Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2745: Get STRONG In 15 Minutes !

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

MAPS 15 STRONG The MAPS 15 protocol for better performance & results! (1:26) The importance of exercise selection and the winning formula of MAPS Strong. (3:56) Novel exercises that develop muscle. (8:10) The components of MAPS 15 Strong. (9:52) Explaining some unique exercise selections. (11:27) Get MAPS 15 Strong today! (22:39) Related Links/Products Mentioned MAPS 15 STRONG 50% half from Dec. 7th-13th. **Code DECEMBER50 at checkout.** Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Use the code MINDPUMP from Dec. 2nd – Dec. 31st: "Up to $400 off Pod 5 Ultra." The best part is that you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it – – Shipping to many countries worldwide. ** Mind Pump Store Exercise Video Demos – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #1062: Get Strong… Look Better Naked Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Robert Oberst (@robertoberst) 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. Today's episode, new program launch, Maps 15 Strong. If you like, Maps Strong, we got the 15-minute version. We're going to talk about it in today's episode.

By the way, it's a new launch. 50% off. The program's half off. Go to Maps15strong.com. So Maps.15strong.com. Use the code December 50 for the 50% off discount. This episode is brought to by our sponsor, 8th sleep. This is the most advanced sleep system in the world.

Sits on your bed. And it monitors and changes the temperature of your bed based on your sleeping patterns. It uses advanced AI technology to maximize your personal sleep. Go check them out. Go to 8Sleep.com forward slash mind pump. By the way, the sale is extended that they had during Black Friday, so you can get a massive discount. Use the code Mind Pump for that.

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Enjoy the rest of the show. Okay, so this is episode one of four. talking about some new maps programs. So our 15-minute protocol is extremely popular. We've got a few out there now. People love them. So we're going to give you four more. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the first one.

Maps 15 Strong. One of the most popular programs is Map Strong. People love it. They talk about it all the time because the results they get. So we turned it into a 15-minute protocol. That was your best setup? That's your best setup? I mean, this is unprecedented.

We've never done this before. We've never done this. We've never done this. Especially in December. I mean, we normally, we would normally launch a program a quarter. We're going to drop four programs in a month. This month. Which has never, never been done before.

No. And they're all based off of this protocol that we have found a lot of success with clients. And now we have maps programs that follow this protocol. And people love it. So if you look at the, data, and I'll just give a little overview here. If you look at the data on strength training, two days a week, done properly, will give you a good 80% or 85% of all the potential benefits you can get from strength training. But you could also break that up into daily workouts,

which look more like 15 minutes a day, two lifts a day. So the first program we did, like this was called Maps 15, and it exploded. It exploded in popularity. It's the best, one of the best reviewed program that we have. People get phenomenal results. It helps with consistency because it's done daily. People seem to recover really well from it. And from a strength training perspective, when you eliminate fatigue because of the frequent short workouts, a lot of people actually get better results. In other words, it's not a substitute for a better workout.

For many people, this is the best way. Better performance and better results physically as a result of it. Yeah, it's funny because it, you know, we did get pushed back initially because it's the thought of like, well, I don't even really. know if that's enough. I don't know if like me doing that is going to really, you know, move the needle that much when in fact, once people started to go through that and realize, oh, wow, this is a lot of momentum I'm building. I'm able to perform my exercises at a higher level, which also translates into better results and then also recover better. And it's easy to fit in

my schedule, so I'm more consistent. There's just so many benefits to it. Well, this is kind of, this is what led us here was that program, to Sal's point, blew up. It's one of our number one most sold programs and the highest reviewed, like as far as the feedback, which told us a lot. I think it told us a lot about our audience. I think it told us a lot about how busy everybody is. Also, like, low-level stress that probably everyone deals with that this amount of volume was so appropriate for so many people that they saw that great results. Then what followed that, was a lot of people saying, hey, would you make this program into a 15-minute program? And I remember at first a lot of us were like, no, that's ridiculous.

We already wrote that. They can just take some, but people kept asking, kept asking. And like, okay, well, we'll do muscle mommy, which was one of our most popular programs also. Let's do a 15-minute version of that since it was one of the biggest ones we did last year. And so we did that and it exploded also. So that's what led us to this, okay, what if we took the four most popular programs that everybody is asking about and we create a 15 minute version of that and the first one we're dropping is strong which I think is one of the coolest because it's one of the most unique

when it comes to the exercise selection and the idea of creating the 15 minute version of that was to make sure that we include the things that made Map Strong so unique exercise selection wise yeah so it's interesting so it's funny when I think back to when we created the original Map Strong we work with a strong man competitor to create a workout program. Robert Oberus. That would build the or focus on or encourage or strengthen the attributes that a strong man competitor was looking for.

So in a nutshell, you obviously want to be strong, but you also want to have good agility. You want to have some stamina. Because if you look at a strong man competition, it's not powerlifting, right? Powerlifting is you're doing one rep. Strong man, there's different components involved. It's also different kind of strength. There's a lot of posterior chain strength that's involved in strongman lifting. What's the posterior chain?

It's all the muscles on your back. So your back, your glutes, your hamstrings, all the muscles on the back of your body are very important. A lot of core. Core stability and strength. And so when we wrote the program, I thought it would be one of our niche programs. Here's what ended up happening. People followed it and they loved it. In fact, this is one of my favorite programs.

When I followed Map Strong, the exercise selection and the way it was written actually built and developed my body in ways that were surprising. I mean, my back development, my shoulder development, my glute development, my overall strength, like really took off. And Map Strong became super popular. In fact, it was it wasn't just popular. It was very popular with women in particular, which was crazy. I think it's because it trained the posterior chain. Women are writing in saying, this is making my butt look amazing. surprising actually. Yes, and it turned out to be, Map Strong to this day is one of our most popular programs.

So it was a no-brainer that we would make a 15 version of it. I have a couple theories on that. One is to your point that you just made right now, it's posterior chain focus. So the back of the shoulders, the back, there's a lot of core too involved in all this stuff. And then of course the butt gets developed in it. I also think it's because of how many novel exercises are in here. That's right. And one of the things I know that we constantly talk about, on the show is that we're all kind of creatures of habit. You know, even if you're good at periodizing your workouts and rotating through different programs here and there, most really good programs have like your core staple movements that they're all kind of built off of.

And so this program has such novel exercises in them that I think you give, so the average person, even somebody with experience that much novel stimulus in a block. And I think you're going to see great results from that. So I think it's a combination. of the backside, which I think everybody likes or benefits from, right, posterior chain. And then paired with, it has a lot of core stuff in there, too, paired with novelty. It's novelty, I think, is why it had the winning formula. Yeah, now here's what's interesting about novel strength training exercises.

Oftentimes people think that means, and this is true many times, is you're dealing with exercises that have more of an athletic component, okay? And that is somewhat true here, but this. Strength training exercises in Map Strong, I would say, are less of that and more bodybuilding-like. Now, not bodybuilding in the sense that you're trying to get a pump and sculpt and shape the body, but bodybuilding like in that these are hypertrophy novelty exercises. So there's novelty strength training exercises that are great for athletic performance, which is great. We have a program for that.

Different grips, different leverage. Yes, we have a program for that. Maps 15 performance. Like if you want 15 minutes a day and you like athletic performance, that's the performance. Maps Strong 15 has novel exercises that are hypertrophy strong. I mean, they develop muscle. And I'm communicating this so you know what you're going to get. If you're looking for new exercises that develop muscle, not necessarily athletic performance,

although you will get some strength stamina from this program just because of the rep scheme and how the programming is. But if you want development, this is more, and I think that's why it's so popular. People like that. People like to shape it. familiar enough. I know they're novel, but like you understand like this is a squat and this is a press and, you know, they might be a little bit different angle, might be loaded a little bit, you know, uniquely. But at the end of the day, like people kind of know what to do with that. So it's not like as much of a fancy movement like you'd see in an athletic program. So yeah, it's really, it's, it's a lot of familiar list, compound lifts, but done just differently enough to give your body a nice new feel. right. So I'll start by talking about the one component of the programming, which is kind of the rep ranges. This program starts high reps and ends up low reps. Okay. So a lot of times programs are the

opposite where you start in low rep phases and as you move through the program, it gets more high rep. This one starts high rep and moves more into low rep. And a lot of people respond well to that because high reps tends to be higher volume. And as the volume accumulates throughout the program, the reps drop, which actually allows you to recover better. Sometimes what happens with the reverse is people will start a program off strong, move into the last phase with the high reps and they kind of burn out.

Fatigue out, yeah. This one seems to stretch out the results longer. And that's just something that I picked up on with this program because you got less of that way. People would say, I feel really good at the end of this program. Whereas with other programs somebody... That's right.

There was also another thing that was taking into consideration. I remember when we talked about this, what was unique to the way we programmed this with the high reps early. And part of the thought process on that was also a lot of these movements will be new

so giving people more practice to get good at it with a lighter weight was a strategy also. It's like, hey, a lot of these movements will be new. Before we get heavy. And so instead of like right out the gates,

hey, let's give them a five by five type of routine where they're loading an exercise like a, you know, a zer squat or a Z press or a movement they're unfamiliar with, let's start them off with lighter weight, more reps and really practice the movement

so that towards, the end of the program when they've gotten good at the movement. Now they load it. Now they really get a lot from it. So let's talk about some of these exercises, which these exercises are just, they're so, so this, again, I'll say this again, this program was so influential to me that a lot of these exercises have made them into my regular, I've now become part of my regular workout. So Z Press is one of them. If you've listened to the show for more than five episodes, you've heard of bring up a Z press. This is when we were all introduced to Z-Press, was doing this program right here, which,

Which was, I don't know, how many years ago do we write strong? Was that seven years ago? It might have been about seven years ago. Probably. A Z-press is a shoulder exercise, but because of the position of the body, the way you're sitting on the floor, it really requires this really good, full extension at the top and some thoracic or the upper kind of mid-back stability. This will make your delts so pumped that they'll hurt. This is, I don't know why this isn't a more popular bodybuilding exercise. Probably because it's hard.

It's hard. But man, you do this, a Z press because of sitting on the floor with your legs out, having to maintain your posture, that full extension of the top, this is one of those exercises that'll give me a – it'll give me one of those shoulder pumps where it's painful. I love it as a prerequisite to a standing overhead press. Yes. And one of those things like – so, you know, as a coach, you're always concerned about lower back and anything overhead, it's like, oh, my God, we got to make sure we're – bracing properly, they know how to do this and get in right position, have the mobility to at least even get under the bar. And you can accomplish all that sitting down in this Z press position. It leaves you vulnerable with your core is really the only thing that's holding everything together.

So it forces the issue, which is great because now it's like you understand. Like, okay, I can only do this much weight because my stability won't allow anymore. There's a handful of movements that when I've talked to clients that I've trained for years and I still stay in contact with. And I've brought up in the show before my step up to a single leg toe touch as a movement that I would tell clients, especially my advanced age clients, like, just never lose this. Just keep doing this. If you learned anything for me, like just keep doing this movement. I would put the Z press as one of those movements in there for the upper body. So when I think of a movement that will keep good scapular control, good shoulder mobility, good shoulder strength, good posture, good core strength, just simply being able to perform that movement into old age, paired with the step up to a single leg toe touch are like these fundamental movements that will keep all those joints around it so healthy.

It's such a great movement that I wish I knew that movement when I was a young trainer because it would have been a prerequisite to shoulder press. and standing press. I would have taught that first because it forces you into good mechanics. When you get that down really well... Our trainers do that now. Yes. That's why I get such a crazy pump from it.

The range of motion on it is you have to have... You can't cut the rep short with a Z press. You're going to fall back on your back. Well, it also forces this kind of isometric contraction at the top because you have to stabilize before you come back down. And you don't do that. If you ever watch someone's shoulder press, it's like a lot of times don't even get a full extension.

just get it up and then it's close and it's right back down. You rarely ever see anybody press and hold, stabilize the weight above their head. Unless they're doing like an Olympic type of lift, you just don't see that. And so the Z press forces that one of my favorite, all-time favorite moves. Then you have like snatch grip deadlifts. I'd never done this until I tried them with strong. Yeah. And this got my traps and my rhomboids just lit up.

Yeah. It got, this made my deadlifts so much stronger. And it got my midback and upper back on fire. This is a, you know, this is, it's not an Olympic lift, but Olympic lifters will do this because of the, some of the lifts that they do require the kind of a grip and position. But if you've never deadlifted with a snatch grip, that wide, you know, grip and lat activation, here's what's weird. I didn't realize you, I didn't think because of the wide grip, you would feel this lat activation, but it requires this crazy. stabilization. Again, it's another exercise. When I was bodybuilding, I replaced my lap pull downs with this. That's how effective these were. In fact, if you go far enough back on my Instagram, you can see back in my

bodybuilding days when this is how I was snatch grip deadlifting. I was also doing that because I was trying to increase the total volume of deadliftings during simultaneously when I was trying to chase your deadlift numbers. And so I was trying to increase how frequently I was deadlifting, but I still wanted to get my aesthetic training going on. And so I moved to a snatch grip dead left once a week. And oh, my goodness, the pump that I would get on my lots became one of my favorite movements too. So awesome.

Then you have the high poles, both regular and snatch grip. Another exceptional back exercise. You develop power. You get it in your shoulders, your hands. Functional exercise. Yeah. Your traps. I mean, this became a, this, again, another exercise became one of my favorite.

Well, what I like about this is it's, you know, it's, you know, you know, it's, you know, you know, it's power, it's acceleration training without a lot of the really technical parts. Right. So it's enough to where your average person could pick it up and they could, you know, just based on the video, they could sort of complete this movement and get that same fast twitch response,

which gets all the benefits of it without, you know, really having to now learn, like, a whole new language. Yeah, this is another reason why I think there was people got huge results from the program is if you're, if you are training like most people are, which is to look better, like a lot of people do. I mean, I know there's a percentage of people that train for performance, but the majority of people that show up to the gym are trying to lose body fat,

build muscle, they want to look better. And they don't seem to include a lot of, like, explosive type training. And so a movement like this is so unique. And to Justin's point, such a great entry-level movement, of explosive movement that's safe, but then you get to see kind of the benefits that yields and get you introduced to like, oh, this is why explosive training is good for,

me, even though I just care how I look and my muscles look and stuff like that, I can see how that translates to that. Totally. Then you have the zircher lifts. And these, you know, it's funny, when we wrote the original strong, nobody was doing zerchersers or zircher deadlifts. I'm finally seeing people do them now. Now, you would think, why hold a bar and the crook of your elbow for a deadlift or a squat?

Why don't you just put it on your back or hold it with your hands? Actually, what it does is it promotes a little upper back rounding. What I mean by that is not. rounding like the way you're not supposed to, but rather the scapula, the shoulder blades roll forward because of the position of where you're holding the bar.

Not to mention the center of gravity is a little different. That develops the back. Different range of motion. It does. Now, by the way, you know who did Zercher squats and dead lifts all the time? We're wrestlers. Why?

Because you're grabbing someone to pick them up. Yeah. Very functional. Very functional exercise. It emulates the way any of us would carry something in real life. If I were to pick up a body, pick up a bag of dog food,

if I were to carry a rock. Cement. Yeah, if I were to carry anything, nobody in here that I'm aware of would load it on their back, like we do back squats, even though we know how valuable that is. And so I love the fact that it's training a more realistic way that you're going to squat. But it really, by the way, Zer-Dedlifts hit the glutes very uniquely. So one of the things, my wife noticed when she did them, and these are some of the reviews that we get. It's like, oh, I never felt deadlifts on my glutes so much. Zerter-de-lifts.

Loading it totally gives you a different sequence. That's right. And two, you know, it's very core heavy. You fuel that a lot with stabilizing your core and so you benefit from that. Do you think that because where the bar path and where it is in relation to the glutes versus if it was on your upper back? So if it's on your upper back and you hinge and deadlift, the bar's way over here to your hips when you do that versus on a zircher, the bar is really close to it. I think so. I think so.

But everybody feels it more than the glutes. with the Zercher positioning. So, yeah. And then you have your sled exercises, which I love. I think the sled is one of the most underrated pieces of equipment in the gym. It's so underrated. It actually should be in everybody's home. It's top 10 for sure, maybe even top five.

It's phenomenal for developing the lower body. There's no negative portion of the rep. So it doesn't cause a lot of damage. It's very functional. It strengthens your foot all the way up to your hips. It builds muscle. It adds stamina. It's conditioning.

Super useful sled work in here. Well, what's great about this too is I'd say one of the most common questions that we get from people is how to program the sled into a program. We put it in. And so we put it in. So here's, you know, if you've ever asked that question before, I mean, that alone makes this program worth it for you. It's just because you can see how we build that with all the other traditional type of movement. Then you have some pen lay rows in your, by the way, we're not listing all the exercises that are a maps. These are the unique ones.

These are the unique ones. There are lots of other exercises that are traditional. Remember, you're doing basically a workout every single day for 15 minutes. So there's way more exercises than what we're talking about. We're just talking about some of the unique ones. Penley row. Love penelay rows. Penley rows developed the back.

They develop power. They develop the glutes. It's very functional. Actually, get good at Penley rows. You're good at rows. Period. End of story. This will make you so strong at rowing.

Another good way to get that fast, which response. Just going to say, it's a number of. Another introductory to explosive training in a safe way. So what a great way to introduce another explosive movement for somebody where they're resting the bar, the weights back down the ground, gathering themselves, exploding it back up, then resetting. That ability to be able to reset like that in a safe position to teach people and show people the benefits of explosive training.

I think another great movement. Love it. Then we have the Sven Press. This is great for shoulder stability. It's great for connection. Bodybuilders actually love Sven presses. They've been doing them for a while for developing the chest. It was interesting when Robert Oberst said he wanted this in there.

I'm like, I thought that was a bodybuilding exercise. It's like, dude, it makes my shoulders really healthy. So I'm like, all right, cool, we'll put it in there. Zotman curls, if you ever have issues with your elbows and hands, it's also great develops the upper arm really well. I'm starting to see people do these in gyms. There's a great exercise. A lot of people don't do.

And then we have your trap bar farmer walks, which, We programmed them in. So again, people will ask us, same question, you know, Adam, how do I program farmer walks? They're in there. They're in there and they're programmed and they're all set. What a great way to really, like, increase your load as well. Totally. With the trap bar because, you know, typically you're grabbing independent dumbbells or cattlebells, whatever.

And you can, you know, you can lift a substantial amount. But with the trap bar itself and it all uniform, it's like you can do that quite heavy. Now, MAPS 15 strong. Again, it's 15 minutes a day. It's two lifts a day. It's three months. This is a 12 week full on program. And because we're launching it right now, again, we've never done this before.

We're going to launch it at 50% off, which we typically don't do. We launch a new program. It's typically like 20% off. This is half off happening right now. So if you like the protocol, you like Maps Strong or you like the 15 minutes, go to Maps15 strong.com and then use the code December 50. That'll give you the 50% off during the launch period. So go check it out.

Merry Christmas. 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.

Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body. body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now, plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes

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