Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2757: When Life Gets Busy, Your Fitness Should Shrink…Not Disappear!

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

When Life Gets Busy, Your Fitness Should Shrink…Not Disappear! The fallacy of the "all or nothing" mentality. (1:36) Ah-ha moments when it comes to the mentality around doing shorter workouts. (6:22) Three general categories of how you use exercise. (10:18) What the data says about this style of exercise programming. (14:11) Consistency is KEY! (20:48) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get a free Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase! As always, LMNT offers no-questions-asked refunds on all orders. The 8-count LMNT Sample Pack doubles down on our most popular flavors: Citrus Salt, Raspberry Salt, Watermelon Salt, and Orange Salt (2 stick packs of each flavor): Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump MAPS 15 Powerlift 50% half from Dec. 21-27th. Code DECEMBER50 at checkout. Mind Pump Store Walking 8,000 steps just 1-2 days a week linked to significant health benefits Maintaining Physical Performance: The Minimal Dose of Exercise Needed to Preserve Endurance and Strength Over Time 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 talk about what you do with your fitness when things get real busy. Don't stop working out.

There's a way to maintain your fitness. In fact, many of you will progress by following. the advice in today's short and effective episode. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Element. This is an electrolyte powder. You add to your water. There's no sugar nor artificial sweeteners. And it's got the right amount of sodium.

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Also, brand new program, Maps 15 PowerLift. It's a powerlifting program. It's only 15 minutes a day and it's 50% off. Go to 15Powerlift.com. That's 15 powerlift.com. Use the code December 50 for the discount. 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 Mind PumpStore.com.

I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to Mind Pumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. One of the biggest challenges when it comes to fitness is when your life gets busy. When things start piling on, what do you do? How do you stay consistent? Are you going to lose your gains? We're going to break it down for you.

We're going to give you the answer because when life gets busy, your fitness, it just shrinks, not disappears. I like this conversation, especially at this time of year. I think that... Good time of year. And we're probably all somewhat... Maybe not Sal. Justin and I and Doug, maybe. More likely guilty of this, right, at some point in our lives where, you know, the holidays come around

or a season of your life just comes around and you just... You're off the wagon completely. I mean, I know I have admitted that this has been me for most of my 20s into my early 30s where it was just on and off, on and off. Either I'm all the way on or I'm all the way off. And I'd say one of the best things that's happened in my 40s is I'm never fully off. You know, even when I, even if I communicate, I'm off, there's like, I'm still making better food choices. You know what I'm saying?

Like, because of the fact that I might not be as consistent inside the gym, I'm finding, I'm walking more and I'm making different food choices where it was not like that for me. It used to be, and I don't know if you guys were like this, it used to be like, I'm on the diet, I'm training. And then when I'm off, it's like eating terrible. All or nothing. Yeah, all or nothing. And so I think this happens to a lot of our clients, especially around this time. Yeah, there's the all or nothing mentality is a very difficult one. It's responsible for a lot of people losing their consistency.

And I think it stems from the belief that if I'm not doing, if I'm not following my normal routine, let's say. then what's the point? I'm not going to, you know, I'm barely doing anything. Is that even make a difference? And so I think it's important to understand that something is definitely better than nothing, number one. Number two, and we'll get to this in this episode, in order to maintain the progress that you've made when it comes to strength training in particular, very little is required. So in order to progress, there's a certain amount of training volume. you know, sets, reps, intensity that's required to cause to get your body to progress,

which it's less than people think there as well. Nonetheless, there's a certain amount, right? In order to maintain what you've built, it's a remarkably small number. The data on this is pretty amazing. So that's something to consider. The other thing to consider is momentum. This is a real thing, right? We've all experienced this, that when you keep the ball rolling, it's easier to maintain.

But when you stop completely, it's like really hard to get back into the swing of things. In fact, I'm using verbiage that people use to communicate this all time. We all know what that's like. So when you look at the biggest challenges that people run into when it comes to their fitness, it really is consistency above and beyond anything else. It's a lack of consistency. And so understanding that something's better than nothing, that very little is required to maintain, and we'll get to that.

The data shows that quite clearly. And that momentum is a very important thing to consider. then you can start to piece together what this would look like when life gets busy. And I'll add this. When you do this right, it's actually a paradigm shattering moment for you because you start to realize, wow, I actually might have been doing more than I needed to to get great results. Or I can't believe how great a shape I'm maintaining by doing so little. This blows people's minds.

Yeah, I think back in the day, like Adam, I would go, you know, with that mentality where it was like I had to get the craziest workout and be consistent with that. Otherwise, there's nothing there for me to show up for. And so I just don't think it was communicated that like you could go in and you could actually like lift weights, but you don't have to do this elaborate long workout that was super high intense. It was just like that was the overall thought process was like either you're training for some kind of event, activity, sport. you're trying to get like in incredible shape or there was nothing really just about like maintaining a level of consistency and a good lifestyle good habits and making it a healthy practice and so I think

like you know this shift and this mindset shift of like just being able to show up and like make sure my muscles are getting attention and keeping my metabolism you know where it's in a good place and then you know receiving a lot of the benefits and maintaining what I have is is huge. I'm curious if you guys over the years have like, if you can, distill it down to just a couple or handful of things that have really changed in regards to this conversation for you. Like I could think of like two things that were like life changing for me in regards to the topic that we're talking about right now. One of those is kind of to the point that Justin's making right now. It was giving myself the permission that maybe I'll just go do. three sets of squats, that's it.

Mm-hmm. You know, and that, and that's totally okay. That was unheard of as teens, 20s, and early 30s. Like, just, I would never, it was like, I gotta go do this whole. My friends were to the scoffed at me. Right, to the point where maybe your workout takes an hour, if you only have 30 minutes, you're like, why can't go? I'm not going to go.

Right. Or even, or if I didn't have the energy to, to, to finish a full 45, 50 minute workout, I wasn't, then I wouldn't even go either. Mm-hmm. So, whereas I was like, you know, it's been a few days as I've lifted. I don't really feel like lifting. I don't have a lot of time.

All the excuses running through my head. I'm like, you know what, though? I can go get just three sets. It's done. And just giving myself that permission was this huge unlock for me. One, it unlocked this realization of like, to your point that something is better than nothing. It also unlocked like, oh, wow, even just that little bit of a stimulus maintained a lot of us. It didn't progress me.

I didn't just switch to training that way. and I got bigger, stronger, leaner, and all way better. But it's like... You didn't get out of shape. I didn't get out of shape. Yeah. And it was like, oh, that's a huge win. That's all I had to do to just kind of main weather the storm.

The second thing was not telling myself, I can't have this. I can't do that. But being aware of what I was doing training volume-wise. Like, when I have a lot of muscle, when I'm built, like I feel like Sal was built right now, I've got a lot of metabolic flexibility. I can enjoy the bowl of ice cream. I can eat out. I could do a lot of things and still look really good and maintain.

Because my training volumes there, my training intensities there. And I love those things. And I can have that kind of balance. When I'm not, when I'm giving myself permission to only do three sets of something. And I may only train once that week or with that. I can't eat like that. And so what it looks more like is like, you know, if I really want to do that, I need to do these things.

And so I just tell myself that I don't tell myself, no, I can't have it. I say, well, you know, I didn't train this week. Like, if I really want to eat that, then I should definitely make sure I get in the gym tomorrow. And then I'll enjoy that thing tomorrow after dinner or whatever the thing is. And just that balance of not just, like I say, eating like an asshole whenever to end. And the permission of something is better than nothing is just, is completely changed how I maintain this kind of fit, healthy physique always. even when I'm quote unquote off.

I like to think of it these days is like I'm keeping myself somewhat game ready. And that's just because I like to get after it. I like going super intense and hard. But those are all periodic. Like I do seasons of it. So I try to at least like, you know, do a period of a month, two months or so like throughout the year where I'm just like really getting after it. but I don't want to the friction that the difference between not training going into then going into intensity it's so substantial like I'm not I'm not going in my joints and everything I'm just

you know aching and I'm and I have like all these extra days I have to recover just to just to keep going so for me it's like it just keeps me uh keeps that momentum there but also like I I feel like when I want to, I can really express, you know, that side of me. Well, you could, okay, so you could put exercise into three general categories of how you would use exercise. The first one is just activity. So activity, there's health benefits to activity. The data on this is super clear.

Like if you move throughout the day in an appropriate way, like you're not hurting yourself and beating yourself up, but you're moving throughout the day, you're much healthier than if you didn't move throughout the day. So there's activity. Then you have athletic performance. Exercise obviously is used for athletic performance. Stamina, endurance, agility, power, all those different things. And then you have, which kind of is connected to that second category, which are adaptations.

How does exercise get my body to adapt? What am I looking for? What am I looking for from a results perspective from exercise? So we're going to take athletic performance and adaptation. will combine them. Most people listening to this are not necessarily working out for dramatic athletic performance. Most people are looking for some kind of a fitness aesthetic change, body fat, muscle, health, longevity, mobility, that kind of stuff.

So those are the two categories. Activity, adaptations. So activity, very easy, everybody, move throughout the day. Okay, so if you want to improve your health, just don't sit down all day long. Okay, so what does that look like? I don't know. Get up and walk a few times. times a day after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

This just tackles it greatly for most people. The data shows that about 8,000 steps a day, if you were to track your steps, gives you the vast majority of all the results we'll get from daily activity. So if you want all the health benefits of being active, you try to aim for around 8,000 steps a day. Some people would say 10,000, but the data seems to show around 8,000 is great. So there's that. Okay, now let's look at structured workouts, adaptation.

It's not the activity part that I want from those. So this is where people get confused. They're like, well, I got to do a lot all the time. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. No, no, no, we got the activity part handled. What we're looking for now are adaptations. What do I want? What kind of adaptations am I looking for from the exercise, you know, type that I pick?

Well, what I want is something that's going to change my body composition. It's going to build muscle. It's going to help me burn body fat through a faster metabolism. It's going to make me look better. It's going to reduce pain. It's going to improve mobility. And so that's strength training. Strength training does all those things with little time spent,

or at least in comparison to other forms of exercise. Like if you want to build muscle, boost your metabolism, burn body fat, strength training does that with way less time than other forms of exercise. Okay, so now let's get to the time. How much time do I need to devote to strength train to maximize its effects? Well, I'll tell you what the data shows. Two days a week. Always surprises.

Two days a week of a full body workout will get you about 80. percent of all the results you'll ever get from strength training your entire life. Three days a week will get you 90%. So three days a week is 90%. So think of all your, think of your body's ultimate potential. I'm not talking about 90% of the speed of results. Don't confuse that. So your progress, if you do this right, is as fast as it's going to be.

If everything's dialed in, there's a speed and that's that. You can't move it any faster. 90% refers to your potential. So think of the most muscular, most fit you could ever possibly get you'll get 90% of the way there with three days a week you'll get 80% of the way with two days a week and most people listening to this right now would be ecstatic with the 80% I don't I don't I would I would go further and say most people would be ecstatic with 50% right of their 80% potential right right so it's so and this is just just 100% right if you think

of yourself right now think of the ultimate body you could ever have and you got 80% of the way there with two days a week like that's a pretty darn good first Great. Okay. How much do I need to do to maintain that? Let's say I've been working out three days a week. Let's say I'm in the 90 percentile category. Like I'm consistent three days a week strength training. It's 45 minutes to an hour each time and I've been doing it now for a long time. Now I go into a difficult season. And I'm like, okay, I can't, I don't have the time to go to the gym three days a week consistently or the energy. Maybe I have a lot of stress. Maybe I have a new baby. Maybe I had a new job. Okay. Holiday season. Okay, should I just not go because it's not worth it? No, here's what the data shows. One workout a week. One workout a week. And I'm not even talking about like a long workout.

30 to 45 minutes. This is what the data shows. One set per body part in that workout. Not three sets. One set. One set of squats. One set of presses. One set of presses.

One set of curls. One set of trisive extension and ab exercise and you're out. That right there would keep your progress. other words, you won't go backwards. You're going to maintain what you've built. That's how little you need. So when things get busy, that's what it could look like. Here's the other option. Here's, in my opinion, the better option. I like this next option I'm going to communicate because in my experience as a coach, this is the one that's most likely to be consistent. It's the one that builds the most momentum. And it works with most people's schedules. This is just the better option

from just seeing it in practice. Instead of doing that one workout, week or two workouts a week, 15 minutes a day. That's what you do. You do two exercises a day, one exercise, two exercises every day. And if you miss one, big deal. You've got five more days. And you can fit it anywhere. And you're done. And you're done. And for most people, not only does this prevent going backwards, most people actually go forwards with this because you could progress this. What do I mean by that? Not by doing more time. You just get stronger. Yeah. There's also another benefit that is, I think, greatly impacted that the studies don't show. Because in a controlled study where we just compare the total volume and sets,

and if it's equal in one day versus stretchover, the results are pretty similar. But behaviorally speaking, when you've trained a lot of people and you see what happens, and including yourself, if you've ever measured or paid attention to this, the guy or the girl that just does one or two exercises in the day, pay attention to that day, the rest of that day versus the day that you just didn't do anything. So let's say that person does that full workout just on Saturday because that's only if it's, That's fine. And then they have a great,

great workout that day. But then pay attention to what Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday looks like activity-wise for that person. A lot more, it tends to be a lot more difficult

for that person to actively go out and take the walk or choose to do something more physical labor-wise versus the person that's created this habit of like, every day I just do a lift. Every day I do one or two lifts. And that person who does that, they tend to do more around the house.

It's easier for them to get up and go take the walk. And so the study doesn't tell us everything because they'll compare those two groups. You're right. And they'll control all things. And they'll say, oh, it doesn't matter. You can do all that volume in one day a week or you can split it out. And it's relatively close to the same. So do what you like. But it's not real life. But what I'll tell you, and I'll agree with Sal on this, is that I've seen it not only in my own life, but in through clients, those people that just make a habit. And that's what this goes back to the two things I've distilled this down to is just giving myself the permission to go do exercise. That's right. I can just go do one thing because what I found was after I did that one,

then I was like more, I was more likely to help around the house and clean. I was more likely to choose to wash my own cars that are going through the drive-through car wash. I was more likely to go take that 20-minute walk, then sit on the couch and walk. And that starts to add up and compound. It provokes you to move more. Yes. It really does. It does. I'll sell it even more, right? So let's say you're listening to this. You're like, okay, things are busy. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do 15 minutes a day. I'm going to do one or two exercises every day. Here's what it ends up really looking like, four or five days, because you miss a couple here and there. You got a crazy life. Stuff's going on right now. Fine. You did four. Let's say

you did four. Let's say over the next three months, you consistently did four 15 minute workouts a week. That equals 60 minutes. Physiologically, four 15 minute workouts spread out over four days is less stressful in the body than one one hour workout. Same time. One one hour workout produces more stress on the body. But here's the kicker. The one that produces less stress on the body actually gives you better results

because of the less stress. Not less stimulation, but lower stress. Splitting it up actually produces also better results. Then from a momentum perspective, I don't think it's hard for me to sell this, but if you got up and did one exercise a day or two exercises a day every single day, it's easier to stay consistent than it is to remember

to do that one, one hour workout a week. Now, I'm not saying you can't do one, one hour workout a week. Again, that's perfectly fine, but doing a little every day seems to work much better. And by the way, the data that I'm pulling from when I say one workout a week will keep your progress, these were college-aged athletes. These were advanced people.

The more advanced you become, the harder it is to maintain that level of muscle. So the more muscle you build, the more strength you build, the harder it is to keep when you're at that level. Okay. So that study points to one workout once a week, one set of body part. I'll tell you this. I've seen other data that looks at more regular everyday people,

and it looks more like one workout every other week. So where am I going with this? Something is not just better than nothing. It's great. Well, I think it actually provides the discipline to get closer towards your optimal dose, which I think people don't even think like that or consider that. What is moving me the furthest in this pursuit? Because it's adaptation at the end of the day. It's not just healing.

That's right. And so you can throw a whole bunch of variables at your body and you can hammer your body all you want. But are you progressing? Are you getting further along towards? your goal. And I think, you know, taking it and peeling it all back to, you know, a more simplified approach, you can always build from there. It's like you can squeeze out more potential. But like a lot of times what people find is that, you know, a lot less is actually more beneficial. You know, one of the most challenging parts about this podcast for 10 years is overcoming

how loud the noise is in the fitness space. because the hype, the motivation, the beast mode, the all out, the no days off. It's this, it's, it's, it's sexy. It's, and it, it speaks to a very small percentage of fitness fanatics that are in this massive echo chamber that are all doing shirtless selfies and motivating each other. Meanwhile, losing 80 to 90% of the population who go like, either go, I don't, it's not for me. That's not for me. Or they try it, get their ass handed to them, realize they can't or they won't do that forever. And then they quit and then they think that that's what you have to do.

If you want to look like that, if you want to be like fit, you got to do all those things. And in reality, it's not. It's much simpler. And there's a lot of, there's the, we get from other fitness people a lot of shit for this conversation because it's, it's counter to what everybody else is preaching and saying. It's like, oh, those are the guys that the no cardio guys are the guys that are always telling people to do less. That's such a blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's crazy how many people they are losing that will not step into fitness because they make people believe that you have to, it's got to be this crazy sacrifice, this crazy amount of stuff. And I was guilty of this as a young trainer. I mean, I bought into the hype train and that was our main job. Our main job was just to motivate and hype people up to keep them motivated to show up to the gym every day and do that hour workout and can get on that cardio machine and sweat it out. It was just like, man, there is such a better, more appropriate way to do this. And it's actually nowhere near as hard as we make it sound.

The hardest part is just being consistent. And just like this whole beginning of this topic is like, how do I make it just not disappear? How is it just always a part of my life? And part of the way you do that is by not overcommitting to something ridiculous. that 90% of people wouldn't sustain. That only 10% of the population can continue to, and committing to something that is very realistic. And listen, if you want to end up doing more down the road,

say you've been doing the two exercises a day, four days a week, and it's been a year and you don't miss and you've been consistent. Like, cool, add 10 more minutes. Do another two exercises and progress and get that extra 10% you're talking about on the table. But why don't you first prove yourself that you're the person who doesn't exercise every day, or at least tries every day and then gets at least four a week

and do that consistently and watch the return you get. Well, there's a reason why we have a lot of fitness programs that we sell. And the ones that are the most popular, and I don't mean just the ones that we sell the most, but the ones that people follow most consistently and report the best results on are the 15-minute versions of our programs. We have one right now, Maps 15 powerlift. It's a powerlifting program.

meaning you're focusing on building strength in the big three plus the overhead press. So the goal is to hit PRs and all those. But it's organized in a way to where it's 15 minutes a day. These programs, and we have many others, are the ones that people are the most consistent following and we consistently get the best reviews because it's the most appropriate. For most people, what do I mean by most appropriate? Gets you the best results. In fact, Maps 15 power lift is 50% off right now.

You can get it at 15 powerlift.com. The code is December 50 for that. Also, you can find us on Instagram. We'll see you guys there. It's 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, 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 Super Bundle 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.

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