Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2908: How to Pick the Right Workout: The Most Important Question to Ask Before You Start

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

In this episode the guys break down exactly how to pick the right workout for your goals — covering why enjoyment matters more than most people realize, how to honestly assess whether you actually like what you're doing, the ROI of strength training versus other modalities, and why appropriateness for your actual life is the deciding factor. They also get into the origin of clowns (spoiler: ancient India and Egypt, not the circus), the CLOW peptide stack from Vita Bella and why Sal and Katrina are both using it for recovery and skin health, Sal's revelation that he quit jiu jitsu because his ego got destroyed at a tournament in 2006 not because of scheduling, the Rafael Nadal documentary and what it teaches about identity and decline, and Carl Jung on why the back half of life is actually better than the first. Then they answer questions from Instagram on optimal body fat for women, how to increase maintenance calories without gaining fat, fixing forward rolled shoulders, and the ethical situations trainers face on the job.   MAPS Upper Lower: https://mapsupperlower.com Code: LAUNCH for 40% off. Four day split, male and female versions, workout videos and live coaching with Cole.   SPONSORS   Vita Bella / MP Hormones: https://mphormones.com Book a complimentary 10-minute consultation with a membership specialist to find out if Vita Bella is right for you. CLO stack discussed on air (BPC-157, TB-500, GHK, CFPB) for recovery and skin health. Consultation: https://meetings-na2.hubspot.com/alever/marketing-membership-consultation Or use code MINDPUMP365 to start your annual membership and receive a free blood panel and gift.   Paleo Valley (grass-fed fermented meat sticks): https://paleovalley.com/mindpump 15% off automatically applied at checkout. Four sticks a day = 24g protein at 280 calories.   LMNT (electrolytes): https://drinklmnt.com/MindPump Free 8-count sample pack with any purchase. No code needed. New Lemonade Iced Tea flavor — 50mg caffeine, L-Theanine, polyphenols, no sugar.   LINKS   Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com Instagram: @mindpumpmedia   0:00 - Intro 1:59 - How to pick the right workout for your goals 7:03 - Why people lie to themselves about what they actually enjoy doing 13:12 - How to find enjoyment in exercise when you hate everything 14:14 - How effective is the method for your goal — the ROI question 18:17 - What the right workout actually looks like for most people 24:35 - The Paleo Valley meat stick protein hack — 24g protein at 280 calories 26:23 - The origin of clowns — ancient India, Egypt and why they make the most in the circus 33:55 - CLO peptide stack from Vita Bella — Sal and Katrina's recovery and skin results 37:10 - Sal's real reason for quitting jiu jitsu — ego destruction at a 2006 tournament 46:53 - Rafael Nadal documentary — identity, decline and what happens after you peak 51:02 - Carl Jung on why the back half of life is better than the first 56:01 - Q&A: Optimal body fat percentage for women — and why chasing a number is the wrong approach 58:40 - Q&A: How to increase maintenance calories without gaining fat while cutting down cardio 1:01:24 - Q&A: Best movements to fix forward rolled shoulders 1:04:22 - Q&A: Ethical situations trainers face and how to handle them

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, approaching over half a billion downloads. It's Mind Pump. Today's episode, we answered questions that people posted on our Instagram page, Mind Pump Media.

We answered four of them. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 52 minutes. minutes long, we talk about fitness and muscle gain, fat loss, talk about scientific studies, family life. Always a good time. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is paleo valley.

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Go check them out. Go to paleovalley.com slash mind pump. That link will get you 15% off. This episode is also brought to by mphorones.com. Look, go there and book a complimentary 10-minute consultation with a membership specialist to see if hormone therapy and peptide therapy are for you. Today we talked about their clothes stack. This stack speeds up recovery, makes your skin look amazing.

It is a peptide stack of BPC 157, TB 500, GHKCU, and KPV, but they have many, many others. Again, you can book a complimentary 10-minute consultation at MPHormones.com. We also have a brand new MAPS workout program. Maps Upper Lower. It's a four-day muscle building split. We have a men and women's version. It's 40% off. Go to Maps UpperLower.com.

Use the code launch for 40% off. All right, real quick, if you're not, love us like we love you why not show it by rocking one of our shirts hats mugs or training gear over at mind pump store.com i'm talking right now hit pause head on over to mindpumstor com that's it enjoy the rest of the show all right you're thinking about working out you want to get in shape you just don't know what the right workout is for you what should it be what should it look like how often we're going to talk about that right now how we can help you pick the right workout for your goals.

Where are you going with this? Let's go. Where are you going with this? Well, it's a question people often ask. What's the right way to work? I know it's such a vague question. It's such a vague question. I'm trying to figure out where you're going with it.

Well, the question is, Adam, somebody comes up to you and says, how do I know what the, like, how do I pick the record? I know what you propose that right now. And Justin, I have nothing to say because we know the very first thing we're saying back to you is, well, that depends.

That's right. What are your goals? What do you do currently right now? How long you've been working out? Exactly. Here's the first thing. And I love your guys' opinion on this. I'm sure you guys will agree. But I think the first thing people need to consider when peaking a workout is, do you enjoy it? Now, that sounds stupid to someone because someone's like, I just want to get these results. I just want to burn body fat. I just want to whatever. But the truth is the thing you enjoy doing, again, so long as it's appropriate, right? Yeah, I'm just going to say that there's a bit of, you got to be careful when you say that, because, you're going to be careful when you say that, because, I feel like there's a lot of people who find enjoyment in suffering and punishing themselves, find enjoyment playing a sport, even though that doesn't align with their goal.

So I don't like to lead off with this. I do think that it's important to note that if this person is going to be consistent long-term, that you have to learn to love or enjoy the thing that you're doing. but leading off with this in this conversation to me sets a lot of people up for failure because a lot of people have a terrible relationship first of all with exercise they don't even know what they like or don't like

or they've never experienced what a good healthy relationship or balance with exercise looks like or two, the modality that they choose because they quote unquote love it doesn't align with the goal and the outcome. This again speaks more to like having a meeting with a coach to kind of identify these things right?

because I don't, to your point, I don't necessarily think people, you know, have the right idea of what would be best. And like, prescriptive wise. Like, I think that, yeah, it could be a bit misleading, like, what they emotionally want to do or, like, you know, it might not actually be the most beneficial for them. Well, that's perfect. Where you guys are going is perfect. That's why this is a good conversation because you're 100% right. How many times do people lie to themselves about what they enjoy doing? Yeah. You know, people are like, oh, I love running every single day.

And then you try a different modality. They get better results. And suddenly, like, I actually didn't like running so much. I guess a good way to answer it, because there's nuance to it. We're going to get to that. But one way to answer this is like, would you do this if you got no results from it? Would you do this form of activity if all you got from it was you just did that activity? Like, that's a really good way to know whether or not you enjoy it. I mean, and that's a great way to position that when you get somebody who says something like that, right? or they tell you something like, hey, I really want to build this butt or I want to look this way, but I love running marathons.

Yeah. And so you asked them like, well, if running marathons never got you that body or never got you that butt, would you still do it? Uh-huh. And if they say, yes, I love them. Okay, well, then we got to find a way to include, we got to find a way to include some runs in there to, to let you enjoy that because I think that's important to overall help. Exactly.

It's like the question of like, what would you do for a living if you did, if you had all the money in the world and what tend to come out as a thing that someone would enjoy. Right, right. But the answer you typically get, when I say that and I position it like that, I almost always get the, well, my friend who runs all the time, she's got this great ass. They will always point to that or they were, well, I was in the best shape of my life when I used to run, you know, two or three marathons a year. And so I just want to get back to that.

And so that you're, you also are positioned with. this other challenge. Because what comes, you're 100% right, because what I said was a super oversimplification. Like, would you enjoy doing this if he gave you no results? Super oversimplification because in real life, what contributes to whether or not you like what you do is A or one, I enjoy doing it because I just enjoy doing it.

But then it's also what it does for me, which contributes to my enjoyment, right? Like, you can fall in love with it in activity because of how it makes you feel and because of how it improves the quality of your life. So you can't necessarily separate the two. 100% right. And as a coach, I consider these like hot buttons.

So if somebody's like describes in detail like, you know, I really love running. I've always loved, you know. So I know that like that form of movement is enjoyable for them. And I can kind of like start catering, prescribing something that like would actually benefit them

because I know they're going to keep showing up. No, I had a woman, this reminds me of a client had years ago, this woman that I trained, she was in her, at the time, I think, late 40s. And she wanted to hire me because she started to get kind of nagging aches and pains

from her favorite form of exerciser activity, which was dancing. So she did salsa dancing. And I think she did like four days a week. She was really good at it. She did it for years. It kept her pretty darn fit. And she came to me because she started getting kind of these nagging issues. And so she really had no interest in strength training aside from the fact that she heard,

that strength training could prevent some of these aches and pains. And so what I did is we applied strength training as a way to allow her to continue to do the thing that she loved so much. And this is why this is such an important question, because if you really enjoy swimming or you really enjoy cycling

or you really enjoy basketball or hiking, and it's just something you really love to do just for the sake of doing it, other modalities of exercise can be used and probably should be used to help or to allow you to That's right, to help you continue to do the thing. But it's so important everybody.

And this is a very complex question. It sounds very simple. And I oversimplified it earlier. But it's such an important question because if the thing that you're doing for exercise is something that you hate, that you despise. And I know people listening know exactly what I'm talking about. We've all gone through that thing. Well, we do that thing because we think it's good for us. But we wake up in the morning like, oh, I got to go do that workout.

I hate it. if you always hate it, you're not going to do it. It's just not going to work. It's not going to be consistent. Nobody does something that they hate every single day. It's not a new strategy. For years and years and years unless they're absolutely forced. So enjoying it is a bit more complex. And so we'll get to some of that stuff. But it has to be something that you enjoy or you can learn to enjoy. Otherwise, this isn't going to happen. I mean, I think it's such an important question so much so that whatever you answer, you should even question your own beliefs. Totally. Because I think at least in my experience, more than half the people that told me that this is what they

love to do or believe that this is what they should do or wanted to do to get whatever said result were wrong. We're wrong about what they liked. They thought that because they had this relationship with it, whether it was a bad one, abusive, where it was a punishment thing and they felt cathartic when they beat themselves up in the workout and therefore they told themselves they loved to do it. Or two, they identified with a way their body looked at one point in their lives while they were also doing said modality. Or they've got a friend who they admire and look up to and that's how they train.

And so there's like, I mean, I can't tell you how many times someone has told me this is what I enjoy to do or I love to do that was wrong. Yeah. And you know what's important about about. this, Adam, is because someone listening is probably, I guarantee there's people who are like, I don't like anything. I don't like any form of physical activity or exercise. So what do I do now? And I'm going to tell you right now what you do, because this is what I did as a coach and a trainer. You figure this out, by the way, as a coach, when you train people for a long enough period of time,

you start to realize that the most important thing I can do, and I got to train people properly. I got to make sure they exercise the right way, don't hurt themselves, you know, do all the right stuff. But the most important thing I could do as a coach is make this an enjoy. session every time you show up. And so there are ways to do this. What does this look like? Well, let's say you're like, look, I'm going to walk every day. I'm going to make sure I get, you know, 12,000 steps a day. That's the form of exercise I'm going to start with. I hate doing it. I hate going outside and walking for that long. I hate doing it. How can I make this something I enjoy? I'm going to go with my friend. And my friend is also committed to this. And you know, we have the best conversations.

And I get to see my friend and hang out with them. So that's what I'm going to do. Or I'm going to listen to a book while I do it. Or I'm going to go to this gym that has this great community. And the thing I actually look forward to and the reason why I enjoy it is the people that are there. So there are ways to help yourself enjoy something. And there also are ways to help you to make yourself hate something. Like here's a great way to make you hate something, okay, that you do it so hard that each time you regret that you actually did that workout where you leave and you feel like you're dying. This is a great way to hate working out. And I know sometimes people love that. you keep doing that long enough and you're going to hate it, I promise you.

If every workout feels like you survived at some point, you're going to wake them to be like, I really don't want to do this. It's a fast track to a bad relationship with exercise. Let me address the common one that you just said because it is common that you would get a client that would say something like, I don't like anything. I don't like any of that. It's more often, if not always, the person who, it's like they've had five jobs that they've tried and none of them paid them.

They went to work for six months at this new job and they got no check and they got no paid and they hated it so they went to the next job. Same thing. And then so their relationship with that work or all those modalities is horrible because the ROI was terrible. That's right. Now, that's 100%. If I can show you a way to get, and by the way, ROI isn't always mirror and scale and body

fat percentage to the point where you're going. If I can show you how just adding a walk for 10 minutes after your meals, all of a sudden makes your digestion better and you sleep better, which then makes your mood better, if I can connect those dots for you, a 10-minute walk? Yeah. I can start to enjoy that because I can connect the ROI. And then I have something to build on.

And then if I could show you, hey, if we just did five sets of squats in a week, that's it, nothing else. And I show you strength gains because I balance that out with proper, Nutrition. Pain goes down. Yeah. Pain goes down, strength goes up, and you start to build a little bit of a butt or something, and that's all you did was five sets of squats all week and nothing else.

And you're 10 minutes. If I can, and then, so you start getting this connection to a return on your investment that you go, I kind of do like this. There's also this other point, too, Adam, because you brought up the jobs thing. It's really interesting. You see this with athletes. Athletes who love the sport that they play, absolutely genuinely love it, who get to the professional level.

There's a psychological phenomenon where many of them start not loving what they did because now it's a job. It's a job. And so I know people have heard this before and I think this is, again, an oversimplification, but there's truth in it, which is there's a difference between I have to work out and I get to work out. And so that's an attitude. I have to go do this thing. If you keep going at it with that I have to where you feel like you're forced, you're moving towards a relationship where you can eventually quit it. versus I get to go do this thing. My body moves.

I get to go and express itself in a different way. Just like a job. Oh, I have to work because I got to pay these bills versus, man, I get to go to work. It's a different mentality completely. But to point, to go kind of the direction you are, here's part of what we're talking about, which is how effective is this method for your goal? And now, how do you determine effectiveness? Here's the way you determine it.

It's not how great, how fast it gets you to your goals. It's not that. It's how much time do you invest versus how much you get out? That's right. That's effectiveness because I can give you a workout that gives you great results that requires, you know, 40 hours a week of investment. And I don't care how great the results are. You're not going to do it. You're not going to work out 40 hours a week.

But if I can show you a form of exercise where you can invest very little time in comparison to the results that you get, a lot of people, this is something that people really like. And this contributes a lot to the fact that they enjoy it. one form of exercise does this for a lot of different goals, and that's strength training. What's unique about strength training, yes, it builds muscle, it builds strength, but it's unique in the sense that you don't need a lot of it to get really good results. When you're training with other modalities, you tend to need to invest a lot more time to get something back from it. Like if I'm just trying to burn calories or build endurance, I got to do a lot to really build

lots of endurance. Strength training? Average person does one day a week of strength training. you're going to see significant strength gains for a while. I'll back it off even more, like I said. If all somebody did, if you met somebody who once a week

did five sets of squats and nothing else, but they never missed. Once a week, they always do five sets of squats. Over years, how good that person would get at that movement. And the benefits that come from knowing how to do a proper good squat and the strength gains over the time

and what that would do, to your body, to your mobility, to your energy, to your metabolism. I mean, there's such a huge ROI on that. I have a guy that I'm training right now, good friend of mine, very smart guy, highly educated, works in the medical field. He's always been a cyclist. He's always been a runner. He's always tried to stay fit.

And I started training him. We start working out once a week together. And I'm explaining to him how exercise really works, how we send this signal. We're looking for adaptation. You're already an ER doc. You've got lots of stress. Your sleep is crap half the time. So we can't apply too much stress.

And so I'm telling him all this stuff. Logically, he gets it. He's a smart guy. And I can communicate it very well, right? So I've been doing this for a long time. So he gets it. But as we're training, you could tell he's like, wait, maybe I should go harder?

Like, are you sure I should go harder? Sal, should I do more on my off days? And I'm like, listen, if you're getting stronger in here, what you are, it's working. And so I've been working with this guy now for eight weeks. And he comes. And he comes in now and he's like, you know what? I heard you.

I believed you intellectually, but I didn't feel the belief because I had an experience. He goes, this is the craziest thing. He goes, I look, I've never looked forward to working out. I look forward to it now because I feel good. I don't feel like I got the crap beat out of me. I'm getting stronger. It almost feels like I'm doing nothing and my body's responding. Now, it feels like nothing because in comparison to how he used to train himself.

It was like he would slam himself into the ground. Now he's training appropriately. he's getting a huge ROI for the investment that he's putting in. And guess what's happening with his relationship with it? He loves it. He says that our sessions, once a week, and this is a very busy guy, is the highlight of his week. Tell me what that's doing to his relationship with fitness. And so a big factor that you need to consider with your consistency with your workout, picking the right workout is, how effective is this for the goal that I'm after?

And if your goal is fat loss or muscle gain or strength or changing how you look or mobility, one form of exercise gives you the most ROI in that strength training. And for most people, it looks like once a week or twice a week. That's it. And that's just something to consider. And I want people to understand that because that plays a big role. And then lastly, you also got to consider this. What is the most appropriate for me and my life?

It's got to be appropriate for me and my life. Long term, too. Not just in this six months. six-month window until the wedding or this three-month summer or this moment of time, it's what is most appropriate that I could do this forever. That's right. Like this is something I can build into my life. It will be a part of my life forever back to your point of one to two times a week

is because it's realistic that no matter where, where, what time of your life you are at or what phase of your life you're in, that's an appropriate commitment for most people, which is why you want to start there. and we can always build up as you fall in love with this. That's right. And you tell me, this is the highlight of my week. What we get to work on is the enjoyment back to the beginning. And that's why it's such an individual experience and something that we can't just be like,

oh, here's the formula. Here's the exact workout that's probably best for the general population. It really isn't about that. It's about really being honest with yourself and having that kind of inventory to where, you know, you understand your own behaviors. can like really assess like is this too much is this something I can just get up and do right now and then just you know work on my mentality towards it. And understand that this is a relationship and going to the gym once or twice going on one or two dates is not going to build a marriage.

Okay. It's going to a healthy marriage. It takes time. That's right. You have to work on this. And so you might be listening to this and you might be the person who says like I don't like any modalities. I hate it. And then you hear this advice and then you go to the gym one time like we say. Like I still hate it. You're like I still hate it. It's like, cool, you went on one date. You know what I'm saying? Like court this for a while and take it slow and learn about it and start to connect the dots

and then start to change your language. And then over time, that will, that shift will happen to expect that to happen in one date, that all of a sudden you go from the person who said, I hate this to, oh, I get it. Now this is all I had to do. And I love it. It's like, no, it takes time to build that relationship. It does take time. And again, this is kind of like we're, we're.

speaking up here, right? We're like a thousand foot view. We're looking down. We're kind of giving this general advice. People, I'm sure, like, give me some specifics. What does this look like? What would this look like for most people? So I'm going to give some general kind of what it would look like for most people. Not everybody, but for most people, what this would probably look like is this. This is what a lifestyle of, I enjoy doing it, that it's effective for what I'm looking for, what most people are looking for is overall health and fitness and improvement in quality life. and that it's appropriate for people and their life. So this is, I'm going to speak very generally.

This is probably what it's going to look like. One or two days a week of strength training, okay, full body. So what's going to look like. You're going to walk daily to the tune of about 8,000 steps a day. And once a week, you play something. Once a week you think to yourself, what's a fun physical thing I can go do once a week right now? I don't care what it is. I don't care if you go to the park and you throw the frisbee.

I don't care if you want to hike with your wife. I don't care if you go swim in the lake. but that play part once a week I think is so important for people and that's generally it's gonna look like and if you did that, if everybody listening did that consistently over years and years and years,

everybody would look fit and healthy and they'd be very satisfied with their results. And what happens most times is within months, that person gives the feedback that your buddy gave back. Totally. This becomes the highlight. I now love it.

I now like it. And then you can start to slowly build upon that. You know, it's so funny too because, you know, we've done this podcast now for a long time. I've been speaking to fitness forever, but I stopped training people for a long time. And what you don't realize, and I think, I don't remember one of you guys communicated this to me a while ago,

is you start to forget certain things because you're not training people. I'm just, you know, communicating this. Sure. And it's all coming back to me. And as I'm training my friend, I'm remembering to really take mental note of the weight that he's lifting because I know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen.

I know he's going to come to me in four weeks and be like, I feel like we're not working. Yeah, I feel like we're not working out hard enough. Yeah. And so that actually happened. He's like, I feel like we're not working out hard enough. I'm like, do you know what you started with on bench press, you know, five weeks ago? And I show him the weight. I'm like, and look what you're lifting now.

He's like, that's 40 pounds heavier. It's easier. I added 40 pounds. I'm like, yeah, dude. You have to live back. I know. Isn't that crazy? Because he, they forget.

They forget what it was just like. Do you think they just hit a wall? Four weeks ago. And then I waited for the second thing. It's just, God, it's so predictable. I waited for the second thing. It's like, man, you know, Saturday I'll see you. I want you train me really hard.

And I'm like, all right, dude, I'm going to, I'll train you hard, but only if you're rested. You know, we're having that conversation? And I'm like, you know what's going to happen? At some point, he's going to come in and he's going to tell me, dude, a friend ran into me and told me I looked like a, and sure enough, he comes in. He's like, dude, my buddy came up to me and hadn't seen him for like a few months. He's like, bro, what he's been doing?

He looks like, so I think this is, yeah, it's just working, bro. You guys are working out once a week. That's it. Is he asking you any stuff nutritionally too, or is he just? Everything. Because he's a really, one of my favorite types of people to train are like people who are, like, people who are either the medical field or in that kind of feel who like to ask lots of questions because it like gets me going. So we have these really good. Scratch at that inch for you.

Yeah, dude. We have these really, really great conference. And of course, he's an ER dog. So I ask him, you know, about work all the time. And he comes back, tells me the craziest story. I'm like, oh my God, that's crazy, dude. All the places, cars find their way in. Bro, I don't know how they stay calm during half the stuff.

He was telling me, I'm not going to go into details, but people come in just, and he's got to be calm, like, and just make sure this person doesn't die. I'm like, I did it in an ER nurse for a long time, and I had to, I just had to stop asking her stories because it would give me anxiety at night. I'm like, I don't know how you come home from a night or a day like that and like, they have to offload it, so they're not holding it on to it. I know. Dude, my sister-in-law is a nurse, and she works in the ER, but she works in delivery, right?

And she was, she told me a story shot. They pushed the baby back. She said, I had to push the baby back inside because the way the baby was coming out. Oh, yeah, it's a turn. I'm like, oh, my God, imagine that you're the mom. Yeah. And you're like, you're pushing so hard. And you're like, it's almost out.

We got to push the baby back in. We're going to try it. Like, screw you. I'm done. A little bit of a twist. Anyway, I got a nutrition tip for people. That's really simple. Let's hear it.

So, you know, an easy way to. add protein and a little extra calories if you want to do a really clean bulk. This is a super easy way to do it. And I was just talking with Doug earlier because I was eating the Paleo Valley meat sticks. Yeah. Each meat stick is about six grams of protein, 70 calories on average. If you added four sticks a day, so in between meals, you could have it, you know, before breakfast or with breakfast, in between breakfast or lunch. Or all at once. Or all at once. But four, if you have four a day, that's easy, 24 grams of protein from what's pretty close to whole food. at 2008 calories right there.

Those are very, very easy. It's good macros. That's really good, dude. It's grass-fed meat or chicken or turkey, whatever you like. And it's 24 grams of protein, 2080 calories. Right? Four sticks a day. Yeah.

Super easy. And they can go anywhere with you. Those are probably, I'd say, between that, I know with Palo Valley, you also had the donut flavor. Oh, their protein. Between those two, I'd say those are the two, like. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah.

Oh, they're chocolate? delicious. Oh my God. What engineering magic did they do? I mean, I was late to the party. I remember when you were, you were touting it so long. I mean, what I loved about that powder was that you could, I can do four scoops of it. Yeah.

And it just digest. It's like water. So easy. I know. Where I have that upper limit with way or any dairy product. I can get probably 40 grand, 35, 40 grams in and I'm okay. I start pushing 60 and above. And it's like, oh, I can feel bubbly guts from it.

were that the Paleo Valley, with a bone broth, I can have a ton of protein and be totally fine. And it's easy to take down. You know what I want to know, Adam, is the origin of clowns. I heard Justin say, Justin. I was about to bring it up off air.

I'm like, how dare you? That's a podcast conversation. I want to hear about this, dude. I listen to a weird podcast. Was that a podcast conversation? Yeah, podcast conversation. Can we guess what the origin was? Can we try to guess?

Oh, okay. Yeah, like what part of the world? And then like, yeah. What they look like, because this is like archetype stuff. Yeah. Oh, I bet that's evolved. Has it totally evolved? I'm going to have a...

And it's not circus related? Wait, so that's the first thing I go to a circus. I would... It turned into that, but... I would... I'm going to guess... So even there was something before, so that's not the origin. I'm going to guess tooth guess.

Yeah, guesses. Either it started from court jesters. Oh, that far back? Where kings had to have someone to make them laugh. Or it originated in Italy. And the reason why I said, say Italy is because the circus originated in Italy. Well,

actual circus. What has an older origin? Circus or rodeo? Circus is old. Rodeo's got to be old, too. I don't know. I don't know. Because you have rodeo.

Think about older cultures. You have rodeo. Older than Italy? Yeah. Whoa, bro. Mesopotamia. Babylon? Where are we going here, bro?

No, a different part of it. the world, I guess. China? India. Yeah, there you go. India has the origin of clowns? This is what they're talking about. Yeah, and like the depiction of it being similar to what we see now, like in modern circus.

It's like having the red hair, the ginger hair, the nose, the red nose. Really? Yeah. Which is interesting. Hopefully you can find like a picture of it. Oh, the circus goes longer. Doug, look up origin of clowns. Significantly longer.

Go to India. Origin of clowns Italy. Okay. All right. India. Sorry, India. Okay, yeah. I want to see what the...

I have another one here. It says Egypt, but... Oh, wow. There you go. Even further back. It might be the clowns as we know with the red herons. Yeah, they're associated with the, yeah, the modern. So what were they...

This is the one I found. Oh, my God. Fifth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, about 4,400 years ago. Whoa. Serious authority serving the vital... That's not the same, like, clown. Like, I'm thinking of, like, a clown with the... Okay.

Let me get India here. The ginger hair. Let me see here, dude. This is... Because they were joking, like, it was, like, basically they were making fun of English because of the red hair. Oh, that makes sense. And, yeah, and, like, using that as sort of like the satirical, blundering.

So they were making fun of the people that were trying to... This was their speculation. I can't fact-check all that, but it was an interesting conversation. What was the primary job or thing they did? Has it always been like... Humor, poke fun. So how did it... I know Doug's Googling away different stuff here,

but I'm curious, how did it... They're called the Vidu Shaka. Blundering, good-hearted, often bald-headed, and hungry Brahmin who acted as a loyal friend and confident to the... Yeah, so what they do is they use sarcasm, humor to critique society and keep kings in check. So, like a jester.

So very jester. Yeah, Vidu Shaka. Type in Vidu Shaka. Let's see what he looks like, Doug. Yeah, VD Shaka. Let's see what he looks like. One who provokes laughter.

So how, okay, if that's, so how do they make their way into the rodeo? Oh, I don't know. That's another game. That's a whole other. Yeah, like, well. Yeah, that doesn't look for me at all. I would wonder if, you know, in Spain,

because they have like the, you know, that whole with the matador, like, as a distraction. I wonder if it evolved from, from that. Yeah. I mean, that's... They started using clowns to kind of distract. Look at, look at, why, why did clowns make their way into rodeo? Because if that's what they're designed to do.

Do you guys know that the clown, that a clown is oftentimes the highest paid performer in a circus? Yeah. Yeah, they are, yeah, because they... Really? They have to do all the, the, um, the transitions and then keep the crowd engaged. And so they're basically like the host. They're multi-talented. Yeah.

So my, so you guys know, Jessica used to travel with Cirque to Soleil. And she's like, I asked her, like, who's the highest-paid? I wonder if that's similar with the rodeo, too, because it says they're, they're supposed to be entertaining. With comedy and skaters, comedy, moving the show along. They're, like, constantly have to be entertaining. So, yeah, because she told me, because I asked her, who makes the most in the circus? She goes, it's usually the clowns. I said, why?

She's like, they need to know how to sing. They need to know how to make humor. They need to know the whole show. If something goes wrong on the show, they have to entertain the audience. Because circuses are performing all the time. Right. And there's always... Oh, yeah, there's always a mishap.

Always. Animal gets out or something doesn't work. That's what she told me. She was, every show, something happens. And you got to, like, replace it with something else. And the clown is the person that fills in the space. And so she said, they make the most money. Interesting.

Which I had no idea. I thought it was like the... What are the highest paid clowns? I don't know. What's top salary? There's a clown school, too. Is there really? Yeah.

What's top salary for a clown? Barnum and Bailey. What they're bawling, bro? There was a kid that was in my son's... Who's a paid clown. Who was a kid. also went to like a Barnum and Bailey school for clowns.

So most of them make between 58 to 88,000, top independent earners make 114. In history, Swiss performer Grock. Oh, isn't that interesting? Gronk. Is that who we named after? How much did they make?

One of the highest paid individuals in America. Interesting. Wow. Look at that. Back in the day, they made a lot. I don't think clowns are very valuable anymore, but they used to.

I mean, they still play the same role rodeo and circus. Yeah. So I would think it would be... Do you guys know why clowns are scary? Because you know, a lot of people are scared of clowns? Yeah.

Because Stephen King? No, no, they were scary before that. I feel like he made them scary. No. No, it was a fear before them. It was. Yes, it was a common fear. It was a common fear before.

I actually read this once. There's a psychological... I told you guys about this. There's a psychological phenomenon when a person is smiling all the time and the rest of their facial features don't match. How eerie is. Yeah, it sets.

It makes you feel kind of... Remember when that movie came out a couple years ago that was called Smile or what about that? And the way they promoted it was they just had the fan. They had the random people would be standing in the fans and they would just be smiling and staring off, like how creepy that was. It was brilliant.

You know what's another common fear? Balloons. Do you guys know that? That's a common fear people have. Yeah, that one's interesting. Really? Yeah, because they're going to pop at any moment. So people get anxiety.

The anticipation of it just kills people. Yeah, dude. I didn't know that. Now, remember when you brought up the shark, thing because obviously people have always been afraid of shark. Sure. But after Jaws came out Oh yeah. It was like a, now was the same thing

happened with it? It definitely made it. Had to. Yeah, way less possible. Because I, most people I know that say anything about clowns, like they draw it back to it. Not because they had some childhood trauma thing or they had some childhood thing of their afraid of clowns. Like they knew they were aware of the movie it and that

Killer clowns from outer space. Oh my God. The best movies all time. Yeah. No, so it's So it says there that it heavily amplified a fear that already existed. So, yeah, I told you. Yeah. Yeah. But what it did is it made the original clown costume something that people couldn't do anymore.

So the original like McDonald's clown, you know, red and the, like, children's clowns stopped dressing that way because that movie made that the scariest. Oh, that's, what's that movie? That's his name. That's it. Rob zombie. No, in the middle there. That's a Rob zombie movie movie. isn't it or is that

the middle one? It's American horror. I was saying because the left one is it. I know that. No, you're right. American horror story. No, that's right. Oh, you remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. I know, crazy. Counds of creep. All right, I'm going to change the subject.

So, uh, I got to just rave about this peptide stack that I have that I'm using from our partners at nphi hormones.com. The clothes stack. So you guys know, Jessica's on that, right? So, yeah, and I'm using it too. Katrina. Oh, you are too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Yeah. So Katrina is too. Is she using it? And she loves it, yeah. Dude. Okay.

So you guys know the Wolverine stack. Wolverine stack is TB 500 and BPC 157, right? So they both accelerate healing, recovery. There are different mechanisms. One, BPC is produced in the gastric juices of the body. The other one is produced by the thymus gland. Both of them, different, but they're synergistic. And they call it the Wolverine stack because people use it.

when they have an injury and the healing time is just, it's ridiculous. And we've all experienced this. Like I've had injuries when I tore my hamstring in Hawaii. It should have taken me months. I mean, it was a nice tear. You guys saw the bruising. Yeah. And it was weeks.

It was like a few weeks later and I was working out, which is wild. Okay, wild. I know you've experienced it with your injuries. Multiple. So, Clow is like the Wolverine stack and then you add on even more. It's like for skin. So they use it for skin, but it's like, you want a healing stack. Go on that one.

What comes with that is GHKCCU. Right. So it's BPC-157, TB-500, GHK-K-C-U, and KPV. And KB. And KB, that's why, yeah. So now you add two more peptides that accelerate healing, and it's wild. And I'm experienced this right now because I'm doing jujitsu, and my joints are stiff, and I'm getting used to the movements and all that stuff.

And it's crazy how fast they're. how fast I will recover from stuff. I wonder how they got to this stack, like to add all those. People were already adding them. They were stacking them on their own, learning about them, and they just put it together.

Oh, you think so? Oh, Doug, watch this. Check this out. Now, this isn't indicative of like what everybody should experience, but typing clow before and after and click on images and watch people's, their faces. Oh, really?

Their skin and wrinkles and stuff like that. It's, watch, before and that. It's, watch, before and after. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You'll see before and after of people on their skin. Yeah, look at that.

This stuff's crazy. It's like, you don't eat Botox. If you have the capability, you pair that with some red light. You do that, you do that. That's what Katrina does. Katrina takes it. She does her red light

in front of her red light at night, sits in front of her face. Look at that one. Look at that before and after of that woman. Damn. Yep. That looks fake it's so good.

No, it's legit. It's legit. I'm experiencing it with recovery, which is, I know when I have certain aches and pains, I've been working out forever. I know how long it would take for them to go away. It's like days versus what it would take like week or two weeks.

Was this like the main thing that you stopped doing jiu-jitsu? Was it the pain of the joints? No. What was it? Yeah, why did you stop jihitsu back in the days? I had a realization. You ever have, I don't know if you guys ever did this. You're getting too good?

No. No, dude. You ever have a realization where you look back and you're like, oh, man, I never admitted that to myself. let alone to anyone else. Why I did X, Y, or Z. You ever do that? Okay. So that's what happened to me.

So I was just today, you know, finish Jitsu, I'm driving. And, you know, I'm listening to a sermon. So it's like my spiritual time is typically post-workout, which is good because it actually helps me kind of, you know, see things differently. And I'm thinking back to when I used to do Jitsu. And I used to love it, right? I did it for a long time, loved it. and I remember the thing that caused me to kind of want to stop,

and it all had to do with my ego, which is really embarrassing to say. So I competed in a big tournament in San Francisco. It was the United Gracie tournament. I think it was in 2006. It's not the All Valley tournament. It's like that, bro. Cool, dude.

Ralph Bonds. That's the same. That was me, dude. Anyway, I won that tournament, and I won it. Nobody scored a single point on me. They had promoted me to Purple Belt right after. And so I was feeling like, yeah, dude, I'm really good. On top of the world.

Yeah, I'm great, right? I signed up for the U.S. Open, which was not that long after. I want to say six or seven months later. As a Purple Belt? As a Purple Bell. I already know what's coming here. Now, I felt this bloated sense of self. Because when I would roll with the dudes in the gym who were Purple Belt or

brown belt or even black belt. Like, I would do pretty good. And so I show, and I trained for this tournament. Like, I trained smart. I did everything right. I sign up. I go to this tournament. And it's single elimination.

And I go against this dude who ended up being, you know, this top fighter later on, trying to make myself feel better. Yeah. But he beat me in less than a minute. Like, we, we hit the ground. He moved a particular way, caught me off guard, caught me in arm lock, lost out. That's it. I'm out of the tournament. Yeah.

And I felt so, like, embarrassed. Yeah, dude. In fact, you stopped to that? Hold on. I had family members that were coming to watch. They didn't even get to see. They got there a little late. Oh, God.

That's so. So they showed up. And I'm there and they're like, hey, what's going on? I'm like, I lost. Yeah, I'm already out. I'm out. You drove all this way. So I left.

So I finished that. Huge blow to the ego. And then I kept training a little bit, but I think it was that, dude. And it was that. Is it shortly after that you quit? It was shortly after that. Wow. that I started to quit, and I never really admitted it to myself.

You never shared that story. I never admitted it to myself, let alone tell anybody else. Because I don't want to admit to myself, I'm a quitter. So what did you go-gob-grieved? If you didn't admit to yourself, what was the lie you told yourself? The lie I told me, and there's partial truth to this. There usually is. There's partial truth to this, which is...

Would be a good lie if it wasn't. That out my business and the times that the classes were running were times I could fill with clients. And that's the thing with Jiu-Git-you got to show up and do a class. Whereas when I lift, I can lift at any time. type of you know. So I just got back into lifting and kind of abandoned jiu-jitsu.

But as I was looking back, I'm like, dude, if I won that tournament, for sure I wouldn't have stopped. He's still been going. Yeah. What about if you even lost, but you lost,

like, closer, like it was a better match. Do you think that... I got my ass kick so hard. That's what I mean. So quick. So do you think, like,

obviously if you win it, that changes that based off of that. I don't know, dude. But like if... Probably, but to be that embarrassed. Right, right. To get whooped, humbled.

Which is, you know, logically, like this is fight sports. That'll happen. It's going to happen. Well, especially when you just got elevated to that next level and you go outside of your little ecosystem

of your gym, by the way, too, that I would think, I don't know, because I don't have done this, but I would imagine when you roll, even if they're brown belts of bells, with the same guys all the time, you start to learn their techniques. And there's a little bit of a hundred percent.

You know what they're going to do. Yeah. So going in meaning a purple belt, but a really good purple belt, you never roll with before. who was in my pool, who I would have gone against, who, I don't know if he got first or second. Was this SWIC days? No.

No, Mike wasn't competing, but you know who was in my pool? Luke Rockhold. Oh, really? Yeah, Rockhold was Jitsu. So he did Jiu-Jitsu. He grew up around here. Yes, he did Jiu-Claudeo in Santa Cruz. Yeah.

And he was a purple belt when I was a purple belt. And he was in the pool. So I would have had to gone against him anyway. So I'm sure he would be. Oh, he's a bad. I mean, the guy's, yeah, of course. But, dude, I think it's because I got my ego destroyed. Interesting.

And I think that really demoralized me. And I didn't want to admit it to myself because who wants to admit to themselves? They're acquitted her because their ego got bruised. Nobody. Not me. Yeah. So yeah, I was thinking about that in the car. And I called my wife.

I'm like, hey, you want to know why I quit judicious? And she's like, why? And she's like, what? I'm like, yeah, dude. Interesting. I know. I know. Wow.

Which is good to know now because, you know, I'm going to get my ego bruise again. Yeah. But you know what? You don't get your ego bruise when you go lift weights by yourself. I'm trying to think of a good. Yeah. You're in your own world. You're in your own world, dude.

Yeah. You know? We all have to have a pretty good story like that. There's got to be something like this where I had stopped doing something, kind of lied to myself about why. It's a really interesting thought. That's really crazy. I happen in football for me for sure.

Oh, yeah? Which is, you know, the worst because that was like my best sport. You know, like, it was, I wasn't going to play another year. I figured out how to a red shirt year so I could play, you know, a fifth year. I thought I had burned it up because I was at a different school and transfer. and he's like, and then so I was like, I went through the whole process of like, this is my last season. I like put everything out there for that last season. And we like, you know, made a bowl game and like I kind of did the thing that I was like going to do.

And, you know, and I got emotional. And I was just like, you know, at the end, it's like, well, this is the end. Like I have a new identity now. And I kind of had that sort of like whole process happen then. And then the coach came back to me and was like, listen, you're still eligible. And I was like. Yeah. Really?

Like, it just threw me so off. I had, like, the worst year ever, the last year, my fifth year. Like, I, like, was so checked out. Like, my, yeah, my mind wasn't into, I was into, like, playing music. And, like, I already started to kind of transition and move on to the point where, like, in practice, like, I was kind of, like, just going through the drills and everything. But, like, I wasn't learning. We had a new defensive coordinator that came in.

And he was just, like, guns, blake. He's like, you have to learn the system. Like, this is my, I took it. He took it from some, like, successful college that he was at. And, like, you know, everybody has to memorize these specifically. And I just, you know, and I was just relying on my talent at that point and, like, you know, showing up. But I wasn't like, and so he started to pick up that I wasn't memorizing all the plays and he was getting pissed off with me. We were button heads.

He's, I sat the bench like the second half of the season. Oh, wow. Yeah. I've never done that in football. I've never watched from the sidelines. It killed me. Oh, wow. I was like, I'm done.

After that. Yeah. You know, I have, so I have a similar story. Now, you just sparked that for me. So my senior year, my senior year of high school, and I told the story on the podcast, but the way I tell the story is that I wanted to work and make money, which is partially true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like I, if I wanted, I had a girlfriend, had a car, and if I wanted these things,

I had to pay for them. So I needed to work and work before school. But the deeper truth is that my junior year, I rode the bench and it would just get crushed. It crushed me. And I was just like, I'm not going to go my senior year and potentially do that. Had I played like crazy and felt like I had a shot to be a starter and playing my senior year, I probably would have played. I would have found a way out workwise.

I would have worked around it or something like that to make it all work. But because that crushed me so much my junior year that I'm like, there's no way I want to go another year like that. I said, F it, I'm just going to work and do that. And so the story I tell is always, I. need to make money, I need to work, which is partially true. But probably deep down, it was more, my ego was bruised that I didn't get to, I didn't play. And I felt I was good.

All my peers thought I was, my buddies. And coach didn't think so. And so, yeah, that was. It's funny. Yeah, because, like, your story of, like, you know, people showing up and you're not there. Like, that was like the same. I had, like, cousins and people flying in and they were, like, expecting me to play. I didn't even play.

Oh, yeah. I'm like, and I'm begging the coach put me. He's like, no. and it wouldn't put me in, you know, all my family was there. And I was like, this is, it's never happened to me before. It sucks. Dude, it sucks so bad. It's funny because I was talking to Jessica about, like, competing at some point, potentially.

I don't think I will, but, you know, I just kind of playing with the idea. And she's like, oh, I'd love to come watch you. And I'm like, I don't think I'd want you to watch me or the kids. Because if I lost in front of my kids, I think my ego, I don't know if I could survive that kind of a hit, you know? But what kind of a terrible lesson would I be teaching my kids? I know. You know?

It's like one of those things that you just got to, you gotta wrestle with them. You guys got to watch this just because you brought this up. I brought it up to, I think, other day. I told my wife, I'm like, if you saw me lose to a man in a fight, you would be so turned off.

There's no way you would think I'm attractive. I forgot my ass kick. I know. It's got to be the worst thing. The flip side is if I win, like I'm hot. Yeah, yeah. But if I lose... I see you're like this, that's a big get.

All good. But if some dude, like, dominates me. It kicks my ass. We're going home and I'm doing the dishes. You're definitely not turned on by the food. So I, I've never been a big tennis watcher. And I'm watching the documentary on Rafin'adal.

And it's really good. And his story is crazy. And his rise and fall and his injuries and his comeback at like 38 years old trying to do it. And he's got a kid. And all he wants to do it. I mean, I think he's won over 20. grand slams plus in his career.

So he's like one of the winningest players. Yeah, arguably one of the best of all time. But then now 38 trying to come back, do it, has a son, wants his kid to see him raise a trophy and working through these injuries and, you know, plays one that gets hurt. It's like, so watching that. And I'm not all the way through it. So I'm still going, it's really good and reminds me of a lot of ego and all the relationship with it and everything like that.

Nobody talks enough about what it's like. Because, you know, you see someone compete at a high level when you think, oh, good for you. Nobody talks about what it's like for people when they reach a really high level and then they have to fall from that. Yeah. You know, sports is a good example because, especially with really intense sports, you get older. I don't care how good you are. You're just going to be too old to compete against people who are younger than you. What a psychological torture that is.

Like, when you're the king, you're the best in the world, which is going to be a short person. short period of time. You're not going to be the best war for 20 years. It's going to be a short period time. And then you go from that to, I'm not anymore. Dude, what a cycle, what a, like, what a mind game. That's why I really do think I feel like, you know, when Tyson, like, goes back into the ring now and you're just like, oh, you just hurt. Yeah. Like he and Connor McGregor, you're just like, oh, just get that like stomach ache. Because I know how they feel, dude, like on a very small level, obviously, not that high. But yeah, it's like, Dude, oh, it's like, well, you're not, you're not king of the world right now. Arthur Brooks talks about it.

Well, what's great, you're, you're comparing to sports, but I actually think this is, this is the thing that not a lot of people talk about if you're great at anything. Anything. Yeah. Anything. Name, uh, the, the greatest, some of our greatest CEOs and businessmen, how tortured they are. Some of our greatest minds. You get all this glory and whatever like that.

Yeah. The wealthiest of people, like all these, you get so great, you build your entire identity around that. And then you realize, like, when there's more other things and you want to try and pivot, you're like, a whole world comes apart because you invested so much in becoming. That's who you are. Yes. Who are you now?

There's, this is one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why young celebrities, children, celebrities don't do well because they're so famous and so popular and their kids and they're cute and then they get older and nobody likes them like they used to. That is devastating. It's hard for an adult. you imagine a kid who grows up with that kind of attention and glory. And then suddenly it's gone. Oh, that's going to destroy you.

Yeah. That's why. So I think it transcends sports. I think sports is... I use sports because it's such an easy example. Yeah, it's an easy one. But I mean, I've seen this in like so many different disciplines. It's just like it's not just that.

It's like you wrap your identity up in this whatever this thing. I mean, intellects. You see it when you ever... And right away, we were... It's so interesting how we... we are, the way we're made up to almost admire these outliers, right? We look up and, when we put them on these pedestals, regardless of what category it is, what name the thing you're into, musicians, all of it, right?

And it's like, but you have no idea the sacrifice they've made, the tort, the inner torture they have, the future they have ahead of them when they are no longer playing the music or playing the sport or they've made all the money and it doesn't matter anymore. They've done all the talks, wrote all the books. name the thing. And then like, then life hits them. It's like no one talks about that side of it. We make all the documentaries about the cool part of it, you know what I'm saying? And highlight it. And we all chase it. And we have all, you have so many people that are the enviate and want it. It's like, you wouldn't. Arthur Brooks talks about this loosely. I forget what the book is called.

It's one of more recent books. But he talks about like the split that happens after retirement. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're like half the, I don't know what percentage, but a large percentage of people, their health declines, quality life declines. and then some of them have this improvement in quality life. And the difference is that people who do well go from doing to teaching. Yeah. So like, let's say you're in a sport and you achieve a certain level of success where you're doing really good. And then you get older and you don't necessarily have, like you could coach other people. And then you'll find a similar appreciation, sometimes more.

It's like, what's that Rocky? Is it Rocky 5 where he trains Tommy Gunn? It's like one of the worst ones. Only you could tie this into it. a rocky movie. There's a lot of lessons. So many good lessons. I was about to connect it to Carl Young. I sent a thing to the boys the other day and Carl Young makes me want to read the whole book, but this excerpt from it that I sent to the guys about, you know, your back half, your first front 40 versus your back 40 of life. And basically the message I'm sending to our young guys that

it just gets better from here. Like 40 on is so much better to 40 to death is so much better than than zero to 40. And so you have so much more of life. And Carl Young's point is that the first 40 years is all education, experimental, learning about yourself, learning about life. It's like so much of that. And there's a lot of pain and growth that comes in there. And the back 40 is the enjoyment piece of that and learning how to enjoy that,

which ties into other books. Part of learning how to do that is passing that on and teaching and, you know, a different level with the back of the back. That's why it's so fun to have trainers work for us. Because we get to train them. We get to work with them on how to be better coaches. And I swear, I've said this before. I have never had a group of trainers get so good so quickly.

A lot of that is leadership. We have incredible leadership here. But also the tools that we have to teach them. We didn't exist when we were training people that now we have to where they can review calls and they can actually see in real time and afterwards what's happening. but they're so good, but it's so rewarding to coach these coaches on being good coaches and then to hear the feedback and to see what's going on. I was literally just thinking about this yesterday. I was doing over like quarterly stuff and just reviewing the business things. And I'm like, man, it feels so blessed that we got to spend the first 10 years of building this focused around helping others and like everybody like as far as like that listen to the podcast and that buy maps programs.

And I feel like this we're making this transition now. it's so much more focused on the coaches that are also still impacting all those people, but it's a different shift. Totally. And what's cool, you know, selfishly, feels even more impactful because we can see the coaches. Where when we are on here and we talk, even though we know we get to hear every once in a while, or we did live events, we get a little bits of feedback where we have all these coaches in here now, like every day.

Every day we're hearing, seeing stories, or we're going to need to pop into Zoom calls and say hi to the clients that they're impacting and working with. And so what a cool, uh, rewarding transition that this thing has gone into. I've had more. We've had fun this whole time, but I have even more fun now than I ever did before, which is wild. I mean, I've never been able to say that. I've never been able to say that, uh, you know, over a decade into doing something

that I love it more than I did day one. That's wild. That never happened to me. Yeah. It was always getting boring. Yeah. I know. I was looking for something else to entertain me.

You know, get vested in. But yeah. That's great. It's really a ticket in its own. Element can help prevent things like headaches, muscle craps, fatigue, sleeplessness, and other common symptoms of electrolyte deficiency. Look, when you sweat, the primary electrolyte that you lose is sodium. Athletes can lose, believe it or not, up to seven grams of day.

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Our first question is from Chells Lab. What is optimal body fat percentage and muscle mass for women? How do you know when to stop when it's not for aesthetics? So there's two ways to look at this. One of them is backwards, and the other way is the right way to look at it. So the backwards way is to constantly test your body fat percentage and muscle mass and try to hit some kind of target. That's the backwards way.

The right way to do it is to do the right things and allow your body to fall where it's going to fall. The reason why I'm saying that is because I can, give a range. Look, I can give a range right now and say, for most women, a healthy body fat percentage with good hormones and good leanness and all that stuff and fitness. It's probably going to be somewhere in the low 20s of body fat, between 20 to, let's say, 25, 26% body fat, give or take. But there's a wide variance there. Yes. And I think if a woman was eating whole natural foods, getting good sleep, she was exercising appropriately, and she was doing that for long enough period of time. Her body will fall to where it's supposed to be. And that's the ideal place

that she needs to be. What happens when you do this backwards is I start chasing a body fat percentage and I'm like, well, I'm supposed to be, I know they said low 20s. I'm at 24. Maybe it should be 20. And you start pressing into that. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. But then you start doing things that aren't necessarily better for consistency and longevity. So I think where you fall is, is, is going to be a result of how you get there. I think you should just focus on how you get there rather than the result. In other words, building healthy behaviors around nutrition and exercise and movement, and you should kind of naturally fall there.

I agree with that. Because I've seen probably like the good examples a lot in from 18 to 24 for women. I've seen some women be able to hold 18% naturally just eating good, exercising, balance. I've seen the size 28, 29 even. And I've, and then all the way up into probably the mid-20s. And that could look very different on every body type. And so going for a look or a body fat percentage because we say this is a good place is a really tough thing to answer somebody. A much better approach is eat whole foods, hit your protein targets, strain train three times a week, make an effort to get eight to 10,000 steps a day, make sure you do things that you love to do.

and enjoy, have balance in your relationship. It's like, and then see where you fall and do that consistently. Energy and health markers. Yeah. And if you do that consistently, because that's the other thing is, if you have these swings of, I do that for a while, but then I eat like crap and I don't do these things, and it's like it's hard.

And then that question comes up where it's like really try and just be consistent about that and watch where your body. Yeah, and see where it puts you. And that's probably a good, healthy place. Next question is from Nora, Tulip Priv, how do you increase the maintenance calories without gaining too much fat while simultaneously cutting down cardio? Yeah, by building muscle. So you increase your calories, you cut down cardio, you make strength the focus, the extra calories go to muscle. And so you don't gain too much

body fat. Now, I do want to be clear, some people need to gain body fat. So if this is a woman who's asking and she's walking around at 15% body fat, we're probably going to need to increase your body fat percentage to make you healthier and give you better performance. Not a lot, but you probably need to get yourself up to closer to 20. But that being said, it's about building the muscle. So if you, here's what often happens. Oftentimes, I get someone like this, they're afraid of increasing their calories. I do what they're saying. We cut down their cardio because they're doing too much of it. I bump their calories and focus on strength. And they're blown away by how little or no body fat they gain. They're absolutely, I can't believe I'm not gaining any body fat. I'm eating 800 more

calories. Okay, but what else are you noticing? Well, I'm way stronger. I'm lifting more weight. I did gain a couple pounds on the scale, but it seems to be all muscle. So it's really about aiming it towards muscle by sending the right signal, training appropriately, and then that's where those calories end up going. It would be interested to hear what cutting down cardio is where you're coming from, because this could also be challenging, too, if you, if, because somebody could say something like this to me and their cardio is training for a marathon. every week and they're cutting down is still too much. Yeah, still too much.

And they're trying to reverse diet and build muscle. This can be difficult. If you're still sending a louder signal of cardio than you are of building muscle, this could be a challenge for you to build muscle. And so I'd be interested to hear exactly where that's at. Normally what I like to do is whatever my, because normally people are doing three to five hours of cardio a week. I like to switch that immediately from cardio to walking and focus on building muscle.

Walking is a great form of activity for muscle building. And it's not such a drastic cut in movement and calorie burn that they're going to see this massive weight gain, especially if we shift over to strength training and we do a small increase in calories, then most all those extra calories will get partitioned over building muscle. Metabolism will speed up and we shouldn't see any real fat gain over the core. if we look at it over a 30 or 60 day window, it'll be a nice transition. But still trying to maintain some cardio, because I don't want to put fat on, sometimes can send a conflicting signal of what we're trying to do.

We're trying to reverse diet. We're trying to build muscle, but you're still hanging on to the cardio, you know, a little bit. And a little bit to you is half of what you were doing before, but what you were doing before was marathon training, which is still ridiculous.

So I'd want to know more to be even more precise on what I'd prescribe here. Next question is from Matthew with faith. What movement should I concentrate on to help fix my forward rolled shoulders? So I'll give you the exercise, but I'm going to be just to be clear, you could do what I'm about to say in a way that will make your forward shoulders worse. So typically it's rows. Typically it's all rows or row variations.

Now here's the key. The key is that you pull your shoulder blades back and down while you do the row. So I can pull and do a row with forward shoulder and just use my lats and actually make my forward shoulder worse. The key, again, you got to bring, if you look at your shoulder blades, they need to come back and down. And that's what corrects or strengthens that kind of tall posture look. What we're trying to strengthen are the rhomboids and mid to lower trapezius muscles, which are the ones that bring the shoulder blades back and down. If I don't do that, I can pull with my lats.

I can pull a lot of weight with my lats, but it's not going to fix the issue that we're talking about. about here. I love doing, um, just, just having weights in my hands and like, then creating that, uh, posture position you're, you're describing. Like a farmer walk. Like a farmer walk. But even before walking is just holding, isometrically holding the weights, setting them down is, is even a primer just to kind of like spark that, that, uh, the connection there. So to your point is, if you're just doing rows and you're not really conscious of what's happening with your shoulders, as you're rowing, we could be reinforcing that bad pattern. But, you know, I like to start with that.

And then, you know, I do like to incorporate quite a bit of farmer walks with really good upright postural positioning. I would prescribe prone cobras and brand pull parts almost daily to get them to get that, that scapular articulation down. And we're not like, we're not going to be breaking down anything that I can't do. So they can do it daily and practicing that. And then doing what both of you are saying as far as your strength building exercises in your routines. Because depending on how bad the forward shoulders and stuff like that, if you just go right to a movement like rows, to your point, it's been many clients before I've seen. They're rowing with their arms.

Yep. And they're not articulating. You've got to actually literally physically move their shoulders. Yes. And so, and that'll just exacerbate the problem, especially if they get strong doing it that way. And so doing good priming stuff like prone cobras, ban pull apart stuff on a daily basis for. frequently if you can. And then when you get to the strength building type stuff,

doing those former walks where you really articulate the scapular back, doing the seated rows and bent over rows is going to be the key to this for sure. Totally. Next question is from Moralife, Jojo. What was an ethical situation you faced as a trainer and how did you handle it? What do you think are common ethical situations trainers encounter? So there's the obvious, you know, stereotype where the trainer has a romantic relationship with their client.

And we don't need to go there because I think everybody's like, yeah, don't do that. So that's obvious. Don't bang your client. But I'm going to speak to a less obvious one that I guarantee you some trainers are going to listen to this and disagree with me. But I'm going to just, I'm going to sell it, okay, because this is 100% true.

You have to always, and I made this mistake many times, you have to always maintain a separation, a professional separation between you and your clients. And this is why it's so difficult. when you train people for 10 years, when you see them twice a week for 10 years, you know them, they know you. And it's very difficult.

That professional line, it's so easy to blur it because you've known this person for a decade or even if it's just a year or two years and you want to hang out with them and you want to do things outside of the gym and you want to go on trips with them. And you end up having a relationship that's both professional but then also not professional.

And I'm going to say this right. out, it will hamper your effectiveness as a trainer if you blur that line. When this person starts to see you outside of this kind of professional relationship, like we're just buddies, your effectiveness actually starts to drop. You'll still maintain your friendship with them, but your effectiveness starts to drop. So how do you maintain that? Well, and I had no problem with knowing my client's families and my clients knowing my families, but it would happen with professional events.

I'd have events at my gym. I'd invite my family. They'd meet my kids and stuff like that. But I didn't go travel with my clients. I had many clients who I knew very well. Like, hey, let's go to Vegas together. Let's go to the Cancun together or whatever. And I'd turn it down because I had too many experiences where the line would get blurred.

And then either the client, it felt weird asking them for money. If they started to become more flaky because we're buddies or it was harder for me to influence them as their coach and trainer because they didn't view me so much as. that and more as their friend. And I think that's an important one to talk about because it's so easy to kind of blur that line. So two come to mind to me right away related mainly to financial. So I was faced with a major ethical situation when I was scaling the boot camps. And that weighed on me a lot because it was at a period of time when we were transitioning

before mind pump, I was moving out of cannabis. And so coming from a time of making a lot of money and being very successful in the cannabis space, moving out of that before mind pump was the least amount of money I was probably making over the last almost 25 years of my life. And during that time, I was scaling these boot camps and they were growing and doing well. and I was also, and I tell a story about this is what made us all connect was I was aware of what would be best serving of those people, what they needed. So what they wanted versus what they needed.

Yes. And I wrestled. That's a very common with the trainer. I wrestled with this because, you know, and the lie I told myself was they love it. And they did love it. It's better than nothing. They love me.

They love me and they high-fiving and this is what they wanted. and they, they, I didn't have to close anyone. They were signing up every month and, you know, we built this great community. And so I told myself all the other positive things that they got from it, whatever. But deep down inside, I knew I wasn't really physically helping them. And most of them were, you know, most of these clients were 40, 50, 60 years old. And there was other things that they should be doing that I wasn't providing in a boot camp setting. And I, I, and I needed the money.

So I wrestled with that quite a bit. Ultimately, I walked away from it. Ultimately, I shut them down and I stopped doing them. I've told the story that probably the guilt from that. I continued to do that stuff for free for mobility classes for a long time of those people. So that was the first one that comes to mind. And then the other one was around similar time. So probably why it was ethical.

and I struggled with it was because I knew I needed the finances. But I knew what was right and what was wrong. When I wasn't competing, which was beginning of mind pump, mind pump hadn't taken off yet. We're doing it, but we're not paying ourselves yet. It's growing. There's a lot of positives on the side. But I'm also still having to keep all my finances and everything going.

And I was competing. I got known really quick and a lot of people wanted me to coach them. And so I wasn't even trying to build. a coaching business and I was building a coaching business. And it was scaling pretty quick. And I was doing well. And I was faced with a lot of bikini competitors who wanted me to coach them. And when they would fill out the application, I'd have the original Zoom call and talk to them and hear where they were at metabolically and stuff like that.

And they'd tell me, I want you to coach me and there's this show. And I would be like, yeah, no, I can. can't do it. It's unhealthy. It's unhealthy for you to do that. I would want to train you for six months to a year to build you up before we do that. And I know I lost a good amount of business because I know a lot of those girls went off and I know who they hired. And they went and got somebody else took their money and said, sure, I'll throw you on an hour of cardio every day and starve your body for the next, you know, 12 weeks to let you do the show. So those two times, yeah, I was faced with that. And probably why, because I don't, I can't think of other ones

that come to me. Why I was challenging was because it was a period of time of my life when I could use the money. Yeah, I could use the money, but I knew what was right and still walked away from it. Yeah, that's kind of, I mean, it's similar to the only one I could kind of think it was like, besides, you know, the stuff that's like they're trying to hang out too much. Yeah. Of course, you get really close with your clients. But, yeah, we used to be next to the spirit. pediatric treatment kind of place where like doctors would prescribe this really, really low calorie and then they'd give them shakes. Oh, yeah.

And I just, I was so uncomfortable with, with, somebody would come in with that. And then they wanted to be able to get the treatment. So they had to lose like 20 pounds or 50 pounds or whatever it was like quickly. Or they had to gain it to qualify. Or they had to gain it. Yeah. So there was one or the other. And like, so I had both situations.

And like, I just didn't, I ethically, I just. It was like, I can't, like, they would want me to basically, like, you know, have the most intense almost circuit training. And they would like, they hate that I was putting them through actual strength training and like really trying to build them up. And like, you know, I was, I was definitely challenging them with their, with their nutrition. And so it was one of those things. I actually let a couple of those clients leave. And I just, I couldn't do it because I just was like, this is just not like, you're going to have to find somebody else to do this is not good for you. like I actually had one lady actually pass out.

And I was like, and I asked her, how many, like, how much are eating? And like, we went into it. And it just, all these red flags kind of went off for me. And I was like, I'm done. You just reminded me of a specific one I had. I trained a young lady for the Miss San Jose pageant. And I trained her because, uh, she was dating someone close to me. I won't say it was, but someone I knew.

So, so they're like, hey, you, you know, train her. And I'm sure. So I trained her and she won. So she gets first place. Next thing you know. everybody's like, how did you look so good? All these other moms coming. And so I got, yeah, so I had all these inquiries from these pageant competitors and their moms.

Yeah. Who wanted me train their daughters? And it did not feel right at all. I mean, I've told this story before, but I remember I was at that Miss San Jose and had all these people coming up to know, I want to talk to you afterwards. And she looks so good. Let me see what's going on. And I had this one mom come up to me with her daughter.

who was probably 15. And she's like, hey, I'm interested in you training my daughter and this and that, getting her ready. And she goes, but can you please explain to her how eating too many apples can also make you fat? And this is a 15-year-old girl. And the mom is saying that. And I looked at her and I looked at her daughter.

And I said, that's not what's going to make you fat. And she's like, but it's calories, right? Isn't it excess calories? I said, yeah, that's the wrong information. And I was like, right then and there, I'm like, I'm not training any of these kids because this is going to be, all I'm going to do is going to do is getting to battles with the parents, and I'm only going to encourage these girls to not be in pageants. That whole space was just horrible.

We all worked at that Santa Trista gym, and Justin's talking about the clinic across the street. Yep, I saw that too. And so I actually had clients that because they can get insurance to cover that. They have to be a certain overweight. You're not obese enough to get me to gain weight. So they'd eat like crap. And so, yeah. Crazy?

Yeah, I was like, I can't do that. that too. They would come to me, they'd be like, I need to put on like 25 pounds of body fat in order to qualify for the insurance to pay for this surgery. And I already didn't,

was not a fan of that surgery anyways. Now, if it's a life or death situation for somebody, understandable. Like this person's 400 pounds, doing the gastric. Like, it is what it is to save a life.

But I think I totally was against that as a method of losing weight. And you're turning down money. They're like willing to pay you. Yeah, I know I did the same thing. Yeah, yeah, crazy. 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 programs,

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