Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2793: How to Calculate Volume and Progressively Overload for MAX GAINS

Episode Date: February 13, 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: How to Calculate Volume and Progressively Overload for MAX GAINS. (2:09) Fish roe vs fish oil. What's the difference? (23:21) Bringing out the science dork in Adam. (25:32) Getting your head in the right place before a MASSIVE change in your training. (31:14) The benefits of the 'water pump'. (38:07) Levers and pulleys. (41:31) Do asthma medications stunt growth in children? (45:56) An 'Our Place' unboxing. (49:21) #Quah question #1 – Are there any actual benefits to vibration plates, or is it another gimmick in the fitness industry? (53:53) #Quah question #2 – I'm new to lifting with a barbell, and I have a home gym. I frequently lift when I am home alone. My goal is to progress to heavy squats, but I'm afraid of hurting myself or getting stuck at the bottom. What is the best rep range for me? (57:09) #Quah question #3 – What grip/type of pressing movement would be easiest on the rotator cuffs? (1:01:32) #Quah question #4 – I have an L5 bulging disc that causes me pretty frequent pain, and I am trying to recover/heal it, but my chiropractor says it could take 3- 6months to fully heal. How am I supposed to train when I can't load heavy? Especially the lower body exercises like squats, deadlifts, etc. (1:04:25) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Paleovalley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Discount is now automatically applied at checkout 15% off your first order! ** Visit Our Place for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. ** February Promotion: Feb 1 - Feb 14th - The Couple's Bundle (Aesthetic, HIIT, Muscle Mommy, No BS 6-Pack Abs), $498 value, only $197!  Visit: https://www.mpvalentine.com  Mind Pump Store Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV Asthma drug may stunt growth permanently Visit Joymode for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Enter MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order. ** How to Choose the Correct Weight for a Lift - YouTube Suspension Training Series – 3 Favorite Shoulder Exercises The Face Pull Variation You NEED To Try (Healthy Shoulders!) Handcuff with Rotation (Mind Pump) - YouTube The Wall Test | Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mike Salemi (@mike.salemi) Instagram Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink) 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 in the world. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we pick questions off of Instagram that people posted. We picked four of them, and we answered them.

But this was after the intro, today's intro, was 52 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fat loss, muscle gain, fitness, health, current events. Of course, it's always a good time. Again, if you want to post a question that we can pick, go to Instagram at Mind Pump Media. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Paleo Valley. Today we talked about their fish row capsule supplement. So it's like a fish oil, except it's not just the extracted oil.

It has all of the nutrients of fish row as well. Great for your brain, great for inflammation, great for overall health. They have lots of supplements on their site, including grass-fed beef sticks. They have bone broth protein that tastes incredible and much more. Go to paylovali.com forward slash mind pump. That link will get you 15% off. This episode is also brought to by Our Place. So they make cookware that is forever chemical free.

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That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Almost nothing is more confusing to people just based off of how they actually try to do this than training volume. Look, we all know progressive overload is the closest connection to muscle growth. Of all the things that correlate to muscle growth, strength and the pump and all this other. Volume or progressive overload is the strongest. correlate. The problem is, everybody messes this up. They do it too much or not enough. They don't how to calculate it right. We're going to talk about this right now. Volume. What is it? How do you

calculate it? And how do you effectively progressively overload to get your body to consistently progress? Crick up the volume. Yeah. You, Adam, are probably, I heard people communicate this before. But I had personally never gotten as granular with my total volume and trying to progressively overload that way. I'd never gotten as granular as you did. I mean, you took competing, you treated it like a business. It wasn't like a fun hobby. You know, I think people listen to the podcast long enough. They know that you did it specifically with the intent of building a business. And so you were like you are with all business. You look at the data, the metrics, you figured this out.

And so I'd love for you to talk about what you learned because this wasn't like you were a newbie. You'd already been a trainer. You've been working out for years. And then you got into this and then you learned a few things. Yeah, I have a similar opinion around it, similar to like somebody who might say like, oh, I don't ever really want to track macros or I don't want to do that. But then they are like, but I really want to get down to this percent body fat or I really

want to look this way. I think tracking volume can give you that level of insight if you've never done it before. I think you could absolutely never track volume and be a very healthy, fit person. Totally fine. Did that for most of my training career. Everybody in here would probably attest to the same thing. But what I found at that point, because I was doing something competitively and knowing that information, I know gave me a competitive edge

was the only reason why I cared enough to go to that level of it, right? And I don't know if that speaks to my business side like you alluded to or more of my competitive side. I don't think you cared about winning. You just cared about making it, being able to build a business out of it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was the ultimate desired outcome.

And so winning helped. Yeah, and obviously, the way I thought about it was if I go do this and I don't do very good at it, who's going to want to follow me? paying attention to my business, so I better go do good. But one of the first big insights for me was, and I feel like this is the same with macros.

Why I used to love to have somebody who said, oh, I don't really want to track macros. Like, let's just do it for, you know, 30 days and just so we can see is it's just the insight that I got. And so I knew what volume was. I knew how to calculate it, never cared enough to really do it. And what I realize is we have this kind of natural ebb and float, very similar to how we eat,

where we kind of find this homeostasis of our calories. We think we're on a diet and we're doing so good. But then when we actually track it, it's like, oh, these extra calories sneak in and you have these higher days and then you have these lower days. But then when you look at the average over an entire 30 days, you're actually here when you thought you were like here. Volume was like that. You know, you have your weeks where you're like, oh, yeah, I'm feeling it and you're strong and you're hitting it consistently. you don't miss and feel like weights moving on the bar. Then you have other weeks where you're just like going through the motions.

You don't really feel it. And then when I would pull back and I would look at 30 days, I'd go, oh, wow, I'm really not, not only am I not progressively overloading when I thought I was. When I looked at the 30 days, I actually ended up the last week. I was doing less volume than I was doing the first week, you know? And so is that because you would overshoot adding the volume? Yes. Yes.

Yes. So what would happen? times as I, you know, really press the volume. Because I feel good. Because I feel good. Overtrained a little bit. Then my, my next time coming back around to that exercise, I'd have to scale back because I'm still sore. I'm still recovering. And I overshot the last one. And so what I would, what would end up happening is I'd like, oh my God, there's it, it's like this. Yeah. And then at the end of the 30 days, I'm lifting the same amount of volume as I was

at the very beginning. And so I was like, wow, okay, I need to have a way more methodical approach to how I scale the volume. And it's a lot of what we we communicate on this podcast, which and also where the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most change. It's like I knew that as long as I was staying where I did last week and I just did a little bit more, you know, a five pound plate more or one more set, you know, that each week that I was progressively overloading the body. And that, what that did was had this nice, consistent progress.

aggressive overload versus this peaks and valleys. And then when you pull back this, like, say, I was doing the same shit three months later. You know who's really, who really figured this out first in the strength world were the Olympic lifters. They had to. They did. It was. Either works or it doesn't. That's what I love about it.

Yeah. And I pointed to them before. And it's just because it's the most scientific, it's the most studied from a scientific perspective, strength training. And it's only because countries compete against. other in the Olympics and during the Cold War it was like this was a way to display our superiority. So the Soviet Union, you had the U.S., you had Europe, and it was like, we're going to put our best athletes out there. And if we have more medals, then that means, you know, communism is better or capitalism

is better. And the Soviet Union, you know, here in the U.S., we don't like federally fund the athletes. Like the Soviet Union, they were like, they put their best scientists on this. They're like, no, we want the best athletes. We want a display of the world. And they literally studied strength training from an Olympic lifting perspective. And what you had in the early days, like in the 50s and 60s when you really started seeing them take off, the way that our lifters trained was they just kind of pushed it. It was like linear progression.

They just kind of pushed it all the time. Yep. And it was like, can I do more? Let's do more. Oh, I need to do less because I'm tired. I'll do less. The Soviets were methodical. Yep.

And they really had this kind of like, whether you felt good or not, here's what we're doing. doing and they ended up doing phenomenally well. And it's because they calculated this all. They weren't just going into it based off the field, which by the way, based off the field is okay. But when you really want to take it to the next level, that's why you got so granular.

Well, this was my inspiration, Sal, was exactly that. And this is kind of what I focused on. Because it could get really crazy if you try, because the next question that gets asked when people ask how I did this. Well, how do you calculate buys and tries? because you also do that. I actually just focused on the main lifts. Okay.

And you need controls. Exactly. And I, because I knew those were my biggest bang for my buck type of movements. They're the most taxing exercise for my movement. They're also where I was going to, the biggest levers I could move for strength and adding muscle to my body. And so I really was like overhead press, bench press, the deadlift,

squat, the road. So these big, the big movers. And like a power lifter or an Olympic lifter would do, I would train at this kind of like moderate intensity for for most of the week. And then I'd have my one day of that week where it's like this is where I'm going to, I'm going to stretch that exercise. And I know what I did the last time I did it. And so can I get another set or can I get another 10 pounds on the bar on that exercise?

And can I do that week over week leading up into a show? Right. So here's how you figure out volume. This is the formula. It's not perfect. Like Adam said, because you have crossover volume. an overhead press is going to add some volume to the triceps. A bench press is going to add volume to both the shoulders and the triceps,

even though it's a chest exercise. It's also not perfect because when the reps get real high, it kind of skews the volume in another direction. So here's the formula. It's sets times reps times weight. So generally speaking, this is the volume formula. And so the way you explained it to me the first time made so much sense. So when I would increase volume, I would only look at sets.

I didn't look at if I got stronger. It didn't count as a set. Yeah. It was all set in reps. I didn't count reps either. It was just sets. Yeah. But the reality is if I did three sets of bench press with 225 pounds last week, this week I did three sets of bench press with 230 pounds, my volume went up.

Oh, yeah. Adding another set is now adding too much volume. Yeah, yeah. No, I watched poundage. It was total poundage in that lift per week. That's the formula. Sets times reps times. So if you add one rep to one set, so here's how you would apply this.

If your volume goes up at all, you're good. So if you add one rep, good. If I add one set, fine. If I added a little bit of weight, good. That means your volume went up. And I like this because I think the mistake people make with increasing volume is they go as much as they can tolerate, which typically looks like more sets, more weight and more reps.

which results in your following week and actually pulling back down. And then you average down. And that is what I learned that I thought was that I was so, like I love when we have moments and we share these as much as we can on the podcast that were like paradigm shattering moments for each of us. This was a paradigm shattering moment for a guy

who'd already been lifting for 15 years, thought he knew a lot about what he was doing, decided I've never really tracked volume. Let's track this. Let's get to the poundage on it and go, oh shit, look what I'm doing. You know, this week I do 6,000 pounds of whatever, you know, and then next week I do four because I was taxed from that.

And then I go back up to six. And then when I look at it, I'm averaging five the whole time. Yeah. So what it started to look like was this more like what I actually would, the goal I would give myself is I just didn't want to go backwards. So, oh, okay. And I didn't want to overdo it. So when I was starting a new routine.

So either progressing or staying the same. Yes, right. So you just don't go backwards. Like, so can I just, and what would allow me to progress is one of those, that time when I hit that lift and I felt good. I was like, oh, I'm feeling good. I'm going to, and then it was just a little bit. It wasn't like, I'm going to do as much as I can tolerate.

It's like, oh, I'm feeling good today. Today's the day, I'm going to add, you know, extra whatever to my deadlift today. Or today's the day, I'm going to add that extra wrap or set, you know. And I like that you actually fixed a question that I had because, because of the crossover volume and it gets really, you can get really crazy. You're counting the big lifts, which you typically do first on the workout anyway. Yeah, because you get, you can. You can get really...

Yeah, because like, do you count, like, okay, here's the problem. Does three sets of peck deck is the same as three sets of a bench press? No. Or three sets of laterals the same as three sets of it. So you can't really count. Even if the weight is different because people say, oh, yeah, we'll use less weight or whatever. Okay, well, then what I do, 10 sets of lateral raises is equal to? And it gets really weird.

I'll give you my, again, my nutrition analogy. It's like tracking macros versus getting all the way into the minutiae of micronutrients. Yeah. It's like, well, yeah, there's obviously there's more to than just protein. carbs and fats. But the protein carbs and fats is that if you get that really dialed in, you can really move the needle in the right direction as far as your health. So track like four main lifts about the week, sets, times reps, and to be, and to be even more transparent with how I did it. This is just my person was, I cared actually most about the thing that I was really

trying to improve for the next show. So if I got a fee, so if I was like, so if I was like, because you try to bump volume on everything. That's right. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, Exactly. So I'm only really watching the main lifts, but if I was like, you know what, I really need to bring my legs up this. So this, so I'm not also pushing chest like crazy, shoulders, I'm really just, I'm paying attention to the volume in those legs. I'm paying attention to all the volume. And I don't want to go backwards on my other things. But I need to know that if I'm like, if I'm ramping up the leg volume that, hey, I might take it easy on one of my strengths in one of my other other, other lifts or whatever, or back scale back. And so I would, so someone else is not training for. show. It would look like training blocks. It's like, okay, the next month or two, my focus or emphasis is shoulders. So that's really where I'm going to put the energy on trying to scale the volume week over week. And so that's what it would look like. And then other shows, it would be like, oh, this is bad. I'm going to bring up my back. What a great point because it's not just how much volume a body part can handle. It's cumulative for the whole body. Like if I progress

in my volume for squats, that's going to take away from my, ability to recover from the rest of the body or at least contribute to it. So if I try to progressively overload my bench press, my row, my squats, my overhead press, every week, week over week, too much at once. So you're going to, I'm going to go backwards. You're going to watch me do this with Cren right now. So one of the first things I did was I stripped her down to the very bare bones kind of lifts, which was like, you know, she's like, oh my God, you're taking all my volume and all my

subway. They didn't tear those away from her. Right. I had to like tear it away from her. And she's constantly asking me, can I do more? And it's like, no, this is where I want. And now what I will do with her as we're in this bulk and that I've stripped it down to just this kind of bare bones type of routine, I will look at her physique while we're building and go like, I want more of this on her. I want more shoulders or I want more glute hamstring, whatever it may be.

And then that now becomes the thing I really pay attention to in her training. And that will be where I push her volume wise. And I'll go, all right, you want more? This is what I'll let you. This is what you can do more of now. or I, and we're hitting, she's hitting PRs every week right now, so I don't have to really mess with anything. But eventually we'll get to a point where she'll adapt. We'll kind of hit our calorie maintenance where I think we are and so like that.

I don't know if you guys know, I mean, we're at 2,600 calories right now. So we started, five, six hundred calories more than that. Oh, yeah. We started this at 2,000 calories and a stretch for her to hit 21, 22. That's great. So we're at 2,600 calories right now and less volume in training. And I'm glad you said that because while you're scaling your volume up, you should not simultaneously be cutting your calories.

Right. That's a terrible time to progressively overload. Yeah, yeah. So, like, when Adam competed, this was happening in the off season. You were not doing this pre-content. No, see, okay, now the opposite happens when I, this was another thing that I thought was like a super hack for me or my competitive edge to my peers was I would watch these guys as they get closer to Showtime start ramping up volume and intensity.

They'd be sweating more in their workouts and pushing it really hard. Well, their calories. Yeah, while they're in this cut, like, in their head, like, their idea was like, their idea was like, I'm sharpening up, you getting ready for show. And I'm like, you saw me back off. I was just like, okay, I just needed, I need to, intensity would start to weigh scale back. I'm not pushing hard on the cardio. I'm walking.

I'm like, because I know right now I'm trying to preserve all the muscle. I'm already sending the signal on, my body's not getting enough calories. So I want to just to just conveniently utilize fat as its main energy source or one of the main energy sources because it's not getting a lot of glucose. The last thing I want to do is ramp a new level of intensity when I'm also cutting calories. My body's going to be like, not only are we not going to build muscle. We're going to need to use some of this shit. In other words, if you're going to tackle this, do it in a calorie surplus. Yes. Don't do it in a deficit because you're simultaneously increasing the recovering adaptation demands on the body while simultaneously reducing the nutrient intake,

which is a recipe for overtraining. It's a recipe for disaster. Totally. If you want to flat line and plateau or hurt yourself, then do that. But if you want to progressively overload, you also need to increase your calories. Otherwise, you've got nothing to build off of and recover off.

And what's the, what's the meth? Was it the Russians who did the two and a half pound thing first? Who is, who is, who is, you remember the added? Oh, the little added inklete plates. Yeah. They would do that. Yeah. And that's just another example of like,

a little magnet two and a half pounds. Like everything else stays the same, just two and a half pound and increment. They would even add half a half plate. They would even add half a pound. And how strong that you get over that time. And so what I, the biggest takeaway from this whole discussion that we've had right now, hopefully that people get, is that what we tend to do is when we feel good, we overreach.

Yeah. And then when we overreach, we end up, our bodies tell us we have to scale back the next weekend. Many times people have this experience. Oh, man, I just had a. That's a real discipline. Yeah. To not do that. It's hard to do that when you're like, oh, I'm feeling good.

It's just like, oh, I'm just going to do a little more of what I need to. And then hang tight there and then see if I can keep building on that versus, man, I feel so good and just hammering it when you feel good. And then now I don't feel so good. I back off. And then when you look at it, when you back out 30 days, you stay the same. Well, I see like such a common issue, a lot of strength athletes I used to work with. And you'd ride it up and you'd structure their volume. And they would go deliberately by the numbers, not listening to their body.

they're fatigued, they're, you know, over-exerting, and then the next week just staying there. They're always trying to progress every day, every week, every workout, when in fact the right move a lot of times is to just stay there or scale back a little. That's right. So that was always my goal was always like, don't go backwards. Because I realized I did these peaks in valleys.

I go, oh, man, instead of me really always thinking about, oh, I feel good pushing it, how about I just, I'm feeling good right now. Next week, let's not go backwards. Yeah. And, hey, if I feel even better next week, than I did this week. Maybe I'll add just a tiny bit or just stay the same. So it was like stay the same or just a little bit every single week

versus this attitude of like, oh, I feel good. Let's go get it. Which we're all guilty of, especially in the competitive space. It's also important to control your intensity because you want to maintain the same level of intensity. So if I do the same volume this week as I did last week, but this week I go to failure. It's actually different. Yeah, it's a different. Right.

So set the intensity gauge. Usually it's two reps short of failure. failure, control that so then sets, reps, and weight are consistent. Otherwise, if the intensity goes up and down, then volume doesn't really make, then it's hard to calculate the volume appropriately because, well, my intensity changed with the whole thing. Keep the calories up. And then again, just so people understand this, with this formula, essentially,

I know it's not perfect. So before I get the science nerds on here, well, listen, I know it's not perfect, perfect. But it's as close as something you can use and calculate to track and follow as you can get when it comes to strength training. Okay. So as long as you keep the exercise is the same, the intensity the same, bump your calorie intake, sets times reps times weight is a nice metric to follow. So long as you stay within the rep ranges that are considered muscle building, once they get too high, it's crazy. Like one set of 100 reps of a bench press could look really weird on a volume calculation. But nonetheless, just to give you guys an illustration,

if you did bench press five sets, six reps at a certain intensity versus three sets at 10 reps at the same intensity, you have the same volume or similar volume. The weight may actually make a difference. You got to calculate it out. It's not just adding sets. But I love this because just like you said, Adam, people, they don't realize they're constantly going forward and back, going forward and back, going forward and back. And then they don't realize why they're not progressing. and it's because training is a formula. It's scientific.

Well, listen, I mean, I love when, I forget who I can credit to who I heard to communicate this. There's a difference between exercise and training. Exercise is going into the gym and just doing a bunch of movements that are good for your body and stuff like that. Training is you have a goal in mind that you're going after and you are methodically training towards that. Meaning I am, everything I do in here is with the intent of, I'm, I'm

trying to build more muscle or build more strength or change my physique. And if we're training, then this is such a valuable tool to at least peer into. Maybe you don't become so, I got, like I don't track volume all the time. Just like I don't track macros all the time. But there, I think there's tremendous value of having done that. So you can at least see your tendencies and go like, oh, wow. I am somebody. Watch the trends. Yeah, I am somebody who does. I didn't realize it. because I and because what it just like the macro tracking. I mean, we know all the studies that show just by becoming aware of it.

People automatically start to lose weight. And I feel like the same thing happens with the tracking volume is you all of a sudden become aware of like, oh, in my head, I haven't missed a day in the gym. And so I should be perfect and progressing. But then when I look at what I've been doing, it's just like, oh, I've been overtraining and then overtraining the undertraining, overtraining the under training. And then what it ends look like is the same. It's like, oh, no, wonder or not I'm not, you know,

Changing. All right, I want to talk about supplements here for a second because, you know, I was talking to Doug earlier, and he's been using fish row from Paleo Valley instead of fish oil. What's the difference? Fish rows are fish eggs. And so fish oil is literally they take the oil from fish, extract it, and it's just that. Fish row, the eggs are very high in omega-3 fatty acids, very high in DHA, which is the fatty acid that's good for the brain.

But it also is full of nutrients. It's a complete food. So we're not just taking the oil. We're actually taking a complete food. So it's a food supplement. So what they have is they have freeze-dried fish row in capsule form. So rather than taking the oil out and extracting it, it's like here's a complete food. So I imagine it has more benefits because it has more things.

But then because it's not being extracted, it's a smaller concentration of vitamin D. That's right. Or no, no. Or I mean omega three. Sorry. Yes. So it's a good thing to combine. but, you know, people have really rediscovered the value of eating organ meats and foods that are very nutrient dense.

Fish row is up there. My wife would eat a teaspoon of fish row almost daily when she was pregnant because, and now she did it, the gangster way. She would let me eat the fish row. That's nearly. But because of the brain health benefits and the, with the developing baby. It's so interesting. But it's cool because, again, like, you could take B vitamins or you could eat, you know, freeze-dried liver or iron or freeze-dried liver or organ meats. You know, you could take Kuketan or you could eat heart, for example.

So there's a lot of arguments for the whole food sources. So does PILA about, is it done like the way like you see it on sushi or is it like in a pill form? No, it's a capsule. Oh, so it's a capsule. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. So you get the anti-inflammatory benefits.

You get some of the nutrients that you'll find in Fish Row that are good for you. It's good for heart health. but especially brain health. It's especially good for brain health. So it's a really good, yeah, supplement. Are you on that? I am. Oh, you're good.

Doug takes a lot of supplements. I do. I'm probably number two. Oh, you for sure. Number two. Nobody means Sal, but you for sure are a close second. Hey, I'm working on it. You are, dude.

Hey, I'm on. You're a good third right now. I'm, uh, this is, how many days? Do you remember when, uh, went through all that BS? It's been like three months. It's been like three months. Yeah, I think three months. Well, three months since I could create him, two months of training consistently.

because it was a month. I didn't do shit for a month. You were just trying to survive. I didn't do anything for a month. But then, yeah, it's been, I've now passed two months. Monday, I'll go get my Dexas scan. Super interested to see. It's like you're starting.

Yeah. It's not really starting because you went. Yeah, no, of course. But what will be most interesting to me, and I think I don't know if I share this on the podcast or not, I know I shared with you last time I talked about this was, I have all the dexas scans from the, the, when I did the transformation thing.

and I'm coming from a different place. I always like this. I don't know if this is the, this is the dork in me when it comes to the science stuff and just interested. I've done so many of these. I don't know if you guys have done as many as I have.

I've done like probably well over a hundred. Yeah, I've never done one, DeXA scan. Oh, okay. Well, I mean DeXA body fat testing in general, like I've done 100, hundreds of these. And I have seen my body fat percentage at a different weight from everything from 185 all the way to 240 pounds. And I can tell you that I have a Dexascan or a body fat test of an awesome body fat percentage

and a terrible body fat percentage at almost every single one of those weights. Which I find that really, I think that's... Like a lean 185 versus a fat 185. Yes. Yeah. Which I think is super fascinating to think that with your own human body, this is obviously my journey, but for everyone listening, it's like, 180, five pounds to 240 is a huge difference in amount of weight on somebody's body. And yet I've got

examples at like five pound increments all the way up of an awesome and shape version in me and a terrible in shape version of me on all of those. So it's always interesting to me to see. You've probably done the least amount of body fat tests and stuff, right, Justin? I mean, I've done a fair share, but mainly like when whenever we've scheduled it for clients and stuff, I'll throw it in there. But yeah, probably, yeah, I could probably do like 10, maybe 10, maybe, You've done Dexas then? Not Dexas. Underwater?

Yeah, underwater. I've only done underwater. I used to have the underwater. And the reason why he probably has a lot is I used to have the underwater come to our gym. And so all of my trainers. I used to do it. Yeah, with my clients. Dude, the first time I did underwater weighing, it's actually not, it's not comfortable.

Like, you got to get underwater and you got to read every bit of air under the water, which isn't not very. Yeah. And I used to think I'd, like, get a better result by like, yeah, to the point where I was like almost throwing up in water. Yeah. It doesn't. I remember when I asked him one time because I thought that was so important. Like, oh, man, that's why I didn't. I'm holding air bubbles in there still.

I'm like, hey, what's the difference if I don't let any out of it? And he's like, not even a quarter percent of body. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's like this whole time. It's not that buoyant. Yeah, yeah, like 3%. That's why I didn't get the air out. But that was the big reveal of like, especially the cardio versus like lifting weights approach to like losing body fat for me.

It was the most revealing was like going through the competitions, the stuff we used to do. And it was like, like, substantially. different when you're like more cardio based and you're like yeah your body fat was such a valuable tool uh to use dexa or your or your hydrostatic way to get body fat testing and not because what the number says and this is again like what i get so excited about going into this even though i've done it a hundred plus times is i'm so interested to just what it tells me because i've done it enough times you go like oh this is what i'm what i'm going to do from here Like, for example, like, what do I mean by that?

Well, I'm going to come into this thing probably in the high 228 range, like weight, which is a high weight for me. Now, if, and I know what a lot of lean body mass looks like on me. When I'm over 203 pounds of lean body mass, that's a lot of lean body mass. That's really good, right? Low, anything below 190 would be low for me. And so if I come in there and I'm at, I don't really care about what the exact percentage is, but if I've only got 180, 80 pounds of lean body mass on me and then I'm carrying a lot of body fat. I'll still stay on the game train of building muscle.

Yeah, dude. You want that metabolic powerhouse. Exactly. But if I get on there and I'm like, oh, wow, I've built back up over 200 pounds of muscle, I'm in a good place to lean back out. And so I don't really care if it says 16%, 18%, 13%. Where do you guess your body fat's going to be when you test it? Midteens, low teens?

15 to 16. 15. 15. 15 to 16. Yeah, 15 to 16. Yeah, that's my guess, but I mean, I'm normally pretty close. I'd say, yeah, I'd say probably. I'll be really happy with 15.

I'm probably around 16 something. I could be as high as 16.9 maybe. I don't know. And that will tell on just how much muscle I've built. That will dictate how much. Of course. Yeah, because I know I've put some muscle back on. I feel good.

I'm not very strong in the gym right now. That makes me a little nervous. So we'll see. You're careful, though, too. the way you've had a couple injuries. I know. So I'm super careful right now. I'm not, I'm not, I want, it's, I'm in an interesting place right now.

Part of why I want to cut and go the other direction is so I can get away from focusing. Because I, I'm, I've been at the same kind of weights. And I really, yesterday I was dumbbell pressing again. And like the 80s are just like flying around. But I'm so scared to go 90, 100, 120s and move back to that kind of way. And so I'm just like high rap, slowing it down, all the things we talk about. because of the peck tear. I've been really trying to wrap my mind around

and just really get my head space around changing my training to what I told you guys, where I go alternate strength training one week, one week cardio slash kind of functional. And so I'm really just trying to get my head in the right place because if it's not in the right place, I know what's going to happen is I'll very quickly back out or turn it into more strength training.

So you officially started this? No, so I'm going to start in like a way. week or two. Okay. And what it's going to start with, I'm going to start real slow. So it'll be like how I normally work out one week. Then the next week it'll be just boring cardio. Just get on, listen to a book or a podcast or something like that and just get my stamina

up a little bit. And then Fridays, I'm going to do unconventional stuff because I still film with Dylan on Fridays. And so I'll probably be in here doing just embarrassing myself with like windmills and stuff that I'm terrible at that I know I need to work on, like lateral. stability rotation, that kind of stuff. And then it'll probably, I don't know if I'll change my mind with this, but I want to get better at swimming because I can swim to not drown, but truth be told.

I totally empathize with you. High bar there. Like truth be told. Are you a bad swimmer too? I'm like, I'm okay. I'm like an okay swimmer. I just, I don't, I don't do well with it long term. Like, I really get uncomfortable.

Like, if I have to be in the. water for too long. Like I like wakeboarding and I like doing water sports. With a life vest and a board attached. Yeah, I'm like, I can't be out there just like swimming. Yeah, because I'm just dog paddling and feeling like I'm going to die. So, it's so mental. It's so mental because when I was a kid, I was a great swimmer. And then I didn't swim for a long. And my mom, and I think I got to live at the beach when I was a kid. By the way, this makes me like aware, like your fears, your kid will pick up on them. Yeah. For sure. Oh, dude. So if you say like, this is scary, like a spider scary.

Your kids can be like it. My wife has done this with, my wife is allergic to bees. And every once in a while we have bees. So he freaks out. Yeah, so now my son thinks he's like, Max, it is not scary. Exactly.

And like, they're not scary. So I grew up. My mom is terrified of the water. If she goes in, it goes up to her knees and she's out. She just always had this fear of water. So I haven't swam for a long time, like, legit swam for a long time. So if like, if you guys were to invite me on like a houseboat or you're like,

hey, we're going to go to swim in the ocean. Like, for sure, I get anxiety. I like, well, legit get anxiety. Like, what if I, and I know it's not logical. So I'm like, you're trying to use that as motivation. Because the gym I go to, they have a pool and I want to do this cardio thing. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try and get over this.

Now, you don't think, you don't think that's biting off more and you can chew at the same time. No, I think it's actually, you might be right, dude, because I'm talking right now. Yeah, because I, I mean, just my opinion, but you could be totally different. I know that when I'm doing something like out of my comfort zone, like adding more layers of things that are out of my comfort zone, it doesn't help the process. No, no, let me be clear. I'm not jumping in a deep pool.

Well, I know, but still. I'm not going to be scared. I know, but my point is you would never go swim anyways because it's not something you love to do. So you're already challenging yourself to do something you wouldn't love to do, which I commend you for. But so is also getting on a cardio. Listen, you might be right.

Here's where my, here's where I'm not sure. I think if I go in with the mentality of I'm just going to get better at swimming so I can enjoy things with my family, because that's the motivating factor. Yeah, because my wife, she's like, she's trying to book these short trips throughout the year. Yeah. Because oftentimes we have these, you know, three day, four day weekends. And she's like, well, I want to go do a lake house and I want to get a houseboat. And I can already feel inside of me like, I'm not going to enjoy that because I don't feel comfortable. So I feel like it might be.

a nice other focus. You know, like, get in there. I'm not in here to work out and he don't learn how to swim type of deal. Okay. So if you see me at the gym, don't make fun of me. I probably look like that.

I absolutely. I probably look like a people. I did one of those little caps. Yeah. Just, I did all that, you know? Remember when I went on my swimming? Yeah, I'm not a good swimmer.

I'm not a good swimmer. You're a hell of a good swimmer. I was trying to be a good swimmer. You're a really good swimmer. What are you talking about? I did not have good technique. I definitely did. I learned a lot.

I actually got, You're built to swim, bro. That's true. That is true. I'm built to swim. And so that, because of that, I get away with it. Justin's not built to swim now, bro. The worst part is, like, done so much of it, you know, like, growing up.

And I was, like, live in the pool, live in the ocean. Can you just see the water splashing? His big old legs and ass and just drag it up. I can picture Justin and I race. I make a great cannonball, dude. Justin and I are racing in the water. You know what I could just see this, just like this, you wouldn't even see him. You see water.

Like a Tasmanian devil in the water. That's what it would look like. Probably accurate. But I, you know, when I was a kid and we would go to the beach or when we were visiting my family in Sicily, I'd go out and I'd just swim in the ocean. Like, you can't catch me dead doing that now. That's so interesting. Like, I'm like, I'm either going to drown or. You're just out of practice, bro.

You're also, hey, you also have a lot more muscle to do. That does not work to your benefit. Yeah. Are you, are you, because I'm considering. I may hire someone at some point. I'm considering doing it with you. So, would that help or not help?

That wouldn't not help? That wouldn't help? No. Having someone there? I want to be the lifeguard. I have no interest. I have no interest. Oh, okay.

No, I mean like, because I go get, on Monday, I go get my, my desk is. You mean following this approach? Yeah,

yeah, because I, I figure this, uh, one, I, I've already been trying to create more activity because we're so sedentary.

And so the, that's already been something I've been introducing. And I, I kind of want to play with that way, way of training. I think it would be a great program to write. Yeah, right. So one experiment.

So part of me is like, okay, you know, maybe I would do that to when I could switch over to the lean out process that would help the work well with that direction. And if it also supports you in that direction, then maybe there's enough things for me to motivate me to do that. Because the one time of my life when I was the least dysfunctional, because I've always been dysfunctional, but the least dysfunctional with strength training was when I did jiu-jitsu. And it was because exactly how I coached. people. Someone comes to me with eating disorder or whatever. The way you don't coach him is you say, hey, don't do that thing anymore. It doesn't work. You just say, hey, focus over here instead.

So you get somebody with an eating disorder. I'm going to try and focus on getting you stronger. And if you can focus on getting stronger, it typically takes care of the rest. So I'm praying for a desire to improve my stamina and endurance. And if I can get to the point where I start to enjoy that, it won't be a problem. But if it's like, you know, I got to fix this thing with building muscle, It's not going to happen, dude. Yeah, it's the wrong motivation. It's just not going to work. Yeah, yeah, it's wrong.

I'll just keep doing it. Speaking of which, dude, it's so funny. You were making fun to me the other day because I've been, come back from a weekend of eating gluten and I just hold water. Yeah. And so then I cleaned up my diet and I'll fluctuate easy, four or five pounds of water, easy. Yeah, yeah. And there's a, there's one positive. I don't know if this is really positive, but one thing I like about holding water is when I lift, the pumps are ridiculous.

Yeah. So I'll come in. feeling kind of like, oh, man, I'm holding water. My head doesn't feel right. And then I'll work out. Oh, I'm messing. I mean, off air. You get the best pups on your boat.

Off air. We were talking about this because I, so this happened to me. I have it. So I've been, again, I'm pretty dialed in right now. I'm not crazy dialed in, but I'm dialed in as far as hitting my protein and eating, making good choices, making most of my meals. And I indulged in ice cream the night before last. Well, we'll tell them how much.

Yeah, like two or three thousand calories worth of ice cream. At one time. Yeah, at one time. Wow. Yeah. Post night, right? After I did all my other stuff, right? So I ate good all day long, trained, everything like that.

So you were nuts. The justification, let me tell you. How much is that? It's, I mean, it's what you can call it? What's the cold stone? And it's, you know, they pack it with cookie dough and chocolate and all kinds of other stuff, too. So it's not just the ice cream, dude. I know.

And I told myself, and I have it, I'll just try it. Halfway through, are you feeling like, yeah, yeah, definitely. But you just keep going on. Yeah, that's like, but you know what I, you know how this one goes? I go, I get a little bit more in halfway. I'm like, well, this is, I'll be angry at myself to go get this later when I want, when I have a craving for it to tell you this much. So I may as well finish this. This is the smoke, the whole pack of cigarette.

Yeah, yeah. And also, I know I'm going into my Dexas scan right now and I'm like, I'm in reverse bulk mode. And a 1% higher body fat to me I care less about than actually having more muscle. So this is also part of the justification. So anyways, I, I slam all these calories. I know it's a super high calorie day for me. And then in the morning, I typically eat a really light breakfast right now

and are lower on calories until we get to about mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Katrina did this thing this weekend. That was really cool. Shout out to one of our partners. I know it's not one of their commercials, but Butcher box has chorizo. And we made like egg chorizo breakfast burritos

for like the whole week. And so I had three of those. Whoa. Yeah. All at once? Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, so the tortilla alone plus the eggs plus the twos...

You're probably a thousand calories. Yeah, yeah, probably a thousand calorie breakfast. So I haven't had a workout. And then I had another meal and then I worked out in the afternoon. I bet your pump was... Oh, my God. Dude, I forgot what it felt like to feel like that. I haven't lifted like that in a long time where I was loaded.

And also like... And the sodium. Oh, everything. Yeah, sodium high. I had... Yeah, all that plays. Good on all my other macros, too. So I'm...

drinking water. Yes. I was just... I looked like yesterday I gained 10 pounds of muscle. That's the best. And felt like it, too. Just, just. Yeah.

Just. Yeah. Like a water pump. Dude. Mind. I felt a strong, too. You know, that's a. You'll also, hey, I'm stronger when I'm holding up.

Oh, way stronger. My point of bringing up the, I was, I was benching. And the 80s felt like they were just, I was like, man, I got to go higher. And I, and I discipline. That what I'm most proud of is that I discipline myself not to. It was like, stay here. I don't, I don't need to go high. want to know it's crazy.

I was reading this article. I knew about this already, but they were, I don't remember what the, I wish I saved the article, but they actually showed percentages. So, uh,

there's lots of things that influence strength, right? Muscle size will influence it. Recruitment patterns influence it. How well your central nervous system, like puts out that power influences it. But so does your tendon attachments. That's just mechanical leverage.

Yeah. Like if you look at my bicep, you know, where it attaches here in my, in my forearm, if it attaches just, a quarter of inch further down here. Do you know how much a difference that makes?

Yeah. And how much weight I can lift. Yeah. So in this article, they were talking about how a lot of these strength athletes, like we meet people like, like Mike Salemi is a good example is, he's not a big dude.

If you meet him, you like, how much 600 pound deadlift? What? Yeah. Like, where does that come from? Yeah. I bet you if we,

if we pulled all this body. I know, I wonder his tendons look like. His tendons are probably attached at these really crazy leverage points. Yeah, dude. So that's just another way. Not to mention the, CNS part that we talk about too.

Of course. Like, yeah, just his technique. But like, if you're building a machine, what's that, what's that, that quote? If you give me a pulley large enough, I can, a lever long enough, I can lift the world. Who is it that said that? That's an old, it's an ancient, but it's basically like levers and pullies and this is how we move heavy things. Biomechanics. Yeah, this is your body, dude.

If your tendons attach a little bit in an advent, like a little bit makes a big difference. Yeah. And how much you can live. Is it, um, about isometrics? and how that really like addresses like tendon strength. It's better for tendons. Better than most other techniques. Increases tendin stiffness and strength.

Do you think that's the most logical way to explain something like, what is it? Was it Stonehenge or Stonehenge or whatever? Oh, how they moved it? Yeah, they probably did like a really long lever in order to. Aliens. Yeah. No, it's funny you mention it because like there was there was actually this theory for building of pyramids that I hadn't heard before. And I thought it was actually pretty logical.

um that um they actually built because they had other pyramids in mind um back in the day they they built it way bigger that to scale than it is currently even the great pyramids so they they built it so there's like ramps um along the outside and then they started at the top and then kind of scaled their way down carving um carving it off and all the excess material they would deliver over and repurpose it to the next pyramid and so So if you see like, so they started actually like on a hillside where it was like a flattened like hill area. So that way they could start the top part and kind of build their way down. Carve their way down.

Carve their way down. So anyway, it just, it seemed a little bit more logical that way. The theory that I find most interesting is that the pyramids were there before the Egyptians. Well, yeah. Because you see water erosion and stuff that could only have been possible. Well, not only that, but the part that makes that one hard to believe is the other stuff, how it aligns. with the stars so perfectly and so that, which is weird. Because it's like for a, there's so much.

Yeah, like for a hillside to also be like perfectly aligned with something. Or was technology given to them by, you know, their false gods, their demons? How are you like that? Hey, bro. Hey, I am. Just make it weird immediately. I take back. Everything is possible, bro.

Everything is possible now. And there's definitely, I mean, the stuff that's coming out with these, these Epstein files is just, man, does that make you feel sick inside that are society and gatekeepers? Like, what was there? Three million? Three million emails? And I mean, just the amount of sifting through all that evil. It's going to be weird to see what happens.

I think what you said, Justin, is probably true. Nothing. Nothing. It's too, it's too, you know why? It's frustrating. Because no side wins. Yeah. Like, I mean, I've seen stuff with, like, Dolly Lama involved.

I see, I mean, it's just got, it's got everybody. It's got, it's got, it's got religion, it's got politicians, it's got actors and actresses. Both sides of the aisle. Literally the gateway. It's got, I mean, dude, it's got everybody. You say medicine people? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you go see my medicine?

Medicine. Yeah. Hey, I got to, you know, I got to bring something up that's kind of crazy. Yeah, what? So I'll tell you why this came from. So Jessica, she got over like a cold virus. And then she had this cough that just wouldn't go away. And basically it was an asthmatic kind of cough.

So sometimes viral infections can trigger this. And so you're not sick anymore, but then you get this like incessant cough, right? And my wife, this will happen to her. And so I was like, I think that's asthmatic. And so I have a rescue inhaler because I grew up with asthma. I rarely ever use it, but I always have it. and we had to get her a steroid inhaler. So there's two types of inhalers you use for asthma.

One of them dilates the bronchial tubes and it's immediate. The other one is an anti-inflammatory inhaled steroid because the tubes themselves can get inflamed. Now, I'll tell you where this is going. So as a kid, I had asthma pretty regularly. Like, I would say six months out of the year, I'd say six months out of the year for years, I would use a steroid inhaler daily. So every day I'd inhale a steroid inhaler. And then I'd use my rescue inhaler when it would get real bad on top of it.

And so I looked it up. Now steroids, you know, corticostero steroids, I should say, they have side effects. And there's less side effects when you inhale them, but they still get systemic. It's been shown in studies that it blunts growth in kids. Chronic use blunts growth in kids. and so I'm like, did I blunt?

Did I like affect? And so here's my evidence of it. So I'm six foot tall. Okay. Five eleven and a half. No, I'm not, right. Why do you say that?

He's climbing his way to six. I'm sorry. I'm starting a rumor on the line. There's okay. I have a reason for this. Do you know that? Do you know that guy, the West Watson guy?

Yes, yes. Okay. Do you know that one of the things he gets madly like trolled because he claims to be six foot and like everybody says it's shorter than that? And it's like one of the things that drives to the most crazy gets so angry.

I would say, I don't care. I want to be shorter when I was good guys. That's where it comes from him because I know that he's been trolled so hard on that. I mean, if you react, and everybody's just going to double down. I'm exactly six foot. Anyway, but my hands and feet measure

for somebody who should be about six two. So I don't know if you know that. There's average shoe sizes and hand sizes for people who are 6-1, 6'1, 6' foot, 5-10, whatever. And I've known this. I know my feet are, I wear a size 12, 12 and a half shoe. Yeah, yeah. I think it's the same.

Yeah, what are you, 6-2? Yeah, 6-3. And so I'm like, and when you stunt growth, it doesn't stunt in those areas. It'll stunt like your legs and your upper. So I probably should have been 60. Oh, man. And my brother's like 6-2. I like you sized your way to that.

Yeah, dude. Should have been a lot taller, dude. Yeah, I should have been taller, dude. How's I explained, Justin? Huh? Yeah, my dad's 6-7. My brother's like 6-3. That's just genetic.

That's just genetic. Go on, dude. Throw me a bob. Yeah. Give me a science excuse. Yeah. You don't wear, what size shoe do you wear?

You don't wear a 12, do you? Yeah. Well, 11. 5. Yeah, see, that's,

it's typically for six foot, I think the range is 10 and a half to 11 and a half. And then outside of that is like considered, you know, outside of the range or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah.

You know what they say about. Well, yeah. I'm good there. We'll stop right there. It's super good there. Anyway, listen, we have an hour place commercial and we have a new.

Oh, what do we got? What are they send us? Oh, Listen, hey, guy who's open the box Yeah, yeah. Whose is this? Last time you just opened up.

I have no idea. They don't tell us. There's just some boxes. Somebody's going to take it home and we don't even know. Yeah, last time, it ended up working out. We got what was supposed to be. But Katrina, all of us have put in like what we want and then. So some of that is mine.

Some of that's Justin. That's right. We need to have a list. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. You're welcome to take it. Maybe let her producer know. Well, listen.

Well, listen. I have one of small pans. We cook eggs in. and it's the best. No forever chemicals. It doesn't have the Teflon. It is the easiest pan I have to clean. And there's none of the crazy chemicals in it.

It's amazing. You know, my favorite part is that I think is, I don't know why every other company hasn't done this. Does that one have it? Yes, that one has it too. See that little knob? See that little knob on the notch on the handle? Your spoon. Can rest there.

Yes. What am I? Okay. Cases, I know, I know what the clean to kitchen. I'm the one that this is like a pet. You hit it when it goes on the counter? Yes, it goes on the counter, and then the food and stuff gets stuck on there, and it's always a pain and clean.

It's like... Right. Or I'm always trying to rest a plastic, you know, spatula on a hot pot, which will melt it so you can't do that, and so it annoys me. Or you can't use a metal one on these... Well, that's a good pot to cook rice in. Well, the nice thing is it's non-stick and it's ceramic. It's just light.

No forever chemicals. Yeah, they're light. And they're super light. They have a three-year warranty on them. Yeah. And free shipping returns. You can try it off. for 100 days. If you don't love it, you can return it.

They're pots and pans. I love that we're doing this now. We're opening up and we're giving them to us because I'm close to, like, switching out everything I have to them. Yeah. Oh, my whole kitchen to be out. There's something to note on this lid here is kind of cool. They have a strainer on one side. It's open on the other. And you can just twist it. So if you want steam, you don't have any air or steam escaping. But when it's time to like pour or strain something out, say you're doing pasta, all you do is turn to the side. Hold the lid on. That's a good pasta and rice cooker right there. Perfect for that. That's brilliant. Or vegetables, if you like to boil vegetables. Yeah.

I mean, if you, when I learned the chemicals that are in non-stick stuff. Yeah. Oh, God. Well, isn't that like one and two right there? Receeds and then the pots and stuff that we could get? Cooking, cookware is the worst. Oh, I thought the receipts were. Well, the problem with a lot of people is they use metal utensils on their pots and they scrape it up and then you're just eating that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. What is it that they put on it to where it cleans like that, though? Ceramic. It's very, very high quality, expensive ceramic. It's called thermokine. But it cleans like nothing.

Because that was a selling point for the Teflon pans was like how easy it is to clean. This cleans easier and it's better for you. Yeah, way better. Yeah. So interesting. Yeah, I love it. And you have their air fryer. I do.

I love it. Yeah. Which, by the way, air friars are the worst offenders typically for forever chemicals. I didn't know that until you brought that up. Yeah. Who figure that out? Your wife? Yeah, my wife, yeah.

Of course. Yeah, she's all into this. Yeah, well, we wouldn't get an air frider because of that because I couldn't find any. Oh, you, oh, you, you knew that before we were. Before we were working with our place. There was a point there where I was talking about air fry. Well, I talked to you about everything. You warm up your stuff and plastic in the microwave.

Yeah, but I told you for years. You got me to change that. Doug got me to change that. Why don't you listen to me? It's always done. Doug has a soft delivery, dude. You try to bully me into it. Just like you.

Just like you. bro. I try to tell you what to do. You just argue to that. I got to go around. I got to go around and get somebody. I got to call Jessica. I got to call Jessica to get you to do something.

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Are there actual benefits to vibration plates? Or is it just another gimmick in the fitness industry? The way that they advertise them is a gimmick. So they advertise them for, and they'll say it helps with fitness, builds more muscle, it's a great way to work out. It's none of those things.

But it is helpful to reach deeper ranges of motion to work on mobility. Any mobility protocol I can see value in using a vibration plate. And the reason why it works is like let's say you're trying to get into a deep squat

and you get stuck. When you stand on a vibration plate, the vibration actually gets the central nervous system to start to relax and you'll be able to move deeper into that position. It overrides your governing.

It overrides the governing to an extent. It's like what pressure points or massage therapy does to a muscle, right? So one of the, when you have really tight, stiff muscles and you get this deep tissue massage. That's what that does. It overrides the CNS, relaxes. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, wow, it feels so good. Which is arguably cheaper. So, yeah, it's hard for me to kind of push the vibration plates for the price point.

Yeah, I'm not a fan. This is also like, because it got so much popularity, they now have all the cheap version gimmicky ones. So yeah, because originally I thought these, like, we're all, like, Doug and pull it up right now, vibration plates on Amazon. And you can get them for, next to nothing. You need a pretty strong vibration plate to make a difference. It's not going to be just like a, you know, a week. I remember years ago I put a foam roller that vibrated.

And he found out it was really inside it. Yeah, that's another story. But it didn't, I mean, it didn't really do anything. It wasn't strong enough. Like the real expensive vibration plates, which I don't think are worth the investment. But if you go to a gym with one, try doing... Like they go ones for $199 bucks. Yeah.

The big ones are much more expensive. Oh, yeah. The big ones are like $5 to $10,000. That's right. Yeah. So they're really like those. They're like lacrosse ball size and they vibrate because, yeah, if you're doing any kind of quote unquote mild facial release, like that's, you know, helpful. Yeah, but like static stretching on one, mobility on them.

It's like if it takes me, if it would take me 60 seconds or 120 seconds, like two minutes, three minutes to get into a position, I can get into it in 15 or 20 seconds on a vibration plate. So do a lunge to a single. leg balance and you'll get more benefits than what you get from your. Well, the way they sell it is so wrong. Well, you know, it's all. That's my point, though. Like any, any bit of like stability involvement or anything like that, do it, do a single leg toe touch, do a lunge to a balance.

And any sort of benefit that they try and sell you on this, you'll get more from that. So what you'll see with some studies is they'll compare vibration plate to nothing. And there'll be like a little bit of a bone strengthening effect or whatever. super minimal. It's like if you're looking to strengthen your bones and your muscles, like do some body weight, strength training exercise, and crush. It'll crush what a vibration plate does. But if I was training in a gym and training clients, I would use it for specific mobility. And that's about it. If I own the gym, I would not spend five grand on one. I'd be like not a worthwhile investment. No, no. Next question is from Franfaus. I'm new to lifting with a barbell

and I have a home gym. I frequently lift when I am home alone. My goal is to progress to heavy squats, but I'm afraid of hurting myself for getting stuck at the bottom. What is the best rep range for me? I mean, you can get hurt with any rep range, if you do it wrong.

You know, theoretically, that lower rep ranges with heavier weight have a higher risk of injury. But that's when you start to get really strong. So I'd like to touch on this. If you have poor stability, sometimes a higher rep range is a worse. for people. If you're lifting a lot of weight, then I can see why this would be an issue. But low to high rep ranges, they're all good. If you have a home jam, if you have safeties, well, there you go right there. Or learn how to dump the barbell. Exactly. I think that's a skill. Everybody that's, you know, working with barbell should learn anyways. I really feel like that's something that's way overlooked. If you learn how to actually dump the barbell effectively, this isn't even an issue. Yeah. I wish we had a little bit more information about this.

client and like what is how much are you able to lift right now can you just do the bar have you added 10 pounds to it because uh you know heavy heavy squatting is relative to the client and where they're currently at i also want to comment on the the value of actually loading it versus kind of nothing um i've talked about this before on the podcast like if you watch me do a 135 135 135 pound which is basically a plate on each side for me is really light versus 225 and above uh my heavier loaded squat looks better. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it's, it's enough weight that I have to really brace. I'm more rigid and control. It gets around a little of the tightness because it forces... Yes. Where when I'm so light, I'm, I'm kind of loose and it's almost too light. So, and I found this with clients, when I, when I find a good weight that's challenging for them, I'm not trying to PR them or anything, but challenging enough that, hey, working six to eight reps is hard.

I see some of the best mechanics. When I put just the bar on there, they teach us squat. They seem to be flimsy and all over the place because their legs are plenty strong enough to push up that 45 pounds, but they're not locked into enough to where it's loaded,

oh, they really brace the core and posture upright, like so. There's some value to loading it to where it's challenging. Just go slow. I mean, load it to where six to eight reps is difficult, but doable,

and then slowly try and increase that weight over time. Yeah, you focus on your, your technique and your form and staying stable and not wobbling and perfect it. You can actually not add weight and just get better with your form, which will start to make it feel a little bit more difficult. And that's also progressing. So focus on that.

And then practice dumping the bar. And dumping the bar literally is like you're stuck at the bottom and you can get it off your back. You buck it off. And now, by the way, this is an easy thing to do. The reason why people don't like to do it is they're scared of dropping the bar. The thing is to be loud or whatever. Just practice it a couple times with a place. and you'll see it's not a big deal.

And then it's really easy to get out from under a squat by doing that. But if you have safeties, if you have a squat rack, most home gym squat racks these days have some kind of a safety. Yeah, the safety arms and you set it just below your parallel. Also, if you're working in this, if you choose a weight that I'm telling you should be challenging for six to eight, nothing says that while you're on rep four or you go, oh, wow, this is getting really hard. I don't know if I can get out of the bottom.

Stop at four. like you, you don't need to choose a weight that is like pushing you to failure. Again, choose a weight that you think is difficult to go six or eight. Let's pretend set one, you get eight. Set two, you only get seven. Set three, you barely get six. Okay, so set four, you drop, you stop at five or four. Like, there's nothing wrong with that.

But a lot of times you'd be surprised on how strong. I mean, those are your glutes getting you out of that hole. and our glutes are the strongest part of our lower body. And so those muscles tend to be much stronger than people realize and also why there's so much value in training that. But start slow. Take your time. Choose a weight for six to eight reps.

Be okay if you have to stop at four and slowly add weight over time. Next question is from Burke himself. What grip type of pressing movement would be the easiest on the rotator cup? So here's the thing with this. off, the rotator cuff is not a muscle. So what that represents is a part of the shoulder blade where you have four muscles that attach to. You have the super spinaidus, the infraspinatus, teres minor sub-scapularis attaches to this

part of the shoulder blade. And those muscles are relatively small. And what they do is they stabilize your arm. They stabilize the humorous. This is the upper arm. So when I'm pressing, it's not doing. doing anything other than keeping my upper arm stable. So it doesn't twist back or twist forward.

So if you have issues with the rotator cuff area, when you're shoulder pressing, it's a stability issue. It's not a shoulder pressure issue. There isn't a shoulder press that you could do that will solve this problem. You have to solve the problem of the stability that's involved. This is, Sal tells the story of when he added all that weight

or added the weight to his bench press doing the, what would you call it? It was a shoulder. It's called the shoulder horn. External rotation. Yeah. So work on exercises like, you know, external. These are like rehab exercises.

The W. Wallpress. You, I don't know how often you guys see me, but that is a, every time I bench, I do Ws. Yeah.

I, I always, suspension trainer. Yes. Ws on the suspension trainer for me because you can modify it with your body weight. So, and I want to do it enough to I can get like 12 to 15 reps.

And warming that, that rotator cuff up real good and getting that shoulder all stable and warmed up, man, that gets me ready for a bench press like nothing else. And so that has been a go-to move for myself and my clients to do that. Yeah. And so what you would do is with your shoulder workouts for a little while is going to be centered around strengthening these muscles, working on what's known as external

rotation, internal rotation, full range of motion, you know, handcuffs with rotation is a good movement, wall press is a good movement, W's on a suspension train, face pulls is good to release. Because here's what happens. You get really strong, we're known as prime movers in the shoulder or the chest or the back. And then these stabilizing muscles

aren't strong enough to stabilize these really powerful prime movers. So I'm getting stronger with my shoulder. I start to get so strong that my stabilizer muscles aren't strong enough to support. So I get a little bit of movement in my shoulder press. And poo, I feel pain right in those areas because it's like, it can't handle the weight that I'm moving.

So it's really important to get these strong, to get that stability, and then to continue to always go back to it before you start to have pain. But it's not the shoulder press. That's the issue. Next question is from Mrs. Alyssa Mueller. I have a L5 bulging disc that causes me pretty frequent pain, and I'm trying to recover and heal it, but my chiropractor says it could take three to six months to fully heal.

How am I supposed to train when I can't load heavy? especially the lower body exercises like squats, deadlifts, et cetera. Yeah, well, first of all, unilateral exercises probably fine. Okay. So there's lots of great lower body, unilateral exercises. Also, there's so many people with bulging discs in L4 and L5. Right. This isn't a death sentence.

If you were to, you know, image 100 random people. A lot of people aren't even aware. Most, yeah, this is okay. And strengthening your body makes this a lot better. do you think the chiropractor means by fully heal three to six months? There might, it might take three to six months to feel okay to go back to regular exercise. Yeah,

because I mean, like if you have a bulging disc, like it's not like that's kind of heal. No, not necessarily. You're going to have a bulge. Reduce inflammation. Yeah.

So that's why I'm curious, what do you think what the chiropractor meant by that? Yeah. Like, or maybe because of the bulging disc, she hurt her low back doing something else or like just compensated or something. but yeah no this is symmetry this is map symmetry right here

especially right now isometrics right away getting into isometrics and then symmetry control the load a lot too yeah yeah so that would be the the recommendation but yeah to your point I remember when I learned this as a trainer because I remember early on I got scared when I had somebody who told me they had a bulge disc

when I was really young I was like oh shit like what can I do I can't do anything whatever and then I remember finding out like the amount of people that have a bulge, you know, L4, L5, and the ones that report zero pain whatsoever, then the ones that have, say they have massive pain and it's like a tiny little bulge and then other people with huge bulges that don't even feel it. And so it's really, this is like a really interesting one to, one, get diagnosed and be told because then people all sudden identify that, oh my God, I have a bad back. But yet I've seen clients with, you know, several,

millimeter bulge disc that are able to heavy deadlift and do everything that you would think that they're not supposed to be able to do. So, but yeah, unilateral work, isometric work, map symmetry would be a perfect example. This would be really, really wise to invest in a correctional exercise specialist. Yeah, trainer. Yeah, somebody who specializes in correctional exercise. Maybe it's your chiropractor. Sometimes they are, sometimes or not. I don't know. I feel I'm suspicious already by the three to six month fully heal. Yeah. Without, but I don't have full context, but that doesn't sound like something that you would get you a Dr. Brink. Yeah, but really good correctional exercise will handle this and then it won't happen again.

You won't feel that pain again because the spine is, I mean, it's a lot of joints. And what keeps it, you know, for lack of better term, in alignment, is muscle. So strengthen them the right way. And not only will you feel good, but you won't feel pain again, but unilateral movements is definitely where I would go. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. and find us at Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there.

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