Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2858: 5 Weird Tricks That Trigger Fast Muscle Growth

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

In this episode the guys break down 5 weird but proven ways to quickly trigger muscle growth — one set to failure, blood flow occlusion training, the all-day workout method, doubling your protein intake, and post-workout sauna. They also get into a 1967 Senate committee that predicted we'd only work 22 hours a week by 1985 (and how wrong they were), the birth control predictions that went completely the other way, why alcohol consumption is dropping (hint: it's not because people are healthier), and a Harvard multivitamin study showing two years of use made people five months younger at the molecular level. Then they answer questions submitted through Instagram — covering weekly vs. daily step goals, how often you should expect to progress in training, preventing stretch marks during weight loss, and the best high protein high calorie snacks. MAPS 15 BOGO — https://maps15bogo.com Buy 1 get 1 FREE — limited time (all 7 MAPS 15 programs same price) SPONSORS Paleo Valley — https://paleovalley.com/mindpump 15% off automatically applied at checkout (no code needed). Grass-fed, fermented meat sticks — high protein, long shelf life. Zbiotics — https://zbiotics.com/MINDPUMP26 Code: MINDPUMP26 — 15% off first purchase (one-time or subscription) Hiya (kids' multivitamin) — https://hiyahealth.com/MINDPUMP 50% off first order. Zero sugar, non-GMO, vegan, allergy-free — the only kids' multivitamin we recommend.     LINKS Mind Pump Free Guides (including 7 Day Overtraining Rescue): https://mindpumpfree.com  Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com  Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com  Instagram: @mindpumpmedia   0:00 - Intro & sponsors 2:12 - 5 weird ways to quickly trigger muscle growth 4:45 - Method #1: One set to failure — the Mike Mentzer / Dorian Yates method 14:55 - Method #2: Blood flow occlusion training — how and when to use it 16:38 - Method #3: The all-day workout — the Soviet method that still works 21:44 - Method #4: 2g of protein per pound of bodyweight — why it's hard but effective 23:16 - Method #5: 15–20 minutes of sauna post-workout — VO2 max, neural drive & recovery 26:43 - 1967 Senate prediction: We'd work 22 hours a week by 1985 — what went wrong 30:48 - Birth control predictions from the 60s that went completely backwards 33:26 - Psychology of Money — lottery tickets, spending habits & money behavior 38:07 - Why the guys tuned out of politics (and why it's working) 41:47 - Harvard multivitamin study: 2 years of use = 5 months younger at the molecular level 48:07 - Alcohol consumption is dropping — but not for the reason you'd think 56:09 - Q&A: How realistic is it to make progress in the gym every week? 59:25 - Q&A: How can you prevent stretch marks when losing weight? 1:00:36 - Q&A: Is hitting your step goal on a weekly average as good as hitting it daily? 1:03:33 - Q&A: Best high protein, high calorie snacks to hit your intake goals  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we picked questions that our listeners wrote in on Instagram. We picked four of them, and we answered them. But this was after our intro.

Today's intro is 52 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about fitness, fat loss, muscle gain, current events, family life supplements. It's always a good time. By the way, again, if you want to post a question that we can pick, go to Instagram at Mind Pump Media. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Paleo Valley. Today we talked about their meat sticks. This is grass-fed meat.

It's fermented so it's not dry. High in protein, long-shelf life. It's a high-protein snack. It tastes delicious. You got to go check them out. go to paleo valley.com forward slash mind pump. On that link, you'll get 15% off. This episode is also brought to by Zbiotics.

This is a pre-alcohol drink. So it's a probiotic that's been genetically modified to break down acetyldehyde in the gut. What is that? When you drink alcohol, some of that is released in your gut, goes in your bloodstream, makes you feel like crap. So drink, Zbiotics, enjoy a couple drinks. You feel way better. By the way, this is the only company that has it.

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Enjoy the rest of the show. Building muscle is a slow, arduous process. It could take a while, and yeah, the rules apply, right? Resistance training, eat high protein, eat a surplus, be consistent. But there are weird ways to quickly trigger muscle growth. Now, these aren't long-term solutions, but they do work. If you want to see some quick gains

in a short period of time, keep listening. We're going to list them, break them down. I'd say the biggest mistake people make in regards to these five that we're going to go over is pulling the lever too much.

Or stay in them. Too long. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it's like one of those things it's like, oh my gosh, it works. I think all of us have probably experimented with this

and had this happen where you do it and you go like, oh shit, this does really work. And then you're like, go, it's because, becomes your go-to move. It's addicting. Yeah, for a long time.

And then it ends up not only not working, but then you probably even have, you go backwards. These are more like interruptors, like something that I could, a tool that I could bring in, if I'm a bit stalled and, you know, plateaued a bit. It's like, let's bring this in and shake it up. Totally. Only one of these could be used consistently to augment your progress. It's the last one.

But the rest of these kind of produce these kind of short-term gains. and they're proven by experience. We've all experienced these for ourselves and for our clients. But the gains are short, but they're fast. You're looking at three to five weeks, maybe six of some rapid gains. I'm going to just also paint the context here properly. If you go into these over-trained and underfed, they're not going to work. Yeah.

Okay. So you have to go into these well-rested. You're not overtrained. The reason why you're not getting gains is because you're burnt out and over it. So if you're not getting gains because you're just overdoing it, doing we're about to say might not work. One of them may work a little bit, and I'll get to that one first.

But a lot of them won't work. So make sure you go into them rested. So what might be a good idea is to have a delode week. I was just going to say it. And then jump in. I was just going to say, I was going to recommend our reset. Overtraining seven-day reset guide.

That's more is that, Doug, mind pump free.com? Yeah, probably a good strategy for most people, pretty much no matter what. Unless you're somebody who's like just getting into it or you know you're not. Do that every eight to 12 weeks. Yeah.

Anyway. And so not a bad idea to just start with that and then go apply this and then watch what happens. I think it would set most people up for success. All right. We'll get to the first one, which is one set to failure. So this is the first time I learned about this, I was, I want to say 16 years old. So I'd already been working out for two years. And at that point, my strength training looked like very traditional bodybuilding style workouts. I got my advice from Muscle and Fitness, Flex magazine, Iron.

man, these were the muscle building magazines at the time. And I also had Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia Bodybuilding. So my strength training at that point looked like your traditional bodybuilding. You know, I'm doing lots of sets per body part. I'm hitting each body part once or twice a week, spending, you know, a lot of time in the backyard working out. And then I read, or actually I should say, I saw an ad for a book called Heavy Duty. And it had a picture of a bodybuilder by the name of Mike Menser. And he had this really wild looking physique, kind of as a square-shouldered, kind of Herculian-looking physique, which caught my attention.

And so I bought the book. And Mike Menser has a way of communicating where it sounds very scientific. And a lot of the stuff he does say is true, not all of it, but a lot of stuff he does say is true. And so he talked about the theory of building muscle that was championed by Arthur Jones, who was the inventor of Nautilus Equipment. And he said that bodybuilders build a lot of muscle in spite of the fact that they overdo it. So what he said was, all you have to do is set the muscle building process in motion and then stop. And so in the book, he says, well, what sets that motion forward? What gets it going?

It's intensity. And once you've surpassed that trigger, anything above and beyond that just takes away from your progress. And there's some truth to that. He just went way too far. But anyway, I guide this book, and the routine was two or three days a week. It was like one workout. Then you take two days off, do another workout. It was a chest, shoulders, triceps, back biceps, and legs.

And he said one set per body part to failure. And that was it, which was such a wild departure from what I had been doing at the time. It's a drastic difference from a lot of the, you know, hypertrophy style training. And so the first time I tried it, I had strength. and muscle gains every week for like six weeks, which, you know, for a 16-year-old kid is mind-blowing. Now, do you think that's because from a recovery point of view because you're coming from a place of you were training everything to failure or was this pre that? So back then, I, you know, I would train pretty intensely.

Yeah. But I also do a lot. Yeah. And so I think it was a combination of this is the one set. I have to make it count. But I think most of it was I was just overdoing it so much. Yeah. that I scaled the volume way back and saw crazy progress.

So was this in the protocol, did he do any kind of warm-up set? Or is this just like the one set? No, you got to make sure. No, you make sure you warm up. And he had another theory where he would use what's called a pre-exhaust set. Because you said, well, if you bench press and you go to failure, maybe it's your shoulders and triceps that fail before your chest. So do a set of flies to failure, jump right to the bench press.

And so this was all his theory. And I saw these really rapid, like really. Consist like 10 pounds added my lift every week for a while, like five weeks, six weeks. And I was like sold and everything stopped. Yep. And his protocol or his advice at that point was we were overtrained again. So now train even less frequently. So I went to one workout every three days, one workout every four days.

And what I ended up getting was zero gains. And I started to go backwards. And that's when I started training in different ways. I've done this with clients. And the clients I've done this with relatively well-trained. They've got good technique, going to failure, like going to real failure. You know, the risk of injury goes up because your form breaks down. And I'd see the same thing with my clients.

It's like three, four weeks of pretty consistent gains. And then we would hit like a super hard plateau or wall. Until this day, if I do something like this, I've got now at this point, at my age with the amount of strength and muscle I've built, I've got a good three, maybe four weeks of gains before I start to notice, you know, issues. with the program. I mean, at least the, you know, the volume is accounted for, which, you know, I see a lot of people trying to apply the failure method, but then their volume is way too high on top of it, and it just kind of defeats the purpose.

You know, I pulled this lever a lot in 20s and 30s, not so much in my 40s. This is just, and maybe to the point that you just made that I've built enough muscle now. I'm not straight. I'm not looking for another 10 pounds of my. muscle on my body. I'm just like, it's like trying to maintain. And so it just doesn't require that. Like this makes made more sense to me when I was still in the mode of like I was trying to build and grow. Did you do this where you would just do one set and nothing else? No, I would do. So what it would look like would be like on a on a day where I was working chest,

whether I was running a full body routine like anabolic or I was running something more like aesthetic. Didn't matter. When I, I, the last set of that exercise would be to work set. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Now Doreen Yates popularized this. in the 90s as well. So he comes on to the scene, becomes Mr. Olympia, ushers in the era of mass monsters, and he was very much an advocate of this.

He called it blood and guts, which is just, it was very similar. And he saw, he went from second place to first place in the Olympia, and I think he gained as a pro bodybuilder something like 13, 15 pounds of muscle.

And so it popularized kind of the style of training. But I'm going to say this straight up because we know that volume also contributes to muscle growth. So it's not just intensity. Volume does this as well. And we also know with studies, and again, through experience, that failure training is a button, but it's really not a button you need to push. And if you do, you use it very infrequently. And when they do comparison studies,

really good comparison studies, not going to failure seems to produce better long-term gains. Yep. That being said, more sustainable. That being said, if you've never done this before, here's what will happen so long as you're not over-trained and you're doing everything else okay. for probably three or four weeks, at least you'll see consistent strength gains across the board. Now, the problem I have with it now is that my strength gets so high,

I start to hurt. Yep. So when I do this... That's exactly what happens. I get the adverse effects that I get from... It aren't worth the little bit of gains and strength PRs that I get from.

So last time I did this, I went my squatting with 315, which is heavy for me. And I got up to 385 in a very short period of time. And I was just, I was kind of hurt. It didn't feel good on my joints. Yeah, yeah.

You know, just give you an example. But again, if, if you've never tried this before, try it for a few weeks and you will see some pretty rapid gains. Back out of it. My advice is this. Back out before you hit the plateau. Yeah. So if you see games, three weeks in it.

Three weeks. Yeah. And then jump out, do a week of delode, go back to your old style of training. And it's a pretty awesome thing you could throw in a number. I'd be willing to bet that, because of all, you have several things on here This is probably the one that most of our audience uses. I think this is one of the most controversial things that we talk about. When I look around at our peers in the fitness space,

a lot of them preach intensity. Yeah, but nobody does. Most people don't do this. So I'm not talking about going to failure. I'm talking about doing one set. Yeah. No. My point is that this is going to training to failure is touted so much.

My point is that a lot of people, listening more than likely. If somebody you never do this, then absolutely take this advice. But I'm willing to bet a good percentage of people listening still are the people that fall in the category of overdoing the intensity. Yes. And one of the things I think that we, we tend to, when we get somebody that is a caller or somebody that's been listening for a long time, they finally go through our program and they take the two in the tank advice and they fall. It blows their mind. Always. It always blows her mind. They feel like they're doing way less than they ever been for, getting way better results.

And I think that's because the fitness space has pushed failure or failure training and intensity so much that everybody thinks that that's what you need to do in order to see grace. I see platoes. They're like, well, what are you going to do? I got to go harder. Yes. That's the first. I'll bet this, though. I will bet that the vast majority, like 90 plus percent of people listening who train to failure, don't just do one set to failure.

No, you're right. So this is very different. You're right, because this is, this was my personal journey. and I think a lot of people fall on this is like not realizing, then finding out, oh, failure training works, and then doing everything to failure. And you do that for a really long time. And then I remember my next big gains from failure training

was reducing the amount of failure to down to just, oh, I would just do my last set of every exercise for a muscle group. And then I was like, oh, wow, that's all. But then I even stuck to that for way too long. But that's typically, I think, the journey of failure training for somebody. They never do it. Then all of a sudden they do it. They do it all the time with everything.

And then you learned to back off a little bit. So I'll say this again, just be clear. If you're going to try this, it's one set to failure per body part. Warm up, no working sets. Warm up so you feel ready. Go to failure. One set for chest. One set for shoulders.

Move on. One set for back. One set for body. That's it. And for a good three weeks, you'll see, most people will see some pretty good things. Well, you programmed this in. Anabolic advanced, but different. Yeah, it is different.

But if you had somebody, because what I'm trying to think about is like, what would I recommend to our audience because I feel like of all the five things we're going to talk about, this is probably the one that most people don't need to go to, in my opinion. Unless you're already somebody who's overdoing and this is scaling back. But then I would say go follow Anabolic Advance. I'd say that protocol teaches you how to actually periodize it better. It does. It periodizes it and alternates it so you don't hit that hard wall.

But to keep it simple again, like you want to try this. One set, two failure per body part per week, that's it. And for a good few weeks, you'll see gains pretty consistently. Next up, this was popular, like, I don't know, eight years ago. I don't really, nobody really talks about this anymore. Yeah. Is blood occlusion training or? Yeah, kind of fell off.

It was. It was hot when it was like eight years ago. When we first talked about it and made a guide about it, it was a hot topic and a lot of people were using it. Maybe because a lot of people found what we found, which was that it does really work. I'm going to stop. It's not for long. Yeah. And then what ends up happening is like, oh, you kind of, just like anything else,

you pull that level all time. And then it takes away from the other volume that you would be. doing and that's not better volume, I would say. It also works on the extremities. It doesn't work so well on the muscles of the trunk. Yeah, you can get compound lift. There's no advantage. No, you can't really include your back or your pecks.

Yeah. It doesn't work. But for like delts, arms, quads, hands, calves, what you'll do is cut out a set, your traditional exercise, do an inclusion set. And you get knee wraps and you essentially occlude the blood. So if I'm doing it for my arms, I'm going to tie it around high in my armpit, tight enough to where I feel the blood is being included. Not so tight that I lose feeling in my hand,

but tight enough to where there's occlusion. Just restricted a bit. Then you grab lightweight and you wrap it out and you do three sets in a row. You wrap it out, wait 30 seconds, wrap it out, do 30 seconds, do it again. And grab a lightweight. This burns more than anything you've ever done your entire life.

Yeah, you do not need heavy weight. It feels like your arm or your calves or whatever are on fire. The pump you get from this is extreme. It looks silly. But you'll gain a pretty quick, you know, a quarter inch of muscle on your calves or your arms for a lot of people, maybe a little less. But you'll see gains if you do this for like a few weeks. So it works.

Next up is the all-day workout. This is fun. It's a big commitment, but it's a lot of fun. And so what you do with this is you lead into a day where you have nothing scheduled. It's a good like weekend event. Yes. You know, you could really have fun with it. Yes.

I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, since you're. you brought this up, a little off topic, but it's been on my mind a lot because I'm getting ready to set up a gym at my house. And I'm going to do something. And it reminds me of a trainer that used to work for me a long time ago when I was in my early 20s. And I always thought, like, what's he doing? And I never saw him do like full workouts. He just all, all day long. I had a trainer the same thing. And he was a strong. He was just jump on the bench. And he was an older guy, like older guy and just jacked. He was jacked, you know? And I always thought like back then I used to scoff at what he was.

was doing. And it's like I, I'm inspired to try this. And I need, obviously, I need it at my house where I'm going to have like a real routine. I'm just going to make it a habit to like every day go over and do like a set or two, walk over to my dumbbells, walk over to my squat rack real quick and just try and do that all day, all day, every day, whenever, never doing more than two or three sets. Like literally, like that's never. And it's got to be moderate intensity. Yes, exactly. Moderate intensity to, but it's like every time I walk past the rack or walk past it. Just go grab it and do it. I'm so curious.

So when I was an assistant man, when I first became an assistant manager, they put me at Saratoga, that tiny little club that doesn't exist in the more 24-finness. And there was a trainer that worked for me who could bench 405, which that's a lot of weight. You rarely ever see someone bench four plates. And I could see him and he could do a single or a double of 405. And I was like, wow, bro. Like he was like two, he wasn't a huge guy, maybe like 215, but muscular. But what he was doing all day long is in between clients or whatever.

he put 315 on the bar. So remember this guy who could bench 4 or 5. Yeah. Who put 315 on the bar and he'd do like three reps and he'd leave. And he just do that throughout the day. And I asked him, I said, how are you so strong at the bench press? Like how often he's like, well, I just practice it all day long. And I'd watch him do this.

And he was so strong. That's when I first kind of like peeked into this. So here's how this works. You want to lead into this with a few days off. So take like three days off from the gym. Let's say it's a Saturday. Pick two or three exercises. you're going to do moderate intensity, maybe five reps of each,

and you do a couple sets of each in the morning. Then you take an hour off and then you repeat it. And then you take an hour off and you repeat it. In between, make sure you feed yourself. You'll have probably five sessions of doing this. The strength and muscle gains from one of these workouts is pretty weird. Yeah. It's actually kind of weird.

And what you'll find, by the way, by the third session, you're stronger than you were in the first session. You're not going to failure. You're doing five reps with something you could probably do nine reps with. but you just, you know, five reps of squats, five reps of, you know, bench press, five reps of rows or pull-ups. You do like three exercises pretty much. Yeah, two or three exercises. I mean, it's the same ones.

A cluster set is like an example of this in the large context, right? In other words, if you've ever done a cluster set, it's kind of interesting how it works. You choose this weight that, you know, is probably difficult for you to lift, I think, like, say, 10 times or whatever like that. But then you're only doing like these sets of five or whatever like that. And you put it down rest just for 15 seconds to lift. do it again. And you end up being able to do way more than you would ever do in five sets or whatever. And it's just, it's mind-blown. And you don't feel like it. Well, this, the inspiration I got from this besides seeing here and there a little glimpse of it was how the Russians trained their

Olympic athletes. And they would do this. They'd spend hours. Way less weight than you would think. Less weight. They weren't training, they weren't maxing out. They were just practicing their lifts all day long. And they, of course, they broke records. And so I tried this. The first time I tried this, this was probably six years ago. And I just, I did it. And then I took a few days off, went back to the gym. I was like, stronger. This is a funny one because I think, too, I was reading about these Olympic lifters that

would do this. And then, you know, like some of the days, it'd even fuel up with, like, candy. Oh, yeah. Like, whoa. This is wild. But it was like, because it was like, no days off. They wouldn't even take one day off a year. No.

It was just like continuous. No, when I did this, I ate the, so I'd do it. And it would only take me, you know, 20 minutes. Then I'd take the next. next hour off. And in that period of time, I need a real small meal. Yeah. I did like five of these throughout the day. And it's wild. You count up all the reps and how much weight you lifted and all the volume. Like, oh my God, I did hell of volume. I don't feel like I did,

though. And then a few days later, I was like, for the average person, this is probably the least feasible at all the ones. You're going to have a day all out, dude. But if you're somebody for guys, if you work from home and you have an at home gym or you're a trainer and you work in a gym, like, this is totally something that you can expect. Or you live close to your gym? Yeah, that was, that's all the staff there's going to be like, what are you doing Yeah, that would be, I think going to a gym, this is way less likely. This is someone who has, you have an at-home gym, and it's a weekend. Or you work from home.

Yeah, or you work in a gym. And it's totally feasible to do something like this. And I just, I think it's a really interesting strategy. And it's something that I've never really tested for a long period of time. And it's been on my mind that when I get this, this is going to be like with the first things I experiment with. It's like random two sets at a time. It's cool. All right.

Next up is to hit two grams of protein per pound of target body weight. If you do this for too long, you're not going to feel very good for most people. But I've done this before. I've had clients do this before. And they'll typically see strength and muscle gains pretty quickly within the first week or two. Just from doubling their protein. I love this one because it pairs with any other ones. Yeah.

Oh, you're right. You can add that to anything else. Yes. Yeah. So this stack. Because you can't add the other ones to each other. Right. That's right. This is this one, you can, this one, stand alone doing what you're already doing.

I think it has, well, you'll, you'll garner some benefits and gains to your point. But you could stack it with one of these other ones. And I, for sure, going to see gains from that. I mean, because, and I love that idea of boosting the protein while simultaneously. By the way, it's hard. Yes. So if you're, if you're, it takes planning. Oh, my God.

Listen, if you're a girl and you're trying to eat 130 grams of protein a day because that's one gram per pound, you're going to go 260. Yeah. for a week. That's not easy, you guys. It's really hard. You're going to definitely have to use shakes, and it's going to be a chore. It's a chore. Yeah. Make sure you hit your pro, your fiber. You probably want to take Cillium Husk while you do this. This is a road to constipation. You're not going to be hungry either. No. You just got to keep eating. You do. Totally. And then lastly, this one's interesting. And this one you can always do. This one is healthy for you. And it doesn't add stress to the body. It actually contributes to recovery. It's not a workout thing.

And it's just 15 to 20 minutes of sauna post-workout. What's crazy about this is the benefits of this. Most of the benefits you see in the data is to VO2 max and stamina. This is wild. Like you add this to your post-workout and you'll have measurable, and this is tested, like they've tested this several times, measurable improvements to stamina and your VO2 max. Now when it comes to strength,

what we tend to see is an improvement in neural drive. so your CNS seems to adapt really well, which makes you stronger. And this is kind of easy. It's like you're not working out more. You're just 15, 20 minutes, post workout, go sit in the sauna, get out. And you'll see some improvements.

I think there's another benefit that is overlooked in today's society with the amount that we're inundated with social media and being distracted. I just find there's so much value in, 20 minutes of no phone and silent. Just sitting there. And sitting there. We never do that.

We never do that. Very few people, I mean, obviously there's some people that have put in yoga practices and things like that. Good for you if you do that. But very few people make this something consistent. And so something that can benefit your gains in the gym, it feels good, improves V-O-2 max, and then also helps you disconnect. And I think that it's, we don't.

have a lot of studies yet that show, you know, how addicted we are to social media in our phones and being connected to disconnecting and what that potentially can do. So I think there's like an underlining benefit here that we're not even tracking. Yeah, yeah, I agree. All that blood circulation without the stress to, you know, you factor in. So it's like, yeah, you need that for recovery. And it's like, yeah, it just seems like it pairs super well. Yeah.

Now, to speak to the protein, just to head back, you know, a little easy hack, for increased protein intake is to have protein snacks in between your meals. Like the Paleo Valley meat sticks are such a great example. It's like 68 grams of protein. Still my favorite snack. For one meat stick. You know, you throw one of those in in between, you know, breakfast and lunch and then before bed. Like, you've got yourself, you know, 20 grams, 20-something extra grams of protein from grass-fed meat.

It's got a long shelf life, which is great. So you could pack it and bring it anywhere. and then because they ferment the meat it's not dried out it's not dry you get that everywhere else you get like dry I had this the other day just like even from Costco and I was like I'm like oh I'll just try this super dry and like it's not good hard to eat yeah no that the Paley Valley ones are they taste fresh they're the best and they're grass fed I mean we've been with them for a long time but before we were with them it was it was their beef sticks it was beef jerky that

we were looking for right and there's a handful of other really popular companies that had reached out to us and sent us product before. Like really popular companies? Yeah, big ones. Um, and it wasn't even a close call. Like, Palao Values was so much better than any other of these brands. And so I rarely, they'll ever have one. But I normally, I usually go to, yeah, I normally pair them in two or three. So, you know, it just, uh, it's a, it's a, uh, you can if you're like trying to stay low calorie, do that, but I mean, yeah, but to bump your protein up. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a good source. It's a good source of, of a protein snack. And so two or three of them, but it's a bump your,

them isn't bad to have together either. So I'm reading this book right now because you mentioned being in the sauna and it's, you're off your phone and you're, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm reading this book right now called Praying like monks and Living Like Fools. Tyler Staten, a great author. I read his other book, Familiar Stranger, so good. My wife read this book, recommended it. So I've been listening to it. And in the book, he starts, he gives some data and some statistics. And there was something that, like, it was just blew my mind. So I don't know if you guys, I didn't know this. I think most people don't know this. In 1987, there was a joint Senate committee that they brought together because what was happening around this time and before this time were huge advance investments

in time-saving devices. So you had like in the 60s and 70s washing machines, dishwashing machines became popular. Microwaves became popular before that, you know, way before that, right, light bulb and clocks. So we had these. crazy, these devices that took so much, took so much of our labor and shrunk it down. So we had all this time on our hands, right, presumably. So this joint Senate committee came together and they unanimously predicted that, sorry, it was 1967, I think it was, that by 1985, that we would work 22 hours a week and only 27 weeks a year. So they said, because it was 19667 that came together, they said, you know, all these crazy technological advancements are saving us so much time that within 20 years, we're only going to have to work 22 hours a week.

We're going to have all this leisure time. We went the other one. We have less leisure time. We're far busier than we've ever been. Which is wild. I think it points to just how messed up we are as humans. Well, okay. So that's a really interesting thing to.

talk about because one of the biggest arguments and debates right now around AI is it's going to replace all the work. It's going to take over all the stuff that we're going to do. And is that, I mean, that's probably how they thought in 1967 that, oh, all this, all this stuff doesn't save us so much time and we're going to work way less and vacation way more. Oh, we're going to have all these robots. Now they're going to do your daily chores. Like, will we do less? I think our best predictor is, is to look back at consistent human behavior. And that's not happened. No, I think what's going to happen is we're to fill our time with a bunch of who knows what.

And we're not going to have time to like all this time to sit around and, you know, go through philosophy and art and, you know, connect with each other. I think it's just going to make things worse. Like it has. Like, you know, we got jet airplanes, roads, you know, cars. Like these are crazy inventions that we're supposed to reduce stress, reduce anxiety, reduce depression. reduce the amount of time we had to work and we do more of all that stuff. So I don't think it's going to change.

I think human behavior is human behavior. Yeah. And I don't think there's any time-saving device that's going to make it better. I think it's us that has to change. You know? I still go back to my prediction of we're just going to be looking outward into space

because more. Yeah, because we're, yeah, there's more work. Where's the work going to take us, you know, in the places that were, it seemed like, outrageous. Like, between that or, like, like, you know, the depths of the ocean or whatever. Like, we're going to be, you know, venturing more into that because we need something to do. Not only that, like, parents already know that, like, they're not going to be happy when their kid's dumb.

They're not going to sit there and be like, oh, well, this is how, like, everybody's already anxious and upset about it. I know. Everybody is. And it's like, what are we going to do about? Let's wait until the government does something about, you know, no, they're just going to end up doing something else and just teaching them, you know, the old. school way. You know how much the average person slept before the light bulb was invented? 10 hours. Wow, really? Yeah. You had gas lamps. There's nothing to do. And you're right. Yeah. And we just slept. People took nap, especially in the winter. You read and you fall asleep.

And you go to sleep. So people would sleep a long time. They'd have naps. This is just 10 hours. So we've dramatically reduced the amount of sleep because of the invention of light bulbs. I didn't know that was that much. 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I know. Big. Big. difference. A huge difference. Now take it to you. It's like a great sleep. You get eight hours sleep. It's like a huge deal. Take it to the next step now, right? Next level, right? Light bulb gets invented. Sleep goes down.

Internet. iPhone gets invented. TV first. Less light all day long. Even less sleep. Yeah. And yeah, just kind of staying on this track about like human behavior. I saw this woman so we didn't know this because we weren't around

when this happened. But I did not know, and I confirmed this, that when birth control got invented. Do you know how they sold it and what they predicted? Oh, no. So they said this is going to strengthen marriages because it's going to give you control over your, uh, over having a child. So it's going to be way better. Who said that? They said it was a strength in marriage. That was how they're selling it. Everybody who was promoting it. This is what they did. Look it up. Go back to when birth control was. I know,

but I mean, that's like, that sounds like it's such a marketing statement. Yeah. Not like, like, like someone really It's for premarital. Yes, everybody believed that. Because at the time, marriages were far more stable. And one of the challenges people had was like, oh, my gosh, we got pregnant again. It's going to make things more difficult, more strain on us. So they said, you have control over your fertility. This is going to strengthen your marriage.

That was number one that they said. Number two that they said is it's going to reduce abortion. Because of this, we're going to have way less abortions, you guys. It's going to be way better. And number three, they said, this is going to reduce. unwed pregnancies. So out of wedlock pregnancies. All the opposite of what it did.

They're all worse. They're all completely worse. There's more pregnancy outside of wedlock. Divorce is higher. By the way, birth control is a bit of a correlate with divorce and being married. Well, you've talked about this before. You have the guilt going off of birth control and then there's that dysfunction. And abortion has gone up per capita.

So it's like all, it's like human behavior. Like, oh, we're going to fix this thing. The solution is. Yeah, you'd think there'd be less like abortion. I mean, if not obvious, but yeah, it's just, I guess they just, that's an education thing or? I don't think it's an education thing. I think it's a human behavior thing. You know, it's interesting.

We're staying on this human behavior talk. So I'm reading a book right now called Psychology of Money. And the argument that he makes in it is that the biggest determiner of wealth is not education, anything like that. It's actually your behaviors in psychology around money. Of course. And just your relationship with it. Of course. It's like it's, and they, you know, they dropped this stat that I thought was really interesting or that the people that buy lottery tickets are predominantly lower income by four times.

Yeah. By four times amount of the lottery tickets than the wealthy. You know. It's crazy when you think about that. And that same group or is the same group that would say they don't even have $400 for emergency. Listen, my family came to this country poor and uneducated. My dad had, he didn't go to high school. He went to second grade.

That's how far he went. Poor and uneducated. But they had this mentality of saving, only buying what you need, and working hard. And they ended up raising a middle class family in Silicon Valley, which I know it's way more expensive now, but it was still expensive in the 80s. And four kids. So I've seen that. And I also know people who, you know, are kind of always in that, like, struggling.

And you look at their spending habits. And it's just total, like really bad financial health or behaviors. Yeah. Disconnect. I know. Isn't it? Isn't that crazy? Yeah.

Doug brought it up. Doug go back to that screen. The sleep one? No. The proponents of birth control. Oh, before that, he brought the sleep cycles up. Did you see that? Yeah.

So a lot of the way they did the 10 hours was actually, they had a first wake and a second week. That's right. So it wasn't 10 hours consecutively, which that makes me. more sense now because I'm like, God, I can't imagine. It was cumulative. It was a cumulative 10 hours a day. Yeah. So look, I'll go back to the other one, Doug.

Proponents of widespread contraception in the mid-20th century, particularly with the introduction of birth control pill in the 60s, argued that increased access to fertility control would fundamentally strengthen marriage and significantly reduce the need for abortion. So if you scroll down, Doug. So these were the arguments that they made in the 60s because there were people that pushed back, in particular the Catholic Church. Catholic Church was like, no, it's not a good thing. And they're like, you guys are stupid.

It's going to work. And they said proponents predicted that enabling couples to plan their families would lead to happier, more stable marriages. It was believed that the ability to separate sex from procreation would reduce the burdens of unplanned children, allow for better economic stability, and improve the emotional connection between spouses by removing the fear of unwanted pregnancy. Sounds reasonable. Like when I read that to you, it's like, that sounds reasonable. Reduce abortions. A major argument for making birth control widely. was that it would eliminate unwanted pregnancies,

which were viewed as the primary cause of abortions. Sounds totally reasonable. Went the opposite direction. So, see, human behavior, man. We are just, we're broken. Just overrided it. Yeah, we're super backwards. So what happens when we have all this,

these AI tools that are going to support? We're not going to solve anything, dude. We're going to have more stuff. Yeah. That's what I mean, I think, I definitely think that. Like, I'm always on the hunt for, you know, storage units for sale and stuff like that. Just think that's going to have more.

Oh, it's going to be crazy. That's all, that's historically for the last, I don't know how many years, I mean, how many decades has been a great business. Well, actually one of the best business models as far as profit margins. It's going to get just exponentially worse with 3D printing, AI and the tools, stuff like that. It's good. We think is going to be a good thing, right? It'll drive costs down. We'll make things easier or whatever.

But what it'll actually do is just overconsumption. It'll just cause it. Well, we already have evidence of that. We have more stuff. now and more economic, like freedom now than ever before. And people are just less, you know, speaking of human, human psychology, what area, I think you guys probably answer this properly, what segment spends the most time and energy and money studying human psychology for the purpose of trying to figure us out, manipulate us?

What part government? Yeah. Politics. Politics. They spend so much time and money and energy figuring out human psychology. I mean, that goes all the way back to the Roman Empire, though, right? I mean, the whole Coliseum was designed for that purpose and the thought process into that. And so they figured that out way back then.

Distract the people. And we've only gotten so much, you know, it's funny you bring that up because I've had several DMs in the last, I don't know, three to six months of, you know, you guys don't talk a lot about current events. And I'm like, you know, it's not something that we, uh, we all talked about and said, hey, let's stop talking about it. I think without any conference, it was brought up until today, right? I think it's such an unrealistic level that it's like, it's, it's, like, every day, there's just so many things that it's like, it's overwhelming. And I think that we can't be the only ones that feel that.

We went full retard. Yeah. It's like the new cycle is so crazy. Politics has gone full retard. Yeah. It's just too much. There's really nothing, yeah, to absorb. that's going to benefit your everyday life.

Right, left, everything is just awful. I'm going to point to that, right? So, for example, we talk about this on the show all the time, avoiding heavily processed foods is a wonderful strategy to eat appropriately. If you try to eat appropriately while eating heavily processed foods, you're going to probably lose because they're so well-engineered.

You're going to constantly be fighting the urge to overeat. You're going to fight it all the time, and you'll lose, right? So with politics, arguably, they invest the most time, energy, and money on how to manipulate people through human psychology. How do you win? Don't pay attention.

Yeah. If you pay attention, you'll lose. They'll get you. They're going to get you. So your best bet is to turn it off, which is what we did. They kind of stopped paying attention

because it got so wild. Well, that's what I was getting at was that for the audience. There wasn't any sort of conversation that was had by the three of us that were like, hey, let's not talk about this. I think we just all simultaneously stopped paying attention. Yeah, too much.

Yeah, for me, it was like, once Doge was out, I was like, I'm out. These guys aren't going to pay attention to Friday anymore. We're not going to do anything about this. See you later. Yeah. Totally. 100%.

Yeah. So, for me, it was the Epstein files. Oh, yeah. I mean, to me that was, too, are like the big ones. To me, that was this, that was the most evil, egregious stuff that we've ever publicly been, like, aware of, right? I think conspiracy theorists and people have been talking about that type of stuff. But, like, there's documents and emails and.

and track record of all this evil. Yeah. And we just keep it moving. For people that just blaze right past the most evil, like despicable things you've ever heard in your life. It doesn't get any like crazier and worse than that. And we are on to the next new cycle. And you just see how mad they get about like the most surface issues.

You're like, wait a minute. What about eating kids? Well, I was just going to say like, because we all kind of tuned out because it was just, you know, kind of crazy. but if the hardest people to manipulate through this process are people who don't pay attention to it. So they're not paying attention to all the stuff. So it's hard to get to them. And people who are unstable, married families.

So they're the hardest to manipulate. It's easy to manipulate depressed, anxious, or scared people who want to consume lots of things and don't have a family. Much easier to manipulate them. So now it makes sense why things would go in that direction and why they would promote those things. Why they'll promote consumerism, while they're going to, promote the next big thing, while they're going to promote fear and anger and anxiety is because we can get you to do what we want if we do those types of things. So it's like turn it off. Yeah. It's like one of the best things you possibly do. It's been great. It has been. And you know,

my life hasn't changed. No. Other than feeling better. Yeah. I don't need to know everything is more optimism. Every five seconds. And the best thing you can do is clean your own room, right? So focus on your family, your neighborhood, impact it. Totally. And whatever your beliefs are, whatever your moral foundation and things that are important to you, do that within your house and do that within your neighborhood. And that's the best thing that you possibly can do. Getting in these debates online over these sides back and forth is just, it's such bullshit now, dude.

It's got so obviously bad. So I'll go in like a more positive note. So they just did a big, Harvard did a big study on multivitamin use. So people who used a multivitamin for two years showed up as five months younger at the molecular level. Now, don't you think that's really hard, Sal, because we've talked about this before, because the person who is disciplined enough to take that multivitamin every single day also probably works out, makes better food choices. That's the healthy user bias.

Right. And they found, and so, no, they controlled for that. Oh, really? Yeah, they did. This is the quality of the cell that they're saying is more youthful. I think it's, it's, it's, we're constantly new, like real hard nutrient deficiencies are not super common. They're more common than you would think, but they're not super common. But suboptimal nutrient intake is very common. So you're getting just enough vitamin D to not get sick, just enough zinc to not have these crazy symptoms. Yeah, your level's a low. But it's not optimal.

And so, again, this is another study of supporters. It was 958 adults over 60, who was a randomized trial, that taking a simple multivitamin made them all five months younger at the molecular level. Such an easy, simple, like, cheap, inexpensive. Just covers the bases. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys remember? Who was it?

I forgot what organization did this, but they said, can we make a 2,000 calorie diet hit the RDA? Can't. And dietitians couldn't do it. You can't. I used to keep this at my desk. And 2,000 calories and the food quality these days. That's it. But they tried with healthy.

They tried. They can't. They couldn't. So the number is. Okay. I don't know how much this has been revised or whatever, but I've had this at my desk for years. I used to use this to help. To sell multi-remen.

That and like personal training and help with nutrition. It takes a 3,500 calorie diet and a serving of liver once a week or something like that. It was like a weird thing like that. It was like a weird number. It was like 3,500 calories of healthy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like planned healthy food, 3,500 calories plus a serving of liver. I think I can't remember how much liver in a week to hit all.

all your RDAs on all macro, micro nutrients. And I'm like, that's crazy. Nobody does that. No. Yeah, nobody does. I don't know if that's still true or what the number is now and how accurate that was, but I totally remember that because I used to keep it. I used to keep it, like, printed out.

It's just an easy supplement. You get a quality one, but you just take one a day. And you're not going to notice huge gains. I think that's the thing with multivitamin. You don't like take it. You're like, dude, I feel it. I feel it. Unless you have a nutrient deficiency.

Well, yeah, you'll feel it if you're. But you probably just like, I think I'm just taking the supplement. I don't know what it's doing. But yeah, dude, two years, five months decrease in the molecular people over 60. That's it. That is true. I know. Isn't that cool?

Yeah, that's, I think that's. So I want to hear, Justin's had this note up there for a while, and I just don't, I totally just. It's talking about my Mesoamerican Batman. Yeah. What is that? I feel like, Sal has to call up out your weird notes because I'm like, what is the, what is? Well, okay. He's never going to, he's never going to shoehorn that in it.

No, I know. I don't. I wait for like a random like pause. Yeah, where's the transition to Mendo-American, Meso-American Batman? Yeah, usually we have to just. I just have to punch you in. Play it on us.

Thanks. We should just be quiet at one point. Even right now I'm trying to talk about it. You guys keep going. All right, all right. Let's hear. Go. Let's hear.

Yeah, no. So thank you, Doug. I gave him the link ahead of time. Look at that. Like, it looks exactly like, like Christopher Nolan's version of Batman. That's real? Yes.

So he used to be. a, so this was like an underground god, like in mythology for the Aztecs, I believe. But, you know, they feared this, this bat creature that dwelt underneath. It was just interesting to me that, like, this depiction, like, looks literally exactly what they designed for. It looks like a Batman costume. So he has to know about this then, right? I'm sure they must have referenced this. It must have been the inspiration for it, but I've never seen this.

I wouldn't even have thought that they pulled from an actual historical, you know, thing. Doug's about to say it's safe. Yeah, because I've read some of the comments, and there's a lot of people saying that this was generated after the fact, not necessarily original. So they did have a deity, but the costume. Yeah, there was a deity, but yeah. So here's what I want you to do, Doug. So its name is Kamaza. It's on that historic page.

It is, it is, in a, Doug's point. right because it is two spot-ons. That's two bat many. Yeah. Doug, type in the name. They call them Kamuzzoz. Yeah, I've already got it typed in here. And they pull up the images.

Let's see. Let's see what we see if there's any like ancient art or whatever. Because I mean, I could just see Christian, what's his name? Bail. No, Bill. Yeah. Yeah, because that looked just like. Rocking that suit.

Okay. Oh, so there's the actual statue. Click on that, Doug. Yeah, it's Mayan, actually. Is it Mayan? Yeah. Oh, so it just looks like a bat. Yeah.

It looks like a bat. But I think the one that is on social media was generated. Damn, that was so cool. You got it. I'm telling you right now. Nothing is real. That was on a historic Instagram page too. You cannot just take anything no more.

This is also why I'm like so disconnected from all the back to the political talk a little bit. I think how cool that is. I feel like I have to spend a half hour to 45 minutes just to confirm what it is real. Yeah, is this real? So the deity is. is real, but what they did is they used AI to make the... They made a MOYAN-looking version of it.

So it looks like it's like... Damn it. Yeah, dude, that's hilarious. Sorry to bust your bubble here. It's okay, Doug. You gotta keep it real. Yeah, that's right. That's what you're here for you. Yeah. I think that's... But I feel like that's what it is now. Like, you have to do that.

Like, you have to triple check now and make sure because so many things are manipulated with AI and stuff. You know, oh, so I want to comment, so I'm going to change subject. So I know, so alcohol consumption is dropping right now. And probably a good thing. But then some experts are like, maybe not all a good thing because appropriately used alcohol is a widely used and accepted social lubricant.

And so they're saying that the reduction in alcohol consumption isn't necessarily, this is a speculation, because people want less alcohol, but rather they're hanging out less. So did you have you heard Scott Galloway talking about this before? No. So Scott Galloway, it's like, he's gone viral with this. And I don't know if it was an interview or what he when he first originally said this, but he makes this comment like his advice is to go out, get drunk, make bad decisions. He's like, I've heard this.

I don't think, I don't like that advice. I mean, it's a bit for it. I think it's a bit tongue and cheap. But his, I think his point is making is that we are, we have stopped going out and being social. Yeah. And taking risk. Yeah.

And being social and interacting with the opposite sex and doing. that and alcohol works as a social lubricant. And so that's like his, it's a very effective one. And it's also widely accepted. So you can go, it's not like shunned. It's not like you're pulling out, you know, a joint or something else. And speaking of which, that's not necessarily a social lubricant. They can cause a lot of anxiety.

But alcohol is like a really easy one, one drink, two drinks. People like are a little bit less fearful to talk to other people. And so they're like, yeah, it's probably a result because people are hanging out less. Yeah. You know, as a result. No, I agree with. I don't think it's like we're a bunch of healthy people that we're making this decision. Like, it's not, I think it's, we're just, they're not going out.

No. I mean, I remember when we had Enzo here and where I was asking him about like high school parties, like, high school parties is like different now too. Remember he said if you wanted to talk to, if you saw a girl at a party. Yeah. Facebook. Yeah. So she was over there. Yeah.

He would go on social media, friend her on Facebook. And then if she accepts. If she accepts. Then you send a DM. Then you send a DM. Well, then if she responds. Then you walk up to her. you walk out to it. Wow. Well, and then if you're going to compare, which, which are the most prevalent ones and, like, socially acceptable now, it's like you have your vapors. And then you have, like, the people that still drink. It's like, I would prefer, like, you at least have a drink. Like, if I was like a teenager, let's just say, because you're more likely to be socially engaging. So we have a mutual friend. I won't say that Frank, because I want to put his personal stuff out there, but he has, he has a daughter, he has a couple daughters. And one of his daughters just went off to college. And, uh, you. Uh, you.

You know, this is becoming really common too, where kids go out and they think they want independence and leave. And then they go. And they're like, they're just like, they want to come back home really bad. Oh. It sounds like a good idea and everything like that. And so his advice that was really interesting because she was like, I want to come home. I don't want to, I don't want to stay here and this and that.

Oh, poor kid. Like just lonely. You know, doing class. It's hard, man. And yeah. And so he, he, he, he, he's, you know, his advice was, he's like, I want you to throw a party. I want you to just throw a party, meet some. people. Yeah. And have them come over. Have a good time. Be safe. You know, stay in the house,

do your thing with that, but invite some people over and throw a party. And she did that and completely turned a 180. And she met a few people. They started hanging out. And it's just, it's crazy to think that that's parental advice. I know. But how, and how effective, how effective it was because exactly that is that, granted, every case, I'm sure is different and unique, you know, the parent that probably had the kid that was partying or doing drugs or hospital. Don't do, don't party. It's probably not good advice.

Yeah. But this was a 4.0 girl that was, you know, I know, let your hair down a little bit. Yeah, yeah, good kid. Yeah. And like that has, and her dad was just like, hey, you know,

like it's, you're growing up, you did a great job. This like, be social. Go through a party. Go meet people. Go do that stuff for a little bit.

And then tell me you still want to come home. How often, I know, Adam, you have the occasional, you started to enjoy whiskey a little bit, right? How often? It's not a ton, right?

I know you do it like a couple days a week. Yeah, I mean, for me, it feels... I was going to ask you this, because I know you're like me, like, there's a very fine line between I can have some alcohol and I just feel crappy. And it's not drunk. I don't have to get drunk. I just drink a little too, and I just don't feel good. Yeah.

How often are you using Zbotic? Is it every time? Every time. So if I... Every time you have Zabotich. Yeah, every time. Because what you just said, if this is new to me, I have never been somebody who would make a glass of whiskey on a Tuesday night or something like that.

which I admittedly have done now. It's not crazy. Like, I don't think I'll go more than maybe two nights in the week, and that's not consistent. There'll be weeks I don't at all. But if I do do that, even if it's just one, I absolutely have the Zviotic.

You know what I like to do it the most? It's what I've noticed if I'm sitting here talking about it, like, I like when I grill, when I'm barbecueing and I'm like, and I'm in the kitchen working for like four hours, sipping on a whiskey while I do that. There's just,

and I got my music. I don't know. there's something about that vibe for me. That does sound fun. I enjoy that. It loosens me up a little bit. I'm not trying to get hammered. I'm not putting forward back.

But if I do that, I'll have a Z biocry before. And that keeps me feeling just fine. If I do that and I have one or two, I don't get the after effect at all. If I feel so fine the next day. That's how I can do it during the week. I couldn't get away with that if I didn't have Z biotic to take before. I wonder how many of our listeners know that we did a drinking game. was zbiotics.

That was a test. Yeah. Well, it sold all of us, how profound it was. Well, we went too hard. Yeah, so the goal was, we're gonna do. They don't recommend.

Is this, you can actually, I think you can find this on YouTube, right? You can find it on Instagram. Instagram, I believe, that's on the Instagram. We did a drinking game. This was a long time ago. How long ago was it?

Probably good, at least seven years ago? Wow, you think it's seven. I think so. So we did a drinking game, and it was to do a commercial. This was pre-max. Did I not have my son yet? So, okay, maybe.

I don't think I had Max. maybe it wasn't seven. I'm thinking it was right before 2020. Well, Max is six going on seven. Okay. So I think it was around 2020 that we did it. And the reason I remember that, because we were in Ohio for the Arnold, right? And I remember, I think Eli was editing the video at that time, if I recall correctly. Okay. So what we did was we're going to do a commercial for Z biotics. We thought it would be fun to drink one and then had to do a drinking game. And we changed the rules of the drinking game because we thought it would take too long. So it's like doubled up. up the amount of drinks he had to take for every loss in the game. And we got way more drunk than, like, it was bad. It was, like, we all had to get right home. You can keep track. We count the drinks in there.

I think we had, like. I know I did seven shots, I believe. Between seven and ten shots. We were destroyed. And I didn't do the most, by the way. We were destroyed. And we had to come back to work the next thing. And I was like, this is not going to work.

Yeah. And I came back and I felt tired the next day, but I was okay. Yeah, tired. That was it. I was sold. I'm like, dude, do they really just invent something that made them possible? I know. I know.

Pretty crazy stuff. God, that's 70. I'm still stuck on. Probably six years. I'll say six. Well, do you remember if I had Max? I don't remember. I don't.

Katrina might have been pregnant because I know she had to pick you up. Well, she might have been pregnant. But even, like I said, so that means it would have to, he's over, he's going to be seven. Yeah. So seven years ago. Wow. Yeah. Crazy.

Have we, we've been working with them for that long, huh? Yeah. They go back. You know, I want to look at some, look at our partners and see, like, who goes back. Obviously, Organify goes back some of the furthest, right? But Zbiotic is up there then with some of the furthest back, I would say, too, then. Because that's quite a long time ago. Yeah, that's a long time.

That's wild. Anyway, don't go get smashed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is good for the occasional thing. Yeah. We did it for you. Most children's multivitamins are just candy or they don't have adequate nutrients, or they don't have the nutrients that kids need. So the company called Haya that makes a multivitamin for kids.

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Our first question is from Haley Valene. How realistic is it to progress? in workouts every week. Sometimes I go a couple weeks without progress, and I think I'm doing something wrong, even if over a long period of time, I do see strength. It is not realistic.

Yeah, it's not realistic at all. No. The only time this happens is in the beginning. Yeah, newbie gains. Newby gain. But you know why? And that's just in spite of all the other factors that are going on.

There's a lot of central nervous system adaptation is happening. Yeah, that's happening. A lot of the strength gains is your muscles are learning to work better. And so it's pretty reliable that for the first couple, couple months of proper strength training, maybe longer, you're going to see strength gains almost every week. It's a beautiful window. You know, so long as everything else is being done. But if you're strength training for a while, like, no.

Building muscle and strength is a slow incremental step ladder. Sometimes you take a couple steps down, progress. It's like a child growing, man. It's like it's like nothing for a long time. Then you can see this thing and then you see nothing for a long time. Or you go backwards a little bit. Yeah, that's the only difference. It's not, you don't see your kid shrink.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. But other than that, it's like that, though. So, no, it's, I think, uh, you really have to, to, to zoom out and, and, and, and, look at your, your programming and your training and your diet in more like 30, 60 day type of windows than like the week by week. Week by week will really mess with your, that was, even at the competitive level where I was tracking and super dialed, I noticed that, that like, I got to be careful not to over

critique my week to weeks. Yeah. Because then you really get in this like game of overcorrecting and manipulating too much when it's just like, so I'd have to like shut it down. Like so I would allow, I even like as let's say a bad reading, you know, scale went the wrong way, body fat percentage went the wrong way. I would still allow like two more weeks to go by before I would make any sort of adjustment. And most times I would see some sort of positive swing or or gains or something in the

right direction after I just waited that time. And I'll add this for fitness fanatic. in particular, the desire or belief that you need to progress every week is one of the biggest reasons why you won't. Yeah. Thinking like, oh my God, I'm not making strength gains every week, or I'm not building muscle every week, or I'm not burning body fat every week, and pushing to try to produce linear progress is the number one reason fitness fanatics go backwards.

Is this constant idea. And, you know, we saw this with the science of strength training. You go back in the 60s when scientists were figuring this out. You had lifters in the U.S. This is what they tried to do. And then you had the Soviets who were like, no, this is not what you do. We're going to do some strain gains and we're going to back off for a while and then come back. And you make better gains by accepting that this is not a linear process.

Trying to push the linear gain after gain. This will almost always cause problems. Next question is from Jimmy Jacobs, 423. How can someone prevent stretch marks when, trying to lose weight. So this is a tough one. And there's a few things, it is largely genetic. Lose weight slower.

But there are a few things that might actually help. So one of them is to eat a diet that's high in protein because collagen is made up of protein. If you have a low protein diet, it's a great way to promote poor health or elasticity in the skin. So high protein is number one. Number two is to lose weight more slowly. And then red light therapy. Red light therapy is one of the few things in data to consistently show reductions in stretch marks. It actually shows it pretty consistently.

This is largely genetic, but there are a few things you could do. Is there any validity to cocoa butter? You know, that was like a, I don't know, my wife did it. Some women swear by it. She did all the other stuff too, which, you know, make the argument that red light therapy and the strength training and the high protein was probably the main thing. Sure. But there's, again, a lot of this is genetic. But the red light therapy is the one thing.

Like if you look at the data on red light therapy, it shows an effect. So if like you're pregnant or you're losing weight, it's great for the skin. You could put this on your skin daily, and the data shows it that it does reduce. Next question is from a working mom. I'm focusing on my step goal.

Is hitting the goal on a weekly average sufficient, or do you need to hit the goal steps every single day? Sometimes struggle with long workouts in the office and not getting all the steps in, but I can usually make up low step days, 3,000 with getting in much higher steps on the weekends. This is not ideal. Ideally...

It's better than nothing. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's better than nothing, but you're far better off trying to get the steps in on those low activity days. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, the benefits from steps is less to do with the calorie burn and more to do with the activity.

Yeah. And what we find in the data is a daily, activity is far better for your health and longevity than infrequent high activity. So in other words, if you add it all up and it averages out to the same, but this group over here does a bunch of low days and then a bunch of high days to make up versus this group that does some every day. Consistently. The sum every day has better quality of life, less depression, less anxiety, better blood markers,

better longevity. It's just better. So this is not like strength training. So strength training is interesting, right? Because a couple days a week of good strength training is enough to set that the gears in motion. but activity, the benefits of activity are, it's best to do it daily than to do a lot sometimes. I have a consistent baseline.

Just to speak from personal experience, something that I've noticed just in the last maybe year or two of really paying attention to this with myself. And I've shared this a couple of times on the podcast. There is a noticeable difference when I get eight to 10,000 steps or more on my days in the week with my sleep than when I, don't. If I have a low step day, and for sure if I have a low step day and no workout,

I just, I'm restless at night. I do not get. So, so many carryover. I do not get, so it's not, this is not like a calorie burn game thing. It's just overall health. Like you're, you're, you're going to increase blood flow, oxygen, so it'll speed up recovery. So it'll, it'll promote better recovery. It's better for mental health. It'll be better for mental health. It's going to be better for sleep. Better for digestion. So the same, so, two groups of people, one group. They all hit the same amount of steps per week, but one group gets almost all of it on the weekend. The other group divides it up over the week. The group is going to get way better results.

Now, if you don't have another option. Yeah, it's better than not. Then it's better than not. But if you have an option, you know, here's what you do, right? If you're in the office, this person says they're in the office. And so that's when they're getting a few steps, is to break up your day with really short walks. Yeah. And here's what you'll notice.

Number one, you'll hit better step counts. They add up. And number two, you'll more productive. So you're going to be better at work. Because I think that sometimes people are like, well, if I do that, I'm going to take away for my job or whatever. Now you do a five-minute walk, you know, four times during the day. Yeah. Or five times during the day.

Productivity and focus jumps. It's way, you're way better at your job. Yeah. Next question is from Trisha Eric Sunstrom from Facebook. This question is, what are some high-protein, high-calorie snacks to hit your calorie and protein intake? Well, we talked about one today. Yeah. Meat sticks.

Yeah. Meadsticks are really easy. The best. Yeah. I you know if you can have dairy dairy is wonderful for this like a little cottage cheese high protein yogurt uh parmesan cheese have you guys seen the protein on parmesan cheese they now make parmesan cheese like like crisps and it's just parmesan cheese and you look at the macro i wish i could have dairy i'm like man if i could have dairy i've been on that way before

that study came out as it turns out i mean i have with me today i have my uh 20 gram of protein Greek yogurts, little tiny servings of Greek yogurt that has added way into it for 20 grams. These are easy to crush those. There's a lot of stuff like that. We have partners that we work with. You know, the crisp chips are like incredible. Like those are high protein. You can also just like, and I've seen this, they sell these at the grocery store

where you'll get like a chicken that's chopped up already for you. So it's like designed to be put on a salad. But you could buy a pack of that. It's 20 grams of protein. Hard-boiled eggs. They've seasoned it. Yeah. Hard-bolled eggs, another one.

Deli meat is another one that you can just have and you just grab and eat. And it's a high-protein snack. It's not that big of a deal. I mean, you said advice clients with this all the time. I had some clients that were like, no, I just have to have some snacks in between my meals. And a lot of them would grab turkey slices. Was a real popular one with my clients? Or cottage cheese with some fruit and it was another popular one.

I used to, I remember the trainer. I get like a pound of turkey deli meat and some slices of cheese. And I used to just eat it wrapped like. Totally. Yeah, it tastes good like that together. It was easy, high protein. Yeah, you just have to get creative. You know, I always, although I want to comment that the, I'm not a fan of like the,

the promoting snack. I love the, you know, beef jerky, Palo Valley. I love the crisp pretzels. I love things like that as an, as a like emergency. It's there. You have it. I'm always trying to teach client, though, to. What was the thing that you said?

Yeah, there's no such thing as snacks, only incomplete meals and complete meals. And so, and I just, I try to communicate that to clients. It's like that snacks is a made up marketing term that we use to tell people that you need these things between meals. It's like, no, you have either a complete meal or an incomplete meal. And most snacks are incomplete meals. And so the goal should be to just try to have more frequent meals. So you hit your. You know, one of the problems with snacks is besides the fact that they're usually processed.

But we're naming a bunch that aren't to process that are good. but the problem is you tend to eat snacks while doing something else. And the data shows that when you're distracted, it lowers the satiety signal. So you're more likely to overeat. In fact, they've done studies where they had people eat while watching TV or on their phones. Great for your digestion.

Versus eating when they're not, same meal. And people will eat 10 to 15% more calories because they're distracting. And snacks tend to be like that. Like when do you eat a snack? You don't sit quietly. You need a snack. You're driving or, yeah, you're often doing stuff. Or you're at work, you're on a computer, whatever.

And so it tends to result in overeating versus making it in the meal when you sit down and actually eat. Look, if you like the 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 Mass Performance, and Maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

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