Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2773: Top Ways to Measure Progress (and the WORST)!

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday's Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page.   Mind Pump Fit Tip: Top Ways to Measure Progress (and the WORST)! (1:53) Mind Pump's Vuori favorites. (27:58) The Babe Ruth diet. (29:12) The guys take on the updated food pyramid and its influence on society. (36:53) The biggest jerks in the sea. (41:24) LEGO latest innovation. (47:32) Kids say the cutest things. (49:13) Getting too big for your shirt! (50:58) Promoting cellular repair, strengthening the skin barrier, and reducing inflammation with exosomes. (53:06) #Quah question #1 – How should a female train who has osteoporosis? (1:02:15) #Quah question #2 – How do women know if they need testosterone? Can they even get TRT? What levels are normal for an athletic female age 21? (1:04:01) #Quah question #3 – I've been able to improve all my big lifts and have steadily made progress with strength, but I still find pushups aggravate my back and have more or less always been a struggle for me. What tips would you give to someone who wants to improve their pushups? (1:06:37) #Quah question #4 – How do I know if I should continue to train when I have an injury? I have had 2 knee revisions on the same knee and think it's going out again. (1:08:32) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** No code to receive 20% off your first order. ** Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2320: Throw Away the Scale! Mind Pump #2506: Measuring Your Progress With the Mirror or Scale Is a FAILING Strategy (Listener Live Coaching) The Shocking Babe Ruth Diet: What He Actually Ate Daily RFK Jr.'s new dietary guidelines go all in on meat and dairy Lego announces Smart Brick, the 'most significant evolution' in 50 years | The Verge Get a free Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase! As always, LMNT offers no-questions-asked refunds on all orders. The 8-count LMNT Sample Pack doubles down on our most popular flavors: Citrus Salt, Raspberry Salt, Watermelon Salt, and Orange Salt (2 stick packs of each flavor): Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump How To Get Good At Push Ups (REGRESSIONS) - YouTube Mind Pump # 2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. And today's episode, we answered listeners questions. They wrote in Instagram at Mind Pump Media.

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Go to Maps January.com. Use the code New Year 50 for the 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 MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. You started training, you changed your diet, you're tracking the scale to see if you're progressing. Look, it's a huge mistake. Terrible mistake. Now, the question that people ask is, well, how do I measure my progress? We're going to tell you the best ways to measure your progress that will show you going in the right direction. We'll talk about the worst ways as well.

And doing this will make a huge impact on your fitness in a way that you will love. Let's get to it. Should we flip it? Talk about what's terrible first and then go the other way? I mean, I kind of did already a little bit with one of them, which is the scale, which is the number. It's a terrible way to measure progress. That's the most common, by the way. I don't need to tell you guys that. This is how everybody measures their progress, right?

They start working out, they start eating right, and then they just start weighing themselves. Yeah. Let's see what's happening. Do you know that? I kind of always knew that, or not we should almost say always knew that. As I got better as a trainer,

I realized that and coached to it. I don't think I became as passionate about it. And if you've been listening, I apologize. If you've been listening for a long time, you've heard me tell us. I haven't talked about it in a long time. But the process where I had to like track every single day when I was getting ready for shows and stuff. And when I saw the amount of water fluctuation and I noticed the difference of like, you know, sometimes I ate something that just didn't agree with me, though how much it would hold.

And then, and then how many, how much pounds would go on the scale. And I, in my life up into that point, even as a trainer, I, I have. had never that diligently tracked, you know, even though I kind of knew, oh, it's not a good, you know, and I would generally speak. You controlled everything else. Yes. So now you see the scale move and you're like, it can't possibly be fat gang. It can't possibly.

Yeah, no, I knew for sure. But yet, but what, where I'm going out with this was I knew that I was doing, like, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do. But the, the number on the scale and the, the other one that you're going to use or talk about, would mess with me psychologically. And it was at that time that I realized like, oh, wow, this, because I never, I never really cared enough.

You know what I'm saying? Like, this is where Justin and I really relate to it. Even though I admittedly, I'm the ecstatic guy, because when we started the podcast, I was doing all those things like, I didn't care. I maintained myself at probably 10 to 12% body fat most of my trainer career. Never was a weighing, measuring, tracking guy. It wasn't until I set that as some sort of a goal. and then when I did it and I was hyper focused on it

and I was having to watch and measure all that and I saw how much it messed with my head I went oh my God how many of our clients go through this where you're coaching them and you're telling the diet and they're telling you I'm following it and then they get on the scale and they see this fluctuation where in the past I probably thought there's probably a little bit of lying or nasty you know what I'm saying

versus really being able to communicate to them what's probably going on and why this is such a terrible way to measure your progress. I didn't become that passionate about it until I saw what it did to me, psychology. 100%. 100%. You know, one of my favorite, in fact, I have coached our coaches. So we have coaches and trainers that work for us here at Mind Pump. We started this last year, so they work with clients.

And one thing that I've taught are trainers to use is something that I used to use as a trainer. It was so powerful. So back in the day, and it's easy now. You can go online and look this up. But back in the day, I don't remember what book I got it out of, but there was a picture. It was an illustration of a man that weighed the same in both pictures. But the difference was one picture was a six foot tall, I'll say 190 pounds, 20% body fat guy.

The other picture, same body weight, same height, 10% body fat. So they weighed exactly the same. They look radically different. One guy looks like he's overweight. He's got a belly. Doesn't look very fit. The other guy's small waist tight. You can see abs.

Muscle definition. Very different. The scale says exactly the same. You can do this for women as well. You could find an illustration of a 150-pound woman at, you know, I don't know, 40% body fat and a 150-pound woman at 20% body fat. And you would same height, same weight. And it would look radically, radically different. All this scale.

measures is body mass. It doesn't measure body fat, percentage, muscle, performance, ability. Doesn't discern it through any of that. None of it. Now, you might be asking, well, why do we, why do we use weight? Why do we use BMI, right? BMI is a very general measurement that the medical community has used, but there's a lot of problems with it. And the reason why it kind of works, generally speaking, is because most people are generally out of shape. So most people who weigh this much

or this tall are going to be overweight or obese. And so this is a very general thing. But if you're working out and you're trying to improve your fitness, not only is the scale a terrible way to measure progress, it's actually in many cases a great way to reverse progress

or stop progress or plateau. Because it totally messes with your head. Completely. Like I said, imagine if you were in this scenario. Imagine if you're a woman and you hire a trainer. And let's say you're 160 pounds. And you're like, yeah, I got to lose weight. In your mind, you're like, I need to lose 20 pounds.

Okay. So then you work with a trainer. And for some miraculous reason, this trainer has figured out the absolute perfect diet and workout for you. And you're just dialed with it. And you sleep good. And your hormones are balanced. Basically, all the stars have aligned.

And so through this process, you're building muscle and losing body fat at the same time. Okay? So you're with them for six months. You drop a lot of body fat and you build a lot of muscle. But then you step on the scale and it hasn't moved. It messes with your head. Oh, yeah. What's going on?

I feel like I'm changing. The scale has, but the scale hasn't changed at all. This is you're a terrible trainer. Yeah. I got to do something else. I got to eat less. I got to starve myself. I've got to totally change gears.

That work seems for not. That's right. You know, the other example I would give to somebody to illustrate this, this isn't a silly one, but someone would say I need to lose, I want to lose 15 pounds real fast, but cut your leg off. It was just for me, it was just a way to illustrate like all it's measuring is body mass. It doesn't measure anything else. It'll fluctuate up and down.

In reality and real life, when you're doing things right, and let's say your goal is to lose weight, and you're doing this the right way. So you're trying to build muscle to boost the metabolism, and set up fat loss later on. You might actually get heavier at first. Your body fat, your weight might actually go up a few pounds at first, even though you're leaner and you feel better

and you're stronger and you might even be smaller because remember body fat takes up more space than muscle on a pound for pound basis. It also looks different, right? You add muscle, you get shape, body fat tends to go places you don't want. So imagine that scenario with yourself and how frustrating or confusing it could be

because the scale isn't going in a direction you think it should. And if you do it right, the weight actually goes up at first or doesn't move at all. I used to love when I would have clients who I would convince to not weigh themselves and they actually listen to me

because oftentimes they wouldn't. And they'd come see me, you know, two months or three months into our training and they'd say, oh, I'm so curious. I'd say, why? My coworkers keep commenting on how much weight I've lost. You know, I have people asking me if I've lost 15 pounds or 10 pounds.

And I would wait for this to be a consistent thing with them. And then I'd have them step on the scale just to illustrate a point. They'd step on the scale. And it went down three pounds. Oh, yeah. Or stayed the same. Or stayed the same. And like, yeah, you got leaner.

Yeah. You built some muscle. You look very different. So the scale, uh, terrible way to measure progress. I would, I would go as far to say as almost always, it's a bad indicator. Yeah. That's how, that's how. And, and more so in the, in the short period than long way, like, you just

gave some examples of like how this could happen over three months. But why it's so early on, there's so much going on with hydration, reverse dieting, building muscle, that it could really, it could really skew one way or the other. And most people don't even have the discipline to not get on the scale for 30 days. So to at least allow some physical, like visible change to happen or strength change to result from all the strength training, and they course correct before they ever even get there. Yep.

So this is why. They're not realizing they ever even get to a trend. Exactly. They're not course correcting. They're actually going off the right course. Because here's what normally happens is not only, I see this, you're doing everything like you say. Let's give that analogy.

Perfect. But they don't even wait long enough to actually build substantial on muscle. And then the scale just goes up. So what? You have a little bit of extra water. Maybe you did build half. a pound of muscle, you're reverse dieting or whatever. And they visually look at themselves and they don't feel like they've changed very much.

Or if anything, they feel like their clothes are fitting tighter. And before we can even get to week three or four, they're already course correcting or not listening what you say or they're cutting or they're starting to run on the treadmill like crazy and obsessing over the scale. And then they completely course correct when they shouldn't have done that. Yeah, obsessing over the scale is the right way to say. You start to worship the number to the point where if you're trying to look lose weight. You know what I'm talking about. You go weigh yourself. Do you wear yourself with clothes on?

Do you wear yourself with your cell phone in your pocket or your shoes on? You know those things are weight that is not part of your body. And yet we're like, take everything off. I got this, get into this number as low as possible. Because that number means so much to you when it actually doesn't mean much at all. Another bad way to measure your progress is the mirror. Now, I know the way you look can say a lot. I just gave you an example of it, 200 pound guy, 20% body fat versus 10% body. I get that. But the way we view ourselves and the mind games we can create with ourselves with the mirror. I mean, in extreme cases, everybody knows this. I'll give an example that most people can relate to. If you're in your 40s and you're trying to get in shape and you look

at a picture of yourself in your 20s and you're like, man, I look so good. And then you remember how you used to think that you look back then. It's the opposite. You probably in your 20s, like, I can't believe how fat I look. And now you look. And now you look. back, I wish I looked like that. You just didn't see the mirror accurately. You still don't, everybody. You still don't. If you look at yourself in the mirror to study your body, what you're going to notice

are and create are imperfections. And it's going to completely mess up. It's just the natural tendencies you're going to look for faults. I also want to comment on the people that do see something that is real, but they just don't understand what they're looking at. Yeah. So, and this is, again, where I became very, very, obsessed about communicating this to my clients

when I saw it in myself when because not only did I see the scale go up in the scenario that I painted when we first started talking but I also looked puffier. I looked quote unquote fatter but I knew I wasn't. I couldn't be because we're because but I was holding water.

I had some I started holding a little bit. I mean I know I'm lifting weight so I was drinking lots of water at that time. I ate something that wasn't the most agreeable with me. it wasn't super high calorie or way out of bounds. It just wasn't something that agreed with me. And so my body was inflamed a little bit. It was holding onto a little bit more.

And in the mirror, inflammation looks like fat. And it just confirms the three pounds on scale. And then it confirms this, oh, my God, I went up six pounds and I look it. And that is really, really difficult for the average person to wrap their brain around, especially if they're already, thank God, I was in competitor shape. And it was like, I wasn't like, I wasn't going like, oh, I'm fat, but I'm like, I'm going the wrong way. I'm definitely going the wrong way because I put weight on the scale and I looked this way,

but it was like, and what I remember, like, diving in and like research, how is this possible and trying to figure all this out? And our body, when it gets inflamed like that, and you can correct me if you, if you have studies or you know that you're better at this than I do, but I remember reading that, you know, it can hold on to water weight like that from inflammation for like 72 hours. Yeah. And so, and I would watch this. And so what I had to train myself to do is like, okay, I must be, I must have did something either stressed and didn't get good sleep, ate something to disrupt my gut.

And so I'm holding on this extra water. Adam, just give it three days. And it is sure as shit about day three or four that I would see the inflammation come down. And now it looked like I lost all kinds of body fat. I didn't lose a bunch of body fat. The water just got released. And this can happen. It takes longer if it's hormonally effective.

Sure. If you're a woman and you already know this. You know this. You know it different times. in your cycle, you're going to hold more water. But then we connect it to my program's failing, even though predictably, I go up three or four pounds. And or if you're continuing to eat this offender.

Yeah. Now, luckily... Poor sleep will do it too, by the way. Yeah. Luckily during this time, again, I was so meticulously measuring and stuff like that, I could start to pinpoint like, oh, these foods must not be that agreeable with me. Let me get that out of the diet for a little bit. Again, water would lease and then I'd see it and say, again, I'm not changing calories.

I was just getting rid of things that I thought might not be agreeable with me that was probably affecting my gut a little bit. Some intolerance to or something. Yes, and that was just holding a little water. And it wasn't fat that was fluctuating. But in the mirror and on the scale, it could look like it to me. And it'll mess you up. Meanwhile, you're totally ignoring that you're getting stronger.

You're getting better sleep, your energetic. It's such a great segue, Justin. Let's talk about the great ways, the best ways to measure progress. Number one is performance. As a trainer, when I'm training my client, If I see their performance improve, you're stronger, you move better, you've got less pain, range of motion is better, your stamina is going up, we're moving in the right direction. Yes, sir. Because here's a deal with performance.

When your performance consistently improves, it means you're doing a lot of things right. In fact, it's hard to improve your performance when your sleep is off and your diet is crap and your workouts not good. Yeah, so we hit a wall. That's right. So performance is great. In fact, for the most part, okay, generally speaking, if you see nice, consistent progress, you know, month after month, year after year,

the mirror will reflect it, body fat percentage reflects it, everything reflects it. Performance is a wonderful measure. Now, it's not perfect? You can get obsessed with this as well. Probably 99% of people here, I wouldn't worry about that. You know, power lifters maybe,

Olympic weight lifters, this might be an issue. But for most people, if your performance is improving, you're moving in the right direction, ignore everything else, you're doing great. I also think that when we're talking about all these things that we consider terrible, we went over the terrible ways, the scale in the mirror.

Those are two terrible ways. We're going over all the good things. Even as we go over these good things, I think it's important too because the other mistake that I see even with the good ways of measuring is this, in these small day-to-day versus like...

That's why I say consistently. Right, over a month. Yes. Right? Like, because I might have, I mean, I had a day the other day I lifted. And I'm on my kick and I'm tracking. It's like, man, I just felt weaker today. Didn't have the best of sleep.

Right, right. Right. You know, wasn't, what didn't get my earlier meals. But it tells you a lot. Right. Yeah. Right. But I'm not going like, oh, God, I'm doing something wrong.

Need a course correct. It's just like, hey, let's trend. Yeah, let's wait until the end of the 30 days. And then let's talk about all those lifts. And am I, am I stronger? Am I performing better 30 days later than I was like? Because some people can do that. two on the good ways is they freak out over one bad workout or they one bad lift that day

or you had to go back a tiny bit. Like that's not how the body works. That's right. There's so many other variables. But generally speaking, performance is good. But then also giving yourself windows that are larger than a week to gauge like, oh, well, last week my bench. Just everything. Yeah.

It's like, okay, my bench was last week. Maybe it didn't go up or maybe it even dipped a tiny bit. But then when I look back 30 days, where's it? Oh, well, yeah. 30 days. I'm definitely much strong. Look at the trends. All right.

The next one, this is my favorite, which is life quality. This one's my favorite because this is the one that will lead to you wanting to do this forever, for other restaurants. Yes, okay? At some point, performance ends. You're not going to just keep improving performance. I wish that were the case, but doesn't work that way. But life quality is a wonderful one. It also develops a really nice, complete, healthy relationship with fitness.

Because this is the right way to look at your workouts and your diet. This is the best way. Okay. It's not the only way. Of course, if you're an athlete, there's other measures. But for most people, your workouts and your diet should improve the quality of your life because that's what's important. Okay. You're not a professional athlete.

It's not the thing that's paying the bills. You probably have a job. Maybe you have kids. So if your fitness, if your fitness routine and your diet is making you better at all those wonderful important things, if you've got more energy, you're less irritable, you sleep. Oh my God, you know, sex with my wife is so much better. I got a better libido. Yeah, I got less pain. Like, if that's all moving in the right direction and I'm actually paying attention to those things,

I'm going to want to do this for the rest of my life. And in fact, when you ask people who've been working out for 20, 30, 40 years, you know, the people that really figure this out, this is what they pay attention to. Yeah, it has a lot more gravity, a lot more staying power. That's right. Because you can always point and attribute to when your life was going well and when things, where, you know, benefiting you with your relationships, with everything else going on with work,

with the way you feel, the way you sleep. All of those things matter so much more than just like your physique changing on a day-day basis. I mean, this is the most important. We coach our trainers on this is that no matter who the client is, no matter what the goal is, this is the ultimate place we want to take this. We ultimately want to get them to connect this,

and do that because this is what will make them do it for the rest of your life. Now, I do find, since we're talking about this, do you guys think that there is a, there's an age cut off that this tends to resonate better or worse with? In other words, talking to a 25-year-old, of course. Like when you're 40, this actually, like, yeah, like, definitely 40. I was thinking like 35 plus was the number that kind of came to my mind. Like, I feel like when I communicate this to somebody who's north of 35,

this resonates. It is because at that point you start noticing decreases in quality of life in some areas. And so then that becomes the contract. You've got more responsibility.

You see how it plays out. But I'll speak to the 20-year-old right now. Maybe you've got lots of energy. You're having fun, all that stuff. It's going to make all that better. You're going to be more creative. More productive.

You're going to be more resilient. You'll be better in relationships. You'll have a better sense of purpose. You'll do better at school, better at work. Yeah. So it's going to improve the quality. The overall outlook.

Overall outlook is just... Let me put it to this way. Healthy fit version of you, not so healthy, not so fit version of you. Which one has a better life quality? That's what I'm talking about. But you have to pay attention to this,

by the way, everybody. Because if you only pay attention to how you look, that's all you're going to notice. You'll actually miss all this stuff. And it sounds silly, but it's a psychological fact,

you guys, that you only see what you focus on. It's a fact. This is a fact of psychology. So you have to actually pay attention and be like, wait a minute. How is it?

my energy. Holy cow, I've got great energy. Or how is my mood? You know what? I am like not annoyed like I normally am. That guy cut me off and I kind of don't care. And what's different. Oh, I'm more fit. That's what's different. And it makes your workouts so much more valuable. It's almost, yeah, I always love how we attribute a lot of our analogies to cars, but it's like, it's almost like just appreciating the bumper sticker on a car. Yeah. Look how cool that looks. Yeah. So much more than the car. so much more going on.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Totally. Next up is body fat percentage or body composition measurements. Of course, body composition measurements are great because they show you what's happening, building muscle, burning body fat, am I moving in the right direction? But I'll say this, it's not as good as life quality and performance. No.

Okay. But it's a part of this formula. Yeah. It's still a part of this formula. You can get obsessed with composition, but it's still a part of the formula. It's way better than the scale. that's for sure. Scale can go, let me put it this way.

You can lose weight on the scale and your body fat percentage went up. You could, you could, so, but so body fat percentage in, measurements, Dexas scans, you know, calipers. This is what trainers tend to use along with performance and life quality

to measure whether or not someone's progressing. Yeah. It's a better health metric. That's right. Well, it's a, I was trying to think of a good analogy like when I think, because this is obviously, all of our coaches utilize this tool.

I utilize this tool. tool. But it's something that like I set the other things as like the main focus. This is why I do this, the life quality. I'm looking at performance, things like that. And then I have these periodic every, I don't know, depending on how serious I am about something, 45 to 90 day check-ins with the body fat percentage to make sure that I am trending in the right direction, especially if I'm making... I'm glad you said that. You're not doing your body fat percentage every week. No, no, no. I just want like what the way I look at is like right now,

you and I were talking about going to get a Dexter scam. And I like to do it when I'm at the very beginning of a process right now of getting back into consistency with everything. And so I have a starting point. So that's kind of like, okay, and I don't care where the number is. Like I had to really give, like, when we go do that, it could be 5% north or south of what I like or don't like. And it doesn't matter.

It's like just, it's where I'm at now. And then now I have a plan of how I'm eating, how I'm training. And I'm going to do that consistently. And I'm going to watch performance and live call and all those things. And then I'm going to check back in in 45 to 90 days and I'm going to check it. And what I want to see is I want to see overall improvement in the building of muscle and the losing a body fat. Now, what I have done in the past is when I've made too drastic of course corrections like, oh, I want to go in a cut now. And I cut really hard and they go check up on body fat and I lost a lot of muscle.

And I go, oh, it looks like I cut too hard. Or I was over, over training. And so I need to tweak and adjust. And it's not the end of the world or this program's failure. me it's like I use it like that and I think that and that's how a good coach is using that it's like a thermometer yes again there you go that's something of a good analogy of like I'm just checking the temperature of the room are we running too hot are we running too cold no it's a perfect temperature that we're trying to keep it at and that and it's not that something's broken wrong

but it happens a lot a lot of times people are in a training program or diet and they're doing all the things consistently and then the results come back it's not the end of the world when the body fat percentage doesn't come back as great as you're thought it was. What it is, it's a great way to indicate that, oh, maybe those tweaks I made were a little too drastic or not, and then you make adjustments. And then finally, circumference. Circumference measurement is the least and, you know, best ways of all the ones we measured besides the bad ways. But circumference is great. I remember, you know, years ago, I had a male client, and he would measure, I measured his waist in the beginning, and then I measured it later.

And it was, I'm so glad I had a waist measurement because his, he was trying to lose weight. the scale weighing up a little bit. I don't remember what it was like a minor amount. It was like two or three pounds. And he was kind of like, I'm losing weight. I'm like, well, you're stronger. I'm talking about muscle, this and that. He's like, yeah, but the scale's going up.

It's messing with my head. And so let's measure your waist. And his waist went down a half an inch. And I said, cool. Looks like you lost body fat and you built some muscle. And that did it for him. Yeah. That sold him because he's like, oh, okay,

my waist went down. Even though I gained weight on the scale, everything you're saying is true and it's making sense. And so you could do this with a circumference. Waste measurements are great. One word of caution. Measure your, if you're going to do waste measurements, do it at the same time every day, typically in the morning, because people with digestive issues or if you have bloat, boy, that could throw it off by an inch or two.

So we don't want to do is, you know, go out to eat and then come home and then, oh, suddenly my waist went up a couple inches. You could just be bloated or need to go poop. So measure in the morning. This is, this was you, Doug, right? Doug, you're big on, you were always big on the circumference. Yeah, I did that for, boy, probably two or three years. It was always waste.

Every day measuring my waist. Just your waist. And honestly, it really did track well with what was going on with my body. Yeah, yeah. Because like you said, you could easily fluctuate, go up, you know, in weight on the scale. And it's like, my waistline is staying the same or even possibly going down. That's right. I know I'm doing a good job.

I like what you say, though. Like, I would even encourage people to have a really as long of a window as you can of not eating when you do it. So you have, so you're really, really empty that way. Yeah, because your digestion can throw this off. Oh, big time. Especially for women, by the way. I'll just let women know, depending on when you're on a cycle. And women tend to, if they have digestive issues, it tends to trend towards bloating and constipation.

And so that could really throw measurements off as well. Yeah, like, like in a perfect window, it's like I shut down eating the night before, you know, really early or earlier than usual. So I have this and not, and then I wait until the morning time to do it. And then I'm checking like that. I just noticed you and I are wearing the same pants, by the way. Which, which, what are the names of these? Seaside, bro. They're great.

I love those. You have a pair? I do. I have a pair of those in the sweatshirt that goes with it. These, I love the Sunday joggers from Viori. I like these better. These are my favorites. Well, it's like, it's...

They're thick and soft. It's... And they look good. So, it's... It's sweatpants season. I know. Yeah. I mean, I wore the other ones, so I have their...

I have three of them. So I have their... I don't know if it's the navy blue. Maybe Doug can correct. I'm always... The colors. It's a blue. They're blue, and then they're kind of like sand color.

The brown or tan ones. and then I have these black ones. And you got a vest. What is that? I've actually had this vest for a long time. I don't know if this is still in their cycle or not, but I love this. Yeah, they have ones like that still. Oh, they do.

They do. Oh, I don't know if they still had that. I love this vest. Yeah. But the seaside line is newer. It's one of their newer lines that they dropped this winter. And I'm picky about my sweatpants. I mean, we're trainers, right?

So we wear sweatpants most of our life. And so finding a good pair of, like thick material like sweats that are comfy and oh man I just another seaside is off the chain so I like the whole line. Yeah, I love it. All right. We were talking about diet earlier. Do you know what I found

that I couldn't believe that I had to confirm that is crazy? Have you guys ever seen what Babe Ruth's diet was like? Have you guys ever seen this? I know he's a big cigarette smoker. He ate a lot of candy bars, right? Is that what? Did the name come from that? I'm pretty sure it came from the... Bro. I don't think he ate those candy bars.

So Babe Ruth. Right? One of the greatest baseball player. He was a big drinker, a big smoker. Yeah. Yeah.

It's worse than you think. This is confirmed. Okay. Now, Babe Ruth, you know, I've heard, you know, people have beat his records

and stuff, but, you know, people say the era when he did it, like how good he was. Like, there's no one ever been just how good

as he was, especially considering the era and all that stuff. Remarkable athlete. Incredible athlete. This is how he started his day, bro.

He would start, the day off with a porterhouse steak between four to 18 eggs, a pile of fried potatoes, toast, a full pot of coffee, and then my favorite part, a pint of bourbon mixed with ginger ale. Or whiskey. Or whiskey. This was every morning. This was breakfast, dog.

That's a man meal. A pint of bourbon mixed with ginger ale or whiskey. This is what he had in the morning. And then a lumberjack slam on top of that. And then mid-morning snack, two to four hot dogs, washed down with. Coca-Cola's or sodas. He was like a hot dog. Which, by the way, he would do multiple times a day,

sometimes consuming up to a dozen hot dogs total in a day. Lunch, two steaks, sometimes raw. Wow. Sometimes raw. Two orders of potatoes, a head of lettuce with blue cheese dressing. Now, do you believe all this? It was well fed. Yes, because it's confirmed.

There are multiple people that wrote about it. He had coaches that would, like, when they'd travel, they would try to get him to stop. Do you guys know he was hospitalized for indigestion at one point? He must have been like that though. He must have been like king level

in terms of how he was eating. At the time he was wealthy and famous. Right, yeah. And then dinner. He did his money. Dinner again, two Porterhouse steaks. Again, raw sometimes, not cooked. He would eat them raw.

Apple pile of mode. Chocolate ice cream. Makes me want to read his biography. Makes me want to read more deeper into him. Like I don't have it. Yeah. And he was, look. Confirm this because I started this as well.

He got hospitalized for indigestion. He had such bad indigestion with the hospital. I mean, the most impressive righteous gas. The most impressive and impressive by, I think, just the amount of calories I've ever seen is what Michael Phelps used to eat.

Oh, yeah. Michael Phelps's regimen was... That's untouchable. But he had to because he was burning so many. Well, you got to think... Babe Ruth played baseball. Yeah, but Bay Ruth played both ways, though. Yeah.

He was pitching and he was hitting. this is what makes him so famous, was that that's why he was a great pitcher and he was a great hitter. We haven't seen that until Sohani or whatever right now. Like that didn't happen. Like you didn't see a guy who hit home runs and also struck people out.

So part of that is that. So, I mean, he was probably still moving. Wow, look at this. Yeah, he was hospitalized from a severe stomach ache in April 1925. They dubbed it, the belly ache heard around the world. And he had a serious intestinal abscess requiring surgery. sidlining him for months

and leading to intense media speculation. Brutal. Yeah, dude. I mean, crazy. And he was so good at what he did. Imagine if he ate healthy. You know, I hope that the evolution of this podcast as your son gets into sports

turns into more of this. I always like this stuff. That's all, what do you mean? No, this stuff's cool. Like, I like learning about, like, you know, like some of these crazy athletes how they trained, how they ate, and just, I think that's cool.

I like the physics of sports, like a fastball. The deeper you go, the more you find all of this stuff. I mean, how about the psychology of it? I love, like, you like, you like, yeah, you like, strategy. Yes, you love strategy. You love psychology. Like, there's so much of that in sport.

Your dream is this thing. It is. Well, you know why? Because I know I'm, I'm, I'm going to learn some shit. About something I already love. Yeah, you like, I'm tuned in today. You know what I'm saying? You've been talking about fitness for 20, you know what I'm saying?

I'm like, all right, it's cool. Yeah, I know that. You know what's funny about that, too, because I'm not like a fan. fantasy football guy or anything. And I'm on this thread with a lot of my friends from Chicago because, like, the bears are doing well this year and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I cannot believe, like, how many dumb, like, stats that they just, like, post.

Like, they have so many things you can just grab that are just, like, so irrelevant. And they just geek out on it. Everybody's like, well, this, you know. Those are my best friends right there. I'm like, dude, how do you guys have time to look at all this shit? They don't. They don't. You know, at one point in your life, uh, and,

Both my friends have regular 9 to 5s. If you are an entrepreneur, which all of us in here are, at some point, especially if you're gonna have any sort of success as an entrepreneur, you become, you get into that the same way.

So, you know, and I watched that happen to myself as I transitioned from that. Like there was a, and I remember my buddy who was kind of, more energy too. Well, yeah, I remember my buddy

was kind of a mentor of mine when I was still gaming and I was still watching all sports. Like I was the twice a day ESPN, plus I'm watching the game. games, you know, and that was just so much time was decked because I loved it. I had a passion around it. I enjoyed it. All my friends, we were all geeked out on the stats. Yeah. And, but I also simultaneously had these big dreams to be this successful entrepreneur. And I remember

my good friend who was about six, seven years older than me, it was just like, hey, you know, you're going to have to, like, you have these goals. You have to stop playing video games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like so adamant about, no, I'm not. I'm going to do both. You know what I'm saying? And then you have Elon. Keep it up. You have the greatest entrepreneur of all time. He's like the best video game player in Diablo. Yeah, but he's also probably not very involved with this kid. Well, you, but you also put that you, what a great example, right?

And that's what silly, you know, 20-year-old me was thinking is that there's these examples of somebody who has. But that's like comparing yourself to Ronnie Coleman and getting you know of your weights. No, that's like me looking at Babe Ruth's diet and being like, I'm like that. Yeah, yeah. Like you're talking about these, there are these outliers. There's these outliers in genetic anomaly. that have been able to do that. And so you compare or you use your, that example.

Well, just think, imagine right now, because it's such a great, I'm so glad I said what I said about Babe Ruth, because that's a great example. Someone listening right now who's really struggling with their health and their weight is like, wait, I eat like that.

How come I'm not? What's going on, dude? I'm just obese and I have heart disease. Like, why is this working for me? Yeah. There are the Hall of Fame baseball players. There are those. I wonder when you, so I wonder if

the tradition of a hot dog at a ball game came from him then. No, I think they were before. Or he just ate them at the ball, you know, at the Coliseum. You know what? Did they sell them back then? That's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering if that because...

When did they start selling hot dogs at a baseball game? It's an easy food to sell at a game, right? Because you can walk around with it. Yeah, but maybe because of one of the greatest players of all time to play the game, had an obsession about eating them every single day. It became a thing. Cracker Jacks and... That was a thing.

Cracker Jacks, yeah. Oh, Cracker Jacks were great. Yes, it was Babe Ruth, who popped. popular lifestyle hot dogs at baseball games. Look at that. It wasn't because he invented them, but it was his legendary appetite. Right. That's what he had a good old time.

What a missed sponsorship by baby. He could have been sponsored by hot dog companies. It's been one of the... Ballpark dogs. Yeah. By the way, he made it to 53 years old. That's it. Well, there you go.

How did he die? Was it? It was cancer. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's terrible. All right. Speaking of food, new food pyramid.

Whoa, dude. So cool. This is cool because the old food pyramid was garbage. A joke. It was garbage, everybody. Here's what's wild about the new food pyramid, okay? It's the old food pyramid upside down. I know.

They took, it's almost, it's not 100%, but it's very close to being the opposite of the old food pyramid. This is how messed up we have. How awesome the government's been with advice. You know what's at the top of the new food pyramid? meats, dairy, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables. Grains at the bottom. Grains are at the bottom, bro.

Now, not to piss in your Cheerios. Uh-oh. Okay, but we've known this forever. Yeah. This probably makes zero difference in our society. All it really is is it like, we told you so. Yeah. It's really all this.

Well, unless they put it in all the schools. Oh, it will. It will. But did, I mean, you, you. You read the upside down pyramid. You know, but we're in a bubble. No, right. Think about like, yeah.

The average person, you think so? It'll make a difference. It'll make a difference. 100%. Do you really think that any of your clients that you trained that were average people? Yep. We're like, I've been following the food pyramid. Oh, really?

Yeah. Are definitely whatever is written is law. You go talk to the average person. Now, today might be a little different, but go back 20 years. Take the average person. I mean, I think Doug's a good. person of this because I feel like that was heavily influenced back in his time. We, our era, we started to like piece this together and talk.

Did that influence? Do you think that influenced the way your family ate or like, I mean, did they really look at the flu? I do think there was some influence. Okay. Okay. Like red meat's bad for you. Well, that definitely.

Well, that was, that's just purely. No, it's also like, like milk. The old food pyramid changed milk where we had skim milk. Fat-free milk became a feed. You get rid of all the fat. Yeah, dude, butter threw it out, replaced it with margarine. That was because of government guidelines. So yes, it plays a role.

Totally. It's going to have an influence. So this is a good thing, everybody. Oh, it's definitely, no, I'm not, by the way, I'm not playing that. The pissing on the cheerio thing is just like, does it make a difference in our thing? I mean, does it really change? Well, it's not the only thing. I think people are privy, yeah.

It's like, oh, duh. I mean, I feel like it's just, it's more of a, we told you so. You know, it's more of a, you know, we've been saying this forever, you know, anybody who's been in the health of fitness space has been kind of making this argument for a very, At least in my, I mean, this is the first time in my life where I could point to the government and say, hey, some of the information that's given out is correct,

I never did that before as a trainer. No. Usually as a trainer, I was like, I don't listen to them. They're going to tell you terrible advice. That's fair. And I guess, you know, if it goes into schools

and does it start to affect and reflect like medical doctors? Yes, it will. Okay. And so that. Yes. And dietitians are taught off this. This is how, like, actual dietitians learn

off of these guidelines. So, again, a lot of them now moved. Yeah, curriculum is going to have to share. By the way, this is late. Hey, it's literally almost exactly flipped up. I know. Yeah, I know.

They're talking about sugars and processed foods are the worst, which, yeah, of course. But now they're going to really, you know, talk about that and say, hey, you guys should probably avoid this, which is funny because the food companies, they've been putting out propaganda, which is hilarious, which is like, it's processed food isn't the enemy. You're just overeating in their skewery. Everything subsidized was like eating big mass quantities, you know. Yeah. Interesting.

They have on USDA. the myplate.gov site, you can actually get details about that. They have a new edition of their little book here. You can pull off of the site. Isn't that great, you guys? You know, so before the, after the original food pyramid,

they have MyPlate. Remember that one? The food pyramid was introduced in the early 90s, if I'm not mistaken. Wasn't it? Was the original... It's been around for a long time. We had it, but yeah,

I don't know how long it's been there. No, I think it was in 90s, if I'm not mistaken. Really? Yeah, the original food pyramid. When did that come out, Doug? I'm not looking at it. I'm going to guess it was 91.

I thought it was before that. I don't think it was the 80s. I thought I remember in elementary school being taught this. I thought that was it. 1974. Oh, God. No, that was Sweden. In 1992, you're right.

In the U.S. Hey. Adam versus West. Chalk. You get another one. You get another one. You started it. Yeah, I know.

The tally out. We started over. It's one to one. Oh, shit. It's New Year. Yeah, it's New Year. Yeah, New Year. One to one.

I got to tell you, I. saw something, I confirmed it, it made me laugh so hard. It made me laugh so hard. So Justin's gonna love this. But Justin, if I were to ask you, of all of the sea creatures, all of the animals that live in the ocean,

which ones are just the biggest jerks? Like, which ones are just mean? Oh. Killer whales. Yeah. Yeah. Work us. Yeah, but, okay.

But justifiably, usually. Well, they're just mean, bro. Like they torture thing. They mess with the animals. Yeah, they do horrible stuff. You know what they do? You know what they're, you know what they're somewhere?

They've been knocking over boats because they've been getting in their, well, that's different. Migration. But just the way that they mess with other animals and what they do and how they pass. Well, they're, yeah, they're effective. They're like wolves. Yeah, and how dolphins and them will pass around puffer fish and get high. Like, they're weird.

Do you know, that's true. You know that right? They'll have a puffer fish. I'm ashamed that I get to, or a mess. at you, I didn't get to answer that. You went straight to justice. I got it right. I almost brought up dolphin, but the thing, dolphins have like a nice, like qualities, but then they also like rape.

Yeah, do you know that. Dolphins are like crazy rapers, dude. They're rapers. Other dolphins or other things? No, like people. Yeah. Like animals. Yes.

Oh. Do you guys remember, you guys didn't hear about this? There was a, well, I'll get back to work. There's an experiment. Yeah. There was this woman who got funding. She was a scientist who got funding. who got funding to give dolphin.

I don't know how the hell you get funding for this. Okay, so because they were losing attention, she was trying to communicate. And the whole, like, premise for this, like, study was, like, they were trying to be able to learn how they communicate and teach them language and then back and forth. And so she was losing attention from them. So she would end up jerking them off.

That's a scientific term, by the way. By the way, LSD was a lot. They were also using LSD. They were using psychedelics. if it would improve communication. And she ended up having sexual relationships with dolphins. That's true. You look it up. I think it was in the 70s.

Yeah. Okay. I'm not mistaken. Yeah, dude. Like Adam. Adam's like, they're not even the hot animals. They're the least attractive. So outside of this giving dolphin,

are they doing this behavior outside of giving them LSD and checking them off? Yeah. Dolphins have been known to rape other dolphins, fish to do weird. Seals, I'm sure. How do we determine as humans? That that's rape.

Well, I don't think. They're struggling, the struggle. How do we know there wasn't consent? How are we so arrogant that we're like, oh, that's definitely rape? Because I don't think, I think they show distress, bro. I don't know. I think they fight and they often get killed. Bro, sometimes.

Sometimes. I don't know. Think about if you were a seal and all of a sudden you had a dolphin behind you. It's been documented. Listen, no, just go back. This is where I love. No, Google, how do we know if a seal's being raped? Yeah.

I love with Science Sal and just to go on the studies. And then, like, nobody questions that. It's like, wait a second. Where do we, how do we determine as humans that this? The seals are hanging out. Hey, man. You can hang out of those dolphins. I'm pretty sure the interspecies thing is probably a good indication that it was non-consensual.

Well, that's fair. But they're saying, like, other dolphins. It's like, I mean. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's a. Because I think they try to escape and get away. and they get cornered and, yeah. Where do you get cornered in the ocean?

I'm not going to go. I'm not going to do. Also, it's infanticides, so they actually kill babies. And so the thing is, I guess, with dolphins, like the females are promiscuous because they're trying to, like, not have the other males know whose kid it is. So are the males more likely? Because I know some species, the mothers are more likely to eat the children. Are they, it's the fathers that are eating?

If they think it's not their young? Yeah, they'll kill them. Then they'll kill them to, yeah. That's common, though, in the animal kingdom. Yeah, yeah, certain mammals, yeah. So anyway, orcas. Like grizzly bears. Do you know what some orcas are doing?

What? This is the funniest thing, dude. Let's hear more science here. They're wearing dead salmon as hats. They're putting salmon on their head. Are you serious? Yes, bro. Look up, um, orca salmon.

Wow, I have not known that. They're coming up out of the water and they have a dead salmon on their head, and they're, like, showing each other. And it's like, literally scientists are like, it seems to be a trend because, other orcas start to copy them. They wear it on their head. What is that? I didn't even love that, dude.

What is that? Nobody knows. Oh, my gosh. I was reading articles on it because I saw a post. I'm like, this is not real. And it is real, dude. Hey, Bob, check this out. Yeah.

See, look, dude. Salmon hats. Orca salmon hats refer to a bizarre yet documented behavior where southern resident killer wear dead salmon on their heads. They had a little bit too much puffer fish. Yeah. Are they bored? Go down to what it says the scientists are debating about.

Let me hear what, meaning nothing, the behavior. The behavior often spreads through pods like a cultural trend. Yeah. Maybe one did it and then he's the cool orca. Or he ate it and it just like landed on his head and he's like, oh, oh. He thought it was hilarious. Why are they doing this? And then it became a thing.

So it was first appearance was in 1987. I think it disappeared and then it researched again in 2024. So styles do repeat themselves. They call it a retro trend, bro. I mean, I wonder if it's like to signal that there's a lot of salmon over in this area to fish or hunt or like you're telling your homies like, hey, there's lots of salmon over here. They don't, they're guessing. They don't know why. They're literally saying, look at the article.

Wearing a Sabbath hat as hats is in vogue. So hot right now. What? So weird. That Hansel with the salmon. No, Orcas are messed up, dude. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's dark.

I wouldn't wear dead on it. Oh, wait a minute. We kind of do that too. Raccoon hat. Never mind. Hey, I think you saw this. I don't know if you saw you carry it. Is your son not into Legos?

Yeah, it kind of is. It's not a big, big thing, but he likes him. Do you see the new smart Lego? Smart tech Legos. So they literally kid, okay, so have you seen the Mario collection at all? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and they have like a, they have like a sensor. it and then they make noises.

Yeah, and you have like that. So, and I'm sure that's probably what started the train. I think how popular that that whole series went. Now all of them are going to become smart Lego, Legos. They'll be able to charge and they'll be able to sense each other and create. So your kid can build like a Lego train. Yeah.

And now when he moves it, it'll make the sounds. And then like other Legos that he builds will interact with that because it'll sense the Bluetooth. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it has different lights. Like proximity. video-wise, it turns different lights on.

And yeah, it's got all these, like, features. Did it have anything about, like, it being almost like a little motor, too? Or was that... No, so that's what... That's the tech legos. Yeah, the tech side of it is these... They'll be built in the Legos. So what you...

In the Mario ones, you used to have to put batteries in it. And so this is going to be, like, a wireless charge type of situation. And then it'll be, it'll just automatically connect to do that. Just a new way to be creative and figure things. I mean, I've been, I've been fascinated with Lego ever since my son got into him. Like, I remember I told you, I started, I went right away, went to go see if I could buy stock. And that's when I found out that they were a private company. And I'm like, they're huge and their partnerships with all.

I think Swedish. Danish. Yeah, one of those. Yeah. Not here. How about that? Not from here. Do you guys want to hear the cutest thing that my five-year-old did?

The sweetest, cutest thing ever. Yeah. So every time we come home, we don't wear. shoes in the house, right? But he takes his socks off too. Shoes and socks off every time. Sox off. Sox off like that. And I'm always, I thought he'd just like to be barefoot. So I'm like, whatever. And I don't remember what it was. I was, hey, keep your socks on because we're going to go back outside. It became a thing. And so I said, why do you take your socks off every time we come in the house? And he goes, it's for mama. And I said, what? And then it dawned on me. So ever since he was little,

my wife has loved playing with his feet. And she calls his feet cute and they're so chubby and whatever. And he does it. And so I said, you're doing that for mom? And he goes, yeah, so that she thinks I'm cute and that she comes and plays with me. And he told his mom, of course, she got emotional. How cute is that? He just does it because he thinks his mom likes it. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?

Max is the same thing, but it's not for those reasons. I think it's funny. We have let Max, since he was little, you know, we have a lot of privacy around her house. And so if he's walking around his underwear or whatever, it's like, no, who cares, no big deal. But he's gotten so comfortable with that. that he'll, it'll be like midday. This was over the break.

He had two weeks off. So we were obviously home a lot doing Legos. And we'll be like in the middle of day like at noon. And he'll be like, Dad, can I take off my clothes? It's like two in the afternoon. We're building Legos. Like, I don't even run the house that hot. And he's just like, I'm, I'm uncomfortable.

And I don't care, bro. And he's stripped down to his underwear. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. He didn't play Legos. He's his underwear on. Yeah.

And he knows, like, we won't, when we have gas, like, no, we have someone coming over so you can't do that. but he likes to be down to just damn near anything, and he's comfortable like that. He runs hot. He gets uncomfortable and clothes and stuff like that, but I think it's just so... You just reminded me what happened yesterday.

I was in the bathroom, and I had to change my shirt because I was going to film out here. Yesterday I did a lot of filming, and so I was going to the bathroom, but I had my shirt hanging over the top. So Adam walks in, he's like, dang, bro, he's like,

you're getting too big. You have to take your shirt off from the bathroom. And we were cracking up. But I used to know guys like this. Yeah. I used to do dudes that, like, bodybuilder types. Yeah. They would go, they'd have to go to the bathroom.

They'd have to take their shirt off. Yeah. They'd literally take the... Yeah. I shared an embarrassing story with Sal after he shared that with me. And I was like, dude, I'll never forget a time. I mean, everybody, we all have moments where you're like realizing, whoa, you know, like... Too far.

Yeah, too far. Right. I remember sweating, being like, I'm like 8% body fat, so I'm not like... But I'm big. But I'm big. And I remember going to the bathroom. was like so much effort that I would sweat. And the reason why it was was I was so big and strong in the sagittal plane

that the rotation to turn, to turn, yeah, to turn my body. And I remember like sweat coming down my brow and time going like, oh, wow. There's that time. I tell that story and I tell the other story. And then you're like, wait a minute, sitting and breathing is really loud. I remember, I remember, is this similar time, right? This was like, okay, this is enough, right? Like I remember we were at near your house, the beach over there.

And I forget what exit that is where the, where the bathrooms are. And there's the roundabout where the, I don't know what beach. I forget what the beach. Oh, oh, that's, uh, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you drive to the beach. And there's a roundabout and there's a restroom right there. Huh? Twin Lakes.

Is that where it's, is that what it is? I don't remember. It's over by you. Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, I think it's Seedcliff. Okay. And it's a common area. And we're, we parked there and we go walking.

Yeah, you got to walk off to the sand a little bit. And we're eating, doing our thing. I go back to the bathroom. And I remember walking back. Again, I'm buff. I'm in shape. I look good. But I remember, my shins were burning.

And I was like, I had to like stop to take a breath. And I'm like, okay, this is like, too much. Yeah, too much. This is way too much. This is extreme. I need to go the other direction. I'm going to change direction. So the Caldera Lab product, the grate.

So I was using the serum. I've been using the grate. it's so good and I had Doug look up what they put in there so they use exosomes in there do you guys know what exosomes are so they're like baby stem cells aren't they

they're okay so I pulled up kind of I pulled up related to stem cells somehow yeah so I pulled up oh shit I lost it Doug pull up their oh here we go these are plant

these are exosome like nanoparticles that come from the plants they're similar in structure and function to animal derived exosomes but originate from sources like fruits, vegetables, herbs, or plants. So they use plant exosomes. They're very, very small,

and they play a role in intrastular communication. Interesting. So when you use them, they promote cellular repair, collagen synthesis, they strengthen the skin barrier, wound healing, they reduce inflammation,

they help regeneration of the skin. And how many exosomes? They actually have a number. It's in the billions. Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah, 150 billion exosomes per application.

So this is like a new technology for skin care. And their product, the great has it. And that's the only one I use now. So that, so this is interesting how we've evolved. And I notice a difference. We've evolved with, with skincare.

Because the old school way was like, bleaching, killing or oil over the top of you. And now we're getting to this place where we're using nanoparticle of, like, plants to go in and actually repair and make your cells healthier or bring down inflammation. Yep, yep. Such a, such a healthier way to do this. It's cool.

And, you know, their products also promote a really healthy skin microbiome. So what a lot of people also report is less acne, which a lot of skin care products, especially moisturizing ones, tend to promote acne for people. This is like anti, because it balances out your microbiome. You know, Katrina and I had this, I don't know if you guys' wives talk about it. Like, she has a lot of girlfriends who have, we're getting that age now where I think it's more common to, you know, a lot of injectable stuff, a lot of plastic surgery, a lot of stuff like that.

And Katrina's never done any of that. And she's talked about, you know, at one point, you know, I get to an age. I want to do that. I'm like, honey, I don't do that. I am so for all the things, like, to promote longevity. The red light, the caldera labs, the exosomes, the stem cells. Like, that stuff is like a natural way to keep you youthful and looking young.

the plastic fake way that we, I really think that's going to fall out of favor in the next decade or two because it doesn't look good. You think it looks good. It looks this. Everybody looks the same. It looks fake.

It's not a good look. Look, you could go on their website. I know I'm going to piss people off. No, no, listen, I got a story. So first off, you can go on Caldera Lab website. They have before and afters and they run studies. So they actually do studies that are controlled and all that stuff. And you can see the difference.

I, we were, I won't say too much. But we were out. And this woman's walking towards me. And she's like, Sal, oh, my God, how you been? I don't know who you are. Yeah. We start talking and then it dawns on me. Oh, my God.

Done plastic surgery. She worked out in my gym, not with me, but one of my trainers. But I saw her all the time for years. Yeah. I knew her husband. I knew her son. I didn't recognize her. And it was because her face didn't move.

she had injections in her lips. She didn't, I didn't recognize her, bro. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know who she was. That perception drifting that I brought up It's crazy. It's a real thing. And I feel so bad because I know she felt

that I didn't recognize her. Yeah. Because we were talking and I was like, you know, and I'm sure I offended her because she worked out in my gym for probably seven years. So it was not like somebody I kind of knew. I knew her well. Yeah.

Just hadn't seen her for probably 15 years. Yeah. And I looked at it. I don't know. Who is this person? Then when she laughed, I was like thinking, and I'm like, oh my God, that's so-and-so. Yeah. God, they did so much that you can't even recognize it.

I know. I know. I mean, do your eyes, you guys' wives talk about it all or like, where they stand on it? Like, the fact that Katrina even brings it up and I explain, like, I talk to her about, like, because it's always, I just want a little bit or I'm just, and I'm going. That's where it starts. I said, that's where the perception drift starts, a little, and then it's a little more, and it's a little more and it's a little more.

By the way, no different than when I just admitted about the big Jack bodybuilder guy, you know what I'm saying? Like when I first started, it's not like I woke up one day and I was this guy who couldn't go to the bathroom without sweating or walking across the beach. It was a little bit. It was like, oh, it could be a little more jacked, a little more jacked. And then it's like, oh, my God. Conception drift. Yeah, exactly.

Same concept. I just feel bad. I get it. I admit. I feel bad too, especially. It's tempting for them, you know? It is. And it does, like, make a difference.

Like, so in Courtney, thankfully, has been around enough of her friends that do these Botox parties and they do like a lot of those things. and she's seen like, you know, the, where it's like, oh, there's some benefit. And then you see like a dramatic difference. It's like, oh, my God, that does not look good. And I don't want to get to that level. And so she's actually gone back and forth with it, but has, you know, pulled more of her attention into, like, creating her own moisturizers and, like, doing things with all, like, all these, like, natural, like, remedies and options for it and using red light, using Caldera, using all the things, like, possible to, you know, help benefit her skin. But yeah, like a lot of her friends like can get like she's to go to a lot of those like

parties and it gets excessive. Like it's it's a lot. Look, I get it as somebody who's, you know, tried to manipulate how he looked for most of my life. Like I get it. I totally get it. But it's, you know, you just take a big picture. We make youth.

We place youth so high. Like it's the most valuable thing that we've completely devalued, uh, the true value of wisdom and getting older, and to the point where it's like, it's like the worst possible thing that could happen to you is you look like you're getting a little bit older. And for women in particular, it's like, oh, my value is my beauty.

That's my value. That's a terrible place to be because at some point, you know, you get older. If you're lucky, by the way, not everybody ages and people die. But so, and you got to face that. You got to face that inevitable. But I get it.

I told me. You've seen a trend, actually, though, in Hollywood, even, like, with Pam Anderson and, like, even recently in Stranger Things. What was the lady's name that was in Terminator, Sarah Conno? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Full wrinkles. Like, she's, like, her age and, like, didn't do anything. It looks great. Looks great. And, but the thing is, she's like, I earn these. And, like, there's, like, a badge of honor movement with it, which is cool. That's what I think. I think we're just in this weird time of, like, when the, the Botox plastic surgery guys. got to the point where they got pretty good at it and better. And I think we're going to see a trend go the other way, especially as all natural products and things like red light therapy and things like that come in that because that stuff, it helps you look younger, longer. Through health.

Through health and natural. It looks good. It looks like, yes. And that's a good look. And so, and I think that we've gotten so far, we've come so far with the science there that I believe, Justin, I think you're on that that is going to become the trend. I think we're in this weird transition.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with the studies on Botox. These are just kind of scary studies, but your ability to emote, okay? You kill you going and you kill the nerves. Well, well, well, besides that, your ability to emote, right? Like your facial emotions reflect your inner feelings. Yes. But it's not a one-way street. Your facial expressions also communicate to your inside, to your brain, how you feel.

Right. So when you change how your face emotes, you actually start to be. become more numb and you start to feel less. And there's studies on this. Yeah. There are studies. So you do enough stuff to your face. You don't feel like you used to.

And because it's a slow process, five years later, you don't realize where you're at. Yeah. But you just kind of like, things are not at the same, a little numb, feel a little bit like. If you have a hard time smiling, that's a big problem. Yeah, dude. Because it's not, again, it's not a one-way street. It's a two-way. So it's just like when they've done it where they force people to smile and they actually start to feel different through the outside.

So, anyway, something to consider. Element is an electrolyte powder that tastes delicious. You add it to your water. There's no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, 1,000 milligrams of sodium per serving. Why is that important? Most electrolyte powders don't have enough sodium to make a difference. Look, if you want better pumps, if you want more energy,

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How should a female train who has osteoporosis? Oh, good question. Strength training is very important. Not a lot of it. You're looking at one or two days a week. Very controlled, moderate intensity, probably with a trainer. High protein. And feed yourself periods.

Not just high protein, but in a lot of. Because you can strength train perfectly, but if you don't feed yourself enough, this isn't going to reverse. You have to build muscle. Building muscle builds the bone. And that's what causes this to move in the right direction. Can't stress enough the surplus because especially with the people that listen to this podcast, we have, we have a lot of women that have struggled with this where they're like, I train, I lift weights. They just constantly dieting. Yeah, but they're always in such a low calorie place. And you can still get osteoporosis. even if you strength train,

if you are always in a calorie deficit and you don't allow yourself to build muscle. If you don't build muscle, you're not going to build bone. And so I'm glad you, you know, corrected me with not just high protein, but high calories. So high protein and enough calories.

And you don't have to be crazy high, but you need to be in a surplus. Just eat enough to build muscle. Yeah. And in a good two day a week, traditional strength. I have a lot of experience with this. At one point,

because of the amount of doctors that I trained, they would send me their patients. And at one point, I trained a few women who were either osteoporina or osteoporosis. And because they were in those categories, they would get their bone mass, bone density tests done regularly. And they all came back. Yeah, positive, where they were adding bone density.

One of them, in fact, their doctor made her a case study because of the reversal. And it was just traditional strength training, eating enough food. Next question is from Morgan B. Peterson. how do women know if they need testosterone? Can they even get TRT? And what levels are normal for an athletic female age 21? I don't know what the normal range of testosterone is for women. You'd have to look that up.

You go get blood work and they'll tell you. Yeah, but the symptoms of low testosterone in women is exactly the same as the symptoms of low testosterone in men. So there's this myth or this incorrect belief that testosterone is the male hormone. Yeah. Estrogen is the female hormone. No, not true. No, the truth is estrogen and testosterone and progesterone are male and female hormones. We both have them.

The difference is the ratios and the amounts, right? Men obviously have a lot more testosterone. Women have a lot less. Estrogen is different for women than it is for men. But if a woman's testosterone is low, she'll experience what a man will if his is low, which is like low libido, low drive, low motivation, depression. aches and pains. Yeah, you start responding in the gym.

Body fat percentage starts to gain, yeah, that kind of stuff. So what you would do is you would get tested, and I recommend going to a hormone, you know, clinic, like a specialized clinic. And what they'll typically do is look at your testosterone levels, plus talk to you about your symptoms because it's both. I do want to comment, though, most common in a 20-year-old or a young female with this is

underfed and overtrained. If their testosterone is low, 100%. Yes. So. Or birth control sometimes can mess things out. Oh, good point. Yeah. But I'd say the most common thing when I had someone that was young that was this,

it was commonly found, a lot of like athletic, a lot of my house. Hardcore athletes. Loster period. Hasn't had it for a couple years. Trains really hard. So overtrained, underfed is the more, it's not the everything, but it tends to be the more common reason for this. And so sometimes before, and I say this because I cautioned people to just go to a hormone place, find out, and then get put on, go on T.R.T.

You should first make sure you're not that person that needs to reduce the intensity and potential volume of training and reverse diet and increased calories because many times this will balance that out. Rarely will they put a 21-year-old female on hormone replacement therapy unless there's some other medical conditions or anything like that. Typically, it's lifestyle. Typically, it's left out. Hormone replacement therapy tends to be more appropriate for women who are perimenopause or menopause in age. Next question is from the Great Cascadian Ape. I've been able to improve all my big lifts and have steadily made progress with strength, but I still find push-ups aggravate my back and have more or less always been a struggle for me.

What tips would you give to someone who wants to improve their push-ups? So it depends what you're talking about your back. I'm going to assume it's your low back. Yeah. If you're doing big lifts, it's your low back. And so the problem with this is you're not activating your core and tucking your tailbone enough in your pushup. So what's happening is you're going down to the pushup. Your back is arching really strong.

And you're pushing your upper body up, which is making the arch even stronger. And you're getting shearing in the low back. So what you would do is you would start at the top. You brace your core and tuck your tailbone a little bit. And your whole body has to move the unit. Like a board. The whole body has to move it to a unit. There's not two sections.

Sometimes people do a push-ups. It's like upper body comes up, lower body comes up. The whole thing moves together. The way you progress something like this is get a barbell, put it up on a rack that's higher. Start with your higher push-up. And then as you get better, lower the bar until you get down to the floor. And my experience, that's the best way. Yeah, and slow down and work on that bracing technique and squeeze the glue, squeeze the abs.

Like make sure you don't break that at all as you go down and get to the bottom of your rep and press up. So you try to maintain that tension. consistently throughout the entire range of motion. Perfectly. I was just say the exact same thing. And that becomes the qualifier on do we do more reps is not that you could you push up more reps? It's can, how long can you continue to brace the core by squeezing the abs and squeezing the glutes?

As soon as you lose tension there and you can't do that anymore, I don't care if you feel like you can get five or ten more pushups, you're done with the reps right there. We need to progress the ability for you to stay rigid with the glutes engaged, the abs engaged, while doing the push-ups before you move and do more push-ups or add weight or resistance to the push-up. Next question is from Terry Jennings 113. How do I know if I should continue to train when I have an injury? I've had two knee revisions on the same knee,

and I think it's going out again. You know, when I hear someone ask me a question like this, I mean, I could give you some general answers, but because of where you're at, you've had two knee revisions of assuming surgeries on the same knee, you feel like it's going out. You know how much time that takes out of your life, how much it costs,

you know the cost to your quality of life. Hire a good trainer. Yes. Like someone who understand, an experienced trainer, one that understands correctional exercise. One that understands, not a trainer,

not a group exercise trainer. Take out the guesswork. And hire someone who understands correctional exercise. They will fix this for you. It'll save you from having to get another knee surgery. It's not a knee problem. It's a movement problem.

And that is one of the hardest things to communicate to a client that has had multiple knee surgeries or issues with their knees. They've been told by doctors. They have a bad knee. And so they come to you and they're like, should I do squats or should I do these moves? Because I have a bad knee. It's like, no, the reason why your knees feel bad is because of poor movement. And we need to get better at the movement. And we need to know a good coach or trainer or a good movement.

specialist knows how to regress you to a place that doesn't stress the knee that that teaches you how to move better and then hinge the knee properly and the hips and everything that's involved in this and get good at those movements and then progressively over-a-loaded and get strong in the muscles that support the knee you don't have bad knees you have bad movement and just stopping the movement is not a good idea but this is such an important investment it's like the surgeries can't be cheap the timeout of work or the things you do can do And what's inhibiting that movement? Like, you need a coach to point it out.

Sacrifice to Christmas present, sacrifice the things that you were going to spend money on, go invest in a movement specialist that helps you get to the bottom of this and teaches you how to move more properly or move better. And then hopefully we don't have to do more. That's exactly why I said that. Yes, I love that you went right to that direct. Because this, because you'll save money.

And I say that because when you look at the, when you need surgery, it seems like it's expensive, but oh, I have to do this because I have to do this because I have this injury. When you look at a coach before you get injured, it's like, maybe I could, maybe I don't know, is this money I want to spend? You talk yourself out of it. It'll save you money.

It'll save you surgeries. It'll save you time out from work. It'll save you recovery. It'll save you all these different things. And I say that because a good coach or a good trainer is going to cost you, you know, around $100 an hour. The knee is like a door hinge, okay? And imagine you had.

Except way more complex. But listen. But no, listen. Yeah, because it's floating. Yeah. all kinds of, but listen to the analogy. It's like a door hinge and Justin is hanging on your door and you open and close that door every day. Eventually that hinge is going to wear, tear and it's going to hurt and then their doctor's going to tell you you need to replace the hinge.

It's like, no, get Justin off the fucking door. That's the problem. And that's what it's not moving properly. It's not swinging properly. And then it wears and tears and then you have to keep redoing it. Or you never open the door again, which you don't want to do that either. that you want to be able to open and close the door again. Eventually the door won't open.

That's exactly right. And so that's why you want to solve the root issue here, and it's not the bad knee. It's not just getting surgery again. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you there. It's at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now, plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

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