Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2868: Every Lifter Should Do This at Least Once — The Case for Powerlifting

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

In this episode the guys break down why almost everyone should do at least one cycle of powerlifting-style training, regardless of your goal. They cover why the squat, bench press and deadlift are the most underrated tools for building a great physique, how strength is the only objective metric that tells you everything is going right, why powerlifting programing beats bodybuilding programing for most people, and how focusing on strength is one of the best tools for getting people out of body dysmorphia.  They also get into Brian Johnson's perfect 100 sleep score streak on Eight Sleep and his girlfriend's vaginal microbiome flex, the four reported species of aliens now being covered by mainstream news, Justin's son qualifying for nationals in gymnastics, and the AP x Swatch collab that caused global pandemonium. Then they answer questions submitted through Instagram — covering MAPS phase adaptation, lighter weight training strategies, combining running and strength training, and the best rep range for one set to failure. MAPS 15 BOGO — https://maps15bogo.com Buy 1 get 1 FREE — limited time (all 7 MAPS 15 programs same price) SPONSORS Vuori — https://vuoriclothing.com/mindpump 20% off first order — no code needed, automatically applied Eight Sleep (Pod 5 Ultra) — https://eightsleep.com/mindpump Up to $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. Memorial Day Sale running May 14 – June 12. Paleo Valley (grass-fed meat sticks) — https://paleovalley.com/mindpump 15% off automatically applied at checkout — no code needed LINKS Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com  Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com  Instagram: @mindpumpmedia 0:00 - Intro 1:49 - Why almost everyone should do a cycle of powerlifting-style training 4:07 - Powerlifting is skill and movement based — not body part based 7:26 - Why powerlifters have the best technique for the major lifts 9:07 - The three power lifts are the most effective exercises for building a physique 11:07 - Powerlifting programing is better than bodybuilding programing for most people 16:29 - Strength is the only objective metric — why it beats the mirror and the scale 20:00 - How powerlifting focus cured a client's anorexia and body dysmorphia 22:10 - Bret Contreras post — basic programing beats "advanced" programing every time 26:23 - Sal's story — met powerlifters at 16, gained 13lbs of muscle just from squatting 27:44 - Vuori vs. Lululemon — which one actually looks better and holds up longer 29:01 - Leggings through the decades — 80s flashdance, jazzercise & the thong-over-leggings era 31:24 - Sal's cousins call out that Justin is way stronger than him 33:16 - Sal's dad benched 315 at 180lbs with no training 36:48 - Justin's son pulls 300lbs deadlift at 16 — nationals in gymnastics 43:09 - Fox News reports on the four species of aliens — Nordics, Grays, Reptilians & Mantis 46:06 - Antarctica conspiracy, alien AI bases & the Miami Mall incident 49:39 - AP x Swatch collab causes global pandemonium — or did it? 52:48 - Eight Sleep trial data — 44% less time to fall asleep, 34% more deep sleep 55:22 - Brian Johnson's 8-month perfect sleep score streak & girlfriend's microbiome flex 57:49 - Q&A: Do you lose adaptation when moving between MAPS phases? 1:00:12 - Q&A: Lighter weights — slow tempo and fewer reps or normal tempo and higher reps? 1:02:44 - Q&A: How to balance strength training with running 3x a week for 5Ks 1:04:07 - Q&A: What rep range should you use for one set to failure training?  

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

Today's intro, 56 minutes long, so we talk about muscle gain and fat loss. overall fitness, current events, and family life. Now, this episode is brought to by some sponsors. The first one is Viori. They make a leisure wear that looks amazing, lasts a long time, is super comfortable. They also have now business casual, and this is both for men and for women.

And we have the largest discount you'll find anywhere for Viori Clothing. Go through our link. Go to Viori Clothing.com forward slash mind pump. That's V-U-O-R-I-Cloathing.com forward slash mind pump and that link will get you the big discount. This episode is also brought to by eight sleep. So this is, this goes over your bed, under your sheet, over your mattress, and it warms or cools your bed, uses AI technology to modify the temperature throughout the night,

to maximize your sleep. This is easily the most advanced sleep system in the world. If you want to get better sleep, burn more body fat, build more muscle, feel better, balance your hormones, all come from better sleep. Get yourself and eight sleep. Go to 8Sleep.com forward slash mind pump. That link will get you up to $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. We also have a sale by any MAPS 15 style workout program,

get any other MAPS 15 style program for free. It's buy one, get one free. Go to Maps15bogo.com. 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 MipumpStore.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, Head on over to Mind Pumpstore.com.

That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Powerlifting, it's a form of strength training, and it's something almost everybody should do occasionally. It gives you great results, builds great muscle. We're going to go into why almost everybody should power lift. Let's go. Here, here.

I wish I heard this earlier in my life. Totally. Totally. It's a very, it's a specific form of strength training. It's somewhat unique to other. forms of strength training, but people will think, oh, powerlifting, this is for people who compete in powerlifting competitions. So this doesn't apply to me.

My goal is to build muscle. My goal is to look better. My goal is to burn body fat. Why would I train like these athletes who are competing in the specific sport? That's oftentimes the objection that people will give around powerlifting. And the truth is the benefits are far reaching. and most people, except for maybe those

where it's an inappropriate form of exercise, either due to injury or whatever, most people would benefit tremendously. I don't care what your goal is from doing a cycle of this style of traveling. Yeah, it's hard for me to think of somebody who wouldn't benefit, but yeah, you're right. Maybe if you had limitations.

Oh, it only, it'd have to be like a special case. That's right. Right. They have some sort of condition that doesn't allow them to do so. Injury. Yeah, yeah. But to your point, all goals, you know, for sure. Totally.

This took me a while to figure out, but when I started to apply it to myself and then to my clients, and the vast, just to be clear, the vast majority of my clients were everyday people. So it's like 99% of them were just everyday regular people. So I'm not talking about like strength athletes or competitors. These are just people that wanted to look better. When I would put them through these cycles of powerlifting style programming, it was oftentimes the best results they got was through this. So one of the reasons why powerlifting style training is so great is because it's entirely technique focused. It's about skill. So typically when people do strength training, what they're thinking of is the muscles that they're working.

In fact, if you look at workouts, typical strength training workouts, they're broken down in terms of body parts. It's back or shoulders or glutes or legs or calves or biceps or triceps. power lifters don't powerlifting programming doesn't look at it that way at all there's there is no leg day there is no chest day it's this is a movement base it's skill base we're going to bench we're going to squat we're going to we're going to overhead press uh we're going to do movements that helps strengthen those particular movements it's about getting really strong at these particular movements and now why is this so beneficial to the average person because people don't realize that strength training is skill-based.

And the better you perform an exercise, the better the results. Regardless of what your goal is, if you can perform a squat better, you're going to get better results for your quads and your hands and your glutes. If you can do a bench press better, you're going to get better results

for your pecks and your shoulders and your triceps. Well, the simplicity of it, I think, can't be overlooked. With these movements, it's... The skill of it is difficult, like, in terms of learning the skill and, like, really mastering it, but the movement itself is pretty straightforward.

And to be able to organize your body in such a way where you can recruit maximal amount of muscle fibers that you're going to include and really train your central nervous system to ramp up to its fullest degree. Like you can't really do that with other styles of training as effectively as you can with power with you. Now, you both, you know, were introduced to training this way early. In fact, I think that's how you both really started, right? I mean, you share your story of the guys that you met inside the gym. gym relatively early on your journey. I know you are training for sport and this is basically

more about yours, Justin, because I think I've heard your story less. When you first were doing like this for sport, was there, because I remember what it was like for me in high school, the weightlifting routine was pretty whack. It was like this, there was no real

programming. It was like we all went in there and some guys were trying to max out on their squat, some guys. So was it like that or were you taught like really good technique and programming and stuff early? Or like, when did that happen? Yeah, I was actually lucky. It was high school.

And we did have a really good weightlifting teacher. Oh, you did. And I took, I was actually in a weightlifting class adjacent to also being on the team. And so I was working on form with a lot of like your basic lifts. But when we'd actually train as a team, we only focused on bench. We focused on like power clean and then squat.

Those were our main things. three, so it wasn't deadlift, but pretty much power clean from the floor. I was emulating that. And then, you know, maybe overhead press, but, like, it was all about how to increase numbers there. And so we would all work in groups, you know, with guys that were, like, in similar strength ability. And it was, like, just this constant, you know, overloading and trying to figure out, like,

where are capacity lines. Yeah. I learned the lifts, but I don't learn powerlifting programming until later. But I was taught the power lifts, which was already by itself a huge bonus. I think with technique, and I'm going to say something that some people may think is controversial, but it's not. The safest strength sport in terms of how they apply their technique is powerlifting. Powerlifters have the best technique for the major lifts. Now, someone may be like, what are you talking about?

Power lifts to get hurt all the time. Well, that's not because their technique is bad. That's because they're redlining. They're trying to maximize performance to crazy levels. But you have to use the safest, most biomechanically advantageous technique to lift the most weight. So if you're going to bench press in a way that's going to minimize shoulder injury. Yeah, joint pain. Or squat in a way that's going to minimize back injury or knee injury or deadlift in a way that's going to minimize back injury.

You look to power lifters because they are kings and great. queens of biomechanics and technique. The carryover of this for the average person is tremendous. You're looking at the three power lifts, the deadlift, the squat and the bench press, which are easily, I could easily make the argument that are three of the most effective exercises in terms of building muscle and strength and building a physique. That doesn't mean you should only do those lifts. But if I had to pick three like top exercises or five, they're going to definitely make

that list. But they're very technical. Like the bench press, I think a lot of people look at that as a technical lift. It's a very technical lift. They're all very technical lifts. And so like learning any technique, the better you get at it, the more you get out of it. And power lifting style training

is all technique focused. It's like how do I maximize my leverage? How do I allow my depth to feel better? How do I activate the most strength through this lift? And you position yourself and you learn, you learn how to really do those lifts really, really well. You know, you said it's

less than ideal to just you would just focus on those three lifts but God I would make the case for most young lifters that if all they did was practice getting good at those lifts it would carry it would serve them so well they built way more muscle they would they would

they'd get in so much better shape yeah they would get just just doing that which that that's a bit controversial because I think people oh well you need to this and you need to do that and it's like no you don't like if you just focused on those lifts and try to get good at those lifts, technique-wise and strength-wise. Yeah.

Man. You can go so many places once you establish that. Yeah, exactly. Like, it doesn't mean that you do that for the rest of your life, but as far as laying the foundation for your first couple years, if that's all you did. Maybe do other... I wish that's what I did.

I wish going back and... How much more muscle do you think you would have built if this is what you focused on for the first year? Like, you know, what I, for sure would have done. What I don't know is, because obviously I've reached peak levels of building muscle, right? being a men's physique pro, right? Like, obviously. Yeah.

But that was in my 30s. So I think I would have reached closer to that physique at a much earlier age had I done that. So that's what I think back. Like, what I saw in my early 30s was, you know, a decade and a half of strength training, you know, a lot of wrong way. And then eventually the right way to finally reach that peak physique. I might have reached that peak physique a lot sooner. had I laid a foundation of powerlifting first. And that would be what I'd be most interested in.

It's like would I look more like that at 25, 26 than 32, 33? Which is years. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's the other thing. Powerlifting.

So all strength training programs involve what's known as programming. And programming is the workout. And what is a workout? Well, it's the exercises, the sets, the reps, the order of the exercises, the way that the week is laid out. the way that the weeks are laid out, the way that the months are laid out, how you alternate intensity. There's lots of variables that create a good program or that go into good programming. And really good trainers and coaches and strength coaches understand this, right?

Otherwise, you just slap exercises together and you get the same results. But we know that that's not true. Some of the best workout programming or strength training programming in the world is powerlifting. Powerlifters have way better of an understanding of programming. than people who lift weights to bodybuild or people who lift weights for CrossFit or anything else. They have some of the best.

Same thing with Olympic lifters, by the way. Why? Because they're competitive sports. You're going in there. You're trying to be the best at moving the most weight. And so what ended up happening over the years

is they figured out the best programming. Why? Because you got this school over here and this school over here and this method over here. And oh, wow, that method seems to produce eight out of ten, you know, bench press records.

What are they doing with their bench press? And this school over here, this squat programming, they have like the 10 top squatters or keep coming out of that school. What are they doing with that programming? So ever since the 60s, when powerlifting started to grow, what we've developed over time is incredible powerlifting programming. If you went online and got an established powerlifting kind of programming schedule, 99% of the time you're going to have better strength training programming than if you went on and looked up what's a good strength training program to develop a great physique or whatever. whatever. Or what's a bodybuilder routine? Nine and ten times the powerlifting programming is going to give you way better results. Even if

your goal is just develop your body, not even get stronger, it's just develop your body. Would you say that if you had to make two or three buckets that then you had to categorize everybody who's lifting weights into two or three buckets, you think that bodybuilding obviously would be one,

power lifting one, and then maybe endurance type of way. For string training? Just in general. Like if you had to bucket everybody of like what they most because what I'm what I'm trying to do is like I think everybody identifies with a look or a type of lifter like okay you know what I'm saying and so like what what kept me from powerlifting is because I so strongly identified with what bodybuilders look like so let me address that I know exactly where you're going so

here's the problem with looking at the best of each sport is what you're looking at are people who train hard eat right they're dedicated but you're also looking at polymorphisms that work really well for that particular sport so here's what I mean by that. If I look at the best basketball players in the world, one of the things they're all going to have in common is all really tall. Now, does that mean playing basketball all the time is going to make me tall? No.

That means that tall people who are also gifted and practice a lot are most likely to be the best basketball players. If I look at the best bench pressers in the world, where you're going to see a really round looking upper bodies with really short arms. Does that mean if I get really good at bench press? That's what going to happen to my body? No.

So, and this is the mistake. is people look at bodybuilders who do a really good job of getting shredded and also get awarded for what's known as aesthetics. Yeah. And they think in order to get

the best aesthetic look, I got to train like a bodybuilder. Yes. When the truth is, for everybody listening, the best aesthetic look comes from building a lot of muscle that's balanced on your body

and getting lean. And for a lot of people, for most people, doing cycles of power lifting will get you there faster than if you don't. Yeah, that's exactly the direction I was going with that

is that I think that's the biggest misconception is that we look at a type of athlete or lifter and we go like, oh, I'm more of a runner, so I fall in, I should train the way they do. They don't want to look like that. Yeah, or I want to look better. So I'm going to look at what the bodybuilders are doing. Or, you know, there are people that I just want to get strong and care about performance. I, like Justin's.

And so they kind of lean towards that power lifter. But it's unfortunate because the, the powerlifting foundation is probably, it's like we talk about kids, right? that your sport may be basketball, football, or baseball, but the best sport to start every kid in is gymnastics. Yeah. So you don't, like, so it's like, it develops the best body awareness kinesthetic.

Like so, I bet a lot of baseball player kids don't go like, oh, I should be, I should do gymnastics. They go like, I need to do more of that. You got to do with this, the top baseball player. Exactly.

And it's like, no, what actually will serve your body the best towards that goal is actually a different. One of my favorite examples of that. Long term. I'll never forget. There was a picture of Michael Felts.

next to the world's top marathon runner. And they were standing next to each other. And he was what was crazy. Michael Phelps was a lot taller. I remember how much taller he was, but he was a lot taller. All in his waist. But his legs were a lot shorter than the top runner. And they had them standing next to each other.

And you could see the extreme physique. The top marathon runner looked like a grasshopper. Yeah. Short body, long legs. Michael Phelp looked like a canoe with legs, like short legs. Yeah. Does that mean swimming or running is going to turn you into that? That's just because at the top level you have these polybop.

Well, what's great, too, is that if you take those two who are premier athletes, super endurance, super fit. And you flip-flop their sport. They'll suck. They will suck. Michael Phelps is a terrible runner, I guarantee you. Yes. That just shows you how much that plays a role in that.

The next thing is that strength is objective. The mirror is not. I know as much as we like to think, the mirror is objective. We're so distorted and twisted on what we see in the mirror. It's really easy to focus on the imperfect. It's hard to see the improvements when we're just focused on our love handles or I need to look this particular way or even the scale, which can scare people a lot. They might be building muscle getting leaner because the scale didn't go down. Uh-oh.

I'm failing. It's misleading. Do you know what is black and white? Strength. Did you lift more weight? Yes. Good. Here's what's also good about that.

You have to do a lot of things right to get stronger. Yeah. Can you have poor sleep and get stronger? No. Can you have really low protein to get stronger? It's going to make it tough. Can you over-training and get stronger? No.

So like getting stronger, I'll tell you this as a trainer, the number one metric that I paid attention, because I paid attention to lots of metrics with my clients, but the number one I paid, paid attention to was strength. If my clients were getting stronger, high fives across the board. If they weren't getting stronger, okay, I got to look and see what's going on. Because the byproduct itself is going to really, like, produce a lot of those benefits that they're looking for anyways. That's right. Yeah, let's focus on this because we know objectively, like, things are moving.

I didn't get that. I didn't understand that as a kid. I just didn't, I just, I cared nothing about strength. Yeah. Like, I really didn't. You didn't realize how strongly correlated it was. Yeah, yeah, no. Like, I, so, and it can be misleading to, to not focus on that and you actually get results from not focused on that.

And I think that's what happened is it was like, it confirmed my own bias. Yeah. Right. I was like, oh, I want to be bodybuilder. They slow. They're all about tension, tempo. Yeah. They don't care about, no, no bodybuilder is touting my bench price numbers, my squat numbers.

And so I trained that way. And being an early lifter. in novelty and beginner gains. Like, I got gains, you know. It's hard to realize what you're leaving on the table because you don't know. Exactly. And I think, oh, I'm progressing. I'm building muscle.

I'm on my way of looking like these guys when it's like, man, if I would have actually just focused on the strength thing first. So many things would have taken. Yeah, it would have accelerated everything. It's also, it's phenomenal for reverse dieting. It is a phenomenal form of strength training for reverse dieting. Why? Because in a reverse diet, you're trying to build muscle.

boost your metabolism. The last thing you want to focus on is how you look and how much you weigh. What's great is just to get strong because it's encouraging. Because on a reverse diet, you're bumping your calories, your protein is high,

and your strength training properly, you're following good powerlifting programming. You're getting stronger. It's a very clear metric. It's wonderful. It's a very clear metric where the mirror, the scale, even body fat is not as clear.

So you could be doing a lot of the right things, but in the mirror you don't think you look really good, you know, or you see the scale not move in the direction you want, but that's just because you're holding more or less water that day or not, or you're inflamed, didn't get good sleep. I mean, a million things could happen. Maybe you gain some muscle. Right. Like, I mean, there's so many, so many variables when you are using those as a measurement of

your success where strength is a very clear metric. That's right. You're not going to probably get stronger if your sleep sucks and you're not. hitting macros and not doing those things it's like and when you're reverse dieting the last thing you want to do is focus on the mirror what you want to do is focus on boosting my metabolism and what can I look at what's positive that I can look at through the scary process of bumping my calories oh strength yeah this is awesome I love it which takes us to the next point which is it's one of the best ways to take the focus off the aesthetics yeah what am I when I learned this and I'll never forget

when this first click for me it was actually early on it was such a such a such a gift. I've talked about this particular client before because it was one of the, like the pivotal moments as a trainer. I had some clients who then eventually trusted me enough to train their daughter. And their daughter was a recovering anorexic. She had been hospitalized the whole deal. And so they're like, hey, we want you to train our daughter. She's in recovery. And she needs to start strength training to build back her strength and bone, you know, all the issues that come from starving herself. And so I actually consulted with an expert. And I said, okay, what do I do? And the expert said, don't weigh her. Don't focus on how she looks. Don't focus on any of these metrics. Now I'm an early trainer. I'm like, that's all I focus on.

So I'm like, oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get her strong. And that's what we did. And eventually she started to really like getting stronger. And it cured these issues with her. She focused on performance. Everything else followed. She stopped caring so much about the mirror.

Stop caring so much about the scale. She was excited to come to the gym because she was getting stronger. It builds so much confidence. Getting stronger is a wonderful segue away from body dysmorphia. Now, strength itself can become obsessive as well. But if you're like, if you know you've got body dysmorphic issues and the mirror and the scale is like, ah, and I'm so scared of gaining an ounce of body fat, what's going on, power lifting gets stronger. Watch what happens over the next three months.

You're going to feel like you're in such a, so much of a healthy way. It's a behavioral hacks that, you know, we just kind of came across. And this was a little bit later in my career as well, you know, when you have that real hyper-focused. of aesthetics and mirror and scale and to really just draw all that attention into just getting strong and recovering the energy and like all the other metrics because you can still get excited about that. It's still something that, you know, we'll drive the client. But if you can maintain that focus long enough, it's like it's amazing what the turnaround. Totally. 100%. You know what this reminds me of is that post you shared from Brett Contreras.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So Brett. A great, great post. So Brett Contreras is one of my favorite people on social media. He's a real trainer. He's a real trainer. He's been training people for 30 years. 35 years is a trainer. I think 15 years as a scientist. I mean, he's... But he's got lots of experience training people. His post said, you know, basic workout programming versus what was it advanced or complex. He just gave two examples. And what you can clearly see, one side's got all, you know, like six or seven. Yeah, different exercises. There's like some, you know, supersets and drop sets and this one. and like all these, and the other one's got like three exercises.

Yeah. You know, three or four. And he's like, he's saying. And just basic block. He's like the basic one's going to, you're going to build a way better physique than the advanced one. Yeah. And experienced trainers know this.

It's 100% true. I didn't figure this out. Very experienced trainers know, no, you know, knows that. I think I want to make that clear because there's a lot of trainer. I mean, myself included for a long time. I mean, I was still, you know, I was probably eight years in still, you know, writing. So, I mean, part of how we met. was because that light bulb had finally clicked for me

around the time that you wrote Maps in a Bullet. So I'm almost 10 years in by that time. So for 10 years, I'm still doing stupid stuff like that. Trying to appease clients, thinking that, you know, unique movements and all this way. Let me razzle dazzle, and it's like, it was really around that time in my career, I was like, you know what?

Like, it's the stupid basic four or five movements that if I just practiced those, And then that's when we met and I saw the promo thing that you did with Doug from Absentebolic and I went, this is exactly what I was just figured out. That's part of why we connected. And so I think there's a lot of trainers that have been trainers for quite a while that still don't get this. And I think it's, I think there's a lot of factors there. It's not just simply because they're not knowledgeable and they don't get it. It's that they're juggling maybe what they think or know, like they might know.

and like what they're also being pushed by the client, and they haven't figured that part out too. Like how do I? Also, like they're trying really hard to get them to do what's optimal a lot of times. And it tends to be overwhelming and it tends to be just too much for them to focus on. So it's less effective. So it's like you're going to have the most perfect detailed exercise protocol, warm up, you know, cool down, like yada, yada, yeah, yeah.

Go through the whole list. And it's like, well, if we just focus on maybe these three major movers, like how much further we get? As an early trainer, you know, part of my like challenge or what I would think about would be like, okay, what different exercises are going to my show? And then the workout look like, do this, do that. Okay, this is a different way of doing that. And every time they came in, I'd have to kind of think of this. Later on, when I was a way more successful trainer, I mean, as defined by my clients got way better results. They were more consistent, more muscle, more fat loss.

They loved to show up. I had more clients. My workouts, if you saw them, sometimes it was two lifts. Sometimes clients would show up. We're like, oh, we're going to do five sets of deadlifts, five sets of overhead press. I'm going to focus on your technique.

We'll do a little mobility in between if we see these issues. And these were clients that trained for years. And they got exceptional results. Every kind of result you can think of. And the workout itself, if you saw it on paper, you're like, that's it. It's like, yeah. Well, look at what we're even experiencing in this business right now.

I mean, our program, that we're getting incredible feedback are the 15. I know. Two lifts a day. The most volume program. Yeah. It's the most minimalist thing that we have. And it's because of so many people that that serves them so well is to just simplify it.

These are probably the two best things that you could do today and just do those two things and get really good at those two things. And look at the results that people are having. Now, sure, optimal. They'd have this mobility routine. and this other thing that they do and like, you know, optimal. They could, their body can potentially overload and handle a little bit more over time.

But it's like, if you just did that, you'll get amazing results. And most people lack the discipline to do even the bare minimum. So just giving them more stuff that they're not going to do is not serving. I'll give you guys some details and so like what happened to me

when I was a kid with this. So when, so at 14, I had dislocated my kneecap, I had this bit long injury. I couldn't get my knee stable. And then I figured out, oh, if I strength train, it gets more.

And so at this point, I'm like 15 and a half, maybe 16. And my leg routine, like I know it, like I literally know it because I used to write it down. It was leg press, hack squat, leg extension, leg curls. All good exercises. I didn't pick a bunch of crates. Those are all good exercises. And I did those. Then I met those power lifters in the gym who taught me had a squat.

And all I did that summer for legs was get strong at squatting. That's all I did. And I gained, I think 13 pounds of muscle, which is a lot of muscle to gain. And I remember I came to school and the kids were like, what happened to you? And I remember some girls were like, dude, your butt got big. Like, what's going on? And I'm like, I just, I stopped doing everything else. I just focused on getting really strong at squats.

And I got these crazy gains, you know, from doing that. Anyway, speaking of butts and stuff. So my wife, my wife owns both. Yeah, she doesn't like this. My wife owns both. She has Lulu Lemon leggings that she's always had. Yeah. And now she also owns the Viori.

All the feels, I think it's called. All the feels, yeah. I tell her this all the time. The Viori ones look way better. Yeah. Like the shape that they create and the material and everything else. I know Courtney's actually had some of the Lou Lemons where the, what do you call that? The sheen or whatever, when you, a certain light hits it and you can like see underwear.

Didn't they get sued for that? Wasn't there like a big lawsuit or something that happened over that? I think there was. I think there was. And they had to adjust their measurements. material because of that. But yeah, it's never been a problem. But yeah, I always get like feedback from Courtney that it's the most comfortable especially like. But they, from a husband's perspective, they look the best. Yeah, they look great. When she puts on the Viori's, I'm like, dude, and they

don't pill. You know, you know how the other, the other, the way better quality. We'll do the pilling. We'll get like the little, the little, what are those little balls of fabric, whatever? Yeah, the Viori ones don't do that. Yeah, when we, when Katrina and I first met, I used to bring her home Lulu almost every week and she completely converted everything. Yeah. They look way better. Once she got introduced to Viori and they've really

scaled their line for women in that time. I mean, so we're talking, we've been with them for almost. God, has it been almost 10 years? I know. There's so male folks. Eight or nine at least. Yeah, yeah. Eight or nine years now. And when they they did a reverse model of Lou. I don't know if you really realize that they're not right. They went men and then women. Yeah. They really addressed the athlete you're wear for men

originally and then really, really, they grew, grew the woman's side. Now the woman's side's crazy. Crushes. Yeah, yeah, it used to not be like that. It used to be flip-flop. You know what's crazy about this? Because we're old enough to know this.

Do you remember when leggings were not a thing? Yeah, of course. And now they're not just the thing. They still were not, they were for more of our, well, okay. So there was. When did you see women wearing leggings out in the, so leggings? Legings in. It's like an 80s thing for brief.

Yeah, but it was a robin classes. Yeah, no, no, not just that. It was like spandex. Who was it? Who was it? Is it, is it Cindy Lopper or? or who made it popular were girls wear leggings and then they big sweaters that used to hang down.

Remember that look? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was super popular. Leggings, leggings? That was like an 80s thing. It was an 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm taking us back to like 15th grade for me. You know what I'm remembering now in the 80s that they used to do with leggings?

Remember they used to wear leggings with thong like on top of it? Over it. Over it. Over it. The jazzer size. Yeah, so it's like you're wearing a thong, but with leggings. That was like an 80s thing. Totally.

Because sometimes I'm like, what are they wearing these days? I'm like, oh, they did worse than the 80s sometimes. I think with some of the stuff they used to wear. What does it say? Oh, yeah, Flash Dance. Oh, that's what came from. I couldn't remember what it came from. But I know it was iconic.

And I was watching some old 80s movie. Did you guys watch Flash Dance? Have you seen that? Yeah, it's been a long time since. Yeah. Yeah, not like a million years. It's been a long time since I seen. Remember that iconic scene where she like?

I think that's coming back in style. Except with dirty dancing a lot of times. Totally different movie. Yeah. I think that's coming back in style, though, again. I think that the leggings and then the big sweaters, I think I've seen that already coming. Everything's coming around, dude.

With, like, double sock thing. Katrina, you see, Katrina wears leg warmers all the time now. I bought her all kinds of leg warmers. Dude, can it, have you ever guys? It's like, every once in a while. It's not common, but every once in a while there's a dude in the gym wearing leggings and working out. Don't.

Yeah. Nobody wants to see them. You can do his shorts over them. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about straight up leggings. while you're working out. Like, I don't need to see that, dude. Yeah.

I'm not trying to see. And then they're deadlifting. I just like, like, 180 out of the gym. I'm out. It's not my day, you guys. What's going on, bro? I don't even see if your circumcides or not. That's disgusting, bro.

That's disgusting, too. I got to tell you this about conversation. I help my cousins. It was cracking me up. So we always talk crap to each other, right? Yeah. Is this in person or over text? Text.

It's our love language, right? And so the conversation, they were talking about exercise. eyes and then I was telling them like I was like oh man you know what sucks is like I have these like strength limits that I know that once I get to them my body starts to hurt so I'm kind of telling them like

you know I can't once I get up to this number no matter what my body starts to talk to me so I don't think it's like a good idea to even push myself so I have this conversation my cousin Alex gets on there he's like well yeah you work out a lot and Justin's still way stronger than you I'm like he saw some of our videos on there

and I'm like I tried to educate them like he's stronger than most people. You guys realize that, right? Really strong guy, dude. So I told him what your split stance overhead press was. And I don't think they knew that you did that. Oh, really? Yeah, dude.

And they're like, 315. I'm like, yeah, 350 pounds, bro. Over his head. Oh, really? Yeah, bro, that's a lot, dude. We probably should highlight the... All the series that we did. Yeah, the ones we never air, Justin.

Nobody knows. That's my fault, dude. My fault, bro. I have the circus lifts that I can do. sometimes. He just crushes our grip. But I was like giving them like some of your numbers and they were just like what? I'm like averaging everything. I hate

all those things that we do. So, so not fun for me. You're the captain America of superheroes. You're not like Hulk. I'm the guy who like admittedly said like I was all, all show no go for like 90% of my lifting career. And so it's like let's do all these like

challenges. Let's see how strong you're like. Yeah, no. You guys are both. You can be really strong at your top. it sucks about being in our space is you just go through the fitness space. That's it. It's like you never even highlight it because it's like I'll get buried by like everybody. I was never strong. I was relatively strong for a six foot three lanky guy. You know what I'm saying?

Like so, but I was, I've never been really strong. So when we were having this conversation about you, Justin, I was like, you know, pumping your tires and stuff. Just kind of like again, like you're comparing me to somebody super strong. My dad, I'll never forget this. I've told you guys about like his strength. Back in the day, so I was probably 10. So this was like 37 years ago. Kettlebell story?

No, no, no. This is like 37 years ago. So he's like younger. Okay. He had a helper that worked for him who was into bodybuilding. And my dad knew nothing about lifting weights at all. He knew a Sicilian immigrant. You know, he did judo as a kid.

I'd say he didn't know about lifting weights. And this guy kept talking him about his bench press. And I could bench press 315 pounds. So this is the reason why I had a weight set. My dad, because of his helper, bought a, old school free weight set because this guy kept talking about it. My dad wanted to like, okay, I'll try doing this. So my dad had no, he didn't know what the hell he was doing.

I remember vividly, he would go out in the backyard. He'd load the bar up and try things, okay? And my dad at 180 pounds, and I think he practiced for like a couple months, benched 315. Are you serious? I swear on everything. Wow. And I know this because I spotted him. I'm like, by the way, don't have your 11-year-old spot you.

On 315. Bro, I was terrified. But he loaded up the bar, and he didn't even have three plates because he had bought the set that came with 315. Those sand weights? No, no, they were metal. They were all right. No, they were iron, but it was like, you know, like a 45, a 35, a 25, 25, 20s, tens, tens, tens, you know, a bunch of like little weights. All the way out to the very ends.

And he hit 315 at 180 pounds. That's insane. Yeah, he's got. For someone who doesn't lift? He's got crazy. Took me damn near half my life to get up to that. He had the kind, I'd swear if my dad trained properly in his youth. Well, I mean, your brother, I know your brother's a good example.

that. Your brother's a moose. Hell is strong, but he's big. But he never lives. He doesn't live. Yeah. So, I mean, the fact that he comes in and it grabs weights and does stuff with, it's wild. Dude, my favorite, never, this is one of my favorite stories. I was managing the 24th, fitness and Sunnyvale. No, I was the assistant manager. So I was 20, maybe, 19 or 20, 19. I was 19 years old. So my brother was 13. My brother comes in with my dad to work out. And one of my big, I had this train that used to work for me. His name was Lamont. Big black dude, Jack, bodybuilder-looking guy.

So my brother comes in and my, this Lamont's like, oh, is that your brother? He said, yeah, dude, he'll beat you in arm wrestling. And Lamont's like, ah, ha, ha, no way. I'm like, I bet you'll beat you an arm wrestling. So the whole staff got together. I paged my brother up to the front desk and my 13-year-old brother beat him in arm wrestling.

Oh, my God. Yeah, that's so funny. Oh, that's great. And he was like a skinny 13-based. Yeah, he has my dad's. You guys have that much of a gap? How many years? So I'm four years old with my same.

sister two years older and she's two years so six years. I didn't realize you guys had that much of a gap. I thought he was closer to you than that. No, no, six year difference. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It's funny because, yeah, my brother has no interest. You never had any interest in lifting weights. I mean, he played sports and he was really good at basketball and volleyball

and he was like all-American volleyball. Oh, wow. Yeah, he had like, no interest in lifting weights are getting big. And I was always like drinking protein shakes because it was like, I was always wrestling my dad. And my dad's six, seven and huge. And I was always like, Like, I think I just had this target of, like, I have to, I'm not tall.

Like, my brother's 6.3. My dad's 6.7. I'm like, I got to have something, you know. So I was like, at least I could get strong. Bro, your son, that just pulled 315? Three, 300. Oh, 300 is deadlift. Bro, 300 pounds.

16 is, he's hella strong. You didn't do that, could you? I don't think so. Yeah, that's like. I don't think so. But I know, I'm for sure I didn't do that. He also benched how much? Yeah, so he benched 185 and we're, we're, we're.

We're working on that next. Get him up to 20. Now, keep in mind. I was 20 before I got the wheels on there. Yeah, but keep in mind, he's not focused on lifting weights. He does gymnastics. Yeah, exactly. This is him just at school.

They have a sports performance class, and he's just been learning technique, which is great. And I'm like, oh, this is perfect. And so he's just been chipping away at it. And then they tested him out. And he was like, oh, duh. You're like, 185. I'm like, what? Really?

And I'm like, go show me. Does he have a girlfriend right now? No, he doesn't. He's focused, bro. And I want to keep him there. Show up to school and forget his shirt one day. I'll just say, dude. Don't tell, you won't listen to this.

Does he listen to this? Only if I told him, though. Okay, don't tell him to listen to this. But if he went to a pool party with a bunch of, all he had to do is take a shirt off? Oh, my God. He'd get all, especially nowadays, like, nobody works out. He's casually for his back's filling out. He's kind of a six-back.

No, I saw a picture. Both of them, they're both going to be. little studs. It's funny to watch. But that's crazy. I had no idea that he, I knew he was messing around with the weights a little bit,

but I mean, that's ridiculous to be pulling that. If he dedicate me, he'll pull 500 pounds in high school. That'd be crazy. It'd be crazy because, like, we haven't even dedicated any, like, real programming around again.

Right, because gymnastics is the focus, right? Yeah. So I imagine that's like 90% of the time he spends is on training for that. Yeah, and he's so explosive with that and, like, very, you know, obviously body awareness and everything. So it's like, it's just a natural.

Yeah, the gymnastics is for sure going strong. What, okay, so what happens next for him in that journey? Like, he did nationals, like, uh, he's highly ranked. Are you guys, are you guys in an off season yet? Or is he still in season? Um, and so he made, he qualified for nationals already. Yep. So he went through that process.

And then they think it's like, you know, in a couple weeks, um, I think it's in June where he actually goes to nationals and competes. but from there he can actually try out for the national team. Wow. And so they have like a national team, like once he gets a certain rank of like a level, like a level nine, level 10. And then they would travel and compete. So then, you know, from there go to the Olympics.

So it's like kind of like a stepping stone towards the Olympics. Now, has he expressed to you, dad, I'd like to be in the Olympics? You know, he's kind of like back and forth. I get like hot and cold with him with that. Yeah. I mean, as a dad, do you ask that or do you just let him come?

Oh, I asked, of course. Oh, you did. You have asked. Like, hey,

yeah, because the thing is, like, if that's your goal, you have to be laser focused. It's intense. Yeah. And as much as he trains now,

he'd have to, like, ramp it up to, you know, a whole other level. So you, you feel him kind of, uh, back and forth.

Like, there's a part of it that goes like, I want to, but then it's like, knowing that there's a lot of sacrifice. Because he's friend and school focus too. And so that's the part of like his childhood. I'm not,

I'm not trying to rob him about it. Good job, bro. I was just going to say that. Good job. Because when you hear interviews from Olympians, it's a, it's a massive sacrifice. Because you have no,

you don't have, you don't build lots of friendship. I sleep and. What made me stop sports was work and making money and girls. Like having a social life. I wanted, which is important.

Yeah. And it's like not everybody, you know, I was, I knew I wasn't that good naturally, so I had to work a lot. Yeah. So, you know, which would. It's a conundrum. It is a conundrum. I see the potential.

Yeah. I'm like, ah, I could be like the Tiger Woods dad that's like, rah. You know, but I don't think he would, he's not the personality that would even respond well to that to begin with. Yeah. And then also it's like, yeah, he has to really want that himself. Right. Or else you risk him resenting you for robbing him of his social life.

Or what happens sometimes is after they reach whatever their top. level is and then they're done, they flip in such a crazy direction. Yeah. Oh, I missed out of all identity. They're all right. Yeah. I missed all the parting. Let me go crazy.

Let me do all the stuff. And yeah, the other thing, too, with him is if he just got to a high level, like he's already there, there are some pretty cool job opportunities for things like Cirque de Soleil. And I only know this because my wife worked for them. Yeah. And yeah, it does translate well to that. If he did that, because they're always looking for people. If he did that, like, that's a great.

Like, they travel the world. He makes a ton of money. they pay for his room and board and food and he just collects money and travels for like three years. I know, yeah, it'd be cool. I'm selfishly interested in seeing him do another sport because he's got such a good foundation. Jiu-Jitsu.

Yeah, that's, I know. That's me. Yeah, that's where I'm at. What does that look like a? In his size, again, like, give him, hand him over to me and I'll do some of his weight training programming, and then we'll see where it goes. But it's like, you know, I'm, I'm kind of like,

waiting for that opportunity of like, well, dad, I kind of, you know, I'm feeling like I want to try something else. Like, he isn't really expressed. Okay, yeah, because I'm just like so, I mean, you put a kid like that on like a wakeboard and see him like, I mean, instantly we'll know how to do flips and do stuff like that that, you know. He does it all the time now, like when they go to lakes or they go to like, the river or anything, like, you know, and his friends want him to do some kind of flip and slacks. And he does it all the time now. Yeah. Yeah. Because he, yeah. His body awareness is ridiculous. You, and that's why it's, that's why it is so foundational for all other pursuits of sports.

Like, he goes, imagine him as a tight in. Like, I could just imagine how good he would be as like a tight in. Like, he would be good at anything. Anything that he has such great coordination and body awareness now and strength, too. Like, oh, my God. Like, that's a recipe for like anything he touches. He's going to be pretty damn good. You know what's cool, too, about it is you develop these foundational skills as a kid when your brain is developing.

You actually don't lose a lot of skill. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you've got this really good body awareness that stays with you for the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah. Which is really really cool. No, no, super cool. Did you, I haven't changed directions here.

Justin, you're familiar with the four types of aliens. What? We have four types of aliens? Okay, wait, let me see my down. Hold on them. I'm going to pull them up. Because Fox News is reporting on this. Shut up.

I swear. This is where we're at right now. Dude, they're reporting on this. The Nordics? Nordics? Okay, the reptilian. Yes. The grayes.

Yes. One more. What's the last one, dude? Mantis. Mantis. Oh, I was going to say ants. So there's four types of aliens that are reported. And there's these four type of aliens,

now they're reporting the news that they're going to release that these are the four species of aliens that we know that exists. Bro, how fun does this get if this is getting weird. There are four different planets. These things are coming from. Bro, I just, you know, it's not just one set of aliens. It's all demons. Anyway, mantis is six to seven foot tall, large compound eyes, highly agile, excellent eye sight. eyesight, sorry, telepathic abilities.

Then you have the grays. Those are the famous ones. They're short, four, five foot, large eyes, gray complexion, slender build, advanced technology. Then there's a reptilians, six to eight feet tall, highly intelligent, strong and resilient, advanced technology. Then the Nordics are six to seven and a half feet tall, human-like appearance, advanced intelligence, peaceful in nature, highly advanced society. How weird. Why are we the least advanced, the dumbest, and the weakest? I mean, this is just like, this sucks.

Because they're all demons, that's the way. They're all demons or they've crossed bread. Going off your demon theory, don't you think they would be messing with us in a bad way more if it was demons? Yeah, I think they already are, dude. You think so? I think so, bro. If they actually exist and they've been in communication with our government or whatever, what do you think is happening? You think that they're just talking to us?

Or maybe they're helping to control things or there's a deal? These are some of the reports that come out is that they made deals with government saying, you allow us to abduct people and to perform experiments. That's what comes out. Yeah, I've heard so many theories, dude. It's just so weird to talk about. But yeah, it's just like all stuff you like, I was into this like a couple years ago. You know, now it's like, oh, this is a pot.

Fox News is reporting on it. Did you ever think this would happen? No. No. That's why it's weird. It does feel like in our lifetime that we'll, whether it's true or not true or whatever, we should find out. Doesn't it feel like that? Yeah.

Yeah. It feels like that. It feels like it's ramped up to a level that, like, the truth has to come. Yeah, one of the theories was like there was this, there's like an alien base in the Pacific somewhere that the Navy already knows about. And so, like, they all have this, like, agreement that they kind of maneuver away from it. But their sense is that a lot of it is, like, an AI. Like, it's an AI. And it's, it's there to, like, build these UFOs and, like, send them out and, and do reconnaissance and what.

whatnot. Yeah. So that was like one theory was that. And then, you know, that's why I've always been into like Antarctica too, because there's like, what do you call, what do you call a person that draws up maps, like a crow cartographer? Carthographer. So there's this one like, I don't know, period where like all the cartographers were drawing it, Antarctica, the, um, all of it the same. And so like all of the, the coastline was totally in alignment. And it was like way more way more land mass than is shown now. And you're not allowed to go there. Nobody is.

Nobody's allowed to go there. And so it's just like there's so much mystery surrounding it because of the fact. And too, certain islands I didn't know about that like they're talking about might actually be like a gold reserve where they kind of moved all the money. How many crazy things are turning out to be true? This is like crazy. Like there's too much now. What's next?

Yeah. But you look at Operation like High Jump. and all this kind of stuff where the whole U.S. government sent like fleets of, you know, ships down there to investigate. I'm going to be honest with you.

I used to nerd out on this stuff as a kid. I thought it was cool. But no, there was not a single fiber in me that wanted to realize this was real. Like, there's a part of me that's like, yeah, I'm cool.

This is fun to learn about. But I'm glad to me. To me, it was like a cool story that was like, you know, you kind of read crazy people online, like come up and they contribute to it.

And you're like, it was always fun to me. It wasn't like a, was real. You know, and they're reporting it. I wish, I knew,

like, somebody who, like, you know, there's obviously been all these story, people that have, whistleblowers that have come forward

from government that have said, like, we've, I've absolutely seen this or that. Like, I wish I had some sort of, like, because the hardest thing for us,

as viewers of that is like, I don't know anything about that guy. Yeah. Like, is that guy completely fucked up and, like, crazy and just like, and known for telling stories.

You know what I'm saying? Whereas if it was like a direct, like, I feel like if one of you guys were that guy, And you told me, I'm like, then I would be, then I'd be bought in. I'm bought in because it's like, my boy who I trust is like, and I know isn't crazy. You don't trust the news? Yeah, exactly.

I don't trust some random whistleblower that the news network that the media agreed to be allowed on. I mean, there's so much stuff that they control and they police. I find it so interesting that they allow these people to be on there. Is it because these people can be disproven and discredit so much? Is it because they're totally gas-liding? And so part of the... So hard for me to believe... You guys remember the Miami Mall incident, right?

Where this was reported that there were these weird, like, beings that were flashing in and out. Wait, when did that happen? Because that was like during COVID years, wasn't it? I think it was like... Right around there. Three years ago, four years ago, maybe? Something like that. Anyway, maybe look it up, though.

This was wild. But there was crazy reports. There's some videos. Remember, they shut it out. Cops, like hundreds of cop cars. And they blacked everything. It was January 1, 2024. They blacked everything out, cut off the communication.

shut down the airport over there, remember? And they're like, oh, it's just kids with fireworks. Yeah. And people in Reddit are like, I was there. Because it's near the Fourth of July, right? Cops were taking. January, actually. Oh, never mind.

People were taking away. New Year's. Yeah, it says, yeah, there were eight to ten foot tall extraterrestrial creatures is what they were saying. So there's this theory that says that the reason why they're releasing this is because they have no choice. That this is happening. So we got to let people know before this all comes out.

Yeah. You know? I kept looking because there was some people that were like, trying to post the videos, and then it got taken down. And I was like, oh, I almost saw one of them. I was always, like, trying to, like, you know, be on the inside. I know. See, I don't know what to believe.

I mean, I saw this thing, and I still don't know if it's true. Now, maybe Doug can do a little bit digging. So one of the things I follow aside from sports and car stuff is also, like, the watch stuff that's going on. And there's this big collaboration that happened with AP and Swatch, which AP is a really, it's a luxury brand watch, and they're parting with kind of a lower end. So it was like this, all this controversy. Like, is that a good idea, smart business?

And so it dropped day before yesterday. So look up, yeah, look up videos though, Doug, of people basically, so what would you, there's tons of viral videos of people trying to go get the, the, the, when it got released. So release, do, yeah, viral video release of that and see what you get. And I've seen both, I've seen videos and it's just showing pandemonium of like people trying to, rushing to get it. rushing to get in it and from all the cities Miami, London. This is global chaos erupts. There you go.

Yeah, yeah. It's just like two days ago. So it just happened. We need to know the time. So I was following, I've been following the release of this because I was curious of just the move on it for the brand AP. And I didn't think it was a smart move. And I still don't know if it's a smart move or not.

Because you're talking about a high-end luxury brand. It's like Rolls-Royce doing a collab with a Honda. Right. You know, and it's a way lower price point. So, and I guess the theory is you get more people to know about that high-end brand by introducing a little. But then you're also, those are the people that you're outpriced. It's not really your customer. Yeah, yeah.

So it's like all of a sudden, a Civic buyers could buy a Rolls-Royce lined car or something, that could a little bit more than a Civic, but you'll never be, I don't know. I don't understand the logic. So I'm so curious about that. That's why I'm following. But my point of bringing it up is now I've seen all these, influencers reporting on this and then I've seen

videos that they're manufactured and they're not. So is this like what we just saw? Oh, is it like hype? I've seen people I've seen videos and people show me that footage and there is no pandemonium. They're just people chilling, waiting in line. Let's they just take clips from like Black Friday

So that's what some of these clips are showing is that they're showing these viral clips of this people tackling each other trying to get in there and then like the same footage but there's no there's no nothing. Oh. And so did, did these guys put this out to make it seem like there's this crazy frenzy for

these, these pop watches when there's really not that crazy. You can't trust that. I know. So I don't even know. I'm like, I'm trying to follow this. And I'm like, I don't know what's true and what's not true to my point of like the media shit, you know, so. Yeah, well, speaking of things you can trust, I have some data from some trials on the

sleep of the eight sleep. Oh, I love it. Yeah, on what people have gotten from using their product on their bed. So check this out. So for people don't know, eight sleep, it goes on your bed under your top cover. And it warms or cools depending on what you want. And then it also tracks your sleep and adjust itself in real time just to give you the best sleep ever. And it's like, it's like the best technology you can get to get the best sleep.

It's the best. Yeah. So here's what the trial showed. 44% less time to fall asleep. So cut the time you need to fall asleep, almost in half. 34% more deep sleep because they've tracked the deep sleep stages.

So 34% increase. Yeah. 23% fewer night wakeups. So you wake up one fourth less time in the middle of night. Did you guys not see the Brian? You know Brian Johnson is partners with eight sleep, right? Oh, I don't know.

Oh, he is. You know, he holds the record for the most 100 scores in days in a row. Like eight months worth. Yeah, did you see it? Oh, yeah, I did. Look at this. Wow.

So, 100 scored. Okay, I think three times I've scored like a 92. Never a hundred. That's crazy. Never have I scored 100 one time. I've never put back to back 90 days. Back to back 80 days is the most I can do. I've done consistently.

He scored a perfect score. What's the thing on it? Yeah, so he achieved a perfect 100% sleep score for eight consecutive months. Yes. Wow. And he attributes that to... That's a weird brag. That's nuts.

I know it is. I mean, it's... I sleep the best. I mean... It also says you are an absolute loser. You have nothing else going on your life, but focus on that. But I mean... Are you depressed?

Kind of a kind of crazy, impressive. Great commercial for eight sleep. I know, yeah. Well, I know. Because he, that's... Obviously, he does a lot of things. He does everything. He does everything, right?

So obviously, eight sleep doesn't give everybody a hundred score. But he does attribute a big portion of that consistency of his night sleep. Well, he has his blueprint here. Yeah, yeah. So he goes to sleep every night at 8.30 p.m. works out, wakes up at 5 a.m. Optimized temperature. He uses 8 sleep to regulate your sleep temperature, maintaining deep sleep at 71 degrees

Fahrenheit. And RAM at 73. By the way, see what 8 sleep does? Yes. It changes just slightly to maximize the stages of sleep. Yeah. Like, this is crazy technology. And it learns your patterns to consistently adjust to it when you should be there.

Yeah, it's crazy. That's so awesome. Speaking of Brian Johnson, did you guys see the post he did about his girlfriend's vagina. What? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, left turn. They tested the microbiome.

Eight seems like, we'll get the commercial right there. And click. Doug, look this up. Brian Johnson's. It's good right to there. Brian Johnson's girlfriend's vaginal microbiome. Okay. I love doing these searches, by the way.

Listen, and she had any brag. She has the best microbiome of anybody. What? Yeah. You thought I made bread. No, no, no. Okay, is there a part of you that thinks that he's like, there's a, there's a, there's a,

a brilliant side to understanding the virality. Oh, look, look, look. This is our vaginal microbiome report. 100 and of 100 score, top 1% of all vaginas. What a flax, bro. What a flex. You know, my wife has the top 1% of vaginas, right? What you mean by that, her microbiome?

The bacteria score and there's incredible. What is that. Oh, what a flex. I know. Give it a width. I know. This guy's weird. That is hilarious.

He's weird, bro. He is, he is weird. You know what? It's going to be, what a letdown when he gets hit by a bus when he's 65. Oh, come on. Come on. I know it's dark, but I mean, that's what happens in this situation. He was doing so well.

That's what happens in the situation, right? Everybody's a cliffhanger, like, waiting. He's going to make it to $150? And, like, br-c. We're not wishing that on you, Brian. No, not. I mean, he's going to walk outside

to bubble? Like, yeah, he's going to maintain that. I just think it's hilarious that he posted this about his girlfriend's the vaginal microbiode report. Like, you know,

let's post this, honey. We got to flex on this. Anything to brag about it. Paleo Valley makes paleo-inspired products and supplements to improve your health, athletic performance, to support muscle gain, fat loss.

One of my favorite products from them are their protein snacks. These are meat sticks. that are fermented so they're not dry. They're very high quality. They're grass fed. They taste great. High protein.

On the go snacks. If you want protein, you want it on the go long shelf life. You don't like dry beef jerky. Try the Paleo Valley meat sticks. They're delicious and they're good for your gut health. Go to paleovalley.com forward slash mind pump. And on that link, you'll get a discount. Here comes a show.

First question is from Colonel F. FG82, MAPS programs consist of different phases, which are three to four weeks. Do you lose the adaptation when going into a new phase? Okay, so good question. So when you switch from, let's say, low rep training to higher rep training, some of the strength gains that you got, you're going to lose a little bit for that specific range, okay? Because what you train shifts.

There is a specificity that happens with your adaptation. Like you get good at five reps. you get really good at five reps. Now there's carryover into other rep ranges, but most of the gains come at the five rep. Now, when you go to train, let's say 15 reps, you'll lose some of the ability and skill at the five rep range, but you're gaining them now in the 15 rep range.

But here's what's important to know. When we design math programs, and this is the way most people should train, they need to think in terms of long-term results. I want great results, but I want my results to continue going. I want to minimize injury, and I want to just progress, and I want to have this great workout routine that I can do for years and years and years.

and years. And the best way to do that is to move in and out of different phases. And there is crossover. So getting stronger at one is going to give you a little bit of the other one. Not as much, but a little bit. And if you continue to do this throughout your career, you'll avoid injury more. You'll hit less plateaus and you just get better results. This is why it's so impressive when we have somebody who, and you hear this all the time who's following a maps, like say, MAPS and Abolic and they come back around the second time. And when they're in phase one and they see strength gains right away is incredible. Like you don't expect to do that because you know that they've lost some of that

adaptation because they've been, they've moved to two other phases since then before revisiting it. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect or want even care to see the client see a PR or strength gains until week three of that again. But a lot of times we see people right in phase one, week one again already back to like PR numbers for them, which is so,

it shows you the carryover potential that's there. But don't expect that because you, you have. You've been training in high rep or in superset. So to go over to one to five reps, you know, you're not going to probably be there until a couple weeks of training there.

That's right. Back up to that strength right above. Next question is from JT70374. For times when you only have access to lighter weights, is it better to slow down the tempo and do fewer reps or keep a normal tempo and do higher reps? They're both good. Yeah.

They're both really, really good. Here's the caveat. If the high reps start, get into like the 25 plus rep range, then I would say definitely slow down and try and do less wraps. And here's why, because here's what the data shows for muscle growth. High reps, low reps, moderate reps. They all build the same amount of muscle so long as the intensity is the same. So close to failure. Here's the problem, though, with high reps for many exercises. Your cardiovascular endurance becomes a hindrance. In other words, if I'm doing barbell squats, and I pick that for a reason,

because it's a good example. If I'm doing barbell squats and I'm doing sets of 25, what's going to, the wall that I'm going to hit before muscle strength fatigue is cardiovascular fatigue. Yeah. And so now I can't train at that same intensity to build muscle because I'm gassed out. And so this is the thing that you need to weigh out. But aside from that, they're both great.

Yeah, you don't want to train bad patterns. And there's like a tipping point to that. So that's kind of what I'd be conscious of. But, I mean, I usually tend to push people towards the slowing down in the tempo. Mainly because the natural inclination is to do a lot of reps anyways. So to shift it over into that and really focus on form technique and get all the value out of that while performing it slow and making it heavy. I think there's a lot of value. There's a bit of overthinking going on here because it's like for times when only have access to lighter weight.

So what I think of is like your hotel traveling or something like that and you only have access to this. And so these are probably short windows. personally has that and either one of these is going to be completely fine in that's a situation. I tend to go slower. Well, I'll tell you. So the way I coach this to somebody or myself is I actually ask myself or my client, well, what do you tend to normally gravitate to do the other one? So if you're somebody who, when you're home and you have all your weights, you do cycles of high reps from the time, but you never really manipulate tempo? Well, then here's a great time. You're in a hotel. It only goes up to 30, 40 pounds. Hey, maybe you'll do a bunch of tempo stuff this time.

Or maybe you are somebody who's really good about manipulating tempo when you're back home and you have all access to all weights, but you never really push high reps. Well, go push high reps. The truth is, if it's a short period of time that you're limited to these weights, either one of these is not going to be the difference maker of you changing that big of a difference. So it's not that serious. But I would go do the thing that I don't do the most. Next question is from Skiddy Markson. I'm getting back into running just for the enjoyment and to run 5Ks. What level of strength training should one incorporate in their weekly routine when running three times a week?

I think you should try the alternate week approach. I think if you like to run and you want to run 5Ks, those aren't super long distance, I think you should have a week where you focus just on running and then a week where you focus just on strength training and alternate. And what you'll probably find, and there's limited data on this, but there was one study I saw, that pointed to this where people got better gains in both strength and endurance when they alternated weeks versus doing them all in the same week and much better than when they did them all in the same workout. So I love this approach for many people. You want the endurance from running and you want the strength training. Alternate the weeks.

I'm just doing strength training week. And then next week, I'm just doing running. And watch what happens. You'll get better of both. Most people will get better at both by doing that. Well, we just had a live caller who we had just recently. that we called back after we gave this exact, like almost the exact thing that she was trying to accomplish,

and you gave this protocol to her. And she built more muscle and got faster than her runs. Yeah. And lowered volume and intensity of running. So less running and less intensity of running. Stronger, more energetic. And got stronger, lower body fat percent. I mean, all things moved the needle.

Next question is from cognitive posture. In a recent episode, you were discussing the one set to failure programming. What rep range to failure? I'm assuming between six to 12 reps. So, uh, depending on the face. Yeah. Well, here,

it technically doesn't matter, but here's why I push more towards the higher reps, uh, like around 12 when going to failure. In my experience, the low reps to failure tend to be too little volume. Well, also higher risk too.

And then the risk is high. Going to failure with a really heavy weight, uh, can, can, can, can be, uh,

a bit precarious. Um, so I, I, I think like 10, 12, 13 reps to failure. I've gotten better results going to failure with the higher reps. That's not high reps, right?

But it's higher. And my clients typically did as well. And I think it has to do with like the volume is either too low with the low reps or the risk of injury. And you're just handling a heavy weight. Your form breaks down when you get, you know, to failure. So in my experience, the moderate range that like I said, around 12 seems to work. I agree. I've gotten great results though from low rep failure.

But it's I've also, that's also. So when I think of injuries and nagging pains, that's when they happen. So to your point, like, for most people, I think it's in their best interest to do failure training in the higher rep range. Stresses the hinges along. Yeah, yeah. I've definitely seen great results, though, from doing that with, you know, singles, doubles, triples and going that way. But, I mean, that's also when my hip start talking to me in my knee or my low back. It's like, that's the risk.

It's like super infrequent. If you're going to do it. Yes. Yeah. If you are going to do it, you know, every now and then I would definitely go more. But I never get that from like high rep. If I go, if I'm doing 10, 12 wraps and I fail in the last one, like I don't at all. You don't pay for that as much.

Yep, for sure. 100%. 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 Anabolic, Maps,

Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin, as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.