if you're a dude in your mid-30s and your buddies are going out to Vegas and you're at home with, and you got, you know, two or three kids, I think it would speak volumes of society was like, dude, your buddies need to grow up and good for you. Right. Or they're missing out on what you get. Versus media is constantly telling you you're missing out.

You don't get to hang out with all these chicks. You don't get to go, you know, look at all your money is tied up in these kids and, oh, my God, it's so hard. And then you're at home and you're thinking like, yeah, that's true. Like, this all sucks. Because you're just thinking about it. That's what I think it is. I think it is, and I do, I mean, not to blame society.

We're all, you know, we're all responsible for ourselves. Well, individuals are what create society. But, you know, you're right. Messaging and the marketing. Yeah, because I think, I think that would for sure help me having people I, I trust, value, look up to if I was in that situation, let's say, and I didn't get to do a lot of those things. And I'm going, oh, man, my boy. And they're going, pro, you have it. Yeah.

You have. Yeah. But they don't have it's not the other way. I think, like, let me give you a couple examples, right? Women are constantly told that their beauty is their most valuable thing. So for a woman, it's like, I'm going to sacrifice my looks. Well, newsflash, it's going to happen anyway. You're going to get old anyway.

So that's a myth. And it's a wonderful sacrifice, especially if you pour yourself in your children, you grow your family. For men, we're told make a lot of money, not so you can support a lot of kids. No. Make a lot of money so you can go buy a lot of things. Yeah. And go have all this fun.

Your self-indulgence. Dude stuff. Yeah. The reality is like, yeah, you should go and pursue, you know, building a career and so you can support a large family. So you could take care of your legacy. That's what I mean by the twisting that's happened in the world to the point where modern society is the more wealthy they get, the less kids people have.

And the unhappier. And the unhapp and less happy. I know. There's your evidence. I mean, that's the, that's the misconduct. I wonder if we will unravel that or the pendulum swing. It's starting to flip. You think so.

Yeah, it's starting to flip a little bit. the beliefs that people have are starting to change. Gen Z is actually starting to change some of these trends that were going in that direction. So I have hope. By the way, having less and less kids, it will collapse society also. That's actually a crisis.

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How are you guys? We're good. How are you? Good, good. Thanks for having me. I'm just going to read my email. I am a 42-year-old mom who has been lifting weights for about six years. My fitness journey started with Orange Theory,

where I stayed consistently four or five years. While I enjoy the classes, I eventually started to feel bored and frustrated that I wasn't seeing any real changes in my body. About a year ago, I decided to step away from group classes and instead of focusing on training on my own in our regular gym. Since then, I've definitely seen some progress and feel stronger overall.

I also find myself a little loss when it comes to how I should be progressing. For example, I'm not always sure when I should increase the weight on an exercise. And I've noticed that what my lower body is getting stronger. My upper body has stayed stuck with very little progress. This has left me wondering if I'm approaching progressive overload correctly. I also purchased muscle mommy about three months ago and I really love it. But I get confused with the rep and weight changes, especially when the program shifts from higher reps to lower reps, should I be keeping the same weight across the different rep ranges or should I be increasing? Since I last rode, I've restarted the program and I've seen significantly strength gains. For example, my squad has increased from 105 to 170. My deadlift has gone from 165 to 225. Wow.

I'm not starting phase two, which calls for 15 repetitions. Phase one required 12 repetitions, which I was able to achieve by the end of it. My confusion lies with phase two. Should I decrease the weight to successfully complete 15 repetitions, or should I maintain my current weight and work towards hitting 15 reps? Good question. Very common. More?

Is there more? Yes. With my upper body is so much different. and I'm not able to increase the weight every week. Is this normal? Is there something I should be needed to a different week? Okay, good. Okay, so the last part, yes, it's normal to not progress every single week.

That's impossible. It's not linear. Yeah, so you'll see progress. When you first get started, oftentimes the progress is very consistent. It's like, man, every time I work out, I seem to be able to add weight to the bar. That starts to slow down as you continue to progress. And then eventually, later on, you know, you're doing this for a few years, consistently, it could be like, I gain, you know, some strength, you know, every year.

You know, my squat went up 10 pounds or 15 pounds or 20 pounds this year, whereas in the beginning it may be 10, 15 pounds in a month. So that can definitely change. Now to back up, I'll go in reverse of what you asked. When the rep range goes up or down, you adjust the weight. So you want to pick a weight that allows you to perform the target rep range with good intensity. Okay. So if you're squatting 170 pounds for 12 reps, now it says 15 reps, you're probably going to have to drop down to like 150, 155 or something like that. And then pick a weight that allows

you to do that rep range again with good intensity. And then when it comes to getting stronger, generally speaking, there's three reasons why somebody won't get stronger. Diet, programming, and then your genetic potential. So we'll start with genetic potential. You can't get stronger forever. Like if that was possible, you know, Justin, Adam, and myself would be bench pressing 300 pounds or sorry, 3,000 pounds by this point. I was going to say that. Yeah, I know.

I've done that. We got that covered. Programming is the other one. If you follow good programming, then great. If you're not, then you could have a great diner stuff and it's just not going to work. You're following muscle mommy. So I know you're probably following good programming. And then the other one's diet.

if you're not eating enough to fuel strength and muscle, then you won't get stronger regardless of how great everything is. So those are the three places to look. But if you're seeing yourself get stronger, relatively consistently, like over the last time you did muscle mommy versus this time, you're doing great. Yeah, it sounds like you're doing really good. Yeah, it was really good to see.

I was like, okay, I'm going to buy a different program, but then I wasn't sure which one to buy. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll just do it again and see how much I've progressed. And, yeah, it's been, it's been great. But yeah, definitely my upper body is like where I lack the strength. And, yeah, and I don't know if bumping up my calories is a good idea for that. Or is it just usually something that you're not going to see as much progress as your lower body? As a woman, you won't, you'll typically see strength gains in the lower body lifts much faster.

than the upper body lifts. That being said, have you progressed. So from the last time you did Muscle Mommy to now, have you seen a change in your bench press, your row, your overhead press? A little bit, not so much. How much? I will say maybe my reps are a bit higher,

but certainly the weight is not. So how much higher are the reps? Five, three. I would say about three. Okay. You're stronger. That's still moving. forward. Where are your calories?

I think so I don't really track very well. The only thing that I'm tracking right now is protein. I'm certainly between 130 and 150. Oh, good. Per day, I would say maybe my calories are on. Maybe I'm going to say like 2, $2,200. Okay. I think you're doing good.

I think you're really good. There's a lot of opportunities still there. From what it sounds like, you're doing Orange Siri for quite a long time. and now you switched, you know, to actually having rest periods of focusing on strength. I think the potential is still, you know, quite a bit of potential there left. Yeah, also, you want to look at the whole picture. So, okay, I went up three, let's say, I went up three reps in my overhead press, but I went up 30 pounds in my deadlift and my squat.

Am I eating enough to fuel strength gains? Yeah, you are. Yeah, you're doing great. Yeah. So, and that's not uncommon with women, you know, getting women to progress with upper body after a year or two really slows down lower body we typically have a lot more runway i mean if you really want to dive into it i would suggest power lift would be a good option for you to really figure that out like where your potential lies and your capacity for strength

and then you know kind of come back from there but like if you really pursued it you would see you know how that then translates to uh you know a lot of these high rep type of uh workouts i'd love to see you in our muscle mommy group too did you are you are you aware of that we started that have you seen that uh no oh yes i'll have doug send you a link to that um which is incredible which is nothing but women trying to get strong in there and a lot of them are reversed dieting and there's a lot of strategy every week there's a coaching call uh Wednesday we got dr gabriel lyin coming in talking about women's hormones so just a yeah oh that would be great a ton of a ton of great yeah and then as you're going through that it already has muscle mommy

included in it also has muscle mommy 15 in there and then as you go through the programming, we'll just keep you going on new programs. So when you run through that program, we'll set you up with the next one. So great, you'll, great community in there. You'll love it. All right. No, that'll be great. I have one more question. Yep, sure.

So since Leaving Orange Theory, I've caught back in my cardio, like by a lot. And I'll sometimes add in like a hit workout about twice a week. Do you guys recommend that? like do you think hit cardio is better than hit with weights or like what's the recommendation? Okay, so what's your goal out of this?

More stamina? Yeah, and I guess I don't know. I feel a little fluffy after not doing so much cardio. So a better strategy would continue to lean in the building the strength and not worry about the hit cardio right now. And then after we build your calories up, say 24, 2,500 calories, then go into a cut, then introduce hit that if you for fat loss if we were trying to use hit cardio as a strategy for fat loss you'd be better served to just keep focusing on strength right now and build and maybe even bump your calories a couple hundred calories and keep going that direction for a little while and then go okay maybe

after a month and by the way in the group we can talk about all this stuff more specific to you as we track you week by week and then we'll go okay great we've got our calories up to 2,500 now let's start to cut down to 2,100 calories, do that for a couple weeks. Your results slow down. Then we introduce hit cardio. Then they start to keep going. So that's how I would use hit cardio if you're trying to use it for fat loss. If it's for stamina, then I think hit cardio a couple days a week is great.

And that'll give you the endurance. Okay. No, that sounds great. And then so what you're saying is like power list would be a good program. I think if you want to get strong, absolutely. How far you're in what phase two right now? of Muscle Mommy again, where you are? I just started phase two.

So finished, go through that all the way. We'll have Doug send PowerLift to you, so you have that. But follow MuscleMami. Follow that through the rest of the program and then get inside the group and then we'll take you through PowerLift. And is power lift like three or four days a week or how does that work? I think it's, I want to say four or five. I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's about five. I believe it's five days a week. It's powerlifting focus. So the main goal is stronger at bench, deadlift, and squat. Yeah. Okay, perfect.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. All right. We'll see you in there. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, that's good. Good question. Yeah, that's typical for a woman. You'll see the lower body continue to progress. Upper body start to slow down. But if you're progressing, you're progressing. And like I said earlier, the three things are genetic potential, which takes a while. So that's typically not it, unless you've been doing this for a long time.

And you're hitting some. great numbers or whatever diet and uh in programming those are the main area other things can you know play a role like rest and recovery with the program what is this what is the science on the because women have this like the same potential in the lower body but they have like one third the potential and i and i forget what what it was that is it is it muscle fiber density is it the type of muscle fibers or why is it that women because you i i had female clients that could squat leg pressed, it's in a lot of my men. So the potential for your lower body for women is, I believe, as equal as far as the

percentage that they can grow as men, but then upper body, I believe, is one-third the potential. Yeah, so men still have a higher potential for lower body, but they're closer to the male potential with the lower body and the upper body. It has to do with muscle, like you said, muscle fiber type, central nervous system, output, structure, bone density, hormone. I mean, there's a lot of factors that play a role in that. But yeah, if you look at like overall potential as a percentage of body weight for lower body, men are still much stronger. Yeah.

But women are closer in that than they are. Yeah, I thought it was almost equal for the lower body. But I know that what I've read when it comes to upper body, it's like one third of the potential. Yeah. Our next caller is Brian from California. What's up, ma'am? How are Brian? what's up you guys thanks a lot for having me on you got it dude how can we help you uh well first of all

i just want to thank you guys for everything you do i've been a listener about five years and back in 2020 you guys helped me put on about 20 pounds of lean mass so wow yeah and i've been able to maintain and even get a little more since then so anybody listening like these guys are the real deal no gimmicks thank you thank you guys thank you how can we help you do um so like i said i've been listening a long time and um a lot of the things you guys talk about to maximize your workouts. I'm pretty good at tracking them. And I can usually tell how my workout's going to feel based on sleep, what I've eaten, recovery days, programming, my hydration, salt levels, like all those things I keep pretty good track of. And about 80% of the time, the math is mathing. Like when I do

everything right, workouts feel good. I feel connected. I feel pumped. Everything like that. But then it's that 20% of the time I can't figure out. There's like, sometimes I go in and I feel like, wow, okay, coming off a couple rest days. I've eaten well. I'm hydrated. Like my workout's going to feel good. And then it's just trash. Like it joins her. Like it takes a bunch of sets to even feel warmed up. And then I've also had times where I'm literally off like two hour sleep thinking it's going to feel like garbage. And I go in and just feel amazing. And I'm hitting like a PR. That makes no sense to me. So I don't know if you guys could like shed some light on that. I don't know if the no sleep thing is maybe that temporary spike in cortisol that you guys talk about sometimes. Yeah, that's what that is. Yeah. So, so, okay. Okay, you sound like someone who kind of has a good idea of all the different factors that we tend to track. Diet, sleep, programming, you know, sounds to me like you have a decent handle on those things. Is that correct? Does that feel that way? Yeah, yeah, it seems like you.

I wouldn't worry about the rest. So here, the rest of it. So here's the thing that you don't want to fall into this trap. You don't want to fall into the trap of worshiping the feeling of the workout. Now, I know we communicate often that it's a good thing to. feel the workout, to pay attention to how it feels, and it is. But if you start to fall in love with that the workout always has to feel like a great workout, it's going to drive you in the wrong direction. Because unfortunately, there are times, it just doesn't make sense. You're beyond

that. You're beyond that. You've really figured this out, bro. I mean, the fact that you're adjusting things based off of how you're feeling, you're eating, you're doing all the right things and you're tracking the stuff that really matters. Life is weird. Like, working out is weird like that. We all experience the exact same thing. There's just times when this doesn't add up, I shouldn't feel this strong, yet I am that strong. You know, and I can't, I can't break down the science of why that day I did. You know, it's hard to pinpoint. And then you can get paralysis by analysis by trying to over-focus on those things. I mean, if you've put 20 pounds of muscle on, and you're still continuing to put some muscle on, even if it's incremental now, you're doing it,

bro. I mean, you're doing, yeah, you're doing a, you're doing a hell of a job. I mean, the one thing I'd ask you is, like, as you rotate through our programs, like, do you do you do good, good job of making sure that at least one time a year you get either symmetry or performance in there, or do you tend to focus just on one or two programs we do? Like, what do you do right now with your program? So, like, like, everything I do pretty much is based off, like, anabolic, like, and I like going six days a week. So I just do upper, lower days. And then every three to five weeks, I'm switching up my rep range. okay um and then i'll i'll play around a little bit with um different tempos and things like that um

like to to connect better all sometimes like work in a shorter range of motion and then like expand it out um kind of just everything to create the novelty but not do it too often yeah yeah i do a lot of activity outside of the gym or because i play a lot of golf so like probably three four times a week i'm walking carrying my bag and you know but nothing nothing crazy i just kind of Stay fairly active. I'd let the see if run symmetry. Yeah, you might want to move out of the maps andabolic programming if you've been doing it for a long time

because you can start to cause some imbalances and start to get joint issues because there's nothing really in there laterally. There's no rotation in there. Those two are big. Yeah, I think symmetry would be good. Performance would be good as an interruptor. And that might give you what you're looking for.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Do either one of those sound more appealing to you? Because whichever one you want will send to you. I mean, I think you definitely should follow one of those. And I think you can go back to Anabolic and see I do. Just once a year, I always recommend, especially where you're at, right? You've figured you've got the big rocks.

The next big rock is probably really making your programming make a lot of sense. And getting one round of symmetry or one round of performance every year in your programming cycle is a smart strategy, no matter who you are and what your goals are. And so, you know, if one of those sounds more appealing to you, send it to you, but that's at least one of those should go in your programming to interrupt anabolic style of programming, just because it's all bilateral, no rotational stuff. Very, very, very, there's no unilateral work inside of anabolic. So that type of stuff, it will serve you well, especially since you're a golfer. Yeah, I mean, symmetry sounds pretty awesome. Okay, we'll send it to you. Yeah, we said that. Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you guys.

Maybe some of the imbalances and stuff, especially as a golfer always swinging one way, you know. 100%. Yeah. Keep in mind, if you do. You, if you're consistent with all the stuff you know to be right, what'll happen is you'll get more of those good workouts and less of those quote-unquote bad workouts. But nothing guarantees a good workout every time. There's some mystery. Yeah, sometimes those workers are just literally just for the mental, like, you just get through it and you're like, stoked you got it in, even though it didn't feel like the best. No, 100%. So you're on point, dude.

You're doing good. Yeah. I appreciate you guys. Yeah, yeah. we'll send that over to you brother thank you awesome you guys are best thank you man appreciate you yep it's you know it's funny is i the the the first time i hit 600 pound deadlift which was a PR for me was two one or two days after i uh finally got divorced moved out of my house yeah and i go to work out and i pull a PR that was all yeah stress hormone stress that was all

of that yeah because i had poor sleep i'm obviously stressed out and i go and just grab the weight and just, ah, and that was fueled by stress. You know, not ideal to repeat that a lot. Oh, no. Our bodies also don't work on this perfect 24-hour clock all the time, but we think of it like that. We go, oh, yesterday I did all these things. And so then today I should feel amazing and then you don't.

But it's really like, well, it's not really, maybe it's been the last four or five days of things combined as what gave you the average of that workout. Or maybe there was something two days ago that was really impactful, that now So it doesn't always work in this like perfect 24 hour clock. And so if you're always like analyzing like, well, fuck, what did I do? Because this wasn't good workout. And I thought I did all the right things. More often than not, it'll help.

Yeah. It'll work. Yeah. And I think early on, like he's early before you, he's at a really good level where he's, he's, if you put 20 pounds of muscle on, you're doing a lot of shit right, a lot of, all the major stuff. And you want to be careful not to overanalyze everything because you may be doing something really great.

And you just because you didn't have a great workout and you. you thought you did all right things, you move something or change something, that was perfect and ends up being worse. Our next caller is Marnie from Maryland. Hi, Marnie. How are you? Hello, hello. Hey, guys.

How are you? Good. I hope you. Good. First, thanks for taking my call. And as usual, love the show and really appreciate your content. So thanks for everything that you're doing. I'll dive right in.

So I am 54. I've been working out pretty much my whole life, but really, you've been lifting for about 15 years consistently. So I'm lifting probably about five or six days a week. I used to be a big cardio bunny. I ran a bunch of marathons. I have slowly over the past, I would say, three to four years, let go of a lot of the cardio. And, in fact, I would say about a year ago, I made a conscious effort just. to be more active in my daily life.

I sit at a desk all day, and so just try to get more steps in and switch that out for the cardio. So now I'm just doing cardio two days a week. All that to be said, also the same time that I really made a conscious effort to lessen the cardio, I was in the full throes of perimenopause and was seeing a lot of weight distribution, not a lot, but like some weight distribution, moving to like my middle area, and I just felt kind of out of sync and out of whack.

I wasn't sure if it was because I'd been doing cardio for so long and then I, you know, really curb that or if it was the hormones. I have since gone on HRT. I've been trying to eat less carbs, and I feel like I'm in a better place. And just as a gut check so that I would stop relying on the scale so much, I went and I got a Dexas scan to get my body comp, and I just got that back last week. And that was in a good place. I'm at 16% for body fat.

So I feel really good about that. I just feel like I'm kind of in a plateau. I'm not really seeing the gains that I want to, particularly in my glutes and, like, sort of my lower half. So I wanted to just get a check in with you guys, see what you would do from a nutrition standpoint and see if you had any programming ideas. I feel like you know what we're going to say. What do you think we're going to say? You're going to say I'm not eating enough.

Yep. Wait, why would we say that? What makes you say that? So, Marnie, how long, because when you wrote in, it said you had wrote that your body fat was 11 to 13 percent. And did it go up or was that a guess? Oh, so I think I wrote in twice, actually. And so that first number was probably.

the machine at the gym that does your body fat versus the DEXA which was 16%. I was actually surprised because I've tracked my body fat through calipers and through called calipers and through like the machine

at the gym for years. You know, I do it a couple times a year and it's always been around 13, 12, 13%. And then when I went and I got the DEXA it came back at 16%. So I'm not sure if that's just a normal variation between the machines. It is. It is. It doesn't matter either. So for a few years,

or for how many years have you walked around around that 13 percentish? I mean, I've had three kids, and I will say my body fat has probably always been between 12 is probably my lowest, but I was never really more than like 16%. Yeah, for a long time. You ever get your bone density tested? I just got it done with this deck. a scan, and it was right in the middle. It was at 50%. Okay, good. So, Marnie, you got to, you have to, you're ready to hear what I'm going to say?

Yeah, I need to hear it because I know what you're going to say, and I just, I need to hear it, and I need to get, I need to get over it. And I would love any, any tips that you can give me on how to get over it. Like, I've been really trying to have a protein shake at night before bed, and it kills me. It kills me to do it, but I feel like it's the right thing to do it. before just trying to get there before sal goes because i know he's going to have a bunch of great advice for you it's i'm so glad that we got you today because literally tomorrow dr gabriel lyon is coming in speaking about women's hormones in our muscle mommy group and so he's yes she's my idol

she's amazing from you guys she's the only other podcast that i listen to she's back she's bad she's that's muscle mommy movement dot com if you want to get into the um um um um you want you to get into the muscle mommy group she talks tomorrow we'll be in there and after sal gives you all the advice i just want to tell you that we're going to hold your hand through the process in there so we're going to help you through it so here's how we can help okay because i think you know what we're going to say the challenge is doing it yep it sounds like you have a relationship with this that is very challenging which i personally understand and the the best thing you could do is to give it to someone else.

So the best thing you could do is not rely on yourself, because you know what that's going to look like. You've been doing that for a long time. So you have to give it to someone else and say, I'm just going to do what you're telling me for a while until I could break free from this very challenging relationship. But what you need to do, Marnie, is you're ready, you need to gain body fat. You need to, I'm not even going to tell you to gain muscle. You need to gain body fat, and that'll change your life.

It will change everything because you're tiptoeing around essential body fat. for a woman for a long time. And that has profoundly negative effects on energy, health, hormones, everything. So that's interesting because I was able to conceive like three healthy kids. And so in my mind, I was like, oh, I'm fine. Like, I never lost my menstruation. And I never. So you're saying that there's other things that are markers that I might not be able to see.

There's going to be, yes, and it's not just that. So your body's obviously very resilient. Right. You probably have very athletic genetics. So you probably have kind of mesomorph genetics where you can tolerate pushing the limit much more than other women. Most women would lose their period, you know, kind of doing what you did. So you have a very resilient body. But what will happen if you gain body fat, if I get you up to 19% 20% body fat, you're going to feel strong.

you're going to have a lot of energy you're going to feel very different and you're not going to look bad you're going to look great I can see you've got good muscle you're going to build that asset you're chasing right now 100% that's going to happen

you go up to 19% that's right so it's and you will feel better and just because you feel okay right now and you've been able to do those things doesn't mean we're optimal and optimal will be higher than where you're currently at right now

but I do I mean I've trained so many clients like this and I know how difficult it is. It's not the not knowing. I feel like you already knew what you were supposed to do. It's literally doing that. I think Sal is 100% right. Like this is one of those things are you outsources where it's just like, you know what? I'm going to trust my coach. I'm going to trust the process. I'm going to do the thing, which again, I think it's so serendipitous that you called in today. We have Dr. Gabriel Lyne speaking literally tomorrow about women's hormones to our woman's

group to all these women that are trying to reverse diet. At least 80% of the women in there are reverse dieting. And that's what you need to do right now. So outsource this, perfect timing, get in there. Let us help you through this process and just watch what you feel like. There's nothing wrong with, especially for somebody like you who seems to have a very resilient body, there's nothing wrong with dipping into the 15, 14% here and there. But to live in that percentage for as long as you have is not good. You want to probably live.

And I'll guess for someone like you with kind of how your body responds, you could probably live in the 18, 19, 20% range. and be great and be strong and feel good. And then every once in a while, dip back down. But I wouldn't even, if you were my client, I wouldn't let you dip back down for a couple years.

I would say, no, we're going to stay here for two years so that you can get kind of comfortable with what this feels like. Because what can also happen, Marnie, is you can be like, fine,

I'll listen to you. I'll go up to 19%. As soon as they do, I'm going right back down, which is not going to help us. Yeah. And this will serve you so well, especially now that you're in your,

you're in your early 50s. 60s, 70s, if you look at the data on longevity, having really low body fat and low body weight, even if you're fit and athletic, is actually a health risk for women. That's why I ask you about your bone density. In fact, I would recommend that you get a bone density test from your doctor, not a dexas can, like a legit one,

just to make sure, again, because you seem to have those mesomorph genetics, you're probably okay, but I would just double check that. But I wouldn't weigh you, like no more scale. No more, don't study yourself in the mirror. Just listen to someone else and maybe pay attention to how strong. Your strength's going to go through the roof. Your strength is going to explode on all your lifts. You're going to have, like I said, a lot of energy.

But just give it to someone else and just let go of it for a little while and see what happens. Okay. I'm ready. All right. All right. We'll send you that link. We're going to see you in there. Get in there.

One quick question. Aside from the show with Dr. Lyon, you got to. as we'll send me a program or a nutrition, that's sounded for a nutrition program. So how do I know how to get my bot? Here's what we'll do. We'll send you the link and I'll also have a coach call you because you might be better suited for one-on-one online coaching

where it's just you and them because Muscle Mommy's group coaching, you might be better suited to just one-on-one. So I'll make sure somebody gives you a call today as well. But the very least get inside that group just because I think it's a perfect timing with Gabriel on it. And then like Sal is saying, we'll have one of our girls call you and see if you.

you get much more it's just more individualized for you yeah yeah okay thank you so much marnie for marney i can see the fear i think i knew and needed to hear from a third party and i could see the fear that you got it's going to be good it's going to be good i promise you and you're really courageous i know what this feels like so i appreciate you calling us we got we got you okay all right appreciate it all right marie all right i've uh i've had uh female clients where it's like, what's my goal? Gain more muscle? No, we're going to gain body fat.

Yeah. We have to gain body fat. That's what has to happen. She's been walking around. She'll feel so... She's shredded, dude. And just living there. You see both bicep veins.

She's like stage ready right now. Always. Walking around stage ready. Always. The fact that she was able to conceive... Yeah, that's impressive. She's got those genetics. Which it only means we gain body fat.

She's going to blow her mind. I'm glad you said that... I'm glad you said that just okay. So the audience knows. Most of the time, when someone's down in the 18, 19% body fat as female, we tell them to gain body fat, and they need to be up in the low 20s. She's probably somebody who can carry herself around 18, 19, and actually be really healthy. If she was able to conceive at 11, 12, 13%, she'll be able to be a lower.

Still defined. Yeah. Oh, she'll still be. I'm telling you right now what will happen. She'll like the way she looks more. She will. She's going to, she's going to, and if she does it or reverse diet correctly, good programming behind it, she will build a body that she's more excited about, and she'll be in a healthier

place. So I mean, so long as she, I think, lets it go. I think that's such good advice that it's like outsource this. Just trust the process from somebody that you trust knows what they're doing. Allow us to take you there. And I think she'll be so happy at 18, 19% body fat. Our next caller is Derek from Florida. What's up, Derek?

What's up, Derek? How are we doing? Hey, guys. How are you doing? Good, man. How you been? Let's hear this update. I'm curious.

You look different, dude. Yeah, I got a real, real fat. I gained a lot of me. No, bro. I see the guns, dude. Get out of here. What's going on? How can we help you?

So it's been about four and a half, five months since you guys gave me some advice before. Stop burning myself out. Stop doing too much. Help my calories. All good things. You guys gave me maps, Anabolic. I went through that. I didn't really know where to go from there.

So I ran it back on Anabolic Advanced. And I'm in the middle of that now. I got about three or four weeks left, I think. I'm heading into the last. phase now. I started TRT treatment. I kind of felt like in Cholomaphim wasn't really doing it for me. I started that back in July, so I'm in about 12 weeks now of treatment.

And like I mentioned before, I took Adams' advice and reversed dieted myself up to 3,200 calories per day. As a reminder, I'm 6-2, so a little bit bigger of a guy. My results, my weight did increase. I went from like 235, 240 up to about 250. My handheld body fat calculator is showing that I've lost about 2% body fat, but I'm still over 20%. So, you know, not really where I want to be yet. I'm sure my TRT gave me some water retention, things like that to cause some of that weight gain.

I have received compliments on, you know, as you mentioned, the guns and some body changes, but I feel I have a long way to go. So here's my question. I wanted to try to lose some of the excess fat. You know, I still carry a lot around my waist. My arms, my legs, my chest, they're all great, feeling pretty solid. But, you know, it's been a fighting battle on my waist since my early 30s. It kind of makes me look more dad-bod and not so much fit. I don't want to lose what I've built, but I also don't want to keep gaining a ton of weight.

My goal isn't to be ridiculously ripped, but I'd like to be maybe like 15, 16 percent body fat at the end of the day. and more at a healthy weight. Should I do another one of your programs outside of anabolic? Should I run that back? And in doing that, should I start cutting back my calories now? Considering maybe I just, the weight gain scares me. Let's put it that way. So I'll leave it that, and I'd love to hear your guys' feedback.

You're ready for a cut? Yeah, easy. I want, not dramatic, and I want you to toggle back and forth between mini cut, many bulk. so it looks like a 2,500 calorie down to 2,500 calories for like, say, two, three weeks and then give yourself a surplus or at least back up to maintenance for a week and then go back to three weeks in a cut and then do it and just keep toggling back. So go three weeks in the cut at 2,500 calories and then go back to maintenance 3,200 for one week and then go back and just keep toggling like that.

And you're going to get, you're going to go nice and consistent down in body fat and you probably won't lose muscle. and feel pretty strong. Programming, you could do symmetry, I think would be a good follow-up program now that you've done anabolic and anabolic advanced. I'll send that to you. You're doing great, dude.

Yeah. You're doing real good. Yeah. You are. You're in a good place, too, right now because I think before your calories were quite a bit lower, especially for your activity and size.

So now that you're up to a healthier place, you're still not hot. I would not consider these high calories for a guy your size. Like, that's still on the lower end, but at least healthy, good range, enough that we can play with cutting a little bit. So, but I wouldn't cut

you dramatically because you're, in fact, you're on TRT, most, as long as you stay consistent with your training, and those are good whole food, good calories, most of that is going to get partitioned to building muscle. And so we just want to cut a little bit and that'll help lean out, you know, for a couple weeks and then put you back to surplus, that'll hopefully keep you keep the muscle or even build a little bit of muscle and that you're just kind of toggling back and forth and that. Yeah, you'll drop, you'll probably drop five percent body fat in maybe four months, five months over that process. Or less. or less, but I'm giving you kind of a long range.

So it's going to feel like a nice, consistent workouts feel good, especially when I go up to maintenance for that week. I'm feeling stronger and just nice, consistent, getting leaner process. And I want you to, the only thing I want you really to measure right now is just use your waist, circumference around your waist. Just pay attention to that. Yeah. And because you could potentially just weight, stay very similar because you got a lot of good muscle

and you might just keep building a little bit. By the way, reverse diet and you went down in 2% body fat. That's great, dude. That's incredible. You've done great, and you're in a really good place right now. And I think the thing that will be encouraging is to just keep an eye on that waistline and see you probably hang on to all that muscle and just slowly drop your inches off your waist. Now, here's a way you can mess this up.

Okay, one way you could mess this up is in that week of maintenance. Instead of going up to maintenance, it's like, this is my week of cheap meals. Yeah, don't do that. And then it goes like crazy. And then it washes out the difference. Great point. And then it could turn into a like, you know, we kind of just maintaining because it's three weeks of a cut in one week of a massive surplus.

I'm so glad you said that. Don't take the, what I'm saying is your maintenance or bulk is like a eat whatever the hell you want that week because she's right. It's literally controlled. It's still controlled. You're just up to, you're just going back up to 3,200 calories. Okay. One question on the follow up on the diet part of it.

The way I've been working in now is I've been averaging 3200. So throughout the week. So I still have the cheat meal at the end of the week. I try to bring my calories back on that on that Saturday. and if there's a reason that, like, we have a barbecue or kids out in the pool and, you know, there's drinks around. I want to still be able to have some flexibility. So I've just been, okay, I just want to make sure having those fluctuations. Totally.

I don't have to. Totally. Okay. No, that's fine. Just know that now the average is $2,500. So it's same, same strategy. And you still can have a little bit of that flexibility on those days, totally. But in that three week, quote, unquote, cut, your average needs to be $2,500, which means maybe some of the days are $2,500.

which means maybe some of the days are 22 because you have a day that's 3,000. So it needs to average about 2,500 a day for those three weeks, even with that built in. And then on the, now if you can, you know, try and make those extra days on the week where you're more at maintenance. But I understand that life doesn't always work out that way. So it's totally fine. Just make the average 2,500 and then go back to maintenance on the 32. And just, you know, not to throw a wrench in this, but just because you don't have to do it this way. But in my experience, the easiest way to do the cuts is to cut the carbohydrates down during those weeks of the cut.

It's just a more black and white, kind of easy, simple, especially if you're not trying to, like, you know, macro count everything. It's like very easy kind of way to cut calories for some people. So that's just one approach. It doesn't have to be that way, though. Yeah, it's kind of what I was thinking. I don't really want to take away from my protein. And when I cut fats, you kind of feel like garbage. Same here.

Yep. Yeah. Dude, you're doing good. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. And symmetry, what kind of program is that? I haven't researched it much.

Is that like a three-day-a-week still or more? Symmetry, I believe, is more. It's very unilateral, except for the first two weeks. It's five days a week, right, Doug? Is it five? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I can make it in between. Yeah, because you're following anabolic advance, which is more days a week than anabolic. So, yeah, no, symmetry. You're going to love symmetry. We'll send that over to you. And then after symmetry, go back to anabolic.

Okay, cool. And I want another update because I'm excited what happens right here. I think you're going to be really happy. You're killing it. Yep. Guys, I'm going to come back jacked as hell. You're going to love it. Yeah, I like it.

I like it. All right, man. All right, Derek. All right. Well, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Take you later. It's so funny when people say dad bodd because the truth is when they do that data, it's not that

women like dudes with a belly. Women like dudes with muscle who aren't shredded. It's typically what it is. Yeah. So it's like any, since some guys around. 18% 19% Not a spot isn't supposed to be just

Fat Beer belly You just look strong Yeah You just look strong And yeah You just not like You look like the average person

Would look at you and go Oh he goes to the gym You don't look You don't walk in And people go Oh shit he probably competes Yeah You go oh damn

He lifts weights Like that's to me What that looks like That's right Look if you like the show Come find us on Instagram You will see you At Mind Pump meeting

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