Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2716: Are You Fitter Than the Average Person?

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Mind Pump Fit Tip: Are you fitter than average? The standards for men and women, connected to longevity. (2:51) Advocating for full-body workouts vs. body part splits. (21:43) Best peptide combos with Sal. (31:57) Topical vs. injectable. (34:56) Why is there order and why is there good? (36:58) AI craziness! (39:55) The value of sports for kids. (47:01) Fact-checking Doug. (57:03) #ListenerLive question #1 – How do you know you're overtraining if you don't have the classic symptoms of overtraining? (59:21) #ListenerLive question #2 – Are there any tips you can give my son so he can feel a better connection to the muscle when he trains with hypermobility? (1:09:03) #ListenerLive question #3 – Any help and guidance on how to attack training coming off TRT? (1:21:48) #ListenerLive question #4 – My biggest objective now is to build muscle, specifically in my glutes. What's the best way to transition from a long-term calorie deficit to a maintenance phase? Do you have any specific recommendations to focus on glute development? (1:34:17) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Email: [e-mail] Visit Transcend for this month's exclusive Mind Pump offer! ** 15% off your first order, prescribed medication only! Does not include the blood panel or the physician fee. Telehealth Provider • Physician Directed GET YOUR PERSONALIZED TREATMENT PLAN!  Hormone Replacement Therapy, Cognitive Function, Sleep & Fatigue, Athletic Performance and MORE! ** Visit Luminose by Entera for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MPM at checkout for 10% off their order or 10% off their first month of a subscribe-and-save. ** October Special: MAPS GLP-1 50% off! ** Code GLP50 at checkout. ** Mind Pump Store HANDGRIP DYNAMOMETER Mind Pump #2665: Why "Science-Based" Lifting Is Killing Your Gains BionicM Speeds the Race Toward Powered Prosthetic Legs Mind Pump #2575: Raising Resilient Children With Jen Cohen Mind Pump #2277: The Five Best Sports for Kids Who Would Win? 10 Book Box Set Visit Pre-Alcohol by ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MINDPUMP25 for 15% off first-time purchasers on either one-time purchases, (3, 6, 12-packs) or subscriptions (6, 12-pack) ** Mind Pump #2312: Five Steps to Bounce Back From Overtraining Mind Pump #2210: Best Workouts for Bulking & Cutting Ask Mind Pump Mind Pump Hormones Facebook Private Forum Mind Pump #2707: How to Boost Your Testosterone Naturally Muscle Mommy Movement Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Joe DeFranco (@defrancosgym) Instagram James Smith (@smittydiesel)  Instagram Jen Cohen (@therealjencohen) Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) Instagram  

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Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, so you started working out, you started fixing your diet, and you're wondering, where do I rank? So here's we're going to do today. We're going to talk about the averages, the averages for fitness and strength, waist size, arm size. Where do you rank and does it matter? What do these tell you

about your longevity and health? We're going to get into it. Let's go. I feel like we failed the hang test. So Salon on a fucking... No, we're going to look at it. He's like, I know there's some things that we're going to be good at. Statistics that we're crushing it. Let's go find somewhere good at. That's not what happens. No, you know what? So, no, I actually saw a post on social media of like the average arm size. And that piqued my interest. And I said, what are the, what are the averages that are out there? What is the best data show? Now, some of the data is on the average person. And some of the data is on the average person that exercises. So it's not all 100% clear. And I also tried to see how it connected to things like longevity. Like we've all

heard of the grip strength, right? How grip strength is a predictor of all cause mortality. It's better than others. Waste circumference is another one. Waste circumference is actually better than BMI. Yeah. So like BMI, generally speaking, is okay, but it doesn't tell you things like lean body mass and strength and stuff like that. So I mean, would you even put BMI as okay? I think it's horrible, don't you? You know what? So it's better than than nothing. And the reason why they, which is not bad. Listen, when it comes to predicting all-cause mortality with an easy metric, it's not bad because otherwise you got to do blood tests and stuff. That's why they created BMI to begin with.

But BMI is just your weight and your height. And we can see a few things with that that correlate to data. But the more athletic you are, the worse it is. I mean, I feel like BMI works for somebody who doesn't work out at all. Like so it's an okay measurement. If you're, if you compare to 100 people who don't exercise. Everybody does nothing. Yeah.

If 100 people don't exercise and you wanted to decide within that 100 group who is got, you know, all cause mortality issues, all the things, right? Like, then it makes some sense. But throw in the mix of those 100 people, 25 people that lift weights, and it just totally skews it. It throws it all. I mean, Justin gets phone calls from his huge.

I mean, we all do. Every one of us fail the BMI scale, you know. I mean, and I don't think, which is kind of crazy to me when you, because it's not like I'm walking around like Jack bodybuilder vision of me, but you don't even have to have that much, you just have to have a little bit more than the average person.

That's right. If you're just an athlete, you don't have to lift weights that much. Just use your eyes, you know? Yeah. I hope, you know, doctors can use their eyes

and not just look at a stat sheet. Yeah, well, strength. Do you think that's happened? Yes, they didn't even look up. I swear to God.

It was just like, look at all the stats. Yeah. Looking at like blood pressure, looking at, you know, all these like metrics, but even like really like

visibly assess me. Yeah, I had one doctor, uh, actually personally had a doctor, not a client, but a doctor I went to who was a fitness enthusiast.

and he was the first doctor to like say this to me. And he's like, yeah, BMI. He's like, for guys like you, I throw that out the window. It doesn't mean anything because you're obviously heavier than the average. But I work out myself. I'm looking at you. I can tell you're not obese or anything like that. So throw out the window.

Strength is a better predictor. And they use grip strength. By the way, I want to be clear with this. There's nothing special about grip strength. Because what's happening because all these studies are coming out and all these headlines are coming out showing that it's, this wonderful predictor of longevity. It's just how much force you can produce, like on command.

It is, but it's a proxy for overall body strength. So what's happened is people are seeing these headlines. So now you're having all these elderly people who are not being active and they're at home just strengthening the grip. To improve longevity. So really, grip strength is a good predictor because it tells us if your whole body's strong. But if you're like sedentary and you're on your couch and you're doing nothing except just

working your grip and your grip gets stronger. You'll improve your longevity probably a couple percent if you're lucky. But the rest of you is like a fraction of a percent. Yeah. So we have to be clear on kind of what these things kind of means. So I'll pull up some of the first ones. You guys tell me what you think the averages are. And then we'll get into it.

And I started with bicep size. I don't think this one's connected much to longevity. I couldn't find any data that says how big your arm is would be connected to longevity. But I would guess on the small end, probably worse longevity. And on the very large end also, not great. The rich piano kind of end, right? Yes. Like you get giant arms.

Even if they're muscular, you're probably not doing things that are too healthy as well. But I have the average bicep size for men and for women in inches. What do you guys think it is? First off, what age group do you think the peak of a bicep size is for men? For men? Yeah. Oh, 30 something? Close.

It's actually, it's between 30 and 49. Okay. I would say higher. Yeah, I would say higher for sure. Yeah, and it's close to 14 inches. So a bicep, a flexed arm at around 14. Is average? Is average for a guy.

So if your arm is like 15 or 16, especially if it's lean, muscular. Yeah. Pretty muscular guy. Okay, that's cool. And if it's above that, you're starting to get a bodybuilder, you know, 17, 18, you know, type of deal. For women, average bicep size. in that age group, right? That's where the arm is kind of the biggest.

11. It's close to 13. Oh, 13. So about an inch smaller than the men. By the way, what's interesting. Not as much as I would have thought. I would have thought that it would be... Two inches smaller.

Yeah, I would have thought it would be a lot smaller. Me too. Now, what you see is a big discrepancy when men and women lift weights. Then men just add a lot of muscle to their arms. Those women also do, but they don't add nearly as much. Got it. But still an inch of untrained, you know, bicep. That's a pretty big difference on that.

Then I pulled the... up waste size. So waste size is good because waste size is a better predictor of all-cause mortality than... Yeah, I would think waste would be even better than BMI. Yeah. What do you guys think is considered average in men and average in women. By the way, the way you measure your waist is right at like right at the belly button. Yeah. Average for men, 34 to 36. God, really close. It's actually 35 to 42. is the range. Oh, that's a long range.

It is a pretty big range. Yeah. And for women, it's 32 to 40. Small and men is below 35, and small in women is below 32. Over 42. Now, in this case, though, being smaller would be better health indicators, right? Typically, typically. Whereas the bicep is more you want to be somewhere probably in the middle than to be way on the ends of the spectrum or waste, I would think that unless you're really, really initiated or something like that.

It's actually not a bad predictor of all calls more ties. It's better than BMI. Now, was that flexing or is it just? Flexing. Okay. Yeah, for the arm one? Yeah, yeah. You're just doing the numbers right now?

Yeah, yeah. You ever measure your arm? A long time ago. You did. Yeah. I think when we all worked together at one point, we did something like that. Yeah, I was just curious. Yeah, I did the whole circumference measurement.

I mean, I did, I think when I did when I was like 17 also, 17 and then another one other time in my mid-dil. I really didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Was that my piece? You know what I think I told you this before? Or what just threw it all. You talk about throwing something out the window

once you figure something out. I remember leaning out, losing weight, having smaller arms, like significantly smaller arms, and people thinking my arms were the biggest they had ever been. Then after that, I was like, oh, okay, it's not about technically how many inches I have on it. But if they're more separated and defined, people are going to think they're way bigger anyways,

which obviously is the look I was going for. It was funny because it was mainly my tricep, I think, that made up the majority of that because yeah the bicep was never really that crazy peak well tricep makes up like two thirds of the arm of the upper arm anyway but yeah no to that point adam my wife anytime i get like like a like a couple percent leaner because i'll fluctuate with my body fat percentage every time i get a little leaner my wife's like you look way bigger what are you doing yeah i lost five pounds that's the exact same thing too why do you look like i'm like it's just because

literally i leaned out a little bit i cleaned up the diet a little bit back into my routine that's all it is i'm not getting bigger now here's what's interesting with the waist circumference, what you see is it goes up and up and up and then it drops. Once people hit around 70, you see a loss in waist circumference. I think that's more indicative of you're wasting away than it is that you're, you know, so there's a case where your waist size will go down, but your health probably isn't as good. But it is a better predictor of mortality. Because I think when you're measuring your waist, you're measuring body fat and you're measuring visceral body fat. And visceral body fat in the abdomen area, I think that can be indicative of like visceral body fat on the organs, essentially.

And with women, you see a significant change right around menopause. It's where you start to see that change as the fat distribution changes. Now I have grip strength. Grip strength in both men and in women. Any guesses to what the averages are? So again, there's not a great amount of data on this. Tell me how it's measured first. So it's a dynamometer.

Dominant hand squeeze it as hard as you can What's the numbers? I don't even know what those numbers. What is it? Well, so I'll tell you what mine was. Mine's higher than the average. I squeezed the hard. I hit the top, whatever it was, $199.

Okay, so it's one. Okay, but that's a lot, that's obviously. Yeah, yeah. So then I would guess that a normal person is probably, man, I would say is 110, 115? Close. Yeah, close. About, for the dominant hand, around 100 and 5 to 110.

Okay. And it seems to peak in men around 35 to 39. Women aren't that far behind, which is interesting. No, sorry, they are way behind. Sorry, I was looking at the non-dominate men. In women, you're looking at between 62 to 66 is the average. So you get? Yeah, I was going to say that.

No, I was looking at the wrong number. I mean, literally, the reason why I think, too, last night, Katrina woke me up in the middle night because when I had taken her path water and filled it up and I had squeezed the thing. She couldn't close. Oh, yeah. She's like waking me up like one of the morning. She just be the open jar test.

He's trying to get some drinking up like this. Standard. I love doing that with my wife because she'll like, oh, yeah, yeah. And even if it's hard to open, I purposely make it look like it's easy. Yeah. I always hit it on the top first, just, psh. Oh, you do one of those guys? But so if you get a dynamometer, which are, they're inexpensive.

I don't know, do we sell them, Doug? Yeah, we do. What's our store? Mindpump store.com. So you can buy, they're inexpensive. You can get them from us. You can get it from Amazon, but we have some good ones. If you're a, I mean, if you're a trainer and you're listening to this.

Supervisor. And you haven't listened to the interview we did with Joe to Frank. I don't know if it was the first interview we did with him. Well, we have a rad guide that Smitty actually wrote for us that we could throw in there as well and how to do exactly what you're trying to describe with like, you know, averaging it out. So you know, is that mind pumpfree.com or is it? It should be. So here's how it works.

I'll break it down for people. It's not we can put it up there. So you get a dynamometer. All that does is it measures your grip strength, okay? And what you do, so there's something called heart rate variability, which is a pretty good indicator of whether or not you should train hard or train easy. Because sometimes your own perception is off. Like I feel great, great, but your CNS is a little fried, you're tired, whatever.

And the only way you could tell, or the best way you could tell is what's called heart rate variability. But the problem with that is it's a bit complicated to test. You have to, like, be in bed, wake up, test it. And people just don't do this. So what Joe DeFranco did, which is just as accurate. It's really easy is before your workout, you squeeze a, uh, dynamometer as hard as you can. And once you get your average over each workout, when you're above

that average, you go hard in your workout. When you're below, you go easy. Regardless of what your mind tells you what your workout says, this is a better predictor of, like, how you should train appropriately. And if you follow that, you're more likely to train a way that's going to give you good results, because you're not going to overdo it or underdo. I mean, we've been doing this for 10 years now, so we've had quite a few aha moments or whatever, but that was definitely up. That's definitely up there with, I'd say, top three, like, trainer aha moments for me. Totally. Having that was like hearing him say that.

I'm like, oh, my God, nobody ever taught me that or something I would have done. I would have loved it. And I was always, especially considering I always encourage trainers to separate themselves from their peers. And that would have been a differentiator. Nobody did that. No, I didn't work with one single trainer. All the trainers that had worked for me hundreds at this point in my career, never seen a trainer

do that. And I'm like, that is so smart. and would look so awesome. Imagine doing that as a trainer. Your client comes in before you start, hey, squeeze this as hard as you can. That's all you got to do. And then based off of that number,

plus what they tell you, because here's the other thing about being a trainer. You also want to train a client in a way that doesn't make them hate working out, right? So if the client's grip strength is off the charts, but they're like, I feel like going easy, I think I would lean more towards, you know, doing what they feel.

But nonetheless, you get both numbers, the number plus their subjective feelings. And they're like, I feel good. Oh, cool, your hand great, your grip strength is 10% higher than your average. let's get after it today. Or now, today we're going to kind of take it easy. I think it's great.

Well, just also, it really helps, you know, highlight to them, like, where they're at. Like, every day it just fluctuates. You know, it's like, it's one of those things that, like, I don't think they realize what kind of stress they're bringing in and they're carrying in when they didn't get good sleep. Like, all these factors definitely add up. And so if you can adjust your intensity for the day. Well, that's what I think that would be the one of the best parts is we always talk about having typical clients to two metrics. scale, mirror.

Yeah. The two worst. Yeah. And they are. They're too. So we're always trying to teach them to connect to stool and skin and energy and sleep. That's right. So having a tool like this is another great correlate to all these things.

So it would be so awesome. It would have been so. Yeah. Like your client comes in like, oh yeah, I'm fine. Well, I only got about five hour sleep. They squeeze and oh, you're down 10%. Yeah. Notice these patterns and they can start to connect those patterns.

You know what? Maybe you're, yeah. I wonder if our trainers are using the dynamometers with their clients. doing that? Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, we've brought it out before, but we should reiterate that. We should do it and create the standard. Yeah. I really think that would be good. I mean, if you're, like, again, if you're listening and you're a trainer in a big box, yeah, and you're not doing this. This is a move. This is a move. How much is our dynamometer? 30 bucks? I mean, yeah. And not only that, not only for your own clients and how great it is, professional, all the things that we just talked about, but then also, again,

like, now everybody in the gym, like, sees you doing that with your client. And they're like, what is that? Such a great conversation starter. And then, like, you. You know, like, you can set up a booth. Set up a booth now and you test everybody in the gym. Wow. Now you're getting leads all day long. Test your longevity. Dude.

Test your longevity booth. Brilliant. We got to talk about that. Well, sometimes, too, you know how it is when you get in your workout and you're like, man, I just don't have it today. What is it? You know, it's like this can kind of like highlight that immediately, especially when you start seeing the averages. Yeah.

That's great. All right. Next one is mile time. Now, this is based off of people who like to run. Not in a lot. but if you've been running, and I read the article, and it was like, if you've been running for at least a month or two already, here's what the numbers are for beginner and beginner,

beginner, novice, and intermediate. So I got these numbers for both men and women, and I'll use the age 35. Let's start right, let's go right in the middle. Men and middle. So beginner, beginner for men running a mile. What do you guys think that? Eight minutes.

Nine minutes and 35 seconds. Okay, so eight's going to be in the middle of the novice. Yes, about 756. Yeah, yeah. Because I know that because I've actually, looked that up before and I always said like hey so I used to encourage this too as like as just I would check in with my mile time and when I'd see it creep up above eight again where it was hard for me to do that that that was kind of my indicator of like okay let's get back to running a mile before

I start and then just get that back down I was like knowing that just keeping myself in that that that's good that's good I like that so for intermediate about 644 which is pretty fast for intermediate so that's pretty good for women again we'll use that 35 year old age benchmark beginner 10 minutes and 44 seconds. Nine is in the novice and the intermediate's about 747. I'm actually motivated by reading this to go test my mile. Maybe report it. I don't know what I'll be at.

Well, the cool part about that too and why it's never really bothering me is because seven to eight minutes of cardio in post workout or what that is not going to create this major, you know, you're not sitting a loud signal of the body to adapt. You're not going to lose muscle. So it's a real easy thing. Seven minutes. It's not a long time to do it and to keep. And this is connected to longevity to an extent, right? V-O-2 max is a great indicator of longevity.

And building muscle will always increase V-O-2 max because you have more capacity. But, of course, you can go extreme like that, like me, or I do zero cardiovascular training. So I'd be very curious to see what my mile time is to see if I fall within those, you know, within those ranges. And then we have push-ups. How many push-ups you should probably be able to do. Yeah. So what do you guys think for me? men and for women those numbers look like.

35 for men. Yeah, so. Should be 50. Yeah, but novice is going to be about 20. And then it's going to be about 20 for novice. And then let me see what the numbers go up to. Intermediate, about 40. Advanced.

Now you're getting above 60. So that would be for men. For women, let me see what that number says up here. I don't know if I agree with this, but let's see. For women, five novice, 19 intermediate, advanced 37. That's a lot for women. to do. 37?

Yeah, 30. That's a ton. 19 is a lot for a novice. Five, five was what they would consider like kind of your novice. They're not bad.

Those aren't bad numbers. Not bad. And I like putting these out there because, you know, we just kind of covered the spectrum of things that you can measure and test on yourself. And they all kind of have,

there's a little bit of a checks and balances with this, right? So, you know, you could go in a crazy bulk, increase your grip strength, but your waist circumference went up. Or you're going so hard in strength you neglect the cardiovascular.

So now your mild time goes down. So I think it's a nice balanced kind of view of like how you're doing overall with your fitness. And overall, this is the big point here, overall fitness is the best predictor of all-cause mortality. It's better than anything. Like how fit are you tells you way more about somebody's health than almost anything else that you can measure? Yeah, I always like to check in on that kind of stuff too, like my movement quality or like if I could like have the type of stamina to still sprint or, you know, do these things. while weight training, it's like you kind of get, your preferences become the norm.

Totally. You know, I had to work out this weekend and wanted to bring something up. Just, you know, I know that for most of my 20s, I totally lean to like a body part split. And even admittedly, when I'm in a, when I'm in like a routine where I'm really consistent, I tend to move my way back to the because I just enjoy a body part split. Typically, I like like two muscle groups.

You know, type of workouts, kind of how I split, split the body up when I'm in a rhythm. Well, one of the things I've done is I've gotten older, mid 30, late 30s, 40s now is it's almost always full body. And if I do anything that's not full body, it's a half body split, upper, lower, something like that. And I do believe I attribute switching to that as I've gotten older to the maintaining of my muscle mass. And hear me out on this because. I don't know.

Out of the four of us, I would think I'm the least consistent. I move in and out of consistency. Admittedly, on the show, I talk all the time about, you know, I'm off, I'm on. I'm off, I'm on. And I don't know how many people that resonates with that you, you know, if you're a, you never miss a workout in 10 years, then ignore this. But if you're anything like me where you have these in and out all the time where you're in a rhythm for a while, then you're not.

It's such a disservice to do a body part split. And I was thinking about it. yesterday or this weekend when I was getting a lift in and I was getting a full body lift in. And I'm like, you know, this would be a typical pattern for me. Fall off for a few weeks. Okay, I'm back at the gym. What muscle group am I? What muscle group I'm starting with?

Legs, arms, whatever. And inevitably, when I come back and I focus on one muscle after I've had a layoff of even just a few weeks, the amount of volume for that one muscle is so much, more than I need to do to send a signal. And then if what happens, which has happened to me in the past where it's like, oh, I get back in a rhythm and I only get about four workouts and then I fall off again. Or I got only one workout in and they got busy for that week. And then the next week. So that pattern has still continued into my 30s and 40s of having these ends and outs of, you know, more frequency, sometimes less frequency. And going to a body part split, not only one, do I end up missing some of the other body parts when I fall off.

But even two, the amount of volume that. I do on that single body part is so unnecessary when you first get back. Like that's why, and this is just me advocating even more for the full body for the average person listening. I really think that it's a place that you should probably live most the time. And then maybe when you become the person who's been in a rhythm for six months or a year, mess around with maybe body parts splits, if you really love them as much as I love them. Because it really does a disservice to have a layoff of, say, two or three weeks.

get back in the gym, go to a single body part, do fucking nine to 12 sets for that one muscle. You fry it. Barely do anything. You did barely. You do it to do, yeah, you do three sets on it. You take a layoff. It's like, okay, I did full body.

I'm like sore as hell. And I only did like three, four sets per muscle. Yeah. I mean, and it was. You could have done one. I could have. Yep. You're right.

And literally that was kind of the, that was what triggered this. It was like, man, I could have just done one set. I think, God, when have I ever come back to a body part split and did one or two sets of any muscle. I don't do that. You try and get right back to your, I always typically do three exercises and three to four sets and you go right back to that and you end up hammering a muscle that does not need that whatsoever and you overreach. I would just think, it's so funny you said that. I was thinking about the studies on body part splits versus full body and what they typically

will say when people do, you see like fitness scientists will break them down and will say something Like it doesn't make a big difference so long as the total volume is controlled for. Which is never never never happened. Well, not only does it never happen because of consistency at him, it also doesn't happen because of fatigue. So let me give you an example. So today I was just yesterday I was thinking to myself. So you know what? I haven't done in years is a classic, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's, you know,

Encyclopedia bodybuilding workout. Okay. So I did three body parts, but I did like 20 sets, 15 to 20 sets per body parts. So it was a lot of volume. But here's what happens after about set number 10. I'm not lifting much weight because I'm fatigued. Yeah. So if I did, let me just, let me illustrate this.

If I did 21 sets for chest on Monday versus seven for chest on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, even if I did the exact same exercises, even if I did the identical amount of exercises, the form completely different. The weight I would use on each exercise would be higher because I'm not so fatigued each time. Which would move the volume up. Which means the volume went up. Yeah. So the volume is never controlled.

when you're doing these kind of workouts. Now, in the lab, they're going to make you control. No, no, same weight, same whatever. That's why it's a stupid study. It doesn't, that's why full body splits tend to produce better results. This is another example of the stuff when we get with these, you know, kids that read the studies and then they've trained 10 people in their life. It's like it never works out that way.

No, it doesn't. It never works out. Everything is not controlled. Yeah. So it's really tough to be the kid who gets on the internet and says like, based off of this study, this is superior to that. Well, it's like, okay, in a controlled lab where they told these 50 people

and these people do the exact same thing. But now let's throw life in there and go, what normally happens and factor that part in? And that's my point of this conversation right now is I understand that it's pretty equal in a lab, you know, body parts splits. But that never works out that way.

In fact, I would think less people are like you that never miss a workout. More people are probably like me where they're in rhythm sometimes. They're off for a while. Life happens. Then they get motivated. They have a couple of guys in a row

and then, ah, shit, they fall off again. And then, you know, like, that's a lot of my life of training. And in my 20s, what that looked like is I come back. And how I modified in my 20s was early on. It was like always started with arms. And then I realized how stupid that was for a long time. So I ended up developing these great arms in my early 20s and totally neglected legs because legs were always the last part of my workout.

And then it became like, okay, I really need to focus legs. So then I'd start legs. But the same stuff was happening was sometimes I'd only get day one, day two, and then stuff happened. And then I'd get pushed back. And it's like, and not only am I not, am I over or not hitting the muscles that I missed because I kind of fell off again. But what I was really thinking about yesterday was just how much I was overreaching when

I first get started back too. That was unnecessary. It's like unnecessary volume, unnecessary intensity to send the signal to build and gain. Like what a, that's waste. Like it would be so better. It's not just wasted, it's detrimental. It is. It's wasteful and detrimental.

And so it's like forever that's changed for me. So for me, like I love body part splits. But I tell myself I have to earn the right to do a body part split. It's like you, Adam, you haven't been. If you never miss a workout, you're super consistent. Yes. Your body requires at that point a lot of volume because now you're so trained. Yes.

Right. By all means, have fun with it. I'm not going to tell you you can't do a body bar. Because we know what the study you say in a perfect lap. Yes. But are you like, you better, you ask yourself, are you like that? Or are you more like me where you have rhythms and you're in and out? And so for me, the mentality that I've had now is like, I love body part splits.

But Adam, you haven't, you haven't strong six weeks straight together of no missing workout. So how about I stick to my full bodies, do the minimal amount of volume required to send the loudest signal to build muscle, earn the right to go like, okay, I'm in a zone now. This is month three, haven't missed any workouts. Let's move that program over to a body part split. You know, Adam, even though for being consistent. Like I said, if I did seven sets of bench press, seven sets of incline press, seven sets of flies, all in one workout, by the time I get to my eighth set, like, I'm weaker in every exercise. And that's just because of fatigue. If I did seven sets of bench on Monday, seven sets of incline press on Wednesday, seven sets of flies on Friday, because I'm not as fatig, I'm going to lift more weight. So guess what happens? More volume. Yes. So the volume is never controlled. I know. Because the fatigue always plays a role, even if you're super, super consistent. This is my full body. workouts again produce the best results in most people across the board and let me I'm so with you on

this and it's coming from somebody who likes body parts of course and so and I know that there's this case that we always make too like oh if you love it and that gets you consistent well that trumps it but it's like agreed but there still is there still is a way better pathway even to your body part splits and so that's the argument I wanted to make today is like hey I and and the reason why I say that is because it's still so rare for me to see full-body trainees. We still are all training like bros. We all, I mean, I know it's an over-genitalization, but you walk in a gym, and what would you say, 80%?

Well, the whole gym's organized that way. You got chef stuff over here, back stuff over here. Segmented like that, yeah. You rarely see people doing full-body routines, and I'm just telling you that, even to your argument, even if you're an advanced, consistent lifter, you're probably better off doing that. I'm saying if you're, for sure.

Add real life into it. Yeah. If for sure, you're anything like me. Way, way, way better. And what I've recognized, it's, it's, it's, it was an amazing epiphany for me because I, I, I've had probably more inconsistency in my late 30s and 40s than I definitely did in my early 30s. Obviously, I was like peak training those times and even in my 20s. Yet I've been able to maintain a better physique. Yeah.

Relative to, yes, relative. Like, I'm not by any means trying to. that this, my physique today competes with, you know, peak Adam at 33. But when I look at overall volume and training consistency that I know right now, I would consider myself in some of the most inconsistent times in my life, yet I'm able to maintain a real, and I attribute a lot of that to this. Facts. In fact, if you're advanced and you're you're starting to scale down your training for whatever reason, two full body workouts will maintain probably most of your gains.

Two full body workouts. That's it. And this is for the advanced person who's cutting way down. By the way, speaking of recovery and all this stuff, I have people ask me all the time, you know, peptide questions because I use, I've used all of them. And I have a lot of experience with all of them. And I got to say, like, peptides have tremendous value depending on their application. But there's a combination that is the best by far. It's actually profoundly effective across the board. And I notice it not just for, because these are the peptides I'm about to mention are for healing. in recovery and they're remarkable for that.

But I noticed them for muscle growth, fat loss, just the way my body looks and feels. And that's the, it's called Pentadeca-Orginate. This is a version of BPC-157. So it's BPC-157 with an organate salt, which makes it a little bit more stable. So that's what they use now. That in combination with thymus and beta.

Using those together, it's, I could 100% tell a big difference and the way that my body responds, looks, feels from that combination right there. So if someone's curious about using peptides, and they're great for healing injuries, that's what they originally are used for. But even if you don't have an injury, you combine those two for a three, four month period. Like, you notice. So you're saying it almost like it had anabolic effect.

100%. Just because the healing process. Well, he goes right into the recovery. Oh, yeah. I get a different look to my body. I get more of a quality look to my muscles. And then if you add GHKCU, GHCCU would be in that kind of category,

more for skin. Now it's like cherry on top. And those three right there is like, I think that is, I was just talking to my buddy who just finished competing. I won't say his name. I don't know if he wants me to share this, but he just competed.

And for the first time in his life, and remember this is someone who's competed for years and they've used all the stuff, including anabolic steroids. And the difference they said that those peptides made in their just in the way their body looked recovery all of stuff

was just like remarkable I know you're talking about did he win he looked really good no no no but he ranked pretty well he's also he's also he's also older does that not show you how crazy competitive it's got crazy

I mean he looked amazing I know you're talking about and he looks so good I mean he always looks good he's actually looked in my opinion better than I've seen him yeah I think so too he said the peptides made a big difference

yeah he looked I saw his photos and I was dude he looks amazing and he used he used he used lower being classic now, right? He used lower doses of anabolic. I was always trying to tell him that. I experimented that personally myself.

Now, I get it, though, everybody is different. Because I do have buddies that respond well to higher doses. Personally, for myself, though, it was almost the lower the dose, the better I felt. Yeah. Lower enough to where you're putting me in a little bit superficial numbers, but not crazy, you know, pro-body builder, huge stacks that you hear about. Like I noticed a huge difference. Speaking of which, the one I mentioned, GHKCU for skin, it boosts collagen production so

significantly. But one of the things that people are turned off by with peptides, understandably, is that you inject them. So you inject them with an insulin needle right under the skin. It's a tiny little thing. But GHKCU is efficacious topically. So like our partners at Luminos Biontera, they have a cream that you put on your face, very high dose of GHCCU, and it works on the skin,

and it boost collagen production like 70%. I love that. And then if you want the injectable peptides, MP hormones, that's where the doctor's... You know what's funny is I don't... And maybe it's because I'm not consistent enough and I'm very consistent with the topical. I notice better benefits for the topical,

but it could also, admittedly, it could be because I don't... Inject every day. Yes. Where the... I mean, I'll do the cream twice a day. I mean... Same here.

Yeah. Every time I shower... Did you put on your head, too? All my psoriasis everywhere. Oh, yeah. No, I love it. So is Katrina. I mean, like, we go through those puddles faster than I would like because the two of us are using it. But again, if you want like peptides, the injectable versions, you want to go all the way. MPHormones.com is these are doctors and these are peptides made in pharmacies, not research labs.

So funny, you went to this way in these conversations. This was in the ride in the car last night from the comedy show. The group I was with was asking all these questions. And I was telling them the exact same stack because they were like, they're naming all these stuff. I'm like, listen, these are the ones. They're like, made the big difference. I said, I mean, you could try their stuff.

They all work. They all do the things, but like you want to feel, see a difference. Like nothing compares to those. And they're like, yeah, but where do you get it? I'm like, you know that we work nphiormos.com is like that. All of them were. It's like, oh, I didn't even know that. They didn't know that?

No. Yeah. And you know what friends they were. He's our close friends. I'm like, oh, my God. Shake them. Sometimes. But some of that makes me happy because then it makes me feel like, it's not like we're

running out there like pushing it on people and trying to do it. So it's like it's there. Like if you want a reliable source, a trusted source for that stuff, you guys can. Dude, I have a, for me at least, it's a paradigm shattering shift in how I see things. Really? Yes. And my wife brought it to me. And I kind of knew this, but she really illustrated it well. And I think whether you're religious or not, it doesn't matter. I think you don't have to be. But this is this, I think, I think, I think, I think, think will shift your paradigm to the point where it will change the way you see the world. Okay. So one of the hardest questions that people, you have faith, get asked is if there's really

a God, why is there so much suffering? Why is there so much bad stuff? Always. The real question is not that. So here's what I'll pose to you. If I picked up a bunch of rocks and threw them in the air, we would 100% expect them to just fall on the floor and scatter. They would not self-organ.

I wouldn't throw rocks in the air and it turns into like a house. Nothing works that way, right? So the real question is not why is there bad and why is they're suffering and why is there all this terrible stuff happening. The real question is why is there order and why is they're good? That is the real question because that's the weird part. Why is there good at all? Because our nature is to think that...

Right, the animal instinct is the copter killed, whatever to... Like, expect good. Like, I'm supposed to have a good job. I'm supposed to not get sick. I'm supposed to have good health. And when things go bad, we're like, ah, why is this happening to me? But the truth is, even if you don't believe in, you don't believe in God, you don't believe in God. The truth is, it is far stranger that there's any order and any good to begin with.

It makes a lot more sense you start with chaos and disorder. And you realize, through going through this to organize and to collaborate and to, like, it kind of evolves into that direction. Well, look at the rest of survival and growth. Look at the rest of the animal kingdom. Yeah. I mean, that's just chaotic and survival of the fittest and just death and distraction. Yeah, well, think of the paradigm shift, right? If you think to you, and by the way, again, you know, the Bible will tell you that the nature of man is bad and the nature of the world is broken, right?

But take that aside. Don't even look at that. Again, look at order versus chaos. Look at entropy. If I leave this table out here for a million years, it's not going to become a better table. It gets disintegrates and it falls apart. So when you realize that the nature is bad and that good is actually the blessing, now you go about your day. And instead of being like, yeah, I'm supposed to have a good job.

You're like, oh, man, I have a good job. Or I'm not sick today. Like everything becomes a blessing that isn't bad. Now you start to see all the blessings in your life versus feeling like bad stuff just happening to you because you think everything's supposed to be good. I mean, just like you said, take the esoteric part of it out. I think it's just a better way to live, period. Totally. I mean, even if you're not religious or even believe any of that, it's like believing,

or at least thinking that way, I think that serves a greater purpose for sure. 100%. All right. We're going to talk about AI because I love this. Oh, good. I had some AI stuff too. So I'll tell you what, I'll tell you a little, this story that I read this article. And apparently this is happening.

And it's like a bit concerning. So there's a personal, not a personal story for me, but this woman told a story. She's a therapist. And she was talking about how she had a couple who, needed marriage counseling from her. And they were buried, three kids, everything seemed fine. The husband started to get, become more and more distant. And so the wife's like, God, something's going on.

What's happening? He sat her down and had a conversation with her. And he said, listen, honey, I think we should open up our marriage to a third person. And she was like, what? Who is this person? And she said, AI. My AI girlfriend. And the wife laughed because she thought he was joking.

Yes. She thought he was joking. And the husband was 100% serious. She goes, look, I talked with my AI girlfriend about this. She would like to be a part of our marriage. She'd like to be a part in raising our kids. I'd like to include her. Shut up.

Yes. And this is happening, dude. This is happening right now. I just, can I, dude, I want to see that person. I just feel like I want to see the person who gets manipulated by AI like that to present that, like the character. That person's got to be a character. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a reality show waiting to happen to these people. Oh. So wild, dude. I know. I know. You guys don't think that's going to happen more and more. Of course. It's definitely going to do that.

Of course. I mean, it's, we're infancy right now, bro. It's barely even, oh, yeah, it's only going to get wild. I'll tell you something else. Speaking of AI stuff, have you guys seen, I think it's China that has this, the AI robotic legs? Oh my God, Doug. Pull this up.

This is so cool. This is Xiaomi 17? Oh, no, no, that's something else. Yeah, that's something else. Wait, is this robotic legs for people? So it's like you rent them. I think the bottom of this like popular hiking mountain is one of the places they rent this. And you put it around your waist like this.

Oh, like an exoskeleton? Yes. And then you just go walk and then the AI figures out your cadence and then you basically turn it on. Matches your gate and pattern. Yes. And you can make it a full on sprint or just assist your walking. Dude. And I watch the guy do it.

It's like your own Sherpa. Dude. How bad would you want to? want to hack your buddies. Yeah. Make them run around. I mean, the video I watched is the guy testing it out. There's two guys testing it out for the first time.

And they were just, you could see the look on their face like, I'm not, I'm not using any energy to move. You know what's crazy is that these devices are should be for people who are paralyzed, but what's going to happen? I know, right? Bro, you understand that this is literally, okay, we've been saying this already about Wally. This is another version of that.

I mean, this isn't the, like, you. Yeah, there's somewhere. Yeah, getting something else to do the work for you. Wow. That's actually the guy I saw using it. That's not the same video, but that's the guy that I saw using it. Can you turn it on? I mean, you have superpowers.

I know. I mean, I'm not going to laugh. You want to hear it? I know, yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah. I want to try it too. Listen to these guys. I'm in China, and they have robotic legs to help you hike.

China is so advanced, and they said we can try it for free. Sport assist robots. Yes. Okay. He's going to help him climbing, walking, walk, walking, running, and riding. So if I'm running, I can run faster? Yes, yeah.

No way. Get me on this thing. Okay. This is the best technology in China. Really? The best technology. I can say it's the best technology in the world. In here have AI.

Okay. And it can fail you walking frequency. It says the robot is like, I'm putting no effort into running and I'm like, I'm like, running so good. He's not putting any effort. None. It's walking for him. Bro, it walks for him.

The original, what I saw him do was when he first puts him on, which is even better because just flat ground, and you see him, like, turn on for the first time, and he's like, I'm not moving my legs. They're just moving themselves. But it learns your cadence. So your stride length, your gate, everything. So it matches to that.

So it doesn't, you would think originally what I thought, I thought something like this would happen, and you would be like, it's going to make people crash. And it's like, no, it's so fluid. and smooth the way he describes it. Again, what if somebody hacks these, though? You know what I mean? Yeah, I better have like an emergency pull button, you know what I'm saying?

They can pull a string and it shuts all the power off. That's wild. But I mean, come on. Decondition people. I mean, if these get relatively inexpensive, you just slap these on. You just forget riding around scooters in Disneyland anymore. You just throw your AI legs on and then it powers you around. I was having such a great discussion with my buddy and his wife on AI.

and her she's she has friends who are who work on AI directly they're in high positions here in the Bay Area and she said every single one of them is very concerned with AI is very concerned every single one of them is like I don't know if I want to do this or be a part of it I'm afraid oh god and so the question came up well well because her husband is like well why are we doing this and it's the same reason why we had the nuclear race is because the other guy. We're afraid the other guys going to do that.

That's it. That's always the justification. Yeah. And I was thinking about this. I was like, what's the best case scenario with real artificial general intelligence? The best case scenario

is we make it exactly like us except way smarter. That's terrible. That's not, that's the best case. That's our best, what can we do? Our best case scenario

is to make it like us or or what? Like what could we possibly do? That's so, We're going to end up with... I just think of things like this, like, okay, even... Because this is such a simple thing. It's, what, $1,000, Doug?

Yeah, you can get an Alibaba. We can buy some. We can get as many as we want and we can have them... Okay, customized for my... I just feel like... And imagine this tech is still relatively new. Just explodes. But think about somebody who has a labor job that, like, you...

Normally an eight-hour day taxes you and you're done. Like, now I run a 12-hour day. No problem. because 50% of the work, less than 50% of the work, I'm doing the, my exoskeleton is running the rest. Like, it changes the game for a lot of different things, dude. And then again, help your friend move, no problem. I can see that. Or like stilts. Like, I, at the house, they're remodeling, they're doing the sheet rocking in on the, like, the ceilings. You got the stilts and everything. They get it done in like a fraction of the time.

They're standing on stilts. They work on stilts. So you don't have to do ladder. I've never seen that. You never seen that? Oh, that's way more. Way more effective. Yeah. This one guy actually, like, didn't have the stilts. And so, like, just took buckets and, like, tied, like, these ropes around and was just, like, doing it with one hand. It was a pretty impressive, like, skill. Wow. I've seen that before, too. Who had the soccer game incident? Yeah, so my niece, this is the first time I've actually been able to go up because she's, they live in Benicia. And so they're, like, far in the East Bay. And, like, I was able to kind of go up and watch because they were in San Francisco area. And so I went up to watch. It's a watch. It's a watch. and I'm hanging out with my brother and having a good time. And we're watching the game.

It's just this girl's soccer. It's a pretty elite level. So, you know, it was competitive, but, like, they were just, you know, it was not a great game for her. They were getting beat. It was like 5-0 or something. And the reason I bring this up because there was an incident, like, so this one girl on my niece's team was kind of, you know, fighting for the ball and was getting a little bit physical and kind of shouldering. and they were both going after it. And then the ball kind of goes out of bounds.

And, you know, the play's kind of over. And this girl was really frustrated with the other girl that she was like, you know, being a bit physical with her. Literally just stops open hands and hits her right in the face, like so hard, dude. Just smacks her? Like, literally assaults her, like in front of the whole crowd. I literally jumped up out of my chair, out of the bleachers and it was just like, what?

Like, because it was just so unnecessary. People didn't rush the field or anything. Completely just, like, threw me off. She's out of the game and that's it. It's just like, like, obviously has like some kind of psychological issues or something, dude. Because I was like, who does that, dude? Who's just like, I mean, it might as well just been punching her in the face for no reason. Wow.

What did the other team? Did they do anything or did everybody just kind of shocked? Everybody was shocked. And the, the ref gave her a red card and she kind of, you know, had to leave the field. But yeah, exactly. I was like, dude, and he was telling me, like, this league, there was another incident where some girl, like, literally picked up another girl and then, like, ground and pounded. What? I was like, this is like girl soccer?

I didn't realize it was so violent and aggressive like that. You know, one of the, one of the, it actually brings up a really good value of sports is it teaches kids to be very competitive, but also measured. Composed. and within the realms of the rules. Yeah. Which is, if you think about it, you guys, think about how valuable of that skill that is in life. It's such a, it's why we talk.

Did you see the forum post with Jen Cohan's thing that? Oh, about sports? Yes. No, I don't read it. Oh, my gosh, dude. It's so, you know why it's so funny to me is I have the kid that probably won't play sports. And I'm not offended by that. Yeah.

It's like, it's not as shot at you as a parent that you're a bad parent because you didn't put your kid in sports or whatever. But it's like, it's more. So sports are such an incredible teacher for life. So many, I mean, I can't think of a single thing that has as many lessons as sports does for life for a kid. In an individual, I can think of a lot of things that you can do to try and like, which is what I all have to do, right? I'll have to create a lot of these scenarios to teach my son the same things that he would organically get from playing sports. And so, and I don't think it makes me a bad dad because my kid doesn't like to place his person. And I'm not going to force him if he's like, doesn't really want to.

So everybody on there got so knee-jerk reaction of like, this is a terrible mind pump take. It's like calm the fuck down. It's like it is what it is. There's plenty of research to support how beneficial sports are for kids' development and all these life lessons. It teaches that because we think of it as just physicality. Oh, it's exercise.

No, no, no. It teaches you how to win, which is very valuable in life to learn how to win and be humble. It teaches you how to lose, which is just as valuable because you get your butt kicked in life. teach you how to work with other people. It teaches you how to be measured and play within the confines of the rules which in life, like I said, like that girl that you just talked about, Justin,

imagine you're at work and you're competitive with your fellow, with fellow co-workers. And you're competitive and you're losing and you don't learn that skill. So what do you do? You cheat or you gossip. Or you use politics versus...

Or you sabotage just so you can win and do things that are, yeah. That's right. Unethical. That's right. And have, yeah, being able to regulate your emotions. I feel like it's very important. I don't know that that gets

highlighted enough. We're so like polarized and like the algorithm is really dictating a lot of people's reality right now to the point where it's like dude step back step back and assess yourself and like how emotionally volatile

you are right now. This is a real problem. I mean I wonder I wonder what exactly would have had to be really interesting had I not found sports what I would have turned out. Like, I think that I definitely...

You know, it saves the life of a lot of troubled kids. I mean, I think it saved my life. Like, if my, my... Because I tell you what, my parents weren't probably filling that. If had I not done sports, I don't know if they would have had the, because they were young, had the awareness to do, to fill those gaps. Where I think about that, I'm a 40-something-year-old dad, and I recognize my son's not into sports at all.

So it's like, I'm trying to find these lessons in playing Uno and find, like, I think I really actively intent and have intent going into those things like, okay, I need to show him when he loses to be like this. When we win, we do like he's got to learn those, those lessons. It doesn't have to be through sports. We just sports is as a parent who's busy, who works, who does a lot of things. Sports are such a nice. Easy way to put a teacher. Yes, it's an easy assistance. You know what I'm saying? Like your kid comes back home from a day at practice and something happened and you as a dad now have an opportunity to go, oh, so tell me about it. And then I can teach right there versus I didn't have to go take him to practice.

I didn't have to go practice with him for an hour or two hours. Like I can have him in sports and allow sports to be that catalyst for those conversations. And if you have the opportunity, it's such a great thing. Now, granted, some kids don't. I get it. I got one. You know what I'm saying? And it doesn't make me a bad dad because he doesn't want to.

It just means I have to really be intentional. I have to be thoughtful of like, okay, how am I going to teach? Yeah, that I definitely learn through sports because I absolutely was. I definitely lost a lot. I got to win a lot. I was leaders on some teams. I was a bench rider on other teams. I mean, I've got a whole host of emotions.

I know what it's like to the politics, right? You know what it sucks. Being the man and then somebody's son to the coach. I sat an entire season out. Baseball was arguably one of the better players. Like I had been on a lot of all-star teams. But because of the new coach who had worked with, you know, all these kids that were a little bit younger and they had, you know, all worked all spring and

everything else, like they had a tight unit, you know, it was just because of that fact. Like, I didn't get to play. Yeah. And I had to sit and endure that. And my friends left. And it's like, that was such a lesson for me that you're not going to get fair, uh, handouts. You're not going to get a fair opportunity all the time. That's right.

And you got to fight for, you got to handle it. You got to handle it emotionally. You got to handle that rejection. Uh, you also have to like, you know, find the. lesson at it and see where there is. Like I can improve on my own regardless of like this coach is not giving me anything. What a great point. That exact point.

I've talked about it on this podcast before. You remember I told you when I was 26, one of the most frustrating points in my career was I'm on year five or six in a row of being like the top guy in our in our company, like for what I did and to still be overlooked for promote that point. I've already promoted eight different leaders underneath me. I had all the accolades, all the trophies, all the. I should have been the next guy and I was my guy and I had a leader above me keep me in that. I and I remember this moment.

This is that way what made me become a big reader. I didn't, wasn't a reader at all before that. And I remember having this talk with myself and like going, you know, I had this moment of I was had, I was feeling like a victim that I couldn't believe that I've been overlooking this bullshit anger. And then I had this moment. I realized I went, wait a second. Why am I allowing a company dictate my growth? because my boss isn't promoting me and push me up. Like, I could go around him and grow other ways.

And that's like I became this voracious reader after that. And you know what? I never got promoted in that company. It didn't happen. I moved on to other things, but it served me so well to be able to endure that in a time like that and not just play the victim role, be angry, don't do anything sit on my hands.

It was like, okay, there's another way for me to keep growing. I'm going to figure that out. I don't know if I figured that out if I hadn't had similar experiences in sports. I don't know if I would have either. I got to tell you guys. So I, with my, he's almost five now, right? My five-year-old, I had taken him to some martial arts classes to watch about, I want to say about six, seven months ago.

And he didn't want to do it, which is okay. He's young still. So he's like, he didn't want to get up there. He didn't want to do with everybody. So I'm like, all right, I'll take a break. Yesterday when we're walking to the park and he's talking about, you know, those books I told you about, which animal would be? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't got mine.

So it sparked this, like, conversation. So first he's like, what would we're in a fight? A rhino or an elephant starts that. And then he goes, what's the best fighting style? I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, and he starts naming like, what does jujitsu do? What does karate do? So we're talking about like the different things. He's so smart.

So then he goes, so they said, do you want to read a book on the different fighting styles and what they do and which one's the best? He's like, yes. So I'm like, oh, my God. Because if he gets into it, it'll be so great to start. Because he's right around the age. He's young still, right? because kids can start later. But I can't wait to get this book.

I got a whole book on the major fighting styles. I can't wait to read it with him and explain what they do. So awesome that he's into that. He has attention for that. Oh, it'll be, I can't. I mean, if he gets into wrestling or judo or jihitsu, those ones I love, that would be so exciting for me. Dude, that would be so awesome.

Those are the only sports that I can help with. The rest of them, I mean, the fact that he's interested already is massive, I think. Because even if he's not going to do it right now, the fact that he's curious is probably going to spark that. So I got this big book coming in the mail right now. You know, I have a bone to pick with Doug. Oh, so just because I believe, yeah. Yeah.

I'm not letting this podcast hang up without me picking this bone right now. Please, yes. So. I know what you're going to bring up. So, so. So Doug brought this up. So Doug was quick to fact check me on my rattlesnake facts. Oh, through AI.

Yeah. Yeah. Rattlesnake fact. And I was like, damn, I could have sworn. What was the fact? So remember that I said that baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than big. Because they squirt out more venom. And that was the logic was that. And so it's partially true.

But Doug, we're quickly looked up and then it denied me. I was wrong. I was wrong. So here's why. So big, full grown rattlesnakes do what's called a dry bite where a lot of times they will just bite someone to warn, basically warn people off. And so many times a rattlesnake bite like that, you won't even get venom. They're just kind of warning you like that where a baby rattlesnakes doesn't have that.

They all don't have the regulation. Pour all of it in whenever they hit you. So there's the real. So, yes, baby rattlesnakes are still more dangerous than full-grown rattlesnakes. Like I told you before I was fact-checked on this podcast. Yeah, wasn't somebody from Texas that wrote in and explained that? Yeah, yeah. Somebody emailed, somebody emailed in.

I forget what their qualifications were. But it made totally sense because I knew. Yeah, this is a ICU and ER doctor in Alabama. There it is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was like, and I was like, I know I learned this before. I know.

And I grew up around Ratt Snakes, and so we were so taught to, like, watch out for those babies, you know what I'm saying? Because of that. And now it makes total sense. So it's a dry bite is what they call. I'm going to shout him out as David Page. Thanks, David Page.

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Forward slash Mind Pump 25. Use the code Mind Pump 25, get 15% off. Our first caller is Carla from New Hampshire. Hi, Carla. Hi. How are you doing? Hi. This is so weird.

I can't believe I'm on the side of the screen. You guys are amazing. I love your podcast and all the information you put out. So I just want to say thank you for that. Thank you. So I'm just going to read from my email, and then I do have an update for afterwards. So my question is, how do you know your overtraining if you don't have the classic symptoms of overtraining? More specifically, am I overtraining?

For context, I'm a 21-year-old female. I'm 5-9, 160 pounds. and this question originates from my first official cut that I ran the beginning of this summer, so a couple months ago. Prior to cutting, I was intuitively eating and strength training over a two-year period. Over those two years, I gradually gained 20 pounds without realizing it. I got up to 180 pounds. One day I looked in the mirror, decided enough was enough.

So I started to track my calories and go into a cut. So my maintenance was about 2,200, and I got it. down gradually over a five-week period to 170 or sorry 1700 calories and then I started a reverse diet during that cut I lost 20 pounds and I was still reversed dieting when I sent in this email I got up to 2,600 calories without gaining any weight. Wow. My question, I'm asking my question because during my cut my strength plummeted. That's why I ended it after five weeks.

my strength is just now returning to where it was prior to cutting after a couple months of reverse dieting. So my strength is increasing, but the progress is painfully slow. I was also fatigued every day despite getting good sleep and eating what seemed like enough food. Every workout was just a fight to get to the bare minimum. I work second shift four days a week, and I am still a college student. Am I working out too much, still not eating enough, or is my work and studying affecting my body and recovery more than I realize? And then for additional context, when I sent in my question, after sending in my question, I started another cut.

My strength started to improve regularly. So I went down to about 500 calories. So about 2,100 calories. That's where I'm currently sitting right now, four weeks into the second cut. So I'm seeing fat loss in the places that I want. However, again, it's going very slow. I know I need to continue cutting to lose the fat that I want. However, it's the fourth week and I'm pretty hungry.

And I don't think I can continue cutting anymore to get to where I want to be. With all this said, how do you go about cutting and bulking in a way that doesn't destroy your strength, but also allows you to lose fats? And then when bulking to minimize fat gain and maximize muscle growth. Awesome. First off, you're doing a great job. Yeah, great context. You're doing a really, really good job.

I love the fact that you reverse dieted up 900 calories, didn't gain a pound. Right. That tells us that your metabolism is in a good, healthy place. But you built some muscle. You built some muscle. There's some things that you want to consider whenever you're going to cut. Training volume, people tend to do the opposite of what they should. They tend to increase the training volume while they're in a cut or they try to maintain the same amount of volume.

You're going to almost always lose strength, even if you don't lose any muscle in a cut. Now, this doesn't always happen, but the longer you've been lifting, the stronger you are, the more likely this is to happen. Just less energy, less glycogen in the muscles. Central nervous system drive is not as strong. I mean, you can see this when you bump your calories and suddenly you're stronger, you know, by five pounds in a short period of time. So that's one thing to consider. So what you don't want to do is bump up volume in a cut. And if you are feeling fatigue during the workouts, then reduce the volume of your training, regardless of what it looks like.

because sometimes what we do is we look at our workouts and we judge based off what we think we should be doing versus what's actually happening. So you are a student, you do go to, you do work, and then you're also working out. I'd like to hear what your workout looks like at the moment. Like how often are you strength training? Are you following one of ours? So I bought Anabolic and Performance a while ago when it was like a bundle deal. I do, I pulled like aspects from those programs as well as kind of like a MAPS 15 style.

So I strength train four days a week. It's about 40 to an hour minutes worth of a workout. And then I try to run or sprint once a week. But again, I just don't always have the energy to do that. And I do get about 10,000 to 12,000 steps a day. So what you're saying is not bad, but it's a lot. There's this weird misconception that like, well, I'm only strength training four days a week or, you know, some people do it six days a week. Most the time, the volume looks for most people like three days a week, most of time.

And then you'll have these kind of short sprints. Like, I like four days a week for you when you're in a bulk. I like three days a week for you when you're in a cut is kind of how I would work at. Throwing in sprints in there also adds another element of stress to the body. So I think the volume is probably too high. If you're going to follow MAPS and a Bollic, follow it. You could also do less of a drastic cut when you go to a cut too, which will also help a little bit.

So you don't have to, you just accept that the progress may seem slower because you're not doing such a drastic cut, but you'll probably feel better. You'll recover better. You'll probably sleep better. You won't have as much of the hunger pains by feeding yourself just a little bit more

and hanging around closer to maintenance than actually a true cut. We tend to encourage these mini cuts or many bulks because psychologically it's easier for people to be like, okay, I'm on a bulk right now, okay, I'm on a cut right now. But honestly, where you're at in your life, you've got so many other responsibilities that are really important that it's like probably just hovering around maintenance and eating, eating good choices, so eating whole foods, hitting your protein intake, and then following a good program that's appropriate volume, which like in a MAPS and Obolk or maybe a MAPS 15,

I think you're going to see a nice exchange of losing body fat and building muscle. Yeah. Are you, so your height and weight is not bad at all. Do you know what your body fat percentage is? I don't. I've never done a Dexas scan. I've been wanting to get like the body pod scale, but it's just not in the budget right now. And I also listen to one of your guys' podcast saying that that's also not one of the best metrics to measure like progress. Yeah, no, it's just to give a kind of general idea. I think you're doing great. I really do. I think what Adam said is good. If you, if you kind of coast like that, and feel good, your body's going to just recomp over time slowly.

And here's a thing, too, when you go in a cut, especially if it's somewhat aggressive, you know, 600 calories, you're going to feel hungry. Yeah. Like that's normal. It's normal to be like, ooh, I'm, I'm, because your body's starting to tap into its own energy reserves. But I do think the volume is probably too high right now. I think if you cut it down, I think you would start to see some good progress.

If you're doing this modular approach where you're kind of cutting and using the, the Maps 15 style in between. I'd like to get you Maps 15 performance. So you could, on some days, you could stack and do like a more 30 to 40 minute workout or some days do your 15, just so you have better options with that. So you can kind of draw up your week a little bit more effectively. Okay. And would you guys say that like, I'm not quite sure how to word this,

but like, is cutting and bulking like a good, like, um. Good strategy. Yeah. Or would you say like going more maintenance than kind of cruising, hovering there? If you were my client with everything you have on your plate and as good of a job as you've already done, you're now in a place where I'd be like, you know what, let's hover around maintenance and let's do Maps 15 type of a protocol and hit your protein intake, eat whole foods, try and lift and be strong. Yep. And watch what happens. Yep.

And I think that if your calories were really low and you've just dieted real hard and you have all these other symptoms, I'd reverse diet at you. if they were super high and your body fat was really high, I might cut you. But Adam's on point. I think you're better just kind of. Just feeding. Yeah, staying around. Yeah.

Like, you know, you're probably around 2,400, 25, 2,600 calories. And just kind of staying there and enjoying your workouts and feeling good and going to school and getting stronger and just letting your body recomp. Okay. I had a feeling that's what you guys would say. But again, I just kind of wanted that guidance on that. So thank you. You got it.

Yeah, you got it. Doing great. Yeah, you're doing great. Yeah, you're doing great. We'll send you a 15 performance so you have another program you can pull from. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You got it.

Thanks for calling on. Thank you. Bye. I love it when young people call in with good questions and are doing a good job. Yeah, as I say, I love when I hear a girl that age cut, get down 20 pounds, reverse diet. Yep. You know. Like doing it right.

Yeah, adding all the way up to 2,600 calories and not putting a pound on the scale. Here's what would. So awesome. Here's what's more often. That's clear. what a young woman would do. She would cut, lose 20 pounds, and then stay down there, being afraid of, oh, I'm going to yeah, yeah.

And allow her body to ramp up the activity more. And, you know, oh, it added cardio now. And now I'm cutting you lower. And yeah, no, no, definitely. So it's great. It's too good. Our next caller is Leon from the UK. Hey, Leon.

What's going on, Leon? What's happening? Hi, guys. Okay. How can we help you? Yeah, I've reached through my question. I'm a massive fan of the show, having struggled to make a difference with my own. weight and physique for a long time.

Subscribing and listening to your podcast over the past 18 months to change my life. I started listening in March 2024. My Spotify wrapped up stated I was in top 0.5% of listeners for your show last year. Nice. A little bit addicted. Love it.

I am slightly obsessive in nature. I can absorb a lot of information very quickly. So in the journey, I believe I've got a good working knowledge of training and during sessions, I started getting a in the gym and asked how to train specific body parts. I'm slowly becoming happy with my own physique, and that's thanks to your very unselfish approach to the advisory gift. So thank you very much, guys.

Question in particular, my 17-year-old son sometimes trains with me, but constantly complains he's not seeing any progression at all. He's a typical teenager, he eats crap, drinks cancer monster, and doesn't hit his protein goals. He's fully aware of what he should be doing, but he's a typical teenager. But aside from that, he has fantastic test technique in the gym. He trains regularly, but is diagnosed with hypermobility in his joints

and ends up having to go into abnormally deep stretches in the training exercises in order to fill the muscle from working. For example, a chest press with a barbell isn't deep enough. Even with the bar on his chest, he cannot feel any strain or stress on his chest. The cable flies. His shoulders are rotating about 30 degrees further backwards than mine. plus because of the depth of the hypermobility, he does not feel any muscle connection

and often complains that the targeted muscles is not worked at all during the movement, which is the case for his chest and for his back in particular. My concern would be lifting heavy weights and due to having hypermobility, this could cause more damage to the tendons and in his joints. But that's just me surmising, and with this in mind,

should he focus on lighter weights and higher reps or can he train for hypertrophy? Does he have any specific? training, do you have any specific training advice for someone with hyper mobile joints? Are there any tips you can give so he can fill a better connection to the muscle when he trains hypermobility? Luckily, yeah. So glad you wrote in.

So glad you wrote in. Great question. Training someone with hypermobility goes against all of our typical advice. Yeah. Okay. So typical advice, full range of motion, get a stretch. Do not do that when you have hypermobility. With hypermobility, you actually want to shorten the rest.

You want to stop his reps short of what his potential is. So a squat would not be all the way down. It would be like an inch or two below parallel. You would pause for two or three seconds at the bottom and then come up. You're trying to create tension throughout the whole exercise. You're trying to control the weight. But again, the reps are short. So our barbell is perfectly fine.

In fact, I would not use dumbbells on a chest press with him because he's going to bring him way down. and weigh up. The bar is going to give them a nice place to pause. So with every exercise, stop the reps short of his full range of motion, have him pause at the bottom for two seconds, then come up, pause at the top, lots of control. If you do that, he could train for hypertrophy, he could train for all these different things, but you've got to shorten the reps. Because if he goes to his full range of motion, what happens, he loses control, which is part of reason why he has hypermobility, the CNS connection isn't there like it should be. And you

definitely can cause problems. Yeah. On the Dunbarz in particular, he's going so deep that it just, it just looks abnormal and the worry is something's going to happen, isn't it? Right. Yeah, yeah, don't go down that. And two, when he gets to the bottom,

like he said, really pausing and squeezing and tensing up, that's the whole work for him is really to, you know, gain that kind of access and control. So to recruit. So basically in any one of these exercises, to really like take your time with the tempo and have them really gradually kind of go through that

eccentric phase and then hold the isometric a little bit longer I would even go through a phase of very specific isometrics just to really generate more muscle recruitment because that's that's the challenge for him more than anything and then once he kind of like you know gets a little bit further progressing with that I would go through like the full range so I was gonna ask do you guys think that he would be great for symmetry because of the first two. Not because, though, the unilateral would not be good of dumbbells. And the hypermobility would not be a good idea.

So then just run something like an anabolic, but then every exercise you do, instead of doing the traditional, you know, five, six reps or about that, he's going to do two reps, but then with long holds. He can even do, he can even do the five reps. It's just, okay, so think of it this way, Leon. So what we're trying to do is get your son's CNS to connect more. So let me explain. Typically on an, let's say you're going to do an incline press.

you're sitting in the bench, you're pressing the weight up, good technique and form. Your son is going to focus on squeezing the bar. He's going to focus on grounding his feet, activating his legs, activating his glutes. He's going to try and be tense through the exercise, which is going to feel strange and hard for him. Okay? You're going to stop each rep short of full range of motion. You're going to pause, not because he's resting the bar on his chest, but he's holding it and hovering it there and staying tight and coming up all the way. Another thing you could do with isometrics

Because of Press and movable objects Yeah, because of your lack of Because you're not a trainer Here's something easily on Take the compulsory bodybuilding poses And have them practice them Have him practice a front double bicep

And having to flex his quads And his abs at the same time Have him practice a rear double bicep But also squeezing his glutes And his cat Just like a bodybuilder would on stage Learn and it's just Just have him practice that

at the beginning of a workout or when he's on his own, side tricep, front lat spread, rear lat spread, like side chest. All of that's going to help him his CNS learn how to connect. And then you cut, like I said, cut the rep short, stay tense. That actually applies. 100%. And then I think you already know why he's not seeing the results with the chemsy. If he's not hitting his grams of protein and eating what he needs to eat,

like he could get better at training and we can work on the CNS regardless of how his diet is, which that's all possible. positive and can help and at least work towards the hypermovement. But if he wants to see visual change, he's got to get that. He's got to get that approach. At least the problem. And really with my young kids, I really just stress that. Like, you're not going to get a teenager to not, not eat a candy bar, have a,

like, I'm not even messing with that. Like, go ahead and have that, but just hit your protein. Just get the protein. And that alone will make a huge difference in the way his physique will start to look. Do you have safeties by chance on your squat rack? Second, sorry? Do you have safeties on your squat rack by chance? Yeah.

Okay. If you, for bench especially too, if you can put those safeties up a bit in the bottom position, so he pushes against it. So it doesn't move. It doesn't move. Like if you can set up, you know, like so, so it's optimal in some of these lifts, even with the squad as well in the bottom position, if he's pushing up against an immovable object, you know, this, this is a huge way that he can recruit muscle fibers.

And so that's a great technique to apply. Very, very special attention to form. So what happens with hypermobility with those kind of is they'll push into something and then their form will just go out the window. And they're rounding their back and they're trying to. And so he's not going to be able to push as hard as he can because it's going to cause things to move out the way. The other thing, too, with this, Leon, is you know your son better than we do, okay? The most important thing is that he develops a good relationship with exercise because he's only 17.

Even if he does it wrong for the next three years, if over the next three years, he's like, man, I love doing this with my dad. This is a good time. That's going to give him way better return down the road. So it could look like this. Like, Dad, why am I not seeing any gains? You laugh. Come on, you eat like crap. You know that.

All right, let's do the workout. Like, it's it. That's it. You hit your protein, no. Yeah. And you joke about it. You joke about, ah, you knucklehead. He'll come around.

Yeah, even if he does nothing right for the next. next three years. All he does is just enjoy hanging out with dad and doing these workouts. His odds of doing this on the rest of his life school through the roof. If he's doing it with you and you become that dad that like, you know, there's some kids that like grow up playing soccer. They're really talented. They stop playing. Why did you stop playing? Man, I hated the way my dad was with me. It made me feel like I had to or, you know, beat me. Like you don't want to create that relationship. Even if everything, even if he's just doesn't listen to you at all for the next few years, which, by the way, that's not atypical for a teenager. I typically don't listen at all to

So you're going through with your daughter right now. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you tends to be listening on the training. You just, we do a session together. And you'll say, I can't feel it. I feel no, I just feel, he feels nothing in any of his muscles. I'm saying, how can you not feel it? Your technique is, looks, looks, looks fine.

Yeah. Everything seems to be going well. And then, and obviously you guys are saying the pauses have been poured to, and that make a huge difference. Yeah, and also, look, here's the other thing, too, with a kid. They usually don't feel it. They usually, you know what they'll feel arm exercises? maybe like leg extensions.

Like I didn't feel my back or my chest for years. Don't you guys think that he will benefit more from like a phase one. So lower reps with long pauses and heavy weight than he will with high reps. Because high reps is going to keep him in such a light weight. So I would keep him in like the three to five rep range. And in the three to five rep range, there's a pause for at least three to five seconds with every rep. So that's what every set looks like.

And you're going to pick a weight he can do perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sounds perfect. Yeah, yeah. You got to do it.

With hypermobility, it's all central nervous system training. Think that. Think that. Think the whole time. Train the CNS. Train the CNS. Recruit, recruit. The muscles will follow.

Okay. And Leon, I don't know if you know that we have this, but if you go to askmindpump. com, that's our AI. And so if you type in, what do the boys think about hypermobility or training hypermobility? You'll see everything we've talked about regarding that, but in the past. I've used it for something else. I just didn't think I didn't put hypermobility into it to me. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I can't think I was now a few weeks ago. I put something else into it was quite useful. And then the reverse dieting elements, that's quite good because that came up a few weeks ago as well in one of your shows. So that answered my other question, which is how to do a reverse diet at my age. Awesome. You've already. That's really useful.

Awesome. Thanks, man. I got it. Appreciate that help, guys. Hey, can we send you a program? Yeah, yeah. What do you guys follow? What do you want to follow?

I haven't, I tend to do my own. I actually really enjoy. making my own because I like the challenge. Okay. Yeah, but can we give you a program that maybe you can learn from or pull from? Give a MAPS and a baller. You should have the least foundational program. Yeah, MAPS and a ball could be good.

We'll just send you that. That's our foundational program. I appreciate that, guys. Yeah, thank you. You got it, mate. All right. Awesome. I've good one, guys.

Cheers. Thank you. Thank you. I only never say mate to an English. I don't know why it just makes me uncomfortable. All right, mate. Yeah. You know, so I hyper,

for trainers from a, from a programming perspective, you're probably never, I don't know, I don't want to say never, but if you train for a career for years and years, you will eventually run into a hyper mobile person. You might not, that's how rare they are. But when you do,

it's weird. It's weird. It's weird. I had a- client's like that. I've had less than a handful. Yeah. And I had a woman that was like that,

and she was literally my test dummy because I couldn't, I was like, I don't know what to do here. And I remember having to really think about it. And then we started doing, what I was saying here, and I finally saw progress, because hypermobility or tightness or whatever, that's all central nervousness.

It has nothing to do. It's not the muscles that are tight or it's literally the CNS. And so getting somebody with hypermobility to get stronger is literally about getting their C&S to learn how to fire. Yeah. The fact that he's got really good form is a good sign. Because a lot of times they look like a baby deer. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? The way they move the weights and stuff like that. So if he's got good technique and form, it's hard to control. A hundred percent. Yeah. It's like a hundred. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the first time I remember her dropping down in squad. I thought I was going to have to catch her, you know? So, yeah, if he's got a good technique, that's a good sign. Add those isometrics in. But then, of course, got to hit that protein if you want to see that muscle gain. Our next caller is Tyler from Kentucky. Tyler. What's going on?

No, not much. How are you all doing? Good. Good, man. Good, good. So, yeah, I guess just jump right in with the question and all. Let's go. Let's go.

All right. So a quick version of it is. I'm 35 years old. I've been training, mostly crossfit style and a little bit of like power lifting style since about 2015. 2016, I got put on testosterone replacement. I was 26 years old. So stayed on that for years, had great results with it, had a relatively easy time, you know, get my body to do whatever I wanted, gain muscle or lean out, whatever.

Well, wife and I decided we want to try for kids. Of course, TRT makes an amazing male birth control. Yeah. So cycled off. October of last year, numbers have been okay. I think last time I had my blood work done, I'd gotten back up into the 400s for total tests. But basically, I'm just, I'm still feeling super beat up all the time,

super tired. Workouts take, you know, obviously way longer to recover from. And it's also harder to get my non-exercise activity up to help with fat loss. So, you know, had some weight gain and all that. That's really not pleasant, especially because I work as a trainer. So really just looking for any kind of help and guidance and how to attack training because essentially what I'm trying to do right now is do a cut on a lot. hard mode.

Yeah. You know, Sal, are all docked, it's so interesting because sometimes I hear this with people that are on TRT. It's like it's 50-50. Some of the docs

would not even take you off TRT. They just throw HCG into the protocol. And you on, I got Katrina pregnant on testosterone. Just doing it. And so to say. My wife, though,

Katrina. So. That sounded like I said. They got real awkward for me. Yeah. So you, you absolutely, I mean,

I'm not a dog. But, I mean, yeah, that's interesting. My hormone specialist said, oh, don't even worry about it. You'll be just fine. We'll add some HCG to the routine every week. And you'll be just fine. I wasn't even trying to get my wife pregnant because of the HCG. She got pregnant.

So my question, okay, first off all, is back up. You got on tier, tier 26. Yep. Okay. Previous anabolic steroid use? What led to that? Nope. Nope.

I didn't do anything like that. When I started reading up on it afterwards, at the time, I was, on the max dose of Vibance. So like a yeah, methamphetamine stimulant. They also had me on 20 milligram adderall booster. So I was meth out of my mind. Wow.

That'll do it. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And then I was also on gabapentin to help me sleep. So like my brain, like my body never went into that you know, parasympathetic state to relax and you know, recover. Did you get a fertility test back then before you went on? No, I did not. So you don't know what your baseline was?

No, I have no idea what my baseline testosterone looked like. I have no idea what my baseline fertility look like. Okay. Now, the good news is my fertility has come back in spades. Wonderful. Yeah, HCG will do it. Yeah. Wonderful, dude.

And you're on HCG now? Yeah, that's right. Yes, I'm on HCG and Clombed. Yeah, yeah. So I would ask my doctor. Yeah. Okay. Again, I'm not a doctor.

So I have to say the ones that we work with, they don't take us off. They don't take guys off testosterone. They just put them on HCG and then they got, the only time they would take someone off testosterone is if they're really like something's not. But you've already got your fertility up. I'd be surprised if they wouldn't, you know, consider it. That being said, if you're staying where you're at,

you don't take more testosterone. You're like, look, I don't want to mess with this. I really want to have a kid, which is more important, in my opinion, as a father. You just got to reduce the volume, brother. you got to cut the, MAPS 15 is going to be your workout. And you'll actually start to see progress and gains. So you just got to drop the volume way down and you'll get the progress again.

The challenge for you, Tyler, is that your reference point was you on testosterone for years. Your recovery ability was a lot higher back then. Yeah, so what you're going to go through, and this is probably what you struggle with or wrestle with is you look at your workout. and you're like, it's not that much volume. And you feel probably a lot weaker. Yeah, like what's going on here? You're not recovering the same. And so psychologically, it's a bit of a mind fuck.

But truth is, you run Mass 15 and you stay off. You're fine. I mean, there's really two, I think, viable options here. There's the stay off if you really want to. I think you could totally get back on and just run HCG. Ask the doctor first. Ask your doctor. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So, in fact, you can actually get into our MP hormones forum on Facebook and post on there and see. They'll talk. Everyone's talked about this in there many times. And so that's that either stay on it and do that. That's one option or reduce down to Maps 15 and stay off.

And that alone, but be okay with the fact that everything is going to come down. I mean, when you're used to being on TRT and then you come off, like you're significantly weaker in everything. Yeah, especially if you're down. And you don't recover as well. You don't recover as well and you're weaker. So it's just part of the game. What was your dose when you were on TRT if you don't want me asking? I was usually around 0.4 MLs like every three to four days.

Okay. So you were on almost, you were like 180 milligrams a week. So your test probably went from, you know, 1,200 total. Yeah. Yeah, is that what it was? So most, whenever they would do the blood work on me, I ran anywhere between 800 to 1,000, kind of depending on when it was relative to the last injection. So your testosterone's half. Yeah. Yeah, as of now it's half. And I'm also still

rebounding because in November, I went down to 50. Like, it was non-existent. Oh, yeah, yeah. So you're at, you're at about half. So that's definitely going to have an impact. Talk to the doctor. If they're like, nah, we don't want to mess with anything. Your fertility is doing well right now. Cut the volume way down. Here's the other side of this, though, Tyler. Let's say the doc's like, yeah, I think you're safe going back on testosterone. Now that your fertility's up, we're going to keep you on HCG. Don't increase the volume either. Stay MAPS 15. Stay there and because the volume will naturally increase because you're going to get so much

stronger. When you add weight, that's more volume. So, because another mistake guys make is they'll go on T or T. like, cool, I'm going to triple my volume. Yeah, I'll triple my volume. Don't just keep it where it's at. The other thing I'll recommend is a couple of things you can use that may augment or support your HCG would be Tong Kat Ali, Ashwaganda. and then use and then red light therapy on your, yes, on your text. I mean, no, no, I'm not joking. I know, I know you're not.

It's just funny to hear it said out loud. Yeah, I wasn't going to say it. I was trying to think of the word to said in the sound fun. Yeah. Because I think I may be in a good, yeah. Wife come home like, what the hell are you doing? Don't worry about it. Getting ready.

Because yeah, it's making you a kid. Hang tight. Well, because, so, I mean, basically I can, I feel okay saying it's here because I don't think I know anybody who follows a podcast as well. But my wife has a 12-week appointment this week. So I- You did it. So basically at his point, yeah, so I did it. I went from firing blanks to, you know, going all in.

But so now it's just kind of figuring out like, okay, when do I, you know, working with the doctor to figure out, when do I go back on to stop trying to make sure we're like in a safe place in terms of like miscarriage risk. Yeah, good job, dude. Congratulations. All right, here's what it may look like. And I'm just going to tell you this, so you have more questions to ask and maybe a little direction. Hey, Doc, I'd like to go back on testosterone. I don't want to come off HCG. I'd like a maintenance dose of HCG to keep my fertility up. And then I'd like to test my fertility in a couple months to see if there's been an impact.

If so, then I'll come back off the testosterone or if it looks good. I'd like to stay on it. And what they typically do with men who want to maintain fertility is they are on testosterone and then they run a small maintenance of HCG the whole time. Yep. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

The only thing I'm thinking about also is, like I said, right now my main goal through all this is because, you know, I'm really trying to get the ball rolling as a trainer, made a career jump. So I feel like in a lot of ways, my body is my advertising. So I really want to focus on hanging on to the muscle mass. I've got and losing some weight. And, of course, part of that has made that tricky is I've got the energy loss from being off the testosterone.

So if I cut my calories and increase my non-exercise movement, I'm wrecked. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Yeah. Stay at maintenance. Stay at maintenance. Follow math 15. Focus on getting stronger and you'll recomp.

And if you want and pick up your walking. Walk more. Make a conscious effort to increase your activity on a daily basis. not through hard cardio, but through just activity, walking, moving around, doing more. And you'll love Mass 15 for this, too, Tyler. You're about to, is this your first kid? Yeah, this is me first and possibly only, but we'll see. Yeah, yeah.

You're going to have to figure out low volume for a little while because kids are very, especially in the first six months. Your wife's going to need you for the first couple months at least. So you'll love Mass 15, bro. That's going to be your program that you're going to turn to all the time. And you'll progress on it. It's not like, oh, I'm going to drop down. You'll see yourself get stronger following that.

Yeah, sweet, sweet. We'll send that over. Cool, cool, cool. I appreciate it. Yeah, good for you, man. And then also use that MP hormones on Facebook group because it's really useful with a lot of the stuff that we're talking about right now. So just poke around in there. And you want, what are you looking for?

Boy, girl, does it matter? I personally don't have a bunch of a vest one way or the other, but I'm like convinced it's going to be a girl. Oh, how nice you, dude. I don't know. Like, I just, I had someone a several years ago said, like, I see you and say you. so many years with a girl. So ever since then, like, it was just like, if I have a kid, the first one was to be a girl.

So now it's like, it's just step in my head. Hey, can we follow up with you again in a few months just to see how you're doing? And because I'm also curious, I want to know what you're having. Yeah, that's good to me. All right, dude. We'll reach out to you. We'll have our assistant set you up for like three months from now. So you should know by then.

And we'll talk a little bit about how's going. All right. Awesome. Love the put load of the content. I'll look forward to talking you all again. You got it, man. Congratulations. Appreciate it.

So glad he told us. It worked. Yeah. Because I was like, oh, man, I hope this really helps. So why? I don't know, bro. Old school. Is that what it is?

Yes. Because, I mean, most, I remember when I first brought that out to Dr. Ryan, he kind of laughed at me. He's like, no. He's like, you just, well, it was that some HCG, you'll be fine. And then he explained to me how they don't compete or conflict with each other at all. It's like, like, you can literally have the high testosterone levels and then your fertility goes down, but you take the HCG and it just brings the fertility right back. I'm, again, I'm not a, I'm not a doctor.

But from what I understood for interviewing these experts and looking at the data and all that stuff, you have old school hormone therapy methods. And the old school methods look like this. Oh, you want to have a baby. We'll take you off testosterone. And then we'll try Clomid. And then we'll add HCG. And it's like this process of like whatever. And the way that the guys and girls now do it, the hormone specialists that do it now is they're like, we're not going to touch Clomid.

we're just going to go HCG, don't take you off TRT, and that works 90% of the time. Yeah. I remember testing too. Like, it's quick. Fast. It's like within days after. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And you can see and feel it. One of the reasons why sometimes man will take HCG on TRT is also because some guys get testicular atrophy. And so just to maintain the aesthetics, they'll do it. Our next caller is Alicia from Minnesota. Hi, Alicia. Oh, how you doing?

Hi. How are you? Hard girl. hardcore fan growing, so this is really cool. Thank you for having me on your show. I know everyone says it, but I really do appreciate all that you guys do and all of your advice. And you guys is like going back and forth with each other is really entertaining as well. So thank you. Thank you so much. You're so lovely. I appreciate it. How can we help you? Okay. So I'm going to get right into it. I'm just going to kind of read what I wrote.

So it was around 2014 when I became aware of like weight on a woman and like what's attractive. I started struggling with like yo-yo dieting and losing and regaining weight repeatedly. So over time that kind of chipped away in my confidence. I hated taking pictures, hated looking at myself in the mirror. So fast forward to 2024 when my boyfriend of four years, we were having dinner, and I mean this in like the best way because he said it out of love and he said it like with caring and it wasn't like to disme at all, but he was looked at my plate and he was like, man, you've been eating a lot recently. So it just kind of stuck. And then I was diet. I was

battering like pre-diabetic. I lost my mom to breast cancer about 15 years ago. So when he said it out of love, it really like clicked. And I was like, I really need to like do something. And like get this into motion because it was going downhill kind of fast. And so around this time, I got into what's Beach Body by Autumn Calabrese, this 21-day fix program, and it worked like 10 years ago, lost weight for like three months, but then I would, you know, go back and forth. And so I did that for about a month and this time it wasn't working. But God, luckily, he was looking out for me.

and I ended up finding a program based on like consistent habits, nutrition, and community. And so after a year of work, I'm down from 221 pounds, 43% body fat to 179.4 pounds and 32.6% body fat. Awesome. Great job. Thank you. So now when I'm at like a comfortable weight, I love taking pictures. I love going out and getting pretty and everything back for date nights. I'm also helping other women and coworkers as well on their journey too. So I'm ready for my next chapter, which is building a nice round peach butt. So I ended my deficit around August. And so I'm wondering how to start this new building phase.

So my question is, what's the best way to transition from a deficit to, like maintenance surplus after a long-term cut kind of like what my macro balance should be for like booty building and is there any specific glute focused workouts you would recommend yeah we'll take care you alicia i'm just gonna uh god bless you i really appreciate the way you communicated all that and the challenges you went through and it sounds like you're in a great place and i'm going to give you some of the answers i'm going to send you a program that i think's going to help we're going to talk about your calories or macros but i want to remind you and i think this is what you're kind of figured out, is that all the, all train the right way, all the good results,

all of the, you know, I'm picking the right exercises, I'm treating my body right, it all flows from caring for yourself in a genuine way. It doesn't flow from the self-hate or the, you know, where you're criticizing yourself. Our insecurities. It all comes from, I want to care for myself. I want to care for myself in a genuine way. And if you stay there, the rest of it starts to take of itself. Okay. So I think a good program for how many days a week do you like to work out? So I like five. I try to do three, but I find that when I go down to like three, even four, I'll like skip a day, miss a day. So being consistent Monday through Friday helps me be consistent throughout the entire week. Okay. Do you have our muscle mommy program? I do not. I have heard

you guys talking about it, but I'm, I thought it was just for moms and so I'm not a mom. No, no, no, no, no, no. Muscle Mommy is a term that refers to women who like to build. I'd say half the group of women that are in the muscle mommy group are not moms. A lot of them are young women that want to build muscle. That's really what it is. It's just the woman that wants to build. And you would love that group, by the way.

So I'm going to send you the link. It's Musclemommie movement.com. You get a trial to go in there. Here's why I like it for you. You get the program in there, so you'll get the workout program. Okay. And now, not everybody in there follows that program. So really doesn't matter what program you follow.

Really what it is, it's a group coaching community. So once a week, our coaches and trainers get in there and help guide and assist you through this process. And we have special guests like Dr. Gabriel Lyon who's speaking in there tonight. She's talking about women's hormones and helping. So it's an incredible community. So I'm going to send you that link. I think that would be great for you. You'll get some of that guidance.

You'll get that program. I'll give you some general advice, but I think the guidance in there will help the most because they'll be able to modify it as you continue. you. Do you know where your calories are at now? Yes, I did write that down. All right. So my goals, which I'm not sure, this is kind of what I gathered for myself. So my goals is to be at 165 for protein, carbs at 230, fat at 77, and then calories around 2,300.

But I've been averaging. Last week I was out of town for a wedding, so it kind of threw off last week. So I did the last two weeks. It's between my protein's been between 148 and 169. And then my carbs have been between 214 and 243. And then my fats have been kind of high between 1 or 81 and 85, averaging around 1,800 to 1900 calories. Oh, you're in a great place.

You got it. Great place. Yeah. What you think you should do is perfect. The 22 calories. Yeah, yeah. Just do that. Yes.

Follow Muscle Mommy program. That's a great. strength training program with emphasis on glutes because women tend to want to build the glutes. And I think you'll be, you're going to be great. You may want to, and I would, you know, get in there, start the program first. But you may even be able to enforce it since the goal is to build our butt now, now we're trying to build. So maybe bumping the calories, 150 to 200 calories. So, but get in there first, start the program and run it for a week, see how you feel.

And I like your starting place. Yeah, you're in a great starting place. And your macros are great balance. Like even your fat, you thought that's not high fat. That's good fat. That's a good amount. In fact, it's one of the number one mistakes. I think my female clients that are wanting to get in shape to is they think, oh,

go, go to cut the fat. And that'll work against you. So you're in a good place. No, the targets you gave were fine. We're perfect. 2,200 calorie. I think that's a great start. If you were averaging around 1,800 calories, that's perfect.

Just do that. And then your gauge is your strength. If you get, if you're getting stronger, you're probably building muscle. Okay. Okay, especially on your exercise, like hip thrusts and squats and deadlifts and stuff like that. Muscle Mommy is heavily focused on butt. So you're going to love it. Okay.

Yes. Okay. Awesome. Yes. Yeah. Excited for you. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Yeah. I'm excited. Thank you so much. All right. And we hope to see you in there. We pop in every once well. Okay. All right.

Thanks, Alicia. Thank you. Bye. Love, love, love, when people can go through and be honest about the journey and how they felt and whatever. And she sounds like she's in a great place. Yeah. She's going to do really, really, really well.

Yeah. Really good place. I mean, she did so well on her own getting there. And, I mean, I love to hear when someone does their macro breakdown. And I'm like, yeah, right there. You know, that's such a good balance. And I love the comment you made, the point you made about fat, Adam. I know what the, you could see, you look up online, like, oh, 50 grams of fat, maybe 60 grams of fat.

Most women I've ever worked with did not do well. No. In the 50 or even 60s. Yes. Fats are essential. And women tend to, in my experience, tend to need more. as a percentage. There are hormones in their skin and their hair

and everything else tends to do. I can't tell you how many times I had a client and all we did was bump fat 20 grams, 30 grams. And then boom, boom. All of a sudden just fell amazing hair, skin, seen results. Like, yeah, I think there is a total misconception around how low a fat that women need to be eating and I think it does a lot of more harm than good.

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