Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2849: Are Deadlifts Actually Dangerous? The Truth About So Called Risky Exercises

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

Are deadlifts dangerous? Are certain exercises just too risky for the average person? The guys are fired up today and they are coming straight for the fitness media narrative that keeps telling YOU to avoid some of the most valuable movements in existence... The truth is, exercises don't hurt you. YOUR inability to perform them does. Sal, Adam, and Justin break down a recent narrative review that reignited the deadlift debate, why experts like Dr. Stuart McGill argue against it for general populations, and why the guys think that reasoning is a dangerous slippery slope. If you follow that logic to its conclusion, you would throw out running first... and nobody is telling YOU to stop running. The most injury producing activity humans do is also the one we were literally BUILT to do. Sound familiar?  After the intro, people called in and got coached live on air. Want YOUR shot at live coaching? Send your question to mplivecaller.com. MAPS 15 Buy 1 get 1 free !   maps15bogo.com - Offer ends soon The average customer owns 3-4 MAPS 15 programs and rotates them. We took the cheapest MAPS 15 Version ($107) and made all of them the same price ! Only at maps15bogo.com  MAPS 15 Minutes MAPS 15 Performance MAPS 15 Muscle Mommy MAPS 15 Strong  MAPS 15 Symmetry  MAPS 15 Forty Plus  MAPS 15 Powerlift Caldera + Lab ⇨⇨go to calderalab.com/mindpump Code MINDPUMP20 for 20% off your first order their best products. Organifi ⇨⇨go to http://organifi.com/mindpump Code "MINDPUMP" for 20% off FATTY 15 C15 from Fatty15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It is an incredible scientific breakthrough to support our long-term health and wellness, and you guessed it: healthy aging. Fatty15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help support your long-term health and wellness - especially as you age.Based on over 100 studies, we now know that C15 strengthens our cells and is a key healthy aging nutrient, which helps to slow biological aging at the cellular level. In fact, when our cells don't have enough C15, they become fragile and age faster. And when our cells age, our bodies age, too. Fatty15 is a science-backed, award-winning, patented, 100% pure C15 supplement–it's vegan-friendly, free of flavors, allergens or preservatives. Fatty15 has 3x more cellular benefits than omega-3 or fish oil. By replenishing our cells with the crucial C15 nutrient, fatty15 effectively repairs cells, reverses aging at the cellular level - and restores our long-term health and wellness. Fatty15 is clinically proven to raise C15:0 levels, resulting in lower cholesterol levels, healthier liver function, improved gut microbiome health, and improved red blood cell health within 3 months.  fatty15.com/MINDPUMP You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit with code "mindpump"  

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Mind pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, people called in and we got to coach them live on air. But this was after the intro, today's intro, 51 minutes long. We talk about exercise, strength training, cardio, fat loss. muscle gain, current events, family life, all that good stuff.

Look, if you want to be on an episode like this, if you want to call in and have Justin Adam and myself coach you on air, here's what you do. Send your question to MPLifecaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Caldera Lab. This is skincare that actually works. It's science back, but it's also all natural. And you can get 20% off.

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All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Mind Pump Store.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to Mind Pump Store.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. there's often a lot of controversy in the strength training world with certain exercises. These are deemed dangerous or risky exercises. Should you skip them or are they valuable? Oftentimes, some of these exercises are listed at some of the best. But then you hear experts say, don't do them.

They're bad for you. Who's right? What's going on? Do them or not do them? Let's talk about it. Did you hear the interview not that long ago? Who was interviewing Robert Oberlin? Oh, okay, right?

No, no, no, that's when he originally said it. You originally said it on Rogan, but then somebody, oh, I want to say it's, was it Eddie Hall? Is Eddie Hall? Yeah. He was like, yeah. He was his buddy Eddie Hall, who's another strong man. And they were kind of like going back and forth on live or FaceTime or whatever. Yes. But yeah, so he, yeah, and that one's pretty nuanced.

But it's, you know, he was trying to make the case that the risk really wasn't worth the squeeze. for your average person to do deadlift. So it's interesting your bright guys brought up deadlift because that's the exercise. I just, I'll pull up what I read. That's most controversy. That got me, there's a lot of exercises that, there's exercises trainers so they don't even do these.

At least deadlift, some people will do them. But that's the exercise that prompted, you know, this topic. So there was a narrative review that was published in the Journal of Sports, and it was a 2026 one. And it was titled, Beyond the Neutral Spine. and it really reignited this kind of heated debate around the deadlift. And the research cited in the sports medicine publications confirms that approximately 73%, which by the way, I want to know how they got this number, but anyway, 73% of recreational

gym goers demonstrate notable lumbar flexion when deadlifting under load. And the conventional deadlift places compressive forces on the lumbar spine that can reach eight to 10 times body weight at peak low. It sounds really scary. Then you got people like Dr. Stuart McGill. He's a spying biomechanics researcher, and he argues that the deadlift requires near perfect technique to be performed safely by Jen Pop.

And so he's like, let's avoid it, or let's try other exercises. And of course, then they talk about how lower back injuries account for roughly 25% of all resistance training injuries. So I want to start by saying this that exercises don't hurt you. Okay. What hurts you is your inability to do them properly. That's it.

So anything you do that hurts you, anything, what ends up getting you hurt is that you just couldn't do it. Your body couldn't do what you asked it to do. It didn't generate force where you needed to generate force. It didn't have the ability to generate the force properly, to stabilize properly. You lack the mobility, the extensibility. You just, you were doing something, whether because it was too much weight for what you could do, or you didn't have the technique, you didn't have the skill, you didn't have the coordination, you didn't have the mobility.

It's you that hurt you. It's not the exercise. I don't know if taking that position, though, strengthens the argument to deadlift or not more. Well, I don't think that's the angle or the position I would take on this. I think that what happens is, and where I could get behind Robert and Eddie when they were having that discussion, is that I don't think at the level that they're lifting, it's worth it. Unless you're going to win trophy. From their perspective, I can kind of see the extremity of it. Yeah.

Because they're so strong. Yeah. And their whole programming is designed to adding and lifting more and more and more. It's very competitive. And chasing a PR. I think I would say it there's a way to lift and never do less than five reps in the deadlift

and never even attempt a PR and see tremendous. And then the risk factor changes dramatically. If you're moving a weight, you can move five times the likelihood that you're going to really injure yourself doing some, even if your technique isn't perfect, it dramatically goes down. Now you're trying to do singles and you don't, and, you know, go after a PR of a weight that you can only pull off the ground one time

and you don't have perfect technique. You're talking about a huge difference in risks. See, I think it's important to talk about the potential risk of exercises so that people treat them the way that they're supposed to be treated. Here's the problem. Here's the real problem. The real problem isn't the exercise or whatever. that people view workouts in general as a way to get tired, sweaty, and sore.

Yeah, I agree. Nobody views extra, very few people, I should say, view exercises, movements as skills. Cycling is a skill. Running is a skill. Jumping is a skill. Throwing is a skill. Squatting, deadlifting. Squatting, deadlifting.

A barbell curl. They're all skills. But if I don't respect it as a skill, and if I just look at an exercise and go, that's legs, that's back, that's shoulders. I'm just going to get those body parts tired. I completely disrespect the fact that it's a skill and I just do it to get tired. By the way, I'm just going to be very clear here. Do you know what activity leads to statistically the most injuries? What exercise type leads to the most injuries? Running. Running. Running. Do you also want to know something else crazy? Humans were designed or evolved, whatever you believe, to run. We're actually made to run. We're

to run exceptionally well. We have big knee joints. We're on two legs. We have this really thick Achilles tendon. We have lots of muscle on the bottom of our foot. And when a human can run, when they possess the skill, they really possess the skill to run, humans can outlast almost any animal. It's actually one of the physical things we could do better than most animals.

In fact, there used to be this race that they stopped doing a long time ago. but maybe Doug you could look this up where it would be a human versus a horse. And it wasn't for speed, it was for distance. Yeah. 50% of the time or something like that, the human would win. And out endure the horse.

Yeah, because we're really good at that. And yet it's the highest injury risk of all. It's the one exercise, like just from the couch. People are comfortable with like just getting up and then just stepping into a run because they feel like this is just an innate skill that we... So I love you coming in. it from that position because then with that argument it's you know if you're going to throw out the

deadlift you may as well throw out running then too throw any let's you could throw it look barbell curl is a skill too yeah but i mean it doesn't require no it doesn't require okay we could art because that doesn't that doesn't that doesn't i know what you mean yeah that doesn't connect right or that doesn't track but running is arguably as technical or more technical than the deadlift yet we encourage all kinds of people to do that so that's right so if if you can't say deadlifting isn't worth the reward. We don't even qualify it like ahead of time. Like we're not like you need

to work with a coach. You need to make sure you have the proper mechanics like the right form. Like there's no like prerequisites like that are pushed as opposed to like a lot of these like compound lifts. There's another angle

too which is this is a very basic human movement that we should all be able to do. A hinge. To hinge properly. Pick something off the floor. Yeah.

To hinge properly is a skill. We face it every day. We should all want to figure out how to do. To practice. And if all these studies that come out or these arguments for the deadlift is high risk, it's like that that's not like a reason to not do it. Man, that's sad that we've gotten to a place where hinging is so difficult for us to do. It's a reason to restosing. It's a reason to respect that it's a skis.

Look, if we're going to base what exercises and movements we should do based off of the data on injury risk, then we would throw running out number one. So that's my whole point with the thing. I remember this hitting me like a ton of bricks years. I've told this story before. I haven't told it a long time. But years ago, this was a long time ago. I don't know. It was 15, 17 years ago, something like that.

I was hiking in the foothills down to South San Jose. And I'm up there hiking. and in the foothills, people will either hike or run. So it's not like a crazy trail. It's like a flat trail. So you'll see people running or hiking. And I was getting passed up by all these joggers. Now, I'm a trainer.

And as a trainer, I can't help but notice biomechanics. Okay. So I'm watching people run. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, my God, foot pronation. Oh, gosh, that person's knees are going to hurt. Oh, my God, excessive anterior pilgrim. And I just watch everybody running by. And every single person running by, I'm like, oh, God, that looks horrible.

That looks hard. And they're just, you know, these are people trying to lose weight or whatever, and they're just running to fatigue. And then out of nowhere, this guy runs by, and he's like a gazelle. Like, he was this, you could tell he's been practicing the skill of running. He's competitive. He's good at it. And he just coasted by.

And I'm watching him. And I'm realizing how beautiful his technique was. And then I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, hunter gatherers, this is how we, this is how we killed animals. We didn't, we weren't faster than animals. We throw something at them and then we run after him so they bleed out. Yeah. We're made to run.

Why is it that this guy's, and I'm like, oh, I know why. Here's what happens. Somebody hits the age of 35. Oh, my God, I got to lose weight. They go buy some running shoes, and I'm going to run until I'm tired. Yeah. And they're flat-footed. Nobody treats any other skill this way.

If I want to learn how to play golf, I don't go out, grab a golf club, and swing as as hard as I can until I'm tired. I'll hire a coach. I'll figure out my technique. And I know that it's a skill. Exercise is a skill. Strength training is a skill. It's not just the.

way to get tired. And if you respect it as such, here's what happens. To your point, Adam, if you don't practice a skill and strengthen a skill, you lose it. So right now, if you're listening right now, and you haven't run a lot since you were 12, which is most people, your running is going to suck. You're not running. Your technique's going to be terrible. If you haven't thrown a baseball since you were in Little League, go throw a ball really hard, see how your shoulder feels right afterwards. You've lost the skill. If you don't practice, the skill of hinging or squatting or pressing or rowing, you'll lose it. Even the behind the neck exercises that even some certifications say don't do,

super dangerous, behind the neck press, behind the neck pull down. Your ability to articulate your shoulders in that position with the mobility and strength in order to control that, if you stop practicing that, you'll really lose it. So it's actually a good idea to practice and learn all these different skills and treat them with respect. And what will happen is you won't hurt yourself. I mean, this is a slippery slope towards Wally. You know, like, it's like we, we agree, like, oh, all the studies are showing the high risk of injury through deadlifting.

So let's just eliminate that. Then what comes next? Yeah. Right? And then what comes next? I mean, if we use that to steer us in what we should or shouldn't be doing as far as movements, sooner or later, all the studies will continue to point to this movement, this movement hurts us. And it's like, it's not a lack of that we shouldn't be doing that movement. It's a lack of we should be practicing that movement so it doesn't hurt us.

That's right. So this idea that, you know, deadlifts are bad for you or the day. I mean, listen, I admittedly, I didn't train them for a very long time. And I didn't train clients on them. But it was because I was fearful of the skill. Yeah. I didn't feel I could coach it properly. And so I didn't take my clients to do it.

I was too embarrassed as a trainer to do it in the gym because I didn't think I had good technique. And at that time in my life, I didn't value enough to go hire someone to coach me and teach me to do it. wasn't as popular as it is today where you could probably tap someone on the shoulder in the gym today and find someone. Nobody deadlifted. Nobody did in the gym. Have you worked at a gym like we did 20-something years? In the 90s? Yeah, nobody was deadlifted. I'd have members stop me and tell me, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, you know, so I understand why a lot of people avoid it. I did. But let me tell you, somebody who did and then see the value of learning how to do it. Oh, my God.

It's such a important movement. Yeah, properly progressively overloading. I mean, it prevents back pain. It prevents, like, a lot of these chronic pain and arthritises and issues down the road. So to, you know, like generalize everybody to steer away from something where people go to the extreme in excess, just like anything else. I mean, that's what pisses me off about our space is we need clicks and we need views and we need things that are shot. And they're all generalizations. And it just steers people different directions that are harmful because, you know, we're implementing these specific types of exercises that are going to work well as a skill for your life.

And it's like there's a way to do that and introduce it with the proper amount of load where, you know, your body can withstand that. It's supposed to withstand that. We have the, the gear of the equipment. We're made for this. You just have to load it properly. You have to build the skill up and the strength to produce it and to generate force. And so, yeah, you literally could go down the list. I mean, unless you're like slamming weights on your neck or something, like, you know, there might be some value there.

There's some of my favorite videos that were just for me as a trainer, paradigm shattering, were these old, you can find them on YouTube, old Soviet era. wrestlers. So these were Greco-Roman wrestlers who were doing weight training exercises. And they were doing exercises I'd never seen before. So I'm looking at it. And I'm like, oh my God, what are they doing? This is crazy. And then I'm like, wait a minute, these are like the winningest athletes of all time back then. This is when I learned about the Jefferson Deadlift. Listen, you want to watch something? So much controversy on that one. That makes you cringe. Like, what are you doing? Like the way you're not supposed to do a Jefferson Deadlift. Yeah, Jefferson Curl.

Yeah, Jefferson Curl. Now, Jefferson Curl. Now, these. guys were doing this because when you're a wrestler, you're picking someone up the floor. You're not in this proper, looking perfect, whatever. You're very rounded. So they had to strengthen that position to prevent injury during competition. And you're moving, moving weight. Yes. It's not a barbell.

It's not a barbell. It's not stationary. It's a guy that's like resisting you. That's right. And you're in that precarious position. Like, tell me, you know, tell me like that's like not valuable for this. The risk of injury goes up when the demands start to get close to your limits of what you can handle. That's right.

This is why, you know, the risk starts to, the risk versus, here's where risk versus reward becomes an issue. You're really freaking strong. Okay. So if you're a guy and you're deadlifting and you've been training for five years and you weigh 180 pounds and you're like at a 450 pound deadlift, which is like you're really strong dude. If you're 180 pounds, you're pulling 450 off the floor. You're a very strong guy. Now, at that point, you're like, okay, is adding 50 more pounds to my deadlift going to do much more for my quality of life or building muscle? Is it worth going up 50 pounds?

No, it's not. But you get a 180-pound guy who can deadlift 100 pounds and you get him to go up to 200 pounds. The reward is phenomenal. Quality of life goes through the roof. Stability around his spine is incredible. He notices it every day. far more than the guy who went for $4.5,500 type of... Well, not to mention, too, there's several ways.

I mean, we did a whole episode. I think there we, nothing, the nine ways to progressively overload the body. And you don't have to just do more weight on the bar, too. You can make it harder by... We can slow down the tempo. You can do isometrics and pauses. Like, there's so many things that you do variations where I do a sumo dead left and then I do a conventional leg.

Or single leg. Yeah, or single. There's so many things that we can do to challenge and progressively overload the body to see continued progression in that movement and get better at the skill before we increase the risk by going, hey, let's slap 250, 300, 400, on the bar. It's like, how about I stay at 135, but now I'll do single leg or I'll pause or I'll do an asymmetrical hold, like so many things you can do. Here's the proper comparison because then if we go down that rationale of like dangerous exercises,

then the rationale logically with that rationale would lead you to machines, okay? That's the slippery soap I was talking about. I don't know. If I follow that rationale, then what I'm going to do is go, I'm going to say, okay, well, I'm only going to do machines. It's controlled. It's on a track. It ain't going to get out of place. That would be able.

But I'm going to give you, here's a proper comparison. If you took two people, identical situations, both of them training properly. Okay. So good technique, doing what their body can handle, good mobility, good stability. One person's doing the quote unquote dangerous exercises and the other person is doing the quote unquote safe machine exercises. and you have them live their life for the whole life, the person with the higher rate of injury in life is the machine person. They're less strong in ways that you need to protect yourself in everyday life.

Because here's what happens in every life. It doesn't translate. I'm walking and my foot goes off the curb. Or my kid jumps over here and I got to reach and grab them. We've got to twist and grab this thing. Or my five-year-old jumps on my neck when I'm sitting on the couch a particular way. Like you want... You're carrying shifts.

That's right. There's a joint stability component to look. lifting free weights that you don't get with the machine. That's right. It's on a track. It's stabilized for you. That's right. And so there's tremendous value to a weight on a barbell or a dumbbell that can move freely.

And all those stabilizer joints or all those stabilizer muscles have to stabilize that movement that is incredibly valuable that you miss out on if you do that. Yeah, no, it's a really slippery slope to go down and eliminate a movement, especially a movement like that. It's like, we could do without bicep curls. you can 100% do without bice That's so funny You know what I'm saying?

Like you guys both look at me right then No it's true You knew you like that Yeah yeah yeah You can still do them every now You can but you can You can literally never do a bicep curl If you're doing pull-ups and deadlifts

And everything like that you're fine You can never do a bison We could do without a certain exercise But there's certain ones We just lose a lot And an overhead press A barbell squat A barbell deadlift

The row These movements are so important. For everyday life. Yes, for the way we will move throughout the rest of our life, for the rest of our life. And to eliminate one of those because of the risk factor is just ridiculous. You know, my

favorite example of this is, and we have the person here who can confirm this, Doug hired me because of back pain. Yeah. Doug went to a chiropractor. I have so many stories of clients. I know. Low back pain, and then deadlifting is what made them not have to solve. Well, let me tell the story. For me. He had

repeated back injuries. It just kept going. out. And he goes to his chiropractor who I had started working with was like, go see this trainer. He knows what he's doing. So Doug, who had back problems, where his back kept going out, started training with me, and we trained properly and appropriately. Eventually got him to do

a 405 pound deadlift at a body weight of what? Probably 153 or 5. That's an incredible strength to weight ratio. Does your back go out anymore? It has been a very long time. Knock on wood, but no. It doesn't. It used to go out all the time. And that's an example.

Well, I've shared on the podcast, before deadlifting and barbell squatting, I had chronic low back pain. That's what got rid of it. Yeah. I mean, the irony of that, right? Like, as a young man, by the way, like I had low back chronic pain, like chronic low back pain. And learning how to squat and deadlift. Well, you were strong everywhere else, too. That's right. Yeah, it wasn't like you weren't working out. You were a muscular bodybuilder. Yes. You were a muscular bodybuilder. Yes. And it wasn't until I started doing that. I mean, the, listen, too, the core strength required to stabilize the barbell when you're doing a deadlifter is so incredibly important and valuable too. So, and getting good at that skill forces you to do that. And that was that alone right there. And as long as I maintain that. And I notice a difference when I have these spells where I'll go on a kick for a while and I won't deadlift or squat for a little while. And that very first thing that always motivates me.

to get back lifting is I'll start to notice low back fatigue. I'll sit on a plane for an hour and it's like, oh, my God, my low back hour. I'll drive somewhere and I'll be like, and I always know, it's like, God, damn it, I haven't been squatting or deadlifting. And if I'm, if that's consistently in my routine, I don't have chronic. You know what it is. You know what this conversation is? It's lazy.

This is the conversation. Hey, we're not even attempt to teach you or talk about why. We're just to say don't do it. Because we're too lazy to explain it to you. We're too lazy to communicate it properly. And to be quite honest, we think you're too lazy to do it the right way. So just avoid it, you guys, just skip it. Just put caution tape around it and move on.

Yeah, move on. And it's like, no, that's not the proper. That's not the proper conversation. It's just, I think it frustrates me because I would be okay with that with a lot. There's probably 100 exercises you could convince me that you could do without. It's one of the ones. Yeah, it's one of the ones. There's only a handful.

There's less than a handful of movements that, like, I feel like. Don't lose this skill. Yeah, exactly. Do not lose this skill to. be able to do this, that would be, that's one of them. So it's like, get rid of, there's a lot of shit that we can get rid of that. It's like, eh, you know, not a big deal if you don't do that or, uh, if we do this, it takes care of that. Like, there's not a lot of stuff. There's not a lot of stuff that

replaces the deadlift. Yeah. And I'm okay with variations. Like, if you're not, if the skill isn't there to do a barbell deadlift, then we trap bar deadlift. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And we work towards that. You work towards it. You know, or if, or we do single leg, like you said. I had my 70 plus-year-old clients deadlifting, all of them, every single one. We didn't start deadlifting. Yeah. But it was a goal. You probably started with a single-leg toe touch.

Oh. Which is where I started. Oh, and I would start them off on a rack and it was barely bending over. And eventually I got them to do full-on deadlift. And every single one of them was like, I can't believe how good my back feels. Yeah. This is incredible. Yeah.

Anyway, we're going to change subjects. Off-air, Adam. I love the things that Adam gets passionate about. You're talking about my soap? Yeah, dude. Well, listen. Hey, listen. First of all, are you still doing like three showers of.

day? I mean, I always have been that guy. But I, so we had, we had Caldera Lab today. And the way and we, and we just raving about the lather. We talk about all the stuff that. All this stuff is great. But their skin stuff. Yeah, it's amazing. But their soap is one of my, like, once I converted over to using the soap, I've never used,

I don't know how many years now it's been. I've never used another soap. It's the, the best bar so whoever. And I just can't believe you guys haven't got on board as, as, as, because it's a, it's the lather you keep raving about. It's just this really thick, like. And I know, and I know your argument back to that is like, you know that the lather has nothing to do with... It's the experience.

It is. You're such an experienced guy with your bath bathing. There is... And I'm very aware of the... I'm aware of the shampoo game. I'm aware of the soap game. I'm aware of the toothpaste game. Are you smiling when you take a shower?

You're like, ah. Yes. To lather up and see myself... You know, you know... You make a nice little, like, bubble hat. Like little kids. You know, it would be, like, the old... Ultimate, like, if you could sell Justin,

because I for sure, I guarantee you Justin uses dish soap. Yeah. I guarantee. He just used. He just diesel. He does use diesel fuel. Or whatever that's there, dude. He's steal from Courtney's.

Whatever that, like, shop soap is that you use to get greased off. That's just one. Oh, yeah. The orange. It's like sandpapery. I'm totally using that. Well, I've, so I've, before Caldera Lab, I've purchased, like, your, you know, organic goods, like homemade soaps and stuff like that.

And I like those. In fact, we used to get, although they're ridiculously expensive when you buy like that, which is just crazy. I've liked, but the one thing I've never liked about them is I feel like I'm scrubbing on my skin and I can't see any latherer whatsoever. So I've always one of the best of both boards. And I know that a lot of the crappy stuff that's got all the chemicals and the bullshit to make the latherer. Yeah. No, Caldera Lab. So here's a question I want to ask you because you're also, you also have sensitive skin because you have psoriasis.

Yes. And I know Caldera Lab, like, doesn't dry me out. I was just going to say, because one of the things. things that they, what they focus on is, does this work with your skin? Does it balance out the microbiome or does it just strip your body or whatever? So you, you, you say, no, it doesn't make it. No, okay. No, it does not drive me out at all. All right, good. I know it's like dermatologist tested and it's all plant based. And so it's all natural. But that's what blows my mind is I've, for the first time, I've tried all kinds of natural soaps. Like I said, I've never had one that lathers the way that does.

And it lathers better than any chemical soap that I tried in the past. And so, To me, it's like, I don't know how that doesn't fire you guys up the same way. All right. I don't know. I just, well, we're off there. I'm just lazy of that. And I'm like, what do you use, Sal? Like, what do you?

I'm like, what, I mean, I've never even heard you talk about what you. Well, I don't, I don't, I don't think you wash your body. I don't think you wash your body. Yep. I don't think you wash your body. I just, I don't. I'm convinced you're, that's why you're oily. No.

I'm supposed to be oily. I'm supposed to be oily. My skin makes natural oil. I think you use that. I think you use that. Pull the race card. You're saying? He's full the race card.

Here's why I don't talk about it. I've never been in a conversation. You're the only man I've ever met my entire life. Who in full on conversation with dudes is like, hey, I took a bath yesterday, the soap. And I'm like, part of me is kind of like, I'm getting, this weird. That's bold.

What are we talking about here? It's a bold dude. So that's why I never brought it up. Yeah, you soap, dude. But I'll get some of the Caldera Lab. Anyway, I'm going to change directions again. Dude, there's a study that's going viral right now. I'm going to bring it up.

on male versus female concussion. Have you heard of this? Okay, no, I haven't. Interesting, you bring that out. Okay. So this is crazy. So here's what the article says. As long as we win.

Cool. You have to throw that in there. Women or girls are up to twice as likely to suffer concussions as their male counterparts when playing the same sports under the same rules, various studies show. Because we have thick skulls. By the way, by the way, the reason why this is crazy is because the force at which men hit each other or hit the soccer ball or whatever is so much higher. Yeah. So you would expect men to have higher rates.

Or so thicker skulls or what? No. It's because the way that our brains work and the way they handle impact and the way they handle inflammation, it seems to be a lot better. in men than it is in women. And so they're finding that those differences make a big difference. Well, I wouldn't even think that I said that, but I wouldn't even think the thick skull would help

because it's really just- Shakes the brain. Yeah, your brain's slamming to the inside of your skull anyways. No, it's neck muscles, brain micro-architecture and the menstrual cycle. You know what's funny about this? It's like we evolved to battle in wars. Yeah.

Here's the deal. It's not neck muscle. Some biology there. Although strong necks definitely can help. You know, when you have two professional soccer player men hitting the ball or running into each other or any other sport or boxers, the force at which we hit each other is so much higher that it doesn't make up the difference. It's the brain microarchitecture. And so they're like, you know, probably because we evolved with more getting blasted them head. Being a little more resilient to, yeah.

With that physical, yeah. This is important to know, though, with sports. Yeah. It's funny because my daughter plays lacrosse. Is that the one she plays? Lacrosse. And I know in women's lacrosse, they're not allowed to hit each other. Yeah.

Like men's lacrosse. No. And I think some people would look at that. Like, what's the difference? Let them. I think it's more. I didn't know that. Yeah.

They have different rules. Yeah, they're not allowed to like physically. So in men's lacrosse, what are the rules? How can you guys? It's like hockey. Yeah, it's just like hockey. I mean, and you could stick check, but it's like, you can't actively, like, hit above the head. Can you run into each other?

Oh, yeah. You can run into it. You could check. You can use your fighting for your. You can use your stick to. Yeah, see, the girls aren't allowed to do that. Yeah. If you start doing that, though.

You can shoulder in. I mean, they're wearing pads, so it's, you know, it's all fair game. But, yeah, I don't think the women wear, like, shoulder pads. No, they wear, so, yeah, it's just helmet. They wear helmet. And maybe, like, a glove. That's right. Oh, they don't, huh?

Yeah, because they can check at the stick where the hands are, but they can't, like, body check. So I can get the ball out of your stick with my stick. Yeah, unless I'm doing this wild swing, I think it is, like this overhead. Then they'll call it. Yeah. But if you check each other, because I've seen this, my daughter plays. And they'll sometimes run into each other. They'll blow the whistle.

I dig it. And they won't let them do that. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I was under the impression it was the exact same rules as hockey. No. And hockey allows the shoulder full. You can do a check. You can do, what you can't do is check.

in the back in hockey. Hockey, you cannot have a guy turned around. I think it's similar in that regard. And check him in his back, but squared up, you can check him. The high-sticking thing. It's encouraged. You're coming to like a tomahawk. Yeah, and you can't lift a stick above their head and come down.

So that that would be high-sticky. So this brings up another question is that because there was this article that everybody, it's so funny. Every time I saw this article posted, I'd read the comments. I'm like, thank God nobody's buying this crap. It was the one that said that gender differences don't matter if the man. transitions and then he plays sports with women, the performance. They're trying to make this crazy argument that nobody believed and none of the data actually

supports. We've moved on for that, haven't we? There's still... Just goes against biological science. And I'm like, you know what? Different brain architecture? Okay. So now we're all playing the same sport.

We're boxing and I'm a dude, but I transition. We're going to punch each other in the head. There's a difference. There's a difference with how that affects us. Safety. There's a safety difference. Yeah. You bring up boxing.

It's so interesting. Just last night, my uncle was... brought this up to me. Did you, when Muhammad Ali died, did you know who did his eulogy? No. Billy Crystal. Oh.

I didn't know they were like super close friends. Oh, weird. Yeah, I had no idea. I watched it on YouTube as it was actually really good. If you ever had time to look up, Billy Crystal does Muhammad Ali's eulogy. Yeah, totally random. Did you?

I had no idea. So, like, he got his big break from Muhammad Ali. Another comedian couldn't come through. They were doing some award ceremony or something for Muhammad Ali. It was when, and Billy Crystal was like an Unknown. Wow, really?

Yeah, yeah, unknown. Somebody fell through. He happened to have a bit that he used to do, even though he was unknown. Like, and so he's like, hey, this someone recommended him. Muhammad Ali is one of my favorite. I love old, I don't watch boxing anymore, but I like old boxing. He's one of my favorites of all. He does this great thing.

So I watched this first, then I went down the rabbit a whole little bit. Then the next thing I watched was he does a, he did this tribute when he was being, I think, induct to the Hall of Fame or something. he was still alive, and it was called 15 rounds. So, Billy, if you look up, Billy Crystal, 15 rounds of Muhammad Ali, and he does a full-on impression, and it's 15 rounds on it, and it's his life. It's really good. Oh, wow.

And he plays, and he, he, he imitates a famous sportscaster and Muhammad Ali. And so he does both the voices, and it's a story of his life and his fights. Have you ever seen the interview where Mike Tyson is on Arsenio Hall? This will date me a little bit. It's an old talk show. And Arsenio Hall, I think. Is this one he gets, Mike says something to him about being close to him or something of that?

No, no. Oh, that's a different one? No, that was with, was that P. Diddy was sitting next to him? Yeah, he picked up his hand, he moved it over. He was like trying to put his hand on his. No, but he asked Muhammad Ali, sorry, he asked Mike Tyson, how would you do if you fought Muhammad Ali? And the reverence he had for Muhammad Ali.

And Tyson doesn't, like, you ask him to fight anybody. Yeah. Especially back then, he'd be like, I'll kill him. Yeah. But he was like, oh, he's the greatest of all time. He had such a reverence. He was there at that event, too. you see him in the crowd when they do it.

But yeah, it was a worthwhile watch. I thought it was really... You know what, Muhammad Ali kind of pioneered in boxing? Or in all fight sports? Do you guys know? You know what he pioneered? Because obviously he was a great box. He was chasmuch talking.

Of course. Nobody did it. He was the greatest. Yeah. I mean, that's where that came from. We backed it up. That's the thing. You can't, like, have that bravado and not back it up.

That was his strategy against Sunny Liston. You know that, right? So Sunny Liston was dangerous and scary. and Muhammad Ali knew that if he got in his head, that he would just mess with him. And he just pissed him off so bad that Sunday Liston was off. Yeah, do yourself a favor and watch that. It's only like maybe 10 minutes or so.

It's a short little watch, but super worth it. It was so well. I had no idea about that. You know, we missed this prime, right? We never got to see the best of Muhammad Ali ever. I know. He was in three years. He was in prison.

Yeah, because he wouldn't go to. I mean, you could argue that about Tyson, too, right? both him and Tyson spent some of their prime years of boxing in prison. Yeah, that's right. Tyson did something. Well, I know. I'm not saying one of them was. Yeah, I'm saying that we missed out.

Two of the greatest fighters of all time, we missed out on some of their greatest years of boxing. If you're a boxing, if you, you never watched his Frasier fights, man. That is a war. Just watch those fights. They're super awesome. All right. I got this other study that's really interesting.

So there was a study that was done. asking women questions about attractiveness. So here's what the title of the study says. Cues of upper body strength account for most of the variance in men's bodily attractiveness. In other words, perceived strength accounted for or explained over 70% of the variance in male bodily attractiveness. What do you mean with that? So when they're looking at bodies, which one's more attractive? Yeah.

Yeah, that was the determinator. 70% of it was perceived strength. Which, that's like the vast majority of it. Right. It wasn't anything else. It was like, for the most part. Not just your good looking face. It was just literally like he looks stronger.

Which is why. So he's more attractive. Where the beach muscle training come from two were guys just hit chest and arms. Yeah, they're like. They're going all in on that 70%. That's it. You know what I see in my back?

You know what a strong back looks like? Legs are up. He's on the table. His chest and arms. Yeah. So go lift some weights if you want to increase your attractive list level. And make more money. That's the other one.

I don't think they talked about that. I mean, you know me. I used to joke about that all the time about being all show and no go, right? Just no girls ever asked me how much I bench pressed when I took my shirt off. As long as I looked like I bench pressed is what matter. So it's like. I was watching this. I don't remember how I got.

It was like on my algorithm. And this woman was sharing how, how unattractive it was. She was with this guy. And I forgot, I should have show my wife this because I'm like, is this true? She's like, she was talking about how she was with this guy and she saw him do something that every man in her life that she knew was good at. But she saw him and he was bad at it and immediately made her like not attracted to him. What was that? I feel like you said, did you share this before?

No. But I was thinking about this. Like if you grew up with like like dudes that could like fix things around the house, like dad is good at it. Oh, for sure. My brother's good at it. Then you get with this guy and then you see him swing a hammer. And he's just like, doesn't know what he's doing? You just imagine how that would make you go, ooh.

Yeah, right. I thought that, I thought I saw something like that, but it was like, that's why I won't do housework. Oh, you know what it was? I shared this a long time ago. There was a funny clip. Okay, this is this great clip. I shared this on social media.

Someone made this, this fun. It's a guy and a girl, and they're walking on the, on the sidewalk together. And they're holding hands and, you know, and she's like looking at them. And it's like, you could tell that they're in love and so like that. and it's like got some funny music going or whatever and all of a sudden a ball like some two guys were like throwing a football in the street and it went his wrong hand

and it lands at his feet yeah and the guys like they make like a hundred and they do like a head nod like that and he's like throw it at us yeah like throw it and he looks and he picks it up and he's like because it's his left hand yeah and she's like

like into it because his right hand was holding her head I saw that and he like he throws it it's like this don't do that terrible throw and the chick's like just kick it dude at that moment

Just leg overhand and throw the ball. Way better. That's the real mood. Then try to throw it with your left. Yeah, yeah. It was such a great clip. I was talking to, I won't say too much. I won't call them out, but a family member.

And she was talking about how she started dating this guy, so they're younger. And she told me this, like, huge green flag. So they were walking. Green flag. It's a green flag. Okay. So they were walking. And she goes, and we were walking.

and we were walking on the sidewalk, and I was on the outside, towards the road, he was on the inside. And he switched, he made me go on the inside. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, that's good. Old school chivalry, right?

Yeah, dude. I'm like, he knew that. He knew to do that? That's great. Appreciate it. Anyway, I want to talk about aschwaganda because it's one of the main ingredients and organifies green juice.

I have a friend of mine who has a high stress, valuable job. This saves lives, basically. And it's just his job. He tries to do everything he can to manage his stress, but he's often tired and stuff just because of the nature of his job. He does emergency work. And so it's just, it's a stressful job.

He's been doing it for a long time. He's good at it. And so he was like asking me, like, what are things I can do that'll help? So, of course, we talked about, you know, diet, exercise. We talked about sleep. And those are things that he's aware. aware of. And he's like, are there supplements that can help? And I'm like, the one with all the

data is Ashwaganda. And so he's a, he's a smart guy. So he looked up the data. He comes back. He's like, I can't believe I'm not from, I wasn't familiar with this. Yeah. So he started using it regularly. And a couple weeks later, he's like, I can't believe, I can't believe nobody told me about Ashwaganda. He's like, it feels like life changing for me. Do you think that's the main thing in the green juice? people comment because it gets obviously, I mean, it was, for the longest time, I don't even know if it still is or not, but for the longest time, it's been organifies flag-shick product. I mean, that's what put them on the map.

I remember our first experience with it. But at that point, every green juice I tasted, tastes like crap. It tasted amazing. Oh, yeah. It felt good. Normal green juices taste like, like if you mowed the lawn and then juiced it. Yeah. Disgusting.

And so, you know, it's obviously gotten tremendous reviews for such a long time. Do you think it's the aschaganda that is the main? It has a lot of good things. So it's better than just taking Aschwaganda, because Oscewaganda is great. It's one of the main ingredients. But it also has the microgreens in there, things like Lorella, Spirulina, and other things that when you grind them up enough

and you make them bioavailable, they just have all these benefits. They have all these digestive health benefits, anti-inflammatory benefits. Accidents. They help with digestion. It just feels good. So it's like one of those, like, can I improve? Is there a supplement I can, take that will improve my body's ability to handle stress. That's also good for me. Um, and of course,

this is a supplement. So it doesn't replace diet, sleep and exercise. It's like, yeah, green juice. Green juice. Take that regularly. Yeah, I always thought it was a deficiency thing. But I think it is, too. It's the, the calming of it, like with the stress management of it, for sure. Totally. That's what I noticed it the most. Yeah. When I like to use green juice, the most is when I'm traveling, because I just travel messes me up. If I'm traveling for the show, my sleep is off. airplanes, I have, like, I get motion sickness easy, so I'll get off the plane. I always feel kind of weird. And if I do the green juice, you know, it makes a big difference.

Do you have any flights coming up? Are you flying anywhere anytime soon? We were talking about one. Well, yeah, we are going to Arizona. What is that? Because that's the past in June. That's in June. Yeah.

I fly before that. I got Miami. Dude, that'll be the, that'll be the, the biggest talk I've done for Mind Pump. For in terms of length and amount of people. So last year when you did that, so last year, we did a talk. it wasn't the main stage? It was not the main stage last year. I thought it was too, Sal.

Was last year my second time my second time? Okay, so I was on the main stage. Yeah, because the first year you weren't, you had such great feedback. They got such great feedback that he put you on it. Now the difference between this year, now you're the opener. Yeah. So you were, it's in a new place.

Yeah, so you were already, though, on the main stage. I mean, last year, the crowd was big. Yeah. Yeah. But this was, this is a longer talk. And again, is it longer? Yes. They want me to speak for 30,

five minutes, I think, which that's not really, I'm not worried about that. I could talk for a long time. 35 days. Yeah, we're confident. Because the last talk was 20 minutes. I remember, we'd be like, oh, man, I got to make sure I cover this. And as I'm talking, there's a timer. And I started realizing, like, I'm going to write out of time. I better get through my slides.

Yeah. Type of deal. So I'm excited. I'm excited for that event. I mean, the fact that they rented like a whole place now, right? So they have, it's huge. Bigger than the Vegas one they had, which that was huge. The whole peptide space is getting so...

It's going crazy right now. It's insane. Yeah. Yes. It's getting so crazy. It's so interesting. Everybody there is a practitioner, most people, so people who use peptides in their practice. So you're looking at like doctors, nurse practitioners, wellness practitioners.

So a lot of the talks are really technical. Like newest peptides, combinations, how you can identify which ones your patients need, you know, that kind of deal. but of course I'm not talking I'm not speaking to that I'm going to speak to Did you watch that clip I sent you last night? Which one? You didn't. That's a no.

It's the only one I sent you last night. Which one? It's the only one I sent you. No, it didn't. What was it? Oh, I want you to look at that. I don't want to bring it up until you watch it because I want you to, I want you to comment on it.

It was our buddies, Jordi and his buddy. They were interviewing a pharma guy and a peptide bro. I was going to watch that. I want you to, short, something like minutes. Okay. It's not a long commitment. You know what happens if I open a text and then it doesn't look like it for me. Then you go like, yeah.

Let's let that report. It's. He's trying. It's revealing. You try to tell me to work more. No, that's not what it is. If I open it, my ADD is so bad, right? And then I don't have the thing that says you should read it.

Very quickly, I forget that it's there. So what I got to do, and I do this sometimes is I'll remark it as unread. We see that you saw it and didn't read it. You're like a kid. I got to hide the vegetables inside the stuff. I'm going to have to find ways to, like, lie about it. Hulk pancakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've got it. I'm going to sneak to things I need him to read or listen to it into something else. So I got to figure it out. But I am excited to speak to people who are using peptides because I think the conversation around how to use GLPs is so important. Oh, yeah. So we can't remove the fitness and the nutrition elements. Dude, I'm, I'm seeing more and more people.

lose weight successfully, because that's what they do, on a GLP, and come out with other problems. Oh, I mean, look at our, look, our callers now. Osteoporosis, osteoporosis. It's rare that we do a week of collars and not at least two or three of them are not used one of the GLP ones. I mean, it's because now, and a lot of them had huge success, like you said, losing weight, but so many people are losing a ton of muscle at the same time. And so, I mean, this is really, we've been having this, this conversation for well over a year now, almost two years, when we first started talking about it. And I know I was really early on very pro. In fact, I used to argue for, I think the net, it's going to be net positive. So it's going to be awesome. I'm back and forth now. We've seen enough people. It's entirely dependent on a person their approach. That's right. It's entirely dependent on what else you do with it.

And unfortunately, I don't have, from what I'm seeing, I've lost faith in people. Yeah. So when I started, and I think this is recently for me when I started to see it, you know, penetrate the circles of friends I had that I would have never guessed would be using it is when I went, oh, wow. So it's, it's too cosmetic, the reasoning and it really shouldn't be a reason to be on it. And I was really hyped on it when I saw it with the people that were 300 pounds and struggled their whole life to lose weight. And it's like this was a, and these people, this was like a huge, huge benefit to helping them quiet that noise and heading the, I mean, we've seen so many great success stories, success stories around that. As I started to see it introduced and being used by people I would have never guessed and then how they were using, I was like, oh, man, this is turning quickly. it's turning into anyone and everyone is like, hey, this is a quick way to lose 10 pounds of weight.

It's almost like people's baseline now. It's like, well, yeah, I'm on this, but I'm also doing this. I'll predict this right now. I predict we're going to come out of an obesity epidemic into a frailty epidemic. I think you're right. Which brings me to another topic because what they're now doing, this is just pharma does this, right? Big pharma does this because this is what they know to do. I don't necessarily think that there's bad intentions or evil, although sometimes I think that's the case. But what they do is they'll come out with an intervention.

Then that intervention will cause other problems. And then they come out, their goal is to come out with intervention to solve the problems that the first one caused. This is just what they do. And so what you're seeing now is lots of money and research is beginning to pour into muscle building compounds. And the direction of the going is myostatin inhibition.

So, and we've known this for a long time. Like, if, when you take an animal and you genetically modify them so that they're, you knock out the myostatin, they just build tons of muscle. There's crazy amounts of muscle. Like it's silly how much muscle these animals build because they don't have this, this something called myostatin, which is essentially the brakes on muscle growth. So what they're doing is they're trying to come out with interventions that will inhibit myostatin because they're like, cool, we can combine this with a gLP.

It'll solve the muscle issue. because they lose muscle on there, but they won't because they're on this myostatin inhibitor. But I've been doing research on myostatin inhibitors interventions. So knockout animals where they genetically modify them is a little different than what they would do with people. Obviously, they're not going to, you know, you've got your genetics. So they would have to inhibit it through different means. And I looked this up in the animal studies. And here's some of the stuff that they end up finding in them, which is interesting.

So when the animals build more muscle through myostatin inhibition through an intervention, not genetically modified, but through an intervention, we see reduced muscle quality. And one of the things they notice is what's called lower mitochondrial density. In other words, to put it differently, there is not a proportional increase in athletic performance and strength to the hypertrophy that they see. Right. Useless muscle. So they build all this more muscle and athletic performance doesn't catch up. up to it or doesn't match it. And so they actually become less, less, uh, it's non-functional meat.

To an extent. And I would argue, too, that this is a, um, we'll end up compounding too, because if you have somebody who cares just about aesthetics and this thing gives them the aesthetics that they want, why should I go to the gym and lift any more weights? I've already, I'm more. And so you'll lose the good quality muscle from the little bit of whatever training you might have done during this time. because now you have this intervention that gives you this kind of artificial looking muscle that's practically useless to you. I mean, this is a, we predicted this.

You'll have obese muscular people. Yeah, exactly. Well over a year ago, we were predicting this and we talked to Dr. Seeds about it. Yeah. And I remember him saying that this is, that would be horrible. Good looking weak people.

But that's like, it's like gaining 15 pounds of muscle, but you're not strong. But when I look at the people that are taking it to my point, those are the people that would want, that who don't care. Well, my point. That would say like...

There's a big segment of people. Yeah, it's like, oh, I look good. I mean, what a perfect... Like plastic surgery. What a perfect segue, how you start... You perceived strength is what is the... That's all people care. I look stronger and fitter.

And so I don't care if less or more mitochondrial health. I don't care if I can lift more weight or not weight as long as I look like I can. Do you know what happens if you're heavier and you're not stronger? You're worse. Yeah. You're just heavier. It's more stress. All that extra stress.

It's going to add up on your body. My point with this is less of what you're saying, because that's important. I'm not saying that's not important. That's for sure important. People are going to go down that path because they just look better, even though they're not better.

But my point with this is it doesn't solve the problem, which is you're still going to have the strength frame. You're still going to have to work out. You're on a myostan inhibitor. Go work out still because we need it to be strong muscle. We need to be functional. But what I'm saying is that it's going to be so much worse because one of the signals,

one of the signals that motivates people to go to the gym, In fact, the loudest signal that motivates most clients that we all train is the mirror. Is the mirror. I know. I don't look good. I don't like the way I look. I would argue that 90% of those people that hire me wouldn't have hired me if they had this artificial signal that said, I look pretty good. But I know I need to go to the gym.

I know I need to go lift weights because that's healthy for me or better for me. Like, I don't give a shit. I look good. Here's the real question. Would you trade health to look better? And the answer for most people is yes. They do it all the time. Or they would say no, but deep down they would.

Well, their actions tell you the truth. Exactly. That's, you know, I think a lot of people would say no. I mean, people look at the risky procedures and surgeries and things that people do. Totally. In pursuit of looking good. Totally. So they want to portray that they have all those qualities, but then that's where we get to test it.

Well, here's my prediction. Oh, less mitochondrial density. Here, let's add this other thing that's going to increase mitochondrial density. Right. And let's figure out this other intervention. Now you're on 17 different. Yeah. And it's like, you got to just, you got to work out, dude.

You got to work out. Fatty 15 is a fatty acid supplement that contains the newest fatty acid that's being shown in studies to have tremendous health benefits. C-15. There's over 100 studies that show that C-15 can slow down biological aging, reduce inflammation, make you healthier at the cellular level. It's amazing. It's definitely something people are going to benefit from supplementing with.

No, it's not fish oil. it's a totally different type of fatty acid. I've been taking it for a while. I noticed less inflammation myself, and I'm already a healthy guy, so it definitely works. Go check them out. Go to fatty15.com forward slash mind pump.

You can get an additional 15% off your 90-day subscription starter kit if you use the code, mind pump. Back to the show. Our first caller is Mike from Switzerland. What's up, Mike? Hey, guys. How's it going?

Hey, guys. How's going? Good. How can we help you? Yeah, well, I got to tell you guys have helped me out a ton listening to the podcast. It's been super helpful with everything. So thanks for that, for sure. But yeah, a little background. I'm 43-year-old American living in Switzerland. I moved here about 10 years ago. As my wife, we have two young kids.

And I've always been a bit overweight in my whole life, even, you know, as a kid. I've been relatively active overall, but never really worked out on a regular basis until about 18 months ago. and started consuming information, fell into your guys' podcast, and started to kind of dial in my routine and diet based off the advice you guys give. And it's been really pretty fantastic. I lost about 50 pounds. So I'm 5'7, I'm down to 165. Really feeling quite good.

Couldn't be really more happy about the whole thing, but it hasn't been without some challenges. And so what I want to ask you guys about was the first issue, which about six months into this, about a year ago, I had a herniated disc in my cervical spine, which resulted in some pain in my shoulder and arm. I worked on it with the physio, and he said basically the doctor thought it was due to looking at a computer screen

and bad posture. So we worked on that, and after about three months, got back into lifting again, but my left tricep was really weak after all of that. And so I took your guys' advice. I've been running math to anabolic. I've done it a couple times,

basically, as written. And I basically just shifted everything to unilateral instead of bilateral and let that left arm dictate the work. And I got to say, it definitely came back strong. And my left arm is stronger than before the injury, but the right arm, I'm still a new lifter,

is also getting stronger. So this is still a significant imbalance. Also, my arms are kind of a stubborn body part. My calves are about 16 inches, and the arms are barely 13. And then the last piece to throw on top before asking your advice is I fell off my bike and broke a couple of hands the bones in my hand the other day.

So that's the same hand that the arm that has the problem. So now I'm going to be sidelined, for another three months. So any advice as far as dealing with the hand and overall, just dealing with the imbalance I have with that arm and the nerve issue would be greatly appreciated. Yeah. I think keep doing what you're doing. So what you were doing is perfect and stay at it.

I don't know how bad the nerve damage is. And if there's going to be any lingering issues, but the way that you're training unilaterally and starting with the weaker arm is exactly where the right direction. if you want to build or develop a lagging, quote unquote lagging body part, the prescription is to build more muscle overall. So you can increase your calories, hit your protein. And then what you would do is you would move volume away from body parts that you feel like are pretty well developed and kind of add it towards the lagging body parts. So if a program calls for, you know, nine total sets for biceps during the week and let's say you're very satisfied with your chest. And, you know, it's calling for 12 sets for the chess.

You could take three sets off that and put it to the arms. And then just stay consistent. And that's it. You look great, dude. Doug just pulled up your transformation. You look great. Yeah, you did a great job. Doing a really good job.

Where your calories at? Just curious. You know, I don't get too crazy about all the tracking and things. I can tell you one thing. If I do try to actually track for a day and I'm in the like 2,500 range, I'm like super hungry. So I got to guess I'm somewhere around 3,000 on average. Oh, nice. Oh, nice.

No, you're doing good. Yeah. But yeah, I, you know, make sure that first couple meals of the day I tried to get to at least 100 grams of protein and I just don't get too crazy about the diet other than, you know, getting away from starches, focusing on protein and focusing on fiber and veggies. But other than that, I don't get too crazy with it. I just kind of let it kind of dictate where it's going to fall and go from there. You're healthy, dog.

You just stay consistent. Yeah, you just stay consistent, dude, and fall. of our programs and do the little volume swap. So a little bit more armwork, a little less whatever you think is doing great work. So if it's with your legs or your back or your chest or whatever. And that's pretty much it. Just stay consistent. And you'll see the things, you'll see the lagging body parts start to develop.

Yeah. Feed yourself. If you're hungry, give yourself food. Keep eating the way you are. But like you don't deprive yourself. Continue to fuel the workouts and try and get strong and get stronger, you know. maybe I mean maybe switch up the programming if he's ran anabolic that many times in a row maybe you have any of our other maps programs no I got that one used it I liked it and then

I've been kind of just tweaking it based off the overall advice that you guys give yeah but you know I'd be open to trying something else if you thought that it would make sense you know symmetry yeah it sounds like yeah you're making adjustments like that yeah symmetry is right along the lines of what you need to do anyway right we'll send that to you okay but you're doing good, dude. That's it, man. And obviously, you got to let the hand recover. I mean, that's obvious, right?

Oh, yeah. I just, do you have any advice on that? As far as obviously, like, grip strength's going to be kind of last, so I'm not going to be able to do any deadlifts for a while. Is there anything in that other than, obviously, I wait for the doctor to tell me I can do things, but do you have any advice generally about dealing with that? Do you use peptides?

I don't. I'm generally not really interested in going crazy with any of those kinds of items. I do use creatine. regularly and I focus on eating the protein, but other than that, I don't supplement. You know, keep exercising what you can because that'll actually help with the atrophy in your hand. And that's pretty much it. Then you get just wait, wait until it heals.

Okay. I know some people use like straps and things for grip and you guys generally say not to do that because it weakens your grip overall, which do you recommend just waiting until the hand can deal with it or would you say that in this case? So how extensive is the, is the break? Like, what are you able to do with that hand? Yeah, so it broke the fourth and fifth metacarpal, and I had to have surgery, and there's five screws in a plate on one bone, and there's wires in the other bone.

So my guess is it's going to be three to four months. And then after that, it should be fine, I think. So here's the risk. So the risk is if you use straps, you're going to have to really not use your grip. What you don't want to do is cause any healing issues. especially with screws and wires. If you move things out of place, you'll be,

you'll be setting yourself for another surgery in the future. So you've got to be really careful. I know it's a pain in the butt because you've got to wait. And straps take some of the load off, but not all of the load. You know, so, and now there are hooks.

You can use hooks that pull at the wrist, but I don't know how much pressure that'll place on the metacarsals, even from here. So I would just be really careful. because you want the healing to be good. You don't want a screw to be poking out. You don't want the bone to be misaligned.

Because then what will happen is you'll be like, cool, I'm good. And then you're going to have all kinds of problems later on. And that is a pain in the ass to have to continue to operate. Hands are just, you don't want to operate. It's a short phase of your life to be down. And then you'll be right back versus trying to wrist it. I mean, you could get creative with like ankle cuffs that you put around your wrist

and be like cable machines and do things like that. But it's like, I would just let yourself. Real slow articulations and just. just isometric, you know, type of work is, you know, but that very gradually working the way back. Yeah. Okay. So you'd basically suggest wait, just wait it out. Yeah. That's right. And then, and then go back to what I was doing. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Then you don't run the risk of re-injuring. Yep. Makes sense. Your body will bounce right back. I mean, we always worry about like, oh, God, I'm going to lose all that muscle. You'll bounce. It'll bounce right back. Real fast. Way faster than it was to get it. Sounds good.

Well, I appreciate the advice, you guys, and, you know, really enjoy the show and everything. It's been super helpful. Before I started this 18 months ago, I never in my life thought I actually could, you know, get in shape. I was, even in high school, I ran track and I was pretty flabby. So understanding what you have to actually do to get in shape is just so easy once you know what to do. It's basic. Yeah. Thanks a lot.

I appreciate it. You're a great place, bro. Keep it up, Mike. All right. Have a good day. Thank you. I mean, a pretty simple, straightforward advice. He's doing the right stuff. I think symmetry would be a perfect program. You didn't want to push PPC over there, huh?

He doesn't want to touch that. Well, yeah, he's uninterested. Just lack of knowing what it is, though. People, you know why? That's on him. You think you're injecting like some sort of a hormone or something that's like some drug. You can also do oral BPC, but he's also in Switzerland.

And I don't think they're available. Let that up, Doug. What's the regulation? First of all, here, it's kind of an iffy. You can get a doctor prescription here, but it's still, you know, FDA tries to on and off. They just let it, you know, go through again.

Yeah. When you're talking about, like, socialized medicine, they're even more of a pain in the ass with that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you can buy peptides in Switzerland for research laboratory or pharmaceutical. Yeah, so it's research purposes. So he's going to have to go to the great market. But he's like, he read out the gates.

No, I know. I just, I mean, when you talk about something, speeding up the healing process. I mean, if that's something you're open. BPC, thymus and beta. Cut that time and a half. If it's three months, you're talking about a month and a half.

That's what I would do? Yeah, I mean, so would I. So that's why I brought it up. But I don't want to push him on it. But it's also, I think a lot of times people just think it's something more than what it really is, you know. Our next caller is Mercedes from British Columbia. Hi, Mercedes. How are you?

Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Good. How can we help you? So I'll kind of go through my questions so that you guys can get a full gist of it. Okay.

So I'm 5-1. I'm about 102 pounds, 21% body fat. I've been stuck at this weight for a few years now. I train with your course muscle mommy. My lifts have all increased, but my actual gym body scans that I've been getting have said that I have not gained a single pound of muscle at all in the past about three years. but all of my lifts have gone up. I can do 12 unassisted pull-ups,

but I still haven't gained any muscle somehow. I strength train only. I don't do anything else, no cardio or anything like that. I'm sitting most of the day for my job, and I eat 2,800 calories a day at least. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm getting like at least 140 grams of protein per day, like 95 grams of fats a day. Now I'm, I've upped it to 3,000 calories a day, which is really pushing it for me. I don't really know how my future is going to be sustainable because the more muscle mats put on, the more metabolism, you know, so I'm just going to be eating more and more and more food. And I just, I don't know if I can eat any more food at this point.

So I was just wondering what you guys thought that I could do to help with this. Well, what do you, first of all, what do you want? Because you're in such an amazing place right now. That many calories, the body fat percentage you're at, the height, weight, strength. strength. I mean, what do you want? What do you, what are your goals? I also want to gain more muscle. I want to get to like 1-10, one day, you know? Okay, okay. Wow. You're, and you probably look, you probably look like a little jack chick in a jam.

Yeah, dude, you're doing well. I think you're just got to be patient, hon. Yeah. Yeah, I just stay patient because I could look, you could force it. What are your lifts at? Tell us about your lips. Should you do a tall pull-ups, well, why, no, I heard that. I heard that. I can do like, doing five, by fives. I can bench press about 75 pounds. That's solid. What's your deadlift, squat? Okay. What's my deadlift?

Well, I usually do RDLs. So I can do like 150, 150 for like 12. Wow. For RDLs? Wow. I mean, you know, it's a pretty quad dominant. So I don't usually squat too much. So I usually do like one leg or like hack squad or stuff like,

that, but the actual machine weighs like 135, and I'm putting like two 45s on it. So my lifts are like pretty up there. Hello strong. Yeah, you're really strong. Yeah. Let's give you. How far? I'm getting muscle or something.

Like, I'm not a farmer. No, no, no, no. Listen, you're doing well. So, okay, so what's, um, your, how deep into muscle marmy are you? I've gone through it a few times, but I've changed a few of the exercises just because some of them I didn't really like. Okay. You want to follow Mass Power Lift?

Yeah, I could definitely try that. Let's do. Yep, I do. Let me put you on Maps Power Lift. Now, look, you could try forcing this. And what that's what it looks like is eating 3,200 calories, 3,300 calories, 3,500 calories. She already takes a mass gainer, too. You already taking a weight gainer.

Yeah, you're petite. And here's what will happen. You're going to start trading things like gut health for weight on the scale. and I don't think that's a good trade. I definitely think you can swap your chicken breast for chicken thighs, though. So do... Yeah, I'm doing that even though I kind of think chicken thighs are kind of disgusting. No, really?

Oh my God, you're so backwards on it. You're so backwards on that. Do you like ground beef? Yeah, what about beef? All the time. Lots of ground beef. Okay. Yeah, enjoy some rib eyes and tri-tip.

Like, fatty or cuts of meat, it would be a way for you to creep the calories up without feeling like you're having to stuff yourself. You take creatine? Yeah, I do. Five grams per day. You're doing everything right. Yeah. Just stay, just stay consistent.

Yeah. Be patient. How old are you? 26. Yeah, you're young too. So just stay patient, stay consistent. You're going to slowly continue to build muscle. You've already got a lot of muscle.

You're obviously very strong. I'm so impressed that you, are you getting activity outside of your lifts in? Because you're a truck driver. So you're not, you're somewhat sedentary. I mean, you don't really want. Holy. You have a crazy metabolism. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I seriously do. Yeah, no. Stay consistent and you're going to do great. Again, you could force it. I don't think you're going to like the way it feels. You're probably already feeling like you're eating at home. Yeah, I've tried that.

Like, I've tried drinking masking or before I go to bed or, like, eating late at night and then I wake up in the morning. I'm so sick. Yeah. And I'm like, worth it? No, because I'm, like, throwing up or whatever. Yeah. So can I go, like, over my, like, fat intake?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You can throw olive oil on stuff. You can eat fatier cuts of meat. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So like let's say if I'm like 50, 30, 20 like for macros, like can I go like higher in my fats and like lowering carbs to help get more calories? I mean, if you want or you can just keep everything the same the same and just bump your fats. Yeah. Bump my fats. Yeah. You can afford more calories obviously. So don't even drop your carbs.

Keep your carbs with their eye. Just add more fat. You know it's easy to do. Oh, easy way to do that. You eat vegetables. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. You throw some olive oil on it.

Okay. Yeah. Olive oil, butter, peanut butter. You eat rice, put some butter on your rice. Like, that's the easy way to add a few hundred calories. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And that would make me like gain lots of fat or anything like that? No, obviously not. No, no. Where you're at, your metabolism is so on fire that it's, you're, it's, you're, here's the deal. You have, so here's a deal. When you're hitting adequate protein, which you are, you're getting 140 grams. You're only weigh 100 pounds.

You can, bumping calories at that point is fat and carbs. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. So, yeah, go ahead. Throw olive oil, throw some butter on there. I'm going to advise that you don't try to force this. And just stay consistent.

Follow mass power lift, get strong. Yeah. Have fun with it. And you'll keep gaining muscle. Yeah. Okay. So should I be like believing my skins that I've been getting at the gym? No.

No. I wouldn't even, you're just, you've told me enough already with your macros, your strength numbers, everything like that like you're, you're doing perfect. I wouldn't get hung up on. what that shit says. Yeah. Yeah. Just keep getting stronger in the gym and that's going to, and keep pushing those calories

comfortably. And that's going to serve you. And know this too. You are 26. You still have many years of gains ahead of you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean.

I'm 30s to go. Yeah. I mean, my best physique didn't happen until my 30s. And so, yeah. So you still have gains ahead of you. So just be consistent. Keep doing the thing. and you're going to continue to build.

You will. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate it. Good job. Yeah, we'll send you power lift. Okay, thank you. All right.

Thank you. All right. All right. Me too. Every once in a while. Dude, that's crazy. I guarantee you. Bro.

I guarantee you. She's got to look jacked. She probably looks like a picture of her, Doug. She probably looks like a gym. I couldn't find her now. She has to. She probably looks like one of those gyms. She has to.

Yeah. You can't, you cannot sit in a truck all day long. Yeah. sitting and only be 5-1 and 100 pounds and eat 3,000 calories and not like be a, like, she's just an anomaly. She said she has visible abs at 21% body fat, which tells me she's got good muscle. Yes. So, and here's a deal.

Like when you're, and this doesn't happen that often, typically we're working with people who are struggling and getting leaner or women who are afraid to eat more. But when you're working with someone who's trying to build muscle and they're already eating a lot, I mean, you can definitely force it. But there comes a point where it's not worth it. No, that's, I mean, that's how you and I both got gut issues. That's right. I mean, that's exactly how we got gut issues is, was trying to push so hard of getting bigger.

You know, in spite of it. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. No, she just keep doing it. She's still young, 26. Yeah. And we didn't ask her when she started lifting, but, I mean, say she started in her life. She's going to, I mean, up until she's in her 30s, she's going to be building some muscle.

Yeah. Our next caller is Jesse from Australia. Hey, what's up, man. How are you doing, Jesse? Hey, are you doing boys? How the fuck are we? Good, good, brother. How are you?

Good, good. Fuck, I'm so excited. Sorry, I'm just fucking, this is crazy. How can we help you, man? Shit, okay. Like, about 10 weeks ago, I agreed to fight boxing. I was doing it once a week. It's like a PT thing.

I like the skill. And then to get back into it, did it for about six months, off for about a year and a half. Waste was always consistent, but wanted to come back to it because I really enjoyed it, like the, I don't know, I guess progression every week on getting better. And yeah, and my coach was like, you should fight. And I was like, ah, I know. And he's like, we're going to fight night. You should do it. And I was like, oh, shit, okay. So I agreed to it. That's when I sent the question. So that was about eight-ish weeks ago. So the fight is literally

next Saturday. Not this Saturday, but next Saturday coming. Yeah. So the question was more about like training for it and I guess how I do everything else. At the time I thought I'd have to cut weight. I'm about 70. I was at the time like 71, 72 kilos. Now I'm at 69.

The cap weight was at 72. So we're both good. Me and my opponent are both good. We both train at the same gym. We spoke to each other. So we're both good weight-wise. don't need a cut or sweet. Yeah, so I don't know.

So I guess the question sort of now go on to, I don't know, how do I keep training weights-wise if I want to also keep doing boxing? Because I really fucking enjoy it. It might not be three days a week like I am now because I'm sparring a couple times a week and doing skills one-on-one and stuff like that. And I've dropped my weights down to twice a week

and I'm doing maps performance and dance. and I'm in the second phase for more like speed power, explosiveness, stuff like that. And it's, you know, I just thought two days a week, don't go crazy, but keep it there. So I got the speed. I got the power. Everything else was cardio and boxing focused for boxing.

Yeah, so fucking. Don't change the thing, bro. You're killing it. How many days a week? Two days a week. You're going to keep boxing two days a week after? No, no, no. He's trained two days a week.

Strain training, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, but you're doing three days a week now leading up to the fight. What do you plan on doing after the boxing? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know. Because this was like a, I wasn't really planning on fighting. So this is like a, I'm scared to do it.

I should do it. One of those things, you know, you should always do something that you don't want to fucking do every now and then. But, uh, but yeah. So I would like to keep going with it. But of course, me and my body dysmorphia brain are like, no, I need to be as big as possible. You know, I need to keep doing the weights.

But I really enjoy it. And, you know, like, saying like, you know, like, sell your, your series and stuff and talking about, like, your, you know, your issues with, like, you know, the weights and trying to be as big as possible and all that kind of stuff. Like, I was always, like, a lot skinnier than I am now. The stuff, the photo of me holding a lightsaber is proof that you guys say that. They might show you that. That's when I was, like, 18.

like barely touch the weight. So, um, and I have other photos too. There's an SG in there for you, Justin. Um, um, but yeah,

so it's, it's good to challenge that as well. Like I, as well as, you know, um, being self, self-conscious about that kind of stuff can,

um, really fuck with shit. And, uh, that's annoying. And it also, it's good for staying consistent and, you know,

motivation is temporary, but discipline. is forever, which is great. But at the same time, you know, at some point, you're going to let go all that stuff and just fucking feel what makes you happy as well. It's good to be strong and fit and all the other stuff. But, yeah. Well, Jesse, if you're eating right, you're getting good sleep.

You seem like you're fit, healthy guy. Give yourself four days a week and then you could trade those four days a week how you want. So if it's two days boxing, it's two days lifting. If it's three days boxing, it's one day lifting. If it's three days lifting, it's one day boxing. and then it's up to you what you enjoy doing and that's what it would look like

cool awesome um yeah sweet that's just so cool god damn i like the idea of you boxing because of your self-awareness around um the body image stuff which uh i can relate to Sal can relate to the guys can relate to that uh keeping you focused on like a sport like that

is a healthier relationship with exercise in my opinion and so i think it's a good a good way to have checks and balances. And you look bad ass, bro. I mean, I'll be... Yeah, no, you're, you look great. So, and you're, and obviously, if you're boxing, you're moving well, too. So, you know, I regret losing basketball. You know, that's something that I wish I was still playing right now. And so if it's something that you can keep going and keep doing, I, I'd keep boxing. Even if it's not at the level of fighting somebody, at least doing it because you love to do it for as long as you can.

That's right. Yeah, yeah. No, I used to play Aussie footy and then that stopped because of COVID and all that kind of stuff. But I played from like literally, I don't know, maybe like Oz kick or like whatever it is for you guys, like peewee football. Yeah. You know, like if you're like, you know, four or five years old all the way up until like, you know, maybe like I was 24, almost 25. So that just got like too fatiguing. I just don't.

And also I go for a shit football team. We haven't won a premiership in like 30 years. So I'm just like, you know, just out of it. Don't go for, don't go for Carlton if you go for a football team. Also, maybe please do. Please, we need more supporters. But yeah, so that was like a, that was a, yeah, that was a big part of my life. And then that's sort of gone.

But it's weird to just sort of like not have the passion anymore. But that was like, boxing is something else that I found it in. Yeah, lean into that. Boxing is a really good check and balance for how you feel with strength training. It really is because you get too big and bulky. You'll feel it in the boxing. You know, boxing requires a nice level of stamina. I like the mix.

I think it's great. And then it's up to you what your mix looks like throughout the week. You know, if it's once a week or two or three days a week with lifting. And they work well together. Yeah, they do. And throughout the year, you can toggle the focus. So it's like half the year you're heavy in the boxing. And so it looks like three days a week of training in that, only one day of lifting.

And then you're like, all right, I've been boxing for a while. kind of want to get big again and then you switch back to three days of lifting and only one day of boxing. So I like that kind of rule of stay within this like four days of kind of intense type of training and be toggling between whatever your focus is leaning that way. And then if you want to balance, you split it down the middle. Totally. Yeah. Awesome. Fuck yeah.

No, that's cool. That's so good. There's one small other thing. Yeah. Because my sleep is usually decent. I put a lot of effort into my sleep routine, especially like blue light blocking glasses, all that kind of crap.

And, you know, like devices and all that shit. But staying asleep is another thing because I'm a very light fucking sleeper. I sleep with my missus in bed, obviously. But we also have two dogs. Whenever they move, I'm up. If they get up in the middle of the night, I'm up. Is there anything you guys recommend on deep sleeping?

I do have an eight sleep that I bought off a mate. Oh, yeah. which has been amazing for staying cool because I just fucking run hot all the time. But in terms of actually staying in deep sleep, I haven't checked my sleep before. I got like six and a half hours, but I woke up like five times during the night. So it's like,

you could try. Yeah. So you could try glycine, magnesium, magnesium before bed. And then white noise or earplugs. Okay. Some people do really well with that.

Like the white noise just keeps them asleep. or the soft ear plugs that you put in your ear and then you're, they do that. Do you do that? Yeah, ear plugs. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I think I might have to.

Yeah, dude. Because then your dogs moves and stuff and you don't, you don't register it while you're sleeping. Are you, if you haven't tried Brain FM, that's with that too, though. I think that's, I'm more of a Brain FM guy than I am the earplug guy. So I like that. I listen to Brain FM every night. Oh, cool.

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then mess with, like Sal said, the supplements. I do the same stack he just said and I sip on some camo milt that's kind of my routine

before I wind down before bed helps out By the way, sometimes waking up a lot in the middle of night means you're training a little too hard just just an FYI So another thing you experiment with Is reducing the volume of your training And then if your sleep improves

Then you know that was the issue Yeah, shit Hey good luck on your fight dude Yeah, yeah Thanks, I'm sorry appreciate it. I put a picture of they actually made like cards like fight posters as well, which I wasn't expecting. So there's actually that as well. Um, picture of my dogs, picture of my missus. Um, I don't know. You guys just been,

you've been such a massive big fucking part of my life, obviously with the fucking one pump hat. Yeah. I appreciate that, man. Yeah. Dude, like, I just like, I don't know. I found you guys like, as soon as COVID hit, you had like clips and stuff recommended on like YouTube shorts. And I was like, fuck this is perfect like you know podcast only about fitness but it's actual good shit and these guys are all jack too um you know so it makes sense yeah uh yeah you guys have changed like the way i think about everything like to all my friends like i'm the fitness person obviously but like they come to me for advice but i feel like i can actually give proper advice because i've listened to almost every

single old episode you guys have done and like almost every single new one um and listen to that many live cause. I feel like I can also just fucking be like, nah, you should do this and like focus on that and that's great. Body, you know, so. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate your support, brother. Yeah. Good luck, man. Go whoop his ass. Thanks, boys. Yeah. All right, dude. That's cool. He's great. Yeah, yeah. It might, you know, it might be that he's pushing the limit a little bit with his training. Uh, and that's just the common thing. If you're a young man or, you know, you're fit and you get that kind of wake up throughout the middle light.

Could be that. Could also be that your light sleeper. Some people's brains register noise and it brings them out and earplugs. Is that you too? That makes a difference. So, but he's doing good. Our next caller is Salvador from California.

Hey, what's up, man? What's out, dude? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good, good. How can we help you? I'll just read the question. I got a little lost.

All right. So I said, hi, fairly new listening to the podcast. looking into getting a workout program, but I need a little help choosing. I did football and wrestling in high school, graduated 2015, graduated at 220 pounds. After a couple of years, I went up to 280 or 290. 2018, I lost 60 pounds in about 6 to 8 months,

doing just like hit workouts and like a mile and a half runs. And then during the pandemic, I kind of gained it all back. I was getting free money and postmates was there. So, uh, and, uh,

November 2025, I was at 282 again. Uh, and since I've dropped to, what's it when I sent the email was at 258 around there. Uh, I'm currently at 248. Uh,

but I kind of hit a plateau, like a really bad plateau around 255. I was stuck there for a couple months. And I've still been floating at that weight, haven't really dropped too much. My current, and my goal is to drop to 220 by July. I'm trying to compete in a 50-kilometer mountain bike race in October, and I want to be in that weight range.

That way I can kind of ride the bike a little easier uphills and downhills. At the moment, I'm eating 180 grams of protein a day. around 17 to 2,000 calories daily. My workouts are like 30-minute cardio and then five-minute jump rope. And then I'll do like four compound workouts, three of my workouts. And I'll do two to three times a week. You're starving yourself. You're too little.

Way too little. Way too little. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And how dead set are we on this mountain? bike challenge. Well, that's in October. No, it's in, it's in October. It's October. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Because, yeah, I wouldn't even want you focusing on that right now. You need to build. We need to build, build muscle right now. And you're not going to do that at

1,700,000 calories. Well, here's a deal. If you want to get down to 220 by October and lose body fat, you're going to have to eat more now. Yes. You're not going to cut now. No. So you could, you could still train, work out, do everything that you're doing, but build into a leaner physique because there's nowhere to go. Your calories are so low. If I cut you more, you're going to have just a total decrease in performance. You're going to lose muscle. I would immediately bump you up to about 2,400 calories. 25 at least. Right out the gates. Right out the gates, 2,500. And just keep working out. And what you're going to notice is more energy, more strength. You're going to start to feel better

and stay there for a little while. And then when everything feels good, you'd bump it up again. What I'd want to hear from you and what we should see after you, after you're going to or that 2,500 is relatively quick, we should start to see your lifts in the gym go up. Yep. Which also, too, I want to give you a program of ours, and I want to make sure I tell this that you need to rest between. So the way you've lost the weight in the past with hit training and running

is the opposite philosophy of what you've probably heard us communicate and talk about. So when I give you maps anabolic to follow, you need to rest for a minimum of two and a half to three minutes. between sets. So you got to sit still. No doing shit like crazy or not like, oh, I'm ready to go and go right into it. You need to rest. And your goal is to put more weight on the bar, more weight on the bar, week over week. So the first thing that I should see is strengths go up significantly in all the big compound lifts that you've been doing. That should be the first thing we notice. Second thing we're going to notice is appetite increase. And I want you to feed it. So if you're already at 2,500 and you actually

start to notice you're getting hungry and strength is going on the gym, I actually want you to go up in calories again. That's your metabolism starting to kick up and your body wanting to build muscle. And where you're at calorie-wise with the amount of activity and the size you are is not enough calories to build 10 pounds of muscle on your body. And we need to build 10 pounds of muscle. Stick to clean food, keep eating whole foods and just feed yourself while you get stronger, bro. By the way, you're not just going to notice a jump in strength.

Your endurance is going to go up too by bumping your calories. Yeah, everything. Yeah, you're not taking enough enough. energy, guy your size to have any kind of good athletic performance. What you're noticing right now is like your body's surviving. That's why it doesn't want to lose any body to that. Yeah, that's why it's hit a plateau. It's hit a hard plateau because it's like we can't go.

So if you go 24, 2,500 calories right now, you stay there for a while. You'll feel good. Then you go up another 200 calories. And then probably three months before October, you'll probably get yourself up to about 3,000, 32, 3300 calories by that point. And then you want to do a cut. you go down to 2,500 calories and you'll just lose that. Call us back in three months.

Do what we're telling you to do right now. We're going to give you anabolic. Bump the 2,500. If you get hungry, go up to 2,700. Focus on getting strong. Get those long rest periods. And then in three months, we should have shown you a significant difference by that advice alone. And then we'll give you the advice from there to get ready for your 50K mountain bike thing.

Got it. Does that sound cool? Does that sound cool? Yeah, that sounds good. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. Thanks, man.

All right. Thank you, guys. Yeah. I like what Justin said with the, just kidding. Yeah. Nice job. I mean, bro, he's way too low. No, bro.

Way too low. Your body is holding on for dear life to every bit of stored energy when you're working out that much and your calories of that loan. You're that big of a guy. You know, he's too, what do you say? He's at 200. He's 248. Yeah.

He's 248. And he's doing cardio. He's doing a lot of working out. He's eating enough just to hold on to everything. Nothing's going to happen. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a lot. That's it. Look, if you like this show, come find us on Instagram.

It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

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