Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2901: Chronic Pain Causes | 5 Common Habits That Make Pain Worse

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

In this episode the guys break down five weird and common things people do that cause or worsen chronic pain — poor sleep, inflammatory diet, macro and micro deficiencies, dehydration, and shallow breathing. They cover the difference between acute pain and chronic pain, how movement pattern issues are almost always the root cause, and why the experience of pain can be just as real as the physiological signal. They also get into Arthur Saxon pressing 370 pounds overhead with one arm in 1905, eating 24 eggs and 10 pounds of meat a day, the genetics study showing hyper responders gain three times as much muscle as average responders, Sal going back to jiu jitsu and the whole family trying the Organifi parasite cleanse, Manukora honey on mat burns, and how poor sleep is the number one injury predictor — worse than skipping a warmup. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com. MAPS Upper Lower:⁠ https://mapsupperlower.com⁠Code: LAUNCH for 40% off. Includes male and female programs, workout videos, exercise demos, coaching videos and live coaching with Cole. Mind Pump Fitness Coaching:⁠ https://mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com⁠1.9 NASM CEUs SPONSORS Organifi (natural parasite cleanse):⁠ https://organifi.com/mindpump⁠Code: MINDPUMP for 20% off. Run two cycles 15 days apart. Discussed on air — Sal's whole family has started doing it. Manukora Manuka Honey:⁠ https://manukora.com/MINDPUMP⁠Code: MINDPUMP for up to 31% off plus $25 in free gifts with the Starter Kit. Discussed on air for wound healing and anti-inflammatory properties. Eight Sleep (Pod 5 Ultra) : ⁠https://eightsleep.com/mindpump⁠Code: MINDPUMP for up to $350 off. HSA/FSA may qualify — qualified customers save about 30% on average through Truemed. Truemed is for qualified customers. HSA/FSA tax savings vary. LINKS Submit a live caller question:⁠ https://mplivecaller.com⁠ Mind Pump Store:⁠ https://mindpumpstore.com⁠ Maps Fitness Products:⁠ https://mapsfitnessproducts.com⁠ Instagram: @mindpumpmedia 0:00 - Intro 2:20 - 5 weird things you do that make chronic pain worse 5:45 - Acute pain vs. chronic pain and why movement pattern issues are almost always the root cause 12:32 - Weird cause #1: Poor sleep — why it's worse for injury risk than skipping your warmup 16:00 - Weird cause #2: Diet and inflammation — Sal's gluten reaction and how to test for food intolerances 19:31 - Weird cause #3: Macro and micro deficiencies — protein, fat, magnesium and vitamin D 22:53 - Weird cause #4: Water intake — why hydration directly changes pain perception 26:52 - Weird cause #5: Shallow breathing — how breathing patterns keep muscles chronically tight 34:12 - Arthur Saxon — 370lb one-arm press in 1905, 24 eggs for breakfast and 10 pounds of meat at dinner 43:01 - Genetics study: hyper responders gain three times more muscle than average in six months 47:17 - Sal back at jiu jitsu, Manukora honey on mat burns and the whole family on parasite cleanses 1:00:32 - Caller: Candy (California) — went from 34 to 28% body fat eating more, freaked out and cut calories, gets a coach 1:16:26 - Caller: Jessica (Massachusetts) — 9 months postpartum, eating disorder history, 1742 calories, redlining 1:32:36 - Caller: Ruth (New Jersey) — 55 years old, chronic dieting history, gut issues derailing reverse diet 1:45:14 - Caller: Angela (Washington) — trainer and business owner, 20% body fat, chasing goals and needs a new direction  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded Fitness, Health and Entertainment podcast in the history of the world approaching over half a billion downloads. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we had live callers, call in and ask us questions about health and fitness. So we coach them on air, but this is definitely the interesting.

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It really does work. If you've never done a parasite cleanse, you'll probably benefit from doing one. You'll notice better digestion, less. inflammation, better energy, better sleep. Try it out. Everybody should do one at least once a year. Go to Organify.com. That's or G-A-N-I-F-I-I-com slash mind pump. Use the code mind-pump, get 20% off. This episode is also brought to by Manukora. Today we talked about their special type of Manuka honey. It's the highest amount of M-G-O in the world. Okay. Now, what does M-G-O do? It's anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, antiviral.

It's a great source of natural sugar, but also anti-inflammatory properties. I'm going to be using this post-workout when I do jiu-jitsu for reduced inflammation. You can also put it on wounds for faster healing or gargle with it for a healthier throat and gums. Anyway, it also tastes good. Go check them out. Go to manukora.com. That's M-A-N-U-K-O-R-A-com forward slash mind pump. Use the code Mind Pump, you can get up to 31% off.

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Chronic pain sucks, but did you know that there's five common things that people do? These pain. These pain. And they're weird. They're weird things. You wouldn't even think

that they'd make you hurt more. But everybody does at least one or two of them. We're going to talk about that today. Help reduce that chronic pain by fixing these. Let's go. This feels so on point with the way we all walked in. Yeah. It feels targeted.

I had a lot of issues I was bringing in today. Everybody, everybody had some Fourth of July stories to tell about how they, they told them all my fingers. I actually don't think this is, I don't think there's ever been a time where we've come in and where I've heard every, every single person in here, including Doug, groaning, groaning about their chronic pain. My freaking hips, man. Well, you know, you know why it's just so important?

Like, we learned this as trainers. Like, we all learned independently that one of the ways that we became very successful or could become very successful was figuring out how to help people with chronic pain. It was actually more important than figuring out how to get people to lose weight and build muscle. Those are all so important because that's why people hire you. But as a good trainer, I figured this out halfway through my career was like, oh my gosh, when I get people to move better and feel better, they don't want to stop. Oh, the longevity and lifers.

Like you create lifers once you figure that out and how to help people. The challenge for trainers they're listening is that people typically don't come in for chronic pain. they come in for fat loss. That's right. But all of them, almost, almost all of them suffer from some sort of chronic pain. That's right. And so when you're an early trainer, you hear the first main goal. Oh, I want to lose 20 pounds.

And you focus just on that. And you think that that's the main thing. What you don't realize is not only do they want to lose 30 pounds, but they've also had this chronic nagging pain for 20 years. That's right. And as you get better, you realize that that's actually an easier solve than the 23 pounds. 2030 pounds requires some serious discipline, consistency and behaviors that have to change forever for to get them to lose that 20, 30 pounds,

where a lot of times when it comes to chronic pain, there's some habits that we can install right away or some movement patterns that we can address right and I can start to alleviate. Huge hack. Yeah, and I think what it is is that people accept like certain types of chronic pain. Totally. I have bad knees. I have bad hips. I have a bad low back.

It's who I am. It becomes a part of their identity, which is really crazy. By the way, if you look at the data on why people stop working out or the, the, reasons why people aren't consistent. Pain is near the top. It's one of the top three reasons why people will stop working out. So this is a big one. Okay.

Pain is also a signal that tells you something's going on. Now, before we get into like some of these things that are weird that cause more pain, it's important to differentiate between pain that comes from an injury or acute pain versus chronic pain. So acute pain is like you hurt yourself. So, hey, my knee hurts. Why does your knee hurt? I fell on it yesterday or my shoulder hurts or really what happened well you know three weeks ago

I was playing tennis and I heard it pop and there's something going on to my shoulder that's acute pain that's injury pain that requires rest okay then you have chronic pain chronic pain is like that nagging area that just bothers you sometimes it hurts more than others I got low back pain I got hip pain I got knee pain oh my right shoulder kind of always bothers me and maybe you had an injury years ago, but the injury should be healed by now. And yet every time you get into working out, every time you get into a particular exercise, you have to stop. I can't bench press anymore.

I can't deadlift anymore or I can't do that thing anymore because of this pain that tends to come up. So that's the kind of pain that we're talking about here is that chronic pain, not that you had an injury. Because if you have an injury, you need to rest it, let your body heal. Now, before we get into the weird things, let's talk about the not so weird things that cause pain. just very briefly.

Movement pattern issues are a common cause of chronic pain. Arguably number one. Yes. Almost always it's this. It's rarely the other ones. Totally. So low back pain, chronic low back pain,

and you go deeper and you figure out, well, you've got poor core strength or stability, maybe some instability in your hips. You know, my knee pain. Oh, maybe some ankle mobility issues. You know, shoulder pain. A lot of compensations happening. Yeah, so you kind of figure this out.

And you figure this out. through exercise, through mobility movements. We have two programs. We're really good at this. Prime Pro helps you address the individual joints. And then MAP symmetry is just a workout program that just on its own, because it's unilateral, is so good at correcting issues. So that's kind of like the main functional thing that's happening.

And the other part that is important to understand is there's physiological stuff that's happening with pain. So we know that there are pain signals and receptors that receive. We know something's going on, but then there's the experience of pain. And the experience of pain, we can't separate from the physiological aspect. Okay, we just can't. So the experience is like, how are you literally perceiving this pain? So a good example is somebody who works out all the time and they work out real hard,

they feel pain when they work out, right? You know, what we would call good pain. Their legs burn or they're out of breath or the muscles hurt when they're working out. they can really withstand this pain much more than the average person instead of condition themselves. They have a different experience. In fact, many fitness people will find this kind of pain enjoyable.

So experience makes a big difference. And some of the stuff we're going to talk about today just changes the experience of the pain, which makes the pain much more perceivable. Would you put that under like the umbrella of the psychological part? Totally. Yeah. You can't separate the two.

Because I think that's also, I mean, we've all probably experienced this before, is you ever cut your finger and not looked at it. Yep. And then you look at it and then all this, then all of a sudden the pain comes right, which is so wild.

Like there's to a point where you've probably also done this, where you've done something, and I've intentionally, I'm not going to look at it. Totally. I'm not going to look at it for like 30 minutes. I'm going to avoid looking at it until like blood seeping out the sock or something. I had, oh, that's probably worse than I think it is. I used to train.

I trained a lot of doctors and surgeons at one point. And we had this great conversation on pain. I remember why it started. But he explained, you know, the experience of pain. And he gave me a great example. He said, it's so weird, cell. He goes, we'll do a surgery, a major surgery on a kid.

And we have to prevent them from jumping out of the bed and running around. He goes, I'll do it on an adult. And I got to give them max pain meds all the time because they're hurting so bad. And the surgery's like way, wasn't nearly as bad. And I'm like, what's going on? He's like, the kids don't even know they're supposed to be. They don't have all those associations already built. That's right.

They don't know they're supposed to be in tons of pain. So they have to stop them before they're injure. themselves whereas the average person's like i can't lift anything over five pounds please give me a norco i need if i can do anything super wild isn't it it's so so cool i remember this this uh i don't know if this connects but uh in in junior high i was in seventh grade and i got this big fist fight with this kid and i'll never forget it was like a big deal and then it got broken up and i'm walking away you know trying to not get caught by the teacher and i remember looking down at my hands and they were bloody from i must have hit him or the wall parking lot and no it wasn't in church

every time. Yeah. And I, but I remember being like, I didn't even feel that happening. You know? And it was because in the moment, and everything you're not looking at it. The experience,

but the second I looked at my hands, you better believe. Pain, right away. Pain kicked out. We have to talk, before you get into the five weird things. You have to talk about the movement pattern issues, too, because this is,

lately I was on a phone call yesterday with a buddy of mine. We were just talking about, you know, old man, chronic stuff. And he starts telling me like, oh, man, I've got this out of nowhere. All of a sudden, no, my growing kind of thigh quad area is hurting.

And I was explaining to him that, that when you get chronic pain like that, it's almost always movement pattern issues, which means there's some sort of weakness or instability. And I said it's normally somewhere in the nearby joint, right? And the reason why I think we should talk more about this is because how difficult it is for the average person to piece this together.

Because a lot of times, like I'm explaining to him, this is probably related to hip, your weakness and instability in your hip. And so there's muscles that are overcompensating in the quad and the thigh that are now overworking, and then you're feeling it because he's like, it's so weird because when I, when I work out, it doesn't bother me. It's like once I get working out and stuff going, it feels okay. It's like when I'm laying in bed at night. I'm like, well, that's exactly telltale signs is that, yeah, when you're, when you're doing squats, you're working on the hips and you're

strengthening that mobility and stability and strength in the hips. When you're not, it's overcompensating somewhere because there is weakness there. And then now that muscle gets overworked. That overworked is that chronic pain you're feeling. And so a lot of times, people connect like, I have a bad knee or I have a bad low back, and the bad low back is classic for this. The low back is not a bad low back. It's like the muscles surrounding the low back that are pulling on the low back, but it's due to weakness in the hips or something else that's going on that's leading to that.

So a lot of times where the pain, where you're feeling the pain, isn't always necessarily the problem. It's the problem somewhere else. Totally. And it's because the overcompensation. Yeah, when you look at a joint, joints, when they moved, optimally. Okay, so on the muscles that move the joints are doing what they're supposed to and it's stable,

uh, joints don't deteriorate. They actually strengthen. You'll see cartilage rebuild. They'll be hydrated. There's good fluid in there. And there won't be pain. When the muscles are not moving, uh, the joint in an optimal way, then the joint starts

to experience wear and tear. Uh, not to mention when your body senses instability, what it does is it creates, it creates stability by tightening muscles around the joint. And that tightness feels like pain. Yeah. So things are tightening up because the body's like, this is not a stable joint. We're going to limit range of motion. Let's keep everything tight.

And so it's trying to keep you from actually hurting yourself. But in the process, it hurts. But that pain is limiting your movement, which is what your body's actually trying to do. Hey, let's limit movement. So, no. So correctional exercise is number one. But there are things that just make overall pain feel worse. And they're important to talk about because they're real.

And we just don't realize it. give you number one, poor sleep. So poor sleep, this is well documented in the data, well documented. Poor sleep changes, first off, we'll talk about it on a physiological standpoint, changes movement pattern issues, changes hormone profiles, and promotes inflammatory pathways. So you just get overall more inflammation anyway, but it also does something else. It reduces resilience and changes perception. Okay, so good example of this is you get poor sleep, you're irritable, right? I'm just in a worst mood. So my kids jumping on me to play. Normally, not a big deal. If I'm sleep deprived, they jump on me. Now I'm irritated with them. Well, that's how your, how your perception is with

everything, including how your body feels. And so cold feels colder, hot feels more intolerable, and the little bit of pain feels like much more. Much louder. And this is what chronic poor sleep will do to the body, both from an inflammatory standpoint, but also from a psychological standpoint. Now, an interesting part about the poor sleep and talking about chronic pain is this also is one of the things that puts you at the highest risk for acute pain. For injury. Yes. Yes. We were talking about this also this weekend, my buddies and I, because we're talking about sports and athletes and trainers.

And they're asking me, like, questions like when we've interviewed some of these, like, oh, did you ask him about why he got this injury? I'm like, oh, that's like the biggest pet peeve of a coach of an athlete because that's not even, like, everyone thinks it's this trainer's fault because they did something wrong with their training to prep them. And I'm like, what they don't. what most people don't realize is the number one culprit for injuries is bad sleep. And here we have a bunch of these young 20-year-old athletes who are partying and drinking and going out and not sleeping. And the truth is that trainer could have been doing all the right things in their training program. That athlete goes in parties all night and then gets up on game day the next day and he blows

something. And then everybody wants to blame the trainer because the trainer didn't do something correct. And it's just like when reality, nothing puts that athlete at higher risk than poor sleep. they've done studies on this and like comparing it to like not warming up and it's worse. It's worse than not warming up. So go in and jumping under a heavy squat right out the gates. It's safer for you from an injury standpoint than having really crappy sleep and having a workout. Now the question is why does that happen?

There's a few reasons that we can speculate. But the main one is your CNS, which requires sleep, right? So sleep resets the CNS, gets everything moving properly. your CNS is off. And so the way that muscles fire and react and how pliable they are, which is all controlled by your CNS, isn't controlled very well. So you do a complex movement,

like run or jump or do a clean or a press or whatever. It's just not moving well. And so those muscles that are supposed to stabilize, don't stabilize so well, muscles that are supposed to be pliable, maybe stay tight, makes you know you hurt yourself. But poor sleep, by the way,

is the number one hack for recovery. Everybody's like, how do I recover faster? How do I get back? Sleep. Nothing comes close to sleep. So the next one is diet. Diet will increase inflammation, period. End of story.

And it's crazy to me when I hear people argue against this, that diet has no role. Like it's innocuous. Yeah, like, oh, yeah, what you eat doesn't affect joint pain. What? Yeah. First off, I can experience this myself very clearly. And I do this with my clients as well. But I'll just speaking from personal experience,

if I eat so this is for me now okay so if I eat a lot of garbage food especially things that are heavily processed but especially if I eat gluten the next day or two whatever joints I have that tend to be my joints that will hurt a little bit suddenly now are a lot of pain suddenly left hip pain suddenly a little bit of sI joint pain why because it had gluten it's like clockwork it's the perfect recipe and I think that's I could attribute a lot of that because you know over fourth of July there was a lot of drinking For me, it's alcohol. It's like, the way that I'm, like, dehydrated, the way I'm, like, functioning the next day and lack of sleep, you know, you get the worst sleep if you've been drinking as well, too.

Those all contribute to whatever pain or discomfort you had already, it totally exaggerates it. Well, we haven't talked about this in a really long time. We used to talk about it more when fasting was really popular, and it was like it was involved to be talking about fasting all the time. And we talked about all the benefits and why we used it. This is one of my favorite things to do with a client is to show them. them this way. Because you mean somebody, a lot of times people don't even realize that they're inflamed from their diet. They just, because they're always inflamed. Yeah, they're always inflamed. They're kind of used to it. That's kind of just how their body looks and feels and moves.

And I used to love to put a client on a 24 hour fast and you get the reports like, oh my God, I feel so good. My back pain is crazy energy. And they feel chronic pain go down. They would feel so much better the way they move. And then that would enlighten them on, guess what? There's probably something that we're eating that you're intolerable to that is causing, even if it's low-level inflammation, it's enough that causes this chronic pain. And so this is such a sneaky one right here is that a lot of times, because someone doesn't have an autoimmune or they don't have a massive allergic reaction to say gluten, they think, oh, it's totally fine. What they're not registering, though, is that they're at this low state of inflammation all the time because they don't

have a massive reaction to it, but they have a mild enough one that causes chronic pain because They're always inflamed. Totally. So there's a few ways this will happen. One, well, fatty acid intake, I mean, your body uses fats and fatty acids to make all of your inflammatory markers. And so if your fatty acid profile is off, you will, you potentially would create a pro-inflammatory state in the body.

So very commonly in Western societies, like too many omega-6 and omega-9, fatty acids, too little omega-3s, right? So you'll have a inflammatory kind of profile that's pro-inflammatory. You need inflammation, by the way. You need inflammation. It's a signaler. But if it's off, if it's too low, that's not good. But that's rarely over the case.

If it's too high, that's also not good, which is often the case. So fatty acid profile can do that. And then foods that your body has mild immune reactions to. So we're not talking about allergic reaction. I'm not even talking about a serious gut issue because you'll know that. You'll eat something. Be like, oh, yeah, that throws me way out. But some foods just your body has this kind of low level immune reaction to which causes

inflammation. And at the moment, that's me with gluten. Gluten used to really bother my gut. It doesn't anymore. I can eat gluten and I won't have any gastro issues. But I will feel inflame the day after. I just feel more tight the day after. And I know it's because it's this kind of immune reaction that's happening.

Next up, deficiencies, both macro and micro deficiencies. So what's a macro deficiency? If your protein intake is too low, your recovery is going to suck, which is a lot. which is going to make you have increased amounts of inflammation. I've had several over the years, I've had many clients where they were either vegan or vegetarians, typically vegan or vegetarian because they struggle to get enough protein, where I had them supplement with protein. And the first thing they noticed was less pain.

Mm-hmm. They just noticed less soreness, less stiffness. Yeah. Just from having more. I find this really common, when we talk about the macro, write this, really common with people that are trained, like that work out. And this is why I think we talk about protein so much because it's so common that people are not eating optimal amount. I can't tell you how many times I just bumped somebody's protein intake by 30 to 50 grams.

And all of a sudden they're not feeling the chronic pain and soreness because they're just overtrained, underfed for what's going on. And that simple little tweak and fix made a huge difference. That's right. Another macro would be like too low with fats. That'll make you hurt for sure. Let's common these days. But back in the day, especially my female clients, they try to survive on 30 grams of fat a day. and just couldn't figure out why they felt terrible,

bumped their fats up and they felt better. And then you have micro deficiencies that cause pain. Magnesium, vitamin D, very common. It's very common. So vitamin, especially if you're dark-skinned, by the way. So if you're not African-American, the last bit of data I saw, 70% would be deficient,

not just suboptimal, but actually deficient in vitamin D. one of the side effects or effects of vitamin D deficiency is pain, just chronic pain. So vitamin D is a very common one. Magnesium is another one. If that's too low, you'll start to feel kind of stiffness and achiness. This is an easy one to fix. So if this is you, this is cool. Just go take some vitamin D and some magnesium.

And you'll notice within a week, I tell the story my dad because this one shocked me because my dad is always outside. So I was like, you know, if you're outside all the time, you probably don't have a vitamin D deficiency. And he literally is. I mean, he's a retired Sicilian man. His small backyard is like wall-to-wall plants and fruits and vegetables. And he's always outside.

He's always doing things outside. Of course, we're dark-skinned. But I didn't piece it together. And he was just because my dad has lots of pain just from hard labor since he was a kid, but it just kept getting worse. His back pain gets worse. His hip pain. He was complaining about it.

But again, you know, my dad, you know, in his 60s, hard labor. So it just couldn't piece it together. And sometimes that'd help him stretch. It would help a little. little bit, but it was always there. He did a routine blood test, deficient in vitamin D. Couldn't believe it. Uh, took vitamin D and within a week, like pain was gone. And it was all because of that, of that deficient. The magnesium one could be huge too, because if you're deficient in magnesium, many times that also affects the sleep. And then poor sleep, it's just a cycle. You're right. All of

these affect the others, don't they? Yeah. It's not just one. So it's like, that's such a, that could be a, I mean, that was a big unlock for myself was the magnesium in my, in my sleep. And so if you're, you know, kind of low level chronic inflammation and you're this, you know, poor sleeper. And then all of it could be connected to low magnesium. You fix your magnesium. All of a sudden the sleep gets better. Also, the inflammation goes down. So all of it's connected.

That's right. Next is water intake. This one was an interesting for one for me to figure out later on for my clients. I didn't really talk about water with my clients ever. I knew it for myself. But I only knew it for myself because back in the day, bodybuilders would tell you to drink a gallon a water a day. And so, of course, you know, I want to be jacked. So I'm going to do what the bodybuilder say, within reason. So I would just drink tons of water. Never talk to my clients about water,

ever. Then I had this physical therapist that worked in my studio. I've talked about her before because she was so good. And I remember, I would hear her, and this happened multiple times. I'd hear her talk to her clients about drinking more water because of their pain. And the first time I heard it, I kind of dismissed it. But I heard it enough times to where the clients would come back in and report back and they say, oh my God, I feel so much better. I think it's the water. After five or six times hearing this, I was like, could this really be a thing? Yeah. And sure enough, the clients that I had who kind of dealt with inflammation here and there, it's like, you know, let's track your water. Let's see if we can get you drink more water. What

happens? Pain relief. And it was like within a day. And so this makes a big difference for people who don't drink enough water. Yeah, you know, I was on to this one a bit early. When I was in football and I was in sports and everything else. Like, actually when I was in college was where it was really apparent because the humidity. And so we'd have to get weighed in and make sure, you know,

that we are drinking adequate water and like, you know, having electrolytes with that. So that way, too, we didn't, like, lose too much weight. And so to the point where you get fatigued to the point where you lose energy, you get pain. But for me, it was really like working. I don't know if you guys even, I told you.

you, but like I, for a minute there, I thought I might do, like, athletic training. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was, like, working in, you know, in the lab and I was like, you know, the running water and stuff. I was actually working with, like, the soccer team at first. And then I quit that day after that. I'm not going to deal with a bunch of these babies, dude. Oh, my gosh.

Side note. Thanks, Justin. Right in the middle of World Cup. I know. All the soccer fans are crazy. Yeah. Oh, it was the worst. A bunch of babies.

But, so, anyways. It was like, dude, there was, yeah, back to wire. We were back in the lab and that was the biggest complaint. And most of them were dehydrated. And so, yeah, once we started kind of fixing all that, it was like, it was all the pain. Do you think there's anything more there than the obvious thing? Like, obviously hydrating ligaments and tendons and bone and being. Lubricades the joint.

Is lubricating the joints. That's the obvious one. That's right. Do you think there's other things there, like you flushing nutrients through more? Yes, there's also that. there's also that your muscles operate better when they're very hydrated versus when they're not. They're going to be more pliable, more reactive. What do I mean by that?

Getting a muscle to contract quickly and relax quickly is very important to prevent injury and pain. Muscles that don't do that want to stay tight and so you move, stiffer. Water intake plays a big role. By the way, this is an easy one. For everybody listening right now, like, if you start drinking, you know, half a gallon to a gallon of water every single day, you play with this. Just track it. Try it out. Watch what happens.

You'll know within a day or two if this makes a big difference. And I'll say this. It was a good chunk of my clients that made a big difference. Probably 30% of my clients, I'm embarrassed to say, benefited from something that I didn't even talk about for the first 10 years of my training. I wonder, too, if a lot of that is just because we have so many choices of fluid that people can drink now instead of water that they end up doing. Well, I think what it is is that nobody's dehydrated.

to the point where they're like, you know, where you would measure them and be like, uh-oh, you, everybody drinks enough, but what's enough and optimal are different. Right. So enough is enough and optimal for the average person than enough and optimal for someone who's training.

Even more. Yeah. Even more if you're sweating. Yeah. Lastly is breathing. Breathing will definitely affect pain. Kind of important. And people,

now, let me explain. I'll tell you. Figure that out. I'll give, I'll give an experience that I had with this and when this was an unlock for me. So again,

years ago, this has got to be at least 20 years ago. I was really into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I needed to become more flexible. And so I started to do Yin yoga. So Yen Yoga is a form of yoga

where you sit in a stretch for like five minutes. So you're not standing. It's literally passive, sitting in these long stretches. And so I'm in there, and I'm doing it, and I'm the big guy in there, of course, probably only, I was the only dude in there. So the instructor, of course, singles me out. And at one point, she comes

over to me and she's like, stop holding your breath. And I was like, okay. And so I started breathing. She said, when you're holding your breath, you're telling your body to stay tight. Tight. Yep. And I was like, of course. Yeah.

Like when you hold your breath, now holding your breath to be tense when I'm doing a max lift, that's important. It helps. Yeah, it helps your brace. But what I'm telling my body to do when I'm holding my breath is to stay tense. Okay. So you might be listening. Like, I don't hold my breath all day.

No, but you do this. You shallow breathe all day. long, there's something called belly breathing and then there's something called shallow breathing. When you're scared or anxious or ready to fight, you take shallow breaths. And in the short term, it gives you more oxygen can make you perform better. But in the long term, it just tells your body stay tight. I need to stay tight. I need to be ready. A belly breath is a full diaphragmatic breath where you fill the belly and you're breathing fully. That tells the body we don't need to stay alert and we don't need to stay tight. This silly, stupid one right here, I've had more than a few clients.

right here solve their pain problem. Dude, having the belly breathing. You know, it's so funny. We're really good about, you know, in the fitness space and being a coach of, like, teaching people how to breathe the brace and how to, like, create that tightness. Because, you know, that's a big battle at first is being able to really get rigid enough to be able to, like, handle the load.

But, you know, as you get into it, especially over the years, you keep reiterating. You keep, you know, doing the same thing over and over and over. You get so tight. And it's like, we don't have that, you know, that other. pathway. A lot of times you have to go to like a yoga studio. You have to go to like somebody else that's a practitioner that's like really addressing the fact that like also you need to release. You know, you have to be able to breathe to relax. So, you know, it's definitely not something common that's, you know, pushed. I feel like I had this is what I had to learn to do to get the real benefits from even a massage.

Oh, yeah. So like you hold your breath. So people have a tendency, especially if you're somebody, like I remember when I first started like I only like Swedish massage, which is like the real soft. Because I never felt like I got the relief from the like hard, like real sports massage because they dig into you and you're like, oh. And the whole time you're bracing. Like that's an awful hour. Yeah, the hour. Everyone talks about how this, how good this is. And I remember when I first started dating Katrina, she would, she would coach, but she's like, you need to breathe.

You have to breathe through that. Like you can't tense up and hold it or else I can't, I'm not going to work anything. It's not going to do anything. It's just me me drilling my elbow into you and then you're going to be like, this sucks, you know? And so I really had to focus. on learning how to breathe through that. And boy, what a night and day difference of the relief I would get from the sports

massage knowing how to breathe properly versus just trying to, you know, and you're quiet, your face is down. And so, and a lot of times it's a stranger, you don't know who they are. So you're not like, oh, sorry, don't. You're just sitting there, you're tensing up and you need to relax in order for them to get in there and do the work.

I remember this, so I have two instances where this blue, this was one of the paradigm shattering moments of my training career was the breathing right here. For the first time, I had, had a woman belly breathe for the first time with me because I had learned how to do it. So we're on the floor. Her hand is on her upper chest, hands on her belly. I'm like, breathe in deep.

Rise the hand on your belly first. When that can't go up any higher, then you can rise the upper chest. So she's sitting there breathing and she started crying. And I remember looking around like, uh-oh, what did I do? But that's because she was holding on to so much. And that told her parasympathetic system got activated. She could finally release some emotion. So that was the first one.

The second time is I had this guy that I trained. and his back pain was really bad when he started with me. And we got it better, but it was never like 100%. It was always kind of bothering him. We always had to be careful. Always had to do mobility. Couldn't figure it out whatever. And then I learned about breathing.

And I watched him. And I said, bro, I think you're shallow breathing all day long. He had a stressful tech job. I think you're just shallow breathing all day long at work. And that's making everything stay tight. I said, can you try this? So you started trying it. And it was the last thing.

It was crazy. you're hunched over and I can see that happening to so many people just shallow breathing all day long. In fact, if you shallow breathe all the time and you try belly breathing, it's going to feel really weird. It's very difficult. It's like this movement pattern you're not used to. But his pain totally away.

Anyway, I'm going to change subject because I got to tell you guys the number one supplement, because you guys know I have a big family and my family occasionally will listen to our podcast or they'll catch me on their algorithm. And so they're always asking the questions about the products that we talk about. So like that. The number one product and supplement now that my entire family is like trying and raving about and everybody's talking

about is the parasite cleanse from organic. Oh, interesting. Everybody's like, oh, interesting. They're on the parasite game. Everybody's like, I got to do this.

I have this. And let me try this. And then they're coming back and be like, this is crazy. I feel so good or whatever. I got like six family members. Wow. I feel like it's,

next time you, I wish I would have had you stop and ask guests because the whole time we've had this podcast, they've gone through phases, right, where you talk about something. and then all of a sudden they all get on it or one. Is there normally because you talked about on the podcast

or is there somebody who is in the family that influences it besides you? Because obviously you influenced them with health and fitness. But is there like a person, whether it's your dad or your cousin or someone who takes it and they're like, dude, that thing that Sal talked about, I took it. And then there's this trickle down effect. How does it normally unfold? So usually it's me selling it because I know what they need it. Who needs it?

But the parasite one, I didn't sell. So my sister first sees the ad. reports back to me because she gets gut issues. And she's like, do you think this could be my thing? I'm like, well, let's let's figure it out. You have a million animals. You're always outside in the dirt. I said, you like sushi.

You've never done it before. Maybe. Let's give it a shot. So she started it. She started talking about it. My brother started talking about it. And the next thing you know, I got other people.

The crazy part is we do this with our pets anyways. Every year. Systematically. Yeah. You're like, it's like quarterly or whatever it is. Like, because it just happens all the time. to just pick them up. And, you know, and then you're having to deal with it.

And it's like, we're animals, too. And it's just weird that we don't associate that with humans. I always think of that study they talk about, though, that we take care of our pets better than we take care of yourself. Like the consistency that you'll give your pet the medication, then give yourself the medication. Well, what's cool about organifies is it's all natural. Yeah, it's not a sort of.

So it's not like you're taking an antibiotic to kill. A lot of the ones that you would go to, like, a doctor. Make no mistake. the drugs are like, those are like bombs. Like you're going to kill everything. Make no mistake. But the natural stuff is really good. The natural stuff is very efficacious.

Well, it doesn't hurt you to take it a couple times. That's right. That's right. Do it every year. Do it every year. I would do one of these parasite cleanses. You're not going to be worried about any potential, you know. And you always recommend to run back to back, right?

Because you said... I'd say, do one cycle. Wait, like 15 days. Do another one. Just in case there's eggs that don't get touched. It's so gross when we talk about this. You know, like eggs and bugs and stuff in your gut. I mean, it's gross, but a lot of people suffer from it.

I know. So it's a real. He's inside you right now. Oh, so crazy. Subject switch. I got a guy, I got a guy to bring up for you, Justin. So do you know what Arthur Saxon was? Yes.

Okay, so old time. Old time strong man guy. So I have an article. Dude, I love reading about these like old time feats. Feats of strength. But then also like they're training and diet. Yeah. Because you got to keep in mind, like, this is,

This is a long time ago. So he was born. Like heavy cream? Like what was he? Yeah, heavy whipping cream and steak and eggs. So first of all, this guy was born in 18. Cigarettes. He was born in 1878.

So he was doing these feats of strength in the early 1900s. And I'll tell you his one lift that was a world record for 120 years. So remember, he did, he was. Had it held for 120 years? Yeah. I don't even know who broke it. How often does like a lifting or any record last a hundred years? That's wild.

Is that him right there? Okay, that's him. Okay, so he's a German wrestler, also a weightlifter. He was 5-10, 200 pounds. Okay, so obviously built, right? Just for people listening, this is before steroids existed. This is before creatine. There's no protein powder.

You're just the dude. He's built. Strong dude. And you've got a job still because you have to support your family. Okay. Here's the lift that he did that was a world record for, 120 years. In 1905, he did a bent press.

Yeah. This is a one-hand press, okay? Above your body, 370 pounds. That's so insane. On a barbell. You know what's so crazy about that? A long barbell. Is trench and balance that?

Balance a quarter of that. Put a hundred pound dumbbell, try to hold it. A dumbbell, not a barbell. Well, no, a barbell. Try and hold just a barbell balanced above your... head already you're in a fixed point. Well, he's on a rock try our old time strength.

It's like that's, you have to start just by balancing that overhead. Yeah. In itself is a challenge. Yes. Like crazy. He also did. He also did something called the two hands anyhow. So he would do a bent press.

This is all, by the way, recorded because he would do it in front of audience. He did a bent. He did a bent press with 260 pounds. Then while he had it above his head, he would squat down and pick up a 110 pound kettlebell with his left hand. Then he would stand up. up with 448 pounds and he'd have them both up over his head. Yeah.

What? Anyway, crazy. Yeah. He's a badass. Here's his diet. Some of it's awesome. Some of it's like, what's going on here? Breakfast.

24 eggs, three pounds of smoked bacon. Oh. Porridge with cream. So that was breakfast. We were pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely had a cigar or a cigarette too.

How many, how many calories is 20? How many calories is 24 eggs? Like the Babe Ruth diet, dude. Look up the macros and calories on 24 eggs. That's insane. About 1,500 calories. I've done 10. That's the most I've ever done.

1,500 calories. Then dinner. So then that was it. Then he had dinner. Dinner was 10 pounds of meat. 10 pounds of meat. Wow. 10 pounds of meat.

Come on. And then during the day. Come on, Sal. I mean, listen. Come on. This is. There's got to be some exaggeration here. You know, here's the problem.

10 pounds, dog. Come on. That sounds crazy. For a guy. who's only 510, 2007 pounds? He also did a one-armed band press. Well, I mean, that's why... That's how they get you.

Because you're like, well, maybe. Look up Arthur Saxon diet. And confirm. So here's the problem. You're right. Because a lot of this, some of this was witness for people. Right.

And some of it is like... Yeah, that's like legend stuff. Like, he probably told people, I eat 24 eggs a day because maybe one time he did. Because he knows nobody could do. I eat 10 pounds of meat in a day. Like, because he did it one time.

I mean, let me see what it says. It was famous for... Yeah, it says he ate, ridiculous amounts of eating. So he was known for this. I don't know how accurate it is, but he was known for it. You wonder how many people tried to do this that lived, you know, in his era? You know what so?

Arthur Saxon. Right there. 10 pounds of meat. Yeah. A massive set of meat. So they say. It's of 10 pounds of meat, dude. There's no way, bro.

I don't know. I mean, that right there in calories. What's 10 pounds of meat, dude? That's over 10,000 calories by itself. It doesn't sound right. There's no way. It doesn't sound right. Yeah, 10 pounds.

And he's 5, 10, too. No way. It's not like he was a giant. It would be different if he was a, or he was a marathon swimmer. There's more, too, by the way. He would drink beer all day long. Yes. Apparently.

This is legend shit, Don't. Get out of here with this. Don't tell my, don't tell our audience this. Hey, someone's like, I'm on, I'm going to go do the bit press for him. Listen, everything I said, don't try. Don't try a bet press for 30 pounds. Don't eat 24 eggs for breakfast. Don't eat pet pals.

Yeah, that ain't real. There's no way. No, it's 6,000 calories. 10 pounds of beat. 971 grams of protein. Yeah, that's insane. That's right. He's also, by the way, he's putting in super lean meat.

5% fat. That's not normal. Most meat is 8020. Did they even have 95-5 back then? Here's 80-20 here. It's 11,500. Yeah, that's more like it. So here's a thing with all of this.

There I said, 10,000 calories. You're talking about 10,000 calories just in meat. Yeah, I know. And then the eggs was another. Sounds crazy. Here's the thing, though, I will say. These strong men, these bronze-era kind of athletes, I think where you want to find the truth is in the similarities.

Like, what do they have in common? They all ate a lot of eggs. They all had a lot of cream. They all ate a lot of meat. Yeah, yeah. All of them bad. I mean, to me, that's a takeaway. High fat, you know, eggs,

yep, meat. Like, you know. Milk, cream. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's all believable and I 100% and that is common. But his Ben Press was, I mean, he had an audience.

Legendary. Yeah. He did say. That's it. That's it's it. That's insane. I mean, even if that was half that, it's still insane. Arthur Saxon used to also, so back in those days,

the way that they would make money is they would do exhibitions. So they would ask audience members to, oh, come lift this. Can you pick it up? Okay, you can't here, let me show you. And then they'd have challenges. Yeah. But then they'd also, some of them would wrestle. And Arthur Saxon was one of those guys.

He would challenge people to a match and make everybody say uncle. He looks built for that. Oh, yeah. Did we ever ask Robert, did Robert Oberst do a big bent press for us? Who do we know that can do it? He's one of the best pressers. in general. He does the log press is his main one. Yeah. But yeah, he could

probably crush a bent press. Yeah, I don't think we ever, I don't even ever asked him. It'd be interesting. He's the only person who the first friend that comes in mind. Like, if I could, like, you got one person to do the heaviest bed press you know, Robert's got to be one of the guys. Overhead price is insane. It's so funny. I was just talking about him this weekend. I was with a bunch of friends for the 4th of July. We had a bunch of friends over.

I haven't caught up with him in a long time. And we were all talking about like, what kind of results you can expect from strength training and what's the difference between some people that get great results or not, how big of a role, do steroids play? We were having this conversation. I was trying to explain to them genetics.

Yeah. And they're like, it's people get it when you talk about other things, like height. Like if I say seven foot tall, right? Like that's so rare. Yeah. It's crazy. But I'm like, you guys got to understand.

Like people that, these people that do these crazy feats of strength, like these athletes or whatever, they have genetics. They're so rare. So I was telling him about Robert Oberst and how we were hanging out with him and how he's just, if aliens came on Earth and found us, they'd be like, this is a different species. Yeah.

Than other people. Like, there's humans here and then there's whatever this is over here. Yeah, yeah. Some kind of giant. Yeah, yeah. That's how big. This was the same conversation. I was having the same conversation.

So that this is where this conversation led that I talked about with the athletes and injuries. I was explaining that to them too because they were, again, asking questions like, you know, why don't you ask the trainer this question and that question? And I was talking about Kula. and stuff like that's how this all came up. And I'm like, dude, their number one job is to just not let them get hurt. Yep, that's it.

You are not taking a Christian McCaffrey and making him that much better. No. He is already genetically... Keep him from getting hurt. Yes. And when he was probably 13, you saw it on the field.

When you, the people who got to watch him run around in flag football... You see clips of him in high school. Yes. You just... All of them were like that. If you were... That tier, right?

Obviously, we're talking about a different example of someone who just barely made the league. But if we're talking about the top echelon of NFL NBA players, right, the elite elite, they were elite elite when they were little kids. And that's the genetic piece. And that's not to take anything away from their hard work and what they built on that and the way they've expressed that over years. That needs to be said, though, to a lot of parents out there, I think they're unrealistic. you guys need to calm down yeah yeah kid and then putting them in all these like oh total travel teams and you know putting all these ideas in their head

that they're going to go like if you know what what that looks like for real it's like it's pretty deflating once you get there and you're told those whole time like yeah you got skill i don't know again this is one of those things it's like controversial because it's like you know you want to you want to promote like these ideas and like hard work will beat talent all day it's going to get there but like reality sets in, dude, let me just tell you from experience. You get to a point where genetics do play a factor, the hard work got you there.

Now, a sudden, you got a guy that's like, you know, three, four inches taller than you, and he's, like, you know, insanely faster. And he's, like, insanely bigger and stronger. And you're like, all right. Well, so when I was talking to this group of buddies, one of them, so I was talking to this group of friends and one of them played college basketball.

I don't think he was D1, though, but maybe two, but he's six, seven, okay? And so I'm like, this is perfect. I'll use them as a sample. So I said, let me ask you this. I said, maybe you've experienced this where you play a sport and you're the best in your high school. And you're like, man, I'm awesome. But then you play another high school that's really good.

And suddenly, oh, my God, there's other good players. Then you make it to college. And suddenly it's a whole other level. You're like, whoa, these people are way better than me. Then you go pro and you're like, okay, forget it. Like, this is a whole other level of like a human performance. It's crazy like how many tiers that is, which just shows. shows the gap between someone who's just good versus someone who's like super athletic.

Now, now that's not to say that hard work, hard work has a wonderful skill to develop. Yeah. Period. It's going to translate to all kinds of other things. I just, yeah,

I guess my caution is to like not put all the identity there, right? Like, no, the hard work of it is the, the crux of like what you want. I think what you're saying is so good and it needs to be said for a lot of parents. A lot of parents think what it is is I just need to get my kid in the best, and they put them in all these camps,

they do all the stuff, and it's just like, I mean, Katrina and I have this debate all the time when I see my son. He's like, my son's not going to be here. She's just like, you don't know. So it's like, bullshit. I absolutely know.

You can see, I can see it. And then you all be around with the kids. Like I told that story about the, what was it last summer or whatever? Actually, it was less than that. It was not a long ago when I told you Max got hit with the soccer ball. Yeah. I mean, this kid is like half his size,

but you could just see it. You know what I'm seeing? He's got it. it. He's a year or two younger. He's got crazy footwork. I mean, it's like, I don't care. You can't convince me that his dad stayed up every night with him, you know, teaching him. It's like, no, he picked up a ball. I mean, your son's got it. Your son, you know, you know nothing about baseball of the sports, but all of a sudden, your son could just hit a ball. Like, I mean, some kids have just, they have got it. And again, not to take anything away, because you still have to develop that

and to keep doing it. And they got to have a passion for it to want to accept. at it, but there is definitely a genetics play a massive role in that elite level. It's funny. I just pulled up an article that they did this large study of 200. Let me see if I can find it. There were, it was a six-month fitness study. And they, I mean, it was relatively controlled, right? So same routine, same diet, supposedly.

287 people. Here's the difference in between those that were considered fast gainers and those that were considered average. The hyper responders gained about 30% more muscle. So they gained three times as much, two to three times as much muscle as the people in the middle. Average responders, five to 10%. Low responders, very little in six months.

So most people fit in that average. Like the vast, there's like 90% of us are in the middle. 5% of us are low, 5% of us are high. And then of that 5%, 1% of that 5% of that 5%. percent are what we would consider, let's say, elite or crazy. But most of us are in the middle. And that's what you can kind of expect from, you know, from your strength training, from your workout.

So anyway, this makes me think of just what I'm trying to do right now with my training because it's so different. I don't know if you, did I tell you guys? Or the last three or four weeks, I've only lifted weights like three times. I know. I was actually going to, over the holiday, I was going to call you and be like, hey, did you make sure to take today off? Yeah.

I've only lifted a few times because I'm doing jiu-jitsu and I'm trying to get back into it. Oh, by the way, so when you first... When you first start doing jihitsu and you don't move well, you get a lot of Matt Burns. I talked about this last episode. Like, you rub too quickly on the mat. Yeah. And you get like, they suck.

And I got them on my elbows and my knees. And you know, I'm going to put on them. Manukora. Really? I'm going to put Manuora on them. I mean, has healing properties. Healing properties for burns, for... Oh, that'll be interesting.

For skin. If I did that, my dog would lick it on. So I'm going to walk... So I'll take a shower afterwards. I'm going to put it on and throw a bandit on and let you guys know off the stuff. I mean, if we're talking about tribal days, right? Like, it would be honey and olivarra. What would you use in nature?

So there's a compound in Manukora honey. And so Manukora is a type of manuka honey. That's the highest amount of what this compound is. I can't remember it. Maybe Doug, you can find it. There's a compound in there that's antimicrobial promotes healing. And the studies on it on injury healing are ridiculous. Yeah.

So you have an injury? What is it? MGO. Yeah. Well, that's the... The compound in there. Yeah, let me double check on it. And it's a very, very high percentage.

You put it on burns or, like, skin abrasions? He'll heal. Way fast. Yeah, so back to my question. So in nature, what would be the thing that they probably used 100 to... I don't know. That's a good question. Like, aloe and honey is the only thing that comes in mind. Like, what else is kind of found in nature?

In enough abundance, you could put it on, like, burns and scrapes and cuts. I don't know. Sunlight? Water? No, you would put some sort of... Horse glue, whatever, like they would put to close up. Yeah, you're ruined. But that was, yeah, that was about it.

Yeah, I don't know. I was also looking at it, by the way, because I just started. So I'm not going to do this. Everybody, calm down. But I was like, you know, I'm starting to get into it, totally changing how I am around my workouts, by the way, now, which is exactly what I was hoping for, which is pretty cool. So I'm not even interested in trying to build muscle right now. My workouts are looking a lot like making me feel better.

More functional? Yeah, which is cool. It's exactly. It's funny. my wife about this because ate a bunch of garbage over the weekend because of the holiday. And today was a gym day. So it's like the once a week I'll actually lift. And I just felt so stiff. Now normally, and you know this Adam, if you're holding water because you ate garbage and you go lift weights, you get crazy pumps. Yeah. So, and so even though you're a little stiff,

you kind of like the pumps. Yeah. I don't care about. I don't want the pump. I don't want the pump. I don't want that in Jiuitsu. I just want to feel better. Yeah, yeah. And so it's like this new motivation to like change all of those things, which is pretty cool. I got to give you a cool, since you're on this kick right now. So I took something from our, our good friend, Joe DeFranco. Did you see he did this isometric lunge challenge thing that he did? No. Yeah.

So I actually, I was like so curious after I was like, man, can I do that? I'm like, I can't do that. Where you hold for a minute, basically a lunge position where your knee is just hovering. You just sit there for a minute? Yeah. And it actually got me. thinking, I'm like, because we talk about the benefits of isometrics and even it incorporated with primings for that. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do something. One of my favorite

things to do also is I love walking lunges, especially when I'm very functional. Like I, I extend big long strides. I'll even throw a little balance in between there. Just, and it just, I feel like it warms everything. And I'm like, I'm going to throw an isometric into every lunch. Yeah, I've been hearing a lot more about this too and I'm wondering if it's Jay Schroeder. I don't know if you guys know this. Okay, he's like, he's into like neural training and he does a lot of that stuff. But he uses isometrics quite a bit. And that's like one of the stuff is like the really long lunge.

Okay. So I've, I've been doing this now for about two weeks. And I have never felt so good getting into my squats and my dead. Oh, wow. So this is what I'm doing? You're getting into the lunge? I literally, I do walking, I do walking lunges for 20 with 10 second holds. So hold.

So I go a stride, knees hovering, so it's just above the ground. And you're holding for 10 seconds, which is difficult in itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then lunge again to the other side, hold for 10 seconds. And so I walk. So that split stance, that back leg stability, front leg stability, the torsion on the pelvis is really good. And then I'm holding an isometric for 10 solid seconds. I got to do that.

And then I, so I started like just the way this all evolved was I was actually just trying to see if I could do what, what Joe was doing. about 30 seconds in, I'm like shaking like a leaf, like, oh, wow, I want to see if I could build this up. So it started as that. And then I was like, oh, you know, I felt so good after I did that. I felt like my hips and everything were all, it was woke up from that quick isometric. I'm like, you know what? I already love to do these walking lunges. I'm going to throw like a little bit of an isometric hold in my priming to get ready for my.

And I went, oh, my God, I felt so good going into my squat. And it normally takes me, I used to do a lot of 1990s. And I got to do a lot of Miguel Planes. I do all this shit to warm up for my squats and deadlifts. And that has just got me right into it. I'm going to try that. Yeah, it feels really good. I was looking at, just because I'm getting into it.

And I was not because I'm going to do this, but just I was looking into it. And I'm like, if I were to compete again, what category would I be in with my age? Masters. No, it's Masters. Four? There's a higher level of Masters.

Well, because Masters is 30, by the way. Oh, it is? Yeah. Well, you're talking about Jiu-Jitsu, bro. You get a silver hair. Like about golf. Well, body building Masters is 35, actually. I think Masters is 35.

So Masters 4 is 47, I think, to 51. So immediately, first I'm like, you know, I'm not going to compete. You know, my cousin's like, you go to compete. I'm not going to compete. And then inside the back of my head, I'm like, maybe that would be fun. A little bit. I don't know. Let me look.

And then I'm like, you know what? I don't want to get hurt. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm going to compete. What am I going to compete in? So I looked it up and I'm immediately picturing the average 48-year-old. I'm like, oh, I'll crush this. Then I remembered.

Wait, wait, the average... In your own... Then I remember... Self-selection bias. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The average 48-year-old that signs up for a jujitsu tournament has been doing jujitsu.

Yeah, this is a TRT, dude. This guy's gonna be all jacked and super fit. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. It's not gonna be easy. Yeah, yeah. But there was a split second where I just thought of the average,

like 48-year-old guy. Oh, yeah, I'm totally gonna compete. Wait a minute. No, thanks. What is... I think bodybuilding is 35. It's 35 or 40. It might be 40.

It might, I can't remember. I know that. No, I think it's 35 because I think I remember when I was on my way out, I knew like one more year and I could do Masters, I think, if I recall. I could be wrong, though. 35 or 40. Yeah, 35 is what it. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, there's that. But I got, dude, I got to tell you back to the inflammation thing. The reason why it inspired me to talk about this in the beginning of episode, I was weighing 215. So I had dropped into the five pounds. I was feeling good. body was moving good. I probably will fall around 205-2-10.

That's probably where my body weight's going to end up falling. But then I had this week where, you know, we're having alcohol. I'm eating gluten. I just say you look higher than that. Listen. Yeah. Okay. I was 215 last week.

Yeah. Okay. We're eating gluten. I'm having some alcohol. I'm not eating a ton, but it's foods under and fly. Would you swing? Bro. And this today, like I said, I went to the gym and I'm like, everything hurts.

My hands hurt. 222. 22. Oh, look at that gas. Good job, dude. Seven pounds. A swing. Seven pounds swing and inflammation and water retention. Holy cow.

That sucks. I feel like that's your, I mean, we're so in the similar weight class right now, so I feel like I could totally, I know what that does. Yeah, it's about right there. I can feel it. Everyone. I'm going to be bald and flame. This is a huge.

With Justin. I don't know. Don't do that to me, bro. We can move on. It's his chair straining right now. What do you think he's, oh. You're not, are you, are you nowhere near your heaviest right now, are you?

No. No, yeah, you're not. I feel like I've, yeah, you've been way heavier before. Yeah, I don't get that. You're a lot fatter. When you get inflamed just, this is how I feel. So besides pangs, they just feel stiff. That's like number one sign.

Then the second sign, my eyes, dude. I feel like my eyes. Yeah, dude, I feel like my eyes are puffy. Do you get like watery? I don't know, they just feel weird, dude. You know, when you wake up in the morning and your eyes are kind of puffy. It feels like that all day. Like, what's happening right now?

Yeah. You have that too or no? Every day. My new one is my knuckles. Never had that before. That's like brand new. This is last six months. Like, knuckles pain.

Yeah. If I get little like never, I've always noticed my inflammation. I have like like like holy water. My kind of stomach carrier. My puffy face. I always talk about all of a sudden knuckle stuff. Like it's because. Oh, your ring.

Because I take the aura ring on and off to charge all time. And so there's times when it's like comes off. off right away. And there's other times, it's like, oh, it's not coming off today. We're not charging it. You know, this just makes me realize, like, not realize, but I think it's important to talk about. Like, for people who work out consistently, the number one consideration for good results, if you're already consistent, this is the number one consideration is recovery. That's the number one consideration. That's the thing right there that'll get you the best results is if you consider recovery and adaptation as the primary thing that you consider when it comes to workout intensity, frequency,

diet. That right there will get you the best results. The problem is everybody who's consistent makes the workout the number one. I think this is why all our MAP 15 programs have done so well with our audience. Because our average audience, obviously we have the whole

gamut of age and range. A big portion is our age group or a lot close to. And I think a lot, that consideration isn't taken in a lot. A lot of it's focused on how hard of a workout can I do. And honestly, the 15 range just fits so much better. It's more appropriate. And I think people are seeing the same

thing that I think we all noticed when we did it ourselves. I'm like, oh my God, dude, like, I must have been overdoing it. Yeah, I was way overdoing it. Way overdoing it. It takes way and again, granted, been lifting for 20 plus years. So it doesn't take that much to maintain that. In fact, and I think I was constantly getting like, and I really noticed it in the 40s, like, constantly nagging pain and hurting myself because always overdoing it. Like, what am I? and I've had way better results the last few years of the more minimalist approach to my training and focus more on the recovery and sleep and rest and fuel. Look, sleep is easily the most under-optimized variable for people who train hard.

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Go to 8Sleep.com slash mind-pump. Use the code mind-pump. Back to the show. Our first caller is Candy from California. Hi, Candy. Hi, Candy. Hi. Hi.

Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to meet you guys. I just found you a few months ago. And so I'm all current, but I've went back and I noticed the old ones, there's a lot more cussing going on. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Those are nerves. Those are nerves when we first started right there.

Well, I feel you right now. You need to get out of our system. Sorry, we just carry you away. So how can we help you? Okay, so I'm going to read, so I hit everything. I'm 59 years old and I've been doing boot camp workouts and running for years. The end of last year, I realized I was lifting the same amount of weights and was not getting any stronger. I realized that my body looked the exact same for the last 20 years. No matter what I did,

I wasn't getting any different results. So January 2nd of 2026, I decided to start weight training. So I'm very new to just lifting. Both my daughters are engaged to be married, and it's important for me to lean at their weddings. So the first wedding's in September. So I felt like nine months would be plenty of time to lean out. It's not like I had any really a lot of to lose, I just wanted to lean out. So I reversed dieted myself from my, you know, 12 to 1,400 calories to 1,800. And I had already been eating 125 grams of protein and taking 5 grams of creatine every day. So on January 22nd, I was 125 pounds.

My body fat was tested just with a pinch test, but I was at 34% body fat. So I retested on April 17th after I had been lifting. and my weight stayed the same, but I was at 28% body fat. So I was getting some difference. And I feel like my workouts are great. I do three full body workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On Tuesday, Thursday, I walk four miles, and then I play about 8 to 10 hours of pickleball throughout the week.

But here's where I'm stuck. Around late April, I started feeling really puffy, especially around my waist, which is a place I never have carried my weight before, and it happened suddenly. Then I gained a few pounds, which I'm only 5'2, so like three or four pounds is a full pants size for me. So I dropped my calories because I was freaking out to 1650 in May. And then I just had my body fat tested, and it's at 29 percent, so it creeped up a little.

I track everything meticulously. I stick to an AIP diet most of the time. I just struggle with what my calories should be. I know I'm getting stronger, but I'm not looking the lean look I want for my daughter's wedding in September. So what am I missing? What advice next steps for really calm at my age and my activity level? Like, I'm just, I'm stuck. I don't know what to do.

You, first of all, you were killing it. You were absolutely to go from 34 to 28%. Is that what I heard? That's like a 6% body fat drop. And your weight's stay the same. That's an incredible body composition change. and your weight stayed the same, which means you built muscle. And what I don't know yet,

and maybe we can ask some questions to get the bottom of where the inflammation came from or the water retention or the few pounds on the scale. But it did what it does to so many people and what did to you is you overcorrected and you cut. And what happened was you didn't get, you didn't put body fat on from that cut. You lost muscle. And so that's why your body fat percentage went up. I see.

Because you cut. So you didn't, that cutting calories didn't add body fat to you. you because it looks like that sometimes of people because they're like, oh my God, my body fat percentage went up and I was reducing calories. This doesn't make sense. But body fat percentage is the ratio of muscle to fat to your overall weight. And so what happened and what it tells me right away is you were at a really good

calorie place, actually, and we probably should have stayed there and looked other places on why are we holding water? Why do we have inflammation going on? Is it stress? Am I eating something that's causing some sort of inflammation? Am I doing a lot right now, maybe between pickleball and all training? like there could have been a lot going on that was causing that kind of systemic inflammation and water retention and instead you overcorrected, drop the calories, and the result was we

lost that muscle that you did a good, some of it, not all of it, but some of that muscle that you did a good job of building. So just to explain what probably happened there, do you know if when you, that kind of subtle, that weight did come on, was there anything going on in your life at that time that was out of the ordinary? I've tried to think of it. I feel like there was nothing different going on. I just, my life is pretty, I'm pretty, like, regimented. I'm pretty routine. I go to bed at 8 p.m. every night. I wake up at 4 a.m. every morning. Like, I'm very, even on the weekends, even on my days off, I still get up and go to the gym in the morning. So, I don't know what was different, but it just was weird because I don't carry my weight in my

stomach ever. And it's just in my stomach. Like, I feel like my pants and stuff fit me in the thighs and everywhere okay, but it's just in my stomach. It's really odd. Yeah. So, so just to backup Adam, yeah, you were doing everything right and he freaked out because you went up three or four pounds. And weight fluctuations are not super out of the ordinary, especially for women. But what tends to happen, what makes this process difficult is people will start moving in the right direction, get some confirmation. Something goes in a direction. They don't want to want to go and they revert back to what they were doing before. Your calories are way too low for the amount of exercise and activity.

And they're also too low to cut anyway. So, like, typically, you know, the standard, you know, approach to lose body fat is you take someone's total calories and you drop them and that causes fat loss. Yours are too low to do that with. So right now you're at 1650, you know, where would I take you at 1,200? You know what will happen at 1,200 calories? You're just going to lose muscle. Yeah.

body fat percentage won't change and you'll feel worse so you were moving in the right direction like really good too yeah 6% swing is crazy that's really good this is why we don't this is why I don't

I don't let people weigh themselves if they've never done this before because it could be kind of scary even if let's say you gained four pounds and a lot of it was body fat you were still better off than you were before and your calories are still high and you're feeling strong

and you're still moving in the right direction I would not have cut your calories. So what you need to do is you need to go back in the reverse and try to build into the body that you're looking for. You don't have room to cut anyway. So I would go back to 18, then I go up to 19, then I'd go up to 2,000. If you get to the point where you can get up to like 2,400 calories

and you're feeling good and strong, then you'll have some room to cut. But if you try to cut from 1,600, you're going to end up just kind of less muscle, not feeling as good. Someone who's as consistent as you are, sleep balance like you are, strength training three times a week and doing as much pickleball as you are, we should be north of 2,400 calories before we cut. Even being just 5'5 feet too, tall? Yeah.

Because you're active. You're moving a lot. You're doing, yeah, you're doing a lot. I mean, 8 to 9 hours a week of pickleball plus strength training is a lot of activity. Very active. You're a very active person, which is awesome. That's great. But we need to fuel that.

and you were and you were starting to fuel it for the first time and your body is responding great you know it would help direct you candy that might be a good uh kind of compass for you because you play pickleball and you work out um if your performance is improving in those you're moving in the right direction like if your pickle ball is getting better and you feel faster and you got more energy and your strength training is is going great and you're getting stronger don't question what's happening you're moving in the right direction the body the body is the body is do you want will come from your improvements and performance. Okay.

But like studying the mirror and the scale is going to keep moving. It's going to keep you in this kind of maintenance, yeah, a place where you kind of maintain. Yeah. Yeah. It's the calories that I just don't know what to do it. Like I struggle with where they should be. Yeah. Yeah.

Move them back up. Yeah. I'd go right back up to 1800. Keep strength training. When everything settles, go back and go up to 1900 and work your way. Here's what will probably happen. Your weight on the scale may go up. get leaner.

Body composition is what is really what matters. The scale doesn't tell us much. And I know we have kind of like a date in mind, right? So we're trying to, for the weddings and stuff like that. Have you considered it's not a stressful thing. It's okay. You're doing,

you were in a really good place. You really just had an auto. You just overcorrected, which is super common. It's great that we're talking and we caught you now and not six, seven months later or whatever. Have you considered having a coach take you through that process? So when you have those.

I would love that. I just like and I was waiting to talk to you guys because I just there's so many coaches out there but I just don't I don't want to give my hard earned money to people that don't know what they're doing you know. We have good coaches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me have someone call you and then you can see if that's something you want to do so they can kind of walk you through the process.

Uh, and it's really helpful. Well, for those, because those things happen. Yeah. Right? We have those. And having somebody who's kind of watching. that and letting you know, Kenny, we're doing great. Don't worry.

Stay the course. Or, hey, let me adjust your calories a little bit, just like allowing to kind of them to get you there. That'll help out so much. Yeah, that's what I need because I weigh myself every single day, every morning. So I, like, if I start going up a couple pounds, then it does freak me out. Yeah, well, we'll see what the coach does. But if I was coaching, I'd probably have you take your scale.

Take it out. Or less frequently. Yeah, let's not weigh yourself. That's a, yeah. Don't worry, though. They'll take good care of you, though. So that's their job. Their job is to work with you.

Just so you know, just to encourage you, your body was responding really well. Really well. Really well. I know. It's so weird that it just stopped. It's not weird. That's just how it just happens. Everything was great.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, everything was moving great. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then I have never purchased one of your plans because before I found you, I just bought something. What would you guys recommend? would be the best for me.

Your coach is going to give it to you for free. Yes. So part of the coaching is they'll take you through, they'll actually not only put you on one of our maps programs, they'll customize it specifically for your needs. It'll be maps. Especially since you're doing pickleball and other things, they'll take that into consideration.

And they'll adjust your programming based off of that. So part of the coaching, that's all included. Okay. Yep. Okay, great. I have a couple more questions. Can I ask them?

Of course. Okay. And I'm sure the coach, I guess, too, but how quickly should I be progressively increasing my weight? Because, you know, I kind of started from, like, doing the same dumbbells in boot camps for years. And so I feel like every week I want to do more. And then sometimes I can, but then sometimes I'm like, I notice my forms bad, so now I have to go back down. And so how do I, how do I know when I'm not like being lazy and I should do

more weight. You do more if you can with good form. So anytime you can do more with good form, you can you do it. Yeah. So I think you're on point with that. That's a great gauge for that. And you're going to notice it's totally normal. And again, this will be stuff that this is some of the great parts of having a coach because you'll talk back and forth about this. Like, hey, had my workout yesterday. And for some reason, I just, I didn't feel strong. And so I had to go back away. Totally normal. And

then you'll have other times where you're like, man, I just felt so recovered and so rested. And a lot of this could, there might be interplay. going on with a correlation between when you do pickleball, when you strength train, how our calories are, how you feel when you go and lift weights. That'll tell the coach a lot. It would tell me a lot if I knew, oh, you did pickleball on Tuesday. We just did our full body workout on Wednesday. Your feedback from me was, hey, this is how I felt. I didn't feel very strong. I'm like, okay, well, we might need to bump our calories on a day that you played pickleball because we need to fuel all that activity. So I might actually adjust your calories different on different

days. So I might go, hey, on days that we play pickleball, candy, I want you to push your calories to hear because we need to fuel that so that when you go to do your workout the next day, it's not hindered because you're so low and depleted. So this is stuff that they'll teach you on how to modify your nutrition and your training and your rest, recovery, all those things with your lifestyle. That's part of what they, and then when you walk away from all this, you'll be able to take that and go like, oh, because you love pickleball probably. And you'll be able to know how to maintain and doing things you love and enjoy and also building the body that you want. Okay.

Perfect. And then, like I said, probably the trainer will tell me all this. But I had questions on how often I should change my workout because I'm doing like a four-week, three-day plan and I'm like on the third or fourth session of it. So I've been doing it for 12 to 16 months. Is it okay to just keep doing the same stuff? Yeah. So there's certain exercises that you'll be practicing for.

most of your lifting career. But the programming will probably, you'll probably want to change it every few months. Some of the acute variables, they might shift up in terms of rep count or rest periods or things like that. But that's your coach is going to work with you a lot on that. And we kind of tailor that into our programs already

just to kind of get ahead of it. But they'll teach you a lot of that kind of stuff when you work with them. Yeah, but it's typically every three to four months, you're going to have kind of a different direction. But there's this, you'll be a lot of similar exercises. similar exercises because there's some exercises you just don't want to stop, things like squats, for example.

Okay. And so it's early July. So there's no chance that I would be at a point where I could cut before into September wedding at this point. Don't think of it like this. Look at exactly what happened to you. You increased calorie, strength, train, and your body fat percentage went down. Sal said it earlier.

It's my favorite thing to say right now, do I feel like to so many callers is don't think about cutting into the body you want. Think about building into the body you want. You're at a healthy weight. You're, for your height weight, I don't need to change your weight. I need to just put some muscle in it. Replace the body fat. Yeah.

And so if we do a good job, we should build muscle and simultaneously be losing a little bit of fat, even though those, so I don't want your scale to change that much, but I can change your, I can keep going in the direction you were going where you went from 34 to 28, then to 26, then to 24% body fat. And you can never change on the scale. whatsoever, but at 24% I'll tell you right now, you will look radically different. So think about building into the body that you want. So we don't necessarily need to cut before September at all.

We could build into the physique that you want. Okay. Okay, that's fair. All right. Well, thank you so much for all your help. I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you being great role models for other dads out there. Oh, well, thank you.

We're excited for you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye. there's a very, very common situation. Everything's going great. The scale says something I don't like.

You know, overcorrect. That's why it can be so such a, such a doozy on the mind as the, you know, just taking that scale out makes a big difference. Just to recap, she bumped her calories, 400 or 500 calories, lost like 6% body fat. 6%. Yeah. So while with eating more. Which is a huge accomplishment.

Are you kidding? Which, I mean, we didn't do the math real quick, but we could sit down and... How much muscle she gained? Yeah. That's a significant amount of muscle. She probably lost 10 pounds of fat and gained 10, but now I would say like 8 and 8 or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smaller, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that's radically different and amazing and exciting. And then, you know, and to your point, you know, and again, we could sit here all day and try and guess what it was, but... It easily could have been a week where she overdid pickleball, didn't get as optimal sleep as she normally does. stressed out about something. Yeah, stressed out of something going on. Wedding's getting closer. It could have been something she ate that was off the menu that wasn't normal. Like a million things could happen to retain three pounds on the scale.

A million things. And then she corrected by cutting calories. And then I know how many clients I've had that go, this doesn't make sense. I was up on my scale. I cut my calories dramatically. And then my body fat percentage went up. He lost muscle. Yeah.

You lost muscle. That's what happened. You were doing really good. Our next caller is Jessica from Massachusetts. Hi, Jessica. Hi, Jessica. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks for coming. How can we help you? Well, okay. So first, sorry, I'm probably going to get nervous because I'm not. I talk to five-year-olds all day, not. You talk to us that way. Yeah, as you see, it's probably the same. It's not too different.

I just wanted to say thanks so much. I have been an avid listener since my son was, my first son was three weeks. sold, I found you guys. And I credit all of my births, pregnancies, postpartum's to your programming. Oh, wow. Thank you. Awesome. It's been like the most, the biggest blessing. So I really appreciate it. But I wanted to ask you guys, because I feel like right now the buzzword is reverse dieting. And I'm not sure, like, everybody's talking about it and how they attribute it to their body recomp, success. And I'm not sure how to figure out if I need to reverse diet or if what I'm doing every day, both physically and nutritionally is working.

And if I should just stay like status quo, if that makes sense. And then how do you reverse diet and like how do you pick that number? That's a good question. Let's hear where you're at and then also your goal too. Because you look very healthy and fit already. So I'm just curious like what your goal may be. And then tell us where you're kind of currently. at working out wise and nutrition wise.

Okay. I'm nine months postpartum with baby number three. And I am, I use the mind program. So currently I just started again doing anabolic and I'm doing it three days a week. And I do three days a week of conditioning training, which is kind of probably like your hip program is with a little bit of extra cardio worked in if that makes sense. I kind of do my own thing, I guess. It's like my time to veg out, not listen to my kids and just kind of do cardio, but not like intense cardio, if that makes sense. So I do that.

Nutritionally, I eat 1,742 calories. I aim for 132 grams of protein per day. I aim for 56 grams of fat per day. and I aim for 177 grams of carbs. I hit 12 to 15,000 steps per day. It really depends upon, honestly, how much I'm chauffeering my kids around and, like, kind of that the day. But, like, 12 is my daily goal,

and then anything other than that is just kind of greaty. I'm very active. I'm a stay-at-home mom to three kids, five and under, and two of them are boys. So we are on the go quite a lot. And my goal, honestly, is just to be the strongest that I can be for my kids. I want to feel really good every day. And I do.

Don't get me wrong. I do. Like, for being nine months postpartum with the third especially, I feel good. But if I'm being really honest, my husband was asking me this last night. I want to be slightly leaner. I know it shouldn't be all aesthetic-based, but I want to be slightly leaner for as much as I lift and as heavy as I lift,

I want to see it sometimes a little bit more if that makes sense, the definition. But I don't feel like I can go lower than I currently am without, I don't know. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You can't. Jessica, do you mind if I dig a little deeper? Sure. So there's a couple things. There's a few things. This is just based off of

training people for years and years. And so whenever I ask somebody what their calories are, when someone gives me really specific numbers for calories and macros, then I typically want to ask a little bit more questions. So that tends to tell me oftentimes that this person really has their hands wrapped around their diet and is really a source of control. Oh, yes. Okay, okay, okay.

So right out the gates without even asking your, information on exercise, although I know all that, I'd say we need to eat more. And I say you're probably afraid of eating more. And I know this because you tell me you eat 1,7402 calories exactly and 177 grams of carbs, exactly and all that. I will say, I have a hard time. Sal, you are completely correct. Yes, I have an eating disorder background.

Ed and I have definitely had a path. And I think that's part of why reverse dieting is intriguing to. me if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the idea around reverse dieting really is just, we used to call it a bulk back in the day, but we changed the name because nobody wants to do a bowl.

We get more inviting. But basically what you do is you're giving yourself more energy and nutrients with the intent of improving athletic performance, strength, and building muscle. Okay. Now, the side effect of doing that is typically a faster metabolism. And so when, and that helps with getting leaner. Okay. The other side effects of that are more energy, more vitality.

More strength. More strength. What you're doing right now with all the activity that you're doing and the calories that you're consuming and probably the consistency of the calories that you're consuming is your, you're kind of redlining. I feel that. Yes. So increasing your calories, you would notice a really nice improvement in energy and

and just being able to do everything in life. And you would build muscle just from bumping your calories. But there's an underlying thing here, which is a reverse die can also be very controlled. Or we can loosen it up a little bit. And that's just something for you to think about later on is, you know, you want to ask yourself, do you want to have a relationship with this where you always have to watch it? Or do you want it to feel more relaxed? Like, this is just how I live.

And the only way to do that is to get away from, the really super meticulous tracking. So not logging every meal I eat. No, that would be the long play. That would not be the next step, though. So the next step for someone like you is I would have you go up to 2100 calories right out the gates. And I would stay there and enjoy your workouts and your strength gains.

And when you're there for three, four weeks and you're feeling good, then I'd bump them up again. your activity level and everything that you're doing, you probably could sit around 24, 2,500 calories. Okay. Oh, definitely. Yeah, and you probably could sit there and you'd probably get leaner with more muscle. I don't know what the weight on the scale would do.

If you're going to gain more muscle than you lose in terms of body fat, might go up a little bit, but you would be leaner and you'd be stronger and have more energy. I'd also want to peer into the three days of hit cardio style. training slash cardio and probably make some adjustments there. How long of those workouts? Probably an hour. 30 minutes. Okay.

I don't have an hour to work out really. Okay. It's good. It's good. In a chunk anymore. That's good. Yeah, I can only work out for so long before they all come. Is it weights and cardio then that you're doing on those three days?

So, well, this is my type A personality. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I do just cardio. 30 minutes. Yeah. On Saturdays, I do a combination. Okay. So I'd probably get rid of the Saturday. I'm okay with like the 30 minutes of like like what we call low intensity,

steady state cardio. So like cruising on elliptical or whatever like that's running. Yeah, like a moderate jog probably. I wouldn't want you like pushing really hard on the cardio, but like moving cardio, that's good. But I'd probably want your weight training to be just your traditional maps. I don't want any extra weight training on top of that. Unless, yeah, you're over.

open to doing more of the trigger sessions with the rubber bands or mobility in between as well. That would be a good option for you. Okay. So like on Saturday is just sticking to my normal walks. Yes. Yes. That would be much better. This will allow us to focus on the strength days of really pushing strength.

Just so you build yourself up. If you do what Sal is saying by bumping the calories, we pull back a little bit on the extra weight training and we focus on the three days that you're lifting the weight training and really try and push the weight and get strong in those work. Like, you should see strength increase just from that alone. Just from pulling back a little bit on the extra strength training that we're doing, bumping the calories. Right away, we should start to move in the right direction.

Because that was my other, I had like a side question because I really plateaued. Like, I just did all my PRs last week before I started anabolic. So I could kind of see where I was at. And I realized that like my, I've plateaued. Yeah. Yeah, you're redlining. You're redlining. You're redlining.

You're doing the most you could tolerate and you're eating the least amount you can get away with with all of that. Increase calories will hire. A 300 bump is not even as a conservative. Like getting up to 2100 calories, that's 3, 400 calories. That's still conservative. Yep. If you did that right away and you were consistent with it and you did what Adam said with the workouts, by week two, you're going to see strength gains. Yeah.

And you'll feel good. Should I be keeping my protein then at like a certain number, like that 1.30 range? Or should that be mostly bulk from like? you can go up in fat your fats were low too i would i would push you and so easy because it's the 300 calories uh a fattier cut of meat is what i'd want you to do easy easy way to bump those calories so i don't know if what your typical meats are that you have if you're a chicken breast person a fish person okay so or if you're a filet mignon i don't know like so if you're a flay mignon i'd go rib eye like that like easy just i would i would want you to get fatty or cut meats if you

chicken I go chicken thighs or have some a tablespoon of olive oil or enjoy some butter on that thing. I would increase you through fats and protein based off of what you kind of told me where you're at right now. What were your fats at again? She was 50. 50. 50. Oh, yeah.

Oh, bump your fats. You're going to feel so much better. Yes, yes. Even for like a woman that's like. Oh, yes. I know that sounds so cringy, but like. Yes. You know what?

That's why I went that direction right away to you. I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to have you back on in 60 days because if you do what we say, you're going to blow your mind. Yeah. I don't think you realize. Yeah. Yeah, you don't realize it until you get out of it. Once you bump those fats and those calories and cut the activity down a little bit,

energy, hair, skin, libido, sleep, strength, everything's going to get better. Mood because right now you're eating like the bare minimum. And 56 grams of fat is, I never let my female clients go below 65. Yeah. Never. Yeah, yeah. You need fats. Fats are essential.

Yeah. Okay. And it's such an easy thing for us to get it that way, too. Just that'll take care of your calories. Just simply eating a little bit more fat. And I like going through the meat direction if you're already a meat eater. Very much. Yeah.

Just eat a healthier, fat,ier cut. And or add a little bit butter, olive oil while you're making it. So that'll help bump those extra 300 calories. Now the steps later, which later you're going to have to get to this place, is to move away from so much control around everything. But that's later on. let's have you do a successful bump in your calories and let you feel what that feels like.

What this looks like in the end is less having to move, okay, more strength, so much more calories that you don't ever have to track anymore because you eating more or less three or 400 calories in a day does nothing to your body. You're eating healthy, but you're just not watching. You get up to a place where you're eating 2,600 calories, and oh, on some days you might land at 22,

Some days you land at 28 without tracking, you can swing that much in calories and you'll be able to maintain your body. And it's relaxed. That's what I would, that would be my goal. I have a daughter. Yeah. And my goal is just to show her that. That's a good goal. I don't know.

That's a very good goal. How strong and healthy women should look and feel and act. Yes. Yes. So I need to get there. It's a great motivation. Yeah. It's just literally what it'll look like, Jessica, you can get there is you're just going to eat and you, for the most part, you eat healthy because you know the foods that you that are good for you.

and you eat when you're hungry and you don't have to count everything and you work out because you enjoy it and you just feel great. I want you to promise me something though, okay? If this does get really difficult because you seem very self-aware and honest is reach out and invest in outsourcing this to a coach if it gets hard because this is one of the more difficult things. Of all the clients. That was actually something I wanted to ask about as well if that was okay. 100% Okay.

How does that work? Is it all on virtual online phone calls? So it's virtual. You also use text and message and they meet with you and they individualize everything. You do. Yes. Everything through this process. And then they change it as you go along depending on, of course, what you're experiencing.

Feedback. With results, but also how you feel. And the more honest you are with your coach, the better they can coach you. So you're like, hey, I know you told me to. bump calories, but this sucks. I don't want to do it. You know, whatever. You just talk with them, and they'll coach you through the whole process. But we handpick our coaches, so they're all really good. Yeah, these are all trained by us. So it's, it's an extension of us. So the philosophy of how we reverse diet and the psychological piece and all that stuff is factored in when they're doing

this. And they're adjusting it on a weekly basis based off of the feedback that you're giving them. And that includes how you feel and what's going on with performance and if things are changing or if there's new stressors, like goals, whatever. All those things, uh, they're adjusting on the fly for you as you're going through that process. And so incredibly valuable, especially for my female clients that are reverse dieting, especially if we've been challenged in that area before. Because this is not with someone like you, it's not a discipline or consistency issue, which is most people's problem.

Most people can't be disciplined, can't be consistent. And so that's a huge struggle for why a majority of people fail at getting in shape. That's not yours. yours is getting out of your own way. And that's really hard to do sometimes because you can't like logically make your way through that. And so having that support. So just make that promise to me that if you feel that way to reach out and allow us to support and help you through that. But I want you back on in 60 days, Jessica.

We'll follow up with you. Okay. All right. And is anabolic okay for me to like that's a good. Love it. Yeah. Love it. Okay.

Yep. It's my favorite one. Yeah, good. Thanks, Jessica. All right. Can't wait here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

See you in 60. All right. All right. Yeah, just, I mean, for the coaches listening, when you ask somebody, their macros and calories, when the numbers come back, super specific. Yeah. You know that she's counting every single calorie. A lot of attention. And there's probably some stuff connected to it, which is the control.

But, you know, also, you know, big picture, 1700 calories that much exercise is she's doing exactly. the most she could do with that met of calories. And that's why she's plateauing and feeling burnt out. Our next caller is Ruth from New Jersey. Hi, Ruth. How you doing, Ruth? Hello. Hey, guys.

How can we help you? I'm trying not to be nervous. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate the time and the advice in advance. Thanks. So I'll just jump in. So I'm 55 years old and I have been chronic dieting for at least 15 years, which always worked until it didn't.

So around three to four years ago, all the things that I used to be able to do to keep my weight stable stopped working, and I just gradually found myself like three to four pounds above where I'm comfortable. So around a year and a half ago, I started meticulously tracking my food, even more meticulously and being more regimented with my lifting and progressive overload, which didn't do anything other than bringing my intake down to around 1,300 calories a day, which I knew at some point I needed to reverse diet. And I also knew that I needed somebody to guide me through that because otherwise I would chicken out. So last September, I started working with a coach.

and we increased my calories really slowly, gradually getting me up to around 1,800 a day. And he dialed in my training so that I was doing longer rest periods and pushing much heavier weight. And he really encouraged me to go to failure, which I don't think I ever really had done before. So everything was going pretty well in that my weight was stable and I felt like my strength withings was increasing. And I was getting, you know, some more definition. but then this past March, I started having a ton of gut health issues and my weight started creeping up. It's gone up steadily, a half a pound a month since March, even though I dialed back my intake a little bit to around 1,700 calories to try to manage some of the gut health stuff.

So at this point, I'm just feeling super uncomfortable in my clothes and with how I feel. but it's kind of hard to distinguish what of that is the gut health issues and what's weight gain. And you guys always talk about building into the body that you want. And so I was trying to do that and was hoping that by reverse dieting and lifting heavier, I would get to the point where that increase in muscle would result in better body comp, but an ability to eat more. But I just feel like I've kind of hit the ceiling on that. So I guess what I'm wondering is, how do I know if I just hit the limit of my reverse diet and maybe, you know, this is more than my body can handle?

And also, I don't know, anything else you would recommend on how to try to improve my body recomp, maximize body recomp without triggering more GI issues. Yeah, that's the issue right there, Ruth. So you moved in the right direction. You're going in the right direction. but the gut health stuff is getting in the way. And if we don't figure that out, to solve that, it's going to be very difficult to do any kind of a reverse diet

because as you eat more, the GI issues get worse, right? Is that what you're experiencing? Yeah. Now, you've had, you've dealt with this before because you said it doesn't feel like SIBO. You know what that feels like?

Yeah, I definitely. I did have SIBO. I guess two years ago, I worked with a functional medicine doctor to treat the SIBO. I did the herbals and this bifasic diet. And that did address Sibo. This feels totally different than Sibo.

Okay. And then in the past, how often or how many times did you deal with gut issues? Or was that the only time? That was really it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I would look at, I would look at you can get tested for Sibo or you can just treat

yourself for it because the herbal stuff is still quite effective. Have you ever been tested for parasite? No, and I know you've talked about that. I got a little scared away of the parasite treatment because I didn't know. I take other medication and it says you have to separate taking the parasite cleanse from that medication. I just couldn't figure out how to manage that. But my doctor also, my like regular doctor had suggested that it might be like H. Pallori. Could be.

Which I don't know much about. Easy tests. Okay. H. Pylore is an easy test. So I would get that test done. And if you do have that, you want to get rid of that because H. Pylower can cause a lot of problems. And it's an easy to solve as well. But we need to get to the root of the gut issues because we can't reverse diet. We can't go into trying to build because of the gut issues. And the harder you push in the gym, probably the worst that they'll get. And you can cut your calories and you'll have a reduction in symptoms from the gut issues because you're obviously not, you're feeding your yourself less, but that's not going to benefit the goals that you have fitness-wise. So we need to get to the root of the gut. If it's H. Pylori, that's that's, that's an easy fix. Okay.

So how would I know if it's parasites? Can you test for that or do you just do that? You can test for parasites. There's, there's a few tests you can do. Sometimes they don't show up, but oftentimes they do. That being said, in herbal, like, like Organify has got a good parasite cleanse, kit that's pretty efficacious. It's not like a pharmaceutical, but it's pretty efficacious. That was the one that I looked at based on hearing you talk about it, but then I couldn't

figure. I take thyroid medication and HRT, and I have to take the thyroid on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, but you have to separate the parasite stuff from your medicine. Yeah, about 30 minutes. Yeah, yeah. Take your thyroid 30 minutes later. You can. take whatever, and you're going to be okay. Yeah, because otherwise it messes with the absorption of thyroid. So it's like you drink thyroid with like, even if you drink it with electrolytes, it would influence its absorption.

So thyroid 30 minutes later, you could take whatever. Okay. But you could try it. So you could test for parasites to know for sure. Or you could do the parasite cleanse, which because it's not a pharmaceutical, I'm okay with people just taking it. It's not going to hurt you. And see what, but the symptoms of parasites.

are repeated gut issues. It could be bloating. It could be diarrhea. It can be constipation, irregularity. It could also be inflammation. It could also be just feeling a little general malaise. So the only way to know for sure would be to do a parasite test, but you could try the parasite cleanse without doing it to see if you notice an improvement.

But my whole point is, Ruth, we have to get to the root of the gut issues before we'd push anything with body. with nutrition in any direction. And so in the meantime, I would just eat in a way that feels okay and continue strength training. But reverse dieting is going to cause more gut issues. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's not going to help.

So can I, in your opinion, can I continue to gain? And I'm really, like, my goal was with gaining muscle is partly to get more definition and look better. Who doesn't want that? But it's more just about longevity and age. well and all of that. So can I, do you think I can continue to gain strength even without being in a surplus? Well, without being in a surplus, technically you have to be in somewhat of a surplus to gain anything.

Yeah. But, you know, 1,800 calories while strength training intelligently, I think you'll be okay for a while. But regardless, you want to get to. While I figure out the gut health stuff. That's right. That's right. Just any curiosity, have you tested body fat? Because I'm looking at your shoulders and arms and you look very lean.

You look fit. Thank you. I did get like a Dexa, which said I was 23%. I quite honestly thought that I would be like maybe low 20s. But I also didn't believe it because it said that I had like really low visceral fat. It said all my fat was in my arms and my legs. And like, if I look in the mirror, the opposite is true. Like, I have lean arms and legs and all my weight is to my middle.

So I kind of don't believe it. Yeah. Well, I'm telling you, because I could tell this from the video that you were fit. I figured, I had a feeling that you had just a little bit of a disordered view of yourself because you look really good. You look really good. And you, and if your goal is what you say it is, which is longevity and health, you're doing fine. You're doing fine.

And the gut health is the main priorities. Yeah, it may be a lot of inflammation in the gut, too. You've got good muscle. Trust me. At 55 postmenopausal, you've got great muscle on you. You've got a great physique. And 23% body fat is a place I'd want you to be. 20 to 23. You don't want to get leaner than that. Yeah, 20 to 23 is about as low as I would want you to get. Ideally, Ruth, what we do, just to paint a picture for you is you would kind of get to the bottom of the gut issues. Solve that. Then you feel good. You start reverse dieting again. Your body fat percentage stays at 23 and you gain some muscle. Yep. And that's about it.

And how do I, so, and I promise, I'm not, it's not that I'm super obsessed with the scale, but, but I'm feeling like my clothes are tight. I'm feeling uncomfortable. And I think the thing that was triggering me was that it was steady, like steady half a pound every month. Like that can't be muscle. There's no way I'm gaining half a pound of muscle every month, right? Ruth, half a pound a month is nothing. You can totally do that. Especially if you switch from group strength training to traditional strength training. You could shift in a night three to five pounds.

No, she's talking about half a pound of muscle. No, no, I know. But she's saying on the scale, she's seen a half a pound go up a month. That's nothing. That's nothing. I mean, especially somebody who's dealing with gut issues and has systemic inflammation going on. I mean, one day of extra water weight will fluctuate a pound. Ruth, stop paying attention so closely.

What are you doing? Half a pound? Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know what it reminds me of? It's like, I have family members. But it's each month. It's not just half a pound. I have family members that work in investments.

And they're like, Sal, stop watching the stock market in five seconds. It's driving you crazy. Yeah, you're too meticulous. Take your eyes off of a little bit. Yeah. But honestly, you figure out the gut stuff. Yeah. And then start going back on a slow reverse and just building muscle.

You're fine. You're in a good position. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let that be your North Star, though, is the gut thing. like base it off of how you're doing. Yeah, yeah, fix that for solve that.

For now. Yeah, just solve that because then the rest will come. You're in a good place. It'll be hard to try to build while you're dealing with gut issues. That makes it, it's a really hard barrier. Okay. All right. All right, Ruth.

Thanks, guys. And let us know, though. I'd like to hear if you do find out if it's parasite or H. Pilaria, I'd like to know. Yes. So let us know. Okay. All right.

Thanks. All right, Ruth. Bye. You got it. Doug, why don't you send her that link to the Organify so she knows which one is. Dude, I knew something was up. I know.

I was like, I'm looking at her shoulders and arms and I'm like postmenopausal 55. She's got separated. She got shepherd, huh? She's like 45. I know. She got separation in her delts. I'm like, where's your body?

You know, I tell you what, you know. I know. That's great. But, you know, just for people listening, if you have gut issues, trying to accomplish a body composition goal with gut issues, very hard.

Almost impossible. You got to solve that first. What I'm curious to, Sal, is, is she right on, on the, that cuss, right? And what's causing this stuff is she's pushing it. Is that she's, I mean, she's, I think what happened is, I'm guessing everybody, that could totally be wrong. But if she had CBO before and maybe some gut issues before, there might have been a parasite that she did not address, solve the CBO, because parasites can cause Cbo. And as she increased her calories,

she only got up to 8,10 her calories, all, you know, other weird symptoms came back. So there's something else that's happening. I could totally be wrong. But nonetheless, like, you know, she should be able to eat 18-00 calories without feeling gut issues. That's not tons of calories. No, no. No. She should be able to eat, you know, 500 more of calories than that. Yeah, yeah.

I feel okay. Yep. Our next caller is Angela from Washington. How you doing, Angela? Hi. Angela. Hello. You guys.

Thanks for taking my call. I've been following you guys for a few years and you've been a tremendous help to me as, like, professionally and personally. So through you guys have helped a lot of people. And I just really appreciate you by so much. Oh, thank you. How can we help you? Yes. So I'm just going to read my little write-up here.

I'm going to start with some background information about myself. So in 2021, I changed careers and became a personal trainer, which inspired me to set a goal of getting into an athletic body fat percentage range for women. So between strength training five days a week, eating high protein and intermittent fasting, I went from 25 to 15% body fat within a year. However, I now believe that in-body machine was probably a little bit off. So it was probably more like 28 to 18%, give or take. So I followed the NASM-O-PT model of progressive overload, taking myself through all five phases. And I progressed pretty quickly.

And then I got to my lowest body fat percentage, but I felt like it was too low. So I upped my calories averaging about 2,500 daily and hit at least, 150 grams of protein every day, but I got stuck at 64 pounds of muscle mass. I'm 46 years old. I weigh 145, and I'm 5'6. And in April of 2024, I started testosterone. I was actually pretty low. And then I only put on a whopping one pound of muscle before plateauing. So in November of 24, I started HGH, and I put on three more pounds of muscle. I've stopped food tracking, but I would guess I'm eating about 2,800 calories now. And I only do a 12-hour fasting window.

I eat tons of protein. I sleep well. I've cut my workouts back to four days. So a four-day split, one day of cardio, and then mobility and core every day. I average about eight hours of sleep and try to manage my stress. And but about stress, I started my own business. I offer Pilates, corrective exercise, and soft tissue work. So because of that, I've had to scale back my workouts in order.

to not obliterate my health and wellness, because that'd be horrible for business. Anyways, I'm struggling with what my goal should even be right now. I've been in this progressive overload mindset for a while, and I'm not sure if I've peaked. Maybe I should just maintain right now, which I have no problem with setting other types of goals, like mobility goals and things like that. But I have to say, I do feel a little bit disappointed that this is like the best I ever got. I never deadlifted over 200 pounds and I never got a full body weight pull up. So maybe just have to let those goals go.

Anyway, right now I'm sitting at about 20% body fat. So I'm not in that athletic range anymore. But, you know, at the same time, I'm grateful to God for my health and also for the privilege of being able to help others in my profession. I am truly a blessed person. But I could use advice about what kind of fitness goals I should be setting. what is realistic for where I'm at right now. And then I'd also like recommendations for cycling HGH. I've pretty much just been on it,

and I've only taken like a week off here or there. And then maybe there's like a peptide I could use instead. It's really important to me to keep the muscle that I've already put on. And I'm also looking for, you know, anti-aging stuff. So that's, those are my kind of my two questions, like what my goal should be. And then what do I do about this H? Yeah, good, good question. Goal wise, you're there.

Yeah, you're there. You're right. You're good. You've arrived. When did you start your business? My business started in January of 25. Oh, good. Good. How's it going? It's good. It's slow because I'm the only one doing, like I have some other instructors that teach Pilates, but as far as the corrective program. Good job. That's all me. And all the advertising, which is almost none, all that other stuff. And the stuff that I'm really not that good at, right? I never actually planned to start a business. Like I was a stay-at-home mom. most of my life. Like I had no plans to do this. It's just that when I found this, like, I just may become alive and I love helping people. Oh, that's awesome. It was great. Yeah, that's awesome.

Brandy was awesome. Did you go through our course? Did you go through our trainer course? I did not. Oh, my goodness. I went through, I took several NASM certifications, but like right now, I'm not doing the personal training anymore. Yeah, but you're totally different. So what we did was fill the gap that NSM didn't do. NSM does a great job of the, the, the, the, the the actually hands-on personal training and coaching aspect. Ours is all about business. Ah. So, like, right up your alley, that's why I brought it up.

I'm like, you are like the perfect fit for really reaping the benefits of what we do. Is that we looked at the, I mean, we weren't trying to compete with all the great national search out there. There are tons of great national certifications. What that we saw was, man, you know, what they do is they educate all these trainers and then they just don't really focus talking about now, how do you go build, take all that knowledge and apply it and become very successful as a trainer. And that's what we filled that gap.

Yeah. So you would love it. Angela, I got to tell you, though, you're doing a phenomenal job. And so you're at this, you're at a place. And this is a place that fitness fanatics or those of us that work in the fitness industry eventually will reach. And I say that because a lot of people struggle with just getting to this place. So typically, typical person, we're chasing goals, fitness goals, strength goals, body fat goals, mobility goals. goals. This just gets the person to continue to progress and move forward and they have something

to aim for. But if they stay consistent long enough, okay, if they do it long enough and they figured it out, meaning they figured out like this is something I'm going to do for the rest of my life, well, you can't keep chasing goals forever. If that were the case, I'd be bench pressing 5,000 pounds by now. Like at some point, squeezing for more goals isn't giving you more value or return. You're not getting more quality of life value. You're a bit of a business owner, you coach and train other people, you obviously look like you work out and you're very fit. So you've gone very far. So the next phase, which is a very difficult one to switch into, is to do it because you just enjoy it. You do it because you love it.

While you're like, I'm going to get better at this exercise or I'm going to get my deadlift up. Or you know what? I'm going to practice my pull-ups. But it's not life. Your life is your business. Your life is your family. And so how can that complement what you're doing, rather than making that this big goal. And so I know what it's like to build a business. I've owned businesses for years and years. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of mental energy, a lot of hours. You pour your heart into your clients.

You're in a similar space. So you put a lot into the people you probably work with. And so I would say your goals with, I'm not worried about your consistency. I'm not worried about your diet. You're eating good. You're fueling your body, which is great. You're not under eating. I would say, have fun with it.

What do you enjoy doing? And what that means is like, man, I'm stressed. What's going to make me feel good today? Or I feel like doing something that's different. Or I'm going to go do the thing I love that I love to do all the time, which is this thing. Just go and enjoy it and have fun with it. And I think that's the next phase for you. Now, we can try to chase goals.

I can say, hey, you know, you want to get strong. Follow maps power lift. And we're going to bump your calories. And we can do that. But I'm just going to let you know that that's running. It's running out. in terms of how positive it's affecting you. So you're getting kind of this place

where you're like, what do I do? I have a goal for you. My goal would be this, if I was you, would be how do I do as little as possible to maintain what I've done? In other words, I love where your calorie intake is. I love where your body fat percentage is. So my thought is,

what's the least I have to do in the gym working out and all those things to maintain this healthy fit body You would be surprised at how little you need to do. And so that's what I would be playing with. And then my training would look like, one way is say it to weigh salad and enjoy it is I'm training to optimize my business life and the other are priorities I have my life. So whatever else you got going on, relationship-wise, business-wise, things like that,

my workouts are to complement that. It's like I'm going to train to make sure it's like I'm the sharpest I can at business. I'm able to spend time with those that I love. Like that's what my workouts are to fuel that. because I think on the from the calorie body fat percentage, aesthetic play, strength play, you've found it. You got it. Like you're in such a good place on all those levels. And you've got this amazing business that you're working on building, which I know what that takes to build and scale.

That takes a lot. And so I'm looking at my workouts. This is how I look at my workouts today because this monster is a big priority to me and all of us is I'm doing as little as I can in the gym to be a fit, healthy, strong dad. I'm not chasing trophies anymore and trying to prove I can get down to 3% body fat or trying to hit chase Sal and deadlift for 500. Like none of that stuff is a priority right now. Like it's just do it at little as I have to do in there to maintain what I work so hard to get at while I go focus on other goals in my life that are as important or more important right now. And I feel like you're kind of there. What do you have the most fun doing with your workouts?

What's the most fun for you? So as you say that, I'm thinking if I'm being honest, I will, you know, head out of here, Adam's studio, and go to the gym and then think of extra things to do at the gym to avoid coming back to dealing with the details and the running. Like, I hate it. And I would, I love the gym. Like, I have friends. I'm happiest there.

So I will gladly find, even if I'm just doing like, you know, I've already finished my workout and I'm just looking for extra little things because I really love it. And it makes me really happy. Yeah. So if I mean, I don't mind reducing intensity on things, but I actually really like being there. Oh, good. Then go there and have fun. And can I give you a little business advice?

Yes. So the stuff you hate to do, right? Because this is what entrepreneurship is all about. You do a lot of the stuff you hate to do because you can do the stuff you love. I would find somebody to do that for you. You need to get in our course. You need to get that. I don't even know how to delegate things.

Like even if I have. Yeah. This is all the stuff we talk about. This is everything we talk about, right. Stuff that we talk about. Scaling a business. Big on law. It is, and I can tell just by what you've, you, uh, becoming a good trainer, right?

Getting fit, getting healthy, getting educated and teaching others is a skill in itself that very few can get to. You've overreached that. Then being able to take that and scale beyond yourself is another skill set. And then to scale that beyond that is another skill set. And, and they all require different things. This is all the stuff that we, we talk about in the, mentorship and coaching is helping people through whatever phase they're at in business. And this is what you for sure need to get in the course.

And you need to get a part of the community because there's a support. There's other coaches that are all trying to build a business like you that are all at different stages. And so we've cultivated a community like that of other entrepreneurs that are all helping each other out. You would benefit from that a lot. Get in there. I'll have, I'll have, I'll have, I'll have, I'll have someone call you and talk to you all about it and get you set up.

In the meantime, Angela, do you have, uh, because there's programs I know that we have that are beneficial to trainers. Do you have Prime Pro and Prime and? I did anabolic. Um, it was hard. I think it was anabolic. It was a little hard for me to do full body. Okay. Uh, I just love doing splits.

Yeah. How many days a week you in the gym? Well, every day. But like I said, a lot of days. I'm just doing, I'm on the foam roller and I'm doing stretches and I'm doing my customized corrective routine. So I do a lot of stuff where I like I do pay attention

if I'm over training. Okay, can I give you a three day split? That's not a not a full body. As long as I can hit legs twice a week, I will do whatever. Okay, then I'll give you the other split that we have. We have a new program. Yeah, give her up or lower.

I'm going to send you maps up or lower, but I'm also going to send you prime pro because that's going to be very valuable to you as a trainer. Okay. You like correctional exercise stuff? there's great movements in there that I think you can pull from. Okay. And then I'm going to have somebody call you about our,

just our community of coaches to help you build it. Because seriously, if you find a way to have somebody do the stuff that you hate, and the way I did it as a trainer was I had a client that I would trade, that I trusted, and be like, cool, I'll train you. All I need to do is do my books for me because I hate doing that. Yeah.

And it was like such an unlock. But our course has so much coaching in there for that kind of stuff. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then tips on the HGH. Oh, yeah.

I'm so afraid to let go of it because not only did it give me that three pounds of extra muscle, but I noticed I felt like I healed faster. I looked better overall. So I'm afraid to go off this little fountain of youth, but I know you shouldn't stay on it forever. Yeah, well, no, you don't have to go off HGH. You don't have to go off HGH. Love HCHH. No, people, yeah, look, again, I'm going to disclaimer, we're not doctors.

But we interview doctors. No, if you're on hormone therapy, you don't need to go off. You just stay on it. With HGH. I'm on the lowest amount. I'm on the lowest amount. With HGH, the lowest that you can get away with is better because higher starts to produce symptoms and all that stuff.

And so if you're on the lowest dose and you're working with a doctor, you just stay on it. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yeah. And it's better than the peptides that are like the precursors to that. So if you have a direct line to HGHGH, HGH, you have the best already.

Yeah. Okay. Because I did start taking the NAD also. NAD is different. And NAD is fine. If you feel energy from it, go for it. The biggest difference I noticed on NAD is actually when I'm down. I notice a difference when I'm like,

when I just came off of being really sick or something, then I really feel NAD. Otherwise, I don't feel NAD as much. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay.

And for the HGH, people generally do cycling and stuff like that. Bodybuilders do, but that's not the, that's not for longevity. Longevity. You can stay on it forever. So typically it's like you take whatever your dose is.

You take it daily. You might take a day or two off a week, depending on what your doctor tells you. But you just stay on it. Okay. Okay. Yep. Are you getting it from a doctor?

Yeah. Okay, good. I'm like, wait a minute. I need to ask questions. She got someone telling her to cycle this. Who's giving it to her? It's probably some bodybuilder. Thanks, Angela.

Well, I do have bodybuilder friends that give me advice. So. Yeah. They're going to give you bodybuilder advice. Just be careful. Yeah. Take that. The day of assault.

Thank you. All right, Angela. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Bye, bye. Yeah, she's doing great, dude. But the whole chasing goals thing at some point is like, you can't. Yeah.

Did she tell us her age? 46 or 47? She was incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She looks incredible. Yeah, she's doing great. But, you know, like, I've got a new goal, but I also have a business. But I'm also, and it's like, whoa.

Well, you know what I heard. We didn't dig into it. But I heard the distress of the business in the exercise. of a distraction from the stuff that... And business can be that way, you know what I'm saying? It's... And you could tell her branding looks beautiful. I mean, you just tell it like...

I can see all our certifications. Like, she's put a lot of effort into getting to where she's at now. And then this trying to break through this next level. Hard. Very hard. Very hard. It can be very stressful. And when you love exercise, it can become a nice distraction from the things that we need to do.

But if you want to be successful at business, you got to face that. You got to face it. Look, if you like mind... come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic, nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle 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.

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