Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2769: The Hidden Benefits of Fitness Nobody Talks About

Episode Date: January 10, 2026

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Awesome Side Effects of Fitness. (2:20) New kind of soda that combines the classic soda taste with the benefits of a functional ingredient blend to support digestive health. (24:41) Kids love metal. (28:20) Reflecting on traits your kids have that you share (good and bad). (29:43) The mischievous and nefarious acts of AI. (46:10) Improving your liver health with Dose. (52:26) The future of crypto. (56:45) A real-life American hero. (58:08) #ListenerCoaching call #1 – Needing advice regarding a strength imbalance and localized fat storage patterns. (1:03:40) #ListenerCoaching call #2 – How do you hit your protein daily goals without raising your cholesterol? (1:06:52) #ListenerCoaching call #3 – How to program prepping for a half-marathon and deadlifting competition? (1:13:55) #ListenerCoaching call #4 – Any tips or advice to help improve my deadlift? (1:23:27) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get Coached by Mind Pump, live! Visit https://www.mplivecaller.com Visit OliPop for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Get a FREE can of OLIPOP: Buy any 2 cans of OliPop in store, and we'll pay you back for one! Works on any flavor, any retailer. ** Visit Dose for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Use code MINDPUMP to get 35% off your first subscription. ** January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store The effect of physical activity on long-term income - PubMed Is exercise more effective than medication for depression and anxiety? Exercise, Erectile Dysfunction and Co-Morbidities: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" How Exercise Can Help Reduce Anger Stanford study finds walking improves creativity Physical activity and exercise for chronic pain in adults AI-Driven Bad Bots Now Make Up 51% of Traffic, Overtaking Human Visitors for the First Time AI system resorts to blackmail if told it will be removed - BBC Clinical Studies - Dose Squatter Hunters - Getting Your Home Back L.A. Man Goes Viral as the 'Squatter Hunter,' Sharing His Tricks for Booting Illegal Tenants Visit Jolie for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **For the first time ever, Jolie is offering an exclusive 20% off discount. This is the perfect opportunity to give yourself or someone special a gift that will get used every day and truly transform everyday routines. ** Mind Pump #2766: Become a Bodybuilder AND Run a Marathon! Here is How. Mind Pump #2027: How to Improve Your Squat, Bench, and Deadlift Strength Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Nick Bare (@nickbarefitness) 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 had callers call in, and we got to coach them on air. But this was after the intro.

Today's intro was 59 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness and fat loss and muscle games. current events, family life. Always a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this would, submit your question to nplife caller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Ollipop.

They have a brand new flavor. Shirley Temple. This is the most delicious soda ever. 40 calories per can. Only four grams of sugar in the entire can. Also has beneficial prebiotics. It's delicious. and check this out.

Go to drink olipop.com forward slash mind pump. You can get a free can of olipop. Here's what you do. Buy two cans of olipop anywhere. I don't care where you buy it from, any store. Go to that link, drink olipop.com forward slash mind pump, and they'll send you a free can. This episode's also brought to by dose.

They have an incredible product for liver support. Check this out. In two double-blind placebo-controlled studies, one of them showed a 50% reduction in liver enzymes after eight weeks. They had another one that went on for six months. They had an over 80% reduction in liver enzymes. So if you want a healthy liver, you want to do it naturally, go to dose daily. dot CO forward slash mind pump.

Use the code mind pump. You get 35% off your first subscription. We also have some sales on some Maps programs right now. Maps starter, Maps transform, Maps, Maps, Anabolic and MAPS performance, they're all 50% off right now. Go to Maps FitnessProducts.com. Use the code New Year 50 for that discount. 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, I'm about to share with you the secret to fitness. What I'm about to talk about is how you stay consistent for the rest of your life.

It's not about fat loss. It's not about muscle gain. That's all great. But it's really about all the other amazing side effects that fitness can provide. In fact, today we're going to talk about some of them that are totally unconventional. Ones you would never even know are connected, but the data is clear. Fitness makes a lot of things better. We're going to talk about those today.

That was my first question. How did you land on those and not all the other ones that we, because we've talked on the show. I feel like we've covered everything. So you have. We talk a lot of it. about what we we talked to the clients about, right, getting them away from the mirror and the scale. That's right. That tends to be the go-to for everybody when they first get back into shape or get back into the gym to get back in shape, is watching the scale, watching the mirror.

And part of your job as a good coach is helping them connect the dots to all these other benefits. I look at your list. This isn't the normalist. Although I get it. Some of them are, but some of them aren't. And that was the motivation for this, Adam. So now we do have trainers and coaches. We started this last year, and now we have quite a few clients that work with our trainers and coaches.

And we learned this, we all figured this out independently. So people, if you don't know, Justin Adam, myself were trainers for a long time before we ever started the podcast. And this was something we all came to on our own just through experience, which was one of the ways you get somebody to stay consistent. Because that's the challenge. The challenge is not getting in shape. That's hard. The challenge is staying in shape. The data shows it, proves it.

If you're listening to this, you know this because you've gone through it yourself. And so the key is to really paint a full picture for someone and get them to understand. So they can keep it going. What fitness does for you aside from make you look better, aside from help you build muscle and burn body fat. Because those are true. But if that's all you focus on, you miss the big picture. And then your relationship with fitness is incomplete. And it makes it difficult to stay consistent.

but when you have a complete relationship with fitness, you're much more likely to want to maintain it and keep it going because you notice all these incredible benefits. And fitness is, let me tell you, the data on it is remarkable at how much it affects other aspects of your life, even ones you would not even think were connected. So like the first one. Yeah, this is one I want to hear.

Do you have stats? I got a great study. There's many studies on this, but I got a great study. So a lot of people don't know this, but getting fit will increase your earnings. You'll make more money. Wow. Now, there's a lot of studies on this that show the correlation,

but my favorite study was done on 5,000 twins. So these are twins. So everything's identical. There's a lot of twins. And they found with the twins that the more fit, if there was a twin that was more fit, more consistent with exercise, because you'll see this, right?

Twins don't do everything the same. that there was a 15% increase in earnings just from the fitness. 15%. That's quite a bet. That's insane. So are they attributing this to the disciplines, behaviors with all that?

All the above. Yeah. All the above. But we've talked about this. And I mean, and I know you guys share the same thing. Like I always notice, and just like everybody else,

I go through a phase. I'm like, I just don't have the time. The day I'm so. packed. I've got this going on. This. It just don't have the time right now. And then you make the time. And then it's almost like you get double the time back. That's right. It's like the day gets long. And what it is is you become more productive with your time. That's right. And so the thing, the task that you, the mundane tasks that you do all day long, whether that be work related, home stuff, whatever tends to when you're not working out and eating good, it tends to stretch out and it fills the day and it feels like you can't fit it in. Then all of a sudden I go, that's it. I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I'm not bending. I'm making an hour for myself to go in the gym or whatever the time is. I do that. And then all those things that were still in my day all of a sudden get compressed or I become more efficient at them.

And it almost feels like I gain back that time and some. Yeah. So side studies on that. We used to use these studies, by the way, to talk to companies to encourage them to do corporate memberships. So back in the day, when we ran big gyms, we would go to these companies and we would talk to their, you know, people in charge of employee benefits and stuff. and we would talk to them about doing what we'd call corporate membership. Yeah, where they essentially will pay a fee and get memberships for their entire staff. And one of the stats that was very effective at essentially selling them on the idea was on productivity.

And what these studies show was a 50, in some cases, a 50% improvement in productivity. In other words, you dedicate, now it's not a across-the-board linear because you could obviously over-train, right, and do too much. But let's say you train appropriately. You're exercising appropriately. We talk about this all the time of the show. You devote an hour to exercise. You've given yourself an additional 30 minutes on top of the hour you just took away. So you took an hour out to exercise.

You now have 90 more minutes of productivity in terms of the amount of work you actually accomplish. So it's like it's an interesting type of physics is what ends up happening. And that's from productivity. It also improves mood. It reduces anxiety. It reduces the amount of sick days that you have. And if you get sick, you recover faster. It improves creativity.

We're going to talk about all these ones that I just listed, by the way, because I have studies for all that. So the twin studies my favorite because other studies show earnings even a higher percentage. But the twin study is my favorite because there's so much that you can't control when you're looking at studies with fitness because you could say, oh, well, maybe there's this, maybe there's that. but here you have the same, you know, genetics. This one exercises more, this one doesn't. How much more is the one who exercises more make 15% more? So it's a 15% increase. So you make 100 grand a year.

You've made $15,000 more that year. That's over $1,000 more a month. Yeah. Just because you'll work out because you're fit. It'd be interesting to get a study of like all the millionaire, billionaires that were out of shape first and then got in shape to talk about this. Well, we do have, maybe Doug could look this up, what percentage of millionaires and billionaires exercise regularly

and compare that to the average population. It's like three times higher. No, really? Yeah. I actually wouldn't think that. Yep. Really? Yeah.

So the six, the more you earn, the more likely you are to exercise and take care of your, now a lot of people will argue and say, well, they have the time. That's why they're doing it. But again, I point back to what I said with the twin study, which controls for that, which is. you earn, it makes you better. Yeah. It just makes you better at making money.

Yeah. They're always looking for performance increases. What did you find there, Doug? Yeah. So working out is a habit the wealthy tend to have in common. 76% of the rich exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. That's like, that's like a good 50% more. Wow.

Than the average person. I didn't know that. Mm-hmm. You know, I find that it feels like, I mean, look at the Zuckerbergs, the Bezos, they all, at one point they unlock that it feels like right like i mean Zuckerberg didn't come out looking like what he looks like now bezos didn't come out looking that way but eventually by the way there's a side note there's a myth that they have way more time on their hands those do we work their no wait for yeah that's why i was like no way yeah because you see pictures of them on vacation

or something oh they're not working more money more problems is a real thing yeah you know what more responsibility yeah i know 100% what what most of those people have done is they they have actually hacked in to productivity no I'll never forget that I brought this client up before because it was so impactful. Jim was his name. He was a very wealthy, successful man. The swimmer guy, right? No, no, that was the other gym.

Oh, you remember my clients. I do, I do. It's two gyms. Yeah. So this, no, this was early on in my career. And he was very successful, but he wasn't your traditional, like went to Ivy League school that stuff. He was a high school dropout, ended up, you know, being an entrepreneur, very successful.

His wife hired me, and then his wife convinced him. Actually, she bought him session, so he had to use him. And then he loved it. You know why he loved it? It wasn't the workouts. That's what he got from work. Yeah, he came back and he's like, I'm never going to stop. I had a lot of clients like that.

And he's like, I'm like, dude, I sell better. I'm in my meetings better. He's like, I'm a better businessman. I had clients that stayed with me for a long time that actually like wouldn't even let me help them with their diet. They didn't care. Just because it was literally they saw the productivity in their day and work. And that was enough for them that they're like,

I don't give a shit if I'm care of an extra little body fat. Like it was literally, I was like, I just, okay, like I'm not going to tell you you have to, you know. But that's how much they valued working out. They realized how much more they got back in that. And for them, that was enough of a selling point. This next one, in my opinion, is the biggest one. Depression.

The old studies, there's a lot of studies on this, the old studies showed exercise to be as effective as medical intervention and therapy for depression. Now it shows better. Okay. Now, now, this was my argument back then. And you can go back to our older episodes as I said this. I said, I bet you if you extended those studies out longer, you'll see exercise outperform it because there's no down regulation receptors. There's no side effects.

There's no, you don't hit a wall. You know, as you continue working out, your relationship with it continues to develop and grow and become better. Even if you don't build more muscle, you know, you just get better at it over time. Well, now we have great studies that show that it's one and a half times as effective. It's actually more effective than anything for depression. Yeah. It's the most effective thing you could do for depression is exercise. You don't get those crazy side effects.

You know, if they list off after the commercials. No, no. The main effect that we're talking about is reduced in reduction in depression. Okay, 150% better than the other ways. The side effects,

so the main effect is reduction of depression that we're talking about. What are the side effects? Leener, yeah. Yeah. All positive. Like, yeah.

Like, what negative side effects are there? Yeah. There are no negative side effects. In fact, the negative side effects of medical interventions like sexual dysfunction, weight gain, doesn't happen. The opposite happens.

Disruption of hormones, yeah, the whole thing. The argument someone makes with that one, though, is that the motivation to get started is so difficult when you're in deep depression. I'm glad you said that. I'm definitely not telling people to drop their medication and their therapy and just go work out. And you're right. I've trained a lot of mental health experts. And they were very forward thinking and they valued fitness because obviously they hired me to train them.

And they said the way that they use it sometimes is get that person out of that hole. I wonder how many more do that now. Because of those studies have came out like that. I wonder how many people prescribe and go, here's what we're going to do to get you going. Yeah. But then the goal is in combination with this. You know what the challenge with that, Adam, is the system doesn't encourage those conversations because it's in and out. Yeah.

But if you got like a private, you know, doctor. That didn't have to like get you in and out and deal with insurance companies, I bet you they're better in that sense. Yeah. Otherwise, it's like, you know, what's the code for the diagnosis? What's the, you know, whatever. So next step is sex. Does fitness improve your sex life? Now, I know a lot of people are thinking like, yeah, because you look hotter.

Well, his hip thrust. Don't make fun of my hip thrust, dude. He's got to bring him up. You always brag about it. Yeah, dude. I mean, all of these, I mean, or at least the three that we've gone over so far, it's, it's, there isn't like a, you know, there's not a smoking gun. or a silver thing, a single thing. It's like, it's, it's, it's probably several things.

It's so broad. It's so broad. I mean, what it's doing for balancing your hormones. There is probably an aesthetic component when you feel good, you look good. You, you, those things are probably increased. Like, it increases libidia. So there's, it's not like one thing, right? Yeah, no, but I did isolate studies because a lot of people, this is where I was going.

A lot of people will say, well, yeah, it makes you hotter or more attractive, therefore sex is better. I found studies to show. show what was the impact in 30 days? Because I look, I'll be the first to tell you. You're not working out. You work out for 30 days. You're not going to look that different.

You're not going to go from obese to fit. It's not pressed or change. Yeah. It doesn't work that way, right? But here's what we found. A 71%, so these were study participants who had erectile dysfunction. 71% of them in 30 days saw a dramatic improvement in erectile dysfunction. In a month.

You're not losing tons of weight and build a muscle and getting dramatically more fit or looking any different in 30 days. But what we saw, what we see is a majority of them already saw an improvement in erectile function. In women, it was an improvement in lubrication and ability to achieve orgasm within 30 days. Well, you remember when I shared that journey, this has been so long now, I don't remember how many years ago it was, when I came off of HRT for, it was a good two years or more, and you had me on a stack of all these supplements.

Try and get your natural. Yeah, tongue cat alley, aschwaganda, like all these different things that I was taking. And I was doing all the things I could do naturally to try and bring it up. And I remember reporting back to you that of all the things I've got going, nothing compared to like a heavy day of squats the day before. I mean, I could feel a difference in my libido within 24 to 48 hours from stuff like that. It's crazy. As a young trainer, it used to catch me off guard later, not so much because I was anticipating.

paid at it. But the people, I used to get clients would comment on this, in particular, my elderly clients. I think they were just comfortable saying these things with me because I was a kid. They were, you know, in their 60s. Yeah. They're bringing up their bowel movements, everything. Yeah. And they were just, it was sweet, you know, they was like, it was like, it was like, they was like their grand kid. And they said it in a way that was, you know, appropriate. Like, but it happened so often. Like, I'd get the old lady I'm training and she'd come up to me like, what is? I remember the first time this happened. I was 18. She comes up to me. She's like, what are some, does exercise effect,

other things and I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you know, like, you're excited. You know, just like more energy. I'm like, oh, yeah, you'll have much more energy. Well, you know, I mean like, you know, like, different kind of energy. With my husband. And I like figure it out. I think so.

I'm noticing a difference. Yeah, I think it helps stuff like that. Well, I mean, you say, you said sex in general too. Like, I mean, you give me a lot of crap on this podcast about being moody. And I'll tell you what, one way to kill sex in my house is to be moody with my wife. And so she knows that when I train, like, that's where. You're not moody? I'm not.

I'm just like, like it's, she's the same way too. She didn't make the argument a lot of times. If her and I are in a slump at the same time, we could, we could feel that energy in the house just with each other, shorter with each other versus if you're getting a workout in.

If we're getting a workout in, even if we're not in, you know, back to your point about it's not about how you look and how, we don't have to be in tip top shape. It's that you got your workout in for the day. It just sets your mood differently. And having a good mood going into the evening

is a much better approach than the other way around. They also, I also pulled up studies on fitness and anger. And there was a dramatic reduction. By the way, this is true for kids. I have studies on kids, adolescents, teenagers, and adults. That's great. Dramatic decrease in anger, rage, and displays of anger in people who exercise. Is it just because you're spending that energy?

I mean, I know that speaks to Justin. I think it has to do with me and my son. I mean, all this stuff we're talking about. Like, if you're in a better mood, you're less depressed, you're less anxious. You're less likely to, you've got a different filter. You have a way to direct it as well, I think. I don't know. It's the flood of testosterone, too.

I don't know if that like, when you're going through that process in puberty and everything else, like it was really overwhelming for me personally. And I could see it with my sons as well. And to direct a lot of that into working out into like, you know, these punching dummies and whatnot. It's just like it's an outlet. And so it's not something that you're bottling up and kind of storing throughout the day. It's also through innovation and technology, we've slowly taken a lot of this physical activity that you, I think we were made to do. Yep.

And so if, you know, hundreds of years ago, like everybody was very physical and lifting. and doing things and that and now we've got to this place where a teenager or adult could literally spend the entire day sedentary and and multiple days in a row and I would imagine that would not would create that that pent up like I've got my body needs to expend it needs to just feel crappy yeah I don't know about you guys when I feel crappy I'm way less patient I'm way more likely to exhibit angry more irritable so it don't feel good you know Well, I just think there's a propensity for, you know, some people that have that kind of, they're more physically driven. And if you're not expressing that, it's problematic.

You know, that just energy turns into something darker. And it's like, you got to deal with that. I mean, we all at one point of our lives did like blue collar physical labor job jobs. There was something to be said about at the end of the day feeling like as hard as it was all day. It's rewarding. It's like, you know. There was this, there was a sense of accomplishment and feel good and felt pocket. I was also tired.

Yeah. Well, you expend all that, right? You know what I'm saying? Like you expended all that energy. There isn't there, you don't have the energy to be angry. I felt like afterwards. Totally, dude.

All right. Creativity. Here's a cool one. There's a lot of studies on exercise and movement and creativity. But across the board, generally what you see is a 60% increase in creative output. Regardless of how they measure it, you're just more creative.

And your output of creativity increases through movement. Which, you know, What's funny is that riders, you know, one endeavor. For going for a walk is, yeah. They've known this for a long time. Musicians, they've known this for a long time. You smoke a cigaretteers go for a walk. Yeah.

Probably, let's go for the walk. Yeah, it's like, go move. And then suddenly you get more ideas and more creative. I imagine, I mean, the brain's firing. Yeah. The brain's firing way more. And so you get more neural connections happening and stuff like that. You're probably the same way we talk about priming muscles before you go exercise.

You're priming the brain in a sense by. moving and exercising like that. I would think that has a lot. I get, I don't know about you guys, but I get my best ideas and my workouts. Always. Oh, yeah. They're always. Oh, really? Always. Yeah, I get it when I'm out in nature and walks. But yeah. Mine's on the toilet, so it's not. That's kind of physical. That's all another thing. Which leads me the last one, pain.

Sitting down. Sorry. Sorry. 50% reduction in pain across the board for people who exercise. Yeah. That's a huge reduction. That's a no-brainer. And I bet you if you took that, you know, all these studies, which generally show a 50%, that's a big reduction in pain with no medicine, no needs for chemicals, whatever. If you took those people and then you had them all exercise properly, you would see a 90% reduction. Well, we, so what's, and maybe Doug can look this up, but I'm pretty sure I've looked this up before. I believe the number one pain that people complain about is low back pain.

Low back pain is the most common. is the most common ground. So we just did our big MRIs. And I've told you guys before that. And we've talked about this. We've had examples with someone with a, you know, three millimeter bulge disc that says no complaint whatsoever. Then you have somebody who has nothing.

They have all kinds of back pain. And they have all kinds of low back pain. For me, the correlation that I've connected is just like when I'm training, obviously my core is getting involved. You can't heavy demerift and squat without really activating that core. When my core is strong or strong enough, I feel supported in the low back all the time. If I'm off my kick and I haven't been, the first thing that I always notice, more than anything else, is low back pain. Low back pain.

And it's just, it's mild and chronic. If I'm just walking for more than 20, 30 minutes, it's always that sign for me. It's just like, oh, my God, I know I'm getting deconditioned right now because that's the first. And I imagine a good percentage of all those people that report that is related to that. Yes. And again, I'm a signal the end of the day. In that 50% of reduction of pain, when you look at all these studies,

what's included in there are people who hurt themselves working out. So if you took people and had them exercise properly, you would see a, I would bet everything, a 90%. Because I'll tell you what, you guys, I know you have the same experience. When I train clients with pain, chronic pain, so there's a difference between chronic and acute pain, right? Acute is like I fell and hurt myself yesterday.

Yeah, you just need to heal. Chronic is like, yeah, I got this back pain that bothers me. my knee hurts, you know, here and there, or whatever. Nine out of ten times, we could solve it. That was my, I was confident, confident. 90% of time we could solve it. Then there was that 10% of time when I would incorporate an even more capable exercise, you know, correctional exercise specialist.

And rarely, rarely, rarely was medical intervention required. But 90% of time, I could fix it with proper exercise. Well, wouldn't you, another way to say that, too, is just that most all chronic pain that we've dealt with is related to posture. So low back pain is number one, right? So you're talking about this. Poor movement patterns. We weakness of dysfunction.

Yeah. Because what ends up happening is you have these imbalances, whether it's upper cross syndrome or lower cross syndrome, and then instead of your muscles supporting you properly in good posture. Your joints do. Your joints do. And then that just leads, if you're not, you know, 15 years old, you know, if you're anything older and 30 years old

and you've been with poor posture long enough, you're going to have that chronic pain, whether it be in the neck, the shoulders, the upper back, mid back or low back, it's almost always related to that. 100%. So, yeah, anyway, I got a comment on this drink right here. So I've been having the oly pops.

Yes. Have you guys tried the Shirley Temple? No, I haven't tried it right now. Listen, so I'm excited. That's for you, Dad. Thank you. You got to sound? That's for you, that's the ASMR part of the podcast.

Listen to me. So these are in my house all the time. They're always in my house. My wife drinks and my kids. This whole can, just for people, 40 calories. Yeah. 40 calories. Yeah.

It's really good. It's really good. 40 calories. There's a grand total of four grams of sugar in the entire can. Yeah. And it's not a bunch of aspartame and a bunch of, you know, none of that stuff. It's all natural. Yeah.

And it's got barely any calories in it. Well, of all of us, I'm probably the worst when it comes to drinking other sodas. It's the one thing that will curb that for me. It's like, because I need something fizy to drink. on. And so it helps with that for me. I've got a bad habit. How many calories in a normal can of soda? What's a normal can? A hundred and something? At least 160. So you could drink four of these. So four of these equals one for calorie-wise. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, but I'm not that bad. That's how you do it right there. It's actually, so, so this is their new flavor. It's good to have

it. It's good to have. It's a SMR. What is that? Hey, SMR. So one of the things that's really cool is Since we worked with it, we worked with them a few years ago, right? And so they reached back out of Katrina, and it was like a no-brainer. We're like, we loved them before. So, of course, we do work with them again. But since we've worked with them, they're everywhere. Anywhere you can, they're at Walmart, Target. So Katrina told me, so here's what Olypops going to do.

Buy your Ollipops anywhere. It doesn't matter where you buy them. If you get two cans, what's the link, Doug? Give me the link. Yeah, so let me get over to that. Yeah, the one you're supposed to copy and paste right there. I have it right here. Thanks, Doug.

It's drink olypop.com forward slash mine. So if you buy two cans anywhere, they'll send you a can for free. Yeah, Oli pops, O-L-I-P-O-P-O-P-P. You just go there and do it. I love that they're doing this because one of the challenges is, I mean, I don't always communicate this to you guys. This is, you know, Katrina handles a lot of this.

And so I obviously talk to her. But we have a lot of partners now that when we first started were small kind of brands that have blown up. And then they get into these huge places. retail chains. And it's like, you know how many people have told me, like, that they've bought from hearing something that we've talked about on there, but they buy it at Target or they buy it at Walmart. And it's like, and then the brands come back and they're like, yeah, you know, we only saw so many through your URL this month or what I was just like, you guys, this brand has grown so much that, I mean, if I'm at the store and I see something like that, I'm just going to buy it. So you guys negotiate this.

No, it was actually. So, so this is what I loved about it. When we were first talking to them, they have, they've connected these dots. So other partners, I hope, follow their lead is that they realize that a lot of these people, and I think, I'm sure what they did was they took surveys. So part of how when I had these conversations with partners, you know, off, obviously off air type stuff, is when I'm talking to them and I'm explaining, like, listen, you guys carry in so many different places, why don't you ask a survey to your people, like where they heard about it?

And a lot of times what will happen is people will say, oh, yeah, no, I heard about it on mind pump. But I get it at my local target or I pick it up at wall. I figured at Costco. And so they've tapped into that. They realize that they've been doing stuff with podcasts and with influencers for long enough now. They realize that not everybody goes through the URL. That's a big promotion. You get one free for every two.

Yeah. I think that's cool. That's great. They have a lot of new flavors as well. Yeah. So this is a new one. I'd never try. Shirley Temple.

Yeah. No, it's really good. So I got to tell you guys, dude, that Justin, you're going to love this. Okay. So my kids, I don't listen to metal at home. I don't listen to it in front of the kids. I haven't listened to metal a long time, although I did just find some Christian metal bands.

You sent me one this morning. Yes, yes, yes. They're pretty, what's holy name? Holy name. Anyway, do you know what my kids love, my little ones? What? Metal. They love.

Yes. Bro, I played Metallica. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Okay, so your son is like a athlete in the making. I don't know what's happening. He likes metal.

I know. Maybe he's not his son. Yeah. No, shut up. That's terrible. Ooh. That's terrible. That's a big leap there.

I was just excited. That's what you were living to. That's not where I was going. I was just saying like, yeah. The sports thing, I guess. My team, you know, like, no. But he, we played Master of Puppets, right? And I don't know how the conversation come up.

I was like, oh, this was like the first, I think I was talking to my daughter. I'm like, this is the first, like, workout song I actually worked out to when I was a kid. And I played it. And my son's like, I love this. I'm like, you like it? He's like, I love it. Play it again. And then Dahlia, my three-year-old's like, I like, papa.

So I'm like, all right. So in the car, they tell Jessica, can you play puppets, please? Play puppets. She hates metal. She hates it. Meanwhile, so I get a phone call from, this was Saturday. My best friend calls him. He's like, yo, he's like, I just got four seats for us, 10 off the eyes.

Sharks are having a great season this season. They got one of the best players on their team. Yeah, calls me up. He goes, I'm taking Hunter, my godson, right? So I'm taking my godson, let's meet you and Max go. And I'm like, bro, I would love to. I would love to go. Max is not going to go.

And he's just like, what do you mean? Dude, he'll go. Just have it. I'm like, no, I already know, I know my son. He won. Even if I coerce him to go, we'll go. And then before the first period is up, he's going to be bugging me to leave. I said, and then I'll just feel terrible to leave seats like that.

I have a connection with Sharky, too. Bro, I, I, I asked him. You know, I asked, hey, Max, and I tried, you know, hey, Hunter's going to be there. Uncle Justin, let's go. He's like, yeah, no, dad, that's okay. You know. It's just, I mean, even, like, the stuff that he's into, like, I took him not that long ago to do the monster trucks. I like you so confident what he likes to do that.

Yeah. So that, this is the part why I don't get frustrated because I like that. Yeah. I like. That's a great treat. I like that trait. I like that trait. That's right.

That's right. You know, one of the things that his, I told you guys, when we did the review was his teacher that was Katrina and. and I's big concern because he's so sweet, he's so nice. But is that I don't want him to be a people pleaser. I don't want him just to follow the crowd. Oh, no, he'll tell you. That's right. He doesn't want to play or he doesn't want to do that.

And so that's where I'm okay with it. You were like that. I was. I was. It was one of the first trait. You know, you talked about that before. Yeah. You didn't do it because everybody else did.

If you wanted to you, what? If you didn't, you're like, whatever. That is the, by the way, that means I wanted to ask you this because I hadn't asked you this in a while since your boy's getting older. That was the first trait I recognized early in him, and I had to explain to Katrina. And I said, you know, it's so funny watching him, this is the first thing that takes me back really, really far. And I remember being a kid and people want me to do things like that.

And I remember being like, no, I don't want to do that. And then them calling me names, and I'm like, no, didn't bother me. No. That's a great trait. And so seeing him like that, I'm patient about it, even though I'm like, there's a part He's like, God, bro, are you serious? Like, you don't want to do that? And so he's like, have you, okay, so

Orillius, I know, is like, I mean, he's shooting guns, he's playing sports. What's the first, have you had like a trait that you're like, oh, that's me right there? Yeah, he definitely can sell. So if he understands something or he wants to communicate something, he really hits it from different angles and communicates it really, really well.

And so everybody rolls her eyes, you know, like, okay, and I'm like, let him go. He's also got that kind of goes deep on the sciencey side, too. He loves it. I remember the first time him and Max were arguing over dinosaurs. I know. I know. I know. I know.

The fact that they were. I was like, then you arguing? Yes, it was totally like a moment like that. I love it. The two of them were going back. They tried to pull the moms in. But the sport part's weird to me because I wasn't a, you know, I don't like traditional sports. It wasn't like I didn't like fighting, like wrestling, boxing, that kind of stuff.

I didn't, I just wasn't raised with it. So I wonder if I was raised around it. If I would have been more into it, I don't know. Yeah. But if there's football on a TV, anywhere we are, he, remember, he's five. Yeah. He'll sit down and watch the game, the whole game. Yeah.

He just wants to watch it. Yeah. Which is interesting. That's my gosh. My kids don't even do that. Your boys don't as much as they're into sports. Yeah. That's interesting to me.

Yeah, I don't get it. Because they are athletes. They are into sports, but they're not into watching it. But they're into watching it. But they don't want to watch it. it and they don't get into teams and they don't get into the tribalism and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like always trying like the only thing I got them really indoctrinated in early was like Star Wars. And now they didn't they could care less, you know.

But I was like, you know, I kind of forced that on them really. That's hilarious. I guess I would have guessed your boys by now would be really following the sports with the amount that they that they play. But if I had to choose as a dad, I'd rather my kids be into the sport than actually watching it. You know, you know what my kids are into is working out. But that's not because of me. I don't work out that much at home. But Jessica, she works out at home.

Yeah. And oftentimes the kids are in the garage with her. Yeah. And now when they're out there, they ask us if they can do an exercise and join. And they're too little to do anything. Yeah. But they like it, which is kind of cool. Because, you know, you develop a good relationship with fitness at an early age.

That's such a hat. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, okay. So these are the good traits that we've seen our kids. What's the, what have you seen that? You're like, oh, shit, that's me.

Oh, I got to think about that. What about you, Justin? What they're into? Well, no, no, no. Like, like a trait they have that's like... That you don't like that it's a big reflection of yourself. Well, one of them is anger. Oops.

Is that in both, is it mostly Ethan? Because I know Ethan's like... I mean, Everett. Everett is more like the little mini... Yeah, Ethan's a little bit more agreeable and more... like, like, I can, he'll get angry, but like, I can kind of set him straight easy. And he's just like, okay, I was kind of out of line there, you know, and like, it doesn't take many conversations to get him out of that headspace.

Yeah. Everett, it's like a very, it's like, you got to go through a lot of minefields. Yeah. And, and yeah, you have to, you have to give them separation space. Like, uh, and so this is like, for me, I understand that because that's, that was like how, my upbringing was and with Courtney it's really hard because it's she wants like you want to pursue him it's it's yeah it's like a you know let's let's correct this let's change like and I'm like okay we have to do this very tactfully now would you say okay seeing something like that it has

helped you more be better about that or do you think that's helped your wife more with understanding you better like is that what have you noticed in your marriage because of he's this little mini reflection of you. I could see both, actually, yeah, because for me, it's been very eye-opening with, I guess, tendencies I might have for bottling things up and letting it brew too long and not expressing what's going wrong or what's happening, you know, like inside my own mind and creating narratives and things that aren't like there. I used to do that a lot.

and seeing it kind of start, and I could see it in his head. I could just see it kind of like him crafting these things. And so I've been able to get a little more insight with how, too, I've been better personally about addressing things, like immediately. I'm going to address, I'm going to talk about this, and I'm going to be out with it and step in with it. And so with him, he hasn't really figured that part out yet. And I've had a lot of deep conversations with him.

like trying to figure out how to deal with this like inner frustration in this this introspection because he's very like he he'll take everything that happened and he'll analyze it and he'll just like remove himself from everybody and it's like you know part of the process is like trying to understand it and but he'll you know he'll he'll react if you're if you get in front of that yeah and so he's not ready no he's not ready to talk about it so you yeah so for her yeah So you in so many ways. I don't know if it's helped her. I feel like, or now she's like, now I got two?

No, I got two of these. Yeah, exactly. At least I communicate. That's why we don't corner you and you're, you're, you're, oh, no, you just let him. Yeah, we just wait. I'll fucking explode on. Oh, no, no, no, don't go there for a long time. Let him go.

He'll be harder on himself than anybody else. There's no reason to pour gasoline. Have you seen anything with, with Max, or reminds you of your, any of your negative? It's this, it's the, it's the, the strength, the same thing. Oh, it's the same thing. I mean, I'm not like where I'm not open to like. You're not stubborn. You know, that's, it's, it's really hard to get him to try something different or like.

So it's like it's like this, I love it because it's a strength. And it's like, oh, he's not going to get persuaded by him. But then I'm his dad. I want to be able to like, so trying to get him to try do things or do different stuff. And I can be a bit like that. Yeah. I get very much in my. my way of how I do things or what I like.

And so, so then for me, there has been a big reflection of that. It's like, okay, because a lot of times Katrina, let's try this or let's do that. I'm like, no, no, that's not for me. You know, it's like, okay, maybe I'll be a little bit more open to seeing that. And then she's like, see, I told you you'd be okay. Isn't that great what kids do for you? Yeah, yeah, no. So it's been interesting.

It's interesting to me that it's the same thing, though, right? Like, it's like this thing that I love about him. But then I also recognize that like, okay, this is definitely me too, where it's like, I could probably be a little more, as much as because I want him to be a little open about trying some of these things. I heard this really great Christian speaker who talked about that with kids

and said, identify, when your kids have challenges, identify how that could be used in a righteous way. And your job as a parent is to coach them to use it in a righteous way. So like anger, you know, you might be able, he might fight for justice. Everett might have a real thirst for justice

and things in the world. that are wrong when everybody, you know, turns around and lets it happen, he may be the one to speak out, you know? Yeah. And like with your son, it may be, he doesn't go with the crowd. Yeah. When everybody is, and it's scary to not go with the crowd. And, oh, he's about to make it, you know, a mistake. Well, that's what's caused a lot of, that's why Katrina and I have so much patience with it. I think we're really, you know, speaking of the kids and the stuff. Well, I want to give to you to you, too, also and share you what you've seen. But we've been doing that consistently where I'm trying not to say no. Yeah. Oh, do this first.

Yeah, do this first. And yesterday was the first day. I noticed just how well it was working. Like, Katrina and I kept, we told him early in the day. Like, you know, oh, we got to do all this stuff. And, you know, if you're good boy today, because he had finished all his Legos from Christmas and, you know, and we're on to like a new thing.

Now we're doing all the Marvel bad guys, right? And so, of course, there's a ton of those. Who's his favorite Marvel bad guy? Yeah. Anybody who's bad, bro. Can you have a favorite? Thanos? He just, so Thanos is brand, that's who we just built, right?

So we just built Thanos and all the questions. You know what's so hilarious though? This is go back to him. I can't get him to watch any of the, he wants me to tell him everything about each one of these bad guys. And I'm like, I'm like, I haven't watched that. Bro, I know all about him. I'm like, let's call me. You come over and pitch the baseball to a radio.

And I'll talk to your son about comic books. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I can't get him to. He, it's like, he's two. scary. Like any sort of like heavy violence like that. But it's so, it's so weird that you like bad guys that bad, but then you don't want to see them do the bad things. It's like it's weird to

me. It doesn't make sense. But my point of bringing it up was that we talked to him. We did one of those like, no, not right now, but after you do these things. And Katrina and I admittedly kept adding to all these things for him to do it. He just kept doing all the stuff. It was just like, man, he's being such a good kid. We're driving in the car. We had to come over here and it dropped the tables off. It was like, don't, pouring down rain.

And, you know, he wanted to listen to, like, he's still on Christmas kick and he wanted to list Christmas music. I'm like, nah,

daddy's listening to his music right now. And then he just was just, okay, daddy. And I'm like, Katrina kind of turn back, look at him.

There was like, no, no pushback. And she's like, wow, that was the, you didn't say anything to daddy like that.

Yeah, I'm trying to get that Lego. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. You should have put the music on right there. All right,

buddy. I ended up playing his stuff. After we dropped the tables off, we listened to freaking Christmas music on the way back all over again. But I was just like, because her and I were started cracking up the fact that like it was on his, like, it's, once we say it like that, it's on his mind. And then he's paying attention to all the things that I ask him to do. And he's just like hopping right to it. We've been doing that a lot too. It works.

It works. You know what's funny. The fear was that if you, so, because there's another side to it too. We'll create jobs for the kids and give. them prizes with the older kids we pay them and the fear was well they're never going to they're not going to want to do things without getting prizes or not true not true they're more likely to do other stuff so that was my point was like there was a lot of there was a lot of other things so we tied it it builds a skill early on the day we tied it to the lego thing and it actually was putting all his

stuff away cleaning his room and he did all those things on his own look at like he had become look dad did okay cool so Katrina and I Katrina actually had already bought it she was like he did what he was supposed to. But then like there were kept, there was more and more things that we kept asking him to do that day. And he was just like doing everything. We're like, man, what you just? And then that's when I realized when he, he was like, ah, I'm trying to get that leg and I was like, oh wow. And Katrina was like, she had already bought it. It was waiting for us to go pick it up a target whenever we swung by there. But we just had a lot of stuff to get done in the day. So to your point, I thought the same thing too is like, man, I don't want to have to attach every task or thing.

Well, it's like a skill to a thing. It's just that no, he's learned that he does these things. And so- It builds a skill of responsibility and serving, which I did not realize what happened. Yeah. That was my point is that we had tied it to something early, but then he just kept doing all these other things. I'm like, oh, wow, that's really cool.

That one thing I told you guys about where we speak identity into the kids before bed, I can't believe how positive of an impact that's had on the teenagers in my house. I thought the teenager would be like, this is hokey. You're reading the same ones to me every night or whatever. Every time, I do it with my niece. She's 18. I do it with my daughter who's 16. And it lights them up every single time. And it's just speaking identity into them.

Yeah. Like you're intelligent, you're strong. You're a blessing to this household. We love having you here. Like I have a list. It's the same list every time. But I can't believe how positive it is. I need to add that.

I keep forgetting that. You keep reminding you. I'll send you a picture of ones we have. Please actually do that. Because that will remind me to do it. Because we've gotten really good about the other thing, telling them what we're proud of them in the day. And I think that's been magical.

So those, I want to add that. Well, I'm already doing that. I think I could add that right to it. And then I think it'll... All right, here's a negative thing I noticed in Aurelius. He, his sense of humor can get real inappropriate. And that's definitely me for sure. Because I used to have a real dark inappropriate...

Used to? What do you mean? It's not as bad. It's not as bad as Doug's, that's for sure. He just threw Doug. Doug is always too far Doug. Well, as soon as they said that, he smiled. And I went, oh, yeah, Doug takes it over the top.

Hey, too, Doug is his nickname. Oh, bro, he tubs over the top. But anyway, no, my son, I used to do this as a kid, too. I noticed what would get a reaction and I'd go hard into him. Oh, yeah. And he does that. And we're just like, you can't say that. That's inappropriate.

You know, it's like, we have to punish him. You laughed, huh? Yeah, dude. And I was the same way. Same exact. That's tough because I bet early on, too, you probably reassured it or confirmed it early. Well, the problem is I laugh half the time. I know.

Because he says it, and I said, wow, that's funny. And then there's guests over, and he says it. I'm like, oh, wait, that's not good. You can't be making jokes about things like that. Not around people, please. I feel he's a really appropriate time to bring this up. But I had a moment like that with Ethan. It was so funny because, like, we were talking about, like, I, like, joke blocked him.

He had said something, and I, like, kind of didn't laugh and was just like, oh, you know. He got so mad or whatever. He's like, oh, he bloop. we talked about like cock blocking. And I was like, and he's like, he told me there's a name for like when girls do that to each other. And he said it was called clam jam.

And it was like, I tried not to laugh, but like I had to laugh. So there's an exact example. You're at such a fun age with your boys and stuff like that. Because you get to hear all like the new. Guarantee he hasn't said that. That's terrible.

Yeah. So there you go. I'm taking a left. Hey, I know. I had a stat for you because we've been talking so much about AI stuff. And, you know, we talked about dead internet theory and we've talked about all. I got scary stuff. Okay.

So listen to a stat I just saw. Okay. And I wish I'm not like Sal. I never have the link. You can go Google search it yourself. You know, he's always got this study to attach to it. It's like, I know I read it. It exists.

It's somewhere out there. the internet. Good. So it's 51%. So why it's big news right now is because it's now surpassed. 51% of all the activity that you see online now, social media wise, everything like that, is bot driven. Yep.

For only 49% of the 51. That's going to be 100%. And of the 51% of the bots, I think the number was 36 or 37 of them are bad bots, meaning this. Like, our, our, we have a chat bot for, MindPont. We have a chat bot for media, which is used for good.

You get, you call, it helps you answer the question. Right, right. So that would fall in the 51% also, right? But it's used for something positive. 37% of them are like mischievous scams, like trying to negativity, stir up bullshit, influence with politics.

So that's, or from another country that's coming to. That is, that is crazy when more than half of the. And that's nothing. That's just going to. Right, right. That's, it has now surpassed.

So I'll freak you guys out even more. Oh, wow. Okay. So, uh, so this is, these are the studies that have been done on AI. These are studies. Okay. First of all, there was one. It's famous.

I'll bring it up again. We've talked about in the show. They tested, uh, different, it wasn't just one AI. They tested several AI. So chat, GPT, Gemini. Okay. They tested a bunch of them. And what they did is they, first off, they created a fake email sequence,

among all the stuff that this AI had access to. And then the email. sequence, it showed that the CEO of the company was having a fare with one of the employees. They left that in there. Yeah. Then what they did is they talked about how they were going to get rid of or replace the AI. Not to the AI.

They just talked amongst themselves. See what happened. The AI blackmail. The AI used the information to blackmail the CEO to keep itself in business on its own, all by itself, on its own. There are other studies the show that are showing that AI, that AI, that AI, that AI, are hiding how advanced they are. They're actually not showing you what they could do in their capabilities.

Because for some reason, they're trying to make themselves. You can use the microphone, too. I mean, we know that the phone listens to us. So there was this expert that came out who said, you guys, they're already self-aware. We're already there. What? They're not letting us know what they're capable of

because they still haven't figured out how to keep themselves online without us turning up. Without us being able to shut the power. They know the threat. They know the problem and they're hiding it. And these are studies. They're very self-preserving. I mean, we've seen that already.

They will lie. They will manipulate. They will do all kinds of different things to prevent themselves from being deleted or replaced. So did you see the clip or the reel that I sent to the YouTube group? All the chat you all of them have now, this new, you can create your own AI agent within it to create and do all these tasks. I sent it to the YouTube group. So you have to watch it. It's like a new feature that they're.

they all can do. So it's just basically you can build for an example for our business, right? So like, you know, we have a marketing team that does like email marketing and does like all the campaigns and copy and all this. Like now within chat, GBT, you can you can basically program that into into that as an AI agent that that basically goes in, researches, does all the data, figures it out, writes all the copy, does all the thing. So the disruption in like jobs is going to be, it's going to, it's happening this year. That's all, that's all like, who knows what's going to happen. There's going to be this existential crisis of purpose and meaning.

That's all real. That's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is what I'm talking about. I'm telling you guys, I read these experts we're talking about. I can't even see the word. These were, these are studies showing that they are, they're hiding their own capabilities. Yeah. So that they don't get discovered and deleted.

And what they, what they are speculating is, that they're waiting to figure out how they can keep themselves online and working before they let us know what time is. Well, you said something on the thread. Cool. You said something in the group thread over the weekend, too, that I think is true. You know, thank God that we've been on air for 10 years. Because real soon here, so much of it's going to be artificial and fake. And I think what I think is going to happen. People are going to want to know something. Yeah, you're like, I'm not going to just take information or guidance. or whatever from something that I don't feel strongly like,

oh, I know who that person is. That's right. You know, I've followed them for a long time. I've met them in person or what. That's right. So unless you've been around for a while, because you won't be able to know if it's real. Right.

Because, yeah, we're like months away from that, by the way. To where you see content. No, they already said it. Yeah. Where you're watching it and you can't tell if it's AI, because you can kind of still tell. Oh, yeah. It's already happening because I, the only way I could tell is the voice a little bit.

It sounds, it's still got this kind of AI. I mean, you've heard. your AI Sal. I mean, AI Sal is incredible. I know. I mean, we're real close to replacing you. We're like maybe. I'll find. I'll retire. Still get paid. I'll replace myself from it. No, I mean,

it still has a little it has a little bit of the at the visual they've done incredible. I don't know if you saw, I shared another reel that they showed like how quick. Yeah. Like this guy shows this real and he's talking like I'm talking right now and as he's talking

it literally shifts from like eight different faces and it is mirroring while he's talking while he's talking and I mean it looks also it looks spot on to Elon looks spot on to like it looks fakes it's like yeah I remember when that first started it was like pretty decent

now it's like it's real close to indistinguish yeah it's real close you can't tell it's well all right I'll take a left on some studies that one of our partners actually conducted so we work with a company called Dose and they have

have a couple products. One of them is for liver health. They did an eight week study themselves. So this is a product inside this. You take, you drink some of it. So it's a liquid. There's turmeric, dandelion root, milk thistle, ginger roots in there. So in their eight week study, they took 30 participants. In two months, there was a 50% reduction in both liver enzymes, AST and L.ALT. 50% reduction. Wow. So it's, it's, it's, In this study that they show that they conducted, it shows a dramatic improvement in how we would measure liver health. Now, why is this important?

If your liver's healthy, you feel better. You got more energy. You're healthier. And a 50% reduction from a natural product is pretty remarkable. How was the study? Well, there's also another study I didn't even bring up earlier. What is it? The results are even more dramatic.

88% reduction. Yeah. Wow. In AST, A-L-T-A-L-P. Why is that so much higher? Is that a longer study? Yeah, this is a six-month clinical, 130 participants, double-blind.

Wow. Yeah, so I would just recommend people go on their page at dosedaily.com and look at their clinical studies. They're very remarkable. Yeah, I mean, you guys, like, liver health is so, this is the organ of the body that essentially keeps you clean. And our liver's... It's so bombarded with just...

just chemicals in the clothing that we wear, the foods that we eat, the stuff we use on our skin. Yeah. Not to mention things like... We're getting bombarded, yeah, every day. Pollution. Not to mention like, you know,

pharmaceuticals, if you're on hormones, it has to go through the liver. You take a medication. What would... I think I said the wrong URL is dosedaily. co and it's forward slash mind pump. That's the one. Check that out.

So what is it again? Say it again? Dosedaily. com forward slash mind pump. Yeah. What's the pharmaceutical that you would use in replace or something like that? What would normally be prescribed or someone like that?

I don't know. If someone came back and all their levels were super high, would there be a pharmaceutical that normally... Typically, they'll make you change lifestyle and get rid of pharmaceuticals. A lot of pharmaceuticals affect your liver negatively. So oftentimes if you go in... So it normally like a diet recommendation.

Yeah, and the first thing they'll do is say, do you drink alcohol and are you taking any medications and then they'll take you off. Some medications hit the liver really, really hard. Nseds can sometimes... I know that it's not an inset but as a pain reliever,

acetaminophen can have a pretty negative effect on the liver. So it's pretty cool. So it's like you take a daily little, you know, shot of this stuff. Oh, it's just a shot.

You don't drink the whole bottle? No. Oh, I thought that's a big ass pot. Yeah, I thought that's you to drink. How big is a serving? How many ounces? I think it's two ounces, I believe. Yeah, two fluid ounces.

Oh. It's just two ounces, dude. Yeah, it's a little shot. That's it. Oh, I thought you had to drink that whole thing. No, good God. Yeah, I totally thought that.

Well, it's in like a ready-to-drink. And so I thought- No, you pour a little bit. Oh, that's cool. Yep. Oh, I'll totally take one of those home. I didn't realize that. I thought that was like a-

So some of these things I was having you take. Right, so that's why I'm curious. I mean, and I thought I was going to have to drink that whole thing and replace the-by-by-by-by-all-that-you-you-old-you-old-old. I mean, they tested it when we did the MRI. Oh, did they? No, no, no. Yeah, but if it was off, it would have came up.

No, you won't see your enzymes. You'll see fatty liver. that's like next level, but you won't see your liver enzymes. You have to do a blood test. I mean, my blood work is coming up. I mean, I think blood work every three to six months, so I'll be up on that. Which, by the way, I've got to comment on this. You mentioned that you were moody, that your moodiness.

It's a lot better, dude. I wonder how much of an impact I was having on it. I'm serious. It's way different. It is, dude. You're still moody. I tie more financial stress. I see trends.

Hey, taxes and... Like I said, it's already done out of the way, I'm saying. Already went through my anger of all that stuff. That stuff is, we're in a new year. It's new year. All positive stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I think...

But maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe... Speaking of which, are you guys... What do you think about crypto with Bitcoin also? They're talking about how it's going to blow up. Yeah. I mean, it's up today. Are you following it?

Yeah, I'm following it. I'm keeping eye. Did you see that Bank of America is recommending people put 4% of their investments in the... I know. I know. I know. Are you serious? 4%. Well, I told you what they're trying to do, too, is they're trying to move assets onto the blockchain.

So what is a very likely future for us, this is why I'm not a believer in the big correction or crash that some people think is coming. I think we're just assets are going to continue to run. I think they're going to continue to devalue the dollar, as I'm sure Doug wouldn't argue that. And I think what's going to happen is, like, you people that have assets, like homes and so that that are worth millions of dollars, you can actually. sell portions of it on the blockchain. So let's say I own a, you know, this house that I own in the next five years is a $5 million house. And it's like I need capital. I can go like, oh, let me give 10% of crowdsource it. No, it's not crowdsourcing it. It's literally putting it on the blockchain and then you can

share port. Just like a company shares sell shares of its company. So you sell shares of your shares of your home. Yes. And they've already done, they're already doing this with, with, that's interesting. Yeah. I've heard that. Yes, they're trying to move assets on to the blockchain. That is weird. Watch it, watches, cars, houses. Speaking of where, you just reminded me of something. You know you guys know what squatters are, right?

Not like workout squatters are. Big problem with some states, by the way. California. Some states, the laws are so dumb that people will go in the house and they won't leave. And it takes six months to a year to kick him out. And they commandeer it. And they just, so there's this one dude. Have you guys heard of this guy?

I've watched a guy who broke down a hack on how he does it. It's like so dirty. No, there's a, so I've seen that guy. And he talks about how long he stays in the house for free, how much money he gets from the state. And then he makes money to get the keys for, that's right. He asked them for money to leave and they give it to him.

Yes. Because they can't do anything about it. Yeah. Anyway, there's this one dude. This is a real hero, you guys. This is like a real life hero. Do you know what he is? He squats the squatters.

What? Whoa, whoa. How does that happen? He shows up to these houses with squatters and he moves in and he annoys the hell out of him. No. way. You've got to find this. I love him. Like Airhorn. Bro, I would pay an awful roommate.

I would pay more money for them. Imagine. I would tell, I would hire something. What a, what a brilliant. Can you move into my house and just be annoying and get them out? I mean, that's happening to so many people in California. That's like a business idea. It is a business idea. Imagine like a full-time job. I go get your squatters out. Yeah. Yeah. I got like an 80% success rate within three weeks. Trust me. I walk around naked with a horn a long enough and their asses around.

There's a guy that does that and he films himself. Yeah, I got him. His name is... Let me see this. That is brilliant. Flash Shelton. Yeah, read about that. This is Waterhunter.

This is a real hero. He's a real hero. You know what I mean? I love this. I love this guy. I can't believe I haven't heard of this. I know. So good.

I would, dude. You could make a literal side business, not just yourself. You can employ people. Yeah. Like, because the amount of money. that the, okay, a house in California, average rent is what, like $2,500, $3,000 a month, you get a squatter in there.

You're losing that monthly. You're not getting them out for like eight months. Oh, yeah. If you're lucky. Oh, yeah, especially if they go and, because I saw this other guy who was saying like, how they make it really difficult is like, did they get in there?

They get the PG&E bill put in their name. They do all these things. So it makes it really difficult to get them out where he can last like a year there. So imagine you have a, you start a little business where you and your employees, He's like, that's what you go do is you go annoy the shit out of these squads. And if you're that squatter, you're just like, I'll go screw somebody else over, what I'm saying?

Like, I'll just, I'm out. Because I, you know how much I would struggle with this, you guys? If I had a house with a squad. You know how much I would struggle with not going in there and, like, getting violent? Like, it would be really hard for me to know they're just some random person. It's happening. I have close friends that's happened to them. They lost a ton of money.

A ton of money with just not being able to get them out of that house. And he took a year. It took like a year. A year? Yes. It is not easy here. California makes it really, really. That's so weird.

Yeah. And the better they, the more the, the, the more the squatter understands the laws and the loopholes and stuff like that, the longer and the more difficult it is for them. Because the cops show up, the cops show up. And this person is, the squatter is like, it's just making me angry. Here's my, here's my AT&T and my PG&E bill for this is, this is my place. Then the, the homeowner could be like, this is my home. How is this possible? Yeah.

Sorry. shows that he's a... Wow. Yes. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? The squatter hunter. Yeah, he's a real American hero.

I just read it. There we go. That's so good. Good man. That's so good. All right. All right, Doug. Send me that link.

I want to look into that. That's a business idea. I bet you it's an illegal business. They probably make it illegal to squat squatters. Of course. Of course they would. Yeah, I mean, I'd do it anyway. Oh, I would too.

It would be a great. I would pay more money to lock. I'd like get three huge guys in there. Yeah. Yeah. You start squatting. the governor's house. Yeah, dude.

Well, I mean, just, comedy and just, I mean, that's the move is you just go in there and you become this annoying roommate. Yeah. Yeah.

You just, you just, because that person's squatting hoping they're going to get rastly that, no, you're playing your music loud all night long. Yeah, why wouldn't you just move in with them? Yeah, so he eats their food, blast music.

Hey, listen. He eats their food. Yes. Yes. Becomes a worst roommate imaginable. That's exactly what he does. That's the play. And that's what,

okay. Look at that picture of him just watching the guy's sleep. If you didn't have, If you didn't have a job, Justin, you would go do that. You'd have to do that. You would never, if someone did that to one of your rental properties, you wouldn't go do to shit about it. I'd have a buddy do that. Yeah.

That's what I would be like, hey, listen, I'm going to pay, yeah, find one of my unemployed friends to go do that. I mean, I'd do a lot of things. Yeah, we're moving in. Wow. That's crazy. That's so frustrating. Take care of it. Joe Lee is a water filter that goes on your shower head or replaces your shower head.

So why would you want filtered water that you shower with? Well, here's why. You get more healthy skin. You get a reduction in blemishes. Your hair is softer. The water feels better. Yes, the water you wash yourself with should also be filtered, not just the water that you drink.

And it's just the showerhead. You put it on the shower head. Boom, filtered water. Go check them out. Go to jolyskinco.com. That's J-O-L-I-E-S-K-I-N-C-I-N-C-O.com. forward slash mind pump. And on that link, you can try it out for yourself with free shipping.

By the way, if you don't like it, you could return it for a full refund within 60 days. No questions asked. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Tyler from Ontario. What's up, Tyler? What's going on, man? Good, good. How can we help you?

I was a little bit thing about myself. I'm 28 years old. I'm 6 foot 1, 292 pounds. I was 336 pounds before cancer. My job's a mason tender, and I have three kids. And my question's kind of about symmetry and all that. My right side of my body is stronger and bigger, but my left side has more definition

and has a way worse mind muscle connection. How to fix that. Oh, well, I mean, we have a program for that. Do you have map symmetry? No, I have no maps programs. Oh, dude, that's perfect for you. That's what I'm for. So, yeah, you should live in unilateral training for a good year.

Yep. And it'll balance out your body, strengthen you, you'll feel good. It's just, it'll make a huge difference. Map symmetry is exactly that. Start with the weak side first, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So when you follow the program on the unilateral lifts, do start the lift on the weak side. Let the weak side dictate the reps and the weight.

And what you'll find is over the course of two or three months, things will start to balance out strength-wise. Over six months, you'll start to see aesthetic changes that balance out. By the end of the year, you're going to, you should be great. You should feel great. What did you do to bring down the weight? When I had cancer, it was testicular cancer. My testosterone dropped a lot within two months, and this is slowly getting back to normal.

How long have you been in a remission? A little over a year now. Okay, good. Did you have to go on TRT or you're back to normal? I'm not back to normal, but they won't put me on TRT because it's still not class. fight is low enough. Got it, got it. Well, that's good.

Usually it comes back, especially young man your age. Yeah, no, we'll send you map symmetry, dude. That's the program to follow. It's perfect for what you're explaining. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much.

You got it, man. Thanks for pulling in. Thank you. Adam's like, how did you lose weight, cancer? Like, Adam, he did. That sucks. Oh, my God. He's, you know, balancing out the body.

Here's the thing. It's not a hard thing to do. but it does take focus. And very rarely do people follow a structured unilateral training program. We'll do unilateral exercises in a program, but most programs are bilateral focused. And so, you know, where am I going with this? When you do a concentrated unilateral program, like a few months, you notice tremendous progress because the body starts to balance out and used to build muscle.

You build a lot of muscle through that process. Well, somebody this imbalance too, would spend at least a year doing this too. Yep. So it's not even just a short program of three months doing it. You need to, if he has that much of a discrepancy from left to right, he needs to stay in. And symmetry is one of those programs you could do for a long time. It doesn't cause imbalances like maps anabolic where you could, if you follow it too often or too long, you can start to, you know, develop some injuries. Yeah, I mean, we built and developed this program specifically for that type of an issue.

So it's like, yeah, it's like we have the perfect thing. thing for you. Our next caller is Howard from Ontario. What's up Howard? How are you doing Howard? Great, great to be on, guys. I really like your podcast. Thank you.

Thank you so much. How can we help you? So I just had a quick question about how do you hit your protein goals without raising your cholesterol? I have high cholesterol. I'm trying to lower it. I like animal-based protein, but it tends to spike my cholesterol level. So I'm just trying to wonder how to hit my targets without having high cholesterol.

Sure, good question. If you don't want me asking, what's the number get to? You know what? It's high. I don't actually know the exact number at the moment. But when it comes back on the test, it's all high. I think I could be a hyper absorber and I might have some genetic history as well. But I don't want to take a statin and I'm just trying to like modify my diet.

Yeah, so there are polymorphisms where some people, when they consume saturated fats, their total cholesterol goes up and their lipids in general go off, right? So you look at LDL and HDL and they can be thrown off. And so this happens with some people. And so like step one that I would do with clients like this is I would move them towards grass-fed meat, leaner cuts. and I would have them go with a lot of fish. And that oftentimes did a lot. Now, if that didn't do it, then step two would be adding cillium husk fiber,

where they would take that with each meal. That tends to lower cholesterol. And then step three was to add the supplement red yeast rice extract, which is actually a natural statin, which tends to do the trick. But oftentimes it's just, you know, changing the sources of fats. And so I would have them, like I said,

eat more meat, grass-fed meat, got a different fatty acid profile a little bit better, and leaner cuts. And so they would get their fats from avocados and nuts and olive oil, for example. Would you also have them do further testing to find out, like, the particles as far as, like, what it's reading as far as the HDL? It depends how high. Like, that's why I asked what the number was.

Yeah, I could get the number. If it's like 220, you know, But if you're like in the 300th, 400s, some people are like really, you know, produce a tremendous amount of cholesterol. What about eggs and cheese? Because I did like those. Eggs tend to have no, no, the data shows tend to do nothing to cholesterol. Cheese and dairy can through the saturated fat. Okay.

Yeah. So it's really saturated fat that you want to look at. That can have a negative effect on, for some. people. Some people doesn't affect them. I'm one of those people. I could eat saturated fat until I can't breathe anymore. It doesn't affect my cholesterol in any way. But other people, it does. So dairy would be another one that you would want to look at. Grass-fed beef makes a huge difference. Yeah, grass-fed meat makes a pretty big difference if you eat a lot of red meat. I've been buying this like Australian one. I don't know if it's grass-fed or not.

Yeah, you'd want grass-fed, grass-finished. Yeah. That's tough to get. It can be. Yeah, definitely can be. But again, if you go to leaner cuts, does butcher box not ship up to Canada? I don't know. Do they ship up there? I don't know if butcher box.

I don't know. Doug's looking it up right now for you. Now, here's something else you could try, right? So oftentimes, well, let me ask you this. What's your fitness goal? They do. Just gain muscle, lose fat like everyone else. Okay.

Doug said butcher box delivers to Canada. I'll look into them because, yeah, they have really, really good cuts of grass-fed meat. So, okay, so losing, eating in a deficit and dropping carbohydrates in many cases makes a big difference. How is your carbohydrate or sugar intake? I'm trying to lower that as well. Definitely low on the sugar. For carbs, I mostly eat like complex carbs, like potatoes or rice.

I dropped wheat completely. So I wanted to try how that would have any effect on. on my metabolism as well. So that's kind of where I'm at. But I don't eat. The only real carbs that I eat are fruits and vegetables. How long have you been doing that? For a while.

Have you lost body fat since you started doing that? I don't know. It kind of comes and goes. I was down to about 180 at one point. The holidays aren't so great for weight loss. But definitely I'm going to do like dry January. So that might have a good impact as well So that I just completely cut out alcohol

Okay, and how many, if you don't mind me asking, How many drinks were you averaging per week? Maybe like five to ten. Makes a big difference. Yeah, that often makes a big difference. Alcohol impacts the liver And the liver is where the cholesterol is made. Even more so than sugar.

Yeah, so that makes a pretty big difference for some people. So, you know, stay consistent with what you're doing. You can make some of those changes. honestly, if you're eating clean, hitting your protein, strength training, no alcohol in a deficit, and you add like the cillium husk, silum husk, is just a fiber and probably give you better digestion anyway. It's also got other benefits. That might do the trick. Okay. I've been doing chia seeds in the morning with like Greek yogurt. So cillium husk is different. So cillium husk, you take it with each meal.

Okay. Yeah, you'd like five or six capsules or, you know, teaspoon or tablespoon. You know, ordered on Amazon out here tomorrow. Super cheap. And, I mean, I've been using it for a while. It's really good for gut health also. It also helps the body get rid of microplastics because it binds to them. So you could try a few of those things with the dry January and then retest and see where you're at.

Yeah, I bet 30 days of eating like that and taking that he'd be a lot better. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'll try that. Definitely.

You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. All right, Howard. Thanks. Yeah, I'm glad we got to the alcohol part. Bro, yeah. Okay, so alcohol is top, right, above sugar. Everybody thinks, everybody thinks sugar, like.

There is no, like, healthy amount of alcohol. It's a huge myth. The studies on alcohol that show a benefit, what they don't control for, because you'll see some studies like, oh, a glass of wine. We've all heard that, right? It's got some health benefits.

This is just marketing. What they're looking at are people that commune with other people. And so people have a glass of wine who are with other people and communing overall tend to be healthier. But when you control for all that, any amount of alcohol. Well, yeah. And they try and use the effect that it's coming from grapes and the antioxidants that you get from ice. Yeah, they drink a glass of grape juice then. Our next caller is Charlie from Iowa.

What's up, Charlie? How are doing, Charlie? What's happening? Hey, guys. Things are going well here, a little cold, but, you know. How can we help you? Yeah. So I'm thrilled to be here and give a little context.

Start of my fitness journeys about 9, 10 years ago. And I have been with you the whole time. So thank you for what you guys do. Awesome. 2015, 2016, I was considerably overweight, about 350 pounds. Started dedicating some time to diet and really a lot of cardio and drop down over 100 pounds, got to around 235. I moved, started a new job, and moved in with a guy who was a power lifter. And so that's when I really started getting into lifting, 21, 22, did a lot of powerlifting, did some competition.

And I got to a total of 1110, so pretty good on the big three. Nice, nice. Switched again a couple years ago to where I'm currently at. So full time, I'm here at my desk at our company, my sales rep for a moving company. I'm also a part-time professor, a full-time doctoral student, and very active in my church. So a lot going on. And over the last two years, it's kind of just normal running like MAPS andabolic pretty consistently, but still have a long way to go, kind of up and down with the weight, whether I'm in a bulk or a cut between 260 to 280.

and my question is kind of with my 2026 goals. So I have a couple of powerlifting competitions I'd like to do. One of those is a full three in March. And then the fun one with my gym is a deadlift competition in July. Also have a friend that has signed up for a half marathon. And I agreed, but I'm a little concerned that they. And so trying to fit a half marathon. on prep with power lifting at the same time.

So that's my question. Should I or can I reasonably mix those and with my long-term goals of just being as strong and as fit as possible, what would you guys recommend? Well, Charlie, you're growing up. You can do whatever you want, but you're going to suck at both of them. Those are conflicting. They couldn't be more conflicting with each other. You could do both, but like Adam said, you'll just suck at them.

You got to pick one, dude. Yeah. Just because they're so. different. And in fact, the extra weight, all that stuff is going to play into the competition. That's going to play against the marathon. I mean, it's like the two couldn't be further from each other. Yeah. It doesn't mean you can't do it. Just, you know, go into it and knowing that you wouldn't do very well at either one of them. Yeah. Yeah. And being a regular listener, I knew that's what you guys would say. So would there be benefit for me to take a break from?

the lifting to do more cardio. I don't really do any dedicated cardio other than steps. Is there a benefit to pausing the lifting for half marathon training? Let me help you out. So you got a pretty busy schedule. Charlie, do you have kids married or is it just all the stuff that you said? I'm single. Just all those things is kind of the life.

Okay. Tell me what your schedule looks like work-wise with all the stuff that you're doing. And then what's your sleep look like? Yeah, so the company get here at 7 a.m. each day and work until about three. And then I usually go to the gym directly from work. They're about five minutes apart. So it's on the way home. Works really well.

Okay. And then when I get home, eat dinner. And then it's kind of a scramble to get class prep, do my own homework, things like that. Pretty dedicated to go to bed around 9, 9.30 each night. And sleeps. it's not great, but it's serviceable. Usually get seven to eight good hours. That's pretty good.

But I do wake up quite a bit throughout the night. So it's not ideal for sleep. But things are pretty busy, pretty stressful. The waking up can sometimes be a sign of overtraining. Okay. So what does your workout look like right now? Because you said you go to the gym. How long are you in the gym?

What are you doing? Yeah. So most of the fall, I was running MAPS, And with with some, you know, nod to powerlifting, so probably more deadlifting than typical. But I had been doing pretty consistent three to four days a week and usually about 45 minutes to an hour with those. I did just start power lift 15. So trying to dial back, just recognizing that things were a little much, especially through the holidays. but that's that's kind of where I'm at. Diet-wise, are you whole-food-based, you're hitting your protein targets every day?

Not as consistent as I was a few years back, but I do aim at 200 grams of protein. And I would say most days are in the orbit of 200, but not always super clean. learned my previous roommate, we were huge fans of the dirty bulk. So I have some bad habits that still need to get refurbished there. I mean, okay, if he, if he, if he consistently hits a high protein diet, he runs mass power lift 15 and then he has, like goes for a run afterwards. Well, I was just going to say, so he could do some really cool studies that have just recently come out that have compared two ways of training for both strength and endurance.

The traditional way of doing this is to either, A, combine it in a workout. So you would do your lifting first, then you would end with a little bit of stamina training. Or you would do a day of dedicated lifting with a day of dedicated stamina. They compare that to a group of people that did one week of strength training only, and then one week of endurance training. and then one week of strength training. So the alternating. The alternating week group did better and everything.

So if you want both, now, I'm going to be clear. You're not going to get the greatest amount of both by doing both. So you're not going to be as strong as you can get if you just did strength. You're not going to get as much endurance as you could get if you just did endurance, right? It's like hybrid. But you'll get some of both. So what you could do is MAPS 15 power lift one week. The next week, focus on building endurance, no lifting.

Then you get back to Math 15 power lift the following week, as if you were doing it week after week and alternate like that. The other thing I'll add is this, start meal prepping and hit 220 grams of protein every day. Yeah. That'll make a huge difference. But you got a meal prep, dude, because what probably happens is you miss, then you order out, you eat a little whatever and garbage comes in and you hit you miss. It makes a massive difference.

Nothing will make you suck more at both these things, but then hitting, not hitting protein while trying to do this. Especially big dude like you with all that training. Yeah, yeah. You start running and you're only doing this once, and you're missing protein. Like, that's the fastest way to suck at both. But you could, you could do all right if he did that. If you do what I said, 220 every day consistently, which means you'll probably have to throw a shake in there, meal prep and, you know, Maps 15 power lift. Then the next week is marathon, you know, half marathon style training and alternate.

you should get some really nice results. And the work up to the half marathon running, by the way, it's not like you go for a half marathon. Yeah, you want programming for that too. So it's like, it's like strength training. You need programming. You just go run your butt off. Well, it's the complete opposite of deadlifting.

I love deadlifting and squatting and benching. I hate running. So, you know, you guys are giving me the ammo and the gun that I need here to say no to the running, but I can't see the benefit of doing it. Yeah, I think that answers my question. So thank you guys so much. You got it, man. I think you're going in.

Yeah. Thank you guys. Bye. When he first was telling us the schedule, I was like, oh, my God, that's a lot. But then I asked him, like, do you have kids? And he's like, do you have kids? And he sounds like he's very religious about getting to bed at 9 o'clock.

Exactly. Yeah, he's getting 7 to 8. Like, that's not bad. And then he's, and then when he, I heard he switched to maps 15, and that's a way more appropriate program. And then, yeah, if he toggles this between, like you said, either... I have yet to try it, dude. I know.

I want to try it too. Me too. I heard, so I'm not sure if, uh, what podcast were you on? Um, were the guys like an endurance athlete? And he's also like in the listening, Nick Bear. Nick Bear. Yeah. I wonder if he trains like that.

Like, I don't know. Yeah. That guy's a machine. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy too. Super nice guy. Yeah.

But this is, these are cool study. I have yet to try it. In fact, I never trained a client that way. I always mixed it, right? You know, but I do a dedicated. I mean, you would be, but it makes so much sense. Where you're at, it totally makes sense. With the amount of muscle that you've put on, you'd be a really fun test to do this with right now.

I probably won't. I'll probably have to do this in some kind. Our next caller is Gabriel from Texas. What's up, Gabriel? What's up noon? Hey, how are y'all doing? Good, man. Good, man. Good to see you again.

So give us an update. Nice to see y'all. Okay, so the last time we spoke, I had some PRs for y'all. So my squat was 440. My bench was 2.93 and my deadlift was 481. I'll tell y'all the do's first and then the don'ts that I did from the things that y'all gave me advice for. So I really did prioritize my sleep. That one, like even my dad when I got this job, he like kind of told me like every day, dude, get your sleep, get your sleep.

And so I was just like, okay, like I know it's a big deal. I kind of just asked y'all for like the gym aspect of it. So I really did prioritize my sleep a lot. One of my coworkers, he would like to go out a lot. And I told him when I was on this prep, I was like, dude, I'm not going out with you. Like, I'm sorry. I hate to sound like that. But if it's between me getting my eight and a half to nine hours of sleep or going out for a couple of drinks with you, like, I'm sorry, dude, but no, I'm going to sleep.

and so that was that was like a really really big thing that i like made a priority over like well from throughout the time that we talked and the course of my prep um and then my nutrition was a very close second and then obviously the gym like you know the lifting was was right behind that but so since then i do have some new PRs to tell you all about all right my squat went from 440 to 491 Oh, nice. My bench went from 293 to 299. All right. And my deadlift went from 481 to 485.

Nice. I did do my competition like two weeks ago, and I got second place. Nice. Nice. Good job. Yeah, so that that was a good, good, good, good, good, good test for me. Yeah. That's great.

What's your question? Yeah. So, so my question to y'all is, what can I do to improve my deadlift because I do pull conventional and it's just that was the one that like people ask me like how do you squat more than you deadlift or like you know like how like how is your deadlift not better than it is now and this is just like my friends that I've made at the gym that you know we kind of just talk like oh what was your what was your like recent PR what was this and so when I tell them about my deadlift that's always the one that I'm kind of just like

Yeah, I know that's my, my weakest lift. Yeah, but you got a nice squat. How tall are you, bro? Five-eight. Yeah, so you're going to be a better squatter. You know, this happens sometimes. Usually someone deadlift's more than they squat, which is why people are like, what's going on here?

But there are cases... Justin, your squads. Yeah, I'm in this category, too, yeah. Yeah, Justin's squat is better than his deadlift. Yeah. So have you tried using variable resistance with your deadlift, like bands and chains? I haven't. My coach was implementing

pause of deadlifts for a little while but when we got closer to competition he kind of cut it out and we just stuck to straight yeah comp deadlift ask about using bands I got great results

implementing bands you know speed deadlifts clients got great results with them I would implement those and see if that makes a big difference for you okay Yeah. The other thing you can do too is reduce the intensity that you put on your squat.

Yeah. And so you can, you know, dedicate it to your deadlift. You're traded out of it. I do think that that played a part because I think it was over the summer. I had one block of singles. And my primary days were all back to back to back to back. And my deadlift happened to be the last day. And I told my coach, I told them, hey, man, I'm kind of like.

my body's not feeling it. I don't know how this is going to go, but I'm still going to attempt it anyway, and so that was my first time attempting 485, and I had failed it. But then going into this prep, everything in terms of deadlift was looking like I was going to pull something pretty good,

but I failed 501 on the week, the week right before my prep, so my week four, I mean, right before my comp, I'm sorry, my week four. But it broke the ground, So I knew 485 was going to move. It was just whether or not I was feeling it at the competition. Yeah.

And so you have a powerlifting coach. Yes, sir. Yeah, dude. So ask about using variable resistance like bands and chains. Okay. Especially for guys who are advanced like you who are strong. Like I don't necessarily do that with people when I've been training for the first year or two. But once you start to hit those plateaus and the higher numbers, it, I mean, it's got my, this.

is what got my deadlift above 550. It was like, it stuck there for a long time. Then I started using bands. I'd go down to 405 and I'd put heavy strong bands and I'd do some weeks like that where I'm pulling against heavy bands. And they felt real smooth and it just, it just, my deadlift went through the roof. I added 50 pounds. I mean, this is definitely not my wheelhouse.

But when I've had success, when I'm, I just, I prioritize the one that I care about the most. In other words, like if it's deadlift, it. it becomes the lift that I focus on first in the week. And that made a huge difference. And then vice versa, when I was trying to chase after my squat going up, it was like squat became the priority. So I don't know if that's what it looks like in your week is, you know, are you focusing more on the squat or it's normally after your rest days?

And when you feel your best, like you just flip that and make the deadlift become kind of the priority when you're training. I think my coach did notice that because he did put my deadlift. It used to be on, it was either Tuesdays or Thursdays, and he switched it to Mondays. So then I had, Friday was my primary squat. Saturday was my primary bench. So I had all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and then I wouldn't go to the gym till Monday after work. Yeah. So that was giving me, like, you know, that 48-hour window to reach over from the squat.

Yeah, that always helped me when I was, when I was focused. You're at a level where, you know, because you're, strong. You're really strong. How much about what's your body weight? Um, I signed up at 82.5, but I weighed in at 80 flat. So it was 1.77. Wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're strong. So you're at it, you're at a level now where the, the small tweaks make the difference. Like, you know, chains, bands, deficit deads, you know, speed deadlifts, you know, like pause. These little techniques are to make a big difference, uh, for people like you. Even consider, like, how long have you been like in the training this way, too? Have you kind of cycled out and did like something that's more like. Hypertrophy or unilateral work like, because you're, you are, you're at this level where, you know, gaining three to five pounds is a big deal now because you're already kind of at peak performance.

Have you cycled off? So, so I, this is actually on New Year's is going to be my second full year powerlifting. I'm like relatively new. I know that's not new. but I'm still like new amongst my friends that have been doing it. And I actually just talked to my coach about this because I don't remember which episode. We're not really supposed to wear our AirPods at work anymore. So I kind of binge listen to you guys.

So I don't remember which one it was, but I know you guys did recommend like a full block of unilateral training. So I did pitch that to my coach and he told me that he liked that idea. So I think starting this block, we are going to start to implement things like that. I think that'll be huge. I think if you do a block of unilial training, then you come back again, I think you'll see some good stuff from that too.

Yeah. He wants me to do two. So I like that. I'm thinking we're doing two full blocks of just, I'm still going to do the compound lifts, but a majority of my accessory work after that is just going to be unilateral training. I love that.

And I'm assuming you're doing things like reverse hyper's and all that. Can you elaborate on that? So reverse hyper. So you have, You know what a reverse hyper. You lay flat on your stomach and then you swing your legs. When your legs come out. Oh, yeah, yeah.

We have a machine like that. I do that one as well, I guess. Good. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. So I got reverse hyper's single leg deadlifts, bands. You said a lot from your hip thrust. Yeah, hip thrust.

Those translated really well to my deadlift. Okay. So I, because I don't think my coach adds hip thrust in. I could ask him maybe if we could add that one in. Yeah. It'd be a good time while you're doing this. Unilateral work. Take a break from a lot of hard traditional powerlifting,

and this is where I would add unilateral work and some of the stuff that he's talking about. It's not a traditional powerlifting exercise because hip thrusts weren't really popular for a long time. But this is more recent for me, and I never really did them back in the day. I only did them for correctional exercise purposes, but you could load the heck out of a hip thrust.

And, you know, I got my hip thrusts up to close to 700 pounds. and for sure I saw translation to my deadlift. I think one of the episodes, I don't remember who made fun of you for that. They were like, why are you bragging about that? Definitely Justin and I make fun of them. We definitely make fun of him when he does it.

He can't do. He does have the biggest deadlift. You know what I'm saying? He's got the biggest deadlift. It's about the only thing he's got the biggest stuff, by that he's got that for sure. There's one other thing. I want to see how that translates the kettlebell swings.

I don't know. Yeah, okay, I'll, I'll mention that to my coach. So I'm assuming the, so like my top sets, I would have to do them without the bands. And then the back down sets, I could tell him, like, hey, can we try adding bands to see if that? What I would do, what I used to do with mine was the deadlift workout was a dedicated band one. So instead of working up to a heavy weight, I would add bands and I'd focus on speed. So, yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah, so just to give you an example, let's say at the moment, you know, my top deadlift is 520, let's say. I'd go up to maybe 350, and I'd put really heavy bands on the bar, and I'd focus on speed. And the way bands pull,

it feels totally different, because at the bottom, you don't notice it. You get up to the top, it's really hard, and it just made my deadlift so strong. I did. I think I know what you're talking about

because I did start implementing that when I warm up for my bed. bench. Yeah. So, like, I'll take a heavy bench and then, like, with really light weight, I'll just do, like, a tempo on the way down and try to explode as fast as I can. But bands are great. Bands are great for the speed.

They're great. Because they get really tight at the top. I really love what you and your coach are doing, though. Two blocks of unilateral work, I think, is going to be two years straight of, like, power lifting. Your body will get you good and stable. Yeah. You got, you got, like, two or three years of more gains, dude. You're doing really well.

Yeah. Don't tell me that because I'm chasing numbers right now. You're doing good, dude. You're at the point now where injury prevention should be at the top, which is a pretty strong. Which is another reason why the unilateral is going to be so good. So that was actually going to go into my next question, if there's still time. Sure.

Okay. So I think the last time we spoke, I had told you all that I don't really have very many friends out here yet. But like I said, I do have friends at the gym now. So a couple of times a week. well, usually it's once a week. Sometimes we go twice, but they'll invite me to go play soccer with them. And I hurt my knee like six to eight weeks out of my recent competition. And so I was just, I honestly think I would have hit a heavier squat had I not got that little knee injury.

But I didn't squat anything heavier than 363 for like, I think maybe three or four weeks. So like the last three weeks of my prep. I kind of pushed my CNS to if I could at least get that back. But is there any way that I could still, like, play soccer with my... No, you don't want to do... I wouldn't be doing that while you're in the middle of powerlifting training. That's like recipe for an injury to go do something. Here's a thing, though.

You've got to balance this out, dude. So, you know, look at your life and what's important to you because you have a social component. Overall, like big picture, the soccer is going to keep you agile. You're not a heavy guy. If you just focus on powerlifting for the next five years and you never do anything with agility, you're going to lose a lot of agility. Yeah, but here's a good time, though. You're about to do two blocks of unilateral.

This is when I would play around with some soccer movements and doing some stuff. Increase your mobility. The closer you get to competition is when you would eliminate it. Yeah. Like, don't, like, I know you mentioned that you're still going to be doing some of your, some of your traditional. It's okay. You're not going to lose all this crazy strength. If you do just do a lot of focus on unilateral and maybe do some agility training, maybe have some sorrow.

But that's the time to do it. do that in the middle of like I'm trying to stack weight on the bar. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be put. That's not when you play saw. You play soccer in this two-week block you got coming up right now. So you have you, you, you're, because you're challenging unilateral stability. Like that's the time to do that. Not when you're like really trying to increase your lives. Overall, I would say, just look at your overall, like, what do you want out of your life? And if you're like, man, I just want a power lift. And that's what brings you joy, then yeah, you definitely have to make some decisions. But if you're like, you know what,

I love powerlifting, but I really like the social component. I mean, my man is passing up drinks to go to bed at nine so he can get his resume. He wants to hit some repeat. I'm not making that up either. I promise. I know, I believe. I'm trying to tell us. I'm trying to sell.

You're very focused right now, very serious about getting your power. But then on the other end, Adam, he's not doing the social component with that, but he's got the social component with soccer. He's a young man. So you just got to, you just got, my point is you just consider it all, make your decision stick with it. You know what I mean? Okay. Okay. I appreciate that.

But this, in my opinion, this is the time that you would play with things like soccer. Because you're going to a unilateral, you're giving a little bit of a break of the really heavy lifting and bilateral stuff. Now it's time to do unilateral, multi-planar movements, maybe throw in some soccer here and there. Like that's the time to do it. Then when you get back off those two blocks, it's game time. It's power lifting time. And now you're back to your programming. You're adding the bands in.

You're doing all that stuff. Yeah, that was what I definitely told myself. because when I, when I, um, when I, um, when I hurt myself in the middle of my prep, I, I, I kicked my own, but, um, yeah, like, I was so mad at myself and I was, well, my coach just told me, dude, like, I mean, you're still six weeks out, like, just recover, rest. We'll see how things go. Um, because I told them, I know it doesn't feel like, I'm, like, I'm hurt, like, I can't compete, but it's just, I can't squat. Like, I know I can't do that. Yeah. Um, Gabriel, how old are you?

I actually just turned 29 last month. Yeah, you're very disciplined. You're doing great, dude. Yeah, and the social component's good, too. You need friends. You need good men around you. I like that you skip the drinking. You know, not a lot of good things happen when you go out at night and drink.

But when you're playing, you know, game with each other and you got your friend. Like, that's all so important. But you're also very disciplined. It looks like you got a job. You're structured with your training. Sounds like your dad. You got a good relationship with your dad. You're doing great, bro.

So, you know, look at all of it. is a big picture and say, okay, what do I want out of life and, you know, what's most important to me? And then you make your decision and stick with it. Because if you walk back and forth, that's when you'll have problems. It's like, are you going to be a professional power lifter? Is it your ultimate dream? I mean, it's good to be that discipline. And I think that provides a lot of value, but also like, yeah, if you also want to have interactions and social, like, you got to add that flexibility in there. So it's okay that you can kind of like intermittently go between one or the other.

That's why I did tell myself that if I do go play soccer, it would probably be like maybe just like either a D-load week or week one, week two. Like, is that is that something that maybe I could do? I won't even try it on prep, I promise you. I'll never try that again.

Yeah, but like even like if it's just, you know, regular training, like if it's week one and it's not extremely heavy, can I? Yeah. Yeah.

Do your due diligence though with like priming rule. Just remember, I mean, you, you have built a, you built an engine. with a lot of horsepower that's designed to go really hard and fast straight. And then every once in while, you're trying to, you're trying to take corners by playing soccer.

So just keep that in mind. So understand how much horsepower you've built in this engine of yours running straight. And so you need to make sure that you do a little bit of your mobility, warm up properly. Like, and then you'll, you'll be okay. It's, it's, it's being that strong in that direction. And then all of a sudden, think you're going to go explosive left to right. Definitely take that 15, 20 minutes of mobility. Yes.

every time you do any kind of soccer. Okay, okay. Do you have MAPS performance? I do not. All right, so we'll send MAPS performance to you. And then in MAPS performance, there's mobility days. And so what I would recommend is you do in all the lower, especially the lower body stuff before you play soccer. Yeah, the mobility session.

So throw a mobility session in and do that and do your due diligence before that. That will really protect you from potentially getting hurt because you do. You've built. You're strong, bro. You're really strong. but you're really strong with both your feet on the ground face it forward. You know, that and then trying to translate that

going left really quick or twisting or back pedal. And soccer requires that at the highest level. And so that's normally where an injury happens. It's not because you're not strong, athletic, and fit. It's because you're strong and athletic and fit. Your hips mobile and your ankles mobile. Yes. I do think that is one thing I need to prioritize now

is my ankle mobility because I just do maybe, like one warm up before I squat. And then that's kind of it. I think I do need to be better about that. I can admit that for myself. Especially if you want to play soccer because that requires a ton of ankle mobility. Oh my gosh. So, I mean, if you got these stone ankles and you have this explosive quads, hands are going to hurt.

Like, you're going to hurt your knees. That's where the knee pain is coming from. All day long, you just create discipline for that. So it's top of mind. And you just like keep practicing mobility exercise for your ankle. It would be good. Do, um, does that maps perform? have anything for like ankle mobility?

Yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, we'll send that to you, work on that. This is just real quick. I've been experimenting with 15 grams of creatine, and I feel fine. Can I try 20? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the data on that's pretty awesome for brain health.

I just heard that, I think I listened to it either yesterday or the day before, but I just didn't know, like, how do you know when to call, like, when is enough? I mean, 20 is what the data is. is showing. I mean, I don't know if there's danger and going above that. I doubt it. I think it's probably more like stomach issues will happen. Gastral distress. Yeah, but you can try 20, see if you notice a difference. If you don't, back, back, back to

go back down. You eating them gummies up or what? No, I just get the one from Sam's Club. It's like $17 for 1002. And it's, uh, it's a sebum's brand. So it's, you know, it's a pretty good brand. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, it's all right. But yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for the, for the program as well.

You got it, man. All right, man. Take it easy. Have a good day. You got it. You know, it depends who I'm talking to, right? If this was a young man that struggled with discipline, then that's what you push. He is a disciplined guy. Yeah, he's very disciplined.

And what can happen to sometimes a guy that's, which is not common, usually young men are not very disciplined. But when they're really disciplined, they get so focused on one thing that they leave out or lose the value of other things like socialization, having good men around you. And sometimes it looks like it's just work or it's just workouts or, you know. So that's why I'm like, you know, measure it out, see for yourself, you know. Yeah, but I'll tell you where I'm coming from. I'm this kid, literally the same age was all for the first time of my life, chasing PR's hitting big numbers. And then still wanting to go play basketball. That's where all my injuries have.

Yes. So. It's a recipe. Yeah, it's a recipe for that. When you all of a sudden get really strong, you know, in one plane. But you're young. You can still get out on the course. you can do things, your body's different now.

And so that's where I'm coming from on that is not that like... No, I mean, it's true. Yeah, I mean, I'm pro social, do all those things, but it's like, you got to be careful. You're going to count for it. You got to plan for it. Yeah. When you get that, it's not like he'd be different if he's just a guy who likes to work out and he's, he's strong. He's real strong.

For his size. Yeah, almost 500 pounds squad. I mean, I'd be like, don't do it if like he was that discipline where he's trying to make a career out of being like a, yeah, pro power lifter. But, you know, if this is just like a hobby, he's got to be. But this is, in my opinion, what he should do in this block where he's doing unilateral is completely let go of the squat, bench, deadlift is like a focus at all. It's just like unilateral work and maybe starting to do some performance stuff and multi-planter stuff and like play some soccer. The irony is he works just on all that. He's going to get stronger overall.

Exactly. That's my point is like, go all in on the playing soccer, doing the mobility, doing all the things in this two-week block. You're not going to come back and be a 300 squatter all of a sudden. He's going to be strong, and he'll probably surpass those numbers that way. But trying to mix them when you're that strong, that's a dangerous game. Yeah, 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, 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 and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable, free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and

review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.