Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2750: The Best Workout Program For Busy People Over 40

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

MAPS 15 FORTY PLUS What is the least I have to do in the gym, as a 40-year-old, to reap the most benefits? (1:18) The effectiveness of the MAPS 15 protocol. (3:05) How we designed MAPS 40+. (4:48) Exercise substations in this version and what else is unique. (6:16) Reach 80% of your ultimate potential with this programming style. (10:24) Why is this program perfect for this demographic? (12:03) Related Links/Products Mentioned MAPS 15 FORTY PLUS 50% half from Dec. 14-20th. Code DECEMBER50 at checkout. Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code for 5% discount gets automatically applied at checkout. ** Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2230: How to Optimize Your Training, Diet & Lifestyle After Age 40 Less is more: To build muscle and gain strength, researchers say train smarter—not longer Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources    

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. We're releasing a new program. Another Maps 15 protocol, Maps 1540 plus. In fact, the time it takes you to listen to this podcast, you would have completed a full

workout for the day. That's what's great about this program. Also, because it's a new program that we're releasing, it's half off. 50% off, go to 1540 plus. That's 1-540.com. Use the code December 50. That'll give you 50% off. This episode's brought to you by a sponsor. PRX performance. PRX makes great home gym equipment, the best home gym equipment you'll find anywhere. You can finance it, by the way, so you can pay monthly like a gym membership, except it's in your garage or your basement or your home. Go check them out. Get 5% off. Go to PRX Performance.com forward slash mind pump. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpump store.com.

I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpustore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. So this is the second in a series of episodes where we're launching new programs. These are 15-minute protocols over some of our most popular MAPS workout programs. The first one was Maps 15 strong. Now we got for you. You ready for this?

Maps 1540 plus. Maps 40 plus, very popular program, especially for people in that age category. Well, now we have the 15-minute version. We're talking about it in today's episode. I actually think this one makes the most sense. Yo. They're all great.

I'm excited about this one. Yeah, they're all great. They're all awesome and can make a case for all of them. But this demographic? Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. And this one speaks to me.

This is how I've been training for quite some time now. And I feel like a lot of, a lot of 40 plus people can relate to this where it's, hey, I still want to have a great physique. I still want to be strong. But I've got kids. I've got a career. I've got a big, I've got a family. I got a hobby.

I've got these other things in my life that I'm not that vain as I was when I was 20 that I care so much about what I look like. And so I'm driven to be in the gym every single day. But I still would like to look, be strong and all those things. So my attitude has been for quite some time now, like, what is the least I have to do in the gym to reap the most benefits? Like, what is the least amount of effort that I have to put in the weight room, which I enjoy doing, but I just enjoy doing a lot of other things even more?

And so what does that look like? And I feel like a lot of other 40-year-olds can relate. to 40 plus year olds can relate to that. And so a routine that is very minimalist, but still a big bang for your buck, just makes the most sense to me. Well, the other thing, too, that we need to talk about, which was surprising, although when I look back, it shouldn't have been, is it's also just extremely effective. What you're looking at essentially with the MAPS 15 protocol, okay, because there's

different workout programs within this protocol now. The original MAPS 15 was just MASS 15 minutes. But then we went with the muscle mommy 15, strong 15. Now we're at 40 plus 15. The protocol has you doing strength training every day. The difference is you're doing 15 minutes a day of strength training. This number one improves consistency. It's great for building behaviors around exercise.

If you miss a workout, not a big deal because you did five or six more. And when you look at the data, the data now supports this. When it comes to strength training, this dose for most people is actually the most effective. In other words, you'll see great strength gains and muscle gains following a protocol like this. And you'll know right out the gates, you'll follow it by week two. You'll see that your strength has increased. So it's just a very effective protocol. By the way, this would be akin to doing two 45 to 60 minute workouts a week.

So instead of lifting weights or strength training twice a week for 45 to 60 minutes, you're doing a little bit every day. The volume's still there. It's just spread throughout. It actually just freeze you up. So the whole rest of the day, you can even build up your activity. You could build up your community. You can build up all these other lifestyle elements. I feel like that's why this pairing is so cool, I think,

because we did a lot of emphasis on the lifestyle part with trying to kind of prescribe that on some sense with 40 plus. And to have that integrated now with this protocol makes a lot of sense. Well, Maps 40 plus was designed with this in mind. is okay, can we, let's create a effective strength training program that, uh, that creates all the benefits of strength training. Muscle, shape, sculpt, boost the metabolism, hormone balance, all the wonderful benefits you get from strength training, mobility, uh, you know, getting rid of pain. Let's create a program that gives you all those benefits of strength training for a category

or a demographic of people who tend to fall into this age category of over 40. Now, what does that look like? we have to consider a few things. There's typically some exercise modifications, so we didn't take out the most effective exercises. We just gave you versions of them that reduced the risk, but continue to reap the benefit. So we did that. We also included lifestyle tips, supplement tips, nutrition tips, or guidance that are more specific to this demographic. So that was the original 40 plus.

Then we come out with Mass 15. everybody loves it. It's our most popular program ever. People continue to want to use it because they get great results from it. And then the messages come in, can you make a version of Maps 15 that is 40 plus? Or that was strong or that was Musil money. So here we are now with Maps 1540 plus. Again, two exercise a day with all of the lifestyle recommendations baked into this program.

Now exercise wise, just give an example of some substitutions, a deadlift is such an effective. exercise. One of the best exercises you could do. It's a fundamental, you know, kind of human movement. You want to be good at deadlifting, but a straight bar deadlift is far more technical, meaning there's a higher risk of doing a straight bar deadlift because of the technicality involved than let's say a trap bar deadlift. So that's one example of how we replaced or changed in exercise. It's still a deadlift. We just moved to a trap bar, which has a much lower risk profile. You just bring the wrist down a bit.

I mean, like flat bench versus like incline, for instance, and just setting you up, you know, for success, but also not quite as much of the impact on the joints. That's right. So box squats is another good example, which I now do. I almost only do box squats instead of traditional squats because it gets rid of the change of momentum at the bottom, which requires just another level of mobility and stability. It allows me to continue to train really hard and get great development. It's almost the same as a traditional squat.

I could make out some differences, but they're both squatting movements are very valuable. So just some examples of some of the exercise substitutions. And then there's a special emphasis on areas that people in this demographic tend to need to focus on, like the core, strengthening and stabilizing the lumbar spine because low back injuries and pain is so common as you start to get into this age range. That's strengthening. Now, by the way, why does that happen?

Because as, this is what the demographic, this is what we're doing right now. Yeah, sit. You just sit way more. Like when you're in your teens and 20s, you tend to be moved more. Then you get in your 40s. Most jobs these days are desk jobs. You've probably been sitting at a desk now for at this point, you know, 10 years or more. And the muscles of the core atrophy.

And the result of that is back pain. Dysfunction. Disfunction. And so we've included in this specific core exercises to address this to strengthen and stabilize the lumbar spine. I actually think one of the most valuable parts of this entire program was the effort that we really put into the lifestyle checklist. And the reason I say that is just because when I think about all the clients that I trained

in this demographic, most of them had this kind of low level stress, chronic pain, not the best sleep. And so, you know, as much and as important as the squatting, the deadlifting, all the movements are, a lot of those things were the things that I ended up speaking. speaking to a lot of my clients to at the beginning the most, right? It was like, I can give you the best exercise in the world, but if we don't address the stress, we don't address the sleep, we don't create some new behaviors in your lifestyle to mitigate all that stuff.

We're not going to reap the max benefits from a lot of these ones. So a lot of those types of considerations, you know, and like to bring it up the trap bar, it's, you know, when I think about those clients in that, in that demographic, you know, knee stuff, low back stuff. And so we'd have to modify exercises. And so the thought process behind some of those movements were thinking like that. It's like, you know, it doesn't mean that every single person.

It doesn't mean that there's somebody who could be following this in phenomenal shape that goes, oh, I'm going to do regular deadlift instead of a trap bar. We've made that a consideration considering how many of our clients in that age group would have to start there. And so I think starting there and then the lifestyle stuff to me is what really moved the needle for those clients. No, you're 100% correct. you know, morning routine, things you do before bed. There's diet recommendations in here. There's general diet recommendations.

And then ones that have more of a consideration for this demographic. Supplement recommendations are in here as well. There are certain key nutrients that tend to be more likely to be deficient in that you'll find as you start to get into middle age that we put in there. And so what you have is a complete program. that fits everybody's schedule that is also extremely effective from a strength training perspective. Now, I do also want to be clear because I am a trainer, this isn't all your activity. Okay, we do put in recommendations for activity outside of this, but it looks like walking. Okay, that's it.

So strength training is great to elicit or to cause changes in skeletal muscle. We want more strength, more muscle, and then all of the downstream effects of that, the improvement in metabolic rate, the insulin sensitivity improvement, the hormone balancing that comes from that, of course, the functionality, and then of course what everybody's interested in the look, muscle looks very good, it shapes your body, makes things firm, it's just, it's very good for you to have muscle. This covers that. You've got your strength training done with this.

And by the way, the data now supports this. A protocol like this with this volume will give you 80% of anything. you could ever expect from strength training. And I don't mean you'll get there 80% as fast. You're going to get there just as fast. What I mean is your ultimate potential, let's say it's 100, you can reach 80 of that ultimate potential

with this 15 minute a day program. So what does that mean? That means you follow this. When you get to the point where you want to squeeze out of the 20%, go for it. You can add more workouts and more volume. But most people, in my experience,

the vast majority of people, if they reach that point, they're like, man, I am so happy here. Yeah. My life is so balanced. I don't want to go to the gym more to squeeze out to the 5 or 10% because it's not worth it. This is perfect.

I feel amazing. That's what you'll get with this protocol. Then on top of that, make sure you stay active with your walking, which we put in those recommendations as well. And then you're totally, totally set. And we used that Adam too in terms of this being probably the most appropriate demographic to have a 15-minute version.

When we have callers call in, this is almost always what we recommend to. to these people because of, you know, just their, their lives. I just think that most people, not everybody, but I think a lot of people at this point, at this stage in their life, is probably has a career, has kids or had kids, maybe even by them,

maybe they even have grown kids by this time, but they're either have kids still or had kids, probably have hobbies. 40-something, you really know who you are, the things are into, which you want to. Vanity starts to drip off, drift off a little bit. You know what I'm saying?

It doesn't mean you don't care about how you love. Ego not quite as crazy. But you're not obsessed as insecure about it as you probably were in your 20s and maybe even in your 30s. And so, yeah, I just think that this, I mean, at least it really speaks to me. It really speaks to me where I'm at my journey. And I think that a lot of other people can relate that like, you know, my family and my career and the other things and my hobbies that I love to do are a much higher priority than

the gym. My gym can, people will be so surprised how little time you have to spend in there to reap incredible benefits. And I think that that's been missold for a very long time.

Especially if it's been something that's been kind of a part of your life. Like if it's been something that's consistently been in your life, like to maintain that muscle mass or build that muscle mass on that program. Well, what a lot of people don't realize

is that the reason why exercise causes change is because it's a stress. And if your life, is already stressful, you've got a mortgage of kids, a job, then adding stress to, you have to be very careful because if that stress is higher than your body's ability at that point to adapt, you're not going to go anywhere. In fact, if you keep pushing it, you'll start going backwards. This is why the MAPS 15 protocol is often what we recommend to people who are consistent with

their workouts. In fact, I would say we recommend it more to those people. Where they call in, they're like, man, I've been working out. five days a week. I spend an hour in the gym. My body's not budging. My body fat's not going the right direction. Like, what do I do? And we give them this protocol. It's like, you're doing too much. Try this. And oftentimes pair it with an increase in protein and some calories. And then watch what happens. 60, 90 days later, they come back and like, I can't believe you were right. My body is now finally responding. Well, that's why I think this is such a great program for this demographic

and pretty. I think it's a great protocol for a lot of people or most people, but especially this demographic, I think that they respond best to it for the reasons that you just said. Totally. That you've got all these kind of low, even if your life isn't crazy stressful, I don't think I have a stressful life at all. You got a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of stuff going on. And a lot of things that are far more important to, you know, spending hours in the gym

every single day. And so if you relate to that, then this is for you. And then not only that, but this ends up blowing those people's mind because, let's say, they have been their whole life consistent and they train five, six days a week. And they really just aren't seeing progress, but they maintain a healthy fit body and they don't realize that they don't need to do that

to maintain that. And what ends up happening is they reduce that volume down to this. Suddenly they respond. They get better results. They get back more time. They get better sleep, better recovery. And it's less like, so I'm excited to release this 50-minute version. So my, what's really cool is that because we're releasing a string of these,

people have found so much success with this protocol that they now have multiple Maps 15 programs they can follow. So they don't have to leave the protocol to try a different Maps program. They have the different valuable programming of our most popular programs in that protocol. That was a lot of the thought.

I mean, just, you know, getting feedback from, you know, a lot of customers and a lot of people in the forum. And it's like, yeah, I mean, people were sort of Frankensteining their way through it. to begin with. And it's like, well, let's just put it together. So, you know, specifically, like, here's how we would do it and run it. Perfect. So here's what we're going to do because we're releasing it. This is a new thing for us. 50% off. So if you want to get this program, Maps 1540 plus,

you go to 1.540.com. So 1540.com. And then use the code December 50. And it's 50% off. Also, if you want to find us on Instagram, come look for us. We're at Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there. 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 mindpumpmedia.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 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 Mind Pumpmedia.com.

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