Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 570: Ben Pakulski & Alvin Brown on Phasing Training & Diet, Cardio & Muscle Gain, Intra-Set Stretching for Muscle Growth, Sleep Hacks & MORE

Episode Date: August 10, 2017

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Ben Pakulski and Alvin Brown about cortisol resistance, phasing workouts, eating according to workout phase, cardio and muscle gain, breathing, intra-set stretching, sleep, gratitude, being present and much more. Check out Ben's Muscle Expert Podcast and his website at www.benpakulski.com. Ben puts Adam through workout (4:48) Ben talks about working with Hany Rambod (7:30) Consistently over trained Body always inflamed Did Ben ever experience adrenal fatigue? (10:12) Cortisol resistance, what does he think about it? (13:00) Beast Mode Blood sugar dip Reduce exposure to what you are resistant to Sleep quality Guys talk mindset How does Ben train now? (22:50) What is his opinion on hypertrophy stimulus? (25:00) Eating protocol Ben explains AMPK and mTOR (29:00) Regulating energy balance Based on your goal How does he manage his stress? (31:25) Breathing patterns intra-workout Ben talks about a study he conducted for loaded intra-workout stretching (34:20) Muscle fiber hypertrophy Muscle fiber hyperplasia How is the weight (muscle) loss going for him? (40:30) Loves training again Eating a lot less Is there anything he is monitoring while losing this muscle? (42:10) Testosterone levels Guys discuss biohacking sleep (45:15) Blackout blinds Keeping room cool  No devices about an hour before bed Lights out when the sun goes down Mattress quality Turn Wifi off Ben working with someone to create own mattress Float tanks The guys talk about stress management (59:40) Start/Finish day with gratitude Anxiety How to be more mindful? (1:02:50) Noting state changes Energy beings Extreme sports and athletes Flow state Power of present moment Step out of comfort zone Perception of time Does he have any hacks that he does to stay more present? (1:20:20) How could he have used being present/mindful in his bodybuilding days? Gives advice to bodybuilders. (1:23:00) Take ownership/control of your life Meditation Perception controls your life Have to enjoy the process Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Got a beard? Condition your beard with Big Top Beard Company’s natural oils and organic essential oil blends to make it not only feel great but smell amazing! Get Big Top Beard Company products at www.bigtopbeardcompany.com, code "mindpump" for 33% off. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. What a great talk. Everybody, you know what? Everybody has been howling us for when is Ben Pax episode going to go on vacation. packs episode. We wanted to wait, okay, because we shot a YouTube series with Ben. Super cool. He actually broke down his introset stretching technique that he utilizes in one of his number one selling programs online that he has.

Yeah, it's, I've never, uh, I've never, I've never done a technique like this before. I was familiar with like finishing a set and getting into deep stretch. Like, what was that training called? Dachia stretch. No, dog crap training or DC training did it that we called at one point. But this is different. I know you guys are like, that's literally the name of it. I don't know.

This was different. And Ben told me that I guess they had it done a controlled study on this particular technique. And it was very effective at building muscle. muscle and since then I've tried it a couple times. It does get you very sorry, do you get a very ridiculous pump? Well, there's a protocol to it too because you better believe the very first thing that I asked him when I heard something that intense. I was like, okay, obviously you don't recommend this non-stop and he's like, no I think it was, I think six weeks is what the program's protocol calls for. I can't remember what he said, but I asked that question when we were going through it

on the YouTube, but he did a YouTube series with us that we actually went through all the techniques with those that are interested in the techniques and go to the YouTube channel, check it out on Mind Pump TV. Yeah, he teaches you guys how to do it because there's a specific way to do it. He had to really break it down for me because it was hard to understand as he was explaining it to me

But it's pretty interesting. It's an interesting new technique I know he's he's combined that with his body parts because I know he's a body part split guy And he has that in his he is but his programs when we look through some of his programs Although he does a split he trains with more frequency than typical body parts splits. Well, one of the big problems with splits that we've had is this whole once a week type of thing, but he advocates like two or sometimes three times a week. So although it's a split, it's similar to, you know, how we advocate people work out or whatever.

But I think we have something set up, right? If people want to check out more, get more information on it. Yeah, no, he is a discount, he's a discount for all the mind pump fans. So which there'll be a link in the show notes and then also after the mind pump, I mean, after the YouTube series, I know Doug will have a link in there also for it. And the program is what's it called Doug? Is it mi 40 extreme? Good. So we'll have that set up. But Ben is one of, um, come, becoming one of my favorite guests, very intelligent guy, very self-aware, super growth minded, like super growth minded.

We got into some really good conversations in this podcast that some of them have nothing to do with like bodybuilding. We talked about self-awareness and mindfulness. Although I came out the gates on some bodybuilding questions on my head, I stir a little controversy in. He fucked me up, the gym, man. We worked out earlier in the morning and he crushed me.

And I looked at him and said, listen, bro, when we get on the podcast, I'm going to dig it to fire. So right out the gates, I came on and stir some shit up just to get him backpedal in a little bit. But great episode, man. And he has become a good buddy of ours. He's just a real interesting dude and interesting to listen to. And I just love his mindset these days. It's definitely ours. He's just a real interesting dude and and interesting to listen to and I just love his mindset these days

It's it's definitely contagious. He's awesome. He'll be he'll be out there with us at Olympia So he'll be with us at Olympia He'll also be with us at the Spartan race. Yeah, we're becoming we're becoming best friends. Yeah, best He's a good dude. He's the he's the wolf in the wolf pack now Also this month we have the promo where we're giving away Also, this month we have the promo where we're giving away forum access for free. So we have a private forum. It's got about 2,000 people on there.

It's full of fitness professionals, competitors. There's bodybuilders on there, there's doctors, and of course me, Adam and Justin are on there all the time. It's an amazing resource, a place to ask questions, post videos, whatever. As long as it has to do with fitness and health and wellness, that's the place to do it. Normally you'd have to pay for access, but we're giving it for free. All you have to do is enroll in one of our programs, one of our maps programs, or our bundles,

including our maps Super Bundle, which has them all. It's about a year's worth of exercise program. It's one of the only programs I know of, or at least one of the only bundles I know of where you can enroll and you've got your year planned out for you. Enrolling any of those things, get forum access for free. You can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. And without any further ado, here we are talking to Ben Pakolsky. Make sure you guys go check out his podcast to Muscle Expert podcast. You guys head over there, give him a five star review hook our boy up. The house you guys work out this morning.

I heard Adam came back and he's like, oh, cool. He took us. He took me through a nice easy. I came back. I said, does work out. I texted boy. This is the shortest workout ever. Ben's a pussy.

I already we. Armweight resistance. It's like the idea was we're going to stand lock. We're going to do it. Chest and shoulders, right? I hit him up and said, oh good, I'm on the same, where I said, no what I said was, I just needed to touch chest and shoulders, right?

And he said, yeah, me too. So we get in there and I think... Jackhammer. Yeah, I think on like the fifth exercise or so of chest, I'm like, hey, are we gonna start shoulders anytime? Yeah. Yeah, Adam came in, he's out his little wavy, little shaking in the hands.

So is that. What did you think of the gym over there? Not bad, huh? I do like it, man. I've been here before. I've been to the other, what used to be goals. Oh, okay. And I've been to that one, I think once before too.

I went with Haani. 2010, I worked with Haani Psychi Monday, one time at Traylor. Oh, I did not know this. How was your training? We're gonna talk about this. I have the training go. The pro make, right? No, and here's, this could be a paradigm-shattering moment for me.

And I'm sure there's people that are big, honny fans, because I've kind of thrown subtle jabs at him. And I honestly, I don't know enough to actually speak on it enough. And you expect me to talk with us on the podcast? Well, can you do it? Can you, can you, can we be PC about it? Man, I'm not a political correct guy. Come on, hold in, fuck it, it's my pump.

I'll give you a shit. You give a shit? Man, I'm not a political correct guy. Come on, hold in, fuck it, it's my pump. I don't give a shit, do you give a shit? You give a shit? Better. Well, it's up to you. I mean, we can edit whatever you want to edit. We don't have to. I'll talk about it. Here's actually, here's the thing.

I want you to talk about fucking everything I ask you because you said you're gonna open a book and I told you I'm coming after you for coming after me in the gym. You came after me in gym, I'm coming after you. I'm gonna get there. So here's the deal though. We talk about anything and everything,

but afterwards, whatever you want out to, we'll pull up. So that's the deal. I just wanna have good conversation with you. So here's the deal though. We talk about anything and everything, but afterwards whatever you want out there, we'll pull out. So that's a deal. I just want to have good conversation. So if I pull out method, yeah, it's not. It's not worth for me. We're doing it wrong, bro. You're doing it wrong. No, so we'll, you know, we recorded this. It was just fucking, yeah, we're throwing it. As soon as now my, here's how my pump works. As soon as Doug throws the headphones on, we're fucking rolling. We did it your way last time.

So we're gonna talk, we're just gonna talk everything. We're talking about life, bro right now. I'll pull in the punches, I'll talk for you. Okay, so, and the reason why I was, maybe we can do this somewhat PC, right? Cause I've thrown jabs at Hawny and I don't know him very well. I just have happened to have picked up athletes that have been coached by him.

I got known real quick to, if someone had fucked up someone's metabolism or if you were a bikini girl who, you know, your coach told you to eat 1100 calories and do two hours of cardio for 13 weeks straight. Like, if you had coaches that were doing things like that, I was the guy that you called up and I kind of helped you out, right? And so let's go there because you and I are both in the middle of quote unquote transformations right now and they look completely opposite. Really?

You don't think we look the same? Well, no, we're a little bit. At least our transformations have to be up so as far as our objectives, right? I think people want to know what are we doing and why? And because we can both actually articulate the why and have a good amount of reasoning behind it, or at least I can, you're gonna talk to your ass, but boom. Same old, same old.

Not really. So I think people would be interested. And then you can throw those honey questions out and we can talk about what his approach is. And I don't know what his current approach is because in 2010 I worked with him. And I'll tell you the story, man,

I turned pro in 2008 and I signed, I hired him in 2009 because the pro game, if you wanna get any degree of traction in the pros, you have to get eyeballs. You need to get significance. So I hired him literally as soon as I turned pro, I said, honey, I wanna work with you because you're working with Phil.

Everybody knows Phil or Phil's great. Did I learn anything from honey? No. Did I expect to learn anything from honey? No. Fair. So it is what it is, man. I came up from honey? No. Did I expect to learn any from honey? No. Fair. So it is what it is, man. I came up to train with him.

He was my coach and I wanted to see what I looked like and we did a workout together. Was it a great workout? It was what it was. I spent two days here with two workouts, I think. And he trained me for two shows. First one, I got third place for the in Tampa in 2009 and it was funny that the day before the show he goes

to you're not ready to go on stage and they go relax man. So the way I trained trained I was constantly overtrained, constantly inflamed because I didn't know how to rotate my stimulus. I was a typical you know driven meathead who I fucking buried everybody in the gym. Nobody would come close. I buried them, but I also over-trained the shit out of myself. And I didn't know enough about fluctuating the biochemical stimulus in my body. So fluctuating between strength stimulus, hypertrophy stimulus, metabolic stimulus, and more importantly, how that influenced my body. So I didn't change it. So I was always doing the same things. I was so inflamed, I never gave my body a chance to reduce that information. So I didn't change it. So I was always doing the same things. I was so inflamed, I never gave my body a chance

to reduce that information. So I wanted to do it really the day before so I go, do you not ready? I go, honey, let's just drop my water and watch what happens. And we did. And I was the best conditioned guy on stage by far. But the day before, because I was so inflamed

from all the training I was used to doing, my body, my ankles were like, fucking. But you knew that. Yeah, because that was so inflamed from all the training I was used to doing. My body, my ankles were like fucking, but you knew that. Yeah, because that was kind of my M.O. Man, like that was always my thing since I started as a body baller. I just trained and trained and trained because that's what I love to do. And then you realize your goal is not just to train. Your goal is to be a great body baller. So what I learned how to fluctuate stimulus and strategically change that, match my nutrition to the biochemical response of the training, things changed, things happened. Now, do you see with, because this is common,

I've heard from a lot of people who compete in stage presentation sports like bodybuilding, where they push themselves so hard that eventually, they call it burnout, like my body burns out. Now, in the wellness sphere, they'll refer to something like that, like a adrenal fatigue, although we know there's no evidence in terms of the adrenals getting fatigued,

but the symptoms are very real, the where you're tired, low levels of depression, anxiety, food intolerances go up, stuff like that. Did you ever experience anything like that yourself? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, more than one occasion actually. And sometimes you know you're there, man. Like, you know, there's multiple occasions I can, that come to mind that I knew I was there,

but you're so close to the show, you can't let off the gas pedal, right? And your only option at that point is more and more and more. And a lot of athletes get into this. I have to do more because, you know, every meathead, you know, sorry, I use that term kind of to roger tour. Yeah, no, absolutely, but I use it almost too often and it's too broad stroke. So specifically, any coach, most coaches out there

put their girls on or their guys on low carbohydrate to our zikardio and then they go, oh fuck, what do I do? And the only option is I have to do more. And a lot of people find themselves in that position and they don't know how to change it, they don't know how to change their stimulus, they don't know how to fluctuate anything. And I've been guilty of that,

being three weeks out from a contest and going, well, I can't let off the gas pedal now. The only option I have is to do more. I'm not losing fat as fast as I want. And you go more and more and more and more is not always better, more is often worse because you're just going to drive up more inflammation, drive up more cortisol, more sympathetic nervous system response, and your body just goes, you know, two middle fingers up, I'm not doing, I'm not going to respond

the way you want it to. And that's all too often the case in the fitness industry. That is, people just get this huge hormonal cascade of cortisol and orprenetferin and they never allow their body to recover and then fat loss is not even an option at that point. So here's what's interesting with that. I've seen, so adrenal fatigue has been thrown around in the wellness world for a long time. And Western medicine doctors laugh at it because again, there's no evidence that the adrenals are actually getting fatigued, except for actual cases where they have terms for them, like if you have Hashimoto's or other types of disorders.

Nonetheless, the symptoms are real, and so there's an alternate theory that's coming out, and what happens sometimes in medicine is you see like a host of symptoms that tend to happen all together and you start to see a lot of it, and so people come up with theories of how it's working, what are the mechanisms behind the symptoms? And then they say, you know, a test will come out and say, okay, the mechanisms, the theory is not true. Therefore, that condition isn't real, but

that's wrong because the symptoms still exist. So there's this alternate theory, which I'm, which really resonates with me. And it's something called cortisol resistance, or form of, yeah, a form of... Okay, so we know of leptin resistance, we know of insulin resistance, both of those are proven, we know that those are both things that happen in the body. We know, or at least bodybuilders, pro bodybuilders know that a form of, and this is speculative, of course speculative, that a form of testosterone resistance will even happen with athletes

where they'll use higher and higher levels of Androgens and their bodies just stop responding to testosterone. Cortisol and catacolming production, it only makes sense that your body will start to desensitize itself to adapt to these elevated levels of epinephrine or epinephrine and cortisol. And some of the symptoms of that are needing stimulants to feel normal, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to stimulate more of that cortisol and get higher levels

to get the same kind of feeling. Or even, this is another interesting one that you'll see is that people will actually place themselves in stressful situations, not knowing that the reason why they're doing that is they're trying to create a novel way of stimulating more cortisol. So they'll find themselves being late more often, or not meeting deadlines, or doing things that will create more of these stressful situations, because there's this kind of temporary relief from this increased, you know, burst of cortisol. How do you feel about that theory or behind those symptoms?

1000% man, it's the paradigm of our entire society right now is take as many stimulants as you can, steep as low as you can, do as much as you can, it's go-go-go. This mode. Yeah, overstimulated with blue lights, artificial lights, everyone's overstimulated, no one pays attention to anything on the back end

as far as modulating inflammation, stimulant, parasympathetic response, getting better sleep, good quality sleep, taking care of their environment. All these things are massive, and it's absolutely true, man. And I think it's more common amongst average people, as well as fitness people.

So I think that's very likely to be the mechanism. And I don't know how extensively it's been studied. Do you ever train clients privately, or do you, I know you have people who work for you that do that, but do you ever? No, for years, man. For years I did. I ran gyms from the time I was 18 years old.

And for seven years I put myself through college as managing gyms, selling personal training, being a personal trainer, all this stuff. So you know as well as we do is that when you, when you start to look at all the clients that you've trained over all those years, and start to notice these patterns and one of the things that I I remember picking up on it took years for me to put this together. But the people everyone's doing the wrong things it seems like. So for example, like you get the guy who

is total yogi guy hippie hipsters, you know, smokes weed like crazy chill all time. That guy could probably use a little bit of intensity and stress in his life every now and then. Then you have the other person who is the, you know, work seven days a week, 14 hour days, manages 60 employees, stress out of their fucking mind. What kind of workouts do they like? I can't wanna go into heavy. Hammer, hammer their shit, right?

They wanna get hammered all the time. They love those high intensity classes. Like, oh, you see all these orange theories and the soul cycles and all these circuit based type classes where they just hammer the shit out of you those are the people that are filling into it and they're like the worst ones in the past and it's because it literally fits in the paradigm of cortisol resistance or may seem like cortisol resistance because they get temporary relief from doing that if you're a high Driving type A person and you've already got some resistance to catacole me production in cortisol, you are going to get temporary relief from squeezing

out a little bit more cortisol with a high intensity class. This is why you'll hear those people say, but you don't understand, like if I do a spin class, I just feel so good afterwards. It gives me relief, but it's temporary relief. And it's going, it's like giving more sugar to the person who's insulin resistant. Keep throwing sugar down the same thing. I'll dive a little deeper on the biochemistry of cortisol resistance because I haven't to be honest. I know I would have something to do in the brain and I know it would be something that

would be cellular and there's got to be a way you can influence it and it may just be like periodizing through your stimulus because muscular training would actually improve cortisol resistance because it could potentially improve the muscle stability uptake cortisol, but it would have to be a very specific stimulus. You couldn't be stimulating again high amounts of cortisol, right? So and I guess the only and this is worth, you know, maybe therapies like crowd therapy comes in is the idea of it's gonna give you a cortisol response, but hopefully it will allow the cortisol to actually come down after. So that's, I think, seems to be the problem

with the paradigm is it's this constant stimulation of cortisol, rather than high levels of cortisol. Right, and also cortisol rising and dropping at the wrong times. Like, they're not getting the natural spike of cortisol in the morning that you're supposed to get and they're getting out of spike in the evening, sometimes halfway through their sleep. And so you'll find what's common is people will go to bed

and find themselves inexplicably waking up, between the hours of like 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. for whatever reason. And if that cortisol comes up and comes up. Yes, a lot of people get blood sugar in fluctuations at that time, right? So, you know, ancient Chinese medicine is kind of the suggest they've nailed down the timing of something. Sometimes it's blood sugar problems that happens three to four hours after people go to

sleep. And that's often why people wake up as they get a dip in blood sugar. So their cortisol spikes to like to mobilize energy and then they wake up in the middle of the night and you're wide awake and can't get back to sleep. So that's again, kick of the insulin resistance to start. That could be just poor environment before bed and then it could be some cortisol thing. See for me when I think of when I look at resistance to hormones or natural, you know, chemical production of our body the answer seems to be for all of them to reduce your exposure

to whatever you're resistant to over a period of time, and then your body starts to up-regulate receptors and start to become more sensitized. For example, if you have a form of insulin resistance, reducing your consumption of carbohydrates and maybe even a ketogenic diet has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity so that then people have a nice more, you know, even blood sugar. Same thing with leptin and, you know, resistance or even cortisol. So I know the, in the wellness world, the advice for people in this who have these symptoms is usually, you know, number one, asleep quality, by the way, sleep quality is different

than just going to sleep. I actually talk to people about this all time when they're like, I sleep really good when I go to sleep and it's like there's a difference between being so exhausted that you crash and actually having good quality sleep. Meditation is another one, turning everything off and going outside and just being

exposed to the sunlight. That's another way you can kind of reduce, naturally reduce cortisol and maybe increase your sensitivity. The problem with all of that is it takes time and it's counter how we tend to tackle problems. Like when we have an issue, we tend to say, okay, I'm going to go after that issue. You can't go after this hard, you know what I'm saying? I can't like meditate hard or sleep hard. Step one, man, and Alvin and I here were talking about this on the way up, his perception is everything. And, you know, if you can't learn to modulate

your perception to stress, like all of us are under stress. It's an inevitability of the society we live in, but if you can't learn to at least somewhat control your physiological response to stress by your perception, you know it's then a chance. And so him and I and Rowan had a conversation on the way up about, you know, everyone has the ability to change their response. And that's kind of the only thing if you want to touch about what we talked on on the

way up, Alvin. Yeah, hey guys, how you doing? All right, yeah. So, you know, my big thing when I worked at Ben, I've been working at Ben since 2007 when he was an amateur, and my big thing when I worked with you, the athletes, is helping them to control their mindset,

because myself, I had that whole thing. I was a gym fighter, you know, I was great. I was a boxer, martial artist, wrestling high school, all that kind of thing, and I had dreams of the visions of Olympics. And but I was amazing in the gym and the ring, but get me out in the public and I choked every time. So I realized that the mind game is a huge factor with these guys.

And was it 90% mind game? Because we can all work out in gym and meet each other's expectations and meet each other's energy. But when we get out in the ring, it's who has a better mindset. So Ben and I were talking about that is It's all about the mindset and that the perception of the stress because stress is good There's some stress that you need as you're talking about the guy in the gym and blisting out They need a little bit of stress because you can't blist at all your whole life, right?

You need to have some you stress and so that's the whole thing Ben and I were talking about how do you manage that? How do you there's a great research out, a mechanical. Anybody know that? No, she's a killing mechanical. Okay. She's got it. She's got a book out called Upside of Stress. And she talks about the whole stress factor and how you should convert that and how you should look at stress because you need it. I've been reading, I don't know if you're from Eckhart tolly. Have you read any books? So a new earth. Yeah. I've been reading, I don't know if you're from Eckhart tolly, have you read any books? So a new earth. Yeah. I've been going through his book at the behest of my girlfriend.

She's been like hammering me like, you got to listen to Eckhart. So finally, I'm like, all right, let's listen to him. And it's really blowing me away. And one of the things that he says is, you know, it's not the problem that's the issue. It's the thought. It's what you think of the problem. It's the thoughts behind it, that of the problem. Just your view of it. Absolutely. And the way you see something is different the way I see problem. It's the thoughts behind it, that of the problem. Just your view of it.

Absolutely. And the way you see something is different than what I see. Something like that. That's reality, right? And how much we spend on, in terms of how much time we spend on work and exercise and diet and all these other things and how little time we spend on that side of things. Amen. So, Ben, what are the things you do now that you do different,

that you do that are different than you used to do in terms of, because you said you used to over train and push yourself too much and you weren't as balanced. You seem like a pretty balanced guy when I talked to you. You're pretty chill and relaxed. So, is it fake? So, man, from a physiological perspective, my training has massively changed.

And I think part of that, was the catalyst for it, was the fact that I know back in the day that my only tool, and my toolbox, was more harder, more hard. That's all I could do. And I was like, I just can't be right. And I knew that wasn't right, because it was a point where it's diminishing returns. So my team and I at the gym constantly study fluctuating your stimulus and doing as much as we can to quantify learning how to manipulate training to allow your body to recover from a stimulus. So we know we have every time we train we subject our body to different physiological stimulus. So we know we have, every time we train, we subject our body to different physiological stimulus. So a strength stimulus will be a primarily

neurological stimulus, maybe some mechanical damage. Virtually stimulus is gonna be a lot of metabolic stress. How do you do that with the individual variance? The individual variance has to be so great with some of that because this person's stress because they got something depressing going on in their life. This person over here is not sleeping right. You know, like, so, but how do you stress it?

The stress in the gym can still be the same. Like, you know, so if I'm training at doing a strength-based neurological-based stimulus, the rest period's a longer. I'm staying in a very specific rep range. I'm very... Right. So that's like a phase one of a map side of all type of things. So you're in the low rep ranges, trying to build central nervous system adaptation,

basically. Yep, exactly. And then just learning that those things do different things biochemically to my body and eating for those. And if you push one system, the other ones are kind of, so I just kind of look, view it like the things Doug doing over there manipulating everyone's volume and sounds and levels.

He's looking like that, right? So if I'm pushing my hypertrophy stimulus, well, hopefully my other two are kind of back. And then one of my hypertrophy stimulus maybe is pushed all the way up and then maybe I can push a metabolic stimulus, more of a fat loss to me. And then I'm kind of fluctuating them through

so that you're only ever really stressing one, maybe two stimulus. I gotta interrupt you right here because I want you to talk a little bit deeper about what you're talking about right now with. What in your opinion, what do you think is like an ideal time to pivot from one to the other? So how many weeks would you stay high-perturgy?

How many weeks would you... So that's where it becomes subjective. You talk about person to person. That has to be subjective, right? My response to hypertrophy stimulus is very different than yours. I might be able to, you know, depending on what I'm taking, depending on how my nutrition is, depending on all these different factors, my sleep, recovery, you know, some people can stay on hypertrophy stimulus really, really long.

Other people they're going to get inflamed almost immediately. And you have to look at your biochemical responses, your your physical feedback, right? And not just not just inflamed, but also your, the returns are diminishing, right? And this is what I try and tell people at a time like when you, how important that is to transition out of that because, you, because maybe the first three weeks of that programming or that way of training, you're getting these great results. So you get stuck because you fall in love with it. I can go and I have to be programmed for four months,

but I'm gonna keep growing and growing and growing. Where some people go and I have to be programmed for three weeks and they stop growing. And it's gonna depend on your ability to contract muscles, right? So the more efficient you are at generating intense contractions, cause a massive fluctuation. The urability contracts different from my, different from my, of course, different from now. So that's going to be completely the variable, but

it still needs to be within the same realm, within the same rest period, within the same reparing. Now, you, you, you, I don't know if I caught this correctly, you said something about eating according to the type of training. Sure. So, so what do you mean by that? So, I'm training for a central nervous system adaptation. Um, how is my eating different there than if I'm training for hypertrophy? Sure.

For where I'm training, you know, metabolic, uh, metabolically. Sure. So, it depends on what you're trying to stimulate, right? So when we're training for hypertrophy, we're trying to stimulate the mTOR pathway. So we need to know and we need to ensure that our muscles energetically are replenished otherwise you can't get hypertrophy stimulus. So you know that you need a high amount of carbohydrates. If I'm training for a strength stimulus, neurological stimulus, I'm not going to be depleting

any amount of carbohydrate because I'm not ever to be depleting any amount of carbohydrate because I'm not ever really taxing the cell energetically. It's more of a tension stress or it's more of a mechanical tension stress. So there's never going to be a depletion of carbohydrates. So I know I'm always going to have enough nutrients to stimulate amtore. I just need to make sure that I'm getting a protein to recover enough fat to recover my nervous system, things like that because what's what I stressing or what system am I stressing? If I'm doing a metabolic style stimulus, which is high intensity low rest, low rest fat burning, more your traditional bodybuilding type.

Hit style training. If I'm doing a circuit, if I'm doing something that's going to be very depleting to my body, well, I know, definitively, that's going to be draining to my glycogen levels relatively, right? If I'm doing it right, it should be. And then you have to weigh the answer or weigh the equation of am I trying to get my body to burn fat, in which case you want to be in an etigenicly depleted state, or if I'm trying to get my body to suck up more nutrients, well, that would be a good time, perhaps, to put some back in, you know. So looking at cellular energetics, is that not making sense? Just it is, absolutely. So that's how, good time, perhaps, to put some back in. So looking at cellular energetics,

is that not making sense? Just it is, absolutely. So that's how, you know, you just look at, well, what am I stimulating? And how do I support that? So strength stimulus is going to be, I need more protein, I'm more fat. I approach for stimulus,

is I need more protein, I need more carbs. Metabolic stimulus is, I probably need a lot of carbs, but I'm probably not doing a lot of metabolic damage, because there's not a lot of weight. So I don't need any protein. And not only that, but if you try to go heavy when you're training metabolic stresses, then you're taxing the central nervous system too much

and you're not getting the benefit of what you're looking for. And if you're going too fast with the central nervous system, type adaptation training with your rest, you're not getting much of that, you're getting more of the hypertrophy type stuff. It's just funny because you literally are spelling out The first maps program no joke. It's literally broke up in phases that way and I'm I'm glad I'm hearing someone that I respect so much like yourself

Talk about this because it makes me feel good that we're on the right track as well You guys are definitely on the right track and then taking it one step further looking at the cellular and Eugenics extremely important. This is one of my biggest and then taking it one step further, looking at the cellular energetics is extremely important. This is one of my biggest kind of realizations over the last 12 months is a cell, you're basically looking at two conflicting signals, right? You're either gonna have mTOR, you're gonna have AMPK,

and that is often, most often, determined by cellular level of replicions. So if my cells are depleted, I'm typically going to get more of an AMP UK response. If my cells are replenished, I can get more of an MTOR response. And your MTOR will actually be inhibited if your cells are too depleted. So if you're doing a metabolic-style stimulus, you're actually depleting glycogen. And if you do too much hypertrophy-style stimulus, you could be depleting glycogen too much. And then until your glycogen-stores are replenished, you don't get that M-tore stimulus,

or at least it maybe won't last as long. Would you mind going into just for our listeners, M-tore and AMPK, because I know M-tore, what is that? M-million target, Repa-Miasin. AMPK, not quite sure with that. I don't even know. But can you explain the two of them,

and what they, why they're different? It's basically anabolic catabolic stimulus, right? So? It's basically anabolic, catabolic stimulus, right? So your body's either anabolic or catabolic. It's never staying the same. You see they're doing one or the other. And one is more fat burning, right? One might, but more. Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's,

fat burning, energy, energy burning, basically, energy depleting. MTOR is gonna be more anabolic, more muscle protein, stimulus. Excellent. Now, when people are, because you do see this sometimes with clients, if they're doing everything right,

you see a composition change where they're doing both, building muscle, burning body fat. A lot of that has to do with that delicate balance, I would guess, with balancing out M.Tor and Ampique. And I think a lot of people, what they do wrong is they try to do both at the same time, and you can't. That's a great point, you can't. And that's why people,

oh I'm gonna go do cardio after I do weight training. Well that's okay, but are you realizing that, are you trying to build muscle now, or are you trying to, are you trying to prevent? Yeah. So if I go do this awesome weight training workout and then I go to cardio, you just basically turned off your mentor's switch

and you just told your body it's time to break down now. So acknowledging that is a very important realization for people to make is, well when do I I do cardio? Well, it depends on your goal. So you have to always weigh MPK and MTOR pathways. So it would be more wise to separate the two, even in the same day, if your goal is fat loss. I want to go back to the stress management, we were kind of talking about stress. And just some ways that maybe I know you've been on a kick of interviewing a lot of biohackers.

Just some sort of information you've pulled from them and maybe applied in your own common practice. I know for me, I did Wim Hof and that really helped me to be able to get away from my prefrontal cortex and be able to kind of calm down and be able to get away from my prefrontal cortex and be able to calm down and be able to get to that place where I could actually deal with stress better just to breathing patterns.

It's funny, I was talking about this on the phone for this morning and last night to these guys. It's something that's been maybe my biggest thing to move the needle as far as intra-workout lately is breathing patterns. So most people breathe one breath, one rep. I've been doing one breath, three reps. Try that.

It's extremely challenging. So hold your breath and then you just really slow a methodical, almost like a yoga breath where I'm literally trying to make it, like I'm doing a 30 or 40 second inhalation, 30 or 40 second exhalation. While you're doing reps, while I'm doing the rest, I do box, where you five, five, five, the other blocks. No, but it's challenging, especially as you start getting your heart rate up, but I find I'm really able to control my heart rate, control my breathing rate, and for most people,

that's what fatigues them, right? They get the sympathetic response because their brain senses like, oh shit, I'm out of breath. Heart rate goes up, you know, there's an oxygen debt, heart rate goes up, and all of a sudden people start to panic and they stop. So I find this has been a massive way for me to increase the output on a set. So this is kind of my thing, right? My thing is I'm doing a lot less volume,

but I'm trying to take sets a lot further. So I try to take them as far as I physically can and I'll do maybe six rate sets per weekend, different body parts, whatever it looks like. But I want to be able to take that set really far and I never want my heart rate or my breathing rate to be the limiting factor. I always want it to be muscular

and that's been massive for me. Wow, so literally I'm doing a set of curls, for example, rather than breathe out on the way up, breathe out, suck in on the way down or whatever like we're taught, you're doing one breath every three reps. So I'm depending on the exercise. You're a fuck, you're fucking tell me that this morning.

Interesting. Try to angle on me, but you're not lasting it out. Exactly. No wonder, I would assume cheat codes. Because hold you down me when we're trying to lift. Well, actually, I don't even think it's a cheat code because I feel like the first time you do that, you're probably harder.

You're gonna be way harder. Yeah. So is that what you found? Yeah, for sure. And it takes, you know, I don't know how much you guys are doing yoga, but I've been really even throughout the day. I'm trying to practice a little bit of yoga breath, bring me back to just being a little

more centered, a little more grounded. And that's been massive for overcoming stressful situations in general. And then you apply it to a big stress, which is training, but it does actually take time for you to be able to, like, because you got to perform the skill while you're doing the breath. And both of those can be conscious tasks, which you can't do. So for me, now the breathing has become the more unconscious tasks.

So I could just focus on keeping that really long and pathetic breath and just focus on the one conscious task being the training. Well that's awesome. Yeah, it's cool. You also had brought up the study that you had conducted. I wanna talk about this, because I don't know if our audience knows about this.

I thought I found it fascinating. I was familiar with intral workout stretching and its effect on muscle hypertrophy and the study's done on it and they show that, at least in short term, for short term progress, like 12 weeks, it has a positive effect on hypertrophy and there was some animal models that had demonstrated this as well.

You were talking about intraset stretching and it was a very unique way. I'd never heard of it done this way before and I guess the results, I don't know if you want to go over. Yes. So for the record, I think intra workout stretching is stupid. Regardless what the what the study say, I think it's pre-exposing in injury because you're accessing your range that you can't control. I think it's a terrible idea. We made it talk to the students. Yes. So my protocol that I had studied was loaded stretching, loaded intra-set stretching, which means during the set stretching. I had a study for six weeks in the lab, and we

had 15 pounds average weight gain across 30 participants. 15 pounds? Six weeks. Yes, tremendous. And blew away my expectations before. Like I told you guys, I was expecting six, seven pounds and and read an average of 15 pounds. Most of the, I'll show you guys the results. Most of the participants I actually got leaner. It's hard. And it's absolutely fucking hard.

Like we'll do it tomorrow, whatever we try to get. We'll do it tomorrow, I'll show you guys what does. It's definitely the hardest thing you could possibly do for our poetry stimulus. You're gonna be really sore, but your body responds really quickly. Now is it for everybody? No, you need to have for our part of your stimulus. You're going to be really sore, but your body responds really quickly. Now, is it for everybody? No, you need to have very good control of your execution.

You need to be, you know, I call it, you have a mastery of your execution. Whatever that looks like is subjective, perhaps, but you have to be a master in you. You have to be in control every inch of the rep. And it's the most excruciating thing you've ever done, but it fucking works. And isn't that life, right? I would think you would, you would recommend it intermittently like through two. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. So we do in six week blocks and I only recommend it two to three times a year for most people.

Oh, okay. So yeah, it's kind of a progressive thing. So you know, start off with maybe one set per body part and then we progress up over six weeks. Now if I'm going into a workout and maybe we should do a YouTube video on this demonstration so it's going to be a great, awesome video. Yeah, great YouTube video. So, if I'm doing a workout, and let's say normally I'm doing chest, and I'm doing, I don't

know, 12 sets for chest, do I do, you know, 11 sets of chest normal, and then one set of this introset type thing, or do I, does this replace more than one set? Like, how does that work? Just one set. Okay, so I'll do one set for the body part of doing, does this replace more than one set? Like how does that work? Just replace this one set. So I'll do one set for the body part of doing of this particular technique. To start, yeah. I mean, you could do two, it depends on it feels.

So there's two sides of it, right? At the beginning, probably is gonna push himself as hard on something that's new. So he's probably not gonna get as much damage as someone who's more advanced. But again, they knew I'm always a little bit a few with people having control of it themselves. So I'll walk you through the protocol, man, really simply.

So we'll pick a weight that we do for eight reps and we'll do it with perfect form. And at the end of that set, we'll put you into the most comfortable stretch position you can and then try to increase the stretch a little bit. And then hold that for beginners between 20 and 30 seconds. You go for beginners, I say 20. And they immediately drop the weight,

grab the next lowest increment, I'll wait, which is usually a 20% drop, and you keep going. And you do your eight reps, stretch for 30 seconds, again, repeat, eight reps, stretch for 20 to 30 seconds, repeat, we do that four times, and we always finish on the contraction. So there's been some research from a cellular level, which suggests if you're ending your stimulus as a stretch,

you're gonna give the relaxed stimulus to the muscle or at the golden tendon. So we want to finish on the contraction. And no, I mean, I'm not gonna, nobody's had any injuries and like that. It is definitely a very intense stretch, but it's very, very useful to me. Now, keeping it very simple for our audience,

like, why do you think that is? Like, right away, some of the things that come into mind to me. Now, keeping it very simple for our audience, like, what do you, why do you think that is? Like right away, some of the things that come into mind to me, like, you're in the middle of a hypertrophy set, you put me in that stress position with way, I know I'm going to get a ton of blood that's going to get in there. So I'm going to get the cycloplasmic hypertrophy benefits. So it's one step further than that. It's actually, it's muscle damage. So it's actually satellite source.

So that was, that was the mechanism that we found in the lab was it's satellite cell proliferation and differentiation, which is Amplified that's the holy grail there. You keep getting those going on you can see muscle fiber Hyperplasia. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, we're talking about hyperplasia. So And now you followed up with these participants have they been able to keep the muscle or yep? So I've got a few guys who actually say that every time they go back and do it it gets better Wow, at least they're adding new muscle fibers. That's the so so the theory behind this for the art for people listening to don't understand Muscle fiber hypertrophy is when the fibers grow

Muscle fiber hyperplasia is where you actually create new muscle fibers and the reason why that's the holy grail Of muscle building is because when you atrophy or when your muscle shrink when you're inactive, you don't lose muscle fibers, they'll just atrophy. If you add a bunch of new muscle fibers through hyperplasia, theoretically, it's permanent muscle fibers that are there. Even if you atrophy... This is why we theorize that we don't know if you'll be able to get down as low as you

think you'll be able to get down because you've built so many extra fiber, that's what's so unique about you. You're not the average person. Right. So we talked about this a bunch of way. We did a podcast with a guy last week and we talked about this, just the idea that, I mean, you know, guys like this at him. So you go to a contest and you get guys,

you go, oh man, I fucked up the last couple days. I took a diuretic or I dropped too much water and I lost 30 pounds. You ever heard that? Why? Didn't have any fucking muscles in the beginning with. I'm a water, they're all water the whole time. All they do is pump, they chase the pump.

Exactly. They're bullshit hypertrophy. Nobody has any actual hypertrophy, like protein accumulation from hard stressful, working out, hard stressful training. Most guys are chasing the pump, like you say. Wow. So, that's a big, big thing big big thing huge huge especially everybody that says I fucked up the last week I'm like yeah, I just I'm smiling in my head and me like you did like it's because you're trying to

I already know I already got you figured out you never had it You rely on those call you go rely on those carbs and water so much create an insulin all these other stupid things that they're taking Yeah, it's all it-eaming-based training. Wow. So how is the weight loss during the going-for-you-right now? So, you don't have to do that. Smaller, dude. I'm just gonna tell you.

He doesn't look that much smaller. Actually, it was actually you look bigger. I don't know if we can be sure. That's what it is. That's what it might be. How is that going for you? You've been trying to lose muscle, which is just... Well, so I mean, it's a balance, right?

So I'm trying to lose muscle, but I don't want it to be, yeah, I'm not just trying to be the smallest guy in the world. I still like looking fit and muscular. I still love training. And I think I told Adam, like the best thing about what's happening is I fucking love training again. I find myself doing two and a half hour workouts because I love it and I haven't loved it in years.

And that's kind of been making it more difficult to lose muscle. So how's it going to lose muscle? I'm eating a lot less. I'm eating a lot less. What's your pace of loss, like weight loss, are you still trackin'? Since the beginning, I've lost 30 pounds, and that's since March, so it's three, four months, four months.

So it's pretty good. I've lost three inches off my legs, which is a big thing. So they're only 45 inches now. I think they were 34 inches in length. And now that's my legs, which is a big thing. So they're only 45 inches now. I think they were 34 inches in length. And now that's my waist, dude. It's bigger than my waist. That's true. So they're built on this.

They're down under 30 now, which is nice. So I can actually start buying cause I normal pants. I just tell these guys in the way up, I've got a gold fitness says 34 pants, but these are 36, that's not so bad. But yeah, that's kind of the goal. My legs is the big thing. I hold it a lot of weight in my legs there.

I was kind of known for having somewhat decent development. And the upper body's coming down nice too. I want to train it because I don't want to get soft and flabby. I still want to look good, man. So it's just balanced. And it's got to be a moving target. It's got to be like, hey, one day, one more two weeks,

I'm going to go down pretty aggressively, decrease my training volume, and then I'll pull it back up for two weeks. Now, are there any, because what pops in my mind, when people are trying to lose a lot of fat, there's one thing. I don't know what you're asking. But when people are trying to lose a lot of muscle, are there any complications that may arise for something like that, like psychologically or physically? Well, no, physically, like raising levels of creating

canace or kidney stress or anything like that. Is there anything that, because this is very different, I don't, I mean, you've got so much muscle that you're trying to lose. Is there anything that you're monitoring or that you should be careful for when it comes to losing muscle? No, man, I think anybody going in the right direction,

meaning down and weight, that's only gonna show positive health benefits, right? So I haven't seen actually my creativity in kinase for a guy who trains is actually in healthy range, which is not the same as it was when I was, you know, taking antibiotics or when I was really training maximally. Everything is, I think I posted my blood results,

the only thing that was in the tank was my testosterone. I think I forgot when I have a laugh. thing that was in the tank was my testosterone. If you got one, I have a laugh. I would love to hear my whole show. All right, so I hadn't got, like I'd been off TRT for six months and I'm with the Intentolosing Muscle and I didn't do so well, obviously. I was dead.

But so my testosterone when I was a bodybuilder was often, I tried to keep it in the range of 12 to 1500. I didn't want to go too high because that has negative effects as well. And I my most recent test. I think I stole my man card. It's 28. Oh, Oh,

it's funny though. So people go, oh, shit, like I might have any. That's post metapausal. No, but in reality, my sex drive wasn't terrible. It wasn't like I went on my fifth. Oh, you actually had a sex drive. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely, you know what,

that speaks to the work you've put in with all the other balance in your life and stress for sure. Cause I'll tell you, I just told someone this other day, blows my mind. So I'm somebody who openly discusses that I take testosterone myself. And I'm, for me, I pay most attention to my sex drive. And I've realized that I can double my dose of testosterone.

And if my stress at work and everything else going on, that affects my sex drive more than synthetic testosterone being shot at me. I can put the agreement, right? Yep. So I told you I wanted my first vacation three weeks ago. And my sex drive was fucking phenomenal because of the stress. It was growing and taking any testosterone.

I was a beast. It was great, man. Then you get back here and you're like, oh, what? Pussy. What the? Well, it took my girl about six years to put that together. But I used to tell her all the time, like, get me the fuck out of here.

So she knows, like, if I'm bad, where I haven't been giving her a lot of attention, she'll be like, hey, next weekend, guess where we're going. It's like, already planned trip. I had no idea. I've already handled work stuff. You're not going here, not going here. We're heading down here. Every time I weekend, guess where we're going. It's like, already planned trip, I had no idea. I've already handled work stuff. You're not going here, not going here. We're heading down here.

Every time I left and I go to Vegas, are we going on trips? Are we always going to come back with a baby or something? Oh man, it's funny how that was. It took me a while though to put that together because I really thought, I really thought if I were to increase my testosterone that's especially synthetically, and as much as it boosts it,

I thought for sure that would make way more of a difference and it was surprising, it really surprised me. So I always tell people about that. The two things that'll affect your sex drive more than anything is stress and sleep. Sleep, yeah, for sure. Those two things are, that makes such a dramatic impact. Sleep is one that people don't even pay attention to,

mainly because, and I've been learning more about this, it's because it's become a subject that I'm a bit passionate about. So let's talk about that. Absolutely. I'm going to go deep on sleep because I think I want to hear how you're hacking it and how you're improving it. So here's what fascinated me about sleep that was kind of an eye opener for me.

So for a long time, especially throughout my 20s, I thought I was exceptional in the sense that I didn't need much sleep. Like I would go to bed and four hours later I'd be up and I'd be running health clubs for 14 hours a day. I had staffs of 50 people and I'd run these meetings. It was six days. It was like no problem. I was just fucking running on fire.

It was not an issue. I thought, I'm great. The reality is. All stop working. You get a just a second on 28. Well, I crashed. Definitely got crashed, where I'd get really, really sick.

But what was fascinating to me was the discovery that humans function exceptionally well with a lack of sleep. And what I mean by that is you can have chronic low sleep and do your day. You can go to work, close up. You could, yeah, exactly.

You could have a little coffee. You could, you know, see your kids, you know, oh, I need to wind down, have a little bit of wine, you know, smoke a little weed, whatever you do, and go to sleep. But that doesn't mean that you don't have, that you're not gonna benefit tremendously from working with your sleep.

And the first thing that I did was I thought that I needed more sleep. So what I need to do is I got to go to bed earlier and sleep more. Part of that is true. I wasn't getting enough sleep. That's definitely true to an extent. However, it's not just about quantity. It's also about quality. The next level that really did it for me was making sure my room was pitch black, setting the room temperature to be Making sure my room was pitch black Setting the room temperature to be cool enough to where I could sleep

You know where I could where I had to have a little bit of a bed card. I know sheet on top of me So it wasn't you heat in there in the room. I wasn't too hot that made a big difference and the third thing This is what I've done more recently that's been dramatic change for me is about one and a half hours before I want to go to bed So if I know I want to go to sleep at, let's say, 10 o'clock, about 8.30, I shut off all the lights and we go by candlelight in my house. And I cannot believe the difference that makes in the quality of my sleep. I find myself sleeping more soundly waking up,

not groggy and just wide awake. My kids, I have my kids half time, and when I have them at my house, we do the same thing. We turn the lights off, and they're ready to go to bed. Like 30 minutes after I turn the lights off. That's so true. I don't even have to push them to go to bed.

And it makes a huge difference. My kids know, all year round, they go to bed with the sun. So as soon as the sun goes down, they're bedtime, and I'm trying to instill that in them now, and they're up early and they're bed early, and their sleep is great. I mean sun goes down, they're bedtime. And I'm trying to instill that in them now and they're up early and they're better early. And their sleep is great. I mean, you know, they're four and five. Wow. Oh, what are you? Now, why are you? What are you doing? You got to think you you missed on on brain FM for sure. Cause that's a tool that

we're all used that I love. So brain FM, which I think it talked you a lot by no beats. Yeah. Well, it's different. It's different. It's different. It's kind of next level to it. But it's similar to that. Most people are familiar with binary beats, which is kind of like that. But that and not looking at my phone anymore. So like I had a really bad habit of, you know, all the way till bedtime, staring at that screen, you know, working till 10, 11 o'clock a night, then trying to fall asleep in just the first two hours. I wouldn't sleep at all. So doing that. And then actually when I lay in bed and I finally settle down, I'll do the, that's

when I box breathed, I box breathed right before bed. And I do that for maybe a minute. That's it. Just one minute. Yeah. And I just boom. Right. Lights out after that.

So I'm simply do you sell what I'm characteristically not a very good sleeper and not a long sleeper. I don't need a lot of kind of use that as a badge of honor. I'm like, fuck, I'm good. Man, I'm ready to go. Let's just get up and go out. You know, I asked him, he didn't sleep for 48 hours. He slept for three hours last night. We're ready to go.

We're gonna go with the gym for three hours. And it's kind of, it's kind of a man thing. You know, it's the man code. Like shut the fuck up. I don't hear you complain, just do it. And I pride myself in being that guy. But when I'm at home, man, I'm similar to you. I hack my sleep massively.

So for all of us, there's definitely no TV. We don't watch TV during the week, but there's definitely no TV. We turn all the lights off. There's no cell phones after seven. And we just, you know, we get into like reading and get into relaxing activities with the families. It's also my bonding time. So I try to get up early. I get up at 430. And so I work from 6 to 2 usually. And then from, you know, 4 till 8 or whenever the kids go to bed, it's kind of family bonding time. It only makes sense because obviously as humans,

we evolved and co-evolved with our environment. What that means is in some cases, we evolved for our environment. In other cases, our environment evolved around humans. A good example of that is how dogs evolved to become closer to humans because we helped their survival and vice versa. Well, it only makes sense that we evolved to match or to work with the rhythm of the sun. And when you move outside of that, a lot of problems happen in the body.

And what we need to understand is many times when we see a symptom, whether it be, you know, anxiety or, you know, a gut issue or, you know, skin issues or anything that becomes this chronic health issue, it's really the result of the body's systems being out of balance. And I hate to say the body's systems because it's really one. It's one system, but we tend to divide the body up into systems and divide it into certain things like activity, diet, sleep, mental. But if one of those things is off, then it throws everything else out of balance and sleep by far, and I never would have put it up there with training

and nutrition as being important. But it is one of the most important things that's right there. It's even more important. Absolutely. It's a third of your life. And so many people just neglected, we have the conversation against it today about everyone's so focused on stimulate, stimulate, stimulate, stimulate. And nobody's paid attention. What happens after? So you wake up in the morning, you have in the conversation against today about everyone's so focused on stimulate, stimulate, stimulate, and nobody's paid attention. What happens after? So you wake up in the morning, have a coffee before you're meeting, you have a coffee before

you're training, you have a pre workout. The fuck you're doing after you train? Like you're always nervous, you're nervous system, stimulating, your genomes are stimulated. What are you going to come down? And you know, this is a big focus of mine trying to create the conversation around what happens at 6 p.m. You know, you start changing your environment, manipulating your lifestyle, even choosing your foods appropriately, supplements, and then obviously mastering your environment as far as sleep, you spoke

about completely blacked out, cold. So there's some research that suggests it doesn't have to be your body, so it just has to be your head evidently. The research suggests they want your head to be cool. So you can still work over it. You just want the room to be cold. You know, a few of the things are mattress. Are you paying attention to your mattress? You know, so many guys are using a sprung mattress. If you have springs in your mattress,

you're getting an EMF signal. If you're, what's plugged into your room? Is there a TV? Is there, you're going to a lamp? That's going to give you an electric magnetic frequency. You've got to get rid of that shit, man. So all that, like my room looks like we've got literally a bed, a couple of dressers, and that's it, there's no lamps,

there's no anything. So once we're sleeping, we're sleeping, you know, blackout blinds, all that jazz. Do you turn your Wi-Fi off at night? Of course, Wi-Fi is off. We've even gone to some measures to try to block the neighbors Wi-Fi, putting some stuff on the windows.

So we talked about getting there, like a canopy that can block all the MF. So we talked about getting there. I was actually in the biome. I wanted for my doctor, Dr. McCullough, you told me. Dr. McCullough talked about that. We a canopy that can block all the MF. So we talked about getting that. I was actually in the violin. I wanted for my doctor. Dr. McCullough. Dr. McCullough talked about that. We dropped that on that last episode.

Yeah. For me, I mean, I'm more worried about my kids. You know, like they're developing nervous system, developing brains. Like I try to do everything for those kids that are by the best quality mattress. Like people realize how shitty mattresses are. Like it's especially, you know, I don't want to throw names out there, but the, you know, the temperpidic kind of stuff where you're getting like foam mattresses. It's all petroleum based, you're, I don't want to throw names out there, but the, you know, the temperpidic kind of stuff where you're getting, like, foam mattresses. It's all petroleum-based, you're breathing toxic gases.

Anything that's got to spring in it, you've got an electrical menu. Negative frequency, which is going to prevent your nervous system and your brain from recovering. Even the ones that are not petroleum-based mattresses all have massive amounts of adhesives. So things to hold, like binders to hold the mattress together that are toxic, giving off toxic gases or they're hot and like shit mattresses. You got to spend money on decent mattress. So I want to about the best mattress that that money can buy.

And I've even gone so far now that part of, I've told you guys, part of the equation is I'm developing my own mattress company, so I'm partnering with you. Oh, wow. Yeah, dude, I'm partnering with a guy who's been in like a executive in the mattress for 25 years. So we're partnering and we're just literally dissecting every company out there and finding the best, what who has the best and finding the limitations with it

and then upgrading it. And then we've gone even further to add some additional technologies, some additional fabrics and add some earthing in there and some other things. Oh, so you like have a grounding? Yeah, well, option. Option, so there's a bunch of things that we're just going to, we've actually, we're actually creating our own adhesives. So he's done some research and we're creating the least toxic adhesives that exist.

So even we have organic memory foam, which is not, you know, non, or non-toxic at all, 100% organic. And then, you know, people usually use binders that are shitty and giving off guesses. So we found a way to do it without that. Yeah, people don't realize that you buy a new mattress, so I had a temper pete, right? And I remember, as soon as we got it, they tell you like, oh, it's going to give off an odor and it'll go away. It'll go away within a certain amount of time. And I remember spelling, I'm like, this can't be good. I'm sleeping on the fucking thing. It can't be good.

And I swore to God, it gave me a headache. It's like chemical. And they're like, oh, just air out the room. And then eventually, it kind of goes away. And I'm like, what? I don't know how good at it. I'm on this thing for eight hours. Like the new car smell.

I don't find new cars intentionally. I'm like, fuck that. I don't want to breathe that shit. These are shut all off for three months with the windows open. Here it out. Yeah, and then I'll, like, stand this. I love new cars now. I don't wanna breathe that shit. These are gonna all out for three months with the windows open. Here it out. Yeah, and then I'll, like, Damn, that's, I love new cars tonight. I know, I love new shoes, I love new shoes, man.

I love new shoes, man. You know what, you know what, that's Mella that you love so much, dude? Fuck, cancer. That's a, that's a Xeno estrogen, it's my friend. You're breathing in a bunch of estrogens into your body.

That's great. Damn, that's awesome stuff. Here's another one that actually they just, I think they just published a study on, so we've all heard a jet lag, right? Where you fly from another country and now your body has to adjust to the new, you know. Oh, Taylor knows that feeling, won't you buddy?

Yeah, I just got back in Europe. Say three days later, he still looks like shit. He's on. He's had some T-dog list good. They're talking about what's called social lag, where, and I think I'm using the term correctly, I think it's called social lag, where people will go to bed at a certain time during the week,

but Friday night, Saturday night, they go to bed late, and then they sleep in the following day. So it's like going to bed late, Friday night, Saturday night, sleeping in Saturday morning and Sunday morning. And they're finding, even though you think you're still getting the same amount of sleep, they're tying all kinds of health problems through this.

In fact, in this study, and I hope I'm quoting it correctly, but there's something like a 12% increase in heart disease for people who do this on a regular basis. And this isn't the only study, by the way. All the studies done on sleep are tying poor sleep or poor quality of sleep, too. And that just like insomnia and extreme examples,

but like we're talking about, you know, I sleep six hours a night or I don't sleep very soundly, they all studies tie them to all kinds of chronic health issues. It's extremely, extremely important. Where your body starts to eliminate inflammation, that's the big conversation, right? Is your body starts regenerating your nervous system

and starts getting rid of inflammation. Those are two, you know, so you guys use the aura ring at all? No. So that's pretty good resource for people that it's going to tell you when you're in deep sleep or when you're in REM. So deep sleep has been known to regenerate your body. So you're going to be eliminating inflammation, let's start and declare it out.

And REM sleep is going to regenerate your brain, your nervous system. So it's important to have both of us, right? And so if you're not getting enough sleep, you're not gonna get enough sleep or REM. So your body's just not gonna have a chance to even come back up to baseline, which means the next day, you're probably gonna need just a little more stimulant,

just a little more coffee to get through the day. And again, you're just perpetuating this negative loop, right? Rather than just saying, hey, man, I'm gonna make sure that I get enough sleep tonight and I'm not gonna need coffee to more and wake up. People are just pushing and pushing and pushing and all of a sudden. Oh shit. I'm fat. Oh shit My dick doesn't work. Oh shit. It's all reality Have you have you guys either one of you looked at in the research on the float tank and what it says actually as far I think they compare

one hour of the float to four hours of REM Yeah, I haven't seen it. So making comparison. Have you floated before? You haven't floated yet? No, but I know it would be beneficial, but I meditate every month. So I get it before 30, the birds aren't even awake yet. Really, there's no fucking birds chirping.

So I get an hour of like complete darkness by myself meditating naked in the middle of my liver. Everyone in my liver is getting a little bit more patient. Hello. Hello. I don't believe in. I'm going to be on. I don't believe you, but I'm not over there listening. I'm going to be at the center of the city. I you, I'm gonna see a picture of that.

No, as far as a float tank is concerned, and now when they compare one hour equal to four, I don't know where the hell they come up with those numbers. Sounds like marketing. However, I've done the float tank and it's very obvious to me as to why it's rejuvenating, it is sensory deprivation. We are overloaded with constant amounts of sensory all the time, in fact, and there. I'm sorry, could you sleep tonight?

Oh yeah. I did, I did sleep in there. Could you like make it your bed? That to me sounds like you, that's why. I don't know if it's a good idea to sit and water it along. For sure, if you stop breathing, you're gonna wake up. You won't sink. True. You definitely won't sink, it's only like 12 years long. it's a good idea to sit and water that long. Sure, if you stop breathing, you're gonna wake up. You won't sink. True.

You definitely won't sink. It's only like toilet your long-over. That's a good question. I would, I don't think you can stay in water that long. I think it starts to damage your skin. I just didn't say that. I would think that's super prune. You wake up like a prune.

Yeah, with the salt and the skin. Super prune. Yeah, that's it. And really that blood pressure. Yeah, exactly. But it makes sense because it's total sensory deprivation. So your body just kind of rests and recovers and rejuvenates. And modern life is this bombardment of sensation. In fact, it's so bad that we've become so addicted to it

that people don't know how to be bored. And what I mean by that is, anywhere you go, where you see people waiting, and it wasn't that long ago. Look, I'm not that old. And I go where you see people waiting, and it wasn't that long ago, look, I'm not that old, and I remember when I was a kid, a teenager, and you're sitting somewhere, you were lucky if you had a magazine, but usually there was, sometimes it was nothing there,

so you're just kinda sitting there quietly, thinking with yourself, or talking with someone or whatever, and the side effects of being overstimulated really match all of the kind of the psychological epidemics because right along by the way, the obesity and diabetes epidemic, there's a silent epidemic no one's talking about, which is this epidemic of anxiety.

It's actually, I believe, anxiety now is the number one, if I'm not mistaken, is the top diagnosis now for people going to... I'm glad you brought all this up, man. So floating, awesome. That's one of 24 hours. So I think it's how you learn to manage stress. Those other 23 hours, it's going to be way more beneficial than taking that one hour, right?

Like, you know, it's everyone's like, oh, I'm going to meditate. There's always order of operation. Sure. I'm going to meditate for 50 minutes. Well, great. What about the other 23 hours and 45 minutes, you know, learning to, to manage, stress, learning, coping mechanisms, learning to just change your perception of stuff. Like, things aren't that bad, man. And one of the best things people can do, if you don't really do this,

starting your day and finishing your day of gratitude is massive. Like, I do three minutes of gratitude every morning, even usually before I open my eyes, you know, appreciating first the person beside you and maybe even the bed you're sleeping in, the house over your head, you know, all these things are so simple. Fuck, like we take for granted so many things, but if you just spend three minutes alone time

to be grateful for stuff, or it sounds like a long time, but you can really make you start thinking, like what am I actually grateful for? Yeah, it sets you up for the entire day. I know a big green field. Yeah, and Tim Ferris and a lot of them have been preaching that quite a bit. And I started to kind of implement that myself

and do that as a practice. Like you're actually writing it down. And man, it really does help to kind of get you in that place and that zone like the rest of your day. Every time you're having a, like people would, you know, complain about having to do cardio, people complain about having to wait somewhere. I find whenever I get in a situation where I'm like,

ah, I don't wanna be here. I find things to be great before. It's like my, it's like my cue. It's like my snapback to reality. Like when you're feeling shitty or we were pissed off or overwhelmed, that's my snapback is, you know, I'm gonna be grateful for three minutes. I'm gonna stop right here.

I'm gonna take three minutes to be grateful because you can't be pissed off and be grateful at the same time. It's impossible. No, they've done studies on this. It's actually documented that there's a certain level of material things that you need, like your essentials, your home, clothing, food. But beyond that, there is no measure of increased happiness. In other words, they've actually come up with a number, by the way. In the US, I believe they said after about earning about $75,000 a year, which is a decent amount, but it's not tons of money in most places. After that, it's all, you make as much

money as you want, you can have as much shit as you want, your happiness isn't going to change, it all comes from within. Once you've met those basic needs, everything else is up to us. And again, let's look at modern society. We have more than we've ever had before. We have solved a lot of our big, big major killers and problems. We can walk the streets now and not worry about having to fight someone for food or get killed for the most part. And yet, you've got, again, people and record numbers

on prescription SSRI drugs or benzos for anxiety. And you gotta ask yourself why? What we're suffering from, a lot of what we're suffering from is diseases of the mind, it's our thoughts and the wrong thoughts. So let's flip that, man, let's talk about chasing performance because that's what I wanna learn about. What are you doing to chase your highest level of existence? Because that's what I'm doing, man, I'm 36.

I reach this fucking awesome stride in my life, we're gonna keep being awesome for the next 40 years. Seriously, and how are we gonna maintain that? That's the conversation that I want to have rather than being like, oh, people are a bunch of morons and they're, you know, addicted to anti-aging. Well, there's levels to this and we actually, we get into shit like this all the time I love talking about this stuff. And, you know, somebody asked us what a question one time about like becoming mindful and becoming more present. Like, well, how do you break that down and how do you do that? We had a great conversation about it this morning, which we can...

I mean, so, and listen, you talk, you know, people have to know that it's... You've put a lot of practice to get to where you're at right now. This isn't something you go, oh, here's what you do, and now you're going to be here. And I remember I shared my journey of kind of piecing this together And I used to like my practice you say the thankful before and at night I used to just at the end of the night I would kind of like go through my day right now just think of all the things that I did and why I did those and all the State changes. So that's what I used to say is like anything that made me happy anything that made me sad angry So anytime I remember just just doing a download. No, I was just a download

You know just download and just kind of go over it. And I would just start to become aware. And that was the first step of picking up on those patterns. Then you get to kind of the level where you just mentioned right now, where you now have that cue that goes off when all of a sudden you're standing in line, frustrated with that, you'll, oh, boom, now, but you had to train that. That doesn't just happen overnight. Sure, I think the best thing you can do, and which is honestly the reason why we're here,

is to collaborate with people who are on the same alignment as you energetically, psychologically. You guys have a huge advantage being able to talk to each other on a day to day basis about shit that maybe you couldn't talk to other people about. And that's what I told you, Alvin and Roland Nyer here this weekend, because we could literally talk about the most obscure shit that most people think is like, the think we're crazy. I think we're out in you know cloud nine

But we all look at you like I'm thinking the exact same thing like man We're on the same wavelength right now. So you know this morning, and this is gonna sound who we're talking about The reality that we're energetic beings having a physical existence and you're like so we're just energy right So we're talking about that most people hear that and they go well that's weird But if you if you can remove yourself from your physical body and realize that you're energy, that gives you the ability to change it in any situation. So if your energy's low, I can bring it up.

If my energy is, if someone around me is low, I can try to bring them up rather than let them bring me down. It's an interesting conversation and existence to have. And you know, he can dive deep into it because that's kind of his area. But it's, I don't know if you guys ever had that thought where just this energy existence, you're just vibrating, man. And if you can realize that's what you are,

you're not the meat suit, you're the thing inside of it. And you know, I actually told some of my students to do this, at least the ones who will hear it, close your eyes and remove yourself from your body for a second. And it's meditative, it's breathing and trying to remove yourself from the physical being. And then realize you're just this energy existence and try to take yourself out of the body

and see what it feels like. And then realize that now I can alter that. So if anything around me brings me down, if my energy is ever down, if my mood is ever down, all it is is changing your vibration and changing your energy to existence. If you want to talk about that, man. Yeah, I know it bends right on the money about that. It's funny, you know We we all use the word energy in some way man. I got no energy a day. Oh you walking in the room Did you see that guy's energy? But funny thing is when we bring it up we're all kind of woo stay away from it

But we're all using it like Inverteley saying it so you know I back in the day when I started doubting what this whole energy thing I was just like everybody else I didn't believe I didn't want to believe any of that. But for 22 years I've been working on people and I realize it is their man is there if you want to admit it or not it's there we all use it. And when you think about foods why we eat the foods we do it's to get the energy from the sun which goes into the plan and we we either eat the plant or secondarily eat the animal, that ate the plant, and we get that energy and it's recycled into the earth and back again. So at the end of the day, look at every cell,

take one cell. There's trillions of cells in our body. One cell has enough energy to light an electronic equipment, one cell, and we have trillions. So you put that all together, and you're going to have just put them together, and you're going to have, just put them all together, you're going to have we are energy. And take a night vision, glasses. Why do they see you? There's an aura around you, and they see it at night.

It's everywhere, it's everywhere. Yeah, it's, Eckhart talks about it as being, we are not the body, and we are not even the thoughts. We're the observer. And people will say, well, what do you mean? What's the voice in my head and it goes, well, that's the voice in your head, the one that's asking that. And that's not even who you are.

And what he goes on to talk about, and he has a book called The Power of Now, and then another one called The New Earth, and really it's about, you know, being in the present because the future in the past are really constructs of your mind. There is no future in past. Once you're in the future, you're in the present. It's always in the present. And so when you sit there and think

and try and think and think rather than just observe, that's a lot of times where we encounter problems. So we talked about meditation earlier and being in awareness and actually having dedicated space to do that, but you can actually do that at any moment. You could do that when you get in your car, take a couple present breaths and you may find yourself being in the moment

at, you know, for three seconds and then you drive off. And this is something, this is why people love some of the things that they do and they don't know why. There are certain activities that we do that force us to be in the present. My dad, for example, he loves riding his motorcycle. Loves riding his motorcycle. Now, we've had several family members.

We're all, my family's from Italy and everybody over there rides motorcycles. We have friends and family members that died on motorcycles. And my mom was like, I don't want you to ride a bike and you're gonna die whatever he's like. I love it. You don't understand.

He goes, when I'm on it, I'm at peace. And so I tell him, I said, I said, dad, I said, what are you thinking about when you're on the motorcycle he's like, I love it. You don't understand. He goes, when I'm on it, I'm at peace. And so I tell him, I said, I said, dad, I said, what are you thinking about when you're on the motorcycle? He goes, nothing. I can't think because the second I think I'm gonna crash, I need to be totally present. And so without realizing it, he's actually placing himself in a meditative state.

This also has happened, this happens with athletes. And when bodybuilders talk about working out, or when they lift weights, and they go in the gym, and they're like, man, that's my church. You're ever here bodybuilders talk about working out, when they lift weights and they go in the gym and they're like, man, that's my church. You're every bodybuilder's talk about that, that's my church, and this is my altar. It's a squat rack. It should be meditative.

That's why it's so meditative because they're there and they're nowhere else. And so finding those spaces, finding the spaces to be able to do that really makes a huge difference. You talk about performance. That's a great way to tap into improved performance. In fact, if you find people in professions That's a great way to tap into improved performance. In fact, if you find people in professions that are exceptional

what they do, whether it's an artist, a musician, a computer engineer, whatever, people are just exceptional what they do, really the secret behind their performance is the fact that they will tap into that. That when they're doing their work, they are there and they're nowhere else. They're present at that moment. Well, and they're doing their work, they are there and they're absolutely nowhere else. They're present at that moment. In Rise of Superman, they actually break down,

they get into the studies that they've done on this, where, and it shows in like extreme sports where you're forced to, right, back flipping off of a 60-foot ramp or whatever, you're gonna die if you don't land this, that we've seen more progression in extreme sports than any other field or anything else. And that's what they attribute that in this book to the ability to tap into this flow state

because they become hyper focused. And if we were able to do that, it would be amazing how that would translate in other parts of our life. I was going to say, you said something really interesting earlier that you got to go back on. The concept of time. We created that. We created time. It's this whole concept of 9 2017, 2017, we created that. The subconscious mind is timeless. It doesn't understand. That's why I can take you back to your two years old and it can have you fire off the same nervous system, the same hormone reaction. I can take you right back and you think

you're a two-year again because you're living it again because it's timeless, we created time. So here you have a six year old man wondering why he's acting like a two year old. Well, because it's timeless. I can bring you back there. And the second thing that you touched on is huge power flow that you can glaze over

is the power of the present moment. So check it out. When you wander forward, you're into anxiety and fear. Because you don't know fear comes from being forward driven and anxiety comes. Because you don't know what's going to happen. So it brings up anxiety and fear. When you suffer from shame, guilt, and resentment, you're going backwards. So our biggest problem in society is that we time travel. Every time we have a quiet moment, we're traveling either back or forth. And if you can harness right now, you can change your past if you can harness right now. Harness it and because you can change your past by doing something different in this moment.

And you can also affect the future by doing something different in this moment. So you can see what you said is hugely powerful. If we can harness now, I mean and change what we're doing, it's hugely powerful. If we can harness now, I mean, and change what we're doing, it changes everything. Well, to me, what you're saying, it's right in line with the rise of Superman, that's what blew my mind. That was being a kid who grew up in the 80s,

like I watched the movie, Red, I was in the BMX racing. I don't know if you guys watched that stuff, but I was all into that. And I remember putting this together as a kid, like watching one year, a guy's doing a backflip, and then next year, someone did two backflips. Like we guy is doing a backflip. And then next year, someone did two backflips. Like we hadn't seen a backflip in 30 years. All of a sudden, a guy does one. Then all of a sudden, we progressed to two. And then you see all the stuff.

So Roger, banister. Right. So to see the progression happened that fast, but I being able to tap into that, you know, if we could actually tap it, how powerful that really is. Did you know that progression was always there? No. But it just happened into it, right? It was always there. Right. Does it have a point field?

Everything exists in that zero point field. This microphone was always there, but we need to wait for it. Someone had to tap into it. That means there. So I had an interesting experience years ago that was, for me, was me, felt like a glimpse into feeling enlightened for a second, where I had gone off on a weekend with some friends, and I was young, I was a kid, right? And we went hard all weekend. I mean, alcohol and no sleep and just, it was two days of just no sleep and partying.

And when I came back, I felt like absolute garbage. And I actually felt the physical, what it physically would feel like to be clinically depressed, which some people would experience after such a heavy exertion and damage to their body. So it's the next day, I feel like absolute garbage. I'm trying to work, but I can't,

and I'm just like, God, I feel horrible, I feel, and I remember thinking to myself, like, this must be what it feels like to be clinically depressed. And I remember I went to get some coffee because I needed something. I was like, I need something to kind of pull me out of this. And I made the realization that the difference between today and last week, there is none. Like, nothing has changed. Nothing bad has happened in my life. The only difference is I feel physically like shit.

And the reason why this was a big realization for me was I realized that I didn't have to feel like shit. Physically I could feel like shit. And I understood that. But I didn't have to be depressed. There was a difference there. It wasn't... There was no reason for me to feel this way. It was just I felt... I acknowledged that my body... Exactly felt, I acknowledged that my body, exactly, I've acknowledged that my body felt terrible, but it wasn't depressing anymore. And I remember I left that Starbucks,

I even drink my coffee and I was smiling, and I'm like, I feel okay, sure my body's tired, sure I have a headache, but I don't have that same experience. And it was my, it was shattering, it was shattering for me. Man, you're dropping some serious bombs. I don't even know if you realize it, but that is so true. It's about

choice. You can choose to be depressed or you can choose to be, I don't know, it's going to be a little bit of a question, you know, with chemistry and everything else. But let's take the ones who aren't chemically imbalanced. That you can choose the problem with human beings is we we end up thinking we have minimal choices. So if you choose to be angry at a traffic, when we go to look in our toolbox for a decision to make about the traffic, we go to the whole habit, the template,

we can be angry. We don't know we have multiple choices. I can be fascinated, I can be interested. I can be curious. But we choose anger. So you're right. 100% choice. There's to be appreciative that you have a fucking car. Yeah. Right.

You're not on the camel or walking yourself. Right. I'm noticing it right. Yeah. Gratitude is the quick one. In most situations, you have actually, at least two choices. If you're in a situation that you hate, you can either a, accept it, and be okay with the situation, or b, change it.

But most people don't do either one. Most people stay in this situation, feel as if they're being forced, they don't realize that they're choosing to be there, so they don't accept it and they don't change it. And so they live in this constant state. What are some of the things that we do to help that though? I think, was it the stoic philosophers

that were known for this, where they would would like one week out of every like year something like that They would live like on the streets broken poor just to give them a give them a perspective Yeah, to give you that detachment perspective, right? It's so easy. We can get caught up in our day to day that it's it's tough to do that You know, we're saying that all of us are sharing all this great information But to put that in into practice is really tough. The ego is strongest when the body and the mind feel sharp and strong. Now I've got this big ego, I feel powerful. This is why you'll see these super-egotistical athletes or business men or whatever, and then they'll get an illness or they'll become old and all of a sudden

they're peaceful. Because they've been forced, they've been forced or everything, you can do both, you can be healthy, fit and vibrant and also have a healthy ego. I love that you wrote that up about the Stoics because I think it's such a shame in reality that we don't get uncomfortable anymore, which is why I'm an advocate of fasting, I'm an advocate of, you know, I call them ball-builder workouts, like do something, not because you expect any particular result of it, it's going to make you a better man or a woman like, fucking work hard. Like, we're so used to, I call it beige. Everything is kind of like this shitty dull beige. And yeah, you're never getting any level, excited me, you're never getting any level of like suffering. Everyone just lives this

meager existence. And you know, if you get a little warm, you put on the air conditioning, you get a little cold, you put on the heat, right? You get a little hungry, you eat. Human beings would be so advantaged to step outside of their comfort zone. Yeah, and we refuse to do it.

I mean, that's why I'm a big advocate of fasting. I want to do like a week long fast and see how shitty it can get. And like, smile man, every time it sucks. What's the longest fast you've ever done? 48 hours. I'm a little longer than 4 years. It's actually, so I did a 72 was a,

did I do 72? I did 72. I do 73 starting right now. And it's, you know what's funny? It's not as hard as you would think it is. First 24 hours is kind of. It's a, it's a trip, isn't it? It's actually easy.

After a certain point, you stop wanting food and you start realizing how attached, of course we're attached to food, you need it to survive, but we're attached to food and totally different one when you're fasting, right? Like the first 24 hours, you think about food a few times and then it's gone and your brain is like, it's like a point, right? It's like a point, right?

Yeah, you talk about like the bays, like I was just having this conversation with my in-laws and we were talking about like basically, like going through life just, you realize like how much time has accelerated. So we give back to time and like your perception of time. And what's interesting when you think about it, when you start to kind of get into

like your job and you have kids and like things become like protocol based and you don't really have like this novelty and something that's driving you that's different and you're interrupting that process, it becomes sped up. You literally feel like time has increased in speed and I was kind of tripping out on that because it was so true. Like I have gone through periods where you feel like I've gotten so efficient in your body's adapting to this environment and this ritual that you've created for yourself.

And it really is important that we step out of that and experience it in new ways. Yeah, so plan spontaneity, right? You've got a plan to do something like plan vacation. Plan to do something that's just way out of your routine. Or even if it's not planned, in new ways. Yep, so plus plan spontaneity, right? You got a plan to do something like plan vacation, plan to do something that's just way out of your routine or even it's not plan, wake up one day and go, hey, we're going here, isn't that the best reality, right? It's like, that's the way I would love to live my life.

Unfortunately, my wife doesn't agree. But I'm like, how do I guys gonna wake up Friday and go, what are you doing today? I still wanna play and go to Italy. Let's go to Greece, let's go to South America. Yeah, fucking love that idea, right? And we have the opportunity to do that. We're very fortunate, but unfortunately, like some people just don't see

that reality, man. I want to live a life of like, why not? What else do you got to do? Like that's what we're doing this weekend. We flew in and we're like, what are you doing now? Nothing. Let's go to Napa. Let's go to Shimon.

Like why not? That's a pretty sweet existence. And I think people miss that a lot of the time. Yeah, studies actually show that when people invest their money in experiences versus things, they get far more benefit out of it. So, and nobody wants you to know that because they want you to buy things. But so instead of buying that new TV,

you know what I mean? Instead of buying that new TV, or instead of getting that new car, like go on a vacation or go on a trip, or just look at what you remember from your childhood. Fuck studies, I need to study to tell me that I remember the trips I went on with my family, you were like, that's what stands out in your mind, right? It's need to study to tell me that I remember the trips I went on with my family were like,

that's what stands out in your mind, right? It's never like, what toy did I get from my sixth birthday? Like, what the fuck, no? But I remember the places we went and the awesome things we did, right? That's just reality. Well, that's awesome. Are you, are there certain things that you've put into practice

that you're training yourself? Like, for example, I talk about like, Katrina and I are always trying to do this together, right? We're trying to become more present, more mindful, doing Katrina and I are always trying to do this together right? We're trying to become more present, more mindful, doing things and something that I've hacked into that's helped our relationship and me personally is like we read a book a month together and it's like it's normal we're listening to it right? We're listening to a book and it's I've seen so much not just benefit in the relationship

but myself personally on different levels. That was a small hack for me. Do you have things like that that you've kind of hacked into that have allowed you to become more of a aware person? the relationship, but myself personally, on different levels, that was a small hack for me. Do you have things like that that you've kind of hacked into that have allowed you to become more of a wearer person? So, speaking to relationships, yeah, I mean, not the current moment, but when we didn't have three kids around on the house, my wife and I would do that kind of stuff where we were literally just like at night, I'd read a chapter to her, she'd read her chapter to me,

as much as it sounds really cheesy. It's a great way to bond, man. I mean, you know, you're sitting, we- Sex afterwards is amazing. It's a great way to bond, man. I mean, you're sitting, we sex afterwards is amazing. It's fucking amazing. You usually sit like, you know, skin to skin or lying in each other's arms

and you'd read to each other and it doesn't matter what you're reading. It doesn't have to be something cheese and romantic. You know, often times we're reading things that were relationship oriented or parent oriented because she was pregnant at the time, but like, that's, I mean, just a great way to bond. If that's what you're speaking about.

No, no, absolutely. Just things like that in general, you know, if there's, in,, just a great way to bond. If that's what you're speaking about. No, no, absolutely. Just things like that in general, you know, if there's, in, not just in relationships, just hacks and I shared earlier about the, at night, I would sit there and go over, okay, these are all the things I did. These were the state changes. I mean, there's ways for it to help people get,

or become more aware because I don't think this is something that I get it a lot because we talk a lot about on the show. And so I'll these inboxes all time like, you know, how do I, how do I get to that point? I feel like I just get angry or I just get frustrated like and then later on I don't, I don't understand how you do that. Like they don't have things to put. You know I'm saying more tangible. So again, Evan will talk about this, but the best way to, to realize relationships or realize your reactivity in life is to always realize it's reflection of yourself that you're looking at. So I always say, my kids are my greatest teacher.

I don't know how to teach them. They're here to teach me. I'm here to protect them. So by looking at them, I see my limitations as a human being. I see my limitations as a parent. And same thing in your relationships, man, if there's something you're unhappy with with your spouse or with someone at work, chances are that's probably what you see in yourself.

Oh, not chance. I tell people that that's a reflection of you. So every time it's a reflection, you get so pierced, that's why it pisses you off. Right, yeah. Either it's your insecurity, it's your fear, it's your, you don't feel like you're enough. You know, whatever it is, it's all those things

and you're seeing it in them and they're pointing at it. You know, they're like, they're sitting there poking at it and you're just, you don't feel like you're enough. You know, whatever it is, it's all those things and you're seeing it in them and they're pointing at, you know, they're like, they're sitting there poking at it and you're just, you can't deal with it. And that's always the reality. It's people always try to point the finger to the people and I'm just as guilty of this as everybody else. So, I guarantee you we have a lot of listeners right now who are, you know, they're just into, like,

I just wanna build muscle. Yeah, I just wanna burn body stuff. I just wanna look good or I like a form, right? So let me ask you this, big buy steps. So let me ask you this, because you competed at the highest level of bodybuilding for years. One of the more well-known bodybuilders,

one of the more successful ones. Knowing what you know now about what we're talking about, how could you have used this to make yourself a better bodybuilder back then? Like if you went back in time, what could you have used this to make yourself a better bodybuilder back then? Like if you went back in time, what could you have applied that you think would have made you better? Internal locus of control man, you control everything.

That's massive. If you can figure that out. So how many people you heard when they leave you and they go, I got fucking screwed, I got a bullshit placing, I should have a place to iron. You shouldn't have. So you gotta exactly what you deserve. Reality, people don't like me because I'm realist,

but it's the truth, man, or someone influenced my prep or something went wrong on my prep for the last week's screwed up. No, you got exactly what you deserve. Take ownership for that, own your life, and improve it next time because every time you place the ownership outside of yourself, guess what, I can't control that.

That's right. But if I take ownership, that was why I was a successful bodybuilder, 100%. From day one, if I play shit in the show, I know why I was a successful bodybuilder 100% from day one I you know if I play shit in the show and like I know what I did wrong I could have done this better. It was never anybody else if I had a weak body part I wasn't like I genetically fuck like no, I just wasn't trained or right or I didn't do enough I didn't do it right or like whatever it was right did I always have the right solution? No, but I always knew that I was in control of it and that's fucking step one for everyone out there

Please dear Lord take control for everything in your life, whether it be bodybuilding, bikini, fitness, Anything anything business related in life like you're the only you're the owner of this thing man You're driving the bus. You're steering the boat. Well, you said it best You're the only one that can actually control it so it doesn't fucking matter It doesn't even matter if it does what I tried to help people even if it is the other person's complete fault It doesn't matter because you can't do anything about that, all you can do is look at all the possible things that-

Give me a scenario. I can't think of a scenario when it's ever anyone else's fault. Well, I mean, if I reached over and punched you in the face right now, that would be my fault for punching you in the face and you couldn't- But why did you punch me in the face? Right, exactly.

Okay, there you go. So if you're a psychotic person, that's fine. Maybe I shouldn't be sitting beside you, but if I did something to instigate that maybe I'm a little more I think that's the attitude right is to that you and you're the type of person that that's how you would look at that Like what did I do to piss that person off or what am I doing even in a room with some jackass like that? So that's the point see but someone else doesn't have that ability most people go well You got some asshole hit me for no reason. They do have the ability

They just have to realize that they do right like people just again. I don do have the ability, they just have to realize that they do. Right? Like people just, again, I don't have the ability. What did you just do? I don't, I don't, I don't. Yes, you fucking do. Just change it. Just say like yes, I do have the ability and I'm gonna start right now. You know, it sounds cheesy, it sounds woo,

but it's reality, man. And then he's the king of it. Like we talk every Thursday at 9 AM and he keeps me on my word. Like if I, if some, some thing that's coming out of my mouth isn't consistent with my message, like I'm used to using the wrong words. He's like, hey man, you hear me said

there, right? And I'm like, fuck, he pays attention to every word man. I hate him sometimes. The same time I love it, right? Well, yeah, it's what's good for the, what is it? What's good for the ego is bad for the soul and vice versa? So, uh, did you, were you practicing things like yoga and meditation and mindfulness when you were competing at those levels? And if you didn't, how would they have helped? So, I'm implementing them. So, when I started competing, it was 2005, and I started just because I wanted to get in shape. I got a pharmaceutical sales job and I wanted to get in shape.

And I had no intention of ever being a professional bodybuilder. I loved competing, but I never wanted to be a professional bodybuilder. I didn't think it was, I just didn't even think about it. So I didn't love competing. I love training. 2007, I started taking it more seriously because I won every show that I entered. And then I met this guy. And then we started this, you know, I'd go see him weekly for therapy. So he was actually my osteopath. And then it would just turn into much more of a psychological session than it was a physical session. And then we started talking about stuff like that. It's like... So every, basically, every year that I was a bodybuilder after 2007,

which is the entirety of my career, I started to be more mindful. And again, it's a journey, man. It's a journey, has to be right. Did you practice meditation then? I did, I started right away, and I sucked it. Like everybody else, and I sat there like, I can't do this shit, because my mind just won't stop.

And that's part of the reality. But that's what meditation is. It's like, no, your mind is gonna tell me. Now, what are some, because we need to sell this to some of the bodybuilders listening right now, because sometimes you gotta do that. Sometimes you just sell it to them

so that they actually try it. What are some of the benefits you saw in your bodybuilding or your training from the meditation when you start implementing it? Nothing's hard. Everyone goes, that's huge. And everyone goes, dude, you're the hardest so we can get everybody to see that.

Nothing for me was hard, because I always realized someone out there was working harder, and it's perception. So I always realized, I would fucking bury guys in the gym. I would be doing two sets to everyone, and I'd stand with a smile on my face. And these guys, like, fuck you, train so hard, I'm like, no, I don't man.

Like, bring in another training partner, and then I'll do what you do and what they do. And that sounds arrogant, but it's the reality. Like, I did that when I was trying to, you know, really build muscle, but nothing ever seemed hard. And because I was always in control, and I always realized that its perception is everything. How you perceive an event is massive.

So there's a Navy SEAL out there. There's an Amerathon, where there's an ultra-Marathon, like, you know, I touch a James Lawrence, who did 50 Marathons and 50 days and 50 states or triathlons The somewhat they're working hard, man. This is not hard. This is very short term very acute. It's not the tour de France It's like 45 minutes or so 70 minutes of like hell, but then it's over. You go eat chill out I can you know that so perception is massive and I never felt like anything I did wasio, no, do you have to do cardio? No, you get to do cardio.

Like it's like just changing your perception. That was the biggest thing. And meditation allowed me to to kind of become aware of that, become aware of being present and realizing that perception controls your life. It's funny when you talk to a lot of pro athletes, or you hear a lot of them talking the real successful ones, they all point to that, the mental side of it. They all talk about that. It's the almost no successful. Almost none of them talk about the latest technique and training or, you know, of course, at that level everybody's training hard, everybody's getting right.

It's a given, right? It's the mental piece is what gives them the edge, but it's such a big part because think about it this way. If you're listening right now and you're struggling with your weight or with the way you look or struggling with your fitness or your performance, it's not the training and nutrition that's holding you back. Those are definitely the mechanisms

that are holding you back, but what's holding back those mechanisms has to do with your mind, has to do with your attitude. That is what you should work on. So speaking to that man, now we're gonna also give you some more of that. But think about this, your body, if your eyes are closed

and you have, you're subjected to two different stresses. So one of them is a punch in the face. Adam came over and gave me a punch in the nose. And the other one is, I'm getting ready to get under a 600 pounds quad. It's the same physiological response. Your body doesn't know the fucking difference. So until you learn how to control your response to stress,

you don't stand a chance of building muscle. Because as soon as you get a stress response, what happens? Your body starts breaking down, and your body goes cataballit because it's releasing cortisol. So it's gonna start mobilizing energy because it's fight or flight, right? You can't grow in fight or flight

impossible. So you need to learn to. And that's a great point because you're not, it's not, you're asking your body to build tissue to adapt to, you know, weights or whatever. But what you're doing is you're actually telling your body, I need to survive right now. So everything else is out the window. Your body doesn't care about building muscle, it just wants to survive right now, which is not conducive to building muscle. That's also why people who train, who go, fuck, I hate training,

I don't want to have to do this set, I'm so afraid of it, you don't have to have to have to have to have to have to enjoy the process. So if the somewhere you go to, you have a bit of anxiety about it, you don't want to do your cardio, and you're like, I'm hoping I'm gonna burn fat. It's the most time of chance,

because as soon as you do that, you've got a cortisol response, and your body goes into protective mechanism, Fireflight, you cannot have the physiological response you after. Wow. Well, it's simple, right? Which it speaks more to what we talked about earlier with the way some of these bikini and bodybuilding guys and girls are prepping for these shows where it's after stress, after stress, and then like you said, praying to God after this third hour of cardio, I'm going to wake up tomorrow and hope I'm a little leader. And then add the mental aspect on top of the physical stress. Right. Because training stress is a stress, but there's different types of stress. You can get oxygenate stress and get metabolic stress.

Energy stress is only metacondria, but mental stress is the way you perceive that stress is different. Right? Right. There's also a feedback. There's famous studies where people will have Botox done on their frown lines. And what ends up happening is they're unable to frown because they've basically paralyzed the muscles that make them frown, so they get rid of the frown lines. And they'll come back and report that they feel happier because now they can't frown as much.

Now on the flip side, they also become less empathetic because they lose that ability. But it does point to, and there's lots of studies, by the way, that have been done differently, that demonstrate this, that your, what you do with your face and your body will feed how your mind perceives things and vice versa, how your mind perceives things. So if I'm thinking of like, you know, I need to fix my gut health. So I need to take probiotics and eat healthy, but I'm having all these horrible thoughts in my mind. That is going to affect my gut just as much. And not only that, but my gut then affects my mind. And it becomes this cycle. And you have to, you can't tackle one piece, it'll never work.

It's all or nothing. This is why holistic is everything. It's hilarious, but I'll say this quickly. Every time I get to the most shitty stressful situation where I know I'm gonna be forced to grow, adapt, or I'm not gonna succeed, I smile. The hardest workouts, the hardest business scenarios, the biggest fight with my whomever,

I always just, man, I just smile because it's my opportunity to grow. And if you can learn that physiological response and see like, hey man, this is an obstacle, this is an opportunity for you to become a better man. God, it's such an enlightening feeling, man. It's like, oh, I'm in control of this. God's giving me or whomever is giving me an opportunity

to grow. Excellent, excellent. Great conversation, gentlemen. Yeah, great having you on man thank you thank you for listening to MindPump 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 Superbumble at MindPump Media dot com the RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically

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