Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2799: The Ultimate Showdown: Which Modality is BEST For Fat Loss and Muscle Gain?

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

Mind Pump Fit Tip: The Ultimate Modality Showdown. (2:16) Little boys are doing little boys' things. (23:08) BIG coloring book guys. (25:31) Happy Drops: "Gets rid of the moodies." (28:51) Building a child's relationship with saving, spending, and investing money. (31:14) Justifying giving kids' money for daily jobs/tooth fairy. (34:54) Reminiscing on early jobs as kids/young adults. (36:41) Manuka honey is better for colds than your standard honey. (49:04) When you look as strong as you are. (51:34) #ListenerCoaching call #1 – Jesse from Alberta: Need advice on how to scale back. (58:20) #ListenerCoaching call #2 – Matthew from NE: What program would you recommend for an inexperienced lifter of my age who wants to get healthier and stronger? (1:10:57) #ListenerCoaching call #3 – Brian from MN: What lifts/program adjustments would you recommend for someone with bicep tendonitis and pain in their AC joint? (1:19:23) #ListenerCoaching call #4 – Abigail from SC: Needing advice on aligning my nutrition/training when healing from SIBO and mold toxins. (1:27:20) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get Coached by Mind Pump, live! Visit https://www.mplivecaller.com Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off** Visit Manukora for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Use code MINDPUMP and save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! ** 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 #1782: When Machines Are Better Than Free Weights Why Your Tempo Matters When You Workout! – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump #2708: The Right Cardio for You (Listener Coaching) Fig and Eagle Get a free Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase! Find your favorite LMNT flavor, or share with a friend. As always, LMNT offers no-questions-asked refunds on all orders. Visit: DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump Mind Pump #2337: Is Hidden Household Mold Making You Sick? Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Chris Bumstead (@cbum) Instagram Scott Donnell (@imscottdonnell) Instagram smaev official (@smaevofficial) Instagram Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell) Instagram  

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I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstor.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. It's the ultimate showdown. Free weights versus machines, slow reps versus fast reps,

strict form versus looser form, full range of motion versus short range of motion and hit cardio versus steady state cardio. If you always wondered which one was superior, just stay tuned. We're going to answer that for you. Let's go.

The ultimate showdown. I wanted to pick the ones that tend to cause the most questions and controversy and debate and discussion and the ones that have a little bit of science to support each side. Yeah, these are good conversations. I think, I mean, I think the

the common theme we'll find in all of them is they're all tools. But it does seem as though people getting camps with each of them. Totally. Where it's like, this is the way or this is better. So that's what they do more of or only of. And so I think that's, so it makes for a good discussion and probably for us to make the case of why and how you use each of. All right. Let's start with the first one.

Free weights versus machines. We've talked about this before. I think we have to frame this properly because the debate. the debate or the discussion, or I should say people will disagree when they don't have the proper framing, people typically look at strength training and just look at hypertrophy. Yeah. They just say what builds the muscle activation and hypertrophy. That's their entire argument.

That's it. And if it's just about building muscle, I can make the argument that free weights are better, but there's data that says that they're kind of similar, if not the same. But so you have that. So I'll just, I'll agree with that. Fine. Let's just say they're the same. Is that all you get from strength training?

No. You also get strength and you need usable strength. How does it work in the real world? You also have individuality. How does the exercise fit the person? And then you have health and mobility. Which one is going to, if done properly, is going to lead to healthier joints and healthier movement patterns.

Now that I framed it that way, I think it's a, Easy knockout. I'd like to see the... Free weights. I'd like to even see the studies, because I know we have some of our... We have some smart friends of ours that are big advocates

for machines on hypertrophy. But I'd like to see those. Yeah. One, I'd like to see those done in... Long-term studies. Long-term... Even just a year. Like, I don't need like super long-term,

but a year worth of both. Yeah, you won't find a year long study. And then I'd also like to see things more than just like muscle activation stuff, Because that's where the, a lot of the argument comes from that, right? Because machines do a really good job. They don't isolate, but emphasizing a muscle. You have less to worry about it.

Yeah, because there's less stability involved. You're locked in a position. You can really focus on that muscle. And so when you use the machines that show like the lighting up the muscle, it's like, oh, this is really lighting it up. But I would argue the stabilization part due to the free weights and skill and C&S, piece and adaptation you get to that, the carryover to that of for total muscle building long term, I would think that those studies would pretty much.

I agree. And looking at like continual benefits that you gain. Yeah. Yeah. So like if if you're continuously using this style, like if you were to draw this up even the year to two years and like you stayed in that, that camp, like I would be very interested to look at the difference between that person and their. strength abilities. Yeah, I'll back you. I'll back you guys up. So when you're doing an exercise,

there's a skill component, and then there's the adaptations that occur or that are induced from the exercise. There's a learning curve with the skill. So in the beginning, you have to get good enough at the exercise before you can do it well enough to induce the muscle growth adaptations. Okay, so you got to learn how to do it first. So there's a learning curve. In other words, if you gave me 50 random people and 25 of them did the leg press for 30 days and then 25 of them did the barbell squat for 30 days, you're going to see more strength gains in the leg press group. Why?

Because a leg press requires very little skill. I can take the average person having leg press. The average person is probably going to take me 60 days to get them good enough at a squat to be able to do it in a way to now we're starting to build muscle. Oh, yeah. So when studies are short, It doesn't tell the whole story.

Now, I agree with you, Adam. Because of the skill involved, because it's more of a technical exercise, the gains continue far longer than they wouldn't leg press. Whereas the leg press will cause a faster plateau. That's based on my experience. We don't have studies support that because you're right. There are no studies that a year long. At best, or 16 weeks. Also, the limitation you have by just with machines, like, that doesn't translate into other exercises.

very well at all. Or even just movement in general doesn't translate very... You're lifting in the real world. You're always lifting something that is free. You're never lifting something on a track or in some kind of controlled manner. It's where it's controlled for you.

If I have to move this table or a couch or my kids or anything, it's free. So the transfer of strength to the world is isolated. Most these studies are what? At best, 10 to 16 weeks long? Yeah, typically. So, I mean... At least the ones you want to pay attention.

And what I would guess what we would see on a graph is, you know, relatively close as far as muscle gain in those, say, 16 weeks. And then what, but if we were to extend that out for an entire year, what I think you would see is that you'd see the machines start to plateau. And you would see the freeways continue to. And the gap would increase. The more time, the more that gap would increase. That's right. So if we took somebody and we literally said, you only can do two exercises. You can do a leg press or a hack squat.

And this person learned barbell back squat in two years. Yeah. Only those two movements and extended all the way out. No competition. Well, not to mention the dysfunction that's going to create. Right. If you get that strong for that long doing the same thing and it's not in combination with a movement pattern that is beneficial, like you're going to end up being too strong in one specific

area, which the other, if you're not like in combination, supplementing. I think what you're saying is, is not argued. Like I think that's a, like, like, no functional person would be like, would make the argument that the machine is better. The argument that I think that Sal's alluding to the most is the hypertrophy one. There's a hypertrophy camp. That's their argument. That will really push the machine argument more.

And I, that one's more fun to debate to me. Because I think yours is like, a lay. That's how my brain goes. I know. That's what I mean. That's like, like, your argument is like, like, find me a functional person that would argue that what you're saying isn't true. or find me even a muscle building person that would try and argue against you

what you're saying because that's obvious to me. But there's a lot of people that will in the muscle building hypertrophy community that will say machines are as good or better at hypertrophy than free weights are. And I like that argument. That's more fun to me because what we see in these studies are so short.

That's right. And it doesn't tell the whole story about free weights. And if you just were to take two simple movements like a leg press or hack squat for the machine camp, to pick either one of those or both, I don't care, and then just put it

against a barbell back squat, but extend it for two years and the groups could only do those things. Oh, God. The barbell back squat is going to smoke that person's age. Now, again,

from a hypertrophy point. And now, just to kind of mix both of them together, let's just say for argument's sake, they're equivalent for muscle growth. They're the same. What if I could throw in some extra you're stronger in the real world,

you've got better function. Well, that's now a justice. longer. Like, cool. Like, okay, so now we have a winner, but I argue the same thing. You say, Adam. And we train people for years and we train ourselves for years, but mainly clients for years. Machines are, there's value in machines, but when you're comparing with free weights,

they're limited. Here's the other thing. Machines don't work well for everybody. Free weights, I can adapt to anyone. The free weight adapts to your body. Machine, your body has to adapt to the machine. there's many times a guy like me, and I'm not huge,

I'm only six foot tall, but I'm taller than the average, where I have to get in the machine and angle my body differently so that it works properly because a machine is designed for a five foot nine man. That's what the,

so if you're a short girl, if you're a tall guy, if you've got a movement that isn't somewhat outside of whatever, then machines can be kind of weird whereas a freeway follows your body and it fits everybody. Now, just to play devil's advocate.

And so we, like, because I know how quickly this can turn into like the you know get clipped and it's like we're making this argument for throw machines away like there's plenty of times where i i'm using machines with a client and not using a freeway barbell back squat or something like that we're not saying don't use machines but especially if you're talking risk factors yeah there's there is a lot of of times where um i'm going to use a machine over the free weights with a client for a very specific reason but if we're talking in general and we're trying to compare somebody who's looking for the the the max amount of muscle

they want to build, there is arguments that it's been tried to be made on the hypertrophy side for machines. And I disagree. I think that free weights is better. All right, now reps, slow reps versus fast reps, or I'll say slow rep would be a tempo. What's their traditional tempo? Is it a two, two one four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, seven, four, four, two second negative, two second positive, two second pause versus faster rep. For like bodybuilding. For like bodybuilding. Four two two, two two second pause versus faster reps. These are reps that are... 111.

Yeah, 111. For most people, by the way, from a muscle building standpoint, okay? So we'll start there because everybody's interested in that. They're pretty similar. They're probably identical. 111 versus a 422. You're going to build probably the same amount of muscle and it's going to look the same. Now, there's a very big difference in risk.

Risk is, yeah. And there's also a very big difference in ethnic. performance. Risk way lower with a 4-2-2, way lower with slow reps. Fast reps, the risk goes through the roof in comparison. For athletic performance, fast reps are going to translate better to the field. Optimal. Than slow reps.

So here you got to kind of pick which one works best for you, but I can tell you this. 90% of the people listening right now are going to be better off doing the slower reps than the faster reps. Yeah, I wouldn't make the argument they would even build more muscle if we had to extend, again, extend something out for a, you know, one year period of time. And one group only did fast reps. One group did four two two. I would make the case that you would build more.

Well, are you throwing in that you're going to hurt yourself? And then I'll stop the progress. No, not even that. Let's assume you have great technique in both. Oh, really? Yeah, great technique in both. And let's assume it's novel for both, like those, all things being equal. I know this would be very hard to put a study together like this.

where you'd have, you know, equal skill sets and novelty for both these. But let's just pretend that. I would argue the 4-2-2 for building muscle because with a 11-1-1-1, there's more maybe functional. Hyperchifue-wise, yeah. I agree. Yeah, hypertrophy-wise. You would get maybe stronger off of 1-1-1-1.

Yeah, I think so. So I think you would get stronger, but I think you would build more muscle on a 4-2-2. Your capacity to generate force. That's right. Like so, in other words, what would end up happening, when you would end up is you would, you would look like, again, this is generalizing,

but the one who goes one-one-one-one, would be stronger like a Olympic lifter. Yeah. And the 4-2-2 would be weaker, but look more. C&S versus muscular muscle hyper. Exactly. So for athletic performance, 101, that's a silly argument.

Duh, like that's going to translate to athletic performance way better because that's sports. sports moves quick. The slower reps, here's what the data shows. The data shows that they're pretty similar when it comes to building muscle. However, I'll agree with you guys.

Why? When you look at the strength sports, when you look at all the sports that use weights, the ones that tend to build the most muscle or the ones that tend to have athletes that look the most muscular, and this isn't the best way to measure things, but bodybuilders and power lifters

tend to train with slower reps. Olympic lifters definitely train with the faster reps. And you'll see a difference in the way they look, generally speaking. Now, yes, I know that there's some genetic polymorphisms that tend to make you better at one

or the other, but there's definitely been crossovers. There's definitely been athletes. Sergio Olivia, bodybuilder in the 60s and 70s, was an Olympic lifter before he became a bodybuilder. And his style of training changed and so did his physique

as he changed. So my favorite argument. Marinovich is like, you know, pretty muscular, but it was all fast-twitch. So my favorite argument to make with this in regards to building muscle is that the one that's more novel will build the most muscle for you. Yeah. So if you are somebody who typically only trains in like the slow rep range and you're,

and we're making that 4-2-2, right? So you train like a bodybuilder and you always train that way. You'll see tremendous muscle gains by going to a one-on-one. I agree. Let me caution people right now. If you've been strength training for years and you've built a lot of muscle and you decide next week I'm going to start going one-one-one, real careful. Yikes. Go real light.

Because you've got a lot of muscle. You've got a lot of strength. You're not used to moving quickly. And this is injury city for people. Tendence and joints. Yeah. Or muscle tear. Yeah, muscles.

So it's a skill that you got to slowly build yourself up to. And there's also a reason why personal trainers almost never train 1-1-1. The risk factor is just very high. Strength training, especially as you're pushing intensity, there's always a risk of injury. If you want to multiply that times 10, just do the same thing faster. So that's the big reason why. But if you're an athlete, like, this is how you make your strength explosive. This is explosive strength.

And explosive strength counts more than any other type of strength. The best thing I ever did as, you know, someone who identifies as like the bodybuilder type was moving away from the 4-2-2. I trained that way for so long. Would you do? Was it just high, just, uh, high cleans or? I mean, I did a bunch of stuff. I, it's just even like a bench press explosive. There's stuff that I would never have done in the past.

I was so the opposite at that all movements done in an explosive type of fashion, you know, my push presses. I didn't do push presses until I hung out with Justin. I didn't do movements like that because, you know, that bodybuilders didn't train that way. I didn't think that. And I, again, I fell for the trap of hypertrophy training is 4-2-2, you know, so like, why would I ever, I'm not trying to be an Olympic lifter. What do I care if I get, but, but simply moving out of that box and going, oh, what if I did train like a Olympic lifter or power lifter for a while and see what happens? I mean, I saw some of the greatest muscle gains I've ever seen. And so if you're

some ideas, cool. If you are a hypertrophy guy and you've never just experimented with some of your movements done in that and again, I caution you, but if you're an advanced lifter, like I trust that you would be able to do that. No problem. Like move to some of these, you know, explosive type movement and watch the gains come on. Yeah. All right. Full range of motion. This is probably the easiest one versus short range of motion.

There's no, no comparison. There are applications for short range of motion. High level competitive athletes. What I mean by high level is like the higher, higher ages in high school and up, but definitely call. Why LeBron James does quarter squats and it went viral. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But early athletes, full range of motion.

But as you get more specialized, short range of motion is more applicable to athletics. Short range of motion can also be good if you're targeting a range of motion that you need help in. So if it's like at the bottom or if it's lockout or whatever. Otherwise, it's always full range of motion. The strength that you build really translates or comes from the range of motion you train. So it would be stupid for most people to build strength anything other than the full range of motion. and then the data does show full range of motion produces the most muscle growth.

So aesthetically speaking, it's what you want. It's almost always that, right? It's almost always a very specific, whenever there's a case for short range of motion, it has to be a very specific athletic application or sticking point type of application, right? I mean, I can't ever see. You'll see bodybuilders.

Bodybuilders will do it sometimes where they're doing like the pumping wraps and the kind of stretch position. Yeah, for sticking points. Yeah, well, no, bodybuilders, I think do it because it like the pump that it does. I don't know if you watch. It's novelty too, though.

I mean, for the most part, they like to interrupt their normal training and do these shortened reps. But yeah, to your point, is it's athletics. It actually can make a solid argument for that just because of the amount, like if you look specifically of where

we need to focus on generating the most force, uh, most effectively, like why, why steer beyond that? Because, um, this is, this is where all the gold is to stay there and emphasize it. And it's not.

just that, Justin, although that's a big part of it. The other part of it is when you're training a high-level athlete, what you don't want to do... Preservation. You also don't want to mess up their skill. Yep. So if, so some, a basketball player has to kind of do a partial squat to jump. And there's a risk of training full range of motion squats to where it starts to mess with their technique. Yeah. So the, so you're always strengthening their technique rather than giving them general strength. Otherwise things can kind of, it would throw it off. It's like taking a pro basketball player who has, uh, you know, You know, movement patterns.

I'm going to correct your movement patterns. Don't correct the movement patterns because they're so good with the movement patterns that if you correct them, now you've changed everything. It's the same thing like, you know, stretching and making sure you're super loose. Like, you know, it's like you need that tightness. You need that rigidity to really create and optimize your force direction. By the way, you know who has what Bodybuilder has some of the best technique and range of motion I've ever seen? Chris Bumstead.

Have you seen his workouts? Mm-mm. He's got the fullest, like a full range of motion. His technique is, like, flawless. It's like he's a personal trainer. Oh, wow. Except he's a bodybuilder. All right.

Last, high intensity interval training. This is hit cardio versus steady state. It depends on what you are. You bring in Chris Momstead and then you go right into that. Did you see what happened to him, though, when he tried to incorporate sprints? Did he hurt himself? Yeah, yeah. Of course.

Pulled by a hand me, like right away. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to run. Especially it's a new skill. Yeah. You're trying to develop.

Yeah. Hit cardio burns more fat, burns more calories in a shorter period of time. Studies will show it preserves more muscle because it's explosive. There's better athletic performance benefits, yada, yada, yada. Here's the problem with hit cardio. It doesn't, for most people, it's inappropriate. Yeah, it's prerequisites are required. That's right.

It's just too intense. It burns them out. Risk factors, you know, that's how you really weigh this one out. Steady state works for everybody. Yeah, I mean, this really depends on, in my opinion, what the client is seeking, right? Like, if you, if you, like, what's great about hit is that in a very short period of time, I can, I can reap some solid cardiovascular benefits. So if I had a client who's just like, hey, I want to, I want to build a little bit of, you know, endurance, stamina, cardio, cardiovascular health, 12 minutes of hit cardio is a short window to do something like that. so it makes sense and that it would win for something.

If we're talking about hypertrophies, body sculpting that direction, then steady-state cardio all day long. It's lower intensity, more overall movement. Also, easier to implement throughout your day, too, instead of it doesn't have to be recuperative as well. It gives you that muscle blood flow. Yes. So, like, these versus each other, really, to me, it has a lot to do with like, okay, what

are you trying to accomplish here? because I could make an argument for hit for specific things. And I can also obviously make an argument for that. But if we're talking about general get ripped, get in shaped aesthetics, like, yeah, steady stayed all day long. Yeah, totally. I got to tell you guys a funny thing my son did out to dinner the other day, which is just, you know, when little kids will do something that you want to get mad, but you'll kind

of hide your face and laugh first. Yeah. Especially if it's super honest. Yes. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, like, you shouldn't have done that, but you got to hide your face. We were at a restaurant. We're all eating out. And my wife bought these, like, they're like coloring books, but you don't color them with

like crayons or markers. They come with these like brushes that you add water to. They're awesome. Do you use them? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then when you paint with them, it's just water comes out. And then when the water touches the paper. Yeah. So when it touches the paper. It's the most brilliant thing they made for this. The paper changes color. So they use the brush and the paper itself changes color. It's really cool.

So she bought these and it's easy at a restaurant because you can just fill it up with the water from your cup. So my kids are coloring me with this, right? And so my son, you know, my son, Arraleigh says walking around and he's coming back and painting. And he walks over and gets some water. And he walks over and I'm looking at him. I can tell he's like, he's got the, you know, cheeks.

Like, what's he doing? And he looks at it down his page and just spits a bunch of water. He just sits it out. It just spits all over the table, hell of water. And I knew what I know was mentality. He wants to see what happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

He's figuring out how this thing works. Dude, he just spit all over the table. Like, we're all eating, or trying to eat dinner. He just spit water all over the table. You know, there's like full restaurant, people around.

Exactly what we do. Like, Jessica and I picked up the menus. We're just cracking up real quick before we scold him for spinning on the table. He's just smearing in it. Oh, yeah. But I know his head, you know, he's like, oh,

that's water? Trying to figure it out. Let me just spit on this. He's trying to figure out. He's obviously pieced it together on how it works. But you got it. modern artist. You also got to be like,

because I remember what it was like to be a little boy. So you got to call, you got to make sure that you, like, don't do this. Like you think to yourself, like I shouldn't have to tell him to throw a napkin in the fire that's at the restaurant

because I have a fire outside to be warm. Yeah. Like, but I'm like, no, you need to tell your, you need to tell your five-year-old. You actually have to say that. Oh, yeah. If you have a five-year-old,

yeah, especially a little boy, you got to tell him, hey, don't throw any napkins or anything in that fire. Because for sure, he sees the fire. First thing you're going to do. And it's what I did.

Let me throw a straw in there. Let me see what. Oh, yeah. Let's try to find insects. You know, they make the Crayola markers like that too, right? Oh, you add water? No, you don't even, they're actually built in. So they're like all the colors.

Uh-huh. And they're white tips, but it'll. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be read on. And then they'll come with certain books. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of the most brilliant.

Like, that didn't exist when we were kids. And I remember as a kid. marking up tables and marking things up. And that won't. Yeah, it doesn't mark anything. Have you seen the one where you take the markers, you put them in this like device, you close it, and then it blows air through

and it becomes like an airbrush? No. It's also Creole. So you'll airbrush with a regular marker. You put a regular marker in there. Innovation I missed. There's a lot of really cool. I saw, I showed you guys too,

like the leapfrog one for reading way back when where you push the pen down and as it goes over the words, it reads it to him. You were, let's see, you were probably probably, I bet you Doug and Justin were big coloring book, guys. Oh, yeah.

I colored everything. Huge. All you guys were? My buddy did a thing for the 80s, 80s starter pack for when you were sick. His said, Gatorade, saltine crackers, prices right, and... Oh, my God. All of that, bro. So mine was almost like that.

So mine was seven up, saltine crackers, prices right, and coloring book. My mom always brought me a coloring book whenever I was sick. Like, literally, saltine crackers, seven up, and then I would... color and watch Price is right at home from school. Wow. That is the recipe. I know. That's a little tussing in there. Yeah. That's an 80s. That's an 80s kid like home from. Price is right. This is how you know I'm ethnic, right? Because mine was ginger ale, but I think some people have ginger ale here. Yeah. Pastina. So Pastina is these tiny little pastas. Oh yeah, yeah. The little. And Italians give. Like a saltine crackers.

Kids whenever they're sick. Yeah. And then she just let me watch TV all day, which is cool. Yeah. Which was Price's Right. Price's Right was on. Yeah. At that time. Yeah. So all of you guys were big. I never. I never. I would color, but I still like color. I would turn it into a war, you know? So like, there would just be body parts and whatever flying on fire and then like, yeah. What was in your head, bro? What was going on?

You know, if you were a kid today, they would have sent you to therapy. Yeah, they would. They would have been really concerned. What movies is that super bad? Is it super bad? What movies are the kids like, yeah, yeah. Well, that's where he draws all the dicks. Yeah, yeah.

So that came later. That was like when I was a teenager and I was just bored. You know, and I was like in the DMV class, especially it was, all the drivers, drivers in. Like, you're in there and like, I'm like, oh my God, like, it's so boring. You're probably really good at growing those. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just all the little details.

Wow, bro. I still like the color. When Max has projects where he has the color, I always do it with it. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate it. Really? I hate it.

Oh, it's such a like. My wife will color with the kids all the time. It's like, it's like satisfied. It is. Yeah. It's meditative for sure for me. That's why my wife does it. I used to draw one of a little, though, too.

though. Did you guys ever draw? Like, I was, I actually could draw on. I used to rate stories. Uh, yeah. I wish I was better at drawing. I wrote all kinds of crazy stories. You know, it's crazy was, I was good. I'm not anymore. Yeah. So I, so my mom has like a whole bunch of stuff when I was like in, you know, elementary, junior high, even all the way to high school or where I drew a lot of really good pictures. And I've tried to sit down and draw again. I just, I'd not know where, like, I was better as a kid than I am out. It's because of the drugs. It's stupid. Speaking of Speaking of which

You're, bro, I'm telling you right now, dude I, I don't even know if this is a condition. Can we say the moody's? Can we say the moody's? Can we say that, Doug?

I would say that's a condition. Because organifies, happy drops have cured sort of a characteristic. Adams moody. It's the new tagline. The moody's, organivize happy drops,

cures moody. Just balance you out, gets rid of the moody's. If you come in and eat that, I'm like, he's going to be, you know, he's still going to get mad.

It's like candy. That's like candy. It's nostalgic for me. Well, hey, all joking aside. So try it with your wife. If you look up, Doug, you can look this up. Saffron as an SSRI. It's like one of the most studied ones.

It is a natural SSI. It will naturally raise serotonin in your system by inhibiting to a extent the re-uptake of serotonin. So when your body releases serotonin, it'll absorb a certain amount of it back up. And so SSRIs are drugs, right? And what they do is they reduce the re-uptake of it. increasing circulating serotonin, which gives you the calming effects, the mood lifting effects, all that stuff. Safron is a, it's a, well, potential SSRI alternative, although it does increase serotonin levels,

so they're calling it a natural SSR. I wonder if I sneak this in my youngest breakfast. Is he moody? Yeah, he's so angry in the morning. Really? What is, like, serotonin, melatonin, like, what's the, is there an inverse relationship? Are they connected? like if you have low levels of one, does it tend to affect you?

What a great question? What made you ask that? Well, I was just thinking about like all my, like, what I've been working on with my supplementation at night, getting better sleep, all those things. Like if there's like some sort of a inverse or. Too much melatonin can cause a depression. Yeah. And so I was wondering if it would.

Yeah. But there's, there's probably the, I think there's a connection. You should look that up, uh, connection or relationship. There you go. I think super high, like if you were to take a bunch, a direct precursor product relationship where their brains, yeah, pinil gland converts.

Oh, there you go. The pineal gland converts serotonin into melanan, melatonin, especially in the dark. What a great question.

Third eye. Look at this car. You're reading stuff. Not even talking about. No, no, you hide it in your car magazine. All these supplements are kicking in.

Benefits of not knowing much, you don't say. You got a lot of questions. Shut up, dude. Hey. Listen, I got it.

I got some, so, you know, we did the whole thing with Scott, with the, um, that was, it's been so good for our staff and our families and that. So the newest one for me, uh, I bought the three jars. We actually haven't even fully. Oh, I haven't done that yet.

Yeah. So I bought the three jars. I haven't implemented. Explain that again. Well, so it's, uh, save, uh, invest and, um, a give. So those are the three jars. It's like, so what I asked him was, because some of the money stuff like his like gigs that he, he teaches is kind of more towards, I'd say, you guys as kids age. It's like, Matt,

isn't quite at the age yet where he can understand. Pay him for jobs? Yeah, paying for jobs. Like where he's, so he's, I'm like, how can I start to introduce it? And he told me, he's like, three jars, there's save, there's invest, and then there's give. And then, uh, as, you know, as you get him to do little things that you, and he, or he gets gifted money, like you can teach him how to separate all that stuff. Well, he's, he's accumulated quite a bit of money over, you know, the last, you know,

four or five years or whatever, just from like, like, tooth fairy, birthdays, things like that. And so he's up to like a hundred and something bucks. and, you know, we're like, okay, we're trying to start this. And so we're at the gate, he's just like, I want to buy this Lego. And Katrina and I are part of this is like, okay, hey, what we need to do to help him start to learn this relationship is just when he wants to buy some like this, like let's help teach him how he needs to save for it and use his money or work, whatever. And so unless it's not as a birthday, right?

So there's no reason. It's just a, it's like just $100 Lego once. And so Katrina's like, okay, well, let's see how much money you have. And, you know, so he's got. like he had like 110 or something like it was like 105 or something like that and so he's like awesome I have enough like let's go buy it you know and I'm like I'm like okay I said well if you do that then it's gonna be a really long time until you can get another one he's like I'll just figure I'll figure out how to make more money you know and I'm like okay so this is our

I have no idea how this is going to go because we literally just spent all of his money already that he had already kind of saved up on his first Lego so I'm really interested to see oh I'll predict. I'll predict. Your kid is not impulsive. I think he'll be perfectly fine. Yeah, it'll be interesting. He's really good at like waiting and working and you've told me, you've put things up and said, you can earn this. Whereas my, so my daughter will, like, if she sees a toy she's supposed to get by getting so many stars. Yeah. I mean, every day she's going to cry for it. Even though she knows she only has got three stars. So some kids are a little bit more. Yeah. It was funny. I think he'll be fine. Because I told you guys a long time ago with Everett,

like he had this monster goal of trying to get a pinball machine, you know, and he was young. And I was just like, those are really expensive, buddy. Like, I mean, I love that you have like a lofty goal, but like,

let's do like smaller. But I was like, you know, if you want to start saving and we kind of went through that whole process. And he got pretty far to the point where it was like a quarter of the way there. And I was like, oh, but I'm like,

once you get to half, you know, I'll start kind of matching. And then, but we, we never got past that quarter. And so it, you know, he learned that process. And now it's like, okay, I'm going to start everything now is like a smaller goal.

And he's like an achievable thing. And then he's going to build off of that. But like he had to kind of go through the pain of that. That's why I'm like that. That's why I'm letting it go this way because I'm like, it's going to be a long time before he can save $100 again. Like I'm like, maybe we should get like a small, no, I want that one. I'm like, okay. Maybe one of his uncles in here will give him 100.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, remember when we first were starting to try and teach him how to, to make money, like, he was a little bit younger and all he could do was color. And so and he's, all the family is such a sucker. So he colored. $20.000. See, yeah, I sold 10 bucks, 20 bucks. Sold him all the

grandparents. That's how part of how you got that money. So my wife and I are we're aligned in a lot of things, but one of the things that we can work on is when it comes to giving the kids money for jobs, we're so ridiculous, pro. They'll do a job and it'll be like 50 bucks.

Yeah, dude. You go to the trash. It's like $50. For the teenagers. It's for the teenagers. Well, we had a... But it's like they'll do something like, like my daughter will cook dinner for us one night. And this includes prep, cooking, you know, cleaning up.

Or my niece will like break down boxes and do something else. So it's like a job that'll take like two to three hours. Oh, hey, that's not... I mean, cook. It's like 50 bucks. Hey, cook, clean and prep, all that. That's a... You think 50 bucks is okay for that?

I mean, it's a little high for a kid just because it sets the barker and I, but that's not crazy. Okay. That's not like taking out the tracks 50 bucks That's like that's ridiculous I feel better then Because I mean that I mean just the hourly Just the hourly on that alone

You figure at minimum wage would be almost that So I did that math in my head Yeah But I'm also like you're not getting a real job though No no no This is your dad No no I mean you should have done a little cheaper But I don't think that's so crazy egregious

You know what I thought was egregious that we did That we got screwed in It was like we had a max went through this phase Just like a month ago Where we like lost hell of teeth And I just don't have cash on me all the time like that. And so like, you know, we had some couple dollar bills laying around for the first few. You did a Bitcoin.

Well, no. It was a 20, but it was just like, we, we, because we, yeah, it was like a one, the first one was like a $1 bill or a couple of dollar, you know, we had laying around. And then we had like, I have no, we have nothing. I had nothing. I had nothing with, I had 20s and hundreds at the house. That was all I had. And, like, and it was late at night.

It was like, eight o'clock at night. I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to go, how am I going to get any small bills? And so, yeah, so you did get one tooth for 20 plus. Yeah. I remember the first time, the first time I got paid by my parents. We're old school, right? So you just did, you know, work with her. But when I was maybe 13 or 12, I think it was 13.

I used to go to work with my dad all the time, probably since the age of eight, where he would take me in the summers to work. But I didn't really work. He was just, now looking back, by the way, this gets me choked up because I'm doing that better man thing at the church and we're talking about our dads. And I'm having all these realizations. My dad, the way he connects, because he didn't really connect with his dad, but the way he connected was the way he learned how to connect, which was through work.

Okay. Now as a kid, I just thought my dad was taking me to work. Now as an adult, while I was talking about, like, this was my dad's way or attempt at connecting with his son. He would just take me to work. So eight years old, you know, every summer, I'd go to work with him. And as a kid, you know, really do anything. He'd just grab me the hammer, grab me this.

Yeah, yeah. And I'd go play outside or something like that. But right around 13, I could actually do some work. And there was this first summer where my cousin and I went to go work for my dad and my uncle. And we were legit, like mixing cement, you know, carrying the buckets the same. and in, you know, cleaning the tools or whatever. That's some, I remember that. Towards the end of that summer, I'm in the work van with my dad.

And, you know, by this time I'm working, so I'm exhausted or I'm sitting there. And my dad, you know, he looks and he goes, Sovito. I'm like, yeah, and he goes, give me a cat. And I don't know what to do. He gave me this, this water cash. I'm like, no, I can't take it. He's like, no, no, you earn it. And I took this money.

And I bought a bike. I bought like a BMX bike. Oh, yeah? Yeah. But I'll never forget. Like, he gave me this, I didn't expect it. Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to give it back to my dad.

I'm like, I can't, I can't accept this or whatever. Oh, wow. I took it. And it was, yeah, I don't think I don't, I'm trying to remember. I think one summer, but most of all the times that I went to work, my, my, my dad, I didn't get paid. It was like, that was just like coming to work. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't start getting, I didn't start getting paid. So I, you had your own job. Yeah, until we figured it out. Like, I figured out the, the lawnmowing gig. I used to have to mow our own lawn at home. That was part of chores. And that wasn't like I got paid for.

How old were you when you started doing that? 13? 14 14. And you were just doing the neighborhoods? Yeah, we went to the, I, I, we would, my, my buddy and I both did it together. We made flyers and, uh, our mom. Like photocopied flyers? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, you had a company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Yeah. I didn't have an LLC, but we had a name. You know what I mean. You know the I

know the logo? Yeah, of course. And you know, and you know the, and you know the, the, the logic was like, even though we never made the yellow pages. It was like, A and J would be on the first in the Oh, my God, bro. You were like that back then. Yeah, yeah. So we thought that out. And we went and we literally just, we had our moms drop us off in the rich neighborhoods on the other side of town. My mom had a minivan.

So we just had to like take out the backseat, put the lawn mowers and all the edgers inside the lawnmower. We would unload them down the block and then we would push them down the street, walk up to the doors, knock on door to door. And then hand them their flyer and say, hey, we will mow edge your front, back lawn, whatever you want to do. And we would just, we get customers. way. That's so great. And then eventually that turned into like, hey, I need my fence stained. Would you guys do that? And would you like, we, so we did all these kind of odd jobs. But it was 10 bucks, 10 bucks a lawn. And, uh, you know, I made it, I mean, for a kid on the weekends, like I made good money in high school until I got like a real job where I was,

then once I got my license, then I worked a factory job that was really early in the morning. So I'd do that and that was assembly line stuff I've told you guys about before. And then eventually the dairy. And then the dairy was like my first real. Doug, how old were you with when you had your first job? Were you young too? 16 was actually my first real job. What'd you do? I went to Boston and I worked from my uncle. He has a had an automobile repair shop. Oh wow. You had a legit job. Yeah. I was out there. For like the summer? Like for the summer. And you know, if Boston is super humid. And I'd be outside because they didn't have enough room inside. So I'd be taking off like pulling out spark plugs.

Do you remember what you got paid back then? Oh, maybe two something an hour? Yeah. I was four and a quarter, so he had to be way less. But I will say, after that summer, I knew I didn't want to do that. Yeah. And so the next summer, my brother and I, we started a business. It was 17?

At 17. Wow. So we had a friend that had purchased a pressure washer and a van and a ladder, and a ladder, and he was going around to the neighbors and cleaning their roofs because there's, you know, Seattle, right? And there's moss that builds up on these cedar shake roofs. And so we went out, we bought a van. In 1966 Dodge Van.

You were 17, you bought a van? My brother and I did. So my brother's six years older than I am. So we bought this 1966 Dodge Van that was a death trap. The steering was super loose. It was horrible. We bought a ladder. We bought a pressure washer.

And we went around, knocked on doors all summer, got jobs. But the beautiful thing is we got paid, like sometimes two. $300 a job. Wow. Yeah. For some back then. Yeah. So that's how I paid for college is doing that in the summertime.

You paid for all your college by washing roofs. Yeah. Wow. That was my first entrepreneurial endeavor. That's a lot of a home run right out of the gates. It was. It was. It spoiled me for life.

Yeah. You know, there was something about like, I bet Justin can relate to this because I think you still are liked stuff with this. Like when I was working the dairy, and I mean, that was like, talk about a shit job. I mean, literally, I had to get, I had rubber boots and full jumpsuit coveralls that were just covered. This is before school. Yes, before, like, 4 o'clock in the morning, right? But I loved it.

There was something about, like, something that was getting my hands dirty and hard work and, like, that I had to get out of a full jumpsuit of shit. You know what I mean? It was just something about, yeah, there was something about that that I enjoyed and I felt like I earned every penny of what I did for the day. I think that's what it was. It was more bragging rights. And, like, too, like, I prided myself in doing stuff that most people wouldn't do, you know? Maybe that's what it was. How old were you, Justin?

What's your first one? Well, so, I mean, I was like 10 when I started, like, dog walking business. But it was like, I walked all the neighbors' dogs and then I fed all their animals. And so I was just like, yeah. Was that your idea? Or did your dad suggest it was. Well, yeah, this lady approached me. I was at, like, the post office.

And we were down there and she was like, hey, you know, because she recognized me from the neighborhood and was asking me if I could ever like walk her dogs for her. And so I just started doing that. And she paid me like a 50 cent piece. And I thought it was so cool. I was like, oh, I want to get a bunch of these. End up getting like $300 worth. Wow. 50 cents.

Every time I made 50 cents. And then like somebody else heard about it and then they recommended me. And I honestly, like my neighborhood, I was like the whipping boy. everybody. Like I was pulling weeds for everybody. I was washing cars. Like, you name it. Like, I did everything. You know, it's crazy. If a 10 year old was randomly walking dogs right now, somebody would call authorities from the parent. If you just saw a random 10 year old doing a bunch of work by themselves. Nobody does that anymore. So stupid. Yeah, yeah. So they started out doing that. And then I was like, eventually started working for my dad. And he was in like the wood window

business and so I would go on jobs reglazing windows and replacing doors and then was responsible for the warehouse and like unloading offloading trucks from yeah 4 a.m. until like 5 p.m. and it was just exhausted, you know, and get home and just would crash. But then I, from there it was all construction jobs. Like literally like I, my dad had me shadow a few guys who would just like I told you that one story where I was like, this guy was like rebuilding this whole house and like I was underneath the house and he's teaching me about plumbing and I had to replace a pipe and immediately it was the sewer line and I had just old just sludgy shit just fall on my arm and

it was like I literally got out and I left the job. I'm like I'm never doing this again. So plumbing was out but yeah I was I learned yeah like electrical. I was like electrical. I learn roofing, I learned framing. I mean, you name it, dude. I pretty much stem to stern. But again, like, I built a deck for my, for my dad. He used to hire me to do things around the house for that kind of stuff in a shed. And then, yeah, got busy with football.

That's awesome. I was washing dishes 15. My grandfather's old Italian buddy who owned a restaurant, Angelou's restaurant, San Jose. It's not there anymore. And I'd be in the back, hustle in washing dishes, and Eve's dropping on So you guys both were like connected to family, something like that. Or you and I were like outside. I'd like doing something.

Like my family didn't. My family did. Although I did my uncle, I painted for my uncle. So I did do one summer I worked as we're talking about it. Something like, oh, that's right. I forgot. I did that. I built fences.

I did painting. I would take anything I could. Oh yeah. Once I got to a place where I was making money. Yeah, I wouldn't say no. Like I would like if any, anybody who had jobs or anything like that. And I remember always begging my. my boss for overtime.

I'll come out on the weekend and I'll work. You should hear the conversation. I won't say who they are because I don't want to be, but like teenagers in my, like, that I know. Okay. Yeah. And we'll talk about getting work. Oh, well, I don't want to do that.

It's too early. And I don't really want to do that. I don't want to work in that kind of environment. And I just like, pull my hair up. Like, are you kidding me? Yeah. When I was a kid, like, you just offered me a job. I would take anything that you would pay.

I'll do it. I don't even know what you're offering yet. I'll just do it. Yeah. But you hear these complaints. it's like, oh, I think the common denominator is all of our parents didn't have a lot of money. That's true. That's the only way we could get money.

You know, to the construction site, as far as construction sites are concerned for like a teenage boy, boy, you become a man real quick. You learn a lot. You learn a lot. You see a lot. You see a lot. They treat you like you're a grown man. Like, as a 14-year-old boy on the construction site, I am a grown man now. That's how I'm treating.

I have a good story. So my dad allowed this. and he was like, I went out on a job that was like far. I had to stay like in a hotel. Like the guy I was working with, um, you know,

drove the van and like we had to go to the sites and like replace the windows and do all the stuff. So like, you know, we're going to get something to eat and he's like, I just want to make a stop real quick. And so he leaves me in the van. He's like,

you got to stay in here though. Like you can't. And I, I was like waiting in the van and it was, he was in like a, like a titty bar. What? He made you wait.

And I had to wait there the whole time while he's in there throwing dollar bills. Wow. I told me my dad was so mad when I got back and I told him. But yeah, it was just so funny. But that's, again, like, I was like, I was having, what are you doing? I was having this conversation with my wife because she's like, you don't care what bathroom were near. You can just use the bathroom. She needs a clean, like certain bathroom.

And in fact, I'll wait until I get home. And I don't care. She's like, why don't you care? I'm like, I work construction as a. a kid. Like the port-a-potties, you learn how to use a port-a-potty? You don't, I don't care. You put me anywhere. I don't care. Those are the worst. Those were the worst, dude. You go in there after the big construction guy had his, you know, what they call it the, the Door-Dash burrito. Oh, yeah. Door-Dash Brito. That's where I learned that, too. People only know what we're talking about. They think it's you

order Door-Dash. Door-Dash burrito is you buy a frozen burrito in the summer. Put it on the dash. Put it on the dash the car. By the time as much time, it's the cheese melted. Yeah, wrapped in foil. They heat up right to glass. Built-in microwave. Or the, uh, or the, the, the, the, the, the, the 50-pound concrete bag over your head. Can you hold it for 10 seconds? Oh, bro. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you hold this for 10 seconds over your head? Yeah. I could do that. Hey, look, I'll say, X-o knife. Yeah.

All over you. Oh. Everybody, everybody. initiated. That happened. Everybody. I think that's like, I think that's like a universal thing that in construction. Yeah.

If you got it, if you were a young kid, you did that. They got me with that. I had to work the rest of the rest of the day. with the dry concrete all over my hair. That's a good time. Hey, I was going to ask you, Justin, because before the show started, I know, what was it last week when you were starting to get a cold? Yeah, it was all around, and, like, my son had it and brought it into the house.

And I was, like, feeling a little scratchiness. And usually we'll do, like, we'll just do hot water and lemon. And then sometimes some honey in there. And I was like, oh, we have that manukkah. The Manukora. The Manicora. Yeah, yeah. Manuka is the name of the type of honey that's in there.

Monucora is the brand that we work with. Yeah. So I was like, oh, I'll use it this time. And it was great. I mean, it totally coated my throat. I felt like, it felt great. But at the same time, like the next day is when I noticed like it was pretty much gone. It was weird.

So the compound that's very high in the type of honey of Manu Kora, I can't remember the name of it. Doug's not to look it up. MGO. There you go, MGO. It's anti-microbial. very powerfully antimicrobial. Yeah. To the point where they've used it in studies to, for wounds.

Yeah, it heals wounds. I read that. Yes. So better for colds than just like your standard honey then. So here's, yes. So honey in general has got antimicrobial, but this compound is super antimicrobial. So lots of viruses replicate in the throat or in the nasal passage.

And so that's why like zinc lozenges will work in studies. Yeah. It's not that zinc. Now, yes, if you're zinc, is low and you take zinc that's better for your immune system. But what zinc does when it coats your throat is it prevents the replication of the virus. Yeah. So the monochora honey.

It blocks it. Monocora honey is antimicrobial. So it goes in your throw. Must have been that. Yeah. Because I mean, yeah, I probably, it was all around in everybody else was still like complained about that to add that to my stack. Because I noticed a huge difference on the zinc lozenges.

Like that's something that you got me on a long time ago. And I always, if I'm on it right away, I always know. I noticed you putting the monochora in. your yogurt. I put it in my yogurt. This weekend I did a post for them because I used it for my baby back ribs. So my baby back ribs. So what do you coat it? And then you know, so when I, so part of the, my recipe is like I do my rub. I smoke for three hours. After that, I wrap and foil. And when I wrap in foil, I do brown sugar, butter, and drizzle honey. And then you wrap it, seal it. And then I I basically cook it for another two hours in the foil.

And then I peel out. And then I smoke for one more hour after that. And then it was really good. I have a, I don't know if he's a bodybuilder or whatever. He's like a muscle building influencer. Andreas May have. Can you look him up for me, Doug? I've heard that name.

Because I've sent you some videos. Okay. I don't know if I've seen me. I haven't seen a mutant like this in a long time, bro. And what I mean mutant, I mean in every category you think of. He looks like a mutant. muscle-wise. He has strength like a mutant. This guy does things that I've never seen before.

He's like a 300-something-pound six-pack abs jack dude that does one-arm pull-ups. Oh, my, yeah. He does one-arm pull-ups. I don't know if I've seen him. He'll bench press for reps over 600 pounds. Oh, my God. He's this Russian dude in his 20s. That's him. Look at it.

Is he not AI-enhanced? No, he's real, dude. Really? Yes, bro. Larry Wheels went to go hang out with him. And Larry Wheels is like, I've never seen anybody as big and wild. One of those guys that looks as strong as they are. Yeah, like he literally looks.

You should see. Oh, is that real? Yes, bro. There's pictures of him when he was a teenager and he's crazy looking. What is 65 centimeters? How many? 65 centimeter arms. What is that?

I don't know how many is that? What is 65 centimeter? 20 something. What does that say? 58 centimeter forearms? Wow. And even his hands are big. Look at his hands.

Yeah. That's 25.59 inches. Yeah. And what's his forearms? That's more impressive to me. 58 centimeters. How big are his forearms? What is that?

22.83. He's got 228 forearms, bro. So you got to, if you go on his Instagram, you'll, because typically you'll see a freak that is either looks like a freak or can do freak-like, like feats of strength. I mean, he's got to. This guy does it all.

He has a small waist for how big he is, too. Look at him next to Lary Wheels. doing arm wrestling. He was way big. That's crazy. Oh, he's gigantic. And he's like 20-something years old, dude. Huge hands.

Crazy bill. He's only 20-something? He's like in his 20s, dude. I wonder if he has like giantism or something. Well, I think he's on a lot of drugs, too, but he's got crazy. Well, I mean, yeah. Six-five. He's five?

350 pounds. I wonder if he has giant-ism. Bro, six-five? 350 pounds? I've always wondered what Tony Robbins would look like if he was like a power, you know what I'm saying? Can you find him doing one-arm pull-ups? Just type his name, one-arm pull-up. Tony Robb just sounds like enormous.

Yeah. Imagine if he, like, trained, like, a guy like this and took a bunch of it. How bad do you think Tony Robbins snores? I bet snores so bad when he sleeps. He probably has overcome that somehow. His personality. He's not going to let anything like that. Well, you see a CPAP or whatever.

No, dude, there's videos of this guy doing things that I, like squats, bench press, like curls. Yeah, I have not seen this guy. I've seen him do good, like, nice looking 130 pound dumbbell curls. Like, it's, he's insane. He lives in Russia. He doesn't go anywhere else, I think,

from what I've seen. Yeah. He's 20-something? He's already... Yeah, we should look up his age just to double check, but he's, it's the most impressive,

crazy thing I've ever seen. 26. Yeah, he's 26 years old. I don't know if he has his own Instagram. Yeah, I was going to say. He looks. He looks. wheels. I'm not finding an Instagram for him. You could, you could, yeah, if you, you go through

his Instagram. He's 26. I found it. He literally looks like his mid to late 40s. Yeah, dude. Yeah. He's like, he's a jacked. But I mean, that's terrifying. You know what's crazy? Someone that big and that freakish and that insane strength, like, he could just, like, he could just kill you so crudy. Yeah. You're overrising. Look at that bench press. 310 kilogram bench press, bro. That's, what is that? 600 and 30 something or 30, yeah. Oh, it's a clean bench press. Look at that pull up that he's doing vertically where his body, like a gymnast. With a plate on his lap.

That's so crazy. Oh, there's a plate on his lap? Yeah, he's got a plate on his lap. He could do like crazy calisthenic stuff too, which is like not typical. No, dude. That's what I'm saying. 120 pound, 140 pound preacher curl. Yeah.

Yeah, dude. It's crazy. Yeah. Unreal dude. I've never seen this guy. You've never seen him? No, I've never seen him. Yeah, we have different algorithms.

Yeah, we have different algorithms. You have you have you, have you, Hey, 30 reps with curls 190 pounds. Have you noticed, hey, have you noticed how much that's changed? What do you mean? Like, so not just maybe three years ago, it would be less likely that someone this big, this famous, that we all wouldn't have seen just because everyone would see it.

But the way the algorithms become more and more specific to you, that this has not made my algorithm at all. Oh, I see. And so it's like there's we, that's how much the algorithm. rhythm has changed just in the last couple of years is even someone like this who's Uber famous probably but because that's not the content I really watch and fall I've never came across

him whatsoever. Whenever I see like a crazy feat of strength I tend to watch because that to me is just looking at like a bodybuilder like whatever but if you're doing some kind of crick so I saw this guy doing one arm pull-ups I'm like listen typically a guy that does one-arm pull-ups. When you look like that doesn't look like... Yeah I don't watch

this stuff because it makes me depressed. It just makes me feel type of statement as a I don't know why you watch this. This is like, hey, this is like you for you. This is like us telling the bikini competitor girl, like stop following all these other supermodel chicks. Shots fire. Yeah, bro.

It's like that's what that is for you. What are you doing? Fire, bro. You got to see when he, what does that say? He was a rapidly growing teenager. Yeah, but he has giantism, bro. Oh, look at what he? Oh, bro.

Well, that was 17 years old. Look at that video right there. Oh, the left, 17. Yeah. He must have giantism, right? He's got something. He's got something, dude. He was really muscular.

Yeah. Well, there you go, guys. Genetics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try as hard as you want. Good luck to you. Element is an electrolyte powder that has enough sodium to actually make a difference. Here's a deal.

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Our first caller is Jesse from Alberta. What's up, Jesse? How are you? Good. Good, dude. What's happening? No, first I just want to say, thanks. I've listened to you for years.

I think you do a great job and you give great advice and I appreciate your transparency and what you guys relay. So that's really positive. My question is, so kind of in COVID it started. I've always worked out, but I've kind of got some is better than more has got to be better. And I've kind of transitioned in that way where I've got to the point. point now where I lift about five to six days a week, structured cardio, at least half an hour a day type thing, if not more. And I tack on about 30,000 steps a day for the past couple of years

on average. So just wanting to scale back a bit. And also, too, I eat a lot, you know, four to five thousand calories a day. But I do like to eat. So I'm kind of in one of those mindsets where if I scale back the exercise and walking, then I have to scale back the eating. But I feel I could show up a bit better for life if I tailored it back a little bit, but just kind of stuck in that mindset a little bit. One of your guys' advice on that. Yeah, good question, Jesse. So what's, so explain a little bit as to why you're considering scaling back. You said you might be able to show up to life better. What do you mean by that? Sometimes I can get, I think, a little bit fatigued a little bit more than, especially once I get to the evening. I'm a little more tired than I otherwise would be.

Probably could show up a little bit better for work sometimes if I wasn't doing quite as much. So it's, kind of, it's one of those things where I do want to scale back a little bit, not crazy, but, uh, you know, get rid of a few aches and pains and stuff like that. What do you, what do you, uh, just curious, 25 to 30,000 steps is a lot. The only few people I had that were doing that were like refs or had jobs or they were moving like crazy. What do you do to get 30,000 steps? Um, well, I work part time.

I'm a accountant. So I just, I walk a lot. Um, a lot of my cardio, like elliptical, some running stair master get steps to and then just walk a lot. Wait, as an accountant? No, no. As an accountant, I sit at a desk, but outside of that, I walk a lot. So you make a lot of time to walk.

Yeah, you have to be. Okay. Yeah, that's a lot. And so, so I'll just paraphrase or kind of put it in different words. Let me know if you agree. You're thinking you might get better life quality if you scale back a little bit or you're considering that. Exactly, yeah.

Okay. And your fear is, if you reduce that, what, what's the fear? that he also changed his diet a lot. Yeah, exactly. There's kind of a reward, like I'm a hard work, kind of discipline type of guy. So if I put in the hard work and kind of earn it, then there's that dopamine reward, so to speak, in terms of the food that I get as a reward. So then I have to scale that back.

And it's, you know, sometimes it's a little bit daunting to think of it that way. Gotcha. And growing up, were you overweight, underweight, athletic? No, pretty athletic. I've kind of just maintained my weight. I mean, I was a little bit 180 at the tops now, about 160. So nothing too crazy in terms of fluctuations. All right.

So what you're saying is, I mean, it's a great question, very valid. You're very disciplined. So I'll paint a worst case scenario for you, all right? Yeah. Worst case scenario, you cut your training way down into what would be considered appropriate and effective, which would probably look like four days a week of strength training and cutting out the cardio. And if you want to keep the steps up, that's fine. But I'd probably cut that too.

But let's just say you cut out the cardio, maintain your steps and your only strength training four days a week. And let's paint a worst case scenario. Yeah. Worst case scenario, you gain, you know, eight pounds of body fat. Yeah. Do you think, now I know the answer to this because you seem pretty disciplined, but do you think you'd be able to just go back to what you were doing before to lose the eight pounds?

Yeah. Okay. So that's worst case scenario. Now, let me tell you what will probably happen. You'll build more muscle, get a faster metabolism, and have no problem eating as much as you are now. Yeah. So you'll do less work and get the same result. result in terms of body fat percentage wise, but you'll actually have more muscle strength and

energy. Yeah, you're burning so much with your activity that you're not allowing some of those calories to get partitioned over to building you some more muscle. So you'll probably build some muscle. Yeah. So if you were to, if you would lay off and even, and I mean, I'm assuming the, you, you, you hit protein intake. You're good with that.

And then you just enjoy occasional things on top of that. So you're, and I think if you make sure you hit your protein intake and, and, you, a more appropriate strength training program and reduce the cardio like saline, you'll probably, I think at the worst case scenario, you go up maybe a couple percent in body fat, maybe,

but you build muscle. I think you go up to like 170. Yeah, I was just going to say that. I think a guy like you following a good, appropriate strength training program, reducing some of the activity, keep your food the same.

Yeah. I'd say, I would probably predict that you gain eight to 10 pounds of muscle pretty quickly. Yeah. Okay. But if I'm wrong,

then you just go back to what you were doing before and it's all good and you experienced it and now you know. I don't think that'll happen though. I think what's happening right now is you're kind of pushing the limits of what you can do. Yeah.

Which is okay. You seem okay. But the thing that's nagging at you is is, am I doing more than I need to and is it actually a detriment? Yeah. And the only way to know that for sure is to try it. Yeah.

Got to experiment with it for a lot. See how it works. Yeah. So I would put you on a different strength training program. program and I would have you cut the cardio out. Keep everything else the same. Let's see what happens.

I think what'll happen is you're just going to gain muscle. Yeah, it'd probably be a good idea. I don't know if you got like a place where you can go get a hydrostatic way or a dexas scan or get a body fat test. Yeah. So you have, because what might happen is the weight gain may mess with your head, like make you think that you're putting on fat when maybe you're not. And so you have like a something that's non-biased that you can look at and just say,

hey, you know what, I'm going to stick to this plan. Guys gave me a maps program to follow. I'm going to cut out my cardio, change nothing else, see what happens in two months. And then literally just test again in two months. And like Sal said, you know, make peace with the worst that could happen. You put on eight pounds of body fat, which you know you can ramp right back up and get off if you want. Or maybe what happens is you put 10 pounds of muscle on, which is what I think will happen. And you're pretty confident with the amount of calories you're eating.

That's the number you've tracked before. Oh, yeah, I tracked it. And I'm very diligent to tracking. And it was between 4,000 and 5,000. And that's being really strict with my tracking. So when I don't, I'm not as strict with tracking. It's a little bit more than that because I eat the same thing every day pretty much. Okay.

By the way, like 10% body fat looks great. Most people feel better. Most men feel better closer to 12. Yeah. Stronger, less joint pain. Testosterone levels tend to respond better. Not everybody. But just so you know that, I see your age is 43.

Yeah. You probably would feel more energy, higher libido, less pain at a slightly higher body. But just to give an example, Jesse, okay? So you're doing 30,000 steps a day. Yeah. 30 minutes of cardio day, six days a week of strength training. I'll use myself as an example, not because we're the same person. I'm just giving an idea.

I do, and I'm either way, I'm not ideal. I need to do more of some of the other stuff that you're doing. But I do zero cardio. My steps are probably 4,000 a day because we sit here all day long, if I'm lucky. I strength trained about four days a week, and I eat as much as you do. And I sit, yeah, and I sit right around, I don't know, if I had to guess, I'm probably around 10% body fat. Okay. So there's just different ways to do it.

Now, I'd probably be healthier if I include it, and I know this, if I include it more. So I'm not saying that what I'm doing is ideal. Just give an idea. Now, that's the other extreme, right? You're on one extreme. He's on the other extreme of eating that many calories, but you can both be 10% body fat. One looks like somebody who is very lean because they do a lot of cardio. The other one looks very muscular because they do no cardio.

You probably want to land somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And be in a really good place. I tell you what, I could send you a program where you'd be in the gym about three days a week. Yeah. So, and then you do no cardio, keep everything else the same. And give it, I don't know, give it like a month or two and see what happens. My prediction is your strength is going to go through the roof.

You're going to get real strong, get good pumps, and you'll start to build muscle. Yeah. My struggle with no cardio is so my dad and grandpa both died early from Alzheimer's. So I'm kind of, the cardio aspect, it's kind of tough to give that away because I do believe there's some independent benefits with cardio and brain health. Do you guys find that? Do it once a week. Yeah. Well, once a week.

Well, last second. So here's a deal. So look at the data on lots of activity and, you know, chronic health conditions. And you'll actually see. So there's a curve here. So on this end, you have like no activity, bad diet, Alzheimer's, obesity. diabetes, it's all up here. You're on the other extent.

Then you get, then you start to, restorative. Yeah, you start to hit those nice longevity amounts. Everything goes way down. Then at the other end, when it gets too high, you actually get higher rates of other things because of the damage,

the constant, you know, oxidative damage on the body. Do you have any mobility practice or anything you're including with that? No, but that's a good idea to include the mobility because then I can still get to the gym, feel I'm doing something, but it's not as stressful. That's my concern is just like, you're a busy person, your discipline.

There's no need for you to cut out all disciplines. We just need to reprioritize it and also make it more restorative so you actually recover fully. And as far as Alzheimer's is concerned, you're doing more than enough. Yeah. Yeah. And strength training is actually, and the data is actually the best thing you could do. All activities is good.

But strength training is actually the only thing that's been shown to stop the progression of Alzheimer's. They call it type three diabetes. Yeah. Because it's probably a insulin resistance component. Building muscles, that fixes that. So here's what we could do. Are you okay with functional type strength training or do you like bodybuilding style?

I like it all. Oh, okay, mass performance. Mass performance will have you in the gym five days a week. But three days a week is strength training. Two days a week is mobility. And by the way, that program actually scales you up into kind of like endurance training towards it. Yeah, you'll like it. Yeah.

So follow it the way it's laid out. Do the mobility days. and my goal for you would be get a body fat test right now and then do it in two months and then just watch what happens. Yeah, I'll send that to you, dude. And just keep eating the same thing. Yeah, same thing. We just cut out the cardio.

Remember, now you're going to be, you're in the gym still five days a week right here. So you're going to be lifting, like traditional lifting three days a week. Two days are going to be mobility. And on those mobility days, I'm okay with you getting on the treadmill and going for a walk or low intensity elliptical, like real low, like just to where you could have a car. just no like high, no hard cardio right now.

Yeah. And stick to that and watch what happens. Yeah. Awesome. Yep. Okay, thanks. I really appreciate it. You got to do.

You think we can have you back on in a few months? I'd love to see the before and after. Yeah, I love to hear too. Yeah, you know what? I think that's good. That would keep me accountable then and not trail back into what I'm used to. All right. And I'll predict the five to eight pound difference in Lehman.

I think so too. I think you'll see at least that. We'll send that to you and let's have you back on 90 days. Awesome. Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it. You got it, dude. That was a good question.

It's a really good question because so many people are like, hey, if I stop doing all this exercise, am I just going to get really fat? Here's what happens with burning calories through activity. Does it burn calories? It does. But the body adapts to it so well. Let me put you this way.

A highly trained athlete or a highly trained runner will burn less calories running than they did when they were intermediate. They get way more efficient with it. Your body learns. learns how to become efficient at what it does. So the calorie burn isn't as much as you think. He's doing so much activity. It's insane.

But if he scales that down and transitions to building muscle, he'll have, it's like making money. Yeah, I could work more hours. What if I had an investment that made money for me? She's being busy to be busy. That's right. Yeah, it makes it really hard, too, to add muscle when you're burning that much manually. And you're telling your body to not.

Yeah. And you're lifting that many days, too. It's just like it's he's constantly, his body's just trying to recover all the time. It's never, it's, you talk about this all the time, right? The, he gets stuck in this recovery trap. That's right. So he's doing all these things. His body's just doing what it can just to recover.

It doesn't ever adapt and get stronger. And keeps him in good shape. Keeps him at 10% body fat and able to eat four or five thousand calories. But he could do way less and be as healthier if not healthier. Our next caller is Matthew from Nebraska. Matthew, what's happening? What's up, man? Hello, guys.

Thanks a lot for having me. I know time's a precious commodity, and I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit of years today. Thank you. You got it, man. How can we help you? So real quick, before I get to my question, the other day you guys mentioned on the podcast

about people recording themselves at the gym when they're doing lifts. And, Adam, you had said about doing that to check your form. That's right. And I've been, having my wife record me on a couple of lifts at the gym and I sent it off to some of my friends and they really helped me with making some corrections because they're all out of state.

I had your back then. Listen, dude. I had your back then, brother. If I see a guy like you with his wife record is different. They're sending up a tripod and filming every damn exercise. I just, I got a bunch of boomer hosts that don't know anything about what's going on these days. I've seen TikToks. That I'm so cool. He's so hip. I got you. All right. How can we help you?

So I'm 45 years old and I haven't done much structured lifting since high school. About 12 years ago, I started working on being healthier and in better shape. For a while, I did a lot of 5K runs and cardio workouts. And then I found you a couple of years ago through the Dr. John Deloney show. Nice. And I've learned a lot from your podcast. My wife got me maps to anabolic shortly after and we started working on it. together. I then hurt my elbow and took most of last year off from lifting. The diagnosis was

tennis elbow. We started the program towards the end of last year again and we're almost complete with it. I have to keep some of the lifts lighter than I like because of the elbow, but I'm feeling stronger and noticing changes in my body. Today I did my second E-volt scan and I was ecstatic about the results, even though my way, weight had only changed by one pound since the first scan 23 days ago, I dropped almost 7% body fat. Oh, whoa. Hey.

And my visceral fat by 1.6%. I couldn't believe it. I am energized to finish this program and excited to move on to the next. One of my fitness goals for the year is to be able to bench 275 or more. I should mention that last time we did the Anabolic. I was able to match my high school bench, which just put me through the roof. I've considered Maps 15 or Map Symmetry, but wanted your thoughts. What programs would you recommend for an inexperienced lifter of my age who wants to get healthier and stronger?

They're both great. I like symmetry because you've been doing Maps Anabolic. And just a comment on the, how's the elbow now? Do you still feel it? Yeah, I still feel it. I'm doing some physical therapy exercises every day, and I'm just slowly moving up on the weight on that. I find a really good correctional massage therapist that'll work on your forearms.

Okay. That oftentimes takes care of it. I wonder, too, if getting some rotational stuff for like wrist and shoulder for him would probably benefit. So maybe even like a performance, a lot of times that that's what the elbow stuff will be cause from is just a lack of mobility and stability in the shoulder and in the wrist and address. I mean, I'm dealing with forearm stuff right now and I know that's exactly what it is is I've been pushing the weights and getting stronger and I'm like I haven't been addressing my wrist cars and

shoulder stuff that I should be doing. And so that also could do you really well. So like a performance type of program would actually be really beneficial also. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, symmetry, performance. will be really good. And this is what, your second round of MAPS antebolic? Yes, sir. Yeah, let's go MAP symmetry. Let's do MAP symmetry.

I think MAP symmetry will be good for you. Get the deep tissue massage on the forearms and then see how you feel. But I think you'll like the way MAPS symmetry feels. And you're doing great, bro. Yeah. You're progressing. I mean, incredibly.

You look good too. I can tell you put on it. You got some muscle on you. This is great. It's a good. So not you're like in this rhythm, kind of a general rule of thumb that we tell all of our clients that are consistent. Once a year, make sure you do either symmetry or maps performance.

That'll do a good job of kind of addressing imbalances, unilateral work, some rotational stuff. So maps and a block is so great for building muscle, building a metabolism, laying a solid foundation. But all of it's bilateral. It's all in the sagittal plane. And so getting some rotational stuff involved in there, unilateral work in there. That'll help challenge a lot of stability, rotational work. and that'll keep you healthy a lot of times. And so just be mindful of that once a year

running through either symmetry or performance, at least one of those programs every year. And that'll keep you pretty good. And then you can cycle back to Anabolic and some of the other ones that you really enjoy. Awesome. Yep. You're doing good though, bro.

Yeah, man. We'll send that to you. Yeah, yeah. All right, thanks. And Sal, real quick, I appreciate hearing about your faith journey. Thank you. Keep it up, man. Thank you.

I appreciate the encouragement. Appreciate that, man. Thanks, Matthew. Yep, appreciate it, dude. Thanks. Take it easy. What percentage of people filming themselves in the gym is for forum, do you think? I think it's more than you think because, like, how, and this is how you tell, okay?

Okay. Okay. When you prop it up on the floor of a deadlift or you prop it up to show you squatting versus the person who's walking around with a, with an extension arm or have the, like, to me, it's very obvious to two. The wannabe influencer kid has got way more recording going on. The person who props it up only when they do exercise, you see it a lot. You see it all the time now in Golds.

I mean, nine times out of ten. So you think over half? No, nine times out of ten, it's for form. Yes. Really? Yes. I think you're being done. Unless you guys are talking about Bradley Martin's gym, totally different.

Yeah. That's a total different. Right. That does factor in. So, yeah, so his one gym could bring that average down to 50. But if you go down to Golds over here where all the bodybuilders and power lifters and everyone's lifting, you'll always see somebody by the squad or deadlift who's propping up to watch one. You'll see me do that, propping it up and watching my mechanics.

But then you go down to somewhere probably more where he allows people to take their shirts off. And you got people talking to the phone while they're working out, like totally different. Well, I see it not as frequent as probably, you know, around here. Like the one I go to in Santa Cruz, it's like it's, it's not that existent, but when it is, it's definitely for social media. Yeah. And so it's like, you know, it's pretty much 90%. But it's not as prevalent as I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I think, to me, it's pretty obvious to tell.

You could tell by the how they're shooting it, in my opinion, to like tell what you're doing. Someone who's shooting it for likes and attention, the angle they're shooting at, like, someone who's taking. If it's right behind them and they're squatting. Yeah. Yeah. It's zoomed in. It's so close. You can get to even see ankles in it.

And it's like, dude, bicep curls, but it's all zoomed on the butt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that's,

I mean, I'll get, I'll get filmed, you know, sometimes in the gym, and, uh, you know, Dylan's followed me around

and it always feels so like, I feel like the biggest douchebess. Well, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

I mean, that's, that's like a shreds movie. Bro, I'm like any film and I, and I, like, I apologize to people around me. That looks way more social media.

You got a guy who's following you around. It's self-phazique. I mean, I just... And I'm ready to defend it any moment. I mean, I make money. I make money. It's my job. I'm teaching people something.

Long before, you know, we were even like a thing. I was, I would video my squat and deadlock. I was also working on that, right? So, like, I would video a session, then go back and then I could see, like, what's going on with my ankles. Yeah. So it wasn't to pose. And then the videos you sent me weren't, weren't exercise.

Those were different. Those are different. Those are different. It's not different. Saved them. Spicy. Our next caller is Brian from Minnesota. What's up, Brian?

What's up, dude. Hey, guys. How are you? Good, man. How can we help you? Long time. Yeah, I'll just jump right into my question here. So, first off, thank you guys for the opportunity to ask my question.

I was on with you about three years ago. You gave some great advice. Since then, I bought several of your programs, hit PRs and squad bench and deadlift. So it's been really awesome experience over the last. handful of years. So to get into my question a little bit more, about a year ago, I started having some pain in my right shoulder. I'd managed through it with some massage, extra stretching, occasional mobility work, just kind of pushed through it. But about a month ago, I was five weeks into the old-time strength program, and I really started noticing a difference between my right

and left shoulder. So I figured I better probably go get it checked out. So I went to a sports medicine clinic, had imaging done, and the doctor said I had some bicep tendonitis and some minor ac joint degeneration in the right shoulder. So he recommended physical therapy. I started that about four weeks ago. Since then, it's definitely improving. I'm getting more range of motion back, and the pain is slowly starting to go away. Right now, besides the PT, I'm lifting very lightweight, but with limitations, they have me doing no push moves or any kind of, of overhead work. I did just start doing bench pressing with the bar only, really focusing on my shoulder and placement in just real good form. So my question is, how should I approach

training right now? What program or approach would you recommend I focus on? I'd like to try to minimize muscle and strength loss while I rehab so I can transition back to normal training as smoothly as possible. Well, first you've got to finish rehab. And when you're done, I think, map symmetry would be a good program for you. Here's the deal. Here's why you experience what you did. Strength is amazing thing to chase. But if you keep chasing strength at some point,

you'll start to develop issues. If you don't balance it out with mobility and stability. And I think that's what you experienced. You were hitting PRs and he keep pushing it. Maybe staying in low rep ranges for too long, staying with the same kind of exercises for too long. And at some point, the joint stuff starts to pop up. AC joint and bicep tendonitis are easy to...

Super common. You can fit. Yeah, you're good. I have AC joint wear and tear and bicep tendonitis is like inflammation in there. And that's like due to what they're saying right now. Super solvable. But a lot of this is like a shoulder. So we just had another caller where I recommend the shoulder and wrist mobility type stuff.

So is maps performance and symmetry are the two programs that you want. to rotate through. I just gave this to the last caller and I'll say it to you also. A really good rule of thumb is every year never let yourself go for a full year and not run through at least maps performance and symmetry and or one of them every year at least once. They do a good job of addressing unilateral mobility, rotational stuff like and that'll help keep that keep you good. If you stay in like a maps anabolic, like maps aesthetic type of program. Power lift.

Like you'll get strong, but then all of a sudden you'll start feeling that wear and tear on the joint because you've got to reinforce the frame. Yes. Yes. We got to make sure everything is accounted for. And so you can keep loading the joint. And so to maintain that function, we've got to take it through those ranges of motion with minimal load,

with tension. So right now, even just going through a lot of the types of cars and things in our crime programs, you know, really adopting, incorporating that as ritual before your workouts and taking it through really connecting back again to those ranges of motion is going to be everything. Yeah, the challenge is this. So you'll do your rehab and then you'll feel good and then you'll want to get back to pushing it.

So there's, there's degeneration that causes pain. And once you get rid of the pain, that doesn't mean you're all the way back to where you need to be. Sure. Okay. So, so you have, so I want you to just keep that of mind because you're, going to feel good and be like, I'm strong, I can push it. But don't. Go through map symmetry a couple times. Go through the first phase. Don't skip that. But skip the last phase. Skip to five by five.

Stay in the unilateral for a couple cycles and then go back to the other stuff and you should be okay. Okay. That makes sense. It is tough when you start hitting these numbers, especially I'm in my mid-40s. And it's kind of a major ego boost. And it's like, man, I really like this. And I feel. stronger in my normal life. But yeah, when it started talking, it started talking real aggressive. Hey, and just so you know, this, you'll get back. I'm dealing with this right now. So as much as we sit here and give this advice, we're still just as guilty of the same thing.

It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the PRs, gaining the strength, gaining the muscle. I'm in it right now. I've been on a nice run for like two and a half, three months, getting stronger, feeling good, feeling good. And now my forearm is talking, my forearm and elbow is talking to me. and I know it's because I'm not taking my own advice. I'm giving you right now. Sure. It's got to allocate that effort to reinforce.

That's right. That's right. Okay. I do have performance in symmetry. Would you, it's probably been, I haven't done symmetry for the longest of those two. Would you recommend just jumping into symmetry when I can? Yeah.

When you're clear, go to symmetry, skip the last phase. And I would do that maybe a couple times before you can start playing with the heavy bilateral stuff. Okay. I will definitely do that. You got it, ma'am. All right, Brian. All right, I just wanted to say one more thing.

I think I speak for a lot of your listeners when I say it's kind of odd to view you for almost as friends, even though you've never met a lot of us face to face. And I will just say outside my closest friends, I've never prayed or wished success for more than I have for you for. What you guys do is absolutely awesome. I truly appreciate the advice. I listen to your podcast all the time. and like I said, I'm lucky enough to been able to ask you guys two questions,

and I just really appreciate it. So keep up what you guys are doing. I appreciate the prayers a lot, Brian. I appreciate that. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you, thank you guys. You got it, man.

Yeah, it's funny, right? Because we communicate getting stronger so much on the show. Yeah. But it's important to communicate the other end of that. And a lot of people don't get to this place because they have a difficulty staying consistent. That's the reason why we preach that so much. Yes, yes. But this will get away from you, too.

Like you'll do this for a couple years and you'll be like, oh my God, I'm just going to keep getting strong. And at some point, the imbalances kick up and things start to hurt. And what you don't want to do is ignore them or put band-aids on them, which look like, you know, pain relievers or, you know, icy hot or wraps or wraps or changing my warm up and just sticking the same thing. The reason why we hammer the strength part and just focus on that first so much is because that's so hard to get so many people just. to adopt that thing. Yeah. Getting him to do it, we just told him super easy.

Yeah, yeah, he'll do it. He's already so bought in. He's, what he's done, changed his life. He's gotten so much benefit from it. Now we're just like, oh, let's, let's...

It caught fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's like, hey, now we need to do some of these old things and then, like, he'll do it. Like, he's done the hard part. That's right. And so that's the reason why

we don't over communicate this early on is because a lot of people never make it to hear. That's right. And so if we can just get you focusing on getting strong and lifting weights consistently. You'll build crazy amounts of muscle and you'll hit PRs.

And then you might start to have some achy joints because you've been doing it so much. And then we can tell you how to fix that. Our next caller is Abigail from South Carolina. Hi, Abigail. Hey, how are you guys doing? We're great. How are you? Yeah, good.

Good. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for your time today. I am going to jump right into my email. If that's all right. Yeah, let's go. Okay. All right.

So I am a long time listener, first time caller. I'm a 29-year-old female around 5-5. and weigh around 140 pounds, but I do fluctuate between 135 and 145, but feel my best with some severe, lower inflammation around 135. I did grow up playing sports, lacrosse, volleyball. I've been lifting since 2014, but more seriously with plans and I've had coaches since around 2020. I'm going on a trip end of February, and I wanted to figure out the best eight to 10 week plan, but now kind of updates. There's been some updates since the last census. The trip's in about two weeks, so we can kind of pivot away from that. But current overview is when I sent this

in, I was not tracking any macros. I have before, but I stopped for about a year, and I was just intuitively eating. And I did maintain my weight throughout that whole year without having to weigh any of my food or anything like that. This is part in due because I've worked with coaches in the past, learned about person control, listening to my body and things like that. Oh, and I lost my email. But long story short is that I'm looking to figure out how to best proceed with some of these issues that I'm having. I am sorry to track my macros again. And I've been dealing with SIBO on and off for about three years. I did heal my SIBO one time in 2023.

And it came back with absolute vengeance in 2025 last October. After I took an anti-inflammatory pill for a swollen ankle, it came back with a 48 hours. So I'm basically trying to figure out how to proceed while I'm in this like healing phase. I've been trying to build and work on my body comp and physique, but I know when I'm in this healing phase, I can't really do that and I have to do a little bit less. But then I go back and forth on wondering if I'm just kind of making excuses when I'm not getting my 10,000 steps or going to the gym five days a week and trying to figure out a best plan. So I have started to track macros again. I go to the gym three days a week right now. When I wrote this email, I was doing,

muscle mommy. I did stop that or finished day. I've done anabolic and muscle mommy. And then because of this time frame I had with my vacation, I started this kind of random six week program just because the timing lined up. It's three days in the gym, two days of Pilates. That is coming to an end as I had to a trip in two weeks. And when I get back from this trip, I just want to figure out the best way to move forward. I've been listening to guys for like four years. I do have my Nassum certification that I got several years ago. I don't do too much with it right now. But I've I'm very into the health wellness world. And I've done the antimicrobials, the antibiotic.

I've done the elemental diet, which has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. If you've ever known anyone that's how to do that. And we're trying to find the main source, which could be mold. Hence why I'm outside getting my apartment literally tested today as we speak. Yeah. Okay. So what are your symptoms? Inflammation, CBO.

What else? Yeah. So I wake up a lot of times the descended stomach doesn't go away no matter what I eat. so it's not really a food trigger. I haven't been able to kneel that down. Chronic fatigue when it's really bad, I literally can't keep my eyes open by 3 p.m. But that's gotten a lot better.

Hair loss, acne, brain fog, but the most frustrating part is the body not responding to anything I do. I eat and train like a bodybuilder for years. And like my body doesn't budge. The scale doesn't budge. Even though I know that's not super important, it's just nice to see the results. and I'm getting none of it.

And I'm kind of stuck in this cycle and this loop. Have you been tested for, so you're testing for mold, which is great. And by the way, it's a thorough test. Yes. He's been there for three hours right now,

doing more than just the air spores. Because I've had that done, and those came back negative. And he just got into my HVAC system and it's covered in mold. Oh, so that's awesome. Okay.

Okay, so mold can cause a lot of that. And do you ever find yourself, feeling better when you spend the night at other places for like a week or two? Not really. And I've thought about that. But no, not really. Sometimes that'll happen. Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it takes longer. Have you been tested for heavy metals? I know. The only one I've done is a urine toxin, toxicology test for mold. The three tests I would recommend is mold. And by the way, you could do a urine mold test too to help confirm mold, heavy metals and parasites. Have you been tested for parasites?

Yes, no parasites. Okay. Just the overcoat for bacteria, no fungal, anything. CBO has been the biggest one. The thing with CBO, which is really difficult, which is really difficult, is people who get CBO tend to get it again. Yeah. By the way, you could test negative for a parasite and still have one because they can sometimes hide and be difficult to find. So if it comes back, mold negative, all that stuff's negative.

A functional medicine practitioner or a doctor, sometimes will just treat you for a parasite. And that can be life changing. It does sound like your autoimmune system is kind of reactive. So I think you're going in the right direction. I really do. But it's hard to do anything until we know what the culprit is. Now, once you figure that out, then you work on that. Everything else is to support that.

So trying to push your body with strength or fat loss or stamina or endurance. If you're dealing with like mold or parasites or heavy metal, it's just going to feel like you're running in place. In fact, it might make things feel worse. So I think you're moving in the right direction. I dealt with mold. I should say my wife and kids dealt with mold. I didn't have any symptoms or symptoms like they did.

They had a bunch of mysterious symptoms. and we couldn't figure out what it was. And it wasn't until we had someone come in, fully test the place, and we saw, oh, there's mold. We moved out. And it took like two or three months before we saw a reduction in some of those symptoms. And there was also a protocol. So like my kids are on this kind of mold detox protocol.

In fact, they're still on it now because we have to be very gentle with little ones. My wife went on when that was real aggressive. And it did make a really big difference. So I'd love to hear back to see if that was the case for you. Well, so I did, I did do the mold test. And so I did test like off the charts for two very high mold toxins. And we're trying to figure out the source of it. So that's why I'm doing the apartment testing today.

So it has been confirmed, though, that I have very high levels of two specific ones, which I can, I think I can pull up, pull up if you wanted that one to do. It's the ochre toxin. and citrinin. Yeah. I'm not super, I'm not super privy to the different types of mold. But if you did measure high, that's what you're dealing with. Everything should be used to support that.

And I would look into encouraging the body's detox systems. So like sauna is really helpful. You don't want to eat foods that can be inflammatory because that can make things a lot worse. And of course, get out of wherever it is that you're getting this exposure. or two. And typically it's home or work. Is it worth it for her to invest in like one of those like portable filters in her bedroom for at least now? That'll help. It's better than until until it was a doctor Becky Campbell that really was dealing with this. We had an episode we did with her talking about. And I'll tell you this. Just so just so you know, let's say you find all

this mold in your apartment. You're like, okay, this is where it's at. I'm going to move. You take your furniture. You take your your bedding. You take your, your, you take your, your, you take your, or whatever, stuffed animals if you got me. My kids had them. And you take them to the new house. Guess what you took with you? Mold sports. That's the thing.

It falls you all overplace. You got to throw everything away and clean everything with anti-mold stuff. It's the biggest pain in the ass ever. But I've heard so many horror stories of people that would move. And then a year and a half later, same problem. And it's because they brought the mold over. I mean, it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. And I hate when people have to go through it because I went through it.

And it was such a nightmare. I definitely would consider getting one of the same. those air docks in your room for now. We have it. We put them in the new house because I'm like just in case we brought any extra filter. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

That's definitely a daunting thought. I did ask the guy that's here. I was like, what you're seeing right now is this enough for me to have to leave where I'm living? It's just a one bedroom apartment. He said no, but we haven't sent out the full report. It'll take a few days to get the actual results back.

But in regards to training and nutrition, how should I be supporting my body through? this. I'm definitely a gym rat. I go 5.30 every morning. Mild. Mild and moderate. Mild and moderate. Yeah, you push your body too hard with any kind of stress and you're going to crash. So that could be like, I stay up really late or I went out drinking or I'm just, you know, training, you know, and by the way, hard for you, you might think to yourself like, this isn't that hard. Your body's just already, it's already fighting something. So you add too much of that and it's going to crash. So it's going to be mild to moderate at best. So you're probably going to be

strength training, moderate intensity, less volume than you used to, walking. Yeah, I did cut, muscle mommy when I was doing it down a little bit to two sets instead of three. Just because I thought that that worked better for me. But right now I'm just going Monday, Wednesday, Fridays and Pilates on Tuesday, Thursdays. Would you recommend anything different from that or am I on the right path for that? If you start to feel like you're getting stronger and you're you're feeling better, good. Yeah. If you don't, scale it down. You got to scale it down. Okay. Okay. Are you like maybe two times a week or more consistent? No, I'd go two days a week and I'd cut down the Pilates to once and then walk. Are you, I know that's so disheartening to hear,

but you'll feel better. Are you using a sauna? I just started to. Yes. There is a regular sauna and then like an infrared sauna at this local sauna house here. So I've been doing that. Yeah, sauna can speed up the process a little bit. So if you go to the gym, if you're spending time anywhere, do that at least three times a week. Yeah, I would go in the sauna. At least three times a week. Yeah, that'll hope. Okay. And I think I do, I might have one of the Maps 15 programs. Oh yeah. Would that be better than going? Yes. Yes. Yes. Totally. It would. Absolutely. Okay. Would it be okay to take something? Because I know it's seven days a week, right? No, six days. I think it's six. Six days, but you can pair, you can pair two of the days if you had to. So if like some days, you can't make, you can't make six days. the gym, you can pair some of the days.

Okay, that's going to be my question, because I definitely on the weekends, fully rest and only walk. So I was going to see if I could pair some throughout the week to bring it down. You can also follow it as a five-day split and just start back up where you left off. You've got to be really ginger with how you apply things at the moment. So can give your body a little bit of a break. Take the weekend off. Yeah.

And, you know, once you get out of this, you're going to be like, whoa, my body is, I mean, the difference in my wife and kids was pretty. remarkable. Yeah, it's just super frustrating because it's been literally 16 months of this healing phase I've been in. I'm like, when can I start to actually see results again from the effort I put in at the gym and in the kitchen? So I'm just kind of like spinning my wheels on how to speed up this process. And by the way, like people have an individual variance to how sensitive they are to mold. So some people are more sensitive than others. Like I said, I was in the same house with my wife and kids and I didn't really have any symptoms.

but they did. So there's a difference. So, you know, your HVAC guy might be like, eh, I've seen this before. Doesn't seem to cause a problem. You might be really sensitive to it. And I know people like that. Dr. Becky Campbell has been on her pocket very sensitive to mold.

So she's exposed to a little bit and she causes a pretty big reaction. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, kind of, I guess, keep things status quo, cut down the volume overall a little bit and just try to find the actual culprit. That's right. Of why I have recurring CBO.

That's right. When did you move into your partner? By the way, how long you've been there? Four years ago. Okay. Okay. That's when I first was diagnosed with CBO. Really?

Three years ago. Yeah. I think we found this. We might have found the smoking gun. I know, but I've had all these GI issues before. I just didn't know it was CBO back then. So I'm just kind of now wondering if I've had it this whole time and just only knew the name to call it the past three years. But yes, it's definitely been worse the last three years.

Just so you know, one thing makes the other thing harder. So if you have SIBO, you're not going to be more sensitive to mold. If you have mold, you're more sensitive to heavy metals. If you have heavy metals, you're more sensitive to say it all contributes. So, yeah, you could have very well had gut issues. And then those gut issues plus exposure to mold, now you're just the tipping point. And when I did heal it the first time, I was eating around 2,500 calories, losing weight, losing inflammation. Should I try to work myself back up to there?

I'm sitting around 22, 23, or should I not? really push the calories and protein right now. You know, if you're pushing it and you're like, whoa, I'm getting bloated and this is causing digestive issues that back down. Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. You got it. Good luck. All right. Thank you. Bye.

That's such a sucky, crappy. I guess obviously when I, until we, we don't tell somebody to move, but I'm like, well, you guys remember what we went through. Yeah. Like, we found it. And I'm like, oh, we got to leave, dude. And we left. And literally we threw away.

Yeah, everything. You can't bring you. And then everything else, we washed, like, ridiculous. We went to the new house, got that tested. It was such. And I remember being like, this, it can't be that bad. I was like, in denial, you know, like, no way. There's no way, dude.

And then I've talked to all these other people. Oh, my God, this is. You got all those air docks in the room, too. I do now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like that would be like, I mean, obviously it doesn't prevent it completely, but it would imagine. I would imagine make a big difference. Right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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