Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2903: How to Build Bulletproof Joints (So You Can Train for the Rest of Your Life)

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

In this episode the guys break down six ways to build bulletproof joints — proper strength training, unilateral training, static stretching post-workout, mobility drills, hydration with high protein diet, and consistent sleep. They cover why joints actually strengthen rather than wear down with proper use, why MAPS Symmetry alone solves most chronic pain issues without targeted correctional exercise, and why CNS tightening after workouts causes the low back pain people feel hours later at night. They also get into a new study showing probiotics plus protein powder outperforms protein powder alone for strength gains, creatine reducing anxiety in 95% of postmenopausal women, Sal's return to jiu jitsu and the cardio humbling he's getting from a one-year practitioner, Doug's 4th of July river rafting trip on the American River, Sal's son's emotional breakdown watching the USA World Cup loss, and Adam going deep on the Vuori wetsuit situation. Then they answer questions from Instagram. MAPS Upper Lower: https://mapsupperlower.com Code: LAUNCH for 40% off. Male and female programs, workout videos, exercise demos and live coaching with Cole. SPONSORS LMNT (electrolytes): https://drinklmnt.com/MindPump Free 8-count sample pack with any purchase. No code needed. No-questions-asked refunds on all orders. Discussed on air — Sal swears by it before sauna and the study on electrolytes and migraines. Vuori: https://vuoriclothing.com/mindpump 20% off first order, no code needed, automatically applied. Doug wore their wetsuit for the first time on the rafting trip. Caldera Lab (Hydro Layer skincare): https://calderalab.com/mindpump Code: MINDPUMP20 for 20% off first order. Visibly reduces lines and wrinkles, firms skin, all-day hydration. 90%+ of users report visible improvement quickly. LINKS Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia SPOTIFY TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Intro 0:13 - How to build bulletproof joints — can joints actually get stronger? 3:20 - Tip #1: Proper strength training — data shows cartilage gets thicker with proper training 9:12 - Tip #2: Unilateral training — why MAPS Symmetry alone corrects most chronic pain 13:08 - Why the weaker side has to dictate the workout and why this is psychologically hard 18:28 - Tip #3: Static stretching post-workout — why your CNS stays tight after training and causes late-night pain 23:01 - Tip #4: Mobility drills — owning ranges of motion through active movement 26:26 - Tip #5: Hydration and high protein — lubrication, connective tissue and why collagen hype has merit 22:00 - Tip #6: Sleep — the number one recovery and adaptation tool 23:01 - LMNT deep dive — the downstream benefits, electrolytes and migraines study 27:06 - Endurance study: 120g carbs per hour means cyclists lose less than a third of their power 28:20 - Sal's jiu jitsu update — getting humbled by a one-year practitioner on cardio efficiency 34:14 - Doug's 4th of July American River rafting trip — wetsuit success and guide goes overboard 43:00 - Sal's son breaks down crying watching USA lose the World Cup 51:07 - Probiotics plus protein beats protein alone for strength gains 52:12 - Creatine reduces anxiety in 95% of postmenopausal women 58:22 - Q&A: One muscle group once per week vs. twice per week for natural lifters 1:00:27 - Q&A: How can you lose muscle and gain fat while in a calorie deficit? 1:00:27 - Q&A: Best home exercises to improve ankle mobility 1:01:39 - Q&A: What other neglected muscles and exercises should people be training?

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

Today's intro was 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness and muscle building. and fat loss and joint health. We also talk about current events in family life. Again, if you want to post a question that we can pick for an episode like this, go to Instagram, Mind Pump Media. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Element.

This is an electrolyte powder. You add to your water. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar. It's got the right amount of sodium. It's got magnesium, potassium to fuel your workouts and it tastes amazing. Go try them out. Try them out. Go to ElementT.

sorry, go to drink elementtie.com forward slash mind pump. On that link, you'll get a free sample pack of their most popular drink mixed flavors with any purchase. This episode is also brought to by Viori. Today we talked about their wetsuits. They actually make wetsuits.

So if you like to surf or get in the water, you want to stay warm, they're very high quality. But Viori also makes et alesia wear. You know who they are. It looks great. Last a long time. We have one of the largest discounts on the internet. Go to Viori Clothing.com slash mind pump.

that'll get you 20% off. We also have a brand new Maps program. Maps Up or Lower. It's a four day split. You're in the gym four days a week. Moderate volume, bodybuilding style workout program. And because it's brand new,

it's 40% off. Go to Mapsuporlower.com. Use the code launch for 40% off. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Mindpumpstor.com.

I'm talking right now. Hit pause. head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. So you probably know you can build muscle. You can strengthen muscle. But did you know you can build your joints?

Today we're going to talk about how you can bulletproof your joints so they don't hurt and you can work out for the rest of your life. Build your joints? Bulletproof. That is correct. Like grow them? Oh, yeah. So I'm glad he said that, Adam.

That sounds really weird. Yeah, yeah. So we'll start. with the first thing that has been shown to actually build and strengthen the joints. A lot of people think of the joints as these like these parts of your body

that get worn down just through use. Like it's a hinge on a door. Like you've got a hinge on a door and if you keep opening and closing the door over years and years and years, it wears down the hinge and it starts to become a problem. That's actually not how your joints work.

Your joints, like the rest of your body, like much of the rest of your body, adapt and strengthen. Now, I do want to say this, because someone's going to say, I know this for sure, someone's thinking or yelling right now at their phone, and they're thinking, yeah, but I'm a lot older now. That's not true. Like, my joints don't feel like they used to. There is like there is in the rest of the body. As you get older, your body does start to decline in terms of its ability to adapt and functional and all that stuff. So obviously an 80-year-old with healthy joints is not going to have the same kind of joints that he had when he was 20.

That being said, an 80-year-old with healthy joints has far better joints than the typical 80-year-old. And how they got those healthy joints is through a lot of things that we're going to be talking about today. Now, is that the same similar correlation as like with muscle for the comparison, right? Someone could say that, oh, of course, you know, when I was 20 and healthy. and fit it's not the same as when I was 80. But with clients, I've had somebody who's never trained until they were 50. Yeah. And at 55, they had the most muscle they've ever had on their body.

Yep. And so is the same true with bones? Can you at, say, 55 or 60 have the healthiest joints you've ever had that late in your life? You can. Yeah, you can. And the data on this is clear. So this is not like speculative. This is like the data shows this.

strength training in particular strengthens your joints. The cartilage gets thicker. The joint moves better through proper strength training. Now, the important part here is proper because, again, someone's listening and said, well, I worked out for a long time and I hurt my knees bother me because I used to squat so much or because, you know, my back bothers me because I deadlift so much. The problem that a lot of very consistent lifters run into, myself included, and I think everybody in this room, is we tend to push the performance beyond what is considered appropriate. And so we're not moving optimally and we're sacrificing that for the sake of lifting more weight, in which case you do wear down your joints and can cause issues.

But proper strength training, the data is great on this. It builds your joints, just like it builds your muscles. Yeah, to support that, even on like more these isometric training studies, they've shown that they can actually help increase, you know, the size and the strength of ligaments. Yeah, tendons. Yeah. Which is rad. I mean, people just don't think about that, I think, because it's the support system. It's like, yeah, well, you know, we'll do some stretches to make sure we can keep lifting heavy.

But if you're really like ahead of this and, you know, building that up alongside with your strength training habits, like you're going to be in a good place. Is there any good studies to show like the ratio or relation between like adding five to 10 pounds of muscle to like bone and joint? Like is like, you know what I'm saying? Like we can, it's much easier for us to measure the average person to go to go on a Texas scan and measure. Oh, I added 10 pounds of lean tissue or lean mass. You know, what percentage of that was actual joint or bone versus muscle? Is there, do we have any good stuff? Your capacity to build muscle

is much higher and it happens much faster than how your body strengthens, tendons, ligaments, joints. So gaining 10 pounds of muscle will strengthen things like bone and joints, but you ain't gonna gain, you know, you're getting 10 pounds of muscle.

You're not getting 10 pounds of bone. Yeah, of course. So it happens slower. In fact, sometimes athletes will get injured because... Well, I just experienced this. Yeah. Not that long ago, right?

Remember when I put on the 20-something pounds in a month, you know, of muscle, it was you know, the worst part about that whole sound. Sounds amazing when you hear that, right? Because, and it sounds like unbelievable, but when you have carried as much muscle as I

have and then I lost all of it, to gain it back is relatively quick and easy. What I failed to do was to scale properly and not actually, because of what happened was I got really strong, really fast. Yeah. And rapid gains. And built all that muscle.

so I'm thinking, oh, no problem. And I've deadlifted 500 pounds, so 400 should be no problem. And pop, there goes. I've always thought this is a big problem. You know, even growing up, like, and some of my friends are experimenting with steroids and, you know, seeing these great gains

and, like, they came on so fast. And, you know, inevitably we were, you know, playing football and, like, they were the first ones getting injured. And, like, a lot of times, like, falling out because of leg, and joint issues. Yeah, strength training.

Proper strength training. So proper means it's appropriate. You're training within ranges of motion that you own. You're picking exercises that your body needs to do to give you better movement. When you're doing that properly and right, your joints become healthier. There's less wear and tear on them. So wear and tear on the joints isn't because you're moving the joint a lot. Now, it can happen from moving the joint a lot if you over train yourself.

So if you do so much movement that your body just can't repair and adapt, then, yeah, you can wear things down. But a lot of the times people have joint pain just because they don't move in an optimal way. And so then you're stressing the hinge in ways that it's not meant to be stressed. And that's what causes problems. This is why, you guys know this, we train people for years. When I got good at this. So it's pruning.

First off, majority of my clients were middle age. Okay, that's just the kind of people that can afford training. It's also the kind of people that tend to hire trainers. So majority of my clients were middle age or older. All of them had some kind of joint pain. Some more severe than others, but everybody had some kind of joint pain. Everybody reliably had far less joint pain through strength training. And in many, many cases, none.

I had many, I had one, I remember one woman I trained. She was a surgeon, very intelligent, very educated, obviously not educated with fitness, but just a smart woman. And I remember when she hired me, she said, okay, here's my life. limitations. I can't squat to parallel and I can't do any lunges. I have bad knees. This was what she said. I have bad knees. I've had my friend who's a doctor look at my knees. I got conjure Malaysia under my kneecap. And she's giving me all the medical terminology for why her knees bother her. And if you did imaging, which she did, you could see all the issues. And I told her,

I said, let's see. I said, I'm not going to train you to the point where you're going to hurt your knees. But I've had a nice experience to know that oftentimes we correct movement pattern issues. We get stronger. People feel much better. Two years later, no knee pain, not just less knee pain. She had no knee pain. That's just one example of what this will do. So proper strength training, number one. Yeah, I had, it was cool because, you know,

sometimes like the staff, like, are curious about, like, some of these other things I'm into, like Indian clubs may spell training, like some unconventional things. And, you know, the reason I really, like, gravitated towards it was because it was addressing something. You just don't bring into the gym. Like, people don't move, you know,

with these types of rotational movements. there's no machines that are like, you know, obvious, like to do that. And he had like really crazy problems with his shoulder. And so we just kind of worked through some mobility moves. And I was showing him some stuff. And then I'm like, you know, you might want to try just this one swing. I do with the Indian club and start really low weight and make sure, you know, this is like a progressive thing that you're going to do to build up that strength and that movement pattern.

And he was just doing this over the few weeks. And he's like just tripping out how that pink. completely gone. Yeah. But it's a strength, yeah, like issues. There's a, you know, weakness there. I want to point to something because I say strength trained properly. The next point I'm going to make is related to correctional exercise.

So you'll hear trainers talk about correctional exercise often, good trainers. You'll hear us on the show talk about correctional exercise often. But correctional exercise is, workouts tend to be specific. Correctional exercise is even more specific. It's very specific to the individual. So when I give correctional exercise advice, on the show, general correctional exercise advice can be difficult. But I will say this.

This is a hack. And I knew this was a hack, but I really didn't give it as much respect as I should have. Ever since we created Map Symmetry, we've had so many people follow Map Symmetry, not do any specific correctional exercise and solve their pain problems. So what's special about Map Symmetry? It's mostly a unilateral training program. So unilateral training is one arm. arm at a time, one leg at a time.

So instead of doing two arms at the same time to do a press, I'm doing one arm. Instead of doing both legs for a squat or whatever, I'm doing one leg at a time. So unilateral training, like dedicated unilateral training, meaning this is how you're training for the next two months or three months, it naturally corrects issues because you're on one leg or one arm and you see the issue and you correct it and you try to adjust your form. So I'm going to add that as number two to bulletproof your joints. If you want to do correctional exercise, but you don't have experience.

with it and you're not going to work with someone that understands it, just do unilateral training for a while. Because a lot of times it's so elusive because you're doing these movements that require, you know, both limbs and, you know, these slight compensations that happen and you kind of favor a side, you don't realize it until you really take that time out

to isolate one. That's right. I feel like this is extremely common, especially if you're not aware of this, right? Yeah. I think, I mean, nobody is perfectly symmetrical left to right. No. And most people have a pretty glaring difference when they first get into weight training.

There's, uh, you have a dominant side or a dominant hand, a dominant leg, dominant arm. Um, and if you do barbell lifting, which we encourage and a lot of, a lot of trainers encourage people to do, you're, you're using both hands, both legs. And you, you could easily be compensating on the stronger side. And as, and as, and you progress, you get stronger. And so you get excited because you see more weight go in the bar and you're, you're, building muscle and maybe body composition is changing, but that discrepancy is getting greater and greater. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you sort of feel this, this pain. And so this was super common with clients. And many times, to your point, just simply running a cycle

of unilateral training would solve a lot of it. I mean, as great as correctional exercise is and all the things that we teach and talk about, sometimes it would be just simply that. Bro, I mean, 100%. I can distinctly remember a few cases where I couldn't quite figure out what the issue was. We did the correction. I couldn't really figure it out.

Still a little bit of an issue. We just went to unilateral training. And it became more obvious or it still wasn't obvious, but it corrected itself. So unilateral training, it forces you to be stable in your joint. It forces technique to be even better.

By the way, the body's designed to compensate. It's supposed to compensate. You're saying push this. off my body, one arm is a little more stable than the other. It's going to do more work because you're trying to get something off your body. This becomes more obvious with unilateral training. And the way unilateral training gets utilized in fitness circles is either A, because I'm isolating a muscle for bodybuilding purposes, or B, I don't. And so it tends to get thrown in at the end of a workout. So it's like, yeah, I do unilateral training. Oh, when? You know, after I did my first few sets of

these exercises, but have you done two months of only unilateral training? Yeah. And so. Super valuable. And it's so good for solving joint issues. So good. The other part of this, I think that is challenging. I remember distinctly going through this, both personally and with clients, is the psychological part,

especially if you've been strength training for a while. Not so much, somebody who's brand new convincing them how to do this properly, but somebody who's been string training for a while and let's say has progressed their bench press or their squad or their overhead press to a good amount of weight, and then they've started to notice this chronic pain

or this discrepancy. And so they go, oh, they take the, advice they go unilateral and then all of a sudden they realize when they do a single dumbbell shoulder pressed one arm could do a 60 pound dumbbell the only one the other one can only do 40 or they feel like i can get 15 reps with this one only 10 with the other one they see this huge discrepancy which is a good sign because that means that's probably where this is issues coming from the challenging part the psychological part where i think a lot of people mess up is allowing your your your weaker side to catch up by letting it dictate the workout that's right because you feel you feel like

oh my god, now all of a sudden I'm doing nothing. And also this fear of, I'm going to lose all this muscle that I built on my, on my shoulders because I'm now, where I could do 60, I'm now coming down to 40 to allow the weaker side to guide. No, the opposite happens. You don't lose any muscle you actually build. It's funny, I love the dextas scans people right in with. Oh, yeah. These are like experienced people.

They do map symmetry and they gain. And, you know, dexas scans are cool because it shows you right to left, lean body mass, upper lower. You can see it, like visibly. And they're building muscle to the pot. So, yeah, unilateral training is a great way. to bulletproof your joints. And if you've never done it, dedicate two months to it

or follow something like map symmetry. Next up, static stretching post-workout. So here's why this helps bulletproof your joints. If you have any instability issue, which you probably do, all of us do in some way, shape, or form, and then you do proper strength training. Here's what the CNS does during the workout and after the workout. During the workout, the CNS is allowing you to move,

but it's tightening things up to help protect. whatever issue it thinks is there. Post workout, that remains. That tightness will stay there for a while. Sometimes for days, usually for that day. So that means it's like if I do my unilateral stuff, and it's my left hip, let's say. The muscles around my left hip,

my CNS is going to say, stay tight, protect that joint. Now I'm going to walk around and be like, man, I just do the workout, but I feel kind of tight, doesn't feel good. I don't need my CNS unless I'm going to do another workout, unless I'm going to do something athletic.

I don't need my CNS to stay turned off. In fact, it would be better if I had my CNS turn off a little bit, allow recovery to happen, get old parasympathetic instead of staying tight. Static stretching does this. Every time you hold a stretch for two minutes, the CNS gets a signal that says relax. Release. And that's why when you hold a stretch after 30 seconds, you suddenly can go deeper. The CNS is, so static stretch post-workout in those areas you know tend to bother you.

So this may be shoulder or peck or lat stretches, maybe. maybe stretches for the wrists or the hands, maybe hips, maybe twisting stretches, but at the end of your workout is the best time. And like he says, overall puts you in better parasympathetic state. So it's like, that could be a limiting factor of like your progress and being able to recover faster as well. By the way, this can show up in unique ways. What I mean by that, this is a conversation I shared with you guys that I just recently

had with my buddy that we were, I was talking to him about his hip mobility because I told you he was having his growing and quad and stuff going on that he was noticing. When he works out, he feels fine. And he doesn't really notice it until he gets to bed at night. So a lot of times what will happen is, to your point, is you'll feel the body, the body will tighten up to protect itself. And it's not to the point where you, like, you feel locked up and stiff. You can't move right away or anything like that.

You go about your day. But it's enough of that locked up that there's overcompensating that happens all day long. So all day long, you have this subtle hitch in your walk. that you don't even realize that you have or you sit down in a car a certain way and that side's all locked. And then you notice when you go to bed or you lay down or you sit down on the couch later night

or you're driving in your car home from work or something. And you have this low back pain or this IT stuff that all or just out out of nowhere and you're like trying to figure out where did this come from? I felt fine when I worked out earlier today but because your CNS has still got you locked up all day and then all day you went about your day. now you feel that overcom.

It's going to show up later and many times show up somewhere not exactly where the issue is. Like his situation, like I'm explaining to him that he has weakness in his immobility or weakness and instability in his hip. It shows up in his back probably. Right. And so show up in low back, show up in his growing,

and it'll show up in other areas. And so a lot of people are like, it doesn't make sense. I didn't do anything to my growing or I didn't, what did I do today to hurt my low back? It's like, well, no, it's the weakness and instability. in the hip. You went in strength train. The body was trying to protect the joint. And so it was, tightening up and it stayed tightened up after your workout. And then it's been locked up all day

long throughout your day. You went about your day doing just normal movements. You lie in bed finally at night. And you're like, oh, my God, my low back is killing me. And then people translate that into, I have bad back. That's right. You know, and it's like, oh, no, we have a, we have a solvable issue. And, you know, your point of static stretching after a workout, one of the great ways to address it. Totally. Next up, mobility drills. And you kind of cover this a little bit, Justin, with Indian clubs. Yeah. Mobility drills, essentially, and there's, there are specific mobility drills or mobility movements. And you can look them up. We have a lot of these in like Maps Prime or Maps Prime Pro, for example, but mobility drill or performance, mobility drills,

essentially what you're doing is you're moving and challenging ranges of motion and you're trying to own those ranges of motion that you're challenging. So I'm moving my arm. arm or my shoulder. You know, let's say I'm doing a wall circle. That's an easy one I can communicate here. You know, I'm standing up against the wall, shoulder up against the wall, hand, palm on the floor. And I'm trying to go all the way around without moving away from the wall and

rotating my hand. And I'm just challenging the range of motion, trying to stay connected to it. And I'm doing these drills throughout the day. Now, what this is doing is it's letting my body feel comfortable with these different ranges of motion and connecting to these different ranges of motion. It's giving me better movement patterns or contributing to better. movement patterns, which then allow my joints to get stronger. Yeah, I look at this as you're expressing these different ranges of motion and placing

your body in positions you probably aren't in very often throughout the day, you're trying to increase the ability to recruit muscle to support that. And so to be able to add tension, be able to have access, to have strength in there, where normally it's pretty passive. Like I can only get there by just kind of placing my arm. in place, but I can't move out of it. This works on the ability to actually, you know, have access to that. So now, you know, you have less chances of, you know, injury or less chances of like, you

know, this instability and pain as a result. Yeah, totally. This is so good because you get so many other benefits. I mean, obviously we're talking about the bulletproofing the joints, but, you know, moving like this and having an isometric component to it like that is a great way to facilitate recovery, which is also a great way to build muscle. So while you're getting the benefits of bulletproofing the joints, you're also getting the benefits of getting stronger and building muscle, moving better, which is why we're

so pro, I think you hear us talk about mobility drills and priming and things like that so much is because there's so many added benefits. I know we're talking about bullfroofing the joints, but so much more you get out of that by including that in your routine. Totally. Next up, drink lots of water and you got high protein diet. So first off, dry joints hurt. And I'll say dry joints.

because I think it communicates it well. The lubrication in your joints is a lot of it is water. And drinking when you're thirsty will prevent you from getting really dehydrated. But there is something called, there is optimal fluid intake, which is typically more. So I can't tell you how many times, and I don't learn this until much later, but when I figured this out, it was pretty amazing. How many times I had clients increase their water intake and notice less joint pain? Oh, yeah.

And better movement. By the way, muscles contract better when you're hydrated, when you're well hydrated, joints feel better. Everything works better. And so here's what happens. If my muscles are not, like, optimally hydrated, they're not going to move as well as they can. My movement patterns are going to be as good. My exercise techniques are not going to be as good.

Will that affect my joints? Yes. And so water makes a big difference. And then protein, here's a deal. Connective tissue, ligaments, tendons, muscle, cartilage, protein. it's all protein. I mean, this is why collagen protein got so popular, right?

It was for this exact reason. And we've talked about this before. If you're eating adequate protein, then the difference between collagen or weight protein is negligible. But it got so much marketing behind it in popularity because of the benefits of having more protein. Yes. For sure.

No, protein makes a big difference. By the way, your skin is protein. So eating a higher protein diet probably give you better skin as well, better hair. Don't eat your skin. Don't eat your skin. That's frustrating. And then lastly, get good sleep.

So the number one recovery adaptation, you know, hack or thing that you do is your sleep. And so getting good sleep on a regular basis will make the adaptation process work well. The opposite is also true. Getting inconsistent good sleep will make adaptation very difficult. And your body will be not so resilient against the stress of exercise. And then you can start to notice issues from that. Yeah, yeah. I just read this cool study on carbohydrate intake and endurance athletes and also electrolytes.

I got to pull it up. I just saw, speaking of that, I just saw your video, your reaction video to the guy that was kind of like slamming the electrolytes. There's a big movement right now in the space because of how popular they've become. Anytime some gets popular, it has to be a like, it's so funny because I feel like it's the swing back and forth, right? I mean, even we were guilty of this, right? What, we, like, we, we'd, we'd talk trash long before about electrolytes because most everything out there, the Gatorades that were out there were just sugar water. It was just a bunch of bullshit.

Most people didn't need that. It wasn't helping anybody. It was all market. Yeah. And so, so even when we got sent, you know, even when LMNT was sent to us, it sat in our, studio for probably six months, maybe longer before you even looked at the packaging, I remember. There's, there's so many things to consider. You take the average person that eats a heavily processed diet,

they probably won't benefit from electrolytes. They're probably getting plenty of sodium. Yeah. And you're not really fixing much with that person just by doing that. But there's so much that happens behaviorally from electrolyte intake that also improves water intake. Here's what I found. Okay.

And I should have considered this because I coach people forever. But there's often these downstream effects that aren't necessarily, you know, You're not getting benefit necessarily from the thing you're doing, but you're getting the benefit from the downstream things that are happening. So I'll give you an example. I know, so Element, you mentioned Element. So that's an electrolyte powder, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners. You put in your water.

But it tastes good. It's hyper palatable. You know what I found with my family? They drink way more water because of Element. Yeah, right. So do they need the electrolytes? Not sure. Some of them work out and they'll benefit from it.

Do they benefit from the more water because they like the way it tastes? Yes. And it's not a bunch of sugar. So there's also that. Well, I think the biggest thing I think of is our audience. I mean, I don't know what percentage of them are like this. But if any of them are even remotely like most of us, which are probably and what we preach about all day, which is eating primarily a whole food diet, I don't, I don't get a ton of

sodium in my diet anymore. Even if you salt your food. Yes. And it's, it's so obvious to me. I don't even have to train, train hard in the gym. But because of the, my sauna and jacuzzi use, if there's a lot of. a day that goes by and I've been consistent eating my whole foods. I didn't eat out, let's say, the last day or two. And I go in there and I use the jacuzzi or the hot tub or the sauna and I

forget to take an element. It's not just I didn't, I have a pounding headache. Pounding headache. And one of those solves that every time. So you can't tell me that there's not some sort of a deficiency going on before I go in there and do that because my body has been at a point where it's taking all this sodium in. Then all of a sudden I go, on a clean whole food diet where I get a fraction of that. And then I go do something where I'm sweating for 20 minutes and temperatures at 100. Like, and then I'm getting throbbing headache. It's like, and it's happened to me so many times because I've just mindlessly forgot and

got lazy and didn't go grab one before I did it. And then it's like, oh. Dude, speaking of headaches and stuff, look at the data on using electrolytes for migraines. A lot of women, a lot of men too, but a lot of women in particular suffer from migraines. they bump their electrolyte intake, it makes a big difference. That's a big deal to somebody that has migraines.

If you're working out hard and you're sweating and you're a whole food diet, you know, here's how you know. First of all, try it. You'll know within the first couple times. Yes. You'll know.

You'll drink it and you'll be like, whoa, I feel better. It's not a supplement that you need to wait to use. You'll know, when I had clients that need electrolytes in the workout, and I know because I train them halfway through, they're like, oh, I feel dizzy and lightheaded.

Like, okay, well, you know, ask them some questions. Like, wait a minute. I'd give them some salt. And 10 minutes later, like, I feel way better. It's like, you needed some electrolytes in your system. So anyway, I got some, I got a cool study on, this is good for endurance athletes. So they did this on cyclists who were doing a three hour ride, okay?

Those who consumed 120 grams of carbs per hour, that's a lot, per hour. So they're just drinking it while they're racing. Yeah. Lost less than a third of the power they would have lost. on water alone. Wow. That's a big difference. Yeah.

That's a big difference for energy. So, uh, so carbohydrate intake while you're training, especially if it's hard training. Yeah. Makes it difference. It was gel packs, right?

Yeah. It makes it, makes it different. The goo or whatever it is. By the way, you know why people like the goo? I never had one of those before. I don't know.

You know why they like to go? It's just convenient. There's nothing special about the glue. It's just, the goo. It's just convenient carbs. Is it? It's just sugar.

Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. They put carbohydrates in there. They probably put some complex carbs in there as well. Yeah. It's just you don't need to have water with it.

Have you had it before, Doug? I have. You have had it. Years and years ago. Yeah, you look like a goo guy. Yeah. I did a lot of goo in the back in the day. Sucking down that goo.

Okay. Yeah, see, carbohydrates. So multilextrin and fruit dose electrolytes. And then sometimes I throw BCAAs in there. Yeah. So, but yeah, no, it makes a difference. And then the element, you know, so this, by the way, this is what I've been doing with with jujitsu.

So I've been training. uh, Jiu-Jitsu and, um, it's only an hour, but for me, it's a lot of endurance training. Did you go this morning? So what is,

what is, is it, um, because it's kind of a class setting? Yeah. Is it always the same routine like you, you go there, probably do a little bit of warm up drills and you guys roll.

I mean, is it like, or is it different all time? So different classes have a different breakdown, but this is a short one. It's only an hour. So we do some drills. So we'll do a technique,

drill it. And then we go right into, uh, rolling with each. So does that mean, so what, I mean, I have no idea of it. Normal class would have a longer warm-up workout in the beginning

and maybe longer time spent in the technique and drills. Does that mean your instructor expects you to come in kind of warmed up and stretched out and ready to go or like? Yeah, you probably should get there early and do a little bit of warm. That's what I do. You guys just do like a few drills together as like kind of warm up. Yeah, and the drills will look like, you know. It's like a technique?

Yeah, so it'll be like, don't let them pass your guard, but you can't use your hands. and then they'll switch places or get on, you know, side mount position. He's trying to escape. Your job is just trying to hold him down. And then they'll. So that's like a drill, you know, or it could be. And you'll do that for.

Oh, yeah, back and forth, which is also exhausting. Do they, is he, like, coordinating it where, like, you know, he'll tell you to switch. Yeah. Are you supposed to. No, they have timer. Okay. Oh, they do. Yeah.

So the timer goes off and then you switch sides and then you. How's your neck? I know that, like, you know, neck is. For me, dude, when I, you know, When I was doing like moist-eyed, the clinch, I remember my neck was stiff for like a week just because of all of like pulling. You know what? You know what's the big realization for me? I move better than I thought I would.

It's not great. Just better than I thought. You see you had the bar really low for yourself. But there's a couple things like that, you know, come to mind. One is, well, this is a big one. And this is such a great thing for athletes to understand. And just for people who aren't athletes. you have you can have general fitness so you can have endurance you can have strength you can have all

these great general skills but then there's movement efficiency that you only get from being able to move well yeah okay so like i get way more exhausted than i should i know how much because i'm not moving efficiently because it's been 20 years right right right how much carryover anything that's me interesting there's got to be studies on this like uh so two people examples right um somebody who does no cardio, and then they go on a one-hour kayak ride, how much cardio endurance is a guy who does none. Then the other guy runs every day. So he's got endurance, but he'd never kayaks.

But he's got an anchor. But he never kayaks, and he's got a kayak for an hour. I mean, both are going to get exhausted before that that out. General fitness will definitely contribute. Yeah, that's what I'm like, how much, though, not as much as you would think it would. Dude, you're just muscling things. You don't have good techniques. Well, that's it's like, that's why I use an example of kayaking and that's something

so simple as like, because I feel like if you were probably a great rower and then like say for an hour and then you ask that person to go for a run for an hour, you probably actually have a pretty decent carryover because there's less technique involved in running. So the more

technical thing is, the more specific I would think the cardio endurance would be for it, right? Yeah, there was this interesting show. I don't remember what channel it was on, but they had, I think Randy Quator was on it. And they had him hold a choke for a long at a time and they had all these sensors on them to see what muscles were tensing and activating.

And they were able to see how he switched. Oh, that was the science one. Sports science. You remember that? Yeah. They were able to show how the tension was getting moved to different muscle as his body was efficient at holding this position versus the average person. Compared to average person, yeah.

Yeah, dude. Lighting up all over the place. Yeah, dude. I went against this today. I went against this kid. He's like 20 years old. Young kid, great kid. He's only been doing jiu jitzu for a year.

and we're going together. And I'm putting in the positions that I should not be getting, like I should not be so exhausted, but I'm so exhausted. And I know why is because I'm not moving efficiently. I'm like holding myself there and like, man, it was pretty disheartening. Yeah.

I mean, it's going to, you know what? You're on what? Third time? It's only a third week. Yeah. So it's like a couple more weeks than I feel like it. And you are only. No, not a couple more weeks.

Well, you're only going. Six months minimum. Well, you're only going twice, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's why. I mean, if you, that's where, I mean, bro, you got to, you know this. You have, I have to, I have to weigh my ability to recover.

Yeah. With how much I can do. Yeah. I'll tell you the advantage I have now versus when I was younger. I'm way smarter. Oh. I'm patient. Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna go easy and I'll let my body adapt. What I used to do when I was done. That would just go and just go and burn myself. Talk about how long I said to do that. I mean, it's taking me that so long to become that guy in the gym. Like when I think about how I train now, like I catch myself sometimes like that now where I'm so different. where in the past, there's times where I finish a set

or decide not to go up and wait and it is so, it still is difficult. It's not as difficult as it used to be. Yeah. But it's like, where it's like, everything says I could totally add more right now, you know, but it's like, but I, then I go, why? Yeah, I'm not going to benefit me.

Yeah, I'm already going to get benefits from doing what I'm doing right now. I know I am because I, this has already been two and a half weeks since the last time I barbell back squatted and I can already feel like that that was challenging enough, but it's like my ego goes like, yeah, but I want to put,

315 on the bar. You know what I'm saying? And I know I can do it because I just moved 275 relatively easy. You know what I'm going? But why? Like there's no there's like I'm already going to reap benefits from that 275 that I just moved. And so it's taking a long time to get there. Like I think even just six years ago, I'd be really eager to put that 315 on the bar. I'll tell you what. It's it would be, and I'm just like you, and we have wisdom now because we've been doing this a while. It's harder with strength training than it is with Jiu-Jitsu. And I'll tell you why. With strength training is just me in the weights. In Jiu-Jitsu, I'm fighting a grown man. And so I'm like,

if I'm not careful and I go too hard and I move the wrong way or I give this guy, he starts to go super hard and he catches me and it's like, you just get hurt. So I'm like, I'm going to go easy, dude. I'm going to go super chill. Yeah. And it's still hard for me. Find your skill, dude. I still get exhausted, bro, I get that kind of exhaust. I haven't felt that kind of long time that, you know, that's where your stamina is like running out. Yeah. And you just want to die. He was like balking. Oh yeah, dude. I'm just like, what is happening? You know, speak of endurance and stuff like that, Doug, you once a year go rafting. You just got back from your, your wrapping.

Yeah. Is that like hardcore rafing? Yeah. I mean, it's class three. Top. That's, yeah. There's, listen, where do it's, it's, it's pretty tame. Really. You got a guide. Well, how many classes are there? Well, the five, I think is a top. Five is a top. crazy though. I think, yeah, I think that's... I've done three and four. Four is like, scary. Well, I mean, for you would be scary. I'm terrified of that. It's not that scary. You have a lie fest on. You know, saying you get a guide. You get a helmet. It's fun, but it's not scary. But it's a lot of work when you're in a, when you're in a, what are you in a, how many, how many are there? Uh, yeah, there's, uh, there were six of us plus the guide. Where do they put you in the boat? Where are you at? I was up at the bow. So you're at the bow? Okay. So they put, they put the stronger guy up in the front who's got, and he's doing most of steering. And so he's

getting commands. No, actually the guy's doing the steering. You're doing the steering. Excuse me. What you're, I mean, yes, but he's ruddering it, but you're, he's right, hard right, hard right, hard right. And you're back left, back left. Like you're, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, largely, lazy though. It's largely lazy. Is it? Yeah, I mean, so there's, there's, there's moments, remember that how much. So there's moments where you're, you know, you're definitely, you know, digging in. Yeah. And, but there's typically very short. How long is the whole rafting, like, thing,

the experience. Oh, you start about 10 a.m. and you get done around between 5 to 6 p.m. Wait a minute. The whole time you're on a raft, no.

Yeah. Oh, well, so, so there's a lot of different companies. So we were up on the American River out of Coloma, which is gold country,

um, here in California. And, uh, there's a lot of different companies, but the one we go with always, they, they do so much more than any of the other company,

companies in that you get to swim a lot. You get to jump off rocks into the water. But how long are you on a raft? I'll tell you, at least four hours he is floating on a river. Of those four hours, more than that. At least four hours, he's floating in the raft. Of those four to five hours that he's floating on the raft, there are like intervals where for like a minute he's going to be really intense.

Then he gets to cruise for a while. But, I mean, think about that. Constantly, like, minute, minute intense bouts for all day long. I'm going to tell you, today is Tuesday. I guarantee you we're sore shit. I am. I still. Still recovering.

Yeah, still recovering. Absolutely. What do you have, when you have to go to the bathroom and you're on this thing? Oh, well, so you do a lot of swimming. And so as long as that's all you need to do, you can just pee out in the river, all right?

Wow. It's a lot of fun. So you're putting so many calories. You're not having to poop very much. You pee pee, it's about it. You reabsorbing? Yeah, yeah. You use that.

You get fuel that he fueled up at 8 a.m. It's used up by 10. Did you, were you wearing the Biori wet suit? So, yes. So this year, so this year, so you jump in the river a lot. In fact, I couldn't remember exactly when we started getting in the river. So this year, what I did is I had bought two Viori wetsuits last fall. So cool they carry that too.

Yeah, like, how did you know they had those? Well, I was on their site, and I was doing shopping. And I go, wow, they have wetsuits. I'm going to buy these things. And I want to try it out in river rafting. But I was a little concerned about wearing them from the beginning of the day because it was going to be a 90 degree day. And, you know, you're wearing.

wearing like I think it's two millimeter thick. Yeah. Material. Yeah. And I was afraid it's going to get way too hot. So I wore a rash guard initially. We get out on the raft in five minutes and he goes, all right, if you want to jump in the water, jump in the water. And I go, oh man, I probably should have put this thing on earlier.

So I jump in the water. We all jump in the water. And it's, you know, it's up in the mountains and it's cold. Yeah, it's early still too. And you do this multiple times. sometimes you're floating down rapids on your back. It's a lot of fun. I highly recommend it.

But you're getting cold. And then by the time we had lunch, I had put the, I have like a dry bag. I had put both of my wetsuits in there. And so at lunchtime, I took off the rash guard, put on one of the wetsuits. And then Brianna's boyfriend, Thomas, I gave him the other one. He was cold too. And the second half of the trip was so amazing. I couldn't get enough of getting in that river.

It made that big of a difference. Well, a really good one will, like, control your temp like that. It'll keep it a nice, it'll be, you won't get too hot. You won't get too cold in it. No, no, I never got too hot in it, even though it was 90 degrees. Did you wear, they have a long sleeve one and they have a short sleeve one. Yes, I wore the short sleeve. Thomas wore the long sleeve.

Next year, I'm buying one for Brianna. They have a female one as well. So, dude, they have so, just and I were on their side earlier. Yeah. And we were talking about the jackets because that was like my last purchase was their jacket that I love. They have so many like lightweight, cool, stylish jackets.

There's a lot of stuff on their website that you don't see in the store. No. And, you know, we get sent stuff. So I just assume, oh, we go in the store. We do ads for them. Like, I'm seeing most of it. I don't even see a fraction of how much cool stuff they have.

It's funny because like it's almost like you got to go there. I was playing a trip out to Scotland and Iceland. and I was like, I wonder if they have like a rain jacket, you know? And then I just look, and there it was. And it was like, perfect. The same thing. It was like super lightweight and it just repelled water. And I was, you know, perfectly warm.

You guys, you guys couldn't pay me to do rafting. Really? It's so crazy because. Especially you gave you little water wings. A three isn't that scary. So here's the thing. How many drops did you have that they consider? Because the way they consider it is so a three will have a certain amount of like drops or

or fast pace. Like, how many total do you think you had in a day? I mean, like, class three ones, maybe, I don't know, five. Not so many. So only five times in the day will he have something that was like a probably a little drop off or it picks up the current around a corner and some rocks? And at three, it's not that four. Four, I remember we had a couple like, I had a really get after.

I've never been higher than a four. Five is like crazy. You're a great swimmer. You both are good swimmer. You don't have a light vest and a helmet on. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you don't even need to work. your water.

You don't need to worry about going into the water. We've never lost anybody with a good guide. I told you the story. We've lost our guide before. So I've been on, so a four is aggressive enough that you can hit some rapids and there's some boulders. You get a maneuver around.

And we hit a bump so bad that it launched him off the back. And I was doing the front. And I didn't hear my commands anymore. And so, and I'm like so into it trying not to hit the rock coming up. And I'm paddling and I look back and there's my guy. floating down and he's trying to yell come on. I mean, eventually we get, we hit it, we hit the side, boom, and the front of the boat got

stuck, and then he worked his float in his way, and then climb back in, and then we all pushed back off the rock. Just to let you know how easy it is, though, is Brianna started when she was eight years old. Okay. Yeah. And, um, just making me feel bad, but I'm not going to do it. I feel like, I feel like we've, especially if we did like a three first, you, uh, there is more downtime and cruising than that.

I see little children in rafts. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that bad. Yeah. I'm trying to. Yeah, one time, one time. Do you pull up a picture of a class five rapids?

Why? Because I just want to see it. I just, I've thought about it a long time. I've done one in a long time. You know what this makes me feel like one time I was on this hike. I'll never forget. It was this gnarly hike, dude.

And I was going up and I was with my cousin and we were hot and we were like really trucking. And we were doing it for a while. And this woman with a baby in a baby Bjorn just walks by us. That's how I feel right now. So there's, So I got a cool picture, Doug, of me in a kayak on a good, so I think we had one part. I forget it was called the devil's mouth or something like that. And all you see is white water going down.

Devil's butthal. They're always crazy names like that. That's crazy. Hey, dude, I got speaking of kids, dude, did you guys watch the video I sent you of Aurelius? Oh, getting emotional over the soccer game? I don't like, oh. You're so lucky, bro. Listen, listen.

That's why I sent it because I knew you guys would get a kick out of it. Oh, that's a cool guy. Actually, there's six. There's a level six. I know that. Five was he, is six illegal, though, to go on? I don't know. I think, I don't know.

I think there's certain ones that you can't, you're not even, like, it's illegal to go on. That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. So, so we don't watch. Unrunnable. Yeah. Okay. I see six is unrunnable.

So we don't watch sports at home. You guys know, I don't watch sports. I don't even watch sports. I don't even have a subscription to watch sports. It's not a part. of our life. It's not a big deal. We do other things. I never played really a lot of, I played as a kid, but I didn't play in leagues and stuff like that. I did judo as a kid, wrestling, lifted weights, but no traditional. So it's just not a part of our family culture at all.

Anytime something is on TV, football, soccer, doesn't matter. And part of me is like, is it because he heard me, you know, make a comment on this? The first time he did it, he loved it and I made a comment. You know, sometimes you say something your kid wants to impress you. Yeah. But he loves it. So I get the World Cup because USA is playing the sucks that they lost, but they're playing. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to pay for this month and I'm going to watch, we'll watch the World Cup.

So I put it on immediately. A Reilly's like, super into it. Oh my God. Thanks, Bapa. Thank you. This is going to be so fun. Super into it. And I'm looking at Jessica and like, is he faking it?

Like what's going on? Which team is ours? I'm like USA. USA is ours. So we start doing USA. You start chanting. Yeah. Then they start to lose.

Bro, he's crying. He's, no, no, he's upset. He's emotionally invested, dude. I had to turn it off. He got so upset that they were losing. Why are we losing? We did the win. He's like crying.

And I'm like, is he for real? And at one point, I was a little mean to him. I'm like, dude, I'm going to give you a word for acting. There's no way you're this sad. And Jessica looks at me with this angry look and shit. You think he's been thinking it this whole time? He's like tears. And he's upset.

Bro, it's in some kids. It is in some kids' DNA, bro. We had all the kids over for Max's birthday. You don't have that big ping pong. Taylor, right? And my buddy, his three-year-old son. And we're the three dads, we were out there sitting outside the barbecue, so like that. And his wife comes in and she goes, you, you need to go take care of your son. I've been playing ping pong with him for the last hour and he will not give me a break. He's three. And he just, like, he just loves it. Just wants to figure out of it. But doesn't

know what he's doing it was just trying to figure it out and so determined at three years old. I can't bribe my son to play ping pong with me. Like, I just, just, you know, just, you know, he's doing it. I just, I tried to try to buy him with Legos to play ping pong with me for, you know, 10 minutes. And then he's like, I'm over, Dad, like I don't want to do anymore. So some kids are just... But the watching part is crazy to me. Yeah, but that same kid will watch... That same kid, his son, who's three, will watch football with him all day long and just...

He's got this, like, ultra competitive thing inside of him with it comes to that stuff. And he gets really... Do you know if you were like that when you were little? Yeah. You were. 100%. You can draw back to... Watch all...

Every sport. Played it. every sport, like eight slept and breathed it, dude. Yeah, it was crazy. It was like, it's such an outlet for me, though. Like, that was like the main thing that got me out of the house. And so, yeah, anytime we'd hang out, it was like, we're playing basketball, we're throwing the football. We're bringing the soccer ball to the beach, like, whatever. Like, I don't, that was the thing. Like, people go and, like, the beach and they chill and, like, they lay out and all that. You were there to play? Never. Yeah. Never, like, like, chill it.

Yeah, my furthest memory is, how old are you in third grade? What are you in third grade? what are you in third grade seven yeah third nine uh maybe eight or nine eight or nine eight or nine so my my furthest back is eight or nine uh watching baseball and i instantly became uh like and it was our i'll never forget because it was our my family didn't watch sports either and it was my friend who was like a few houses down his dad was like a diehard dodgers fan and watch all the baseball games we go there and i was drawn to watching it and then became this big baseball nut and instantly started collecting cards, memorizing all the players.

I remember my parents used to bring me out in the living room because they were not into sports at all. They thought it was so fascinating that their friends could come over and you could quiz me on, who plays right field, who plays stuff? And I knew,

I knew all that. What's his batting? I knew all these stats because I had my handful of cards and studied them and knew all, I didn't really get into it. Just into it. Yeah, some of them, it was really going there.

Like, that really solidified it for me. So, like, especially with baseball, because so growing up, like, behind my parents' house, the Lefevers, I don't know if you know, Jim Lefevre was like the third base coach for the A's at the time. Then he was like the general manager for Seattle and then also like the Cubs in Chicago. But we used to babysit as kids. And so, you know, we'd go to the games and we'd sit with the players' wives. And then like for the 89 series where the A's played the Giants, like we actually got to go.

into the dugout and I got like Mark McGuire, like Joseco, everybody to sign this ball and it was just like my eyes were like this big. Well, so what I'm thinking is I'm thinking about taking him it's like a bonding experience to go to like maybe a Sharks game or like a minor league. And just go. The only thing that I'm worried about is I'm telling you guys.

Like he got really upset. So I'm like, like, I'll work through it. Dude, that's the thing about it. It's such a passionate experience. Like sports is like It's the microcosm It's like everything Intensified all at once

And then you work your way out of it It was so funny What's wrong with them? Why can't they win? It's in you or it's not in you I mean it's like it's in intense He cares dude I'm hoping that he gets into

The stuff that I enjoy like wrestling Jiu-Jitsu that kind of stuff I would be such a dream I mean the way everything's playing out I feel like it's just not how it works He's just not how it works He's a little baseball He'd be in the conventional sports

Hey dad throw the ball with me I don't know how to throw a ball Run your own. Call your uncle Adam. No, I'm super, I'm super jealous. I mean, you can just tell you, your son's that way. He throws a ball, he hits a ball that way. He shoots a gun already like that.

I mean, he's just, he does all these things that are just, and he's natural on it. I mean, I mean, I'm obviously you're a good dad. You do these things with them, but it's not like you've been training him to be. Never. He just is into it. Yeah. And to Justin's point, like you just automatically are passionate. about it's weird.

Bro, that intensity that he had, like, that was our intensity. Even when I was a high school and calling it, like, those important games, like, you're just like, it's everything. That's your whole world. Yeah. It was really funny to watch. And I was like, what the, Jessica is the one that recorded it. I mean, I hope it turns you into someone who ends up really appreciated that.

I'll be into whatever he's into. Because I know how, exactly. I know how you get. You don't do anything half-ass, and you do get very. obsessive and anything. And so it's going to be cool to see when it, like, right now it's so early, it's like it's more play. But, you know, if your son really gets into it and like it pulls you in,

to hear you get into any sport, like, like, that'll be fun for us. That'd be a nice evolution for us. It'd be a nice evolution of mind pump, you know what I'm saying? You get to finally talk, talk sports, you know what I'm saying? It's so like, so what I think about, because everybody always, I always talk to my other good friends. It's wild to me. I have best friends that go back.

30, almost 40 years now that we go back. And it's always great to catch up and see them. But I have now spent more time with you guys than anybody. Yeah. Even my friends that I say are 30 year plus friends. I would say you guys actually know me better. Yeah. You know, because you know all the stories of when I grew up and then you know me now

on a level, on a daily level. So it's like so wild. But I have that part with them that I don't share with us is that we're, we're so, a big part of my life was sports. And so a lot of the conversation is around that. And so that's what we miss the three of us. We don't talk a lot about that stuff here. So see, you go down that direction would be like, way cool.

Oh, yeah. We've got a lot to contribute to the if and when. I got one more study to bring up and just a short one, but it's pretty cool. And I've talked about this on previous episodes, but I think probiotics are going to be the next performance enhancing supplement trend. because more and more studies show that they help with performance. So they did a study where they had groups of men taking protein powder versus groups of men that took protein powder with probiotics. That's the only difference.

So is it the recovery that they're finding is the biggest benefit to that? Well, in this study, they were stronger. They were stronger. They were stronger. They got better strength results. Wow. The only difference was the probiotic. And there's studies that show it helps with fat loss.

helps with inflammation, it helps with strength. There's a study that shows that it contributes to maybe muscle growth. And it's good for you. It's like one of those. That's a healthy supplement. Like, probiotics, go for it. It's pretty wild. Did you, I sent you a study.

I can't work. I think you've brought it up on the podcast. Yes. Have you brought that up on the podcast? I have. I don't know. I mean. Five grams of creatine in post-menopausal women,

dramatically reduced anxiety. 95%. Saw a reduction anxiety. Yeah. 95% pretty much everybody saw a reduction in anxiety if you're not taking creatine I know you need to take creatine monohydrate you need to take creatine it's so good for you it's got so many benefits I thought that was that was just powerful I know I've heard you for sure

allude to that I couldn't remember if you had actually addressed that study or now but I thought wow that was that's a dramatic number yes for a supplement that's like healthy yeah it's not a drug it's like it doesn't matter your goal whether you want to build muscle not what if that you should take that I mean Everybody. Yeah, because if 95% of women say that they felt a reduction in anxiety just from five grams a day, that's worth it. It's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome.

Caldera Labs hydro layer is amazing. What does it do? It visibly reduces lines and wrinkles. It firms and tightens your skin, and it minimizes the appearance of pores. It also evens skin tone. It's all-day hydration. It's non-greasy. It absorbs instantly.

Now, a lot of people like to use retinal. but that's aggressive and can cause peeling and skin irritation. The hydro layer is different. It's anti-aging. It reinforces the skin's natural moisture barrier, and it supports the microbiome on your skin. It works exceptionally well. In fact, they've done studies on people using Caldera Lab products,

and a majority, vast majority, 90% or more, notice visible improvements in a very short period of time. Caldera Lab is the only skin. care product we work with because they're natural and they really do work. They make your skin healthier. They don't just create healthier-looking skin. It actually makes it a lot healthier. Go check them out. Go to caldera lab.com slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump 20 and get 20% off. Back to the show. Our first question is from Muaz B95. Which training split is effective for natural lifters,

training one muscle group once per week or twice per week? Twice. Yeah, twice. So they do great studies on this. And training, now, I want to say this, the volume is the same in both examples. So what I mean by that is what sometimes people do is they say, oh, cool, I'm going to work out my, let's say my chest twice a week. And so they just double the workload. So I already do my workout on Monday.

I'm just going to do it again on Thursday. That's not how this works. The way that it works is you do the same volume, you just split it up. Okay. And what they find in the data is people build more muscle and build more strength doing this. And part of the reason is it reduces fatigue. Fatigue influences subsequent sets within a workout, which means you're going to get less of that strength adaptation. And the second reason is that muscle building signal is being sent more frequently.

And muscle building really peaks after about 24 hours, stays elevated for two or three days and then goes back down. So instead of doing 10 sets for chest on Monday, you're better off doing five on Monday and five. on Thursday you'll get better results. Well, not only that, but you also, even though, so the studies control volume, but in a real world, even when you make the equal amount of sets and reps, volume's higher. Volume naturally goes up. Because you're stronger.

So that just shows you how much better two times a week becomes because it already has this built-in progressive overload into it. In other words, to Sal's point, if you're somebody who always just did like one day a week, you did the 10 or 12 sets of whatever muscle group, and you now split that over two. still only doing 10. Don't go anymore. Because what will naturally happen is those five and five look different now. You're stronger.

Just like maybe the first five on Monday looks the same because you were fresh on Monday and you did five. But the second five, which would have followed those first five, you're obviously weaker. But when you put a day or two in rest in between and then you go up and do it again, you're going to be fresh again. So it's going to look like those first five. And so what does that naturally allow you to do? Increase the weight. Increasing the weight increases the volume. So even in the studies that show volume controlled, it's better.

We know that or just organically, you're going to increase volume, which is going to increase muscle mass. 100%. I will add this. This can get extreme and it works even in extreme cases. So this doesn't work for most people because most people don't have a schedule that would allow anything like this. But you look at studies where they divide up the volume even more, where instead of training

a muscle group once a week, they train it five days a week and divide up. the volume. Or they divide a beat of a more twice a day and they divide up the volume. So it's just more frequent. It's better. I was going to bring up our 15 minute protocol. It's like a split. You know, for a natural lifter too, to be able to have that kind of recovery and like eliminate fatigue completely. You're just skill training in a sense of practicing and like, dude, watch how strong you get all that. Next question is from Anika, AJ. What can cause muscle loss accompanied need with fat gain while in a calorie deficit and following a structured strength training program.

So this is easy, easy or I should say reliably what will happen if you're in too much of a deficit. So whenever you're taking less calories than you're burning, your body's goal is to match the energy intake with the energy output. In other words, it wants balance because if you stayed in a deficit forever, you would die. In other words, if you burn 2,000 calories a day and you wait 1,000 calories a day and your body always burn, 2,000 calories, and you always ate at a thousand. At some point, you're going to die because where are you going to get that extra energy? Your body's going to start pulling it from itself and that stuff. But that's not what happens. What happens is your body learns to burn less calories to match the new caloric intake. And one of the ways it does is it pairs muscle down because

muscle costs a lot of energy. And so when you go in a deficit, I don't care if your strength training great. Usually what happens people overtrained with their strength training on top of it is your body is adapting and it's losing muscle because you're taking in two little calories. So this will happen. This happens to people who are advanced who know what they're doing. They'll go in a deficit and they'll lose weight on the scale and then realize their body fat percentage went up because they lost muscle. The name of the game with a calorie deficit is keep muscle. That's the name of the game. Can I preserve muscle? And if you don't, then you better lose more body fat than you lose muscle. But the best thing is to not lose any muscle. Well, and if you

actually gained fat, you're technically not in a caloric deficit. anymore. So what has happened is what you're alluding to right now, which is you, what used to be a calorie deficit for you. So let's take the example of you used to eat 2,000 plus calories, and then all of a sudden you decided to go on this really strict diet and cut yourself down to 1,200 calories. And so you're quote unquote in a deficit initially. And that's such a dramatic deficit paired with your exercise. You just start pairing muscle down like crazy. And what eventually happens is you pair down that muscle, metabolism slows down. And now your calorie intake. is now maintenance. It's no longer a deficit. And so all it takes is you eating, say,

1,400 calories or a little bit up, and you gain fat. And that's what's how, because you can't gain fat in a deficit. You're not, you can't. You're technically, if you're in a true deficit, you're catabolic, you're not going to build muscle or fat. And so, but if you actually see on, like, let's say, a dexas can or a body fat test that you added fat pounds, then you no longer in a deficit. Now, that being said, Adam, you can be in a deficit. and go up in body fat percentage? Yes. Well, yeah.

That's different. That's because that means you lost, let's say, you could see 10 pounds go down on the scale and nine of it was muscle and one of it was fat and your body fat percentage will go up. That's right. Which somebody will interpret that is, how is this possible? I'm in a calorie deficit and I gained fat. You didn't gain fat. You just lost so much muscle in relation to the fat that you went up in body fat.

The ratio went down. Next question is from Matthew with faith. What are some exercise? I can do at home to improve ankle mobility. You know, my two favorites are the combat stretch and sitting in a deep squat and bringing my knees forward while I do it. I have...

He elevated squat, too. I have not found anything to be more effective for me, at least with ankle mobility. Combat stretch, dude. I'm such a... It's so easy to do at home. Sitting on your... sitting on your floor, watching TV.

Drive that knee forward. Yeah. And then once you get to a place, because then after that, it just becomes practicing sitting down there. Like, it took a long time for me to get here but once I got to the place

where I could comfortably rest in a deep squat I just I mean when my son is playing Legos on the floor I often sit in a squat and I'll for 10, 15 minutes in that position and I'll play with them and just doing that will keep that ankle mobility

up so although I had to do a lot of combat stretching to get there and working on it once I got to the place where I could get down in that and comfortably hold that then it was just a matter of doing that to maintain that. And now I never do combat stretch. I can't tell you the last time I did a combat stretch.

You maintained it. Now I just get down in a deep squat and do that and that maintains it. Next question is from Stephen Harwood 91. In a recent episode, you guys mentioned doing tibialis races for shin splints and making

your lower leg look bigger, etc. It's an exercise I've never done or even thought about really, but I'm loving them. Just wondering what other body parts or exercises are commonly overlooked or certain muscles that rarely get trained that should be getting trained. Oh, I love this question. Good question. I love this. Off the top of my head. I got a bunch off of my head. Internal and external rotation of the shoulder and internal external rotation of the hips. So what does that mean? So, so if my arm is at my side, so if you're listening, my arm's at my side, elbow bent, and I rotate so that my, my, my, my, my, my, the back of my hand goes back. Right. So I'm twisting my arm out. Or I twist it in. Right. So internal external rotation. The muscles that twist my upper arm, those muscles rarely get directly worked with strength training.

They'll be in stabilized positions, but they rarely ever get really strengthened. And this causes shoulder problems when you get really strong and then the discrepancy between those muscles and the ones you're working or the movements you're working start to get too big. Same thing with internal external rotation of the hips. Those two, I would say. And then maybe wrist extension. you really don't see lots of people strengthening that, so you'll see some wrist issues. I think, and I'll just reinforce that

just because those are the two areas you're probably going to load the most. Yeah. And the hips and the shoulders is carrying a lot of, most carrying a lot of your workouts, like in a sense. And so to constantly have that top of mind of be able to, you know, include and incorporate, whether it's in your warm up,

whether it's just like within your workout, specifically in adding load to it, which I do suggest, I think we talk a lot about mobility a lot, but actually like, you know, like progressively overloading and adding some load to that to strengthen it is going to take you even further

than just the maintenance of it. I love that you guys went so the opposite of what I was going with right now because you guys both went like health functional, what people would neglect and miss for optimal joint health and mobility was totally not how I interpreted this. This person who asked about their lower leg

living bigger and we did tibial stuff, so I went aesthetic right away. So I'm thinking of things like rear delts are like totally neglected. And you want to sculpt great shoulders. And or you want great arms, just delts and period. Like I think so many guys that want great arms focus so much on buy and try workouts all day long, they neglect working their shoulders more and building your shoulders up more

and rear delts being one of those main things you focus. A lot of people don't do rear delftiles. At all. You're laterals and presses. Yes. Avoid their rear delfts. And then I'd say things like traps. Traps are neglected many times to make a back and just the way your shirt sits on you.

like, I mean, a lot of functional reasons for that, too. Such a great, great exercises to make sure that get, that get neglected. Obliques are another one. People just, they don't want a bigger waist and so they don't train obliques, but get defined obliques or abs. You talk a lot about that and being able to see your abs at higher body fat percentage. You go on a, on a strength trading journey of like trying to build strength in your abs, because they always tend to be like a, you know, at the end of a workout, if you ever do,

So, yeah, like an afterthought, try going after like really building your abs and all of a sudden you can carry your body fat percentage, two or three percent higher and see abs. Like, so that's where my brain went right away because this was more like an aesthetic question. Yeah, the other angle I was kind of going was more like just strengthening your feet. Yes. And really focusing on that is it's anchoring your entire kinetic chain. Like anything you're going to do like is going to start there in your feet, even if you're anchoring yourself to a bench. so to be able to have dexterity and strength in your toes and be able to have good arch support

and really be able to get up on your forefoot and not be so flat footed. Like all these things will matter when force production. But I'll say this, I'll just add this. Like it's happened so many times with me with either friends or clients who are experienced where all we do is do some targeted external rotation exercises for the shoulder and suddenly they can over.

overhead press and bench press more. Like, it's magic. Suddenly. Oh, that's how, I have to start. Like 10 pounds. I have to start every chest shoulder workout with that. Yeah. That is, and I have hurt myself so many times not doing that because I'm strong enough to load all

those exercises now. I have to prime with that and priming with that. Huge difference. Yes. Huge difference. It's a staple in every chest and shoulder workout. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram.

It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS Anabolic, Maps Performance, and 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.

We thank you for your support. Next time, this is Mind Pump.