Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2768: The Surprising Benefits of Gaining Body Fat

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday's Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page. Mind Pump Fit Tip: The Surprising Benefits of Gaining Body Fat. (2:27) How Adam is supplementing EAA's to get the benefits of a high-protein diet. (18:17) Trainer wisdom. (24:13) Rocky Marciano's RELENTLESS training routine. (35:53) Silly things we did without tech. (41:32) Is creativity lost with the youth? (45:27) A scary lie women are fed. (49:14) High-protein snacks that taste GREAT! (56:43) #Quah question #1 – Do you guys have any thoughts on "butt-wink" when squatting? I've heard there's not a real concern. (59:40) #Quah question #2 – Should rest periods strictly be measured by time, or can heart rate be a gauge as well? (1:05:00) #Quah question #3 – Will taking creatine with or close to the consumption of caffeine make it ineffective? (1:07:15) #Quah question #4 – The front of my hips are perpetually sore lately. I foam roll and stretch (not as much as I should). Any other tips to help? (1:10:20) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get 20% off Kion at getkion.com/mindpump Visit Paleovalley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Discount is now automatically applied at checkout 15% off your first order! ** January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2664: Why Gaining Body Fat May be the Key to Getting the Results You Want & More (Listener Live Coaching) Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #2432: The Truth About Essential Amino Acids with Angelo Keely The STORY They're Telling You Is A Lie | Dr Jordan Peterson & Mind Pump 2217 Rocky Marciano's Training Routine (24-Hour Breakdown) Rise of the SHEconomy | Morgan Stanley Gen Z's Radical Role Reversal: Women Want Careers, Men Want Children Visit Fatty15 for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit with code MINDPUMP ** Mind Pump #2497: The Amazing & Weird Side Effects of Creatine MAPS Prime Pro Webinar Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson) 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, we answered listeners questions. We did that at the end of the episode, but that was before or after, excuse me, the intro. Today's intro is 57 minutes long.

This is where we talk about fitness and fat, loss and muscle gain, nutrition, family life, always a good time. By the way, if you want to write in a question that we might pick for an episode, go to Instagram at MindPum Media. That's where you can post it. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Keyon. Today we talked about their essential amino acids.

If you have trouble hitting that really high protein target and you know the benefits of getting a lot of protein, try supplementing with essential amino acids. It's super easy. You take six capsules a couple times a day. a lot easier than eating another meal. And you get a lot of the same benefits. In today's episode, Adam talked about how he's using Keon amino acids to supplement so he could get the benefits of a super high protein diet.

Go check them out, get 20% off. Go to get keon.com. That's G-E-T-K-I-O-N. dot com forward slash mind pump. That link will get you 20% off. This episode is also brought to by Paleo Valley. Today we talked about their meat sticks, which are delicious. They're not dry.

They're 8 grams of protein each. And we talked about their bone broth protein, which is, by the way, the best tasting protein powder I've ever had in my entire life, minimally processed. The chocolate tastes like chocolate donuts. Anyway, go check them out. Get yourself a discount.

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All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindpumpStore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to Mindpumpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right. says lose body fat right body fat's bad for you got to get rid of a rid of it but did you know that for

some people they need to gain body fat in fact there's benefits to gaining body fat for a lot of you fitness fanatics there's a good percentage of you watching right now we're going to talk about why some of you this is exactly what you need to do get better you know uh obviously we've we've talked not only on live callers we all have experience uh with helping people with this. This has been confirmed by my experience many, many times over. But I'm actually not familiar with the research around it. And do we have studies to show that the person who's trying to gain body fat,

or I mean, excuse me, gain muscle from a certain body fat percentage versus another? Is there, is there, is a research to support what we're talking about? Not specifically. but what they do find is that athletes or higher performers and strength tend to carry more body fat than what social media will have you believe is a good body fat percentage. So like athletes who do really well and perform well, right, if you're an athlete, you're not on stage posing, you actually have to perform well. And athletes that do really well, generally male athletes, will fall around 15% body fat,

which is 5% higher body fat percentage than the 10% that social media will have you believe is a healthy body fat percentage. But I'll speak to some data, though. Going too low will destroy your hormones. This is both true for men and for women. For men, when you start to go below 10, for most men, you go below 10%, you see depressions in testosterone. Testosterone starts to drop. in women, in particular women, when their body fat percentage starts to get in the teens,

especially as it starts to get, let's say, below 18%, what you start to see are reductions in fertility, lost period, estrogen progesterone levels start to get out of whack. By the way, this is a common thing. If there's a woman listening or watching right now who used to be an athlete and compete and, you know, push yourself, you know how common it is that you lose your period because you're just working too hard and getting too lean.

And that's just because hormone dysfunction. So for many people, in particular, fitness fanatics, in particular, people who are so afraid of not being ripped, so afraid of not having definition. When I've worked with people like this, oftentimes the goal is to gain some body fat. And through that process, we get all these, great results. But until we gain body fat, it's like, it's like impossible. It's like pushing a

bolder uphill. So I think that's obvious. Um, when you talk about like extremely low, because in unhealthy places, say male at six or lower tends to be unhealthy and you could have hormonal stuff. Women under like 17, 18 percent, similar to have a story. But I wonder if there's more of a correlation to just, just, okay, a person who like, let's say, the guy who just, because we've talked to someone just recently like this, the guy who just hovers around 8% body fat and he's struggling to build muscle, but he's always hovering around that. Well, that also tells me another thing that if he's always hovering around there, he's always around maintenance, maybe he's lucky a slight surplus, but mostly in a deficit.

And I wonder, Sal, there's actually less of a correlation to the body fat percentage and more a correlation of just what it does to just be in this caloric surplus for an extent. in a period time. And the reason why I say this is because coming from someone who's been as low as 3% body fat, some of my best gains came right after that. I didn't, I didn't have to be all the way up 13, 50%, but what I was definitely on was a massive calorie surplus after that, right? So coming from a deficit of six to eight weeks coming into a show and then coming out

of a show where I'm feeding the body consistently over my. maintenance every day, man, I just, I felt like I was growing and building. And so, you know, do you think that maybe there's, there's more there than just, oh, it's there's this, it's a, it's a body fat percentage thing. Because you're right. Obviously, when you're, when it's so low, you're going to have hormone. But if you're in that kind of like, say, 8%, which some people can carry themselves there and be hormonally okay, do you think maybe it might have more to do with the, the added 12, 13, 14, 15% body fat from the guy who's used to being an 8% has more to do with all the extra calories he's has to...

Oh, of course it does. Body fat percentage is just the thing that we can measure. Okay. But by the way, it's actually quite relatively rare for a guy who just always is at 8% have ideal hormones. And what you'll see when they go up to 10 or 11% all things being equal is their testosterone levels go up. Generally speaking, there's always those genetic anomalies.

I know people will point out pro athletes that eat skittles and, you know, all day long. Like, those are just freaks of nature? Those are the only ones I saw that did well. It was the genetic anomalies. Honestly, like the guys that were,

like, low body fat just would gas out real fast. And, you know, you'd see, like, power differences completely, too. And I just, I think it's one thing to, like, I think the perspective of that look

and that physique is very misleading for a lot of people with, when you're talking about, performance, obviously. But that's the general consensus from like your average person is like, well, this person's like ripped or look at fights. Like when you, when I bet on fights, I'm not betting on the super shredded guy. I know.

Typically. Oftentimes, you have to have a little bit. No, that's, that's, that's not a bad point. And to be quite honest, the people that I've, that I've almost always had to coach this to were women. Almost always. There's been a couple guys out there. But it was the women who, you know,

strength trained, did everything right, but their calories are always so low. They're always walking around 15%, 14% body fat. You know, I've had a couple cases, in fact, of women. One of them worked for me years ago, and she got a bone density test, and it came back, and she's strength trained all the time. And it came back, she was borderline osteopenia. And she was like 30, she must have been 32. And she was so flabbergasted.

Like, how can I have, I've been lifting weights for years. And it was like, you got to eat more. And you can't walk around at 15% body fat. You got to bump your calories. Right. And then again, if you look at like the data, like, if you look at really, if you look at people who are underweight versus people who are a little bit overweight, a little bit overweight, a little bit overweight, a little bit overweight.

Okay. And being overweight but strong is actually better than being a little underweight and weak, far better from a mortality and health perspective. Here's some other benefits that you'll notice by. As if this is you, and you're listening to this right now, you're probably, you're just going to, you're scared. Or you want to skip this. You're like, I'm not going to do that.

But hear me out. Here's what you'll find. You'll find not just you'll build more muscle. Yes, you'll gain body fat and you'll build strength and muscle. You'll also notice things like your joints don't hurt. Like suddenly your joints feel better. Yeah. That's a big one.

That's actually the first thing that the people that I worked with noticed is that their joints just started feeling all better. Hair and libido too. Hair and libido were also big. Hair, nails, and skin. Massive difference. And libido. I know a lot of people that, like both men and women, when they run low calorie like that

or low body fat percentage for an extended period of time, it crushes that libido. By the way, I want to be clear with that, too, because it's not just the hormone depression that causes the low libido, because that for sure will. But you talk to a male bodybuilder on animal. Anabolic steroids. They got high testosterone. That's right. And their pre-contest, no libido.

No. Yeah. So they got all the testosterone in the world. No libido. Yeah. Their body fat percentage is too low. Katrina always hated the last two weeks. I know.

I'm serious. She just knew like the last two weeks. I'm just turning into a monk. And which is crazy when you think about that to your point is because I'm taking exogenous testosterone. So if you have low testosterone. So if you were to go test my levels, it's like I've got higher than normal average in me, but yet my libido was crushed during that time.

So it's a protective mechanism. You need body fat on your body. And it's not just the extreme lows. I'm telling you, like, if you're a dude and you like always walk around 9, 10%, and you want to make more progress in the gym. And you eat clean. You probably already do, right? You're 9, 10%.

So it's like, I don't need to tell you don't eat junk food. Track your body fat percentage while continuing to eat healthy and start eating more until you see your body fat go up to 11 and 12%. And tell me you don't see. crazy strength gains in the gym. Right. I know. It's one of those things you're not going to know, so you actually go through that process and fuel it. That's right. And then, you know,

back to what you were saying, Adam, about, you know, when you come out of a show and you get some of the best gains of your life. Yeah. This has been documented. We know this. Endurance athletes were the first ones to really take advantage of this. Bodybuilders do it to look a particular way on stage. But we know when you deplete and then

you refit, you know, bodybuilders is called refilling. Yeah. Endurance athletes know this. Your body will store more energy. Yeah. after a rebound. In other words, if you're an endurance athlete, you deplete your carbs,

then you eat more carbs than you did before. You'll actually go into your race with more energy stored than you would have had you never depleted and then refilled. Because your body has a kind of least rebound effect. I believe, I don't know any studies that show this,

but you talk to anybody who's ever experienced this. There's a muscle building rebound effect as well. I experienced the same thing out of it. And I did it naturally. I did it when I got really lean for the original maps, Anabolic, Like I did a photo shoot with Doug.

I got my body fat down like 4%. And after that, I just fed my body. And I just built. Like, it was like two months of just, especially that first four weeks. It's like I just built muscle. Do you feel like, too, that there's something to do with like the receptors, like your endergen receptors have been like kind of ringed out or something like that? It's like a sponge.

That's dry. And then it's just, then all of a sudden you feed and it's just like they're just, they've been waiting and starting for that. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Sleep is another one that you'll notice. In fact, As you get leaner, and I've experienced this also, for me, it's right around 7%.

For other people, it'll be a little higher or maybe lower for some genetic anomalies. But when I get down below 8, 7%, I don't care how great I'm doing everything. My sleep starts to suffer. I just don't get as good of a sleep. We talked about joint pain, skin, hair, nails. Mood changes big time, you guys. You just feel much better and healthier. And it's only relatively recently that we attributed being shredded to healthy.

This was almost never the case in human history, especially not women. When women chase a six-pack, some guys can get a six-pack and remain pretty healthy and keep their hormones somewhat okay. I'm talking about natural men. You know, you could do it if you do everything right, all this stuff. Women who chase a six-pack, you're pretty much guaranteed to screw up your hormones. hormones. Like, it's going to happen. In fact, I just saw somebody post in her forum. It was a woman. She posted a selfie. She's like, I know it's unhealthy. I know it's this. But I want to see a six-pack. And it's like, well, I mean, she knows. It's going to mess things up. But chasing that is, is not a good idea.

Now, to the average person, you probably don't need to hear getting body fat because you're probably dealing with too much of it. But there's a lot of fitness fanatics where when I would coach them, I would tell them, you know what our goal is? I got to get your body fat up. Yeah. I got to get your body fat percentage up. Otherwise, this isn't, this just isn't going to work. Yeah, very much is something that becomes an obsession. It's, it's that one thing that you think is going to give you the ultimate version of you to display, right? You know, it's funny.

It's tough to add to say, add more. And you know what's funny about this? When they do surveys, broad surveys on men and women and ask them, what is the ideal physique for the opposite sense? So funny you went to that. Because it was going through my head. It's just like, it's so funny how both men try to achieve this look that women don't even think her very charged. And women do the same thing that want to add.

Like, I've never met a guy who's just like, oh, yeah, I like my chick to have like six-pack ab, hockey abs. Yeah, I don't know one guy's ever said that. And it's rare that you hear that from it. You might hear some girls that like that really Jack looks like to, but it's pretty rare that they like that. I think if you stay in like our fitness fanatic space, then you'll get a little distorted, you know, opinions.

Yeah, yeah. But when they do, like, these big surveys, what are they fine? women like men who are fit around 13 to 15% body fat. Yeah, 12 to 15. I think is that I'm not moving. Fit and healthy. Now,

here's why our preferences are wired for fertility and health and longevity. That's what it signals. Yeah. So it's like the strong, able-bodied, fertile man. That's the look I'm looking for. It's not 9%. It's not a 9% body fat percentage. Men typically like a woman around 22%, you know, fit, healthy, as high as 25, 26%.

in many cases, not the, you know, 17, 16%. Now, if you ask men, like you said, what they would want and women, what they think they want, it's this really strange, distorted look or whatever. But I'm just encouraging, I'm trying to encourage people, you know, listening right now, you know who you are. Yeah. As you're listening to this, like, you might want to try going through a season, a 60-day season of, you know, being healthy, exercise.

And then your goal is like, I'm going to get my body fat percentage. And then let me track all the other stuff that happens and see what this feels like. You'll be blown away and it may just change your relationship with fitness. The paradigm might just shift completely. In a direction that'll be really, really beneficial. Have you, since we're on the subject of body fat percentage, have you dexter scanned lately? I've never done a dexter scan. Oh, you haven't.

No, never. Oh, I don't do it either. No. Well, I know you don't. I don't think you can't. I don't even think you do what it was. You know? Shut up, dude.

Are you saying this, because of the conversation earlier about our combined body weight? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Adam's, like, really concerned about our general weight. There's an, there's an off-air joke that, uh, for 10 years now,

we've all, we've, we've been able to maintain the same body fat percentage the same weight roughly. They combine. Combine. So in other words, one guy gets smaller, someone else gets bigger.

Yeah. It's always the same. It shifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we have this kind of average of it. Otherwise it throws off the universe.

We need the balance. So the off-air joke is I've been texting south. I was like, hey, bro, it's your turn to get small now. You need to lead out of a little bit. Because I'm trying to get jacked right now. So it's going to throw off our average, you know? I was like trying to trim me a marathon ride. Yeah, I was like otherwise.

I said otherwise, Justin needs to get anorexic. Because if he doesn't, if you don't get smaller and I keep getting bigger, it's going to throw the universe off. Justin has to be beefcake, dude. His head's too big. You look like a lollipop. I'll be the weirdest-looking skinny guy you've ever seen, dude. He's a big, he has to fit, dude.

I'll do it next to you. I've never done one before. So I want to go do it right now because I always like doing it when I'm on, like, when I'm just on the front end. Because right now you're trying to do what, build? Yeah. Which is so, can I just say this right now? I'm just to say it on air that it's so funny to me how fast you build muscle.

If you just started, it looked like you gained 10 pounds. So, no, honestly, literally, literally you look like you put on six pounds. Think about his environment, like, the last few months. what you've been going through and now of a sudden you're like shifting back at the health yeah I just have been able to

You usually like three workouts But yeah you do gain muscle real fast Super fast dude I'm on like three weeks right now So I'm on three weeks of like really good consistency Really good diet And most importantly

Better sleep I wouldn't even say so I scored my first 80 I got an 89 Which was like one of the best scores I've ever had And I got an 82 In the last 45 days

Those were the first time I've ever touched to 80 70s has been good for me. I've had some really rough ones. And so, and I think the hardest part, what's new, it's so funny, doing this for so long, every time I do this, it presents different challenges. So my challenge this time is like,

I got to really be careful. I'm really dancing this line of like, I'm, you know, we're all like this, right? We're getting that rhythm and I want to go, you know what I'm saying? Right. So, and for me, I know that my sleep has never suffered so much. And I haven't, and I'm not getting. good sleep. And so I'm very mindful of like, you know, really keeping the volume kind of low

and the intensity moderate while I'm going. I also know, too, when I first get back in, like I was just, today's my day in the life. So I was just sharing the story with, you know, I'm back to taking the key on pills. The amino acids? Yeah, the amino acids. And so. Because I'm going to, probably one of the reasons why you're gaining, first of all, you have a lot of muscle memory, but you were eating, I would assume, under 140 grams of protein day. Oh, for sure. Maybe even around 100. I'm so, like, I, you know, and maybe I'm different than a lot of people, but when, when I'm not

paying attention to really tracking, and I, and I'm always a meat eater. Yeah. Like, I mean, I love it. You'll just eat two meals. Yeah, but exactly. I'll eat, I'll eat two meals that are 50, maybe 60, a big, a big steak meal that's giant is 60 grams. of protein. And so I easily, and then maybe I had like a bar or something that it. So you're talking

about, you know, 50, 50 and another 20 grams in a, in a day is like a could be a very normal day. And I'm a 230 pound guy. Like, so that's way under my protein. Have you been able to hit 200? No. I'm not even close to 200 yet. So I, well, 150 to 200 would be like a perfect day. And I've had a couple that are around there. But so right now, just the aminos, three times a day, I take them.

So when I did that, when I did that makes a big difference. When I did that whole comeback series, and it was after that interview we did with Keon, and, you know, he really sold me on the science, especially if you're somebody who's low,

and I know that's me. And so what I'll do is I'll be taking it three times a day until I start getting really consistent. with around 200. When I get around 200, I'll probably scale it back down like once a day, I'll still take them.

And then once I start pushing $2.20. But that's, I'm away is away from like, like where you're at right now, where you don't miss 220. What is it? Is it five or six of the day? It's six is what it calls for.

Three times a day. Yeah, yeah. And I do three times. Yeah, of course that makes a big difference. I mean, no, it helps while I know that I know that I'm running low. Plus I need all the help I can get recovery-wise right now with my sleep not optimal. It's hard to eat a lot of protein.

People don't understand. I think everyone. I think people overestimate. Because you eat, you eat the meat. Because, again, I'm a meat eater. I can easily go eggs in the morning, a meat lunch, and a meat dinner. And so you and your head, and I got full, right? I'm full for the day.

So someone might go like, oh, that's a lot of protein. For me to hit 220 every day. You have to go after it. Go after it, and I have to have at least one 50 gram shake a day. I tried doing all food. So hard. Bro, it's like another job. It is.

If you over 200 pounds. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I'm over it. It's like, bro, that's a lot. So at the end of the night, I'm like, every night, I have a shake to hit that number. Because otherwise, it's like, okay, cool, I'm going to go eat another 40 grams of protein right now.

I don't want to eat. And so people understand too. It's hard. So people understand too, because I know there's, there's the other side of the spectrum of just longevity and health. Sure, sure. But I mean, I'm in the game of like,

you made the comment on it, right? Like, you guys, part of why I rebound so fast is because I check the boxes and I do it in this. It's like, of course, I can get away with only hitting 150 and still get in shape and be healthy and do those things. But I know if I'm hitting optimal protein, I have the perfect balance of intensity and volume. I focus on my sleep.

I'm taking my, if I do those things and I do it appropriately, to me, the real art of this is what's taken me decades to get there is the, the real right balance. of volume and intensity. It's really easy to be off or on. It's real easy to like, I'm not doing shit. I don't do anything. And it's real easy like,

I'm motivated now. Headphones in, go get it. And I'm chasing that sore feeling where I've learned, and it's taken me a lot of years of the wrong way or overdoing it to like knowing that sweet spot

of like just get in the gym, touch a few of the compound lifts that I need to. Don't even have to like push it really hard. It's like, man, my body's coming off a crazy layoff and recovery. I don't need, I don't need much. And then just keep, and then just a little, every time I come back to that exercise, a little bit more, a little more. Yeah, I'm doing, what I'm starting to do with myself is one week out of the month,

maybe is when I push it with the volume a little bit. And I don't mean a lot. Like, I'll push it a little bit with the volume. Three weeks out of the month, I kind of cruise. And you know what the result of that is? Better results. Just way better results. And I'm literally like having to track it because my tendency, like a lot of people who love working out, is to make it, you know, every week push it a little bit.

Because I love it. I'd rather spend time in here. I'm having a good time. I'll listen to music. I'm doing my thing. So now it's like, nope, stop right there. Five cents. That's it.

I got to stop. Five cents. And get creative with it or whatever. I really feel like most people fall on either in the spectrum. Very few people have got the right down the middle. And I'm not even claiming that I think I got it perfect. It's like I've gotten better at getting right there because it's either you're the, and this is for all coaches that are listening to is learning to, to figure that out with your clients

because you're going to get both clients. You're going to get the fitness athlete addicts. And you're also going to get the people that or the couch potatoes that have a hard time being motivated just to walk. And it's like understanding that about who you're coaching shifts the way I coach completely. Totally. And so I, and. And so I know that about myself that I've teeter on the athlete intensity, want to get after it person.

And so I know that when I get in that mode, it's like I've got to be constantly reminding myself. Well, what people need to understand about athletes even. First off, there's a, there's a bias with high level athletes. What you have with high level athletes are typically younger. They typically, this is what they do. This is like their job. And they're genetically gifted on top of it. And they've been doing it for years.

So let's start there. but even those people have an in-season and off-season. So when we look at an athlete's training regimen, whatever's posted, we're typically looking at their in-season. I guarantee nobody trains like that all the time. You can't. They'll injure themselves. They've figured this out, by the way.

So their train doesn't look like that all the time. In-season may look crazy. Again, we're dealing with a pro-athlete, we're dealing with a genetic anomaly. They're young. But their off-season is very, very different. You can't train like that all the time. So even for fitness fanatics who are very consistent, you've got to think to yourself in-season, off-season.

And in-season is a lot shorter than off-season is most of the year. That is me you don't train. You just approach your train differently. And then strength training in particular, we're just trying to build muscle and build strength. If you want to build endurance and stamina and resilience, it looks different. So then you can add more volume. Then you can add more whatever.

And then if you're in a particular sport that requires mental toughness, requires resilience, well, then there's a value in beating yourself up. But it's not for the physical physiological strength gains. It's about like I got to be able to take punishment. Yeah. Because my sport involves that, you know. When you're, with Justin, when you're, when you're good consider yourself, you know, inconsistent or not doing, not like in your rhythm or what like that, what does your training look like? because you're different than how I train and how we train.

So with that, like, when you say you're, like, off or I'm not training consistently, what does that look like? It's, I mean, for me, it's definitely low volume. So I go way low volume if I'm, like, off. And it's really just, it's kind of somewhat of a maintenance mentality to it, to where I hit, like, a few of the major lifts. Like, it's either squats and overhead press. It's like, it's something that's a big move.

And then I'm I'm concerned more on like movement at home and all day. And so I'm like more focused on the dogs, the kids, the this, the that. Everything's outward focus. And it's not like inward focus. I just, I'm really just like touching weights. And, you know, it's not like, it's an everyday thing. I'll do like one thing. Yeah.

You know, or like two things. Yeah. And it's like, it gets to a point where I don't feel strong anymore. And I feel kind of like doughy. And I'm like, dude, no. I don't like this. And then I'll get after it and then get consistent. I'll go through spurts of like, you know, two, maybe three months.

And then I'm just, I start coasting again. And I'm like focused on my kids. I'm focused on, you know, the dogs. I'm focused on like moving life over to a new house and, you know, all this other stuff. But, yeah, I've learned to kind of just navigate through that a little bit better by at least making sure, like, I get some gross motor movement in there that's, like, substantial. You have a pretty healthy approach. What I noticed about you, Justin, is it appears, correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like what you do is you make sure you can still do certain exerciser movements. Yeah.

That's your test. Like, can I still do this? Can I move well? It's very performance driven. Like, yeah. In that regard. I've noticed that with you when you're coasting is you'll go out there and I can tell what you're doing is you're trying, can I still do this? Can I still move?

Can I swing the clubs? Oh, no, this hurts a little bit. And then you kind of ramp it up a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And then I'll see a weak spot or something like that. And then I'm like, oh, hyper focused on that.

Dude, go ahead. No, I just, what he said is something else that as I've gotten older or I've been better about this. And I don't know if it's just trainer wisdom is that when I'm when I'm often inconsistent, I do the same thing is that I'm better. Like if I'm if I am not disciplining myself to get in and get those lifts in that I know are so valuable, then I at least go, okay, this is the time where I choose to clean the car. I go do more yard work. I go do more physical activities. And so at least him creating movement. I never want to be inconsistent in the gym

and then also sitting on my couch. I never do that. I feel the same way. I feel like that's like, hey, you didn't go lift today? Like you need to go for that walk or that hike or oh, hey, you need to go outside and go do yard work. Like that's, I've been good about that as I've gotten older of, okay. And then also even with the flexibility in the diet, it's like, you know, I like there's a lot of foods I like and I enjoy. When I'm strength training is when I get to do those things.

when I'm sitting a loud signal that my body needs to build muscle. And you allow those. Yeah, then I allow these extra calories. And I still make the same rule of still go get that protein first. And then if I still want that treat tonight, I'll go have that treat tonight on top of that. But go get that first because I have strength trained. I know I send a loud signal to build muscle. So I know a lot of those extra calories you're going to go to some good work versus, okay, I'm not straight training at all.

All I'm really doing is walking and moving around. Not the time. Because all that extra walking and moving around, which is not a lot of calorie. burn, I could easily wipe that out with one dessert afterwards. And so that's my way of going like, if I really want that, I better get in the gym tomorrow and then I'll have it like that. That balance has kept me in that teens, always in the mid-teens body fat percentage. And I probably fluctuate from, you know, when I'm on it, you know, 10% when I'm off

of it, 15, 16%, and that's always been, no matter where are my training volume is. No, that's good. You know, it was the biggest game changer by far for me was fixing my gut health. That was such a game changer. It's like, I can't even, when I think back. I haven't heard you complain about that a long time. It used to be the first year, a couple years of our podcast was all about. Bro, for probably seven years, I was on and off, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but never good.

Yeah. And it's such a game change. Like, I can eat now 3,500 calories of, you know, healthy food. it doesn't bother me. My gut health used to bother me so much that even if I ate clean, healthy things that I didn't react to, if I just ate too much of it, it would cause problems. It wasn't until I treated myself for parasites. That's what made the biggest difference. You think that was the biggest was the parasites? Because I know you've always been good about the probiotics. You know, you've been good about it. All those helped. Everything helped.

Okay. But I, there was definitely parasites. I went on, and I don't recommend this. This is not recommended for people. But, you know, I tend to do my own thing. I did fendizol and Ivermectin, which, you know, both those together would pretty much kill anything you have. And it's, again, Fennbendazol is for animals, but, you know, hey, here we go. I did it anyway. And it worked miraculous.

And then there was a gut healing process after that where actually had probably some damage that had to heal. So it just got better and better and better and better. To the point now where, you guys, if I, I mean, I still can't have dairy, but that's been an issue since I was a kid, if my gut is off a little bit now, it's better within a few hours.

In the past, if my gut was off, I was like, here I go, two weeks of bad gut. Yeah. And it was for two weeks. One bad issue would last me two weeks. Now it's like, you know, I'll be okay by this afternoon. Which is so wild. It's so wild.

What I feel like I see in you is that I feel like I can tell now because I've known you for so long and you used to be your guts. So with that, you get, you get, you get a, you get puffy face like I do when you eat, when you eat off, but that's all you get. Yeah. You don't get like a, I'm screwed up glove. I can see, I see your dick, I see your neck in your face. So hold some water away.

I'm like, oh, somebody enjoyed himself yesterday. There's that one stupid dude. We interviewed Jordan Peterson. We pinned it at the top of our Instagram. That's when we came back from London. Yeah. And I was eating all kinds of beans on toast and pastries. It's all kinds of gluten.

Yeah. Every time I look at that video, I'm like, dude, your face, bro. But I mean, what I mean, that's what I think is got to be great for you. We had beer. Because I react that way. I've never been really bad gut stuff, but I definitely will hold water. Like I'll hold water. Oh, I'll feel it.

I'll feel my hands, you know. Yeah, yeah. You take your sock off. You got a little mark on your leg. You're like, what's going on? When you see the impression of your sock? Like, just like smashing. I can't tell you how many people that clients suffer from that, that have no idea that

that's all that is. They think that they got fat or they did something wrong. It's just like. Yeah, you just, you, you ate something that your body, and, and you, maybe you don't have crippling gut issues like you had before, but it's enough for your body to get inflamed, retain water. You're a big enough, tall enough person. I mean, that could be pounds of water.

I can flexuate 10 pounds of water. Yes. No problem. Yes. No problem. And so, I mean, obviously, you're a big guy. So put that in perspective of a 130-pound girl. I mean, five pounds.

Yeah, five pounds. She can go up five. And then, and when you look puffy to the. the average eye, that looks fat. You look fat. It's like, and so... I've held water to the point where I was 8% body fat, but I didn't have abs. Yeah, no, me too.

Because of water. Yes. Because I ate a bunch of... 100%. Because gluten will do that for me for sure. 100%. I eat gluten and I'm going to hold water. I also feel like when you do study it too, you get thirsty here, so you're pounding more

and you're drinking more, so that just retains more. You know, the crazy thing about, because I had this conference, we were, you know, we got out of the holidays. I was hanging out my family. We were all talking about, you know, health and nutrition. And then we got to the topic of parasites. And one of my family members like, yeah, but that's like, you know, third world countries. I'm like, yeah, they get parasites much more often than we do.

It's much more rare in, you know, first world, you know, areas. However, if you're, you know, an adult and you've never treated yourself for parasites, ever, and you eat raw vegetables, salad, sushi. Yeah. This is a decent chance you were exposed to parasites over the course of, you know, your life. Yeah. So, you know, any fish. No, no, they live in you, dude. They live in you and they just grow and they chill.

You know, we're talking about workouts earlier. And, you know, there's, you know, genetics make a big difference in many different directions, right? You have genetics for intelligence. You have genetics for athletic ability. You also have genetics for just capacity. And I ran across. So Rocky Marciano is one of my favorite fighters of all times. That's weird.

I would never get that. Just to get it safe. It has nothing to do with these Italian, right? Listen, it started because he was Italian. But I also like, I love watching old fight films, one of my favorite things. I love watching old fight films, and they're all so different the way the fighters used to fight. Marciano had this relentless attack. The way he beat people was he would just, it was like, the 10th round was like the first round.

He was just on you constantly. Wasn't his nickname, the Raging Bull? No, that was Lamato. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, Jack Lamato. So Marciano was just relentless. He was just on you, stuck on you. You couldn't get him off you.

And he would punch everything. And one of his, he knew he would outlast you. So he hit you in the arms and make your arms dead. And then he'd kill you, right? He was just, and people would talk. And I watched these old fights. Out and you do you. Bro, you look at this guy.

You're like, he just doesn't get tired. He just comes after him the whole time. So I came across his workout regimen when he was in camp. So this is when he's getting rid of a fight. Seven days a week. You guys want to know what he did? This is every day. Every day he was.

that would probably kill your average person. In the morning, he would wake up and run 10 miles. Then he'd go to the gym and he'd spar 30 to 40 rounds. 30 to 40 rounds. What? Then in the evening, he would run five miles and he would swim two miles. Now, every day he took a nap and every night he would get close to 10 hours of sleep. But that's what he did, seven days a week.

So no wonder when he was in a match, he was like, bro. He was like, this is a piece of kidding. Yeah, dude, I'm going to keep going. That's so insane. Never stop. Oh, that's crazy. I know. I read that.

I'm like, that is brutal. So what I always... He was a small heavy way. So what I always think is interesting when you see like these genetic anomalies, these people that handled all that, that trained at that volumes with that. And then how much science has evolved today? It's like, what if you gave that guy red light therapy, the perfect balance of volume and intensity,

like the right supplements, the right recovery? First off, he would be too small to fight as a heavy. He was 180 pounds, if I'm not mistaken. By the way, one of the reasons why... boxers. He was only 180. He thought he was 180, 185. He may be He must be short. He was just boxers. I mean remember, this is back. Didn't lift weight. Yeah, but he still looked

He looks thick in his pictures. He didn't look like he. If you saw him off, yeah, off training. So in those days, and you still see boxers do this now, but he would gain like 50 pounds. Because when he was done training, he was like, I'm just going to enjoy myself. Well, I imagine that that crazy of intensity in a

camp, you're just. Yeah, 188 pounds. There he is right there. So not a big dude for a heavyweight, you know? Because now you got heavyweighs, 220, 2.30. Yeah, dude, you guys should watch some of his fights. It was just, it was just... I remember, like, this is M.MA, but I remember Kane Velasquez was, like, famous for his, like,

ridiculous gas thing. Yeah. Yeah. Just the motor. And that's a fighter you just don't want to fight. Like, they're just going relentlessly. They have no, like, I need to get some rest or catch my breath. It's also the other heavyweight who's a local guy that, uh, over here. He's local heavyweight that it was known for... DC? Yeah, DC. Yeah. His. gas tank.

Well, he's a world-class wrestler. Well, you know, he's a world-class wrestler. Yeah, he doesn't, what's crazy, what I... Yeah, him and Kane, they're not shredded. Yeah, but they're both trained together. Yeah, he doesn't look like he would, he would take you deep into the water. Yeah. No, he'll give you some...

I've met him a couple times in person. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's crazy how, like, he just dominated everyone. I mean, except for John Jones, but yeah. Yeah, well, you know, it's, I remember back, so way back, I've told the story before, but a friend of mine, a friend of my... was one of the top level competitors in the UFC as a middleweight and he was getting ready to fight and at this time I was at my peak fitness or whatever now I was nowhere near his level but

we were friends and he's like hey can you come we're going to do round robin I need a bigger guy I was bigger than him to come roll with and there's going to be four of us round robin and they were all pro fighters yeah okay and me yeah so I'm in there and now it was pure grappling yeah so I'm decent I'm a purple bell I'm decent I'm not like the greatest or whatever but I'm okay and I'm strong, all that stuff. The difference between with those guys and me was they were so relentless, they were stuck on me the whole time. It was like I couldn't get them off and then I gasped.

I just couldn't handle that intensity of just on you, on you. That's what they talk about, when they talk about a fighter's heart, that's what they're talking about is their gas tank. Because you lose your gas tank, heart goes out the window. Well, you always, you know, you always see that. I don't know how much you guys follow the U.S. but they do the, what's the, it would slip in me right now, the show that Dana does where it's like to get the guys on the show is not a contender but it's another another show

it's something like i can't i don't know ultimate fighter ultimate so the ultimate fighter and they only go like two uh two or three rounds and normally the guy the guys that end up making it and go beyond are just the guys that could go three rounds with like full on three rounds most of guys you see after round two are just because they gave it all they got for two rounds and they don't have it and the guy who who can just can stay on it for three rounds You know how annoying it is when you've done this and you're sitting and watching a fight and you hear some dude over there. Just go. Just go.

Bro, go wrestle your buddy for two minutes. Just go wrestle full speed for two minutes. Tell me how you're free. Try and lift your arms after that. Yeah, there's a real. It's super hard. There's a real art to that. Anyways, speaking of fighting, we were talking off air, I thought this would be funny to bring up.

I just, as we were talking, I don't know why I remember when I was a kid, some of the things that we would do, we didn't have tech. so we'd come up with ways of having fun and we'd talk about pencil fighting Oh yeah Yeah that's right I don't know I don't think it's a thing anymore Pencil fighting you had that one Did you guys ever pencil fight?

Dylan's like he has no idea what it is Okay so you know what pencil fighting was You get a pencil Doug did you know anything with pencil fighting I think we did it but not to the seriousness It was it was so serious My Ticonderoga Dude this was like bragging

This goes all the way back to like third Four fifth grade Oh yeah I can remember I could yeah I can think elementary school this and I mean the principal's office must have made a fortune because they had this they had a they had a pencil machine and it was a quarter but it was the good thick pencils not them cheap number two or those ones that were made out they seemed like they were made out of like plastic they were hard they were hard right and they were but they were 25 cents and they were decorated all cool

you didn't know what you got you put the quarter in you turn it and come out the ones that were super cylindrical yeah done done and and then and then um and then um and then um and then um and then um you're the hexagon one and then um and then um you know, was such a big deal if my parents let me have a quarter for that day so I could get a new pencil. And that was like, you come, you come to class. And, you know, and you said it earlier, you, you take, you rip their eraser off and you, you flat the metal part to make it like a nice. Yeah, we bite it. You bite it down with your teeth to get it real nice and sharp. And then you, then you have the, you had the move where you, you wrap it around the knuckles. It's so funny. There's so many techniques to, because what you do. Some guys were, some guys were like this, you know. Yeah. That was me. I was this. You did that one? Yeah. So, so. But it's so funny. It's so funny. It's so funny.

that that was a thing and I'm like oh my god you get a crowd watching oh yeah yeah it was a big deal all the kids would circle around in the chairs so so Dylan the way it worked is you would hold your pencil like this and I would hit yours one and then it was your turn and whoever broke the pencil one yeah so you just go back and forth until yeah and they're really good dudes if you knew what you were doing

it was first shot one shot yeah yeah yeah I break the pencil yeah that was a good time first transfer you guys do you guys remember making uh I don't know what you I don't even think we had a name for them but you would fold paper into like a bullet and you'd hit a use rubber bands oh yeah yeah detection for that one. Yeah, those taught my son that. Those hurt.

Oh, yeah. I like the little football game, too, with the triangle football paper. Yeah, with the field goal post. That was, I mean, you, dude, you get so bored. I mean, it was, that was school for me. That was all of school for me. I learned everything else after that. Yeah, yeah.

Ask me, ask me what I learned after pencil finding that morning, you know what I'm saying? Spit balls, like, I knew all that stuff, dude. So, it's so interesting, though, the, I mean, obviously as a kid, you don't ever think of that, but like the value of that creativity, the ability to come up with these games and these ideas. It's like prison science. And entertain. Well, it's, it's, it's a wonder why we have such a hard time with these, especially both girls and boys, but especially young boys that aren't doing any of these things. When they get to go home, they get to be on these video games and iPads like crazy.

And then they get to sit in these classrooms where they don't do any of this stuff. You can't compare. It's like, how can you, how can you come up with anything that's as entertaining? Yeah. As your video.

That's what I mean. It's just like, Dolby surround sound. Yeah. Pencil fighting sucks. Yeah. That's what I mean is like you, you,

we've, we've overstimulated them so much. So much with tech. And then we asked them to go sit in a classroom for seven hours or eight hours a day. Well, I had this thought the other day because my, my kids will be,

my little one, my four will come up to me and be like, I'm bored. Do you know I never told my parents I was bored? Because if I did, what would your mom say? Yes, oh, I got something for you to do. Yeah, yeah.

Go fold some laundry. Oh, here, go clean this. Go dig a hole outside. Yeah, go outside. Yeah. Go outside. My parents were going to go outside. Figure it out.

Yeah. Go outside. Yeah. Are kids going to invent anything now? Well, I mean, this is a real question. Well, they're AI friends. Well, the counter is that you have these. They're doing it with the, yeah.

These young kids that are on entrepreneurs that are doing. and stuff that is way beyond what we're doing. I mean, there's kids now that know how to use all these prompts way better than any of us in this room right now. Yeah, sure. And so, you know, the positive side is some of them are focusing the energy in that direction, but I'd still make the argument, it's still really tough for those same kids. Yeah, but aren't those, yeah, okay, so improvements, I guess an innovative new thing.

Yeah, well, I mean, you could say innovative and new as far as creating businesses. I mean, these, I mean, listen, Yeah, no, I know you can make the argument for that. The original inspiration, so when I tell the story about mind pump before I knew you guys and knew it was going to be mind pump was I was playing basketball with a 22-year-old kid. Now, I was doing the medical marijuana, so I had the cash flow to come in and out of the gym.

But I was playing basketball with a kid at 22 years old at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday. And he had nice sneakers, drove a nice car, went to church, so I knew he was a good kid. So I didn't think he was doing it. anything shady to be able to, and I'm like, how are you doing this? And he had built a following on Facebook of 10,000

people and was flipping sneakers and making a good living. And so, I mean... I don't know if it's that so much. It's more like, okay, I've noticed this with Doug. Doug's a good example because we didn't grow up with tech, but we definitely used it more than Doug

did because he's an even different generation. You guys ever notice, we go to the airport or somewhere and we're sitting there, we've got nothing to do? He's the last one to be on his phone the whole time. He can sit there. Just because he's not how to use it. I just figured you have to turn it over. He still doesn't figure out and turn it on.

He's got a gingerbug phone. What's that one phone from all people with the big... The big buttons? It's his buttons. He's just got big buttons on it. Hey, if he knew he could watch TV on his phone. Did you know you can do that night? I know exactly what you're talking about.

You know what I mean, right? But no, you know what I mean? Like, they're okay with sitting there. They're okay with sitting there and being chill and calm. Yeah, I guess that's my only point is that is like the boredom factor. Yeah. Like the deprivation of stimulus, the figure the shit out without anybody's influence. Like that's what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about building off of everybody else's ideas. Are there, is there value to daydreaming? Yeah, dude. Does anybody daydream anymore? Just think differently. Thinking differently. than everything that is thrown at us. Yeah, I used to write stories because I was bored.

So I would just write and create stories. Yeah, but you can't blame them for evolving and adapting to the new time. Of course. Yeah, no, I wouldn't blame them. Yeah. Your dad would be like, well, I would have went out and helped my dad build a fence. Yeah. I didn't have anything to do.

I only had a wheel to play with. My dad used to say, I used to have a stick in a wheel. Yeah, I had a stick in a wheel. I'd do that for two hours. I'd do that for, you know what I'm saying? Like, they would go do something. productive. So, I mean, the generation before would do something like that. So you adapt to what. And so, listen, if you look up the, there's interesting stats. I mean, like on young millionaires

and the kids that are buying the supercar, like, it's kids. Like, the average age of someone who owned a Ferrari used to be like 55 or something like that. You know, it's like 35. Well, here. And it's because these kids are figuring out how to make money while they sleep. I get it. No, the money part, I understand. That's not everything, but I get it. But I'll read you guys a stat. In fact, I posted this today on my X. So I got to pull this up. But this is an interesting stat, right? There's a Morgan Stanley analysis that predicted by 2030, it's around the corner. It's looking four years. Forty-five percent, almost half of U.S. women between 25 to 44 will be single and without children. Oh, almost half. And so I think with

What was, well, okay, compare that to what it, what it, oh, God, that was in history. Oh, 10%. Really? Five percent. Yeah, do you? Almost half. Yeah. So, now, what's happening is we've gotten really good at like, like, what I want, and I don't

want responsibility, and I'll think I'll make money, and I want a career, and I want to be able to go on those vacations, and I want to be able to enjoy myself. You know, self-focused, self-focused, self-focused. And so you basically are, what we're developing are a bunch of middle-aged children. with no responsibility. And the ramification, of course we could talk about societal ramifications, right, depopulation that's going to collapse. How are we going to support ourselves?

But it's like you ask these people, especially for women, right? Because they'll reach an age that can't have kids anymore. Majority of them who don't, it was not voluntary. It was because they waited so long and they became too late. There are terrible ramifications of that because we're also more depressed, more anxious, and more unhappy. and I think a big part of that is we don't we're skirting responsibility and we're kind of going down the hedonistic road. And a big part of that is like, I don't want the responsibility.

I don't want the responsibility of like, I don't want nobody to tell me what to do. And I don't want to have to not be able to go whenever I want, you know, wherever I want. So that's the thing I'm worried about. Not the money put. I'm not worried about people. It's all connected to the money part too, though, when you talk about what you're talking about right now. Sure. Because the whole, we were sold a lie, especially women were sold a lie in particular to what you're

talking about right now. So I just watched a Jordan Peterson clip that talked about how women looking for men, their financial status and success is one of the highest predictors of the man's success of finding a mate. So it's highly valued whether a woman agrees or not that that's like her number one or whether it's one of the highest predictors of like a man will have a part find a partner is how much money and status. In relation to everybody else.

So the more successful he is, the higher chance he is to finding a mate and a partner. The reverse is not true. Yeah, I know. It is a zero predictor for the woman to find out. So if you have all these women that are going down the same path as a man trying to reach this high life, not only that, but women date across and up, men won't do. Men are across and down many times. So they don't want necessarily a woman that's higher or makes more. Yes, there's always exceptions of rules

So everybody gets offended by that That has the wife that makes more money It's like yeah, but for generally speaking That's not that happens I mean I see it in my own family It's tough because they come from a matriarch And so a lot of the girls are very smart Very successful very beautiful

And just struggle to find partners Because you work so hard like that You can't help And they're probably at the point now If they're starting to get to their 30s Where they're like Yeah This sucks.

No, they're at mid-30s and they realize how much this. But it took all the way until then to realize how much that sucks. They were so focused on growing financially and making more money and being more successful. Then they reached that point and realize like, and then you got to remember too, because they put that much work in. They now also shrink what they're willing to go for. She's like, listen, I didn't go 35 years, make all this money, work my ass off, get to this level. And, you know. Their tolerance is very.

And then I'm not going to date the guy who's like, you know, kind of. of getting by in life, like that she wants that or above. And that or above is just not interesting. And then the other part of that is too is you're 33. You've achieved the success. You're ready to go. Like, I want kids. Now you're, now the clock's ticking.

I got to find a guy, develop a relationship, get serious, and then be able to have two kids. You got like three years. Guys don't respond well to that. No. That intensity is not well, doesn't receive well. And definitely not the ones that are at that level or above. I saw this discussion. I thought it was so good.

Yeah, it's a problem. These women that were talking to each other. One was stay at home. Mom, she had, I don't know how many kids. Another one was like career woman. And the career woman looked at the other woman, the stay at home. And she's like, you know, you, so you serve your husband. You go home and just do what he said?

And she goes, yeah, what do you do when your boss tells you to do something? You're still, is he a man, by the way? Oh, you're serving a guy too. Except mine's my husband and this is my family. And I'm like, blah. Yeah. Talk about like a lie that a lie that will. of people have been fed.

Yeah. You know, that one is, you know, that this is the path to, I think that's more important. To happiness, dude. Well,

and again, by the way, this, by the way, it's funny because you look at the data, guys are figuring this out. They did this huge survey with Gen Z men, young men,

and they listed the things that they, how they would consider themselves successful in life? You know what number one was for the guys? This was shocking to me. This was never, guys typically don't talk like this.

Getting married and having kids. Really? Yes. Really? Yes. Getting married and having kids. kids, one and two for them to be, for them to consider themselves successful at life. Interesting.

I know. I mean, I would say that's different than even back in the days. It was. It was. It was still. Well, I think back in the days, it was assumed that, well, if I get a good job and I'm sick. But these guys were like, no, no, no, if I find, if I get a wife and I have like, you know, three kids, then I think I'm doing really well. That's definitely shifted.

Yeah, that's a big shift. That's interesting. I know. Isn't that cool? It's interesting to me. But it's like, yeah, I, you know, I communicate this to my kids. because I think, I don't, you don't need to tell a kid to, you know,

get a good career and make good money. I don't think you need to sell that. Everybody sells that to them. I think you need to sell the other stuff because the other stuff isn't really talked about. I even think it's talked down to as like it's a bad thing. Yeah. Which, yeah, it's not.

That's interesting because I have a different perspective of that because I felt like my mom sold that so hard to the kids because she was so young to get married and do that. That I feel like that's my, I had, my siblings were, like, in such a hurry to just do that. Yeah. So, I don't know, I think there's a, there's a balance there. There's a balance of.

Yeah, you're a different situation, though, bro. You grew up, I know, I know. Rough. Yeah. You had a really rough. I think everybody grows up rough. It's just different rough. You know, that's you being humble, but you, you, yeah, everybody's got it.

You're, you're an anomaly for sure, the way you turned out. I feel, I feel like everybody's got that. I mean, you know, one of the, one of the things that forever shifted that for me is that that everybody's trauma, tragic. hard is the hardest thing that they ever experienced. Therefore, the way they experience is no different than the way I experience it. Okay. Sure. So like

that's you have to, like you have to. Again, that's you being humble, dude. Well, thank you, whatever. But that's, that's, it's true. It's like, whatever, there's stuff that you've been through in your life that is brought you to tears, knees, scared, hard, all the same with that. Me too. They were different things. But for me, it was the hardest. For me, it was the hardest thing you've ever experienced life. For me, it was the hardest thing ever experienced life.

So, I mean, I think, the ability to overcome, work through all those things, to get through that, it's, it's tough for everybody, you know what I'm saying? Speaking of tough, I'm going to go back to a previous conversation about hitting protein.

We have, we have a sponsor in this episode. It's actually a great segue to the previous conversation. The meat sticks from Paleo Valley about eight grams of protein each. Yeah. You know, if you snack on those and have like four, yeah.

There's 30, 30 grams of protein. The other thing I love about Paleo Valley is actually the, and you're, the one that pushed me forever to get on it because I've never been a fan of like I'm always been a way protein person but what I love about the bone broth protein is that I can push the grams of protein I can go up to a 50 60% without any upset stomach stuff yeah it's actually helps as much as as I love way I start going beyond 40 50 grams of way in one sitting or I take way and I mix it

with milk or something like that and it'll it'll upset my stomach right where the bone broth man, I've done crazy like four or five scoops of that stuff. And it's so, it mixes so well, so it doesn't make this like cakey shake. And so for somebody who struggles to hit protein and wants like a really high protein is you can just put several of those in there. Well, bone broth is a protein that's recommended for, to improve gut health. So if you go to a functional medicine practitioner, unless you have issues with histamine, and they'll recommend you take bone broth protein because of the,

high amounts of amino acids that actually help rebuild the gut. So it's a pro-gut health one. Whereas other shakes, I'm like you. I go push it too hard. Everybody, I think is. Now, do they actually have different amino acids than like a higher amounts of cysteine and I can't remember the other one? But these are amino acids that build collagen.

Oh, interesting. I just assume that because way and all the studies is always shown to be like the best for building muscle or that, that it had the highest like amino acid profile. No, so way is really high in branching amino acids, really high and light and loose. isylucine, isolucine valine.

Yes. Bone broth is high in the amino acids that are used to build the integrity of your gut wall, collagen. It helps with the

junctions in the gut, so it helps seal them. So it's like a pro-gut health protein. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. Yep. There's a fatty acid called C-15. It's found in dairy.

If you take a decent amount of it, you get lowered inflammation, better cognitive function, enhanced fat loss. Look, I noticed the difference. started using fatty 15, that company uses the C-15 fatty acid. And I noticed dramatically reduced inflammation. No, this is not fish oil.

It's not an omega-3. I take that as well. But I noticed a huge difference from C-15. Look up the data yourself. It's incredible. Fatty-15 is the best source of this particular fatty acid. Go check them out. Go to fatty-15.com.

That's fatty-15.com forward slash mind pump. on that link, you'll get a discount, but you've got to use the code, mind pump. Back to the show. First question is from Burke himself. Do you guys have any thoughts on butt wink when squatting? I've heard that it's really not a concern.

We've addressed this a handful of times, but it's been a long time since we talked about it. And I liked us discuss it because it's, there is controversy online. Depending on it. And from both highly intelligent coaches and trainers. And that just shows you that there's exceptions to the rule. There is a version of the butt wink that I think can be dangerous and bad.

And then there's a version of it that's totally safe and okay. So for people who aren't familiar with what this is, right? You watch someone from the side going down on a squat. And towards the bottom, their tailbone will tuck a little bit and then come up. So they call that butt wink. generally speaking, I don't like the typical person or client that I'm training to have lots of lumbar movement with a squat. So generally speaking, if I see something like that, I'm trying to limit the range of motion, figuring out areas that are tight, strengthening their core, stabilize, work on technique, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Generally speaking, I would prefer the spine to stay stable.

Now, here's where the controversy comes from. The best squatters in the world, Olympic lifters who get at the body, they all butt wink at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. And nobody gets hurt. Yeah. There's a difference between a highly trained,

strong, stable, you know, great technique individual, and then the average person. The average person, especially if you're a beginner, when you get butt wink, what happens is your lumbar spine

goes to its end range of motion and then what's supporting the bottom is your discs. Yeah. What happens to Olympic lifter is, because there is some lumbar movement. Olympic lifter is not relying on the disc. They're still strong. They're still supporting the weight.

Yeah. And so that's why there's no issue. They also bounce at the bottom, which you're not supposed to do. Well, if you actually took a skeleton or we could do this on an x-ray so you could see this, somebody who goes true as to grass will have, will have that natural tilt. It happens. It's part of the anatomy for your ability to go all the way down there. You can't, you can't maintain the hips out this way.

and get full after. Once you get your ass down on your ankles, it'll slightly come down like that. And so in someone who that doesn't have any pain and gets that deep in a squat and they don't... Good stability. Yeah. And I'm coaching them and I'm talking to them

and I'm like, you're low back bothering anything like, and they don't have any signs of that. But somebody that's like, oh, man, my low back is always on fire. And they have this butt wink. And it happens typically sooner than the very bottom of the squat. they have a lot of movement in that low back, then yeah, then it can become a dangerous,

unhealthy thing and it needs to be addressed. The only real problem with it is the lack of stability and strength as, you know, they're going through that portion of, of that range of motion. And it's like, if you don't have,

like, proper bracing technique and you can't, like, control and you're, you're allowing it to that load to rest on the desks and, like, just anywhere else, like, in these complex compound movements,

it's like, You know, if you don't take the time to really reinforce that brace and have protective ability with that, then, yeah, it's going to be dangerous. I would say to the average person, because the problem with sometimes with the advice that you'll hear from, you know, people on social media, even people who are smart, biomechanic experts or whatever, they'll give advice based off of what people who are well, really skilled, strong and stable can do. Like, for example, you'll hear high-level strength athletes say things like, you don't need to prime, just warm up with the exercise itself. It's like, well, yeah, but if you watch a- You know how to do that. Yeah, you watch a skilled bench pressure, like bench-pressure, they're priming properly. The average person doesn't know how to activate their lats and depress their scapula properly while they're warming up. So you've got to do other priming movements for that person.

For the average person, when I'm training someone, I don't necessarily want a butt wink. If I see it, I'm like, okay, I'm addressing something. Yeah. If you're like advanced or lift, you know, if I see an advanced lifter with a butt wink and they're stable and strong, it's not an issue. Yeah. Yeah, a new new lifter, you're going to pause. That's right. We're going to work on making sure that everything is controlled and braced and accounted for.

Most people that have this, especially new lifters, they'll fill their erector spinet. The low back muscles will be tired. Yeah, we'll fatigue and light up. I had this. So I had an excessive. butt wink when I first started. And a lot of that just had to do to Justin's point, I didn't, I wasn't bracing my core properly.

I didn't have proper, I didn't have proper mobility and stability in my hips and my ankles. And once I got good hip and ankle mobility and stability, good core bracing, went away completely. But there was a time when I used to do a set of back squats didn't even barely break parallel. And I had to lay on the floor because my low back was just on fire. And that's because I had that excessive wink like that. And so, yeah, you don't necessarily want to see it, but you could also, and that's why there's so much controversy online. It's because to your point.

Some people get away with it. Some people can't. Next question is from Emily Vittoria. Should rest periods strictly be measured by time, or can heart rate be a gauge as well? So, yeah, good question. Both. So if you take someone with incredible,

so I'll paint in a scenario, right? You have someone with incredible stamina, Really high V-O-2 max endurance athlete. Their heart rate is going to be fine in 15 seconds. We're going to recover like this. In fact, in fact, a five-rep lift won't even get their heart right that high. And so what are they going to just go again? It's both, right?

You're resting not for the heart rate to come down as much as you are for the... ATP and ATP to replenish. In the muscles because you're training a strength pathway, not an endurance pathway. Yep. So now, here's why it can be both. if you're deconditioned or you do a set of 20 reps in a barbell squat and three minutes is up, but you're still huffing. Yeah.

Wait longer. Your heart rate needs to come down. I'm glad. It's easy to ruin your performance. This most likely is from, I'm glad somebody asked it this way so we could address this because this is exactly what keeps these clients in this kind of circuit training, you know, like way of training because they've built their stamina up so well that they're sitting there. there for 30 seconds and they're like, my heart rate's early down.

I'm ready to go. I'm good. And it's like, no, it's not just your heart rate that I'm concerned about. Like, so time matters here. Time. This is not the per, I don't think the person who's asking this is the person who's doing a set and they're still gas after a three minute rest. They're one if they should do longer. This is somebody who's like, I'm ready to go after 30 seconds. So is my rest period. These are the clients are like, I don't need to rest. That's right. Yes, you do. You want to build muscle. You want to build strength, especially if you ask a question like this and you feel like you're ready to go after 30. seconds, you're going to benefit a lot by resting two and a half, three minutes.

The rest periods are what make it strength training, more than almost anything else. It's the rest periods that put you in a different energy man. It's not the heart rate. You take someone like a Lance Armstrong who's his heart rate is resting heart rate's 30, and then maybe after a set of bicep curls, it gets to 40. You know what I'm saying? It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with you the time.

So let yourself rest. Next question is from L. Byron. Will taking creatine with or close to the consumption of caffeine make it ineffective? No, that's fine. So the data, there was a study. Yeah, there was a study that was done a while ago that showed maybe reduced absorption or efficacy of creatine, even if you go based on that study. I hope not.

I've been doing that forever. Even if you go based off that study, I think it wasn't back in 96, I think it was with the study, even if you base it off that, it's not that much to make a difference. Now, there's been lots of studies done on this, and the evidence that there's any interference is weak at best. Even though, even if it was a weak, even if there was a slight interference, it's not enough for you to worry. In other words, if you're like, yeah, but that's when I remember to take my creatine, then keep doing it. If you're like, you want to split hairs five times in a row, then fine, separate it from the time you take creatine. But they've done lots of studies on this.

When we were kids back in Celltech phosphate, J's. There was a, there was, there was, uh, a, uh, rumor or theory of that, uh, orange juice, the citric acid from orange juice impacted the intake of that. If you leave, you remember that? Yeah, if you leave powdered cratine in, uh, something acidic for a long time, it could degrade the crates a bit. Yeah, because of acid. Yeah, you can even do it in water. You'll leave creatine and water for anything. Yeah, really. So you just want to take it. So that makes sense why maybe this question's being asked then too, because then there are, I believe, bang in energy does this.

And I believe there's acidity in those energy drinks. And so creatine inside of a energy drink. I don't, I'll try it straight up. And maybe someone can prove me wrong. But I don't take creatine in liquid form ever. Yeah. Unless it's like,

you know, liposomal delivery process, which is like a cream that you can test the grittiness of the creatine. And so it's stable. But if something looks clear and it says it's got creatine in it, I don't believe it. Yeah.

And definitely if you have, uh, what's that called? We have bubbles. where it's like carbonation. Carbonation in it. It's like, yeah, come on. You're trying to tell me that it's not going to degrade somewhat of the amount.

Years ago, this had to be in the early 2000s, late 90s. There was a crate team company that had liquid crate. It was a first liquid crate is a red bottle. And it's like five grams, liquid creatine, fastest absorption. Because you know, you could always make a case, right? If it's a liquid form, you'll absorb it faster. And it was popular for a second. And then they did, of course, there was a third party that tested it.

Zero cratine. It was zero-craper. Usually if creatine's in something, you'll feel the grittiness. You'll bite into it or take it and you'll feel the grittiness of the crating because that's how it goes. I mean, this is why this person's asking this is why I'm such a huge fan of like the new stuff with like Legion gummies or organifies gummies. Like do the gummies. Like if you have a hard time remembering to take it and stuff like that, but they might be asking this because I have seen some of these energy drinks starting to put it. And I would not trust that.

No. Oh, yeah. Just don't count that creteam. I even consider that. I wouldn't need a million years. I count that as... Next question is from Chelsea Wellsey. The front of my hips are perpetually sore lately.

I foam roll and stretch, not as much as I should. Any other tips to help? Yeah, mobility and priming. So it's hard to know what the issue is because I can't see you move. Living them 90-90s. I don't know exactly what you mean by the front of your hips. I don't know what movements cause.

Hip flexor. I don't know. Sometimes, I'm so glad he said that, Justin. This actually happened to me a few times. Nine out of ten times when you work with somebody, you don't directly try to strengthen their hip flexors. They'll get some strength by doing ab exercises there. It's not something I need to focus on.

But there have been cases where I remember this young lady I trained and we would squat and she'd get pinching in the front of her hips. And I'm like, what is going on? It took me a long time. It was weak, right? And it was weak hip flexors. Yeah, I've had the same time. We had to do single leg leg raises.

Like a pure hip flexor exercise took care of it. But it's hard to know without watching you move what the issue is. But there's a strength and balance going on and a good assessment with a good trainer or a good movement specialist. Typically, if foam rolling and stretching isn't really impacting it on some level, there's probably a strength issue. Yeah, 100%. Well, this is why I mean, this is why I love all the 9090 variations because you're going to get some of that in that. I mean, you're going to do, if you're doing 9090s with the heel lift up off the ground and you're activating. Yeah.

And you're activating. Like, for me, that's done. I know you guys have talked about this before where we've had some people who have to actually strengthen the hip flexors where I could see as a possibility, but that's rare. It's normally somebody just has really weak and unstable hips. If you just, if you work on hip mobility and strengthening it and activating it while you're in 9090s, tends to address a lot of them.

If you're listening right now, get MAPS Prime Pro and do the hip movements in there. And you'll find the one that helps. You'll know because you'll do it and you'll feel better. And test them all out. That's right. And then that's where I would, so I would first go to all the 99th. So I think that's what were 90% of the people fall. If none of that is working or you're listening this and you're like, I've been doing that

and I saw this issue, then maybe it is a hip flex weakness. And then actually training. You can even do the free one that you did, Adam, would you did some hip stuff. And that was it Prime Pro webinar? PrimePro webinar.com. And that, that go through that and Adam does a whole, he does everything in there. Just do the hip stuff. and then go try your exercise,

see if it makes a difference. And if it does, you've got the answer right there. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you. It's at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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