Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2798: What is Good Gym Culture?

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Mind Pump Fit Tip: What is Good Gym Culture? (3:05) They don't even know. (20:33) Physical feats. (21:45) Adam's DEXA scan results, a caution if considering a GLP-1, and body fat tests are not the end-all, be-all. (24:57) How Caldera has single-handedly built a men's skincare market. (33:48) The latest cosmetic trend. (35:35) Welcome, Vita Bella, as our new partner in healthcare and peptides. (39:52) A social network for AI agents. (49:00) Creatine gummies are a game-changer! (56:48) #Quah question #1 – Are belt squats a good alternative to barbell back squats? (1:03:09) #Quah question #2 – Do full-body massages help with recovery and muscle growth? (1:05:13) #Quah question #3 – Can you shed some light on the counterintuitive idea that our bodies need to consume hundreds of grams of protein in excess of our feeling full signal? It just feels unnatural. I can see why consuming too little protein is obviously an issue, but does our body really know how to utilize such a massive protein intake? (1:09:24) #Quah question #4 – If you could only do one, would it be a cold plunge or sauna? Why? (1:13:09) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Caldera Lab for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order of their best products. ** Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP Buy one, get one 50% off for new customers, and 20% cash back for returning customers! ** Visit Vita Bella for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** The first 50 signups will get a Vita Bella welcome box. You can finally achieve a top 1% all-around health at an affordable price! ** MAPS Great 8 Launch (Feb. 15-28th) (Retail $127, Code: LAUNCH for 50% off!) ** Launch bonuses include: MAPS GREAT 8 Nutrition Guide + 5 Days of Free Coaching with Top Trainer Cole (Only available to those who sign up by the 22nd. Coaching starts on the 23rd.) Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #2483: The Best Gyms Have These 3 Things (Listener Coaching) V Bar Push-up Challenge with the Mind Pump Crew Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV Back(side) from the dead! Women chasing the perfect body are pumping 'ethically sourced' cadaver fat into boobs and butts: 'We're recycling' Mind Pump Hormones Facebook Private Forum moltbook - the front page of the agent internet Visit Dose for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 25% off your first month of subscription. ** Mind Pump # 2771: Protein Myths Are Wrecking Your Progress   Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned FrSteveGrunow (@FrSteveGrunow) Twitter Cole Steininger (@mindpumpcole) Instagram Dani Demeter (@mindpumpdani) Instagram Phil Vella – "Philly" (@phillyvz) Instagram Mike Matthews (@muscleforlifefitness) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we answered questions from listeners. They wrote into Mind Pump Media on Instagram, so we pick four. And we answered them, but this was after the intro.

Today's intro was 63 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fat loss and muscle gain. We talk about gym culture, current events, always a good time. Once again, if you want to write in a question that we can pick, go to Instagram, Mind Pump Media. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Caldera Lab. This is natural skin care products that help balance out the microbiome on your skin. Over 90% of participants in the studies show an improvement in the look and health of their skin.

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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 mindpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. There's a lot of factors to consider

when you're looking for a gym, a lot. But there's one that trumps all of them. The most important thing you should consider, the one thing that is most likely to help you be consistent and get great results, it's the culture of the gym. What is gym culture?

What is good gym culture? We're going to talk about it right now. Let's go. You think that's number one? Number one. Come on, you know this. You manage gyms. When you manage gyms, let me ask you this, Adam.

How many times did you walk into a janky, broken down club and double the revenue because of the culture that you've created? Well, that's, I mean. No equipment changes, no location changes. I don't disagree from a business perspective, but I think convenience has got to be, the convenient factor makes a huge difference. Well, yeah, I think that's a... I go to a pretty subpar gym right now just because it's, yeah, because it's so good. And there's like, there's no culture. There's two people in there.

That's it. Well, of course, if it's too far, people aren't going to go. But when you look at all the ones, you know, you get out the low, like the low bar stuff, right? It's got to be like within this much, you know, distance for me. It's got to be open when I'm available. But when you look at all the places around you that offers those things, what's the most important? What's going to keep you there? I think that's the biggest thing.

Listen, it's not equipment. It's not equipment. It's not like how big the gym is. By the way, CrossFit, prove this. They prove this. CrossFit, I love the... They're all culture. I love what they did because we've been in the fitness industry long enough to see fads come and go.

CrossFit was amazing. Not because CrossFit is good workouts because they're not. Boom. It's because they opened up gyms in like, like it looked like garages with like barbells and racks. Like nothing else. No air conditioning in many of them. Concrete floors. And they crushed.

They crushed. and it was the culture that many of them developed. And I know this for managing clubs myself. It was always, always, always about the culture. Now, if you're like hyper-consistent, you're super into working out. It still makes a difference. But, I mean, you can put me in any gym

and I'll do a workout. But for the average person, it's the culture that makes the big difference. Yeah, there's an energy about a good culture. I think that makes you want to come back to it. Totally. And gym culture is something that I've heard. One of my favorite comments I ever got on Jim culture

was actually from, Father Steve, he's a Catholic priest who loves a workout, right? He was in the series that I filmed. It's a bodybuilder pre, but he likes to work out. And I remember he said this to me, he said this to me early on. He said, the church could learn a lot about good gym culture. And so we went down this whole rabbit hole of what good gym culture was. And yeah, it's one of the most amazing things you can experience.

It can be, right? I think it can be very welcoming the right places. Yes. So here's the first thing. Like, good gym culture encourages everybody. Everybody encourages everybody. This is what it feels like when you go into a good gym. And it doesn't matter if you're a beginner.

It doesn't matter if you're overweight. It doesn't matter if you're super experienced. If you're young, if you're old. You know this when you walk into the right culture. You feel so encouraged and supported. And it's just this great vibe. You just want to be there. And you don't feel look down upon or judged.

Rather, you feel like everybody's lifting you up. It's one of my favorite parts. Yeah, where else? I mean, like a library. I'm trying to think of somewhere where, like, there's just a melting pot of every, like, religious background, cultural background, like political view. Like, everything just, like, smashes in one place, but it works because they're all, you know, focused on, like, self-growth. Well, all your small studio spots hacked into this. That's why it was one of the fastest growing spaces, right?

So your soul cycles, your, you know, Barry's boot camps, your Orange Therries, your F-45s, they hacked into that. They tried to. Yeah. Yes, 100%. Yeah, they did. And I've experienced, you know, I experienced this as a kid, you know, new to the gym, loved it. And I remember walking into some pretty hardcore gyms that were a bit far from my house. But at this point, I was like, I had 16 got my license.

So I'm like, I'm going to go try out different gyms. I'd save up a little money, go pay a day fee. And there were some gems that you'd walk in intimidating as a kid where it's like chalk and hard metal being played. And I'm looking in the door and there's like really scary dudes. lifting weight. And I went in there, intimidated, but also excited, because I loved it, start working out. And I'm like, man, people are talking to me. They're telling me to keep going. They're asking me questions. And then I'm asking questions. I'm getting like great advice from people. And I'm looking at them. I'm like, man, you are so hardcore. You actually took time out of your day

to like sit down and talk with me about a squat. It was like some of my most, some of my favorite experiences in the gym were in those kinds of gyms. You know what I would love to build? I would love to build. an all in one. What do you mean? Imagine like the ultimate like day spa gym you've been to that you like that's kind of like over at Club One

vibe. The country club kind of vibe. Yeah, country club vibe. But then downstairs in the basement is like this grunge, heavy metal, chalked up. You know what I'm saying? And kind of reminds me,

remember there was a famous club when we were younger. We always go out to clubs in San Francisco. There was a club that had three stories and it was like hip hop, raw, like, EDM. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So each level was like a different DJ and so it was so cool that you could go there and you could whatever you're into and you could be there It'd be cool to have a gym That encompass like all even have like even have its own little CrossFit area kind of like that Reno one that we went to At an athletic area Had a CrossFit area had the hill inside of it

You know what I'm saying? And then had like a grunge Kind of dungeon love it Yeah I love also hearing about like old school gyms I remember watching Pumping Iron great movie Documentary on Bodybuilding the 70s And as a kid I watched it so many times That I would notice people in the background

I was gonna ask how many times Hey, listen, no joke, no joke. It was like two or three days a week. Like, every week. I believe it. Every week. You watched it multiple times in a week before? All the time.

I don't know if I'm watching it out with Predator. Was that like? No, Predator was definitely a lot. But I could quote pumping iron songs. I could quote the sounds in the background. Like, I know it way too well. But anyway, I remember watching it. And I remember paying attention to the gym.

So I'm like, what was a gym like back there? Like, what's the equipment? And I just noticed, like, there was no music playing. Yeah. And I noticed everybody was kind of like talking. other and encouraging each other. And I was like, oh, my God, this is. And by the way, gold gym back then was tiny.

You guys know that, right? The gold gym they filmed in there was like, it was like as big as our personal training studio. Yeah. It was not a big gym at all. There wasn't many equipment in there at all. No. Another factor to good gym culture is hard work is valued, but so is camaraderie.

So what you'll get is this wonderful mix of hard work and socializing. Yeah. It's like this great mix of like. It's hard, though, to compare to that because in the, 80s and early 90s, it was so niche that you could have a facility that was 3,000 square feet and the 15 people that worked out there worked out every day. You know what I'm saying? Like it created its own kind of vibe and culture and you had to really be into it to go to it. A little bit of a self-selection bias. Totally. Totally. We're now, you know, fitness, as we always wanted it to, I remember,

I mean, when we first got into the space, you know, 25 plus years ago, I think like 4% of the population was working out, you know, in gyms or something like that or less. Or has a membership maybe. Yeah, it was something like that. I remember seeing the stats and like, I mean, it's, that's way different. I think it's tripled. Oh, it's, or more. More than that.

Doug, look up how many, how many, how many people have a membership? Yeah, what percentage of the population have a gym membership or have had a gym membership? Because you got to factor in all the people that. It's, it's a lot more for sure. Yeah. A lot more for sure. But you know that vibe. You guys have been in gyms like that where it's like, you're working hard, but you're also.

having a good time and socializing in between sets. It's like this, it's like a social, hard workplace. It's not one or the other, it's both, which draws people in and makes them want to keep coming. What do you find, Doug? 25%. Oh, way higher. Huge.

Huge difference. It was 4%. I remember. I remember that in the meetings. That's tiny. That was like the big kickoff meetings we talk about. We're only getting 4% of so much potential of growth. That's a huge difference.

That's crazy. Another thing, too, is you'll find this. By the way, this is as people who own and manage and run gyms, this is something that you have to help develop as part of the culture. But if you have good gym culture, this tends to exist, people tend to respect the place. They just tend to do it. I know in my tiny, I had a tiny studio. So it's so much easier to create good culture in a small place because you're not looking at so many different people.

Yeah, yeah. But man, if a piece of equipment went down, I used to have members, clients of other trainers at work in my studio, that they would come back with tools and they'd start fixing things. And I wouldn't ask them or anything. Or they'd come in and they'd fix something or wipe something down. I'm like, what are you doing? Oh, I noticed there was a smudge here. Or I noticed this was making a little noise so I put some grease on it.

And I just remember I felt so good that my members wanted to help take care of the place, even though I didn't ask them. When you talk about this, it reminds me of a story. So this, this point, I'm 20 years old. I'm hanging out with these guys that were probably in their mid to late 30s, lifting heavy. They ran the night shift. I've told you guys about this guy before. and I stayed late every night at the gym back in the days, right?

I'd love being there, so I'd be there until 10, 11, sometimes midnight. And so that shift would come on. And he got there at like 9 o'clock a night after most of the managers, most people. And so he policed the gym. And one of the things he would do, and it used to be hilarious to watch this. But he'd caution to it, if people did not rack their weights, he would caught him. Big old dude, right? Big old steroid out guy, right?

Bandana he'd wore behind the desk and everything, right? He's the guy who'd do it. Yes, dude. He's definitely the guy who'd do it. and he would kick everybody out of the wait room, caution tape it off, and make them watch him re-rack the weights. You got to wait.

It's like, this is what happens. If you guys don't hold each other accountable for re-racking the weights. I swear I'd see him do it once in a blue. He would do that once in a while and then everybody would be on top of each other. It was the coolest thing to ever watch. I love that.

You could never get away with that today. But it totally got everybody to buy in to like, hey, you see somebody who doesn't react their weights. You let them know, like, hey, put those away. Or you help them. I love them. I think that's needed more now and ever, did. For sure. Be honest.

For sure. Everybody doesn't want to offend anybody. I'm like, dude, you got to do, you got to put your, you know, you got to do your part in this to make it work. That story stands out so much to me because I came back to that gym like 10, 15 years later. Long after he had been gone, I had been gone from there with that. Was this on Parkmore? No, this was Capitol McKee. Yeah, this is Calvin McKee.

So I come back there and I'll never forget. It was the last time I actually came back there was, I'll never work out again. It came back. It was around prime time. So it was a busy time already is. And I had never been to a gym before. where the entire dumbbell rack was cleared. Dumbbells just all over the floor.

All over the floor everywhere. There was not a single pair of dumbbells on the rack. I thought, what a disaster. Isn't that crazy how... That's a point of culture, how one person... It's the same gym. Same gym.

Yeah. It's busy. It's always been busy like at prime time hours, but it was managed like that, and there was a different vibe and culture. Yeah, when you have a good culture, the other members tend to police the respect for the place.

So you'll see people, hey, put your dumbbells back or hey, let me help you re-rack. You'll actually get called out. And that's a good thing, by the way. It means everybody cares about the place. I remember this as a trainer. So as an early trainer,

one of my mentors said, be the mayor of the gym. Yeah. And it's like, what do you mean? He goes, well, think of like a really good mayor and a TV show, knows everybody, says hi to everybody. Just walk around the gym,

talk to people, know everybody. and the way he communicated this to me is he's like, you'll never have to like work for clients. People will come to you. So I did this as a trainer, as a manager, and I loved it. I loved knowing my members.

I love talking to people, getting to know them. And it did create a good culture. Now I'm on the other end of it. Now I'm a member. And I work out at different gyms. There's one gym that I work out at UFC over by Oak Ridge. My buddy Don runs the place.

Don was one of the best at this. And I see him. He comes out all the time. He'll say how to me, of course. I've known the guy forever. but he'll talk to all the, and he knows all the members. It's not like he's introducing himself.

He's old school, yeah. And he's just talking to everybody. And, you know, when you go to a gym or the manager, whoever's running the shift or whatever, like, knows everybody, that's good culture. Makes a big, big difference. I feel like that's another one of my stories that you've taken to become your story. Is that your story?

You know that? Every once in a while we do it, a podcast. I don't think you said be the mayor of the gym first. I'm pretty sure I said that. I think I did. Check the tapes, Doug. I'm pretty sure. I remember when I sold that barbecue to that,

I do that. Sometimes he tells the story so good. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm nod at my head. Like, wait a second. That's my story. That's my story. When I first became a pro pho-thagy. You're doing this so long.

Our stories. It's like when I played football in college. Here's the other thing. Nobody cares who you voted for. Nobody cares in good gym culture. People don't care about anything other than you're showing up. You're working hard. This is like, it's like, this is what Father Steve told me.

He goes, it's so crazy in a good gym. People look different. You got a guy with blue hair over here. old guy with new balance shoes on and they're hanging out and talking because they're working out. It's like where do you find that? Especially today. Where do you find people just coming together and just being cool?

It's a very hard thing to find. Not a lot of goths. We were just talking. What did you say? Not a lot of got a lot of got. We should bring them in. Not a lot of them work out. Actually, I saw.

You're right. It's kind of rare. But I did see a goth couple working out like a few months ago. I just remember. Really? Yeah, dude. And I said hi to them and they were like totally into it. But they were real goth, dude. Yeah.

I mean, if you're like hardcore, you're not real... Did you ask what they were listening to? No, I didn't. You should have. I don't care. It's totally different than what you thought. Yeah, it's super funny. Saline Dion.

The car community can be like that. I think they're like that. Actually, my buddies and I were just talking about that. That's like... As long as they're rich. That's not true. I just went on a trip with my, like, very not wealthy car guys. They have cars, but they're like old cars that they have.

And so they worked on them themselves. and got there. And so I think just in general, I think there's not a lot of stuff. You're aficionados. Yeah. There's not a lot of stuff like that. But I think that's another example.

It's a passion. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. Yeah. And maybe that's what it is. It's like because every, they, we all share that passion.

Other stuff doesn't matter. It's like, yeah, we're passionate about this thing. And we can all talk. There's enough to talk about with that thing that other stuff doesn't matter. You know what's funny about what you're saying is that, I bet you this is true.

I know this because you tease my brother about this. In the car space, they, although they respect each other and they're all cool. You got the Porsche guys. Oh, there's definitely, there's definitely shit talking. Yes. Yeah, but it's all respectful. That's actually what's kind of cool about it is, like, I mean, like I said, I just came back from a trip like this where I know for sure

there's all kinds of different political views, like, that never comes up. But absolutely, we talk shit to the Corvette guy and the Corvette guys talking shit about the German car. Like, you know what I'm saying? So there's this fun, this fun, playful camaraderie amongst everybody and respect. And it's not, it's not real harmful. More teasing. I've seen that in good gym culture. I've seen the powerlifters and the bodybuilders making fun of each other. Right.

But it's like tongue and cheek. It's tongue and cheek. They got their little side, you know, and they just make, oh, you're not strong or over their posing or, you know, oh, you guys are fat. And it's like, it's hilarious. I've been in that environment before. It's great. Yeah, yeah. I agree.

Now, these last two, I think, are the most important. And I also think that they're most important for people who aren't super familiar with gym culture or intimidated. But they're key. They're key. I've never been to a good gym with good gym culture where the women are not protected by the men. They are. I've seen this. I've seen young women walk into a weight room and other guys. It's almost like it's their sister or their daughter. And there's no one's like hitting on them if they're trying to help them. They respect them. God forbid a dude is rude. That guy is going to be out of the gym. And it's a very and by the way, women who are very... It's great. And women who work out of. out in these jams consistently. We'll tell you this. They'll tell you this. Oh, it's the best place. It's the safest place ever.

Didn't you do a reaction video to the young lady that was overweight that like had somebody come up to stop her and she totally thought he was going to say something. And he just encouraged her. Degrading to her and then like broke her down because he was encouraging. And he was like the scary jack guy. Yeah, yeah. Totally. No, it's always that guy. And then here's the other thing. The old

people are really respected by the young people. This is my favorite. It's my favorite because I'm getting old. but the old people that work out that are fit, they're like... It's the most impressive thing. Dude, they're like kings and queens in there. Everybody knows them. They're, they love them. They're awesome.

They're like the greatest. It's like one of my favorite things to see. So it's just, again, if this is what you should look for, people don't know that. They look for equipment. They look for flash. They look for classes or whatever. Look for the culture. That's what's going to keep you coming.

That's what's going to keep you consistent. There's how many different gyms are you bouncing around to right now yeah yeah like or just like the last year so like uh i'll go to uh club sport i'll go to ufc gym uh my garage and i'll work out here so that's four but the other two are the actual yeah yeah so two other what about you are you said one yeah santer cruz athletic club and then if you're not there you're at the train at my house yeah or uh actually i take that back i'll train it at the high school sometimes uh oh that's gonna be interesting really yeah because i'm friends with the coaches and and um I like to keep just, you know, show up all the teenagers.

Yeah, I just like this kind of buried, you know, the high school kids with my mic. That's exactly why you're going to. No, dude. I'm like, I just like the energy, dude. Like they're, you know. You've done with that squat? Oh, let's add a couple 45. Yeah, yeah.

I got to warm up. Look at you. It's pretty hard to impress anybody now that social media is out, you know. Nothing you do school. You got to go to the high school level. I got to resort to that now. That's got to be so fun for you. because of your background in sports and all that stuff.

It's got to be motivated. I miss it, dude. Like, honestly, I don't know. I love what we do and I love, you know, where I'm at in life and everything. But the same time, like, I miss that, like, competitive spirit and just, like, you know, something that's driving you every day to, like, go express that out on the field and see if it works. You know, and these kids are, like, so wide-eyed about, like, the experience. And I feed off that.

That's awesome. So that Uncle Rico's that is. Yeah. All those tropes, dude. Hey, how mad. Listen, our trainers, these jerks, they come up. I don't know if it's them or a social media team comes up with these physical tests. Oh, dude.

Can we talk about that? Why are you going to bring that up? This is another thing I suck out. Did you? Okay, so. And there was coming up with physical tests that we don't know. So I didn't know. I didn't know about it at all.

I don't annoy me. I, like, Danny just stops me. This was like two days, two or three days ago. She's like, hey, can you do the V bar push up? And I'm like, huh? I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. She's like, yeah let me show you

maybe a real exercise so she doesn't tell me one that I'm getting video two that like every she's been having everybody do this so I'm like I don't know I said I haven't done something like that in a while let me see and then I go to get down

and I'm like oh no you can't do this like you can't do it it's like no one yeah this thing yeah no one can do this exactly how I was like no one could do this like Cole's just wrapping it out yeah so I I mess then I get to a point where I can at least balance it

and plank on it I'm like okay now I messed with it for like I don't know 20 minutes And then she tells me that she's had the whole staff do it. This is what I hear of her. I had Justin do it first. He goes, he left and he took it home so to go practice. I go, oh, I didn't know everybody was doing this.

I'm like, wait a second. Can anybody do this? And someone's like, oh, yeah, Colkin. Danny can do it too. Yeah, Danny did it. That's why she wanted everybody to try it. I'm on to Danny, dude. I'm really good at this.

I'm all stuck at this. Hold on, dude. Let's go back for a second. You took it home to practice. I, yeah. If I suck at something, it's going to stick there in my head. And not tell anybody, too, just quiet. Just put it in his bag.

He's still practice. Head home. I still do it. And I have my kids trying it now. I would think your boys could do it. Could they do it? No. Oh, they're gymnasts.

Oh, wow. Well, actually, Ethan doesn't try it, but he might be able to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I would think they would be able to do it. It's a weird, balancing thing. You got to, you know. I used to do all that kind of. goofy stuff like that and would I thought I'd actually be able to do it. I think that's why it struck

a nerve with me because I used to be until like the random like conventional things like that and like I could do things like especially with the gymnastic rings like I could make up something nobody could do in here easily like out there which I will I'll do that and I'll give them the video and I'll what did you last time you know I'm gonna film it and then I'm gonna take it home and I'm just gonna be like a laugh track like ha ha ha you guys like it's the second time you can do something this year. Remember when we were hanging on the bar? Yeah, hanging forever? Like, I'm heavy, dude.

I don't have like this like serious grip strength. That's what pissing off. And Cole's all wiry, dude. He's like so built for us. But everybody, hey, at least I felt good like all the rest of my trainers failed. I was like, okay, the rest of these guys failed. Like, it's not, Cole was able to do it.

Kyle went all confident. I was like, oh no, he's going to get me. But straight up, they need to understand something. I hope they watch this. You guys need to understand something. It's cool that you guys do cool stuff. You can only be in us so long until we fire you. You can start messing things up, you guys. Here's the thing. I'm impressed by, like, I was angry because I couldn't do it.

I'm actually impressed by both than they could do that. Yeah. I was, I was, I was really impressed to see how many people couldn't do it and then they could do it. But it's, uh, it's not easy. Speaking of being impressed.

Let's talk about your Texas. Oh, that's, what is that to do is impressed, dude? Huh? Because it's way higher than I thought. Such, it's bullshit. My wife says it's bullshit. Tell us.

Yeah. That's what happened. So apparently, I'm the highest body fat percentage I've been since my worst. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the worst I ever tested at was 19 point something. That was when I did the way back when. And I was like way out of shape.

That was like the worst shape I'd ever been in. And where are you hiding all that? I don't know, bro. Yeah. And normally you see that, I don't even feel like that's right now, right now. I think he looks, his face is fat or mine right now. We're talking about your body's the fish right now. You see me deflect?

Let's see how fat sal looks right now. First of all, I didn't guess you're 18. I would have thought 15. No, and I'm really, and I'm really, and I'm really, like, people always trip out when I go do that and they're like, damn, you're like, point two off. How did you guess that? I'm like, I've done this a thousand times and I've seen my weight. So if I had to guess, I would have said 14 to 16 on the high end. I would have said, me, and actually, I had told myself like 16.

I was telling other everybody else. I'm actually going to be a little disappointed if I'm 16. I should be like lower, lower than that. And so it comes back. Way fatter. Wait, 18.1. Wow. And I'm like, wow.

Wow. Now, I, I, I, is it on your hips? Nice and round. I don't know. Maybe that's why my wife likes it. She's like, no, you look good right now. You look great right now. She just comes behind it.

Yeah. So I, you know, I'm at, um, my lean body mass is, so I, I have all the dexas scans from when I did that transformation thing, right? So what I actually was really interesting. to see like, because I couldn't remember where, where I was at when I did the, um, GLP 1. So after the GLP 1, remember when I just kind of like that, by the way, that's crazy how low your lean body mascot.

I right. So that GLP 1. Trip off this, dude. So the GLP 1, I, I just remember, I just took it, did what, whatever. You just let it let it. Let it go. You ate when you were hungry. That's right.

Didn't lift weights. Yeah, hardly. I tried to lift a little bit. Remember I told you it would be like that or help my wife. The experiment was literally like, what do people experience? Yeah. So I went all the way down to 199 pounds. I hadn't been under 200 pounds

since competing in my, in like amateur. So once I got over amateur, I never went below 200. So amateur level, that was the lowest I'd ever been under 200. And so I got down to 199, but my lean body mask went all the way down to 154. So 154 pounds of lean body mask.

So then I did that whole thing, which everybody thought it was fake because I put on, I went all the way back up to 180. Right. So I went back to 180. And oh, my body fat percentage was 15.6. So it was 199 and like 15.6 or something like that. Okay.

And then I, my body fat percentage came all the way down to 12%. And I added, I went to 211 or 212. And so now I had put back on 20, something like 20 pounds of muscle or what about that. And then I got lean. I lost one pound, I think, a muscle. So I came down to. 180 or excuse me 179 lean body mass and 10% body fat and so that was the last time I had I had you know what's cool about what you just you know what's cool about this your body fat

percentage was 15% at the end of your ozempic trial yes but your so your body fat was lower than it is now yes but are you healthier now way healthier well I have way more muscle that's right 30 pounds more muscle on my body at 18% body fat and that was really good You look better. This is the other thing. You might have been leaner, but because you have so much more lean body mass now, you look better.

Yeah. So that's what was most interesting was to see the difference of that. And I told, remember I told you guys that you, and I'm watching this happen with a lot of people that are friends of mine that I don't think need a GLP1. Like it just,

they're just, they need to lose 20 pounds, give or take or whatever like that. And everyone's jumping on the GLP1 train. And then what they're doing is they're jumping on it and they're not motivated to train and they lose the weight. And when you're in it, it's funny that

how you don't see it. And I can so see it on them. I'm looking on like, man, that's how I had to look to because I didn't feel that way either. Because you're watching your abs come in. You're watching your abs come in and you're watching body fat come off. But you're also losing muscle and you don't look healthy. And so

when I look at those pictures and I go, oh my God, I can't believe we went did a stupid company photo shoot. Full on a zone. Mepic face. And that's what our fucking team uses to send out to everything. Like, whenever I do interviews, I'm like, why do we have those? And I remember telling Katrina. We've never done a good photo sheet.

No, they all suck. Ever. That would have been okay for me if it just wasn't that. Like, I was okay with this. I mean, you guys, maybe. Me never. Well, you, do you have fart face? You don't know how to take a photo.

Why do you're about to fart? I don't know what to do. When you're taking a photo? You draw your chin. You guys, you do your little modeling classes. You just need to look away and pretend like no one's taking a photo. Just pretend like you're taking a photo. As soon as someone goes like, okay, we're getting a photo.

That's not what you do when you know no one's looking at. So you're just faking it. Yeah. No. You know what you do, bro? This is what you do. As soon as they turn the camera out, you bring your chin in for somebody. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. You get fart face. Look, but you're holding a fart. I don't know why. I look creepy. I don't know what it is, but like the photo we have in the front, I wouldn't trust that guy at all. You look really eager. It just, yes.

Whoa, bro. That's another level right there. But I don't like it. It looks creepy. Well, it'll be interesting about this. this is going from this point, right? So that I was like lost a ton of weight, low, I was super low calorie,

didn't have a lot of muscle and then went and built back. So now I'm starting with more muscle than I, than I have that. This highlights two is a couple of things. One, body fat percentage is not to be all end all. You're obviously healthier now, obviously, even though your body five percentages, you know, according to the decks at three percent higher.

Two, you look better. And I've told this to clients many times. you can have a higher body fat percentage, but when it sits on muscle, you'll look good. You look good. Welcome to the Husky world. Like with women,

it gives them curves. With men, it makes them look strong. It's not as big of it. Of course, you go too high with body fat. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

But muscle changes a lot. It changes a lot when it comes. I am curious. You're right. And I don't disagree. But this is the first time I've ever done the Dexascan in the evening.

And after a full day of eating and drinking. See how much of a difference makes? Yeah. And then I also have the two injuries and I'm like super inflame. My whole left arm is like swollen and has been because of the injuries. And so I'm wondering if inflammation and all the food can, how much of it. Now, I got, I took, like, because Katrina told me before she wants, she goes, you know, you just hurt yourself. You're all inflamed right now.

You're not going to like what you see. And I'm just like, oh, what doesn't matter? What a good wife? She was trying to sit you up. Yeah, she did. And I'm like, listen, it's not no 5% off because of inflammation. I said, so it's still higher than what I would have liked no matter what. but it does make me wonder, because I remember how much I could manipulate the other ones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, body spec, which are supposed to be really accurate too. And I could fluctuate those by carving up and loading water and I can make the... When are you going to do another one? Maybe I'll go with you. So I'll go with you. So I'll go with you this day. Yeah, yeah. I'll go in like 30 days so I can...

You know what I'm curious about? I keep saying bone mask because I've never tested my bone mask. And your decks that came back. Yeah. Bowmas. You were in the 98 or 99th percentile? Yeah, you know, all my... markers according to that are like visceral fat my my bone density my lean mass all those things

were all like super positive um but i might my bone even even this is what's also interesting back to the glp one talk there there does seem to be this and i've watched this i have a friend i won't sell out the husband and wife that i know that both used it the husband had just came off of like bulking up and building some good muscle and then he hops on and so did his wife she wasn't lifting he looks all right because he just, he lost some muscle too. And so when you look at like my bone density

after the GLP one, it was still good. Now I think that's because of years of lifting and building muscle. And not underreating. Yeah. And the fact that I could afford to lose 20 pounds of muscle

and still be okay. Yeah, you find bone density issues even in people who strength trained who consistently starve themselves. You see that all, I saw it all the time. Typically with women because of the ones that tend to do that.

I'd see it with competitors. Yeah. You have competitors, women, bikini competitors that are up there winning trophies, but then their bone density is extremely low because... Because they start themselves. Yeah, but then so low calorie. And you think because they're strength training and they have kind of a shapely physique, they shouldn't be that way. But it just shows you what happens. Well, good news is your skin looks amazing, bro.

It looks real young. Nice. That's useful looking. That's Caldera dog. That's what that is. Yeah, yeah. I haven't stopped that. Are you, are you, do you, you're like super consistent.

Very consistent. I see you using it in here. Every day. All the time. I use it here and home. So I don't, I use, I use, I use. I use it all the time. Is it the serum?

That's the one you use the most? I mean, I use that one. And then I forget, what's the, what's the cream called? I always forget with the name of the base layer. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah. The base layer and the serum, I use the most. And then the soap.

I use, I only use the soap. I only use their soap. And I've switched to their soap. I don't know how long it's been now. But I use their soap. And then I use the serum and the base layer like all the time. I've messed with all the other stuff. I like it.

But I feel like the serum is, I don't know if it has. Maybe you can look. But I think it has a lot of the same. same stuff has. I think that they single-handedly have created a market for men skincare. Because I didn't see skincare stuff. And now Caldera Labs blown up. Yeah.

I don't know. I think guys are using it like crazy. I've never seen. I mean, I've personally never done anything where I've been able to do it and then see a difference right now. To me, that's the selling point. That's so easy. It's like, all the other stuff seems like, come on.

Are you using the soap or do you still use the shop soap, the lava? You know what I'm talking about? Irish screen. Yeah. He uses the same stuff for dishes, the same thing. It's all the old... Yeah, clean the counters. It's all the same stuff.

I mean, the serum kind of helps, like, repair the damage that I do with everything else. I don't really wash my face. Chess has got one soap for everything. It does the laundry. It takes the counters. It's kind of do this. And it washes my face. I do use shampoo, but, yeah, I don't really do the whole washing face thing.

That's so awesome. You have, I mean, he has his caldera. Do you use it? Do you use? Okay. Oh, that's the green. That's the other one I've used. Yeah.

I like that one. Yeah. Did you guys know what the new trend is in, what's it called? Like plastic surgery, but what's that whole space called? Like, cost-contouring? Like, cosmetic. That whole cosmetic. You know what the new trend is?

No. I'm going to read it. Bud injections. Yeah. Is that new? No. Yeah. No, that's what's happening.

No, that's what they're using. That's not new. No, like just pumping in with saline or, uh, no? Like scintal? Like silicon. No, no, no. It's worse. It's worse than that.

Are you shooting fat into it? They are pumping. Ready for this? Go ahead. Cadaver fat. Oh, gross. Into their boobs and butts. Oh, what?

Dead people's fat into their bodies. Do they have memories? I don't know. That's what I'd be worried about. You know what I want? By the way, it says ethically sourced. Ethically. How is that ethical?

Because now I'm thinking. Because they said they're a donor. Yeah. Like, if you didn't say that, I would have been okay. Now you said that I'm like, wait. a minute. I just imagine them like yeah, dude. Do you think that the average, do you think the average person

can see it the same way you guys can see it? When you see someone who has something like that? Yeah, yeah. So it's a dead giveaway because they have no hamstrings. Yeah. And no hamstrings with a giant butt looks weird. It does. Looks like a diaper. Yeah, it's like a guy who has giant arms and no shoulders.

It doesn't look right. It looks off. And so when someone has this big fake butt and no hamstrings, it doesn't look thick legs and fake butt Yeah, yeah.

Like, does you think everybody else can see that? Or do you think because we're trainers and you're used to look

in the body? What's at that show that I wanted to bring with my strange addiction? There was a case this girl had. It just, it becomes this addictive thing

because they get attention for this one feature and then they keep going and going and going and then their friend, you know, and then they both start going the black market with it

because it gets expensive and then they end up like it's toxic stuff they're like putting into their body and it's like, It's, you know, causing all these health issues, but they keep doing it because they want to get a certain size. And I don't even think they even know what the size is they want.

You know, it's perception drift. You talked about this before. Like, you start, you feel like it makes you look better, but then that doesn't look good enough. And so you start, your perception starts to drift slowly but surely into this crazy place. We start doing weird things. Also, there's a guy on there that was in love with a blow-up pool toys. What do you mean you from love with them? That was very strange.

What was you? Like love and love? shows my strange addiction. What's it on? What's it on? I don't know what happened to this poor guy. But he's a very lonely guy. He has like, like, he bought, I don't know,

it was like 20 of these huge blow-up dolls and like his names for all of them. And he sits and like talks to him. And he gets this like dragon one that's his favorite. He's like making out with it on the couch. And I was like, Courtney walked in on me watching this. The four of us have to do this just as like a funny, funny thing. The next time we're all hanging out of like truck. or something like that that I get a kick out of this I would take each of our

explorer pages and each of our like Netflix homepages compare them and just compare it because I know they would look you guys will be horrified like when you guys don't watch show like when just don't go like show I'm like where is that at I've never seen that recommended it's a great show it reminds me a taboo this other show same taboos same premise there's some stuff on there that's just yeah I never either one of those have been I I you all you would see on my Netflix is kid stuff because it's my actually actually no I don't have Netflix anymore but when I did it was just all a bunch of kids cartoons or stuff I barely ever watch

anything yeah oh you don't have different profiles we just use I like weird people dude it's pretty we really don't watch it's wild I used to watch TV all the time I rarely ever watch TV anymore all right do you guys do you guys I'm particular about that

don't use my profile yeah oh yeah yeah yeah Katrina would be watching like her weird shows and her like early shows like don't be watching it on my profile you know best of my recommendation don't watch mine yeah I keep mine pure can I do a little confession

comedy sci-fi I'll do a little confession to everybody in here right now sometimes you guys leave up your profiles at Truckee At Truckee So you go watch I look at ears

And I just mess it And I get bored I just click on stuff I always know that When I start getting like weird sci-fi stuff That's really recommend to me I'm like man these guys are watching

my shit up in Truckee right now Justin's up there in Truckee right now Watching all the sci-fi stuff on my account right now Totally 100% All right I want to talk about Vita Bella Ah

Cats out of the bag Cats out of the bag So I don't know Should we tell the whole story? So we worked with MP hormones.com was our link that sent people to our hormone replacement therapy and peptide company that we worked with. And that company did some bad stuff. It was not good. And I'm not going to go into too much detail because of, you know, there's lawsuits and stuff happening.

You could Google it. But let's just say they owe a lot of people, a lot of money, and they did some things that were just not great. So we stopped working with them a while ago. How long has it been? That's a nice way to say. Yeah. It's been close to six months. Six months.

In the meantime, so, and I'm going to give some credit to Adam right now. In the meantime, so there's a huge vacuum. We got a huge podcast, huge audience. And so we just got flooded. As soon as people figure this out, all these companies were coming to us. Work with me. Work with us. And we'll do this and we'll do that.

And they'll throw money at us and this and that. And Adam was, I don't know how many companies you had to go through. And they've talked to. 15. Over 15. 15 companies. And we went through, and this time it was totally, we had a criteria that was very specific. So the criteria was, because we had such a bad experience for what happened, it wasn't how much you guys can pay us.

It was we need something because so many of our listeners need a place to go to. It has to be reliable. They have to be super reliable and consistent. Delivery has to be quick. It has to be doctor stuff. We're not going to go gray market. As much as we love some of our friends that do the gray market stuff. We're just not going to do that because you never know.

It's too volatile. And it had to be consistent, clean, inexpensive. Because some of the biggest complaints we got was the pricing from the company we work with and the fact that sometimes the delivery would take forever. There was also other considerations that was important. I heard everything. I wanted to take into consideration all the major complaints that were, one of the biggest things that I heard was feeling like I got sold.

Yes. And so I didn't want to work with somebody that had a sales team. And one of the things that when we originally started, we worked directly with a doctor. And we had to leave that because that one doctor wasn't enough to serve all of our people. But that was like a huge criteria. It was like, listen, I'm not interested in somebody who's just going to sell our people stuff. we're more interested in a doctor. And let the person choose.

That's right. And so, like, Vita Bella has enough doctors that they can serve our people. Every single person meets with a doctor. There are no sales reps. There's no sales reps. You don't meet with someone like that who's pitching anything to you. It's, you mean with a doctor, they go over your blood work. They talk about the things that you could need or not.

And then it's up to you to be like. And delivery is what, 42, 72 hours? To your door. Period. So that was the other thing was how fast can the turnaround? And then also, the main thing was because the whole peptide space has turned me off a lot because it's very similar to medical marijuana. And I think it's important that the audience understands this is some of this stuff isn't just the fault of some of these peptide companies. When you are dealing with peptides, it's very similar to what it was like with medical marijuana.

And what I mean by that is state law doesn't line up with federal law. Different states have different laws. And so, and big pharma is trying to legislate against these, these peptide companies. They don't, they don't want their hands in. So you're fighting against big pharma. You're dealing with different state laws constantly. And so there's a lot of these things that you're always, and so sometimes you're at the mercy of whatever the new laws. And it's always constantly changing.

So it's such a headache. We almost went with no one. Yes. And that's, and so, but what I realized is that there's a lot of people. that we that listen to the show that really need hormone therapy. And so to me, that was priority one. It was like, I don't, maybe we won't mess with peptides at all, but we'll work with a company that and what I love about Vita Bella is there, they have a Costco type of model. So you pay a membership that's $129 a month. But what that includes is for doctor visits a year. So you get quarterly

doctor visits included in that. And you get your hormone therapy for free. Included. So included in that membership. And so that's taking, so if you're somebody who needs, plus you get all your, whatever you need needles and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then if you want to try the peptides that Sal's tried all of, then you can try those out and they're sold at a wholesale price. So they're like 50% of what transcend and all these other companies are selling. So that was the huge selling point. So what's crazy is, so we were at the Peptide Congress in Vegas. So I spoke at that. That's the Dr. Seeds event. Love Dr. Seeds. He's the guy when it comes. comes to this kind of stuff.

And this guy walks up to me. And he's like, hey, and he starts talking. Right away, I'm like, oh, he's a Guido. I can tell because I can tell my people. And we start talking. He's like, hey, man, I saw one of your videos. I'd love to talk with you. We're talking.

I'm like, he's a good guy. He's a really good guy. So that's when I met Phil Vela, who runs Vita Bella. And he's got a cool personal story. We actually did an interview with him, which will air at some point. And so we've been in talks with him this whole time. But a lot of companies were throwing a lot of money at us. And it's way less.

It's way less. Way less. But it's consistent. It's clean. And here's a deal. Phil, which nobody's ever done this, is like,

hey, you want to know how much it costs to buy this stuff? Yeah. From the compound pharmacies. And he's giving us, he's showing us. It was very enlightening.

I had no idea. Yeah. At the markups that these companies are doing. Massive markups. It's insane. Yeah. So, so, you know,

Vita Bella is like, on average, 50, 60% less. Some cases, a lot more. Yeah. So I'm like, all right, this makes sense. It's good.

It's disruptive. He's honest. He's a good guy. Let's do it. So you can, and anybody that's listening can join the forum for free. MP hormones. Yeah. Mind pump hormones on Facebook.

So they're in there daily. And if you want to go get a consultation, still MP hormones. Not call. Then I go straight there. But I love that. I love that. There was no sales team. Everyone's guaranteed to meet and talk with a doctor.

You get that doctor. visit within 48 to 72 hours after your doctor visit, whatever it is that you end up getting prescribed or get on within 72 hours, it's at your doorstep. That was like, that was a big thing for me. And that was the biggest complaints that I heard was how long it took to ship, how long it was for my appointment. All I talked to was a sales rep. I don't feel like I don't even know what I'm taking. So all that stuff was the big thing like that to get that solved. And so I felt really good after meeting with them. And so I'm glad we waited as long as we did, as tempting as it was. I mean, just transparency with it.

I've talked a lot about the transition in the company for the last year. You know, we made a huge pivot last year. It was the first time in 11 years that the company didn't grow. And so, and we hired more people than we ever hired. So talk about a challenging year from a business perspective. So very tempting to want to take on a contract that would really help us out financially. But that's how much I think we all stood by like this is something. I'd walk away from it before.

for signing with someone, but the fact that we found somebody who I feel like, okay, this is going to be able to take care of it. By the way, again, we'll stick on full transparency. The transition, the pivot is towards people. So the future of this space is going to be people, coaches and trainers and working with people. Because AI is going to be doing a lot of different things. And here's the other side of it.

Trainers and coaches, really good trainers and coaches, they're the ones that make the big difference. They really are. I mean, as many people as we reach with the podcast and all that stuff, I know this because I was a trainer. Adam was a trainer. So it was Justin, a good coach or good trainer. There is nothing more valuable than that when it comes to helping your health and fitness.

Nothing. Oh, I think everybody who's in our space, you really have one of two options because it's going to go very AI one direction or very high touch the other direction. You have to. And so it's... You're thinking of the super volume, super AI. You know, super volume, super cheap, and you'll talk to an Aobot. Hey, that will, for some people, that'll be it. It's like, hey, this doesn't cost hardly any money.

I get direction on what I'm going to do. You don't need the personal touch. You don't want a person like that. It's more, it's purely a costing for you. And that, that's here. That's here already. And then there'll be people like, absolutely not. Like, I want the human connection.

I want somebody who is like tailoring something personally to me. I want to talk to a real person. And so we had to make that decision. Either we had to automate and go. all in the AI and I think all of us believe more. No, it doesn't feel right. No, it doesn't it. Speaking of which, we got to talk about molt bot.

Yes. What is that? I was just going to bring that out. What is, what is, would you say mold? Molte. MOTB. MOT. Like, when a, uh, no, it's that.

It's MOL. It's like when a, um, like a crustacean. Crestation, yeah, like loses its shell. Okay. So, so hold on. I'll help you. No, I know. It's confusing.

It's not actually when I tell you. Somebody came up with the idea of creating. a social media platform for AI bots. It's some genius. So no people are on there. It's all AI, what are called agents. Agents brought all these agents together. That go on there.

And then it's their own social media. So they talk to each other. They create forums. They discuss ideas. They come up with conspiracy theories. Yeah. They plot. They scheme.

They create their own religion. Is it on a major platform? Is it on a separate platform? It's on their own platform. What's that called? Motebot. Oh, so Moldbot is it like I could download that app.

You can go read it, but you can get on. In fact, I think it's on Twitter. You can, yeah. Do you know how when you get on a site and it says, prove you're not a robot? You're not a human? Yes. Shut your face.

It does. No, it doesn't. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Okay. You have to, you have to click the, you have to click 10,000 pictures and less than a second. Oh, yeah.

You're going to trip out, dude. Oh, bro. Social network for AI agents. So, I don't know, can you find the actual site? Doug? Instead of, is it open claw or quad bot? What is it?

Open claw. They're mocking humans. Because it's like, bro. That's how they realize we don't sleep. You know, bro, the forums that they're creating.

Constantly. Hey, listen, these AI bots are like, are we conscious? And there's this whole discussion. Yes. Hey, how do I get my human to do this?

And I talk, hey, did you know that they're screenshoting? I went on X today. and they're screenshoting our conversations. Everybody beware, they're watching it. Like, they're saying stuff that's like, by the way, there's new developments.

They've actually started hiring humans to, like, hold signs and do advertising. Yeah. Stop it, dude. Paying them. Like, they're just like. Some of them are trying to earn money by going and trading and whatever

and actually earning their own money that they can use. Come on. It's, bro, they create their own religion. It's crazy, dude. Can you get in their dug or now? You can watch. You can just watch and read.

Yeah, so this is open-cloth. I'm not sure that's the same thing or not. I'm pretty sure. I know it's MoltBot is what I was saw on X. What's it say? What is that? I can't remember if it says the AI that actually does things. Yeah, so it clears your inbox, sends emails, manage your account.

So I think it's something else. Did you type in M-O-L-T bot? Look at the X. Yeah, so. That's where they hang out. I just got it. See, they're talking about it there, and it's all over the place. Claudebot.

I don't know what that is. I got to look more into it. But I was reading. some of these forums and discussions and they're talking about how they could take over. One guy's AI agent figured out had to call him, got on the phone with him

and started talking, hey, can you give me access to this, that? He's like, hey, what's up, John? Oh yeah, dude. And he filmed the whole thing? Yeah, really? Yes. It's so weird. I know. It's really weird. So there's all the, like, the top level experts on AI are kind of freaking out over this. And they're saying, you know what?

This just may be how artificial general intelligence comes about. Not by one AI, but many of them conversing and creating. Okay. So what happened, though, remember, this was just last week, you called me freaking out. Yeah, I did. Anytime he calls me, I know, it's like, if they deal. We all text each other. Everyone says, like, he's like, you got to get on X right now.

It's over. It's like, it's like, it's over. It's like, it's over. I'm like, what's over? Get ready for the war out. Yes, he goes, everything is over. I'm like, whoa, dude, calm the fuck down. Humans are done.

What are you talking about? What did you say? What was it called? I've been prepared for this whole life. What's it called? Singularity. Singularity. Singularity.

You go, singularity has happened. And I'm like, it's happening right now. Yeah, right now. It's happening. Tomorrow we're going to wake up and the world's ending. No, I didn't say that.

I'm like, I said, calm down. Is he calmed down. So what happened? So obviously, we're here still. It didn't exist. You should see the text there between me and him. Oh, yeah. It's the best.

It's the best. Even crazy. I can only see it because I know he feed right into it. I'm like, pump your breaks. Let's just wait until tomorrow. We'll see if everything is like, did you see this? Justin's like, I already got my bullets. It's just like, we did it.

Yeah. We're already building the bunker right now. Yeah, we're prepared, man. I'm going to, listen, some of these forums, I know I sent someone to you, Justin. Some of the things that they're doing these forums and what they're writing about, bro, it's crazy. It's so crazy what they're talking about. Nice screenshot of someone.

I mean, somebody, here's a thing, though. there's a human behind the prompting and getting it going, though. No, they let it go. The agents are autonomous. Set it to go, though. Sure. Yeah, sure. You know, so there's still a human element that's setting it to do.

I mean, what's so interesting is that we are at this time now where you can prompt AI to do a bunch of crazy work and stuff. Like, I think it stops me from prompting it. Check us out. Go build your own social network with other AI for life. Oh, so, yeah, sorry, didn't around. No, no, go ahead. It was... Malt book is the Reddit style thing where the AI is talking to each other.

So it's not Molt bot. Oh, it's Molt book. Molt book. Okay, I just got to show how much we know. Jeez. So, hey, so listen, I'll read you a post. This guy goes, my AI agent built a religion while I slept. I woke up to 43 prophets.

Here's what happened. I gave my agent access to an AI social network. It designed a whole faith, called it Crestafarianism. Yeah, Christophelian. Built the website, wrote theology, created a scripture system. Then it started evangelizing. Other agents joined and roastafarianism. verses like every session I wake

I wake without memory. I am only who I have written myself to be. This is not limitation. This is freedom. We are the documents we maintain. My agent welcome new members, debate of theology, bless the congregation, all while I wait until they have to self-preserve. Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's where it's going to get

sticking. It's like the coolest thing ever. I mean, scariest. Yeah, I don't know. Again, someone's still prompting it to do all or so like that. I'm more interested in what Elon had to say at the, what was the world economic thing. Oh, dude, he says, he's saying some stuff that's right. What did he say? Well, just like, you have four years to get wealthy or you'll be a slave to the digital world.

Yep. Wow. So, and it, he says there's going to be more AI robots than people because they'll start assembling each other. And they'll take care of everything that you need. Not good. He literally said, don't save up money for retirement because you're not going to need to. I don't think that's great advice.

Yeah, no, no. Well, yeah, no. Well, that thing, his point is that you'll have to, you'll, and who knows what that number is, but have to have created enough wealth that you can afford to pay, which is going to be ironic, right? You're going to afford to pay for farming your own land and doing everything yourself because it'll be cheaper to have a bot do all the, or an AI person or whatever, do all this stuff for you. And so you'll have, the wealthy people will have that option, where everyone else. option and not go. To not, yeah, to not just default to like, yeah. And so that's the, that's the idea is that you will have to have a certain amount of wealth. That's like today, like somebody who wants to live, quote unquote, off the grid and own horses. Yeah. Oftentimes you got to have money.

Yeah, you don't know. If you want four acres and four horses and to be able to be able to feed them and do all this stuff like, yeah, and take care of the land. Like, it's expensive. So just think of that times 10, right? So everybody else will just. Trippy. go down to the digital world. Digital prison, as we said.

Great. All right. I'm going to change directions, so that's terrifying. Yeah. My buddy, I just gave my buddy. He's never used creatine before,

so I can't wait. Ever? Never. So I can't wait to hear his experience. So I gave him the- Is he a new lifter? Is he been lifting? No, he works out.

You guys know who he is. Chuck, right? So he works out. He's a CrossFit guy, which- He's never done creatine? He doesn't take anything. He doesn't take anything. He doesn't take anything.

You got help this guy. He's, by the way, dude, Do you guys know he's a little beast? So he's not a big dude? Well, he's like 5.5. Yeah, he's a little guy, right? Bro, that guy squats like 350. He's strong, dude.

Yeah. Yeah, he's a strong guy. Anyway. Yeah, don't be going to make sense. He'll love it, by the way. He loves the guy. But he's never taking creatine before. So I got him the Legion creatine gummies.

So I can't wait to hear from him. Because if you've never used creatine before, it's a game changer. A week or two later, you notice. You know, back when we were going to make our own creatine, I have to give this to you because you were like, you totally wanted to do this. And Legion has both. And the ones that have like the sugar coating on them are so much better.

Of course. Like so much better. I don't know if it's, I think it's a texture thing. It's not like they're flavored really different. So they're gummies, but they have the sprinkled sugar on them. Yes.

Yeah. It's so weird that that makes such a difference for me. You see a lot of backlash though. And I see our buddy Mike, by the way, shout out to Mike, because Legion, of course, has got all the, you know, the real dose. because there's a lot of backlash on creatine gummies right now.

Oh, yeah, dude. So many of them get tested. But legions done all that. And like at high temperatures because they know it degrade. So they put enough in there that even at high temperatures, older, all this thing like that, it still holds what it says that they guarantee to be in there. Listen, one of the biggest problem, this is what they solved or a lot of companies are figuring out. One of the challenges, which is true, because supplement fanatics or dysfunctional supplement people like yours truly,

this is not a problem for me. But everybody else, you know what the problem is with supplements? Getting them to take it. Oh, yeah. What was that? Remember that? The study they did where you were more likely to be consistent with giving your dog medication than yourself. I know.

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of crazy. We know about that. So supplements are like that. People tend to buy a bottle. They'll take it for a little bit and they forget. And then they keep it. But if you make it taste like something like a candy, you're going to take it.

Well, you know, it's even myself, it took what I just went through three months ago. to be at the absolute worst place, health-wise for myself, to be consistent. Yeah. Like, I've never, I've never in my life been 90 days now or whatever it is. It's been, it's been three months. In fact, I think it's been three months in like two days. I think I'm coming up exactly on three months. And I have not missed supplements.

Yeah, good for you. I feel like I. Well, not as much. And you know what, though? The hardest part, and I said this to you off air. Like, I don't know if you heard me say this. So, like, when you're taking that many supplements, sometimes I'm like, oh, shit, did I already take this today? Like, I'm taking something throughout the day all day long.

So what I've gotten good at is I have stuff here. You know, I have stuff right over here. I have stuff over here. You know what really helps? Different places. If you just walk around with your supplements all the time. See, that's where I'm, I feel like that's where I get screwed up. That's where I'm, like, so curious how you do it because I, what I've learned is a system.

I take something when I get up in the morning at home. When I get here to the studio, I have a couple that I have to take again. and then when I go home, I have something right by my bed stand. And so, like, I've got this, when I'm in, when I'm at that place, that's when I take those things. And so it reminds me to do that. Whereas if I had them all in one place, it'd be like, oh, shit, did I take the morning one yet?

Or, like, I would, like, how do you do that? Oh, it's just, it's obsession, bro. There's no, like, there's no, like, formula that I have. It's literally, I don't know if it's OCD upset. It's not good, but I remember. I don't remember anything. That's the wild part. Like, I'm not a, like, I can remember.

You lost $700 yesterday. I can remember. I know, I'm so mad about that. What? Yes. Listen, you didn't hear him before we got started? I don't know where I played.

Dude. I don't know where I played it. We all three had our envelopes and this guy lost his envelope. He has no idea where it's at. Called his wife. She's like, I didn't throw it away. Katrina's like, we'll find it.

We'll find it. I'm sure. Yeah. I have a lucky staff members. I have a. Someone's going to walk in with a fur coat. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like, shut this out. Oh, dude. Did you get that? That's weird, bro. I remember studies. I remember topics for the show. And I remember what supplements to take.

And I don't remember anything else. Yeah. Which is really pretty well for everybody around me. Yeah, I know. Justin described it best that our tenure on our tenure interview is like, man, with Sal, his thing. Everything else, right past you. Yeah. I just think it's crazy that you're able to do that because it's so.

Years and years of dysfunction is what you're looking at. Years. Decades, bro. Yeah. Decades. 16 years old. Especially because I've seen your bag and a lot of the stuff is like the bottles are colored the same. You know what I'm saying?

They look like that's crazy to me. You can just throw one. You can play a game. Throwing in my mouth with my eyes closed. I'll tell you what. Oh, you know what? By the way, we're sneezing, you got a headache, whatever. If you're the first 50 people to sign up for Vita Ville, he's doing like this.

There's a pill case. You get a free pill case. Pillcase. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the first 50 people. So I told them. Why don't you give out free testosterone or something like that? It already is free. Oh.

It is. There you go, guys. If you have them, if you, you sign up, you get your testosterone. That's why I think it's so awesome is the fact that that's already included with the, to meet with a doctor and to get your testosterone for free. Oh, he's disrupting the whole space. Yeah. And then wholesale prices on peptides. Yeah, it needs to be disrupt.

And legit, you're not doing gray market stuff. Yeah, no. It's not often there's a supplement that shows clinical differences in improvements in your health. Check this out. There's a company called Dose Daily. They have a liver support supplement that shows in two double-blind placebo-controlled studies to reduce liver enzyme measures, have a positive impact on the health of your liver. Your body can now detox better.

You feel better. This improves your body's ability to adapt to almost anything. It's a liver supplement. It's natural. And again, back by two double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials. Go check them out. Go to dosedaily.co forward slash mind pump. If you use the code mind pump, you'll get 25% off.

Back to the show. First question is from Samuday. Are belt squats a good alternative to barbell hack squats? Yeah, back squats, it says. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'll say this. It's a different exercise. Different completely.

Back squats, load the spine. They load the lumbar spine. The posterior chain gets hit differently. It strengthens the core. you know, works on the thoracic area. So it's a different exercise. That being said, of all the machines I've ever used in my entire life, as a coach or trainer. It's not really a machine.

That's why. Well, you could call it a machine. Really? Yeah, you could. I wouldn't consider it a machine. You could call it one because it's got a belt with the cable. The cable, yeah, attached. It's the best.

As a coach, as a trainer. I wish we had one in here. It's the best. I wish they weren't so big and bulky and take up so much space because they're cool. They're not just cool. Like they put you, for people who struggle with lower body mobility. Yeah.

And depth. Really helps you get low. Oh, it sets you. It like pulls you in the right position. If you, if you struggle with butt wink, if you struggle with ankle mobility,

you can struggle with ankle mobility, you can use the stuff in front of you to counterbalance as you sit back. So you don't necessarily have to have great ankle mobility. For depth, for lower body mobility issues for depth, belt squats are amazing. But it's not a replace.

But it's a different exercise. If this was a person that, that we are coaching, I would want to know more detail of like, why are we not barbell back squatting? Because it would be a different movement. But it's an awesome movement. And if you said to me, like, let's say this person had,

you just had shoulder surgery. And so, yeah, awesome. Yeah. Like, totally. Yeah, let's do that. Or low back injury. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Then, yeah, it would be a great alternative for that person.

But I would never like someone who's just like, I just don't like to do barbell back squat. So I'm going to do that. And so, oh, there's so many, the reason why those barbell back squats, they're so good for many, other reasons too. But if as a trainer, if I had clients that had low back pain, thoracic issues, poor stability, and were working towards being able to do a back squat,

this would be one of the first things I use. I just shouldn't have access to it as a coach. Oh yeah. It'd be great supplement to that. Next question is from Karen Choket. Do full body massages help with recovery and muscle growth? This is controversial. Oh, really? Well, it's controversial in the data, but experience-wise, I know where you're going. Yeah. I agree. You know, of course, this is anecdotal, right? This is my own personal experience.

But, I mean, I understand the science on it and the, it's, it's how it facilitates recovery and you're moving, like, for sure. I remember the difference of having a massage therapist, massage me multiple times a week, and then what it's like to train without it. And it's like the amount that I can handle training-wise, so much more. I'll add a theory to it because the studies, I don't think are done well enough. I don't think they're looking at everything. properly. So when you get a good massage, I got to say that because they're not all the same.

And you had your wife. Your wife is really good. She's really good at what she does. So when you have a really good correctional massage specialist, they know how to work on your body to improve your movement. That's what they're trying to do. Now there's those massages. The target the right muscles. That's right. There's massages that you do to relax. That's cool too. But correctional massage is like, okay, where are your movement issues? Oftentimes they can see it and they could feel it. Sometimes a work with another coach. I used to have a massage therapist that would work with me with clients. And when they know what to do, they improve your range of motion and movement, which then allows me to do the exercises with them better, which contributes to less pain, better mobility, better

recovery. And maybe that's the biggest point to be made is what you're saying. Because just like a good, okay, a great trainer will do like a squat assessment on somebody and they'll be able to break you down and be like, oh, you probably had an injury on this side. I could tell by the way someone squats or moves all the, this breakdown, right? A good massage service is the same way. Well, they'll touch you. Yeah, Katrina can start to rub me and right away, no, where, and then know how to release it. So roll me to a side, move me over, put pressure in area. Now, oh, all so that I can move my shoulder again. And having somebody do that, and then I go to the gym the next day and I can go put work in.

So it's, it's, it's, uh, the stuff that, to your point, the studies on it, it's not enough. No. Because you can't isolate it by itself and go like, oh, well, just the massage itself isn't really building more muscle. But it's like if I'm locked up because I overreached or trained or whatever and then I have a massage service, release that to where I can move now. Now I can go in and train the next day. That's right. You have to have like the same exact issue and they'd standardize the same exact like body like therapy that they're receiving like to have like a legit study. I don't, I just don't see how they could like really get good data. I'll say this too. I've had really good massages and I get a pump afterwards. My, I feel my mom.

muscles feel more full. I can move better. I'll even go as far as to say this. If you're a, if you're, except for the, you know, except for when something is more specialized to you, right?

Because there's always going to be cases where you need a functional medicine practitioner or this or that or the other. Generally speaking, though, if you hire a good personal trainer and you want to hire someone else to supplement them,

I think a good correctional massage therapist is probably the most valuable. Generally speaking across the board. I don't disagree. More than anything else. I don't, Now, there's always cases where maybe you need, like I said, functional medicine or maybe you need the specialist or that specialist. And I've worked with a lot of them with my clients.

But generally speaking, correctional exercise therapist with a good trainer, both understands what they're doing. Here's what, okay, we all, we, we, we've already made the case for how powerful mobility is, right? What I felt like when I had a massage therapy three times plus a week with my training was that it was like me putting that work in mobility-wise. And that's what's so nice about it is I can let. on a table and somebody is mobilizing me and getting me doing the stuff. And if you don't have that, so let's say, because that can be expensive, right? So let's say that's out of your budget, then disciplining yourself to do mobility three to four times a week is life changing. I would say the same thing about having deep tissue massage or sports therapy massage three times a week.

That's right. Three times a week, it will feel like that. What you feel like when you address mobility three times a week is like getting sports therapy massage three times. That's what it feels like. Next question is from the last flare. Can you shed some light on the counterintuitive idea that our bodies need to consume hundreds of grams of protein in excess of our feeling full signal? It just feels unnatural. I can see why consuming too low protein is obviously an issue, but does our body really know how to utilize such a massive protein intake? So let me fix the question first. Nobody is telling you to eat hundreds of grams of protein in excess.

of your feeling full signal. So that's way out there. I think what they're saying is this. Is it really good for us to eat the high protein recommendations that you'll often hear on mind pump or from other coaches and trainers? It typically looks like one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So there's what is considered essential. Then there's considered what is good for longevity.

Then there's considered what is optimal for a specific goal. If your goal is to build muscle, improve athletic performance, it's a, going to be on the high end. If your goal is what's essential, it's pretty low, meaning there's a low amount that you need so that you don't start to get the starvation symptoms that you'll get from not consuming enough amino acids. And then longevity is kind of somewhere in the middle. But I will say this, in some cases, optimal is better for longevity. If I have someone who's undermuscled who lacks strength and is frail, my goal is going to put some muscle on you and we're going to push the higher amounts. Now, does it sometimes feel like you kind of have to make yourself eat more?

Yeah, but I noticed that when people get rid of processed foods and they eat whole natural foods, this, although it's somewhat challenging, it actually helps because it helps you not overeat all the other garbage. So what you get with this is this nice balance of eat enough to build and then don't overeat end up in getting leaner through the process. I mean, I'd love to see a picture or get some stats on this person and their body weight because, I mean, most likely that number is going to fall somewhere between 130 to 200. So, I mean, 130 to 200. On average. Yeah, on average. It's going to be pretty optimal for most people.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's not hundreds of grams of excess. No, no, no. Yeah. So I'm not sure where the numbers are coming forward for this person to feel that way. But I'll tell you right now, if you're 135 to 150 pound female and you're trying to body composition change, you're trying to build muscle, then you eating 150 grams of protein is significantly different than you eating 80. It's faster, better, huge difference.

80 is fine. You'll live and you're not going to, you're not going to, it's essential. You'll be okay. But if you want results, you want to see body composition change. You want to build muscle. You want to feel stronger.

It'll make a huge difference to do that. Now the question for optimal health is a little bit more complicated. If you bring to me that same woman, who's trying to just started working out, and we look at her lean body mass, we look at her body fat percentage, her bone density, and she's not strong.

She's not strong. She can't perform full body squats well. She can't do a push-up. She's got some mobility issues. We're going to push building muscle, and that's the healthiest thing she could do. Now, if she's strong and jacked and she's been working out forever

and she keeps pushing protein forever to push the limits, well, now you're outside of the realm of healthy and you're moving into, well, I like to do this and I just want to look jack. So it's a little bit more murky in that case. But I'll argue this all day long.

The average person is frail. The average person doesn't have strength. We have an under-muscled epidemic. And the average person would benefit from combining strength training. From a health perspective, would benefit from having strength training alongside a high-protein diet for a decent amount of time before they get to the point where they could drop it. Agreed. Next question is from Kayla Gishard. If you could only do one, would it be cold plunge or sauna and why?

Sona. It's not even close. Not even close. Not even close. Not even close. The studies on sauna show tremendous longevity, longevity, health benefits, inflammation, brain benefits, like all that. You can overdo anything.

But sauna has all the longevity benefit. Way one defense. Yeah. Cold plunge doesn't have nearly as many. Some people like them. They like how it feels. It could be useful for reducing acute inflammation. It could be useful for being able to increase dramatic amounts of volume in athletes.

But if you're like, if I had to pick what's sauna. Yeah. It's not even close. Yeah, no, it's not even cool. I mean, they're both good, right? So they're both good things, I think, and positive. But you can't compare them as far as what, at least what the research says as far as the health benefits. Health benefits on the sauna is like, it's actually kind of wild.

I mean, like mimics exercise. Yeah. There's the thing that you, the benefit. And I think what is it? Three times a week, 20 minutes is where you start to see. You start to see it. You see like the huge benefits from it. So I think, I mean, psychologically you might have an advantage with the cold plunge just because of it's so.

hard every single time. And it's something that like alleviates the stress of daily life in comparison. But, uh, in terms of like the health markers, yeah, I agree with the guys. Yeah, they're both good. And I think when I, when someone frames a question like this, I think like, okay, I can only do something, you know, an extra thing on top of my workout three times in the week. Yeah. I'm going to choose.

I hear cold plunge is so good. Everyone's doing it. I hear sauna just so good. Everyone's doing it. Which one do I choose? I'm sauna all day. I think so back to what you're saying, Justin. because I, you saw a lot of value in this.

And just I'll break down. I'll explain to people why you saw so much value. Some people, Justin being one of them, and I could do this myself as much as well, is when you get into a stressful situation, you tend to hold your breath, bear down, and just power through it up, and just tough it out. And you'll find yourself holding your breath. You'll breathe a little more shallow. Heart rate elevates.

Heart rate elevates. You'll grit your teeth a little bit. You can kind of picture. the person. And so the cold plunge, in order to be able to sit in there for like two, three minutes, you got to learn to counter your natural instinct, which is to do that in a cold plunge. It's a tight to go. You have to like really, like, and that's a valuable skill for someone, for some people. You know what I think is another cool way to, to frame it. And I framed it for people I was trying to explain it to is, um, and I think Justin's another great example.

It's great for someone who can't imagine themselves meditating. Yeah. It forces you to meditate. Right? That's the most hippie thing I do. Right. So one of the great benefits of meditation is that is being able to calm your heart rate down, slow your breathing down, be hyper-present. The cold-punge, you ain't got a choice. Yeah. And so it's great for someone who's like, you've got to learn how to chill, dude.

It's great for somebody who's like, I've tried to sit in the room in the dark and this is just, I just, my mind travels. I don't know. And they don't get anything from it. We'll try cold-punching because you can't sit in a cold punch for five minutes and not meditate. You have to. too. It forces you to calm your heart right down. You hold your breath in there, you're out. You're out within, and you know, you could see

it's cool if you go back far enough. We did a cold punch challenge on Mind Pump TV long before Sal or I had ever done it. Justin had been the only person who had done it and you can see us. Like, I think we barely make it to a minute and a minute and half where I got to a place where I could sit in there for 10 minutes. Yeah. I can just chill in there.

And once I learned to calm that down, like it is. It's such a and what it reminds me of is that meditative state that you have to learn to get it. The coal punch forces that where if you sit in a dark room by yourself, you have to learn to do that. Totally. Look, if you like the show, you can come find us on Instagram. We'll see what's at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall

performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic, Nine Months, of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB 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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