Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2888: The 6 Best Lifts for Athletic Fitness (That Actually Transfer to Real Life)

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

In this episode the guys break down the six best lifts for athletic fitness — the movements that translate directly to real world performance, sport and everyday life. They cover lunges and sled work, the standing overhead press, trap bar deadlift, one arm rows with rotation and pull ups, hanging leg raises done correctly, and band and cable chops for rotational power. They also reminisce about their worst business failures — Sal's second studio location that cost him 75K to break the lease, Adam's mobile car detailing hustle, Justin's app build, and Doug's story of losing his entire Japan savings to a fraudulent investment group that got raided by the IRS mid-call. Then they answer questions from Instagram on Bulgarian split squat imbalances, swapping exercises in MAPS 15 Powerlift, which program fixes imbalances and unlocks squat depth, and how to pair sprint intervals with strength training. No BS 6-Pack Formula: https://nobs6pack.comCode: 6PACK for 50% off. Full ab building system with two phase blueprints and video demos by Sal. $28.50 after discount. SPONSORS Rho Nutrition (liposomal creatine, NAD+ and Glutathione): https://www.rhonutrition.com/discount/MINDPUMP Code: MINDPUMP for 20% off everything. Liposomal creatine discussed on air as the fix for people who experience bloating from regular creatine. Paleo Valley (grass-fed fermented meat sticks): https://paleovalley.com/mindpump 15% off automatically applied at checkout, no code needed. Our Place (non-toxic cookware): https://fromourplace.comCode: MINDPUMP for 10% off sitewide. Always Pan replaces eight pieces of cookware, forever chemical free, 100 day trial with free returns. LINKS Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.comMaps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia 0:00 - Intro 2:28 - 6 best lifts for athletic fitness 3:25 - Lunges and sled work — triple extension, split stance and why sled is the most accessible power exercise 8:09 - Standing overhead press — the squat of the upper body and how it reveals your whole body strength 10:22 - Trap bar deadlift — why athletic coaches prefer it over conventional for most sports 14:38 - One arm rows with rotation and pull ups — pulling strength and the rotational component most programs miss 16:31 - Hanging leg raises — how to do them correctly and why they matter for every athletic movement 18:25 - Band and cable chops — rotational and anti-rotational power for sport 21:15 - Worst business failures — studios, apps, car detailing and Doug's IRS raid story 50:13 - Rho liposomal creatine solving the bloating problem for women 51:43 - Justin's Yellowstone trip and the bear world grizzly feeding park 59:25 - Paleo Valley fermentation process and the Truckee cabin bear break-in story 1:01:22 - Q&A: Bulgarian split squat imbalances — how to even out a weaker leg 1:04:41 - Q&A: Swapping exercises in MAPS 15 Powerlift with weaker lift variations 1:05:47 - Q&A: Best MAPS program for fixing imbalances and unlocking squat depth 1:07:40 - Q&A: How to pair sprint intervals with strength training correctly

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I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to mindpump store.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, we're going to give you the six best lifts for athletic fitness. This is the kind of fitness that translates to the real world. Let's you play harder and move better. Still builds muscle, makes you look awesome. We're going to break it down.

Let's go. Oh, Jessica. Justin got up for this one. Yeah, Justin's excited about this. I am so excited. Now, these are lifts that we're listening, so we're not putting in here things like plios or triangles or things that are more specific. Okay. And I do want to say, just like I think I got to say this, if you're an athlete, the best thing you do you get more athletic is to play your sport.

And then general strength tends to benefit athletes across the board, especially if you're new to strength training. Oh, you always need a foundational base to your strength. rank to build off of in any direction you want to branch off. So any of these are going to do well with whatever sport it is you're pursuing. 100%. So we're going to kind of go through the list. And we'll start with kind of lower body stuff. And I listed here lunges and sled driving or sled works.

Why don't we talk about those a little bit? So I'm assuming that within this is encompassed like lateral sled drags. Yeah, just sled work. Just in general sled stuff. Yeah, you know, let's start there because I love sled work so much for a couple different ways. you got what's called what's known as triple extension with a sled. So a lot of leg exercises your feet are planted and they're flat. You'll almost never be in a position in any athletic endeavor where that's the case.

Is there any sport that encourages flat foot in? Not like that. No, I can't think. Yeah. Almost weightlifting. Yeah. Well, almost every sport I'm aware of. You're moving.

You're on your toes. It encourages you to be on your toes. Yes. At least on the ball of your foot. Yeah. And so when you're driving, if you're just doing a basic drive, like a forward sled drive,

you're having to push through the entire lower body, including your foot and your ankle. So yeah, the calves are involved, but you also strengthen your feet. Yeah. While you're driving forward, lots of hip extension.

Another good feature about sled work is there's no negative portion. Yeah, it's all concentric. That's right. So, yeah, you're now taking out a lot of the more damaging, I guess, aspect of the muscle contract. FACTION phase.

So it's like you could put all this force output out without a lot of the, you know, damage you need to heal from. That's, you know, we say that a lot in the podcast. But if you've never actually compared that, it's, it's really interesting to compare the difference. Totally. Like go and do five sets of barbell back squats. Hard. Yeah, hard on your leg day.

And then go do, you know, five sets of, you know, sled pushes. Just as hard. Yeah. Heavy. Real hard. Heavy. And notice the difference in how you feel. Yep.

the days two and three after those two workouts, and it's significantly different. Totally. You know what else is interesting about sled driving. There's, of course, so much carryover for athletic performance and function and strength. It's one of those few exercises that's relatively low skill.

What I mean by that is I can have a... You're an old lady. I can have a 60-year-old push a sled. I can have a 16-year-old push a sled. I can have someone push a sled with, you know, 500 pounds on it. I can have someone push a sled with almost no weight on it, and they're all going to get tremendous benefit.

You can't say that for a lot of exercises. There's a lot of exercise that require a certain level skill to perform. And rarely do you have a low-skill exercise that's got tons of carryover like sled. Well, the lunging itself is just so functional because anything you're going to do athletically, you're going to be in a split stance. It's just there's no, you know, getting around that fact. And building up, you know, strength and be able to load a lot, like bilateral definitely makes sense for that to build a good base.

But to reinforce that split stance position and also the, the different directions you could take lunges. You could do a lot of variations of lunges pretty easily to expose people to different planes of motion. Yeah, you know, what's interesting about lunges is, by the way, back in the 90s, lunges were not considered like a crazy strength building. Actually, it was weird. It was not like a strength building exercise.

It was like what people did in like jazzercise classes, which was interesting. It's a very good muscle builder. It's a great functional exercise. What's interesting about it is you can get. get really strong at bilateral lower body exercises like squats. Never practice lunges. Go try lunging and you'll see just how much of a deficiency. Would you say, would you say,

would you say Ronnie Coleman made him popular for aesthetics and for built bodybuilding? I think bodybuilders started to do. He was one of them for sure. He started, there's a famous video of him, those tights. That's right. The yellow and black ones. Or you can see his leg veins through his tights.

He's doing walking lunges in the parking lot. I think you're right. Like I can't remember them being really popular. Not in bodybuilding. No, not until him. No, 100%. Right, because Arnold didn't really promote him much. No, it was in his encyclopedia. Yeah, but everything was in his encyclopedia. It wasn't, like, huge about it. So that was, like, you know, he wasn't, he didn't hype them up or talk a lot about them. And I didn't see him in any of his, like hype videos. Like, I don't remember it. And there's a lot of coaches, athletic coaches that make the argument that lunges or split stance that are superior to bilateral for athletes. Well, you have people like Mike Boyle, who especially who stands by, that's the only way to train athletes. Is there a reason why you, is there a reason why you, you. put lunges and sled driving together together it could be almost their own they are their own but they're both lower body so i kind of went through oh okay that was right to got it i see what you

and i couldn't pick one or the other got it okay i couldn't understand why you put those together i'm like there's a whole category of different type like justin's saying different lunges that you can do that i think are incredible and same thing with sled driving they could have been in their own category totally but i see what you did yeah totally uh next step we have the standing overhead press uh this and this has to be standing you're very rarely going to be seated when you're doing any kind of a movement like this or at least in any functional capacity in the real world. I mean, you're picking something up overhead. You're almost always standing because you're putting something up high on a shelf or, you know,

up in the attic or whatever. But it does strengthen the whole body. And, you know, this is the way I would say you could demonstrate upper body strength. Like there almost is no lift that's more impressive than a standing overhead press. By the way, humans know this instinctively. Anytime you watch a cartoon or any kind of like somebody displaying some strength, what they always do?

Can you put it over your head? You're lifting it up over your head. Well, have you ever met somebody who can press a lot of weight over their head that's just not unbelievably strong? No. Because it also require, if you can push a lot of weight over your head,

you have to have a pretty solid base to handle that too. So you're not, you're going to have like this tiny little legs and weak lower body and then you're pressing 315 over your head. If you don't have this strength. Yeah, so you've got to have a good core and lower body to press up over your head. And so the requirement, I mean, it's a squad of the upper body.

Yep. And so you're going to, so you're going to be strong upper body for sure. But then in order to press a lot over your head, you're also going to need to have a solid base in order to do that. 100%. In fact, when you look at old school lifters, they did almost no horizontal pressing. Bench presses weren't invented until much later. A bench press back in those days was a floor press. They didn't have any benches. And big chests weren't really in fashion until bodybuilding.

And you almost never saw that in an athlete. Not saying that big chest or strong chest isn't something that will benefit you. But it's the overhead pressing. Anytime you press something or push something away, you're leaning into it, you're pushing away from your body. And even when you look at old sculptures, old sculptures of, athletes that were based off of gladiators or Olympic athletes, they had really well-developed shoulders and lumbar spines, which, you know, what you would get from being able to press a lot of...

Well, you also get a lot of good upper chest involved in a real true full overhead press where you bring the bar... From your traps. Yeah, when you bring that all the way down to your upper chest, it's, you know, you get some upper chest development from that and strength. So it's such a great lift. Then we have the trap bar deadlift. This is, you know, and I've heard,

people make this argument. I've heard athletic coaches make the argument that the trap bar deadlift is better for athletes than the conventional deadlift. Part of that, I believe, is it's a lower risk of injury. It's a lower skill exercise. The other part of it might have to do more with that. It's more of an upright, which might translate better to sports. I like, you know, I like exercises that have a high carryover that are also lower skill, because you can get into them quicker. and exert force faster. Of course, lower risk of injury is always a good thing so long as there's a lot of carryover. Yeah.

So the trap bar deadlists are really valuable. Yeah, I mean, even just my tiny stint of like going through like two years of trying to help program for like student athletes and whatnot, it was the biggest hurdle was really to get them to learn these movements in, you know, in a really short amount of time before then now we jump right back to season. And so it's like how much can you really move the needle in terms of their optimizing their performance and strength in that period of time? And so you're kind of weighing these things out. Risk, reward, too, is obviously one of those other ones. But I really do think it's the skill is a big, that's a big factor because I could, I could like, you know, take a big group and we could we could go through this and learn it pretty effectively and load it, like, almost immediately. Well, it's, I also think it has a tremendous amount more carryover into sport because very few sports, in fact, I can't think of anything else off my head that.

Yeah, that are posterior-based. Yeah, that require your hips to be down 90 degrees or lower. You'll see that in wrestling. That's about it. Wrestling? Yeah, you'll see like, you see like Xer deadlifts, deadlifts, like really like Jefferson curls. Like these are like, oh, yeah, well, I mean, wrestling, like bridging and all that makes sense, you know, into your neck and all that. Yeah.

It's its own category. You would see that with like Greco-Roman. wrestlers would do stuff like that. But the skill involved, like, we're thinking about the average person. I can take most average, but not everybody, because it's still a deadlift,

but I can take most people without major injury, and we could do a trap bar deadlift day one. And I could load it within a few weeks, typically. I can start to load it. A straight bar deadlift, often to every day person,

it would take me months. Well, to your point to, like every day, most people that are interested in an athletic pursuit that are average day people, I would think are doing recreational sports. Yeah. Most of them are wrestling.

Sure. It's recreational. Like recreational and I think of basketball, basketball, football, baseball, soccer, like you, those are all like you pick up on the weekend and you play or you do a league with your buddies and your 30s and you do something like that. And all those, I think, are a trap bar deadlift is going to translate over to that. As a personal trainer, I use trap bar deadlift's all the time. I could get a lot of people to do it. Straight bar deadlift.

Sometimes it took me a long time to get somebody to be able to pull. I mean, it's like the goal is to be able to do a straight bar. But the truth is that you started a lot of clients on the trap bar. And I'm basing a lot of this. I mean, I didn't train a lot of athletes as a trainer. A lot of my experience was just everyday people. But when I look at athletic trainers and the ones I at least I really admire, they all trap bar deadlift.

You see this in basketball, players, football players, baseball. like they're all using the trap bar. And so I got to go with what these coaches are doing. You're also, uh, you're also not going to do something unless you're going to do like a full snatch, but you're not, you're not going to do something explosive with a traditional deadlift, conventional deadlift.

You will a trap bar. Trapp bar. You will do that. I see them do jumping. Yeah. Yeah. That's another like bonus. Like if you're programming it,

now we can add, you know, this new phase, it's more acceleration base and we can add that in as, you know, the protocol for it. And you're not doing that with conventional. Eventually that lift is more of a grinding lift. Yep. And so you're not going to do that with that.

So it makes sense that this would be more for athletic things. Yeah. And then we have the one-arm row and pull-ups. So we'll start with pull-ups. Pull-ups are just, pull-ups are great for athleticism because you've got this wonderful kind of limiting factor of body weight. Strength to weight ratio for most sports is really important. I say for most because some sports weight plays a role.

We still got to have good strength to weight ratio, though. You can't just be a heavy person. But strength to weight ratio in general. is what makes you move well. It makes no difference if you're a big person and you're strong, but your strength ratio, weight ratio is terrible.

You know, to give an example, you take somebody who lifts weight who's strong at 200 pounds and you suddenly make them 150 pounds with the same strength. That is an explosive person. Oh, yeah.

All of a sudden. And so pull-ups are cool because, you know, it's like, it's a little checks and balances. And what kind of happens sometimes with strength training, sometimes, not often, but sometimes,

people get carried away with the strength and size and end up figuring out they lost athleticism because of strength to weight ratio was thrown off. And pull-ups got that built in. And then one-arm rows with rotation, just Justin's favorite way to do one-arm row. And there's a reason for it. And it's because when you're pulling something, you're rotating.

You're almost never just pulling something. Your body's natural anatomy is inclined to just rotate, even if it's just subtle. So I'm always like work with it, you know, work with these mechanics. You know, we're doing throwing patterns. we're holding sticks. Like everything is dynamic and moving and rotational based like with sports. So, you know, strengthen it.

And any opportunity I can do to throw that into a workout, I'm going to find it. Well, we have to here, right? Because so far, you haven't named anything that has any sort of rotational component to do it. And that's, I mean, if you're going to have an athletic pursuit, there's got to be a decent amount of rotational work included in there for sure. Hanging leg raises will be another one, done properly, please.

This is, I mean, you've got to be really strong for soft to be. able to do these. But when you do these, these really do strengthen the lumbel pelvic hip area and the core. Like, they really strengthen the core quite a bit. It's great to be able to bring your pelvis up or rotate it up while using your hip flexors at the same time. This is very active in almost every time you run or jump or try to move in any particular way. That's a great way to build the core in a functional way. And then bodybuilders love it because it builds the apps. You just got to be able to do them right. Well, even if you're doing them right, you're still working your hip flexor on so.

So I like that it's both. That's right. Yeah. And it's not just isolating. Like, yeah, if you're doing it wrong, you're just going to isolate your hip flexer. But I like that it's strengthening everything there in the hip complex. That's right. And your core and abs are just such a crucial part of athletic pursuit.

But you have to have something that's directly targeting your core. You know, I'll never forget this as a trainer. I had some clients that were pretty high level. One was, did Iron Man. Then I had some marathon runners, triathletes. And what was wild to me, and I didn't predict this, but then it was very clear afterwards, if they were going to go do any of their athletic pursuit, whether it be running, cycling, swimming, whatever, later in the day, sometimes they'd have to stack the workouts.

If I train their legs earlier in the day, they could still go and perform. If I trained their core, it threw them off. It was, and I didn't predict. I thought, man, if I hit your legs, it's going to really mess you up. up on your run. Yeah, fatiguing and bracing with the, yeah, like a fatigue. I could not, I could not fatigue their core before they'd go. Yeah, it's problematic.

It messed them up every single time. That's how important it is. And then lastly, you mentioned a rotation. Band chops. So these are side chops. You can do downward. You can do them upward sideways. Bands, athletic.

Bands allow speed and power. So you can do bands controlled. Consistent. Yeah. Now, would you, is this interchangeable for you guys with med balls or cable chops? Totally. Yeah, I was to say that. I like cable chops, but you know what bands let you do? They let you explode.

You ever try to explode with a cable? You're slamming the stack all over the place. Well, I like midballs just because of the release. And so, yeah, it's concentric, you know, focused primarily, which is a lot closer to what you're going to have with sports. It's like really that release and then control. But if, you know, you're doing multiple reps and you're trying to, you know, add resistance, I think bands is smooth in terms of that consistency of resistance.

Yeah, I would argue they all. they all belong in there. Cables, I use all the time too. Because what I like about the cable is so I put an anti-rotational component to there, which I think is also important for life. Because you're going to get in sport a lot of times, you're going to get forces left or right that are pushing against you.

So that, and so that ability to chop and then to be able to stop. Yeah, anti-rotation, I think is a lot of value. So I would include all three in this category. I'd be like band chops, med ball tosses, and cable with the anti-rotation component. You know what I did that was such a game changer. So back when I used to have my studio, this was back, remember when Free Motion was getting real popular with the two mobile arms or whatever?

So when I got my studio, this was a long time ago. So I don't see this. This is like almost 18, 18 years ago. I went online looking at machines that were like Free Motion. And they had this one machine in there. I think it was called the Da Vinci, I want to say. Do you remember it when you came to see my studio? So it was a big machine, two stacks,

and it had pullies going. going all the way up. And it was like kind of curved. Yes. Yes. I've seen those. And then what it had on, and I got,

I bought it for my gym and I loved it. It's so big. It's so, I loved it, but I loved it because you could use both sides, both at the same time. It was easy to use with clients, but was really cool about it.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a machine that had attachments on the stacks for bands. And the reason why you could do, why you did that is so you could be explosive. Because if you swing really fast with a cable, you know what happens with the cable at jumps. You get the slack, you get the jump,

but I would attach the bands to it and I could explode. I didn't know how to that. It was really cool. I didn't know how to it had to. I forgot about that machine. So just something you could do even... Is that still there?

I don't know. I think that... When was the last time you've been by there? Oh, it's by my... I live by it. I know. It's the last time you've been buying it. I think it's been...

I think it's gone now. Yeah, I think it's gone. Oh, they got rid of it. I went by one day and it was... The sign is up there. Who took it over when you... I sold it to one of my trainers who took it over. And then they ran it for a while.

And then it... Now it's not there anymore. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, it's no longer there. No. Oh, wow. A lot of good memories in that. I walk by there all the time.

I mean, every once I drive by that area, in fact, I drove by there just the other day. And I thought about it. I was like, oh, you know, I haven't been by abs in a long time. I wonder who's running it. I was really big into acronyms. You don't say. ABS. I called the Advanced Body Solutions.

You were really big on Lexicon. You wanted to create you. Yeah, you want to create your own lexicon. I was on board with you for that for a minute. You sold. You know what I'm saying? You're right. We are going to change language.

That's just my sales ability. I think it was not that it's a good idea. Yeah, that was a good time, dude. I walked by there the other day and I was kind of looking in and just remember. It was like a small little space. We had a good time. I wonder what the average gym, how long, the average gym lasts, private gym. Bro, private gym is not a good.

I think you're better off opening a average, a restaurant. It's so hard. I wonder. That's a good question. Is it falling that tough? a category. It's got to be. I see them pop up and shut down all the time. Oh, I know. So, so many trainers at work for me. Try to say, oh, here you go, Doug. What you got? Yeah, what's the stats? No. How long does the average put personal training studio,

stay in business, put that, because that would kind of be in some category. Yeah, stay in business. It was, it was, it was, I was funny. I was telling my daughter the, the history of me getting in business. What do you think? I don't think most make, I think 80% don't make five years. One to two years. Yeah, one of two years. That's what I was thinking. However, studios that survive their initial launch and transition, excuse me, to stable ownership,

often scale to a sustainable five to seven years or more. Industry attrition rates are high with surveys indicating that 20 or 40% of small box gems and studios close within their first year. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, trainers need to hear this, you know? Because trainers always have that idea. First years really like make or break whether it's going to go anywhere.

I had mine. You know, the mistake they all make. And again, you know, this is this was a constant conversation I had to have is they build up enough to where they have somewhat of a clientele. At a big box. At a big box gym. Yeah. And they go, this big box gym is taking. They do the math.

If I just, if I don't even, the way they think they go, even if I don't get any more clients, I just have my clients. Yeah. Because they, they have all this new overhead. Yeah. It just, it doesn't math anymore. And those people don't stay with you for 10 years. They just don't. The average client doesn't stay with a trainer for 10 years.

And you have to replace them. And then you go, oh, shit, how do I do that? You know? And you think it's going to be easy. And it's just not. No, you better love the hell out of it. And you better be really good. That's how I always see.

And you got to be, and you also have to not be shy. Like, you got to go out and talk to people in your area all the time. Yeah. All the time. It's tough because most leave because they do the math and the money thing. And, yeah. yet it's not a great pursuit if you want to try and make more money. It's like you, most trainers...

You'll work more and make the same amount if you're lucky. If you're lucky. Yeah. And many of them made more in the commercial gym. That was me. I mean, I had always flirted with the idea of it and was like pursuing it, but then I would talk to the places where I was renting out of. And I was making way more than the owner.

And so it was like, that'd be dumb. Yeah. Can you guys look at me? Not like that. I did okay. Well, you're also the right person in my opinion. Because you're so, you're, you're, you're truly are, you're not a, you're not a, you're not a, you're not a money driven guy. No.

You're not. No. You know, that's, well, part of why it makes us all great partners is that it wouldn't work probably if you were that. You're, you're very passion and purpose driven. And so you were very successful. You, you, you, you, that was fulfilled for what you did. Um, but if you were like, I'm trying to build this thing to be a franchise and be a millionaire or some shit like that was not a good idea. I was telling my daughter, the whole story about how.

I went into, like how I became an entrepreneur, like, you know, when I was, because 24 when I started, I was 24 years old when I started that. And I did realize I never told her the story. And so she's looking at me and she's like, you did what? Why did you do that? You jumped into what? How much was, and I'm just telling the story. As I'm telling her, I'm hearing the things that I did or me jumping in. I was like, yeah, it was kind of crazy. I was talking to a buddy mine who's like, I'm thinking about going into business for myself. I have some questions. And so we're going back and forth. And I said, and I can already hear as he's talking. And I'm like, I got to tell you, biggest mistake somebody makes is they overplan everything.

I said, most entrepreneurs who kind of make it, bro, it's like you jump out of the plane and then you start to make a parachute as you're falling. That's kind of a lot of what it's about. You got to just go. Now, you made it work and you made it work for quite some time. So I wouldn't consider that failure at all. What comes to mind when you think of like some of your worst business ideas or businesses? Oh, I had a big failure in there.

I did have one. I opened. So I had this location, the one you're talking about. It's in Las Gatos, you could drive by, ABS Fitness. I had that location. It was doing really well. I had people who would pay me rent. I had my client base.

And I'm in a spot open in the same shopping center, two doors down. And I thought, you know, it would be a good idea if I had group, like group fitness classes, like yoga, meditation, mobility, whatever. And I offered it over there. So now I have high ticket services, personal training. lower ticket services group. So I thought this is going to be a great idea. Here's the problem.

I was in my studio making it happen every single day. It could not be. Yeah. And that's a classic mistake. Did you lease the other place? I did. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah.

Oh, how long did you have that lease? Yeah, I had it for, man, it was rough, dude. It was eight months. Maybe no, maybe a year. So did you have to break the lease? I did. Oh, no shit. I did not know you did that.

I paid them to break the lease. I had to pay it. No way. I did not know that. What year into abs was that? Gosh, this was probably seven years, eight years. Oh, you'd already, you'd already been running. Something different.

Oh, wow. I just was trying to grow. I was trying to expand. Obviously, you had figured it out there, which I think the most great. But I figured it out, but I didn't, I figured it out because I was there. Right, right. That's what I mean. You figured out there.

He ran a boot camp. It's like, yeah, that's kind of a natural thought process. It's like, well, volume. Like, I've had, you know, some people I've let go. It's like, I could keep them if I give them a lower ticket. option, you know, but it's just the for the amount of time and effort and then the

what it's taken away from your other businesses. What was your worst? So that, the invention. I like I just called the invention. So fast. Boom. Don't ever do that. That would be the worst? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Easily.

Is it because you, because how much you invested? It's just, yeah, it was just because time and money. And just really I think just trying to see it all the way through. Like I'm a stubborn motherfucker, so it just like consumed my every thought. And it just took away from family, took away from this business, took away from so many things. Yeah. To try, you know, to kind of prove it versus, you know, what I totally learned through the process,

what I would do differently completely now, you know, even if I had an idea that I thought was that good. You know, you go test it, you go do all these, like, basic steps that, you know, you're driven by passion. And, like, I got swept into the whole, like, artist, like, you know, passion-driven entrepreneur in the beginning and learn my lessons and then, you know, adjusted. But, like, most of the rest of the businesses I ran were very much, like, I was in control. I take all the money up front. Like, I had it all, like, systematized. Everything was, like, an oiled machine. the other one would have been like partnering up with a food kind of I remember when you did that

yeah with Brad this this really nice guy he was just terrible business you know operator and so I was carrying him a lot uh infronting you know so my clients could benefit from his food options and like you know he would fill up their refrigerators the beginning of the week and then they'd have all this like excess of food and it and it started out really great but then you know the the clients would kind of want to go shop themselves. And then it started to become like, well, less. And then he was less consistent. And then like it was all this like extra inventory that was burned.

And, you know, and I was just like, I'm out, man. You're killing me. So I cut him off. But yeah, those two things. You know, I had a business partner initially with ABS. I know. Yeah. Don't say his name.

Except I'm talking about. Yeah. Good guy, you know, really good trainer. Like really knows fitness. Yeah. Yeah, what did you learn about that partnership? Well, it's funny because I didn't. Because he was a good trainer, good guy.

So this is what's crazy about it. And I don't know if this is necessarily a good thing to teach to someone listening, but it worked out for me in a great way. Let's hear it. I definitely, when I make a partnership, you guys know this, I'm very loyal. Yeah. And I don't know if you want to say it to a fault. I don't think so.

It worked out really well, you know, with you guys. But we were partners and I funded the whole thing. Now, the reason why I want him as a partner was because, of his experience. He was a really, really good trainer. He was better than I was when we first started.

He knew what he was doing. Really? Yeah, oh, yeah. He knew his stuff for sure. Correctional exercise. I could hold you. I learned some stuff from him. But also because my initial plan was

to work in investments. Remember at that time I had been trying to be working to bank. And he would do a lot of the training and I would kind of do part time. Well, I quickly moved over. Did it with him. I funded the whole thing.

But it just, he was up and down, dude. Up and down. And it got real frustrating because we split everything, but I was bringing in most of the revenue. Oh. And I remember I had a conversation with him. And he's a good guy.

He's an honest guy, good guy. And I sat down with him. I said, dude, I said, listen, I'm going to run. This is my exact words. I'm going to run fast. I'm going to run hard. And you need to keep up with him. And if you can't, we've got to figure something out.

And so my goal was for the next three months, I'm going to make it obvious to him so he leaves because I don't want to have to boot him. Wow. And I did. And I did. And I went. And he said, hey, I'm going to bounce. and that was it.

And then I took over the whole thing. That's pretty cool that it's pretty smart that you had the wherewithal to have that conversation. And then he also had the humility to bow out. That's right. And be like, I obviously am not carrying my weight. Because, you know, what can happen sometimes

in an ugly partnership like that is that that person still ride your coattails and you guys, and you guys maintained a friendship afterwards. Yeah, we do. He's a great guy. I love him. Yeah, yeah. He's a really good, man, like I said.

So the fact that he was, he was, he bowed out and you guys still were, that's not, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah. In fact, I saw him not that long ago and he actually apologized to me for that whole period. This was like a month ago, like a few months ago. Oh, no way. Yeah, that's how random. Yeah, they were talking about that.

That happened. I know. I thought it was cool to say, but I didn't hold any animosity or anything like that. But what was the lesson of that? I could have come out of that with this kind of bitter attitude towards partnerships, which would have destroyed what we did here. Yeah. But, and so I don't know.

I mean, I guess a lot of people would say you got to be really shrewd with business partners. But, I mean, you guys are very trustworthy. Obviously, you guys, you know, I gain a tremendous amount from you guys and it worked out really well. So we didn't sign anything for a lot. That's not good advice either. This was a handshake for a while. I don't know if I'd recommend anybody else. What's your biggest failure?

So it depends on how we would measure it, right? So I could think two big ones come to mine. Financially, the worst was the app that Justin and I did. Yeah, financially, that was the biggest. I took about a 75K hit on that, which was my biggest, like, hit. But the mobile car detailing business was a pretty big flop. Yeah, I made out financially on that

because it was a very small investment. I thought it was brilliant because this time I'm in my 20s, and making good money in management for the company. And all of our peers, if you were in management at 24 in those days, you were probably making six figures. We're close too, right? I think like 80 was the low end and some guys were making 140 and stuff. And so, and what do a bunch of 20-year-olds that make $100,000 a year, 20 years ago to do?

They all had cars. So they all had nice cars. And I thought, oh, my God. And we all worked bell to bell. So we all worked like 10 hours. And so you have these nice cars, bell to bell. I could show up. I can have the, I see where you're strapped.

Oh, bro. I thought it was brilliant. Yeah. It sounds very, very logical, right? Like I thought about it. And then the way it came about was I had a counselor who worked for me who had already had this mobile detailing business. And he had a small book.

It wasn't, it was had a few clients that he was doing already. So I had a built in book. And it was just attached to my truck. So I didn't need to buy anything. It had all the stuff. And I think I paid four grand for it or something like that, four or five grand for it. And, uh, I was like, yeah. This is, I'm going to crush this.

And right away, started booking. But what I, what I did not think through was when I was first scaling and building it while also working 60 hours a week, I couldn't hire anybody to do the detailing. Because my thought process was, I'll hire a couple people for minimum wage. Pay them done. Pay them and they go handle it. I make the cream off of it. I got all the contacts. I'll grow it.

But what I couldn't do was when I was only getting three or four car washes a week, who could I hire for three or four? hours, you know, have three or four jobs. When you're out there washing cars? So I'm watching. So my crazy ass is working 10 hour days and then washing cars in my parking lot afterwards, you know, for an extra 100 bucks. You know what I'm saying? And so, and I'm crazy. I'm crazy enough to do that for a while, you know? And so yeah, on the weekends and after work, I'm washing cars while trying to get this thing. How long it'd take you to be like, this isn't going to be? I did it for less than a year, but probably a good solid six, six, six, six, It's a long time.

Yeah, I did it for a while. I'm stubborn like that, you know what I'm saying? You got to get a shot, dude. Well, yeah, and I believed in it. I really did. And I thought, and I just kept running into this problem of I didn't have enough, I didn't have enough capital at that time to like take the risk of I'm just going to pay somebody and eat. I'm losing money at first to get it scaled up so they could go and work it.

And I couldn't convince anybody to work for 20 bucks an hour for three hours a week. And so I'm out here washing cars. and so now luckily Six figure guys Yeah yeah Have to work in a lot of washing your buddy's car Yeah bro It's her buddy too

Oh yeah dude I'm watching my buddy's corvette And I'm here scrubbing his tires And like for an extra hundred bucks You know what am I doing? You know what I'm saying I could have sold two training It does sound like it would have worked though

Oh right You gotta believe it You gotta believe it when you go do so I did I did sell it for double What I paid for Oh there you go Because I had actually hustled enough To have a clientele list

I said hey you got you know 10 12 clients that you can wash some cars plus all the stuff and so I can't remember you know who I sold it to? Who? Lawrence.

He bought it? Yes. Wow. Yes. He's a good guy. He is a good guy. And a hustler. I don't think he kept doing it either.

But I mean, I sold. I'd say those two were, you know. You said you lost 75 on the eye. That's right around how much I lost with my, with my extra location. And that was a lot of, that was a lot of money for me. Bro, that's a ton of money for anybody.

Yeah. But especially when you're like saving. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I was, I wasn't stacked up at that time. And so that was, that was a lot of money to spend on that. But I believed in what Justin and I were doing. I was excited about it. But I was so naive to that also.

Like, I didn't know anything about the app world. And we learned a lot along that way. And so. We weren't tech people. Yeah. Now you can build it. You can build an app. Hose.

Yeah. We can build an app with AI now. Yeah, exactly. I know. That's like the seriously slapping irony. Do you know how much you lost with the whole deal? You don't want to talk to me. 25.

25? It's not bad. Oh, that's not bad. On that invention, as nice as it was, you mean it was 20. Oh, I'm sorry. You're talking about the invention. I'm talking about that. Oh.

I put it in within. Yeah. No, that was like 50. Okay. Yeah, we've spent the same. Yeah. Yeah, that's still up. But considering how far you made it because you, like, designed and.

Yeah. It's also the time and energy. It's the time, really, and the testing and really, like, it really just didn't have a definitive market target, you know? And, two, it was like, there was just too much. And this is what I I pitched it in front of Apple and you guys remember that right. Yeah. Which was like it's so crazy and stupid and I feel like retarded for doing that.

No, bro. What are you talking about? That's great. That's insane. That's balls, dude. I do. And we didn't have in our, I didn't think I told you guys what happened. And it like the computer didn't even work.

So we were supposed to have like this whole slideshow and everything. And then my partners were freaking out. And I was like, I got this. you know, and I got up and just was like talking directly to each person and then like was demonstrating it and like here's all the potential for it and, you know, we're going to serve this market and it's like low risk and like, you know, I'll talk about all the benefits to it and all that stuff. And at the end, you know, the guy, you know, pulled me aside and he's like, wow, this is really like an interesting product and like I like your, you know, your presentation and

all this stuff. He's like, you got a long road ahead of you. he's like because he told me the story about basically David Weck he's like because he had met him before and he was trying to promote the Bosi ball to him. Oh. And it was like he was getting nothing nowhere at all until he brought the education up to that level where it's like here's the relevance and here's the certification around it. And here's all the trainers are using it now it's in the gyms and you know. And so it had to have that public awareness for it to even be viable. and I'm just like, oh my God, that's forever from now, you know? So it's humbling.

You find a successful entrepreneur and they haven't had a failure. They haven't tried. Everything you guys are talking about right now, okay, which is so cool. As I'm sitting here listening to us, tell these old, reminisce these old stories, I can think of an example on how much that has served you in this business. Of course. Yeah. That experience.

Of course. I mean, literally, because of those, I mean, could you imagine how quick we probably would have built an app if we hadn't had such a terrible experience? and know what that experience is like and how like not worth it is. Burn money. I mean, the amount of pressure that we've had

to do something like that. And yet we've been able to, we've been through that. And so we know that. What I, the meal thing. We were just had to, someone coming right now

that wants to partner up with meals. And it was like, you're like, I've done this. Like that's, no, one of the biggest mistakes is this is what I learned

is that you may be able to build an incredible culture in your location, but to duplicate it. It's a completely, yeah. And if you don't have, a person like you that you're like, this person is special, go over there and rebuild the culture,

you're not going to do it. It's just not going to happen. A lot of people run into that problem. That's what I learned from that. Oh, no, that's it. I mean, there's, I forget what the, the statistics are on replicating a second location. It's like unbelievably difficult, which is counter to what you would believe. You would think, oh, I've done this. I can go do another one. If you could just, you know, photocopy yourself. Yeah. Exactly. So your only way to do that is you truly have to find someone who you think is people as good as you or better than you. That's right. Like you have to find someone like that's the way that works is like, oh my God, I actually found someone who I can put in my place that I think it's better than me.

And now I can go, and I know I can go do this. So now I'm going to put all my time in the new one. I can trust this person is better than me. They're going to keep at least what I did over here or better. And so, but like how often do you find that? And then you don't have to pay out your, your, nose from that person. I'll never forget. I told you guys this story so many times, but I had a client who was this really successful guy, uh, self-made, whatever. I was a kid and I asked them, I said, like, what's your advice? Like for me? And he's like, you got to ask the right questions.

And so what is he says, ask me how many times I failed? And so I was like, tell me how many times you failed. And he went through and told me about the times he'd made fortunes and went bankrupt. It was like three times. And I'm like, why did you keep trying? He's like, because I love it. I just, you got to swing the bat. I was like, man.

And that's really what I say. You talk to an entrepreneur who does well. They're going to have failures. You're going to have failures, you know? Well, I told you guys that the, I can't remember what book it was that I read when I read that the, what the average millionaire, how many failures before they hit made their million? It's nine. Is it? Yeah, nine.

Nine business fails before you make your million dollars. That's on app. That's what the average is. I remember reading that when I was like 20, 22 somewhere around there. And of course, at that, at that, at that point, I'm like a young ambitious kid who was like, I'm going to retire by 30, you know, saying shit like that. Like I said, yeah, I said stupid shit like that. So did. And I believe it.

I believe it. I would have. I 100% believed it, right? And then I remember reading that and I remember going like, wait a second, I've only failed at like two or three things. I better get to work. I'm better get to failing. You know, like I remember having that, having that epiphany that,

oh my God, like, I've got to get way more swings if I'm ever going to be that guy, especially if I'm going to do it by 30. I better get to move in. So what about you, Doug? What's the worst, what's the worst business? Well, it's more investment failure. I think I've told this story before. The best story I've ever heard of my life.

It's so exciting. It's not a great story. It was very painful. So I lived in Japan for six years. I worked hard. I scurled all my money away. I had no living expenses other than food and some travel, right? So I was putting away, I think, about $120,000.

And this was back in the 1990s. So that's a lot of money. So that's a lot of money. That's worth like $10 billion. Yeah, something like that. And so I come back and I invested some stocks. I invested like in Microsoft and, and Starbucks and different companies that I knew from the Seattle area mainly.

And then I decided I wanted to get into a triplex. And I bought a triplex. I had renters, the whole thing. And then I got involved with this organization that had these high-yield investments. And I got caught up with the excitement over this particular, this one investment that we were told it was Hitachi or something was associated with it and it was a sure thing. and I liquidated everything and put it in that. All.

All. And I lost everything. So, yeah, I lost the whole thing. By the way, that triplex now is almost 30 years in. I would have had the thing basically paid off. Also, stock in Starbucks. Yeah, that's true. I'm not sure what would be more money to do.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know. The triplexer Starbucks and Microsoft. The pain was very real for many years afterwards. But, you know, in hindsight, there was a lesson to be learned there about investing money and that type of thing and throwing all your money eggs in one basket, so to speak. That's why Doug holds on to our money so tight. That's why I'm careful. You know, every time you guys are talking about stocks, I'm kind of rolling my eyes because, you know, obviously there's good stocks to invest in, but the average person doesn't do it well.

I thought you were to tell that story about when you were working with that group and then they all got rated. Oh, yeah, that's the same group, by the way. Oh, no. Hey, so you do it, wait a second. What thing happened first? How did you not learn your lesson from one of those two things? Well, no, so that was. It all happened at one time.

It all happened around the same time. This is the exciting story. This is the exciting story. Yeah, only Doug has an experience with the FBI. No personal experience, but yeah, so I was with this group and their whole thing was offshore investments, tax strategies that were extremely aggressive, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a massive organization. You know, they do these big.

seminars down in Cancun, and there'd be like two, three thousand people who showed up. It seemed super legit. You know, I was obviously younger back then, not so wise. And so anyway, I worked my way up. It was kind of like an MLM, and I'd worked my way up into the leadership part of the organization. And so one day we're on a leadership call with the three co-founders. And then all of a sudden, one of the guys goes silent. He's gone off the call.

And then the next guy, all we hear is his bird chirping in the background. And then the third guy, gone. It's like, during the middle of our call, it was like at that time the largest, like, you know, coordinated IRS take down. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Yeah, so they all got picked up by the feds during that call. And so after that, so I'd never done any of the, I didn't do any of the tax strategies because I was a little nervous about that. Thank God.

Fortunately. Yeah. But, yeah, every time I saw a black suburban after. that. I was a little nervous. So, Doug, did you, so if you look that company up, do you think there's news articles on it? Oh, absolutely. I could find them. Yeah. I want to see. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So yeah, that was a couple of my fails early on. But, you know, as a result of that, though, when I look at money and finance, I'm fairly conservative now and very careful. I mean, talk about what a, what a beautiful balance the four of us have been with all of our experiences and stories,

because it's good that we, we have to pry our money away from Doug. You know what I'm saying? And he changes passwords. Changes passwords every week to all of our stuff. Not a day goes by. All it takes is being hacked once to get you nervous about that. I've done that. I've been hacked.

I've had IRS audit. And again, it was not related to that. It was about something that wasn't reported properly. But they sucked me in for a year with an audit. So I have a lot of experience. with the kind of negative things that you can experience in the financial world.

So, yeah, I'm very cautious. Nah, I won't do that again. Yeah, I love you. You told me that story when I was your trainer. Yeah. You were my client, you told me that story. Well, I was going to mention, you know, ABS. Of course, I worked out there.

That's when I met Sal originally was there. And then we created MAPS Anabolic and the No BS Six-Pack formula, which now has just been revamped. Oh, yeah. It's our 10-year anniversary relaunch, right? Yeah, basically. Yeah, dude. Yeah.

That's kind of cool. That was a cool time. You know, we also, I know, people can watch the original video, right? I was going to say, yes, the maps and a ball like original video, the one that he sent to you. Yes. That got you interested in talking, which created mind pump ultimately. No, we're not going to point people to that, are we? Yeah, a child in that video.

That's awesome. In fact, yeah. Stalgia, dude. That was my first, can I tell you? That was my first time on camera ever. Yeah, that was fun. That's what Doug knew he had a business. That was like, oh, I've got a business here.

I put a quarter in this guy. There he goes, man. This guy loves the camera. We're going to make a lot of it. It was pretty funny, though, because I had this, what was it called? Teleprompter, right? It was just an iPad with this mirror thing on the back, very rudimentary teleprompter. And this thing would freeze up all the time.

So I'm on with the iPads. Like, oh, it froze up again. And so we kept re-recording these passages. Did you stress dug out the same way back then? Or were you more than this back then? No, no. It was less pressure back then. It built over years.

Yeah. We're still dealing with tech stuff. You're rude. This is 15 years ago. What's going on here? But yeah, that video that took us a while to film is now available. And I know Eli, during our Maps Anabolic launch, one that we just did recently, he put it up that link.

I think he'll include it again for this one. Is it on the Mapsanabolic.com or is it somewhere else, Eli? In the description. In the description. You can find that. You can see me. It's worth the watch. So I know, okay, so I know we're doing a couple things for the 10-year anniversary, right?

So we have the, the anabolic relaunch, which we've revamped things. We've customized some stuff. So no BS is now. And then no BS is correct. I know it's discounted too, right? Oh, yeah, it's half off. So that's half off. And then in addition to that, you, I know that there's an opportunity to upsell to a nutrition call with, with that if you buy.

So the no BS six-pack formula is with the discount $28.50. And it's all about building your abs, building your core. Same principles from apps anabolic applied to core training. And it's half off. And then you can get a nutrition call with that. What is it? Is it no BS6pack.com? Yeah.

I think it's no BS6pack with number six pack.com. Yep. No BS6pack.com. And the code is six pack for the half off. That was a good time, dude. That was a while ago. Yeah. I know.

Every time I see that video, a picture of me, I'm like, there's a lot of hair. I look really young. higher voice. Did you see the personal? I didn't even do the Kermit voice for you anymore. I saw somebody screenshot it in the forum. You see the picture? No, I didn't do it.

They screenshoted a picture of you. And they're like, hey, someone needs to tell Sal, someone on the team put a grandpa filter on his phone. Dang. What a jerk, dude. Shots fired, dog. Shots fired. What a jerk.

I hate that. Hey, I got to tell you guys about, I'm going to change subjects here. You know how occasionally people will report that Creighteen makes them feel like, bloated or causes like gut, you know, kind of gut issues. Yeah. That's the number one side effect from creatine. And it's more reported by women. I don't, there's no data to show that women have a harder time digesting protein. But I, but typically when someone says creatine

causes bloat, it's typically women. These are friends of mine. The row creatine solved it. Solved it. So the people that are homel. Is that why? So this, so I think so. I think so. I think it's just easier on the gut. So the, the, the friends that I have that are women that I'm constantly, you know, hammering them. Take crating. Take crating. It's so effect. So good for your brain. It's good for your mood. It's good for your bones. Good for muscle. Oh, every time I take it it, it bloats me. Every time I take it a blow. They're taking row and they're like, I could take that, no problem.

And I have no blow. I think it's the liposomal delivering. Interesting. So I've had that, people say that before. Normally what I do is I make them just kind of split the doses up. Yep. But I didn't know. They're taking full five grams, you know. Interesting. Getting no, nothing, no issues whatsoever. Oh, wow. That's really cool.

So I think it's because of the liposomal effect from it. Are you guys, are you guys, are you guys? you guys taking off for your week whenever we go? Are you guys that you have vacations plan? We're going to Yellowstone. Are you going to Yellowstone? That's right.

That's cool, dude. Oh, that's right. Obviously, you're not camping. No. You guys, what do you guys do? Like in a situation like that where you're, I mean, it's not camping, but you're probably in a cabin somewhere up that place. So I got us an Airbnb in a place called Island Park, which is 30 minutes outside of the

west entrance from Yellowstone. So I got this really nice. house and it's going to be me, my kids, Jessica, and then my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, and their kids. And so we're all going to go there and we got a car, so we'll just- A good family trip. We'll just drive a Yellowstone or hang out there at Island Park. Now, you're sponsored by DoorDash and you're all the way out there, and I don't think

they go out there. So what do you do, like, food? Are you like, I think Island Park is like a community. I think you can. Oh, okay. I'm not staying in Yellowstone. I'm 30 minutes out. Okay.

So you can still go. Yeah. You're going to live off. I see this guy scooping up all our sponsors up before he lives. He's got to live off of the entire trucks. No, I think there's grocery. I don't know. I've never been there before, to be honest with you.

40 pounds of beef turkey. Yeah, see there, it's 32-minute drive to the west entrance. Oh, okay. So you still got to drive here. Have you guys been to Yellowstone before? I have not. Yeah, one time, yeah. Dude, it's amazing.

I love it. I want to go. It's so big. These national parks, I'm a big fan. So, so Yosemite, which is in our, you know, quote, in our, you know, quote, and bookeastern is picturesque, right? Yosemite is just beauty. Yellowstone is so massive.

Does it cross over two states? I think more. Or three? Is it three? How many states is it crossover? Boy, good question. I was just going to say, though, island parks, populations, 193 people. Idaho also.

Yeah, but I think it's close to other. Okay. So it's three. Does it cross over three states? For sure. Oh, wow. So it's Idaho, Montana. And what's the other one?

Wyoming. Wyoming. Yeah, you might be right. Trivia. What's cool. Yeah, it is. Good job. Guys, only 1% is in Idaho.

You know what's crazy about it? Most of it's why. Yellowstone is like there's, it feels like you're under the planet in some of the areas. Like you go to certain areas, you're like, this does not look like Earth. I'm on Mars right now. Like with the, with the way, with the acidic pools are. It's cool because the heat like changes the color of the water. And so you have like this really like bright, almost turquoise color.

And yeah, it's, it's trippy. There are these pools. I don't remember what they're called. Maybe you can look them up, Doug. When was the last time you went? When did you go? I went there with Jessica in 2000. Is that the second time you guys gone?

18. Well, we were dating then. We didn't go with the kids and stuff. Yeah, you like shot guns and stuff last thing you went, right? Yeah, we did. Oh, I remember that story now.

Bro. I remember that story. If you're from California and you go to Montana. Cool guns. It is weird. It is weird, dude. I'm from California. Idaho is too.

I did that. Yeah, we treat guns weird over here in California. I was in, we were there. This one I was just dating. We're in Montana. And I see like a, it's like a gun. I don't know like a shooting range. So I'm like, yeah, let's go check it out.

Sure. We walk in and on the wall is like every gun you could imagine, including ones you see in video games. I'm like, what? Is that a real? Like that's an Israeli. Like that's an Israeli, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could shoot around corners with it and stuff.

I'm like, what? And I'm like, oh, it's for display. I'm like, how can I shoot some of these? He's like, oh, just give me your driver's license. Like you know what's? Which one do you want to shoot? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, you just go around the corner and you just pay per 30 minutes.

Cool, let's go. Your ammo's up, you're done. It's so different. It was a good time. That's cool. I got to get out there. I want to go out there for sure. It's crazy.

It's crazy. And we're going to go to this one park there. I can't remember bear park or something where you could feed grizzly bears. Yeah. So you're like in a... What? Yeah, you're like in these... You can feed them?

Yeah. Yeah, dude. Like they give you stuff or you bring your own stuff to feed them? I don't know. But you're allowed to give them food. Is this like managed? It's a park with grizzlies on it. Look up the grizzlies.

Yeah, look up... This does not sound... No, bro, you know you should do? This is Bear Park, Park with Grizzanis. Okay. No, look up Yellowstone. You can't feed Grizzly... Yeah, dude.

You can't feed Grizzly bears. No, there's this... Someone's playing a prank on you, dog. No, there's a park... Someone's right. Someone's right set you up, guy. No, there's a park where you can feed... It's strictly illegal.

No, dude, listen. I'm gonna find it. Bear cub bottle feeding? Is that what you're gonna do? Maybe that's it. Bear World and Rexburg. Is it Bear World? Maybe.

That, I think that's it. It's Bear World. Come on down the barrel. There it is. There it is. Drive through Wildlife Park. Ristled a bear. That's the one right there, dude.

They got rides and stuff. And I think there's an experience. There you go. Right there. Look, look at the bears. What? Oh, so they're all like domesticated. Yeah, look.

They walk up to you and stuff, dude? Oh, my God. No way. That's wild, dude. I didn't know that was there. Maybe you can't feed them. I don't know. But I know they walk up to the car.

Get clear on that before you go. Yeah, I don't know about that. Bro, take our Paleo Valley beef sticks. No. And get a commercial. get a commercial out for us. You will set our contract up for like the next year. We already know Black Bear's like them.

They crushed them up in. Yeah. You remember that? Up in truck. That was, I had like 40 pounds of the beef sticks up there. I'll never forget that. I'd never forget that.

The dumbest things I ever did was leave that inside the laundry room. I had, we had like one of those, I don't know, like those Costco bag things. And we had just started working with them. And so we literally, it was completely full of those beef sticks.

And I was heading up there to, to, to, our house up. And we didn't lock the door. And I didn't, yeah, it didn't lock the door. And then I remember pulling up the next time in the pantry door and the side door to the house wide open and right at the front was a peanut butter jar. And I'd never seen a peanut butter jar so clean. I mean, inside of it was clear. It was like there as if no, as if there was no peanut butter ever in it. And it's just sitting out like that and then like walking in there,

I don't think I've ever been so scared walking into one of our house. I thought the bear might be there. Oh, man. And I'm not a, so I grew up country, so I'm not afraid of black bears, but being in a house with a black bear is different. Right. Yeah. They have to get out. Yeah, because they'll be scared. And they'll want it.

If it's between you, if you're in front of the door and it's only escaped, he's going to go through you. Yeah. So, like, I mean, if they're out in the wild, you hit some pans, they'll freak out. You're scared. They're fine. But you, you, you, inside a house and being in the house with them, I just don't, that, that scares the shit out of me. So being the person who had to go walk and figure out is this thing here. You know what I'm upset?

about, I'm upset that we took, there was a big paw print in the pantry. Why do we wash that? I left it there for a while. Yeah, I left it there for a while. We should have painted it or something. We should at least like, yeah, traced it or something. Yeah, dude.

I think if it was a good one, I probably would have, like, said something you guys about that, but I felt like it wasn't that good. There was a lot of animal prints, though. Remember that? There's, like, all these other ones. What was wild? He opened the, I'm assuming it's a he.

He opened the door. I feel like the whole, like, forest came in with him. The fact that he, could open and close doors. No scratches. Yeah. Really? I thought for sure,

like the sofa would be torn apart or something. Yeah, we were lucky. No, nothing really. He did take a dump. He did. He went to the bathroom. Yeah.

No, actually in the dining. It was in the dining area. Oh, really? Breakfast nook area. Oh, that's where he pooped? I thought it was upstairs. I'm not even certain it was the bears poop because it was so small.

It could have been like a smaller, like a raccoon or or coyote or bobcat or something like that. He let the door open to you. That's gross, dude. What's crazy was once they found out that they could feed there, we had a problem for like the next couple of years. Oh, yeah. Where they were getting in the trash.

He went and told his friends. By the way, I looked up the fermentation process that they do with their meat sticks. Oh, Palliol-Li-Li-Lewsuits. Yeah, when you eat Palao Valley meat sticks, if you've had them, you know, they're not dry. They taste good. They don't taste like normal. I mean, they taste amazing.

And it's because other companies use a different process. I'll look it up because I actually had it. I remember her saying like the costs for that was substantial and that's why a lot of other companies like definitely you know what they should do. We should talk to them about this. We've been with them long enough to convince them to do. So you know what other companies do? Quick acidification, citric acid acid or encapsulated acids for preservation.

Fermentation takes days to weeks. Yeah. But that's why it tastes so good. And it also breaks down the protein so it's tender. It doesn't taste. They're one of those things, those brands where it's like you could, I think they could. take a loss on the front end to get it to people to try.

Yep. Then you close because most people have had beef turkey. Yeah. It's not like, oh, I've never had beef. Oh, it's way different. So when you, when, exactly, when you have that and you realize how much better it is than anything else out there, it's, to me, it's like it sells itself. I wonder if they would consider doing something like that where they give out like a small

sample. Yeah, like a small sample size. So people can taste the difference in it because I mean, that's how we got sold. How many different beat jury companies try to send us stuff and then we had theirs and like, Oh my God. These are amazing. This is who we're working with. From Our Place makes cookware that is forever chemical-free non-stick.

It's easy to use. They even have air friars. Air friars notoriously are packed with these forever chemicals that get in your body. And studies have shown to have these interesting effects, hormone-like effects in the body. Why would you want to cook with anything that's going to put chemicals in your body that are going to act like hormones? From Our Place is forever chemical free, super easy to clean. Last a long time. This is high quality cookware.

It looks amazing. I love their always pan. It replaces eight different pieces of cookware with one non-stick, ceramic or titanium pan. You can fry, steam, saute, boil, and even bake in it. Go check them out. Go to From Ourplace.com. Use the code mind pump and get 10% off site wide.

Back to the show. First question is from of a working mom. When training Bulgarian split squats, if one leg is stronger than the other, what is the best approach to work towards evening it out? Would you limit this stronger leg to the reps you can successfully complete on the weaker leg? So this is very common.

Okay, so anytime you do any kind of unilateral exercise or split stance or something like that, almost always. In fact, it's pretty rare to not have one side that feels more stable or stronger. and the description can be minor. It can be major. We're going to be glaring.

The approach to fix this can be multifaceted, but it all generally looks like this. Start with the weaker side and allow those reps and that weight or whatever you're lifting to dictate what you do on the stronger side. And that's it. So if you only do 10 reps with your left leg,

when you go to the right, you stop when you get to 10. Otherwise, you may maintain the discreptuacy through your training. I want to add that one of the, the coolest things about when you figure this out or find out, like, wow, I have a, sometimes people get discouraged or frustrated, but it's actually a really exciting time. Like, because if you stick to the Bulgarians, you take the advice that you just said, when you balance that out and then you go back to like, let's say, a barbell back squat or

some of your traditional. It is amazing how, oh, how strong and stable and comfortable you feel. I've had clients report back to that they, they had like hip pain or low back pain that they would from back squatting gone now that they are. their balance left to right better. Like there's a lot of stuff that tends to work itself out when you take the time to do unilateral work like this and really balance the body out. So even though it may be frustrating for some people when they notice this.

And a lot of times, and I'm sharing this because what I've seen happen is someone does it, they see this description and they get freshly. And they bail on the exercise and they go back to doing like. Yeah, they're used to having the ability of like your strong leg. Well, this should catch up to it when in fact, you know, you're going to. have to like, you know, take, take a bit away. Yeah. And you're going to have to kind of build yourself back up. But to your point of the long-term pain solution and, and compensations and discrepancies are going to have long term, it's like, now you're addressing it. Your body's going to perform

so much better. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I was just looking this up while we're talking about just differences and discrepancies. There are stories of boxers. Obviously, when you're, when you're fighting, you're, you have one hand that's dominant. But they would, they, there was several boxers I looked up where they broke the right hand, had to continue training, and it ended up making them way better boxers. Because they learned how to be so good with the other hand. And then they learned how to be. Who? Rocky. He took that. He did. He was like Rocky too, right? He didn't break his hand. Mickey tied his hand to his side. Right. But no, it's pretty interesting how the, the progress you can make when you find a discrepancy like that. Next question is from Corey Nicholson. I'm

currently running MAPS-15 power lift, but instead of using the traditional powerlifting lifts, back squat, bench press, and conventional deadlift, I'm considering using my weakest variations as my primary lifts, front squat, incline bench press, and sumo deadlift. My goal is to bring up these lifts while still benefiting from the MAPS-15 power lift structure. Do you think this is a good approach? And are there any modifications, recovery considerations, or programming tweaks you'd recommend when substituting these lifts? That's a great approach. I love this idea.

So here's why this works. I love this idea. Because someone may be listening and be like, oh, cool. So I'm just going to switch out exercises on a Maps program. It'll work right. No, because programming can be a bit touchy. But here's why this works. He's doing variations of the primary list.

So it's not going back squat to some other, you know, exercise. It's not. This is great. I love this idea. He's going back squat to front squat, bench press, incline press, you know, conventional deadlift. This is a great idea. Shout out to Corey.

It would be even a good alternative. Yeah. No, that's, yeah. I mean, for all the listeners who love the 15 protocol, this is a great way to use our programming to benefit other lifts like this. This is a great idea. I like this a lot. Next question is from Fatal Strength.

Which MAPS program do you recommend to fix imbalances? Unlock my squat depth and get me training pain free. Specifically for quote-unquote imbalances, this would be MAPS prime or prime pro. So it's not a program. Both of them are correctional in nature and can be used with any program. Okay. So symmetry. Those are specific.

If you want a program where it's the workout itself, symmetry. It's the best one. I mean, the ideal situation would be to own the two would be to have prime with symmetry. Oh, great. So you know what your specific individual discrepancies are and then you go to unilateral work. And so I would, if someone's really trying to focus on this, that would be my recommendation. is to have both those. Now, this is really important to discuss,

like when it comes to imbalances and moving well without pain or whatever, you know, correctional exercise is so valuable. And I think sometimes we kind of cut it out because we want to keep progressing on our main lifts and we tend to ignore little nagging pains and we'll do things like where elbow sleeves or, you know, we'll do little variations.

Fixing, quote, unquote, imbalances will give you much better progress. and unlock a higher ceiling to your lifts. Don't negate that kind of stuff. Prime and Prime Pro, if you're listening and you don't have those programs, just prime. Get MAPS prime.

Do the priming sessions based off of your own body, the compass test, what it tells you about your body, and you will get 5 to 10% more out of your current workout. Yeah, I wish we highlight that more. Like, it's like that 10% to 15% performance boost plus, you know, muscle building potential that you're leaving behind. Next question is from,

Janie Ewell, what's your opinion on sprint intervals paired with strength training? It depends on how you pair them. Separately, great. Sprint intervals are great for stamina, endurance, for power. What I hope you don't mean is that you're lifting and then sprinting and lifting and sprinting. And doing like a circuit, which is a terrible idea. Terrible idea. Yeah, this could be amazing.

And I think the way we would program this is on different days. Right. So you'd have your, let's say like you're running a maps program, which traditionally they're like three day type routines, full body or something like Maps Anabolic. And then the days in between is when you would do like interval type training. Totally. And by the way, if you want to get really good or really maximize the usefulness of sprints, you treat sprinting like you do strength training. So sprinting is the strength training of cardio, if you will. So what that would look like, let's say it's like running sprinting is you get warmed up.

Make sure you can do this properly, by the way. because high risk of injury if you can't do it right. You do your sprint. Then you done with your sprint. You come back to the beginning start line. You wait and your rest. Yeah, you wait until you're recovered. Ready to go again.

It's all about getting power. Keeping it anaerobic. So that's the thing. It's different because I think, yeah, people will get like antsy and motivated to just go that next rep and keep it going. And really, the energy system is what you're training. And we need that immediate firing of everything. A generic, what, a recommendation.

probably be what three five minute rest in between the sprints? Yeah. You know? Depending on the person, 10 minutes for me. Right, right. No, seriously. So that's why I say at least three to five minutes. I think most people that think is something like sprints like this,

they're like doing them and then resting a minute or less and they're going right back into it or until they're tired. Yeah. Where if you're doing this appropriately to get those benefits, like the ideal would be rest three to five. And that's why, too, this is why you would pair this on a different day is because what it would look like for me is I would spend a good. 10, 15 minutes, doing my mobility work and kind of warm it up really well and get warm,

maybe do a couple light short runs or sprints, you know, where I just kind of slowly start. And then I've got five hard working sets. And there's rest periods in between them. And I'm letting my heart rate come all the way down. And I'm giving it everything I got for that short burst and then right back. That's right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media.

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