Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2729: How To Get Jacked and Ripped As A Teenager

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: How to get jacked and ripped if you are a teenager. (1:56) Focusing on performance rather than what you look like in the mirror. (24:35) Pregnancy's impact on the body lasts far longer than we realized. (28:46) The value of going to a rehab facility for an addiction. (33:44) Beware of misleading headlines in studies. (36:27) The value of family mealtime. (39:50) The evolution of Vuori. (48:51) Black Friday sale is on! (54:37) #ListenerCoaching call #1 – Could I be stronger by doing less? Do you think I might be overtrained? (55:35) #ListenerCoaching call #2 – What can I do to move the needle on my body fat percentage without starving myself? (1:09:19) #ListenerCoaching call #3 – Seeking advice on training and nutrition strategies for a former athlete now pursuing a high-fashion modeling career. (1:24:11) #ListenerCoaching call #4 – Is it possible to noticeably change my look by adding other major lifts like the overhead press, deadlift, and row? Can I drop all other isolated work and just focus on these major lifts to get an overall muscular look? (1:33:48) Related Links/Products Mentioned Ask a question to Mind Pump, live! Visit https://www.mplivecaller.com Visit Rock Recovery Center for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** By filling out the form and scheduling your call, you'll also be entered for a chance to win a free 60-day scholarship at Rock Recovery Center, their premier treatment center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Don't wait—take the first step today. ** Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code to receive 20% off your first order. ** BLACK FRIDAY SALE: 60% off ALL Programs, Guides, and MODs **Code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout** Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #1860: Fourteen of the Best Foods for an Amazing Physique Brain cooked by TikTok? Try filming a video of yourself being bored Bethany Shadburne's Transformation: From Bodybuilding to CrossFit Games Athlete Assessment of recovery after childbirth; a cross-sectional study Long-term use of melatonin supplements linked to higher risk of heart failure and death Improving Health and Well-Being Through Shared Family Meals Visit Butcher Box for this month's exclusive Mind Pump offer!  ** New users receive their choice of a whole turkey in their first box, a ham in their first box, or ground beef in every box for the lifetime of their subscription. ** Mind Pump #1142: Nine Signs You Are Overtraining Mind Pump Jobs Mind Pump #2567: Women Who Lift: Breaking Myths and Building Muscle Mind Pump #2684: Do ONLY These 8 Lifts to Achieve an Amazing Body Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Bethany Flores (@bethanycf) Instagram Kyle P (@mindpumpkyle) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump in today's episode. Callers called in and we got to coach them on air. But this was after the intro, today's intro was 53 minutes long. Now in the intro, took about muscle building, fat loss.

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That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, look, you're young, you're in your teens, but you want to get jacked. You want to build muscle. You want to get stronger. You want to look amazing. Should you train differently? Yes, we're going to give you the tips.

We're going to tell you how to get jack. If you're a kid, if you do it right, you can take advantage of all those youthful hormones. If you do it wrong, it's going to take you a long time to get where you want to go. So we're going to cover that today. Let's go. I wish I had this list. So do I. Although.

Wouldn't have to unlearn everything I did. Although I got this advice from somebody, and I thought they were lying to me. I thought, you don't rip me to get jacked. You're just telling me the wrong stuff. In fact, he was right. It was absolutely right. So the reason why I want to talk about this is number one, I started as a kid. I was 14 years old when I started working out.

And learned through trial and error, or to put more accurately, learn through a lot of error. So I want to fix that for people right now. I also have a teenage kids and my daughter's working out. Yeah. And thankfully. she's listening to me and seeing great progress, even though a lot of the information she's getting is so counter. In fact, we have these debates

and discussions. And then for the parents that are listening right now, you know, we have a large audience of parents who have teenage kids who want to work out. And oftentimes, it'll ask us, like, what should I do? What should my kid do? What's the right way to train? I don't want them to get hurt. I want them to get stronger. So, you know, what does that look like? And the advice, there's a lot of similarities between the advice

we would give a teenager to what we would give an adult. But there are also some specifics that are a little bit more applicable to this age group. So those are the things we're going to go over. Okay, I'm so curious that because you did get this advice and you didn't listen to it, what do you think needed to be communicated differently

or was it even possible to communicate that to you to get this through? because I'm trying to think, like, from the perspective of the teenager or the us back then, you know, would I am not listen? You know, who would it take to have told me that? Like, or how would you have to break the science down? Or how would you have to, like, what is it that would have made that switch for you? I think a longer conversation because I'll tell the story, right? So I'm here I am. I'm 15. We have a friend of the family. His name was Joe. And he was just really, you know, one of the more buff dudes I've ever seen at that point in my life. And I'm, I was already a year into obsession with working out. And he came over, and he wasn't a frequent visitor. So I would see him once every four or five months at most. He comes over. My dad's like, hey, Joe, my son's into lifting weights now.

Can you give him some advice? And it was a 10-minute conversation. And I think that's, it would have made a difference if he sat down and explained. And explain to me a little bit of why this works, why the way your training is not as effective. I think it would have helped quite a bit. Okay. So here's the first tip. This one's around strength training.

So obviously strength training is going to build muscle. It's the most effective way to get your body to burn body fat. You'll get great performance gains out of it. Your shift or shape your body. So I don't know if I don't think I need to sell that so much these days. I think teenagers are figuring this out. Even girls are figuring this out. But one thing that's more, I'd say unique to this age group is that you're better off doing

less lifts, but doing them more often and practicing them often. Or should I say, rather than doing four exercises in a workout for a body part, you're probably better off doing two. You're in practice mode. That's right. Yeah, you got to build up the skill and the knowledge base first and the body awareness as performing these lists. Because performing the lifts and being sharp and the quality of what you're actually doing will carry you so much further than just like adding a bunch of random exercise. Well, I'll go even further and more specific. Choose the big five and only do the big five over and over.

That's right. And I'll tell you why this is so difficult and why this wouldn't have convinced me is I, I mean, as a young kid getting introduced into lifting weights, I love the way I looked in the gym when I got the pump. Sure. when I did 50 bicep curls and I did a bunch of chest flies and I, you know, did a bunch of lateral raises and the blood and the fluid filled up in there. And I remember like, oh, if I could just look like this all the time, like that I was in love with that look. What I didn't understand was that does not translate to more muscle as much as lifting those compound lifts. and one of the discouraging things about doing bench press or squat or deadlift is you don't get that same feedback. Right.

So you go do five by five set of squats, which are incredible for building your legs. And your legs don't feel, I mean, they might feel a little. But they're not like. You don't get all aired up, though. It's not like doing a bunch of burnout leg extensions. Exactly. Not like what it would happen when I did a bunch of leg extensions and leg press for five sets. Right.

Then they would be pumped full of fluid. I'd be like, oh, yeah, they're bigger. And so I think that's important. if you're young and you're listening to this is that do not be confused by the pump you get from good from isolation exercises and think that it's superior or even in the same playing field as that squat deadlift bench press overhead press movement and I wish that I only did those five lists for the first three years of my lifting and just got good at those lifts. That's it. So here's here's a deal and this is why by the way this is not bad advice for most people that we're given. But especially when you're in your teenage years, you're looking for a lot of what's known as central nervous system adaptation or skill acquisition. You're teaching your body to move in these ways.

And what that means is you have to practice these moves often. But the exercises are also the ones that give you the biggest bang for your buck. Like if you add, which is within the realm of reasonable for a teenager, you add 50 pounds to your squat. You're going to build way more muscle than if you added, you know, 50 pounds on almost any other lower body exercise or a combination of lower body exercises. So squat, bench press, deadlift, rows. Like, you know, there's four right there of just phenomenal exercises. And then you can throw in a hip thrust or a lateral movement or something for your core.

Like, get really strong at those basic core movements and practice them often. Practice them often, meaning when you go to the gym, like, I'm doing one of those. And if I do two other exercises, they're like, I'm messing around with. those. But really, when I'm in the gym, like, this is the focus. And if you get good at these guys, oh my gosh. So when I figured this out partially right around the age of 16, and this was a group of power lifters that convinced me to get strong at squatting and deadlifting. And I went, at 16 years old, I gained 15 pounds over summer, over a summer because I got really strong at a couple lifts versus doing all these other random exercises. And I know you're going to get information.

on social media that's going to say, and we'll get to that, by the way, that's going to say, here's this movement, here's that movement, here's this circuit, here, do this and don't rest and whatever. And there's going to be a jacked, shredded person promoting this. Yeah. But that's not what's going to get you there. It's these basic lifts. You practice them. You do a set and you rest. Well, then it's measurable. I think, like, you get too distracted with all of this, like, excessive amount of, you know, exercise to focus on. Let's, like, keep it simple. that way, like when you actually see those increases, like you can measure that increase.

I'm getting stronger. You know, this is moving the needle. Now I can keep like progressively overloading. I can get a lot further by sticking with the basics. I'm telling you guys, it's because you can't see and feel it. Yeah. You can't see and feel it the same way you can from like chasing a pump from my. But the results you'll see and feel.

Yeah, but it's, but not instantly. Right. So it takes time. And then you're in psychologically, you think you see results right away from the, the isolation pump movements. And so you see that like, oh, this is making me grow right now. This must be the thing.

That's how you connect those on. Let me put this part of it then. Track your strength. The strongest correlate for muscle growth is strength. Meaning of all the things that we can, if this goes up, you're building muscle. If this changes you're building muscle. The one that is the tightest correlate is strength.

If you get stronger consistently, you're going to build. You're building muscle. This is what's happening. And at this age, if you practice a few lifts often, you're going to see strength gains pretty regularly. This is how I finally convince my daughter.

My daughter, you know, she's my kid. Her dad has this big podcast, but I'm still dad, right? So it's hard to listen to dad. And so we'd have these debates, but I told her, I said, look, try this and track your strength. If you don't get stronger, then you can do what you want. Well, you know, four weeks into it, she's like, you're right. Like, you're right.

Like, this is crazy how much stronger I'm getting. And she's showing me her lifts. I'm like, oh, my God, you added 30 pounds here, 30 pounds here. So just get stronger at these few lifts. Practice this often. You're in the gym three days a week. You're doing these lifts. You're not focusing on anything else.

This is the way that you strength train to build muscle. This is the way you do it. The next one is to eat real food. All right. What do I mean by real food? Avoid processed food. Yeah. Process foods are foods that come in boxes or wrappers.

Chip bags. Yeah, they have long shelf lives. Like eat food with like one ingredient. meat, rice, potato, fruit, nuts, seeds, you know, milk, you know, yogurt, Greek yogurt, like that would qualify. Stick to mostly real food. The processed food consumption across the board is so high, but it's really high in the younger generations.

They have a higher tendency to reach for those types of, you know, foods and snacks. And I'm going to tell you right, they're not going to serve you well. They're not going to do for you what whole foods are going to. going to do not even close. I got this all wrong too. This was a, being someone who is a hard gainer and I understood I needed more calories. And it seemed logical that a Quiznos sandwich with Dorito chips and a drink was like a 1,600 calorie meal.

So this was the pathway for me to grow or gain. But what I, like, later on realized was I was, one, filling up. with like so I'd eat a bunch of calories but then the it would take so long for my body to process and digest that and I couldn't eat again for another four or five hours so I still was kind of underconsuming my calories and then even if I did overconsume calories all the junk calories got in the way of the things I needed like high protein and so that that Quiznos sandwich that was 1600 calories still only had four ounces of meat on it so I still only walked away with 30 grams of protein in this huge giant meal.

And so at the end of the day, maybe I actually got to 4,000 calories, but then my protein intake was 120. And so eating whole foods and targeting protein, which I know is your next tip, is the secret. And it was so counterintuitive when I was the skinny hard gainer switching over to rice and steak and rice and chicken thighs and that that would be the pathway to build. But it was.

It allowed me to eat more frequently and consistently, and it gave me more nutrient-dense foods every meal. Well, this is a difficult one. And this is one, too, like when I was trained a lot of high school kids and also my own kids, it's, there needs to be that communication with your parent. The parents also need to know ahead of time, like, this is a big priority. So there needs to be a lot of prep. There needs to be like, you know, meat that's available, like crock pot.

meat. Like there's just, we, we constantly literally have crockpots of meat. Like just cooking all the hell. With two teenage boys, I can only imagine what your house looks like. I swear to God, it's crazy. And if you're not ahead of it, you're behind. And so between that and then obviously, like, with rice and just other better options that are

whole food based, like to just cook in excess, you know, have it there in, you know, in Tupperware in the refrigerator and be able to pull that microwave. So what you guys, I actually think that this, uh, because you can get away with a lot of less ideal programming, even though I think the five lifts is the most important thing you could possibly do if you really want to compound your games.

But if the diet part has to be probably the most difficult part for a teenager. And consistency around it, right? Like, that was, that was like a- Because they're all over the place. Well, I'm going to say this. I'm going to add this right here. If you're in, if this is you and you're in this age group, learn how to make a few basic meals for yourself.

Because I know Justin's advice was great. tell mom and dad, but you don't depend on mom and dad for this. Figure out yourself. Learn how to make scrambled eggs in the morning. Yeah. Okay.

Learn how to make a basic chicken thighs or put a steak on or, you know, basic, learn how to make, your rice. Learn how to make yourself a potter. Like, very basic stuff.

By the way, this is a good skill anyway. Totally. It's also very empowering you guys. So if you're a teenager, you come home from school, you're like, you know what?

I'm going to make myself a bunch of chicken and a pot of rice and then I'm going to put it in the first. There's a couple things you said right there that I'm going to go all the way to the seasoning to break this down for the kid that's listening to this right now to simplify this. Like you grill chicken thighs in bulk by like the five pounds, five pounds of chicken thighs at a time. Use Montreal chicken seasoning. Done. Easy.

And it tastes amazing. And you're done. Easy. Grill it all at one time. Learn how to put three to six cups of rice in a rice cooker at one time. It's the same ratio. If you put three cups of rice, it's three cups of rice. It's three cups of water. And then you click the button.

So literally eat rice with that. And then the other one that you always ask, and I use Montreal steak seasoning. So I get Montreal chicken seasoning, Montreal steak seasoning. I live off of those two seasonings. When I do ground beef, go get the ground beef,

throw the whole thing in an iron skillet and season it with Montreal steak. Mix it up with your rice. And mix it with the rice. You're done. You don't even got to get fancy. I love mushrooms and onions and more things. But literally, like, that, those two things.

Yeah, you throw a little cheese on there. A young kid trying to build muscle. Yeah, just be efficient. Live off of that right there. And you'll be good. And then in the morning, the leftovers of that, crack an egg over the top, two eggs over it. Yeah, and you're good.

Yeah, and so track protein is the next one. So you want to hit your goal body weight in grams of protein. And I'm going to tell you right now where teenagers mess this up is breakfast. Teenagers mess this up in breakfast. If your goal is to eat 150 grams of protein in a day and you skip breakfast, good luck. Yeah. It's going to be hard. So you got to start with a high protein breakfast.

So figure out what your body weight, you know, where you want it to be. Grams of protein, break it up between your meals. Get a good, rough estimate of what that looks like. Oh, that's about eight ounces of meat for this many grams of protein, which, you know, eight ounces will probably give you 40 to 50. You know, how many eggs do I need? How much Greek yogurt do I need? Figure that out.

Track your protein. You don't need to track anything else. Just track your protein. My daughter now is also doing this where she kind of keeps track of how much protein and she hits that and she knows she's doing great. Yep. So that with the eat real food. By the way, here's the magic of what we're saying.

If you want to build muscle and get leaner, this does both. Hitting your protein, eating real food, you'll do both. You're going to build and get leaner. So for people are like, oh, I don't want to get bigger. I just want to get leaner. It'll work for that too. Oh, I want to build a lot of muscle. It'll work for that too.

Well, and the person who wants to gain and isn't trying to lose, that person gets all this flexibility. Just do that first and then enjoy the treat afterwards or enjoy the spillover. Yeah, the extra food and stuff that. Like if you, if you struggle with putting weight on, then, and that was a huge game changer for me was realizing how important the protein target was. And then knowing I still needed a gain and I still needed calories. And it was just like, okay, go hit my target first. And then I could have this other thing on top.

I could have the processed food on top of it after I did that. And even though it's not advice you hear us give for the average client that we train, right, middle age person who's trying to lose weight. for the young teenager who's burning 4,000 calories a day, they can afford those foods. But the problem is they do those foods first and early, and then they don't get what their body needs. Get what your body needs first. And then you can have that flexibility of the other stuff.

This next one is going to be also extremely difficult. And this is to prioritize sleep. This one is teenagers today get horrible, horrible sleep. Here's what it looks like for the average teenager. They stay up late because they're on their phones. social media, YouTube, gaming, whatever. Saturday, Sunday, come around. They sleep until noon to try and make up for it.

Now, here's what happens on all of that. Number one, porcel. You can't make up for bad sleep. You can do a little bit, but it doesn't really, it doesn't cover it, not even close. So even though you sleep until noon, Saturday and Sunday, it's not making up for the fact that you had crappy sleep four nights in a row.

So it doesn't fix that. Then number two, Saturday and Sunday, you wake up at noon. Good luck trying to hit your protein targets on those days. Now you wake up at noon. miss breakfast, how are you going to hit your 150, 180 grams or whatever of protein for the day? So you got to go to bed at a normal time and wake up at the same time every day. This is going to be very hard for teenagers.

They don't like to do this. I'm going to tell you right now, if you do this, this is like turning on a light switch for your body's power. Yeah, I was just saying this is what will turbo charge fast. Yeah. This makes a huge difference, you guys. If you do this for two weeks, you're going to be like, what is going on? I feel so different.

I feel so much sharper. I'm so much stronger. I'm getting leaner. Does sleep really do that? It does. It really, really does do that. So now, what does this look like? At night?

Turn your phone off. Turn your phone off an hour before you go to bed. That is the biggest obstacle to sleep. Even in the living room. Don't even put it in your room. That's right. So go to bed, wake up at the same time every day, get yourself eight to nine hours of sleep,

probably closer to nine for teenagers. That right there. By the way, on the flip side of this, if you get poor sleep, you can do everything else right, you're playing this game on extreme hard mode. You're just making everything so hard on yourself. I think teenagers are so bad at this that simply just an attempt at it will do,

we'll serve you. They just the effort of the phone. They're just being cautious of, oh, I should try and get to bed a little bit earlier today or give myself a little bit more sleep. I think just being aware of it and making an attempt will make a big difference. Didn't you just text to the group,

like this trend where they're doing like, some 15 minute like raw dogging boredom boredom yeah this is the thing that kids are doing where they're just like I'm going to sit still for 15 minutes and do nothing it's so hard yeah they should do a trend where they don't have their phone in their room at night that's it that would be that is great discipline and I'm going to say this to you guys watching right now discipline is everything especially for young men it's also important for women in this day discipline is everything so that's the challenge challenges can I fight this urge and this feeling now along the lines of the phone, fix your algorithm.

There's a lot of fitness content out there and the vast majority of it is terrible. Oh, yeah, that's awful. It's bad advice. And then it's also following people that are all hype. They're going to make you feel bad about yourself. This is so true for girls.

Is you're following these fitness influencers and you're going to compare your body to theirs and you'll never look like them, partially because they're also fake and they also have their own issues. And you're just going to feel horrible about yourself. And I'm going to tell you right now, guys, you can't hate yourself into this.

That might work for a short period of time, but it's not going to work. I'm going to add ditch all the political division too. Because one of the things that these tech companies have figured out in the last four or five years is we've always known that sex sales, and that has been kind of the main method of attention in marketing and advertising for forever. But they have found that it's nowhere near as powerful as division,

and hate and anger. Yeah. And they're all in on that right now. And so if you follow a lot of pages like this that, you know, are just an echo chamber and get you riled up and get you angry at the world, I think that's becoming as if not more dangerous than the body just more. I'm going to tell you. Look, I'll give you, I'll go extreme here because if you're motivated, you're like,

I want to do this. Like, just get off all of it. Get off all social media. But if that's not realistic for you, change your algorithm and only focus on. stuff that's uplifting and that's accurate listening to people who are coaches and trainers not fitness influencers not these I see I see some of this stuff my daughter will send me this stuff and I'm like please don't listen to these morons find uplifting stuff because what you put in your head will come out in your body get off TikTok yeah so so so fix your algorithm and be

mindful of it if you don't run your algorithm it will run you and then lastly take a multivitamin it. That's the supplement you take. Take a multivitamin. This is crazy because nutrient deficiencies are high anyway. I'm seeing this with kids, man, and I can see signs of nutrient deficiencies and kids. My niece who just moved in with us, Jessica put her on a basic multivitamin, and I'm, you guys, within days, I'm looking at her. I'm like, you look health, something looks different. It's her color, it's her energy. And all we did was give her a multivitamin. So she must have been low in some nutrient without realizing it. It makes a big difference.

So you do these six things and you just stay consistent with them. You are going to tap into some incredible progress, you guys. Just follow these things and don't listen to all the knuckleheads. I wish I did this. So do I. Did you imagine what it would have been like at that age? I guess. Well, at least you didn't have social media.

I mean, I guess the flip or the positive side of that is that this, you know, not doing this probably made us better coaches. You know, doing it the wrong way first and not realizing this probably makes us better at coaching people because we can say that. Totally. Speak to it. It's like the failed athlete. I always makes the best coach. Speaking to which, I'm sending right now some pictures to you, Doug, if you could pull them up.

There's two pictures. It's the same young lady. And I'd like to speak to it because there's this article that's going around. Now, her name is Bethany Shadburn. Bethany Shadburn. What is this about? One picture is when she competed in bikining. the other picture is when she became a crossfit champion.

And I'd like you to see the difference in how she looks. Oh, great. I don't even need to see the pictures. And I'd like to speak to it. I don't even need to see the pictures. Yeah, Doug, I just sent them to you if you could post them up there. I'm sure, the bikini one. She looks all emaciated and skinny and thin and very little muscle.

So that's bikini. Yeah. Okay. And then look at her as a crossfit. Oh, wow. Whoa. Wow. Okay.

Tell us the weight difference, bro. It doesn't say. Oh, you got to look it up. You got to fight for it. I bet you, she is. 30 to 40 pounds heavier. Easily. Now,

now I'm going to add some stuff to this for people watching this right now. It's clear to me that Bethany has high extreme level genetics. So she's got that 1% of genetics that most of us don't have with good training and diet. You know what's crazy though, Sal?

You wouldn't know that by looking at bikini. No. Yeah. You wouldn't look at her bikini and go like, oh, I bet she's got incredible genetics. What makes you say that is you see her CrossFit physique. And you're like, oh, she's put some muscle. That's right. So what happened in the bikini picture is she starved the hell out of herself

and just did just just over-trained while probably eating, you know, 1,200 calories a day. Where'd you see this? How did this one? This was an article. And it talked about her amazing transformation. Now, now, Doug, see, if you can Google her weight bikini and her, I'm so curious. Yeah. So I'm going to guess 30 pounds. 30 pounds. Oh, at least. At least. So here's what happened, by the way. And by the way, the 30 pounds for the people that are, that are just listening, okay, that can't see the picture, she has more pronounced abs 30 pounds heavier. That's right. Which is, you know, just a testament to how.

That's right. Now here's the, by the way, it's not because she did, it's not because CrossFit is a better way to train. It's that CrossFit had her focus on performance and not on how she looked in the mirror. And it's, it's hard to starve yourself. Yeah, no, you have to eat. So what she did is she just, I'm just trying to be a good athlete, which requires me to feed myself, which then tapped into her incredible muscle building.

Because most women will never look like that even with crazy training. She's genetically gifted. But just to show how much damage you could do to your body by starving herself, you know? And the CrossFit was just now she's focused on performance. It may be a great person having the show. It would, right? To ask her kind of difference. I mean, I would love for her to come on the show and talk about the difference.

Can you imagine what she feels like now versus then? Oh, God. I mean, it's incredible. So I just saw that and I'm like, oh, man. And then, of course, people in the comments are like, oh, CrossFit's a better way to train. That's not the answer. I guarantee she's eating three times as much food now. She was eating before and she's able to fuel.

Were you able to find weight at all? I have not been able to do. Oh, you're right. I would guess you're 100%. I mean, we should definitely track her down though. So did she win? Did she actually win? She's like a high level competitor.

Yeah. I think she looks like she's high level. I think she's ranked way up there. Yeah. CrossFit people probably are like. So, you know, what's so cool. about that is that this is how much the culture has changed. Like how I love that that's celebrated now.

Yes. You know, that that's this is. They've done more for women than. No, no. And I think that's important for, I mean, we've, we've, we've done our fair share of jabbing at CrossFit in 10 years. But that's an area. They did what the nobody else could not do. Nobody else could do.

No. Yeah, no. They, they, they did that well. And it's because of what you said. It all it did was it shifted people's, uh, focus on performance. To perform. Yeah. It wasn't about that.

Nobody was comparing their bodies to each other. How much can you do it? How strong are you? And just simply focusing on that. And then having, and it's such a hard workout. You've got to fuel it. You're not going to be good at it unless you fuel it. So you force yourself to learn how to eat in order to fuel a workout like that.

And the response of that is incredible muscle. That's right. Now, since we're on the topic, I got this great study came out that confirmed my experience. training women postpartum. So what you sometimes see on social media is that, you know, that, you know, training, you know, postpartum, and I'm trying to find it. I took a screenshot of it. There it is.

That training, you know, after pregnancy, it takes six weeks to get yourself back into shape and whatever. That's actually not the case. What they're finding is it takes a lot longer than people realize. In fact, in my experience, when I trained women, who had a baby and then they came and hired me, or I trained them before during and after. In my experience, women don't feel 100% like they used to for about a year or two.

And I want to say that to women listening right now who are hard on themselves after they have a baby and it's six months later. And they're like, I should be back to what I was, you know, why can't I do what I did before or whatever? The data supports it. So there's research that was published in the European Journal of Obstress, Obstret, I can't say it, I'm like, gynecology and reproductive biology reveals that a woman's body requires far more time to full recover after trial birth than previously believed. So the study shows that the body continues to heal internally from organ repositioning and connective tissue repair to long-term hormonal balancing.

The brain also undergoes gradual changes adapting from pregnancy and postpartum shifts in cognition and emotion. So it's like a year or two, everybody. That doesn't mean you shouldn't work out as though. So I've seen, I've trained the entire spectrum, but I will agree with you that more of those ladies fell on the year to two years. So I also train the rare anomalies that also. And I'd say the most common thing that I could say about them that was unique was how incredibly healthy and fit they went into the pregnancy. And even that didn't always matter because there was. some I trained women that were incredibly fit and healthy and just they said they had a lot of hormonal stuff happen and complications and it and then it did take a good year, year and a half before they really felt themselves again. So it didn't guarantee that it would be a six week, three month bounce back. But the ones that did that they all had that had that. I rarely ever had somebody who didn't go into their pregnancy, healthy, fit and strong. And then also came out of it six weeks later. They were.

rocking the weights like back to where they were like and even those really really fit and healthy people going into pregnancy they get in good shape and stuff six months later but if you ask them do you feel like you used to when you were in peak health and they'll say no right now now I still the connection is still yeah yeah it takes time it takes a while especially too if you're breastfeeding still and doing there's a lot of things going on still hormonal yeah sleeve and but we've given like like I don't know like if it's media or celebrities they put out this like this false messaging that's like you bounce back. No, it's, you know how much changes your body goes through?

It's the halo effect that we have with even like athletes. We always want to, we want to point out the one anomaly athlete who has got the crazy physique and he's a football player and he eats Skittles all day. You know what I'm saying? And then everybody's like, oh, look, you can do, you can do Skittles play football. I could have candy and look jacked? Yeah, be jacked. It's like, no, that you're looking at an anomaly and that's the same thing that we see with the pregnant

women that look crazy jacked right after their, their baby is, and that's not to take anything from that woman that probably put the work in, too, because I think, I think it requires that also, right? Like, I think that, but I've seen and I've trained even women that go into it with that. And I also notice a difference too, Sal, with the number of kids. So there seems to be, and I'd love to see the studies on this, there seems to be. One hundred percent. It seems to be significantly easier for the woman, kid number one, that went in weaker shape versus the second time around. That's right.

Because I've also trained women like that. That was like, man, I did all the same things as I did. Baby one. Baby two, this shit is just way harder. You know, part of that, what part of that is, is that typically you'll have one kid and then you'll wait two years and then get pregnant again. So you're just coming back to normal.

Boom, you have another kid. When they have a gap, then you start to see some bounce back, that reflects more of what happened the first one. But most people, multiple kids, it's like, yeah, it's two years in between. So it's like, oh, I just started to bounce back, boom, get pregnant again.

Yeah. Now you're right back. That's a good point. I didn't even think about that that way. Because it's not, I'm trying to think if I have, like five years apart. Yeah. Like I imagine,

I wonder if Katrina got pregnant now, right? With Max being six years old, like, would it be more like her first pregnancy because she had that much time in between? And that's rare. Most people don't do that that way. Most people run the kids relatively close back to back. Yeah.

Most people are not looking for that big. an age gap or whatever. Yeah. Anyway, so I want to talk about our partners at Rock Recovery. And I was, you know, I have a friend who's struggled with certain, you know, addictions and something really came to me, the value of going to a rehab facility like Rock Recovery. And I experienced this myself, nothing crazy, but, you know, I talked about on the show

how I came off Kratum and I've done that with cannabis in the past. And for me, a lot of it was the fear of, what it's going to feel like to come off, like that period of time where I'm going to suck, essentially. And I think there's a lot of value in that for people when they're like, man, I'm going to go off this thing. It's going to be a rough 30, 60, 90 days. That's the value of going to a place like this.

It's like they're going to be there for you when you're going through it and take care of you and give you the tools necessary and the coaching because that's the real, that initial acute phase. That takes a lot of coaching. A lot of coaching. And it's really tough. Well, it's easy when you are in your normal life, especially when you have an addiction to something like that, to go, oh, man, you know, I've got this many days, but then I got this one thing or I've got this. That's right. And it's like, and. Or how do I show up for my family? Yeah. And they're, and there, so to, to be able to give yourself the time you need to really break free of those chains is, is tough to do that in your normal setting. Yep.

especially when it's grabbed hold of you like that that much. It's like, so being able to completely take you out of this and that that is your focus is get better and everything there is dedicated to that versus in the real world, you have all these good excuses, you know, that are hard to not justify. Like, oh, man, I'll do it next week or I'll do it the week after.

And so it's really easy to put it off. And so I would imagine that would be, I mean, I've never checked myself into something like that. but I could see like that's why I would do something like that. It's like, okay. Dedicated, the acute phase of this sucks or whatever. And their scholarship, I think, is, is it three months, Doug? Is that how long?

I believe it's 60 days. 60 days. Yeah, 60 days scholarship. So they give away to our listeners. If you go to their website, which is rock, is it rock recovery. com? Rock recovery center.com. Rock recovery center.com forward slash mind pump.

And they're giving away, they give away a scholarship to one of our listeners. So it's covered. You go there for. 60 days and they pay for everything and you stay there. Yeah. And you go through that. And you go through that whole thing. And they've been incredible.

Even the people that don't win, they're helping them out and trying to at least point them in the right direction. It's really cool. So definitely, definitely. If you are struggling or have a family member that is. They'll coach you. Yeah. They'll coach you. All right.

So there's a study that or an article, I should say, of a study. I hate it when they do this with headlines. That is just, five people must have sent it to me. It went crazy in our forum. And in the forum, I'm like, you guys, let's back up for a second. I miss this. Read the study and what do you think is happening here. So here's what the study showed, okay?

People in this study who use melatonin nightly over the last year had a 90% increased chance of having heart failure. That's the title of the article. Of course. Yeah, that's alarming. So everybody's like, oh, my God. Especially if you're taking melatonin. That's right. Who's most likely to be taking those melatonin pills?

People that have probably been had chronic sleep issues for their whole entire life. And it's from poor health. And they're unhealthy. Which is the real issue. That's right. I would like to see if those people got no melatonin. That title is. Well, that's what it is.

They didn't control for that. They didn't control for that. So, for example, I could say. So I mean, the flip on that is you take the entire private forum who are all health conscious people that are working out, take melatonin for one year and see if that stack comes up the same way. It doesn't. It doesn't. And that's the thing about this article. It's flying everywhere.

And they didn't control for that. They just looked at, you know, people who, this is why you got to be very careful with headlines and studies. Like, okay, well, what kind of person? Like, did they control for that? If they did, then there'd be something interesting. It's like, oh, my God, this is a healthy population. They compared it against the control. Is the melatonin causing this?

But no, what they're doing is people who chronically take melatonin are also the people that suffer from sleep issues, which also is strongly coordinated. is a much deeper issue. And we've talked about how dangerous and how bad, really poor sleep. And also, why do you have that poor sleep? And the odds of having poor sleep when you have diabetes, obesity, stress, hormone issues are through the roof. So there's, there's, there's.

I didn't even see that. It's in the form right now. Yeah, people were freaking out, dude. I'm taking, wait a minute. I thought this is, should I stop taking this? I can see, back up for a second. I can see the paranoia immediately. I mean, wouldn't you say, Sal, I mean, I feel.

this way. I'm also like, you know, negative Nancy when it comes to the studies. Like, I feel like most studies are like this. Yeah. I feel like you, okay, maybe your meta-analysis are, like, yeah. When you have a meta-analysis, that's better because it's done over what, tons of studies. Yeah, they're looking at several studies. Right. Really what it is, studies aren't bad. Studies are as good as the, as you can understand them. So what kind of information can extract from this? That's the The problem is people want clicks on their articles. So if I'm a, I don't know, journalists, I don't know if they're called journalists anymore, if I have a website or a page for health, and I see this study that says, users of melatonin.

And I, yeah, I'm like, this is what's going in the headline. And for sure people are going to share the hell out of it. It's like saying, you know, people, God, what would be a good one, right? People who use Elderberry regularly are more likely to get the flu. Does elder brother cause the flu or is it that you have the flu so you take it? So you take it old. Yeah. People who take painkillers all the time suffer from more pain.

Well, yeah. That's why they're taking the pain killer. So we got to control for some of these things before we flip out. There's another study on dinner together, which is pretty cool. I'll read to you guys what the study shows. Like with families and stuff? Yeah. Well, didn't that, didn't they bring that up in the focus in the family?

They did. That was part of the topic. That was like one of the most powerful things. In fact, I really love what they're doing because they've studied over 10,000 families. And I think dinner was one of the most important things. Like dinner together. And then also how they started the conversation.

So I don't know if you went, are you going that direction at all? So even I got to go back and look. So I get my facts right. But it was like bringing up a topic of something that brings you present. Like it smells nice in here. Oh, to the moment. Yes.

Oh, wow. So they found that. not only having the dinner was the first step. And then so it doesn't become this kind of transactional dinner and distraction still. And you're all just talking about the traditional stuff. What's going on your day? Did you do your homework? It's like bringing them completely present in the moment.

God, it was a beautiful day today. Did you feel like that? In the moment. Yes. Oh, that's so. So they talked about the attachment. Yeah, yeah, just to become present about that. And yeah, and detached from all the hustle and bustle of the day and all the things and

becoming this moment together. It's like the dinner part is the most important part. Bring it there. And then the next layer to that is starting the conversation that brings everybody in the here and now moment. Like, oh my God, this steak smells fantastic. How does your smell or like bringing you in the room? I have, I heard another good one. I'll get to the study everybody, but I heard another good one where because sometimes it's hard to get your teenagers to talk. So you pick them up from school. How was school today? Fine. You know, what do you mean? What happened? What's it like being a 15 year old? Is that Well, yeah, well, I have a good.

This is just one basic one, but it's really good. So you pick them up from school or whatever, you say, all right, if you had to give a movie title to today at school, what would it be? Oh, that's cool. And then they'll give you the movie title and then it turns into a great discussion. A great discussion. Because it's like, bro, you just wait. I don't know, maybe your son will be different, but you ever get that, Jess?

Oh, yeah. You're constantly pulling more things out. You're showing more threads. So they, like, where's this thread? They talked about this in the mentor family also. And I thought this was such a great hack instead of asking your kid, like that vague question of like how is your day or things like that it's like what you do is instead of making it about them you frame it about being like so you would say something like what's it like being a 13 year

old at a high school these days yeah and so then they they talk about what it's like but it's really they're talking about themselves versus you saying like you know what's your like if you direct it towards them and you put the spotlight on them they tend to just deflect or oh whatever dad whatever versus like that's why the movie thing works so well is because you're not really asking specific about their day, which you kind of are in an indirect way. And so that was one of the tips for getting the kids to engage more is like asking them a question like that. What's it like being, you know, a 13 year old in a middle school this big, you know, what's that like asking that versus asking them specifically, what was your day like or, you know, then they give you some vague

answer. I love it. Yeah, the other thing, too, is just having them put their phone down and you just sit in the car with nothing. And sometimes there's nothing. Sometimes it's just quiet, which is okay. but sometimes it's like they're bored and they just start talking and I love it. I absolutely love it. It's the best. I just start hitting my kids like

when it gets awkward and then they laugh or whatever and it brings up, you know, like different topics and things, but I don't know. They're a bit more physical. I probably wouldn't work. That doesn't work on TV.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can't do that. No, I just flick his ear, you know, pull his hair. Yeah, okay, so I'm curious because you guys have older kids and they have phones. and things like that. Do you have, is it like a,

give me your phone when you get in the car? Or like, how do you do that to get them to, to not be on their phone? As soon as we get in. All right, we're not going to have a phone. Yeah. Yeah. I just say, we're not going to be on around.

Hey, hey, we're not going to be on our phones during the drive. And you don't get them. Oh, come on, pop. At first, you might. But now it's like, you know, because then what falls up is like, well, I'll take your phone if you need to. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So, here's a study. This was a study from Columbia University, and it said that children who have dinner with their family at least four times a week perform better academically. Regular family meals provide opportunities for communication, emotional bonding, parental engagement. So basically, they just connected it to academic performance and said that they perform better academically. But what's interesting about this, you want to talk about a culture shift. It wasn't that long ago where maybe one or two generations ago were, this was a staple.

Oh, you always had dinner with your family. This is so rare now. Even my family did that. Yeah. Like, I mean,

you talk about, we've talked plenty of the, how dysfunctional my family was. We had dinner every night together. We did do that. We did at least of that. That was normal.

And I, I've always assumed that's really normal. It's not like anymore. Not all. Traditional value kind of thing. You know, like 50s, I just remember that was like,

even on TV. Like they would all, you know, dinner was like the priority. They used have breakfast and dinner together. Yeah. Everybody gets up and eats breakfast.

Nobody has breakfast together. That one, forget that one. Yeah. But dinner is like, I know. Breakfast is gone. So my wife didn't grow up this way. They had dinner just when they ate. So, oh, you're hungry?

Grab some food. Oh, you want to eat? Oh, so that must make that even more challenging for you guys. At first it was. She was like, why do we have to get everybody together or whatever? But now she's like, totally bought in. By the way, I get the challenge of it. Like, I text her when I'm on my own home, she organizes three courses.

It's all ready. You got to get everybody at the table, ready to go. But the value is, Sometimes this is the only time you guys all sit down together. Oftentimes it is. Oftentimes you got two kids, three kids. Like this is the one time when we're all sitting together. And because we have a meal, it's not just,

let's just all sit around a table and do nothing. I think there's even more there, Sal. I do. Because we spend a lot of time with Max. Max is attached to me at the hip. I get him as soon as he's at home from school, we play like that. There is something about you. And I still had, this is something that we've recently got better at.

In fact, I scored myself a five on my legacy wheel for this because I think we can still get way better. But Katrina and I, this last year, made a real conscious effort to try and make every night of family night. And still this day, like, it's been almost a year consistently of us doing it. And I'd say we're five for seven a week consistently. Because weekends can get little, you know, we're eating out, or we have family or we have parties and so with that.

So I'd say we were five for seven. most weeks, maybe a bad week would be four for seven. And he still grumbles, you know, family dinner night or like that, because before that we weren't really consistent at all with it. And so even already just making that. But I do, I mean, I love it. I mean, and I'm trying to get to the place right now.

I always say dinner prayer. And so I want him to want to do it. And I haven't got him to want to do it yet. He always defers. No, I don't want to or have that. Okay. So I don't force him to do it right now. And so I have it, but I do feel the value from it.

And I think it's more than just because we spend a lot of time together. No, you're right. You know what I'm saying? There's something else there about breaking bread with your family in the moment. There's definitely no phones at the table too. So there's no distraction of television or it's about us. And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it.

But I think there's even more there than just that because I don't think we do a really good job of the other stuff still. So I'll tell you, I'll tell you from my perspective, as a kid, this was like you had dinner together as a family. I don't care what you're doing. You're going to sit down to the table. As a kid. It's the only way we could eat. What I was. That was the food.

Yeah, yeah. Well, in my house, in my house, I don't care what you're doing. You come home and have dinner with your family. My dad was like big. This is very traditional Sicilian. My mom cooked. And so I was like, everybody was always together. My dad worked a lot, but he always showed up for dinner.

and as a kid I didn't see the value I saw no value in it whatever here we go it wasn't until I moved out that I went oh man I missed that oh that's so valuable and then having your own kids made it so valuable so he might not see it until later yeah but there's value in it

regardless yeah no I mean I'm trying right now because I told you I'm five I'm four or five for seven is I'm trying to make Sunday nights I told my mother-in-law the last because I cooked for her I was like I'd like to make this every Sunday night and she's wonderful I said yeah I will cook. I said, I will cook for us. Good for you, dude. That's my night to barbecue and do everything

like that is I would like to do that and make that like a traditional thing. And we, this is new for us. Like it's not, we haven't been consistent, but I want that to be consistent. That's cool because you know what you're doing? You're breaking, what do they call it like a generational cycles. And so you're now the beginning this cycle that will continue. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really cool. Anyway, yesterday, Adam and I had this wonderful. I know. I had this wonderful like, well, it's one of those realization when you're doing something. You're like, what am I complain about it. Yeah, but first, I feel like you have to sit the table with Justin.

So Justin had stuff to do. He had to do the trainer stuff. Yeah, we're talking to the trainer. And he's like grumbling about getting ready to do that, right? And then Sal and I are like, you know it is with me teaching. Like, it's like, all eyes on me. It's like, this is an uncomfortable thing for people. I'm like, I'm working through that.

But like, I'm like, you guys get to go shopping. Yeah. You're talking about it. You know what? I will gladly trade you like that. And then Justin thought about for a second. He's like, yeah, actually I'm good. I'm all right.

Yeah. You know what? Can I just touch on. that you do such a good job teaching Justin, you're so good at it. It's so wild to me that you feel like that. Thanks for saying that, but it really doesn't feel like that. I watch you coach these trainers and I'm like, man, he is, they're all engaged, you're really teaching good stuff, you're funny, you're good at it. It's not like he's hypercritical of himself.

Yeah, I'm very, very critical. He's such a dick. I said a bad word, so we're going to call it. Yeah, I can't believe it. Yeah, I am. And it's true. Anyway, yeah. We had to go do a commercial for Viori, and we always grumble whenever we have to do anything like that because it's, well, because it's not this. This is real conversation. Yeah, yeah. But now you're recording me and I'm supposed to do this thing. Yeah, yeah.

And it just feels like, like, that's so anti, like, just our personality. So we're like, oh, I don't know. But anyway, we go to Viori. We love Yori. Love the company. And we're there. And two things. Number one, just for the audience.

Did you notice all the new non-athletes? leisure wear clothing that they're introducing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of clothes that are not like workout clothes. They're just like nice clothes. Like nice clothes, yeah. Like really cool. So one of the questions that so. Yeah, it has changed a bit. You know, the team, the editing team has like, you know, stuff to prompt us. And one of the things I was prompted at that I was recorded, who knows this will make it in the ad or not. But they, they're like, talk about the evolution of Viori for the seven years you guys have been working as a partnership. It's been seven years. Yeah, yeah. And so I talked about how, you know, you know, you know,

You know, when they first started, they were this very surfer men's athlete's wear kind of counter, like the opposite of Lulu a little bit, or the, fill the gaps. Like that was kind of a male competitor. And, of course, we're attracted to that. That's a, Justin's got surfer vibes all day long. Like, we all like athletewear. I need style.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we were drawn to it from day one. Shake the sax. But to see it now, and to be, and we're at the Santana Row, which is a big, one of their big stores. And to look around and it's just like, do they got everything. They got cool vest and flannels and jackets and hoodies and like sweats or like comfy stuff.

It's a really nice sweater, like this really high quality looking like nice sweater. I got it from my wife. And I'm like, this is not workout clothes. This is just nice clothes. Yeah, no, it's got everything. My favorite part about their stuff that I love is that I, that's why I'm such a fan of like the meta joggers because they have that almost slack look to them, but they're not. They're joggers. And so if I throw a t-shirt and a P-coat on, like, that's my, like, you can go out on them.

I go out in them all the time. And it's like, I'm so comfortable. And you're ready to work out. And no, literally, normal dress clothes are you're uncomfortable. Yes. Like, you just feel like, like, I'm always like, dude, I'm like overdressed for this. Do you guys remember when you, okay, when you worked in the gym, do you, did you want to wear a suit? I remember I wanted to wear a suit.

Well, I like the idea of it, for sure. I made my sales guys. When I was a general manager, we did wear Slack. and oftentimes buttoned down shirts. I mean, how funny is that? You walk into a gym, the guy selling your membership. I know. Stick out. That was before they were really sticklers about the uniforms.

So I would do that. Well, I remember when Larry and I first started working together, rest in peace, right? When he came in, the first time he came in to work with me, he'd come in and like full. Who do you think made him do that first? You know what he used to show up and work in? Jersey.

Oh, wow. Like big old shorts and a jersey. Oh, yeah. And it was, I had to convince him. because he was already the top sales. Oh, he definitely embraced it and loved it. Oh, then he loved it. Then he came in his, you know, his Armani suit and his like shades and everything.

I was just like, this guy's too much, dude. But I had this great, this great reflection. I'm in there and I'm kind of grumbling, oh, I got to, you know, do this media stuff, which is so uncomfortable. Yeah, and I'm like, and then I looked up and I'm like, you know, I'm looking at the store. I'm like, man, Viori is like, they're a huge player. And I looked up their value, you know, they're evaluated at like $6 billion. Yeah.

And I'm like, man, we were with them when they had this one little store in Canitas. Remember that? They had one store in Sanitas. Yeah. And here they are now this huge player. They're well known as being a super high quality brand. And the fact that they are using us to sell their product, that's a big deal. Well, did you hear me talking to the girl at the front desk there?

So her and I were talking. And she's like, man, I haven't seen you and Sal in my feed lately. And I was like, well, yeah, that's why we're here doing these ads. we're due to do some more of these ads for them or what that. And she's like, yeah, I know a lot of people know you guys as the Viori guys, not as Mindana. And I thought, it's so wild. But of course, I mean, it's a multi-billion dollar company.

I'm a model, Doug. Yeah. I like, you guys, when we did those GIFs, like, I keep showing up at, like, Microsoft meetings. Yeah. Like, that's stupid. Like, I'm like, yeah, that's like forever now who I am. But you sent that text over to me.

You're right. You know what I'm saying? Like I always try and check myself when we grumble about some of these things. It's like such a blessing to be. That's super cool. It's so crazy. Anyway, I got to say, Doug, is this, are we Black Friday still? We're still going on there?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay, look, I got to mention this. Every Maps program and every bundle is 60% off. So this is the biggest sale of the year. If I don't say it here in the intro, some people skip where I say that in the very beginning, they'll miss out. So 60% off everything right now. Maps Fitness Products.com use the code Black Friday.

So this is it. We don't do the sale except for once a year. Butcherbox delivers grass-fed meat, crate-free pork, chicken, wild-caught fish, and more to your door at great prices. You want healthy meat, healthy protein? Great prices. Go to butcherbox.

Go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. By the way, new users, right now get your choice of a whole turkey included in your first box or a ham in your first box or if you want, you can choose ground beef in every box for the lifetime of your subscription included for free. Go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump. Back to the show.

Our first caller is Eric from Florida. Eric, what's up, dude? What's happening? Hey, how are you guys doing? We're good, man. How can we help you? Let me flip over to read my question here. I love you guys so much.

I've been listening every day for like four or five years. Oh, that's great, dude. Appreciate it. So. I love you too. So you guys talk a lot about dysfunctional relationships with fitness and overtraining. I usually don't think it really applies to me because I don't often experience injuries or soreness. And I do progress about as quick as a natural lifter who has been going for about 20 years can.

But you talk about it so often, it does make me wonder if I'm over training. I'm 35. I do go to the gym just about every day. It makes me my day feel complete. It's like a hangout. Every third day is just doing dead hangs and like an ab exercise or two. I view them as sort of my rest days. The other two are upper and lower splits rotating between many compound lifts and a few isolation movements.

I take long rest periods between sets. So I am typically there between 60 and 90 minutes on the big days and 30 to 45 on the ab and dead hang days. I walk one mile twice a day, usually, and I work as a waiter for only about 25, maybe 30 hours a week. I have no kids. I live relatively stress-free. My sleep is not perfect. I do wake up a few times a night, but usually only for a few seconds, and then I fall back to sleep.

Usually just have to turn over or something. My schedule usually allows me to sleep for 8 to 10 hours because I work afternoons. I don't typically feel tired or fatigue, but you guys talk about it so much that I've been questioning myself lately and wondering if I could be stronger by doing less, do you think I might be overtrained?

Yeah, good question. There's a lot to unpack here. You mind if I ask you a few more questions, Eric? Of course. Just to get to the root, because there's a few things here. When you exercise, what's the root or the motivation behind it?

It's just fun. I just enjoy it. I enjoy lifting. I enjoy being at the gym. I enjoy getting a pump. I enjoy just seeing some of the people that I see at the gym most days, like the regulars. And I just enjoy the whole everything about it. That's great.

That's great, man. How do you feel about yourself, your progress, your body, all that stuff? How do you feel about that? My body is fine. I could always use a little bit of a cut, but I don't really worry to. much about it and I enjoy eating too much to really worry too much about it. I like the muscle I've built over the years. I just, I don't really care too much about aesthetics at this point.

I just like being stronger. I just like seeing little progression. Bro, you're in a great place. You're in a pretty good place. Yeah, so here's where I was getting at. That's why I asked you those questions. And then I'll get to the last question here. Over-training, beating yourself up, overdoing it is a symptom.

It's not the root. And it's typically a symptom of a root that drives people towards fitness that comes from self-hate, you know, moving the goalpost, insecurities, you know, whatever. Fat, skinny, insecure, hate my body, constantly chasing a look. And so overtraining is a symptom of that, right? It's a result of that. So, which it sounds like you're in a really good place. The root of why you're doing this is great. Like, you're, you're, you're Your answer, if it's fun, I like the people that are there. I don't really care too much about aesthetics at this point. I like being strong. That sounds awesome. It sounds like you're coming from a good place. So now here's the answer to the second part of, I wonder if I could be stronger by doing less.

The only way you'd know that is by trying. Testing it, yeah. That's it. So what you would do is you would say, okay, for the next, you know, four weeks, I'm going to reduce my total volume and see what, happens to my lifts. And if they go up, then you're moving in the right direction. If nothing changes, then, you know, no harm, no foul. But also, if they do go up, that doesn't mean that's where you stay forever, because you could do that for, you know, three, you know, three months with less

volume and then slowly inch the volume back up and then see how you feel. But at the end of the day, Eric, you're, you're doing great. You're doing really, really good. I think you're in a great place. Yeah, you're a type of client that if I got you, I'm really careful about how much I want to rock this boat because I think you're in such a good place. Like, I would love to see you run MAPS Anabolic and just see if we brought it down to three, you know, full body days of lifting. What might you see strength and see if you actually really like that? But I also hear you that, you know, this is more than just that for you. Going to the gym, it's community for you. You love it.

Like, and I would hate to take. So I definitely wouldn't keep you from going to the gym every day. I say keep going to the gym every day. but just maybe we'll do, you know, maybe you'll do more of your walking on the treadmill, maybe do some mobility stuff. Maybe you'll do sauna work or something. I don't know if your gym has that.

Maybe we'll do some of those on those other days and then just lift three days a week. Just to try it and just see if you see a huge difference in strength by reducing the volume a little bit. But I also, I would be very, stay close to you asking you, how are you feeling, do you like this? And if I see that it was really bothering you or you weren't enjoying it and you, like,

then I would abandon ship. because it ain't that big of a deal. Yeah. Because you're very happy with where you're at and you don't sound over-trained. You don't sound like you have terrible motivation and drive to what you're... I think you're in a good place. But it doesn't hurt to mess with some programming. And if you've never followed, like, one of our programs,

I bet you'd see some better results than you've ever seen just by having someone who's professionally done this, do it for you. But that doesn't trump you being happy and they're doing it for the reasons you're doing it. Well said. Well said. I mean, even if my program, could get you better results. If you're less happy doing it

than what you were doing before, I'd still tell you, you keep doing that. I'm okay with that. Yeah, so Eric, just to put it, just to really add to what Adam's saying and to put it differently, if you added 20 pounds to your bench press, which would be a lot at this point, right?

You've been lifting for 20 years. So if you added 20 pounds at this point, it'd be like pretty amazed, right? If you added 20 pounds to your bench press, but you lost, you know, 20% of the joy you get from going to the gym and being around people went down, would that be a worthwhile trade? No.

Probably not. Like, what's 20 more pounds on your lift's going to do for you besides you being able to tell your friends maybe or whatever? But it's not going to do much for you. But losing 20% of the joy you're getting from being around those people going to the gym, that could have a profound negative effect. So just to add what Adam's saying, like, it's oftentimes not worth. worth it. Like, what are you going to get from another 20, 30 pounds on your big lifts?

Probably not much. Not going to do much. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you're doing great, dude. Yeah. It'd be cool. It'd be cool for you. We'll send over, I think Maps and a Blocke would be. See if you enjoy it. Yeah. I think MAPS and a ballok would be a different enough program than your approach right now and a reduction in volume that it would be fun to see how you like it. But again, you know, if you don't, then you what you got going on is a great, you're at a place where we want to get most clients. That's right. You know? And so. I don't like rocking that boat too much unless you are down to let's see what it looks like

to run somebody else's program and stick to it and see if you enjoy it. I do have anabolic. I just, I got it like two years ago, but I've never actually really run it all the way through. I just kind of look at the exercises and sort of do your own thing.

Do what I normally do anyway, to be honest. It was pretty much what I expected it was going to be, you know? But. Yeah. I appreciate it. You're in a good place, bro.

You're like at the, what's good about where you're at, Eric, is if you stay focused on the important stuff, which is what you said when I first asked you, you know, why are you doing this? You'll do this forever. Yeah. You'll never want to stop. I can keep experimenting. Yeah, dude. So if we get, we get caught up in chasing quote unquote results and sacrificing the joy from the joy from the. journey, that is not, I'm going to tell you right, it is not a worthwhile trade at all.

It is actually a terrible trade. So just keep that in mind. So if you want to try it to have fun, then do it. If you look at it, you're like, I like, I like what I'm doing. It's introducing a little bit of novelty just to keep it fresh and stimulating. That's really like all you should be concerned with going forward. Whatever you're doing right now is like the hub. It's the base of, you know, what a program should be about.

You know, if you saw anabolic and you've had it for two years and you were just like, yeah, it's kind of what I thought it would be. You're not really, didn't really excited you. Maybe we, maybe we send you something that's really unique like an old time strength. Or symmetry? Or, eh, that'll be even long. The first two weeks of him doing that. Yeah, that's true. Go insane. I like old timing. I think, I think that's, there's very unique exercises in there that are different that you might enjoy the challenge of doing that. And to Justin's point about novelty. And you like getting strong. that program's built around that. You can even just look at it and try some of the

extra stuff. Yeah, yeah. Actually, that's a great approach too. It's like, we'll send it over to you and then you could do what you did with matching a ball. Yeah, because there's certain lists that it's, it's gearing you to get better at the skill towards. So it's cool like that. You can actually take like, you know, something you're not familiar with and practice it. Practice it. Sounds good. Yeah, we'll send that over to you, one last thing, Eric, our episodes are geared to the majority of our, audience, which we're actually trying to get to this place that you're at. So a lot of our information is not for you in that sense.

A lot of it is for trying to get people to be where you're at. Where when I ask them, why are you doing this? Like, I love it. It's fun. I enjoy it. I love the people. That's like, that's not a typical answer. That's not common.

Yeah. We're trying to get people. It's a good answer. Yeah, bro. You're in the 1% with the right attitude around it. So great job, dude. We'll send that old time over to you. And if you do try it out, I would love to hear back from you.

If you do the same thing as Anabolic, then keep doing your thing. But if you do try it out, it's always nice to hear a guy with your experience. By the way, you ever thought about being a coach or a trainer? I know you work in the restaurant industry. It's totally different. You ever thought about it? It's all people. If you like people, you've thought about it?

I'm certified by ISSA, but I've never done it professionally. I do train my mom. I've been training her for about eight months now, and she's dropped like 30 pounds, and she was pre-diabetic, and it's no longer that. Oh, it's awesome. We will start with once a week, and then after a few months, we moved it twice a week, and she absolutely loves it now, too. And so I get a lot of enjoyment out of that.

I would like to coach. I've just never, I don't know, I'm a little bit shy about, like, going and applying. I don't know why. Well, you like us, Eric? Yeah. But I love you guys. You guys literally every day you have an episode. It's part of my morning walk.

We are hiring coaches all the time, and we hire based on character. So, you know, one of the things we say is we don't hire trainers. We make trainers. If you think about it and if you're like, hey, you know, I'd like to give this a shot and you're serious about it. Reach out to us. What's our site, Doug, to apply? Is it Mind Pump personal trainers?

His jobs at Mind Pump Media, believe? I'm sorry. I don't recall. You know, we'll remember it. You just have them email, Kyle, directly. There you go straight to Kyle. Yeah, we'll send you that email. I don't want to put it out in here because we'll get 50 million emails.

We'll send that over if you're interested. If you're interested in thinking about it. All right. Yeah, absolutely. You got it, ma'am. All right, Eric. Thank you, guys. Have a great day.

Take you a minute. Just for people who are listening, if he had said, if I had, when I asked him, why are you doing this? What's the main thing? And he said, you know, I'm too, you know, fat. I'm not strong enough. And, you know, I just, my body's not responding. and I'm just trying to get it to get there. I've been doing this for 20 years.

I don't feel like it's worth. Then I would have, it would have pointed me in a different direction. I would have said, okay, the root of this is not good. And so he may be overtraining because he's doing it for the wrong reasons. But what he said was, like, that's great. Like, I can tell you right now if I had to bet money that Eric's probably going to do this in some way, shape, or form for the rest of his life. Well, and I want to just, again, point out that even if I had better answers or could get him

better results. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing. That's right. It's not a worthwhile trade. Right. Like there's no doubt I could take somebody and assess their workout routine, their diet, even somebody that advanced, been doing that long and go like, oh, I can make tweaks. I can show you better results. That's right.

But I don't want to mess with something. Better results isn't always better. That's right. That's right. If he's doing it for the reasons that he said and he gets fulfillment out of it, I'm not going to, I'm not going to mess with that. I just want to say this, too, just toot our own horn. You will not hear fitness people on media communicating this.

And that's because in media, it's all results all the time, which there's some value in that, but not like that. So, and this is, you know, coming from people who've trained a lot of people. And he's figured it out. Yeah. Our next caller is Susanna from Texas. Hi, Susanna. How you doing? Hi, good morning.

How are you? What's happening? I'm great. Thanks for calling in. How can we help you? Well, shall I just read my question? Yeah, that works. All right.

Your mind pump? I'm female. I'm almost 50. they'll be 50. 5-3, 150, and sitting at about 40% body fat. I ate 140 grams of protein a day, and about, well, right now I'm at 1,450 calories a day. And I was attempting to cut. And I take creatine every day, as well as, you know, vitamins and things like that. I work out with a personal trainer three times a week consistently for the past seven months since February. And before that, I did Carolyn Jervon workouts at home for seven months.

And before that, I lifted weights, you know, on and off. I'm not a stranger to lifting weights, but I bit the bullet and got the trainer. I have gained about three and a half pounds of muscle since May, but it's slow. My body fat doesn't seem to budge. He has an in-body machine that he uses to gauge my. body composition monthly and I'm frustrated. I pay pickleball and I don't play pickleball because I'm trying to lose weight or do cardio. I do pickleball because it is my joy.

I play about two to three hours, three to five times a week and I've tried to cut back because I know too much cardio is, you know, can hinder gains, but my hormone panel is normal. I walk my dogs, you know, three, four times a week. It's not a fast walk. I get between 13 to 19,000 steps a day. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm pari menopausal, and I'm not eligible for HRT yet. Bairite is normal.

I don't know. What can I do to move the needle? Because I'm healthy. My blood work is great. I don't have any problems, but my body, is my body fat and I'd like to, I'd like it to be less. This answer is actually pretty, this is actually a pretty easy answer. Easy but hard.

Yeah. And by the way, I wouldn't necessarily cut back my pickleball if you're loving it. If you love doing that and you do it for those reasons and you're my client, I'm not messing with that. I am messing with the three times a week strength training, though, on top of that, though. I think that's, I think reducing that and going in a reverse diet is the answer here. Being that low calorie of diet, you've stalled right now. and what we need to do is focus, focus just on building muscle right now.

And then we'll lean out. So right now it's build muscle. So, Susanna, can I be, because obviously we're just on a call here, can I be real direct? Yeah. How long have you been listening to us, by the way? I've been listening to you for about a year and four months. Okay, good. You trust us?

I do. Okay, good. Okay, I'm going to be really direct, okay? So I'll ask you a question. I want you to be honest with me. Yeah. Are you a stress machine? Yeah.

I mean, I volunteer for the Boy Scouts of America. I run a very large Boy Scout troop. I have two teenagers. My husband just retired. So I just got him lifting weights. So, yeah, we're in the thick of it right now. Maybe not babies and toddlers, but insolent teenagers is, you know, it's trying my life. Yeah, good.

Thank you for telling me all that. By the way, that's stressful for anybody. It's a lot of stuff. And God bless you. Here's why I ask you that question. Here's what I see. I see you really trying hard, hard, and eating very little. And the more you don't see results, the harder you try.

The harder you push yourself, the harder you work out. And then you don't see the progress you want and you do it even harder. Now I'm going to give you some good news. The good news is you've built three and a half pounds of muscle in spite of doing a lot of things wrong, which tells me you are healthy. And it tells me you're going to get great results. if you trust us, which is going to go counter to what appears to be your nature, which is when something's not working, I put my head down and I try harder.

It's probably part of your nature. Or do more. Yeah. Okay. You're not wrong. That's not going to work here. It's not going to work here. We can't try harder.

We have to try smarter. If you push yourself harder, you're going to get worse results. Okay. Okay. So here's what you need to do. I'm just going to repeat what Adam said. you need to increase your calories way too low. You're not going to build muscle any more muscle and help with the fat loss by keeping it at 1,750 calories.

Definitely not if we cut lower. Yeah. If you cut lower, here's what will happen. You'll lose the three and a half pounds of muscle that you built. So you're going to need to go up to about 2,050 calories. Okay. And you're going to need to stop doing the supersets with your strength training. Slow it down?

I didn't even see that. Yeah. So can I talk to your trainer right now? Will you show this to your trainer? I will. Okay. Okay. So I love the guy and he's been working with me and I'm the one that does everything really slow.

I milk every single minute out. And I tell him, I'm like, I'm not, I'm just going to wait. And then I do the next thing when I'm ready. That's okay. I don't, I'm not trying for cardio and I turn to him. I'm not doing this for cardio and I tell him that. I'm not doing cardio. I'm not going to. Oh, he has you doing the supersets.

He's having you do the supersets. It's a format. So it's a company that, and that's the format. Oh, wait. Explain this to me. So tell me what this looks like. Is it one-on-one? Is it a group? Explain the workout. So it's a maximum of six people. And it's, he individualizes it. It's three different workouts every week. And it's not, you're not trying to reach the orange zone. I think the majority of the, all of the, clients are over 40 for the most part. Most of these people haven't been in the gym in years and years or at all. So for me being me, and I think I'm very different from a lot of their other clients, I know if I just pushed it, I'm going to rest for a minute and a half to two minutes between

sense. And he doesn't find. Good job. Good job. Can I ask you? I'm listening to what you're saying. but it's nice that it doesn't take a terrible long amount of time, but if it goes over, it goes over.

How long are we committed to this, to the trainer thing? Is it something you prepaid? Did you prepay it? No, I didn't prepay. And I did for like three months, but I'm Lucy Goosey at this point. Could you take the total? because it's probably a less investment than a one-on-one. It's probably why it's a class setting.

So I'm assuming the investment's less. Could you take the total investment that you're currently spending doing three days a week with the group and get a one-on-one trainer once a week? I mean, I have tried that. And I go to the YMCA. I have a membership to the YMCA, which is, you know, the YMCA. Yeah. It's okay. I guess I struggle with like being with somebody for an hour and like chatting it up. I am a very extroverted person, but I really like to put my head down and do my workout. I don't like a lot of chitter chatter and small talk. I hate to break it to you, but the type of traditional strength training that's going to give you the best results is going to give you about two or three minutes in between every set.

Yeah. Two or three minutes. In between every set. Minimum of that. And we'll only need to be lifting one to two days a week. I would love to get you under one of our trainers coaching you through this. You don't need to be in the gym lifting that much. Definitely not that fast. Especially we're going to continue with the pickleball, the steps.

She's also stepping 13 to 19,000 steps. You're so active. That's the pickleball, by the way. Yeah, yeah. That's the pickle ball. It's a lot of stuff. So if you did one day a week of traditional strength training, like real traditional, which is going to look like a set, rest for two minutes, a set, rest for two minutes. Okay.

If you did that once a week, kept everything else up, bumped your calories by 200, you would see your body move in the right direction. Yep. We would build muscle right away. And then through the muscle building process and the reverse diet, we would set ourselves up for fat loss. The reason why I feel so stubborn right now is you're making it hard for your body to get rid of stored energy. It's like, and you could cut your calories lower and lower and lower and lower. But it's going to put you in a bad place. No, I don't want to do that.

I'll starve. No, it's good that you have that attitude. You don't want to do that because that is not the answer. We should be at a place where a cut for you is 2,000 calories. I want you to be all at one point, we'll be up to 2,600, 2,700 calories. With that much activity, that is totally. Totally reasonable. At age 50?

At 5.3? Really? 100. Listen to me right now. 100%. How many people at age 50 are doing two or three hours, three to five days a week of pickleball and lifting weights three days a week with supersets? Yeah.

Your age doesn't. Maybe not anybody. Nobody. Yeah. Your age is irrelevant to me in that situation. That's right. You're doing so much activity. You're doing more than the average 30-year-old is doing.

I was just in Disneyland and I did 19,000 steps in a day. And I went home and had to take. Advil. Okay, so that's a lot to do for somebody. Yeah. You're very active, very active, which is awesome. I lifted weights on my Disney World vacation. I went to the, I got one of my workouts in before I walked there on Epcot. Susanna, Susanna, your go-to move in life is to grind your way through things that will not work here. Okay. It's not going to work. You're fighting your body. if you work with your body, you're going to be so...

By the way, your body is resilient. Yeah. For you to do what you're doing and your hormone panel come back fine, your thyroid come back fine, and you gain three and a half pounds of muscle. Yeah.

I'm very confident that if you did the right stuff, if you worked with one of our coaches and went down to one day a week in reverse, I'm confident in six months, you would come back and say, this is what you're going to say. I'm going to project, I'm going to just make a prediction.

You're going to be like, oh, my God. I feel like I'm doing nothing. My body's responding. This is weird. Stronger than I've ever been, eating more than I've ever been, doing less than I've ever done in a body that I would have never thought I could have had. That's what happens when you do that.

All those things. You know what you should be experiencing right now doing all the stuff you're doing with low calories? You shouldn't have built three and a half pounds of muscle. You should be in like severe overtrained state. So it's pretty resilient. To be fair, I was 230 pounds when I gave birth to my son. I gained a lot of weight when I was pregnant. because I was, you know, you know,

not happy over 10 years ago. I lost all that baby weight, you know, in my 30s, and it came right off with weight watchers, you know, and a calorie deficit. And now that doesn't work anymore. No, but Susanna, were you an athlete when you were younger? No, I was overweight. Oh, wow.

Well, you know what? In my 20s, I did like triathlons. There you go. I tried to cardio my way to keep my weight down. You know what? I was definitely a victim of diet culture. Yeah, but you know what? I'm going to give you a little boost here.

You think you have some really good genetics. You were overweight because you're lifestyle, but did you triathlons? First of all, did just complete a triathlon? That's not everybody could do that. And again, the fact that you built muscle doing what you're doing, this is good news. Yeah. This is, I'm telling you right now, this is a really, you're actually in a good place. The fact that the blood panels come back and you're all healthy and fine. And we just need to make some tweaks.

You're right now, you're working again. against your body trying to get this results. Totally. And yet still seeing some good results, which is crazy. That's what Sal keeps pointing out. It's like you shouldn't have even gained three and a half pounds of muscle. This is a muscle loss program is what you're on. Yes.

You were on a muscle loss program. Yes. I actually was doing more weightlifting before I switch to this guy. Yeah. Because I was listening to your radio and saying three times a week is, you know, all you need. And that seemed to be work. I guess it's been working for me. but I'm yeah like I said the needle isn't yeah the muscles going up the body fat's kind of stubborn so I'd really like to yeah

it's Suzanne I'm gonna I'm gonna send you I'm gonna have a coach call you guys just say would you let us coach you through this please and then let's have you back on in like four months so we could we gold's on the other side so we could brag yeah okay yeah get there man thanks for calling in somebody's gonna reach out to you this will be fun yeah yeah you got it thanks a lot bye bye yeah yeah that's uh yeah obvious yeah totally Totally. It's great. I knew when I, so, shit, so here's the thing, too. This is why it's so important for trainers to ask questions.

Now, thankfully, we have her email up on the screen. And I saw the superset. So I'm like, what kind of a workout is this? I didn't even see that. Yeah. So I'm like, what kind of a workout is this? And then, of course, it comes out. It's not personal training.

It's group training. Yep. Yeah. And they try to make it more like personal training, but it's not. It's not really strength training. No, and the fact that she has to tell her coach, I'm going to rest. Just tells you that he's got him. It's like an orange theory type of thing.

Yeah. They got them in a circuit. And then she's doing a lot of activity on top of all that. And only eating 1,800 calories. I mean, for that much activity. Yep. And teenage boys, stay at home, all that other stuff. It is kind of a miracle that she built three and a half pounds of muscle.

I'm trying to figure out where and how. Bro, I bet you, I'll, I bet you she does the right stuff. She's going to see crazy strength. Yeah. Well, it's the most difficult because when she lost all the baby fat and all that, like, that was her mode of method. That's right. And it worked. Good point.

Now to come back and hear the opposite is, you know, these are the hardest ones to break through. I'm even willing to bet, too. I know she's saying that she rest. It's still like short rest periods. No, dude. Yeah, I'm like making her sit for three minutes because I know that. There's no way. You know, when it was obvious when she's like, I don't like to sit and chit chat.

It's like, oh, you're one of those clients. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm wasting my time. Let's go, let's go, let's go. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Our next caller is Patrick from Indiana.

What's up, dude? How good, Patrick. Hey guys, how are you? Good. How can we help you? Good. Well, it's an honor to be on here, and thank you for taking the call. I'm a high school health and PE teacher, along with a swim coach. And recently, I had a former athlete reach out seeking advice on training and nutrition strategies.

She's now pursuing a high fashion modeling career and sought out guidance to meet specific body standards while maintaining her overall health. She's 5-11, weighs 121 pounds. She's tall, long, limp, very thin, but does have a strong physique from the swimming background. She's aiming to reduce her hip measurement or the widest circle around her glutes from 35 inches to 44 inches by February to meet runway casting standards. Her current routine includes walking for 45 minutes a day, Pilates for one to one and a half hours, five days a week. And on her self-described better days, her diet consists of high protein breakfast, a medium lunch with carbs and protein and a low or no carb dinner. Though she admits that inconsistent eating habits affect her overall body composition,

and she tends to not eat when she gets stressed or anxious. There's usually a praise from her agents and casting directors, unfortunately, but also advise, or sorry, they also advise her walking and taking Pilates over strength training to a, avoid a bulky look on the runway. Saying all that, I'm familiar with performance training and training for muscle building, but I'm kind of at a loss to how to help her with her goals of being smaller, where I don't think she's got all that much room to get smaller.

And then how I can help her with her nutrition and overall health going forward. Yeah, I'd stay away from this. I would stay away from this because your advice to get her to where she's trying to aim is going to be unhealthy. the not good advice. That's the problem with this question right now is to get the goal that she's asking or what you're saying right now, the advice would be to put her in a place or to do things that are unhealthy. That's a tough situation.

She's 5-11-121. And as a teacher, I don't want to get involved in that. What kind of influence do you have with her, Patrick? Have you been coaching her for a long time? Are you like a mentor? You're not going to tell this girl she can't be a runway model. Well, hold on, hold on. Let me see.

So what kind of influence do you have over? How long have you been coaching her? I coach her through her whole high school career. Okay. She's now two years out of my directive. And this really started with her mom reaching out. Okay. Her mom was very concerned of industry is telling her.

Okay. Okay. So it sounds like she's asking for that kind of advice from you. Like help me talk my daughter out of doing this. Well, here's a deal, Patrick. And that's why I asked you this question. There are very few people that are very influential with kids. Sometimes it's coaches.

Oftentimes it's coaches. And you've coached her for years in sports. So she probably looks up to you, takes your advice, so much so that her parents talk to you. So you have a lot of influence. There is nothing you can say or do that will help her with the physical training diet part. this is all 100% going to be about the mental psychological part. Okay, so if there's anything you can say to discourage her for modeling, and you know better than we do, that's the direction I would go.

It's a unhealthy place to be. There is no way to do it healthy. And she's going to be surrounded and living in a world that will value her for her looks and the looks that they value are unhealthy. Now, that would be the conversation I would have with mom. and I would try to discourage her. If that's not, if she's a red light with that, if you're like, yeah, that ain't going to work.

Like she's like running full head steaming. Then you're going to talk to her about the mental aspect. And you're going to say things like, look, exercise is good, eating is good. Here's the things that you need to focus on. Your value is not all about your looks. They are going to try to push you to do unhealthy things. And you really need to consider if the trade is worth it.

Even if you became famous, would it be worth the sacrifice in your health. And so these are the conversations. If you have that kind of influence that I would have with her. And then when she's doing something really unhealthy, then I would point that out.

Yeah, that's not really good for you. That's not a good idea. I think you need to eat more and maybe try to point to your energy and stuff like that. But that's the only direction you can go. There is nothing you can tell her exercise and diet-wise based on her goals.

And you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't want to be liable for that. You don't want to be liable for the guy who tells her, you know, skip more meals. And her agent's going to tell her all kinds of terrible crap. Yeah. Yeah, that's a tough spot, bro.

And our last conversation was that. I did want to reach out to you guys and see what you thought. And you're echoing what my thought to her was because she started this kind of the end of her high school career. And she assured us and she, and I don't know what she was telling her agents and whatnot. But it was performance trip. and she has a natural air about her. But with the kind of getting more serious about it, I have seen her kind of move into that space

and have expressed those concerns to her as well. She's a kid, dude. But look, I'll tell you something right now. You put an adult, a full-on adult in that space, good luck. She's a kid. So she doesn't even know. She has no idea. She may assure you, assure mom.

No, no, I'm going to, you know, whatever. But now you're living in this world where everything that gets praised is terrible and they discourage you from anything that's healthy. And then it's all about your appearance. Like nobody survives that, dude. Nobody. So the conversations would be very, very carefully orchestrated to try to discourage her from going to that space or at the very least recognizing the, the, when her agent

is saying things that are not good. Right. Are you on that? Yeah. But I mean, advice, eat more, lift weights. Like, don't do so much cardio. Like all the stuff. that's going to make her agent go, ah, you're too big.

Yeah, they're going to hate that. Yeah, so it's like, that's what makes it so difficult here is the, the goal directly conflicts with what doing healthy is for her. Like, it's just, for her at 511, 120, probably the healthiest thing she should do is put some weight on. That's right. Put some weight on, build some muscle. Get strong, be an athlete.

And obviously, that's the opposite of what she's asking. Does she, does she, like, is this a trade from athletics? because she sounded like she was competitive. Was that a passion of hers as well? Absolutely. And she was a high-level performer with us. Maybe the conversation is like, hey, like athletics? Don't, yeah, don't trade.

Athletics is way more worth it than modeling. Way more worth it. So maybe that's the conversation. You know, it's like, I know, I'm your coach. I've been with you for years. You're gifted. I think modeling's fine, but I think you need to go into sports.

Like I think you'll be given something up that one day you're going to regret. This is way better. Maybe that's the conversation. I try and sell her that way. I mean, that to me is be the closest way to sell. Let's build some muscle. Let's make you strong.

Let's keep you, you know, competitive. Maybe that's the conversation. And hey, if they like you for where you look where you're at, then fine, take a modeling contract. If they don't, then piss off. And by the way, there's more, there's more potential business opportunities in new media, which would probably

reward an athletic look more than a model look anyway. It's marketable. So maybe that's what it is. Hey, maybe you could build social media while being an athlete so you don't have to be unhealthy. Not saying new media is all healthy, but at least you can move towards athleticism. Yeah. Well, absolutely.

Yeah. Sorry, dude. Yeah, I feel like we failed you right now, dude, but this is such a hard, hard one to handle. So, I mean, you told me what I needed to hear and kind of what she needs to hear as well. So I definitely appreciate that. Would it help if you came back on with her and we talked to her? I could reach out. All right. For sure. All right. Do that. And if she says yes, get back on here and we'll talk to her. Okay. All right, Patrick. Thank you, man. Thank you guys. You got it. As soon as he started that, I was like, oh, yeah, run. Run, bro. You don't want to. You do not want to be in this pickle. But that's why I asked what I asked. No, it's a great question. Because obviously, it sounds like the mom is reaching out to him. And he's coached her for like years. She sounds concerned at least. You know,

And coaches, when they work with, you know this, Justin. You know, I was too, Adam. You guys were both, like, she's like probably looks up to him. And the fact that mom talks to him, he's probably a mentor to her. So he's got some influence. But this is, listen, there was a point, I don't really talk about much on. It's a hard place to be as a coach. But at one point, I got into the pageant space.

I actually trained, I'm not going to say too much. I'm going to call her out. But I trained a top level pageant competitor. And she won a big contest. And suddenly, I had all these moms bring me their teenage daughters to train them for this whole pageant world. And within, like, and within, for five seconds, I consider it. I said, no.

I'm not stepping into this crazy dysfunctional space. There's no way to do this in a healthy way. And they'll totally, they won't want to do what I have. I said, no. It's crazy. Our next caller is Jessica from Florida. Jessica, what's happening? I do, Jessica.

Hi there. Thanks for having me. How can we help you? Okay, great. I'm just going to jump right into my email. So my name is Jessica. I'm five foot one. 35-year-old mom of one. I'm a former group class addict, and I recently completed a year-long bulk.

I really enjoy your podcast, especially the women-focused training episodes and tips that you sprinkle throughout, and I would love your advice on where to go next. So for backstory, I dedicated 14 months on a bulk cycle going from body weight of 118 pounds to 132 pounds, and I focused purely on strength gains, and learning new major lefts. So for reference, before this, I had never touched a barbell before. Super intimidating. And I went from dumbbell pressing 35s

to barbell bench pressing 135 over multiple sets. I went from 80 pound dumbbell squat to 185 pound barbell back squat over multiple sets. And I can also jump up and give you 12 unbroken pull-ups, among other fun stops. Pull-ups? 12 full pull-ups? Wow.

Yeah. Unrooted. Let her finish. Wow. Keep going. Okay. Sorry. No, no, keep going.

I was just blown away. This is awesome. Keep going. Yeah, I'm super excited too. And if you can't tell, my face is super, like, proud of myself, which is a big deal. And, you know, kudos to you guys. It's because I listen to your podcast. It's because I decided, why not try these major lifts?

So thank you. And as someone who went to a former, like, all-female gym, and then I switched to this tiny, you know, know, bro, weight room, just taking up space, it was a huge confidence boost because I listened to you and tried these new lifts. But there is a hitch. That's why I'm calling. So during cutting, I realized I didn't have to cut nearly as much to see muscle definition again, which was good. So I went from 132 pounds to 125 pounds, and that's when I started to see definition. But when I got there, I oddly felt, like, disappointed. I felt like I more or less look the same, but now I can maintain this look at a heavier scale weight and I can eat more food, which is fun.

So my three questions are, the first one is, what can I hope to achieve doing another year-long bulk, which I'm currently in? Can I hope to achieve more muscle mass, specifically my upper body? Or does it drop off each cycle? I'm not sure how that works. And then lastly, probably my most important question is, is it possible to get noticeable changes in my appearance by just focusing on major lifts, like adding the overhead press, the dead left the row that you guys talk about nearly every podcast? Can I drop all other isolated work and just focus on the major lifts? And just for reference, Adam, I believe that you had mentioned in previous episode, the Great Eight program and kind of toying with that idea. And that's the day I decided

to write in and ask for help. Can we just give you applause like, Grace, you are kicking butt. Yeah. You are crushing. And my favorite part of all of this besides. You have abs too, dude. First of all, you look phenomenal. Yeah.

Big. I, the, the, besides the fact that you could bench press 135 pounds to do 12 pull up, by the way, I hope you realize that puts you in an elite category for strength for females. Yeah. Do you realize that, right? In such a short time. There are very few women that you'll ever run into who could do what you do already with your lips. Two clients.

That's about it. It's also a testament to how good of a job you did on the, a lot of people can't stay in a reverse diet and a bulk like that for that long. And allow the weight on the scale to go up that much without freaking them out and going the other way. So the fact that you psychologically push through that process while doing this is just a win all the way around. And you absolutely can do this for another year and absolutely will continue to see great results. Now, you're probably going to like double a strength like you did. I mean, you won't see asthma. I mean, it definitely.

You're not going to go up to 270 on the bench. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to your gains are will, will slow up a bit. But the things that you're reporting, eating more, feeling strong, like all that stuff is going to continue. Yeah.

My favorite part of all of this is that you went into a cut and you're like, this sucks. I think I think I'm going to keep going to the other direction. Were you a gymnast when you were a kid or anything like that? I wasn't. It wasn't until I had my daughter, who's five now, after that I decided to really take my fitness into my own hands. And I went to an all-female gym. And after a while, it wasn't for me and listened to you guys. And I wanted to lift really heavy stuff.

Yeah. So I could see what brings you joy. So I have a program for you that I think you'll love. I think you'll love Mass Power Lift. Ooh, yeah. I think I could see that. Power lift. Yes.

You like to be strong. and I'm going to tell you right. So you do this for a year. You have another two years of crazy gains coming. You've got a good three. The first three years of lifting is when you get like the most. The most gains.

Okay, the first year is the most most, right? It starts to slow down, but you got like two more years. Serious momentum right now. Of some really good gains coming up. Now we just got to put you on good programming. And MAPS power lift, I think you're going to love, and I think you're going to see great results. Very targeted.

Did you report to us how high you got your calories? were your calories before and where are you at now? Yeah, great question. I figured you'd ask. So when I was 118, I was about 1450 calories with 120 grams of protein. And then towards the end, towards the fun, you know, brownie stage where like food really is fuel and I was really trying to pack it in. It was probably close to 2,500 and 2,600 and I had had enough food.

All right. Keep going. Yeah. Keep going. You're in a great place. Yeah. I think you're going to, by the way, after Power Lift, if you enjoy it, I would, if you like to compete, I think in your weight category,

I think you would demolish natural women in a lot of his lifts. Yeah. Really? Yeah, I had, I did not anticipate you guys saying as well. You'd be such a fun client to train. No, if you're benching 135 pounds. Yeah.

First of all, I don't think, I don't know if I've ever had a female client that could bench 150. I've only had a few. That's a lot. Not very many. That's a lot. And they definitely weren't, they weren't your size. That's for sure.

Yeah. So most women that can bench press 135. Yeah. are carrying a lot more weight on them than that. Did you get a dead lift? And have been lifting for a lot longer. So, no,

let's go mass power lift, go in a bulk and have a blast. Go, go get strong. Just do it. I want you to know, too, though. You are also at a place. It's so good right now.

And if you find yourself overstuffing yourself to try and hit calories on time, you don't need to do that. You can just eat to satisfied and you kind of hover around this maintenance place. You don't always have to be in this, like aggressive bulk.

You can kind of just hover like where you feel full, where you feel satisfied, where you have where you have flexibility where you get to have a glass of wine every once in a while or have a brownie every once in a while and you feel okay, but not like you're having to like force feed yourself to get up there. You're at a really good place. So keep that in mind too. We don't, if I was coaching you, yes, I would go. If you're like I'm sick to my stomach.

I'm eating too much. I'm not like still eat more. Get up earlier or get in the middle of the night. Like I'm not trying to do that to you. I mean, you're at a good. Sounds like you're in a place of calories. where it's very sustainable for you for a very long time. And now it's more about finding in a very sustainable good place.

Because you will for the next two years still continue to see results. You don't have to be like aggressive about it. You could just cruise and be at a good place and start to say, you know, change the programming up a little of that. That alone, following like a structured program that we wrote for you that's different than what you're doing right now, we'll already start to give you some nice change. Just that.

And eating where you're at maintenance are satisfied. That'll do it. That'll do it. Okay. Awesome. That's so awesome. I was so afraid that bulking wouldn't get me more gains, but it sounds like I should just keep going. Yeah, dude. This is going to be crazy. That's awesome. You know what I want to do? Can I have you back on after you complete Maps power lift? I'd like to just find out. I'm kind of like curious to see where we're going to go. I know. Yeah, I would love to be back. All right. We'll have you back on. Yep. For sure. We'll send you power lift. One more thing, Jessica, how do you find the culture in the hardcore gym?

How is the culture in there? Just so other women can hear a little bit of it because it's so intimidating. Yes, it is really intimidating and it took me a long time, especially when I had like baby weights on the bar and I was trying to get it, you know, straight. It took me like a month. Super welcoming, super encouraging. I never have to ask for a spotter when I put those 45 plates on, you know, the big wheels on. I immediately retired, you know, former military men would come and be like, hey, I'm going

to spot you just so you feel good. you can push. Like they're so encouraging. And now we like fist bump every time. I miss a day. They're like, hey, where were you?

We missed you. So I want to keep going and I love that community and being strong and encouraged in that community. That's so wonderful. Jessica, I'm going to have Doug also, if you're not already, put you in our private forum.

Yeah, all of our trainers and coaches are in there. So as you're going through this process, if you have questions about the program or maybe stuff nutritionally or you have just post inside the forum. And I'd also like you just to encourage some. the women in there for some of the people. Yes, because you have such a great story.

That's why I want you in there. Get in there and communicate and share with everybody in there. And can't wait to watch you go through this. Awesome. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Got it. All right.

Just for calling in. What a badass. That's, like, I just want, like, women to hear. Like, that is what's possible. She went for building. She went for strength. The result of that, I hope we post the pictures that we said. I know, right?

Did she say 14 or 1,800 calorie? What 14 or 18? She started at 1450. 1450. 1450. Yeah. By the way, here's why I want that picture to be posted because a lot of women will chase the look and not do what she did and not get the look.

Yeah. The reason why she got the look is she chased strength and fed the muscle, which is why she looked the way she did. Yeah. Strength, feeding the strength leads to the look women want. Chasing the look often results in behaviors that don't get you the look and put in a bad place. So super cool. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram.

We'll see you at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, maps performance, and Maps aesthetic.

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