Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 771: How to Break Size & Strength Plateaus, Conventional vs. Romanian Deadlift, the Benefits of Competing in Bodybuilding & MORE

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND I'm sure off by talking about people who work with my pump who don't even listen to our show. What the fuck? What's wrong with you Taylor? Yeah. What is wrong with you? Just keep making fun of you Taylor. If you hear this message you're fired we're gonna stop paying you so until you figure it out. We also talk about creating better habits when traveling. We tend to not sleep that much and don't eat as good as we typically do.

Starting point is 00:00:43 So we're actually living the brand. I think. Yeah, I So we're gonna try to live in the brand. I think, yeah, I think I'm gonna be the asshole on the trip, we'll see what happens. You like doing that. More of the asshole. As we say, what's gonna be different? Yeah, I was like, what's different, right? Well, we're both assholes in different ways.

Starting point is 00:00:55 We talk about the value of hormone testing. We are working with a at home hormone testing company. You can actually order these tests and find out if your hormones are within normal range, highly recommended, especially for somebody who's struggling with fat loss or muscle building. Sometimes there's something wrong with your hormones or something off. The company is everly well.

Starting point is 00:01:19 If you go to everlyeverly.com and enter the code MindPump. You're going to get a massive 15% off. We also talked about our talk at Vince Del Monte's mastermind and how we connected with other entrepreneurs. We also mentioned Viori Clothing again in this episode. If you go to Viori Clothing. Viori fits. Again in this episode if you go to Your if you're a fit's VU ORI clothing dot com forward slash mine puppet get 25% off We are oh by the way. We're on another tour or another trip coming up soon

Starting point is 00:01:54 So when you listen to this episode, there's a couple days left to sign up for this if it's not already full get your name on there You have to go to and you have to type in the WWW in the beginning for some strange reason. WWW.MinePumpMedia.com forward slash tour is the last call for the Seattle event. We also did a wrap up of our Mother's Day weekend. Mom, we love you. Thanks, mommy. Then we get to the questions.

Starting point is 00:02:22 The first question was, what are some of the best life skills? We have learned from our moms. I know I learned a lot from Justin's mom next question What a good one today next question was wow What's up? No, but cancer can we explain the benefits of the Romanian deadlift over the conventional deadlift and why we included it in math black The next question was What are some positives for competing in bodybuilding? We always talk about the negatives But what are the positives aside from the speedo? I consider that a positive. There's a lot of positives Yeah, there's a lot of positives in there oiling up. That's a good one. That's one of my favorites.

Starting point is 00:03:05 And finally, what are some good ways that you can break through plateaus and strengthen the size? So if your body stops progressing, you're not getting stronger, you're not building any more muscle. What are some techniques you can apply to your routine, to your nutrition

Starting point is 00:03:23 that will get your body to respond. Again, also this month, the intuitive nutrition guide, the intermittent fasting guide, you get those for free if you enroll in any bundle. Now, bundles are what we take. Multiple maps programs put them together and discount them by 20 or 30% off. For example, this super bundle, which is a year of exercise program, but you can also enroll in our maps programs individually. For example, if Super Bundle, which is a year of exercise program, but you can also enroll in our maps programs individually for example if your goal is maximum muscle and strength Maps and a ballacres the program for you if your goal is to sculpt and shape your body like a body builder a Fuzzy competitor or bikini competitor. Well, that's maps aesthetic If your goal is functional movement and athletic performance,

Starting point is 00:04:06 well, that's Maps performance. And if you like to work out at home or on the road with minimal to no equipment, that's Maps anywhere. And finally, the correctional programs that we offer, the programs that help you correct imbalances, alleviate pain and just learn how to move better, that's Maps Prime and Prime Pro. And if you're a personal trainer, especially

Starting point is 00:04:29 you will benefit from getting those programs so you can apply what you learn in them to train your clients and separate yourself from your peers. For more information on all of that, just go to mindpumpmedia.com. My boy with the swaggy sneakers. Oh, he's gonna take it out. I know. I know. Sponsored by night. You know tacky down. I know. Oh yeah, sponsored by Nike, you know what I'm with? I heard. I mean, what? Who is? Who is? Well, it's not so much your sponsorship with Dems

Starting point is 00:04:50 just helping promote us. I don't know if you've seen on my Instagram, I was in the Nike store. I did. A big picture of me and my favorite clothes from Nike, and they're just giving me loads of gear. What led to that? One of the VPs of Nike was training in the gym with Glenn, you know, Glenn, and he built

Starting point is 00:05:08 a relationship with them and then he was being loads of people in and they loved Boxenburn gyms in Santa Monica. And the next thing you know, it's like, do you want to get involved with this Metcon Monday, you know, the Metcon shoes, a promotion with that. So definitely 100% and then next thing, do you want to start selling merch? Yes, you want to start selling Nike merch? Yes, Boxing Burn on. So that's it. And we still have the start of the relationship, but it's building. It's getting bigger and bigger, but it's just so good for the brand. Oh, he made it partner with a brand like Nike. That's fucking right. So now do you carry now a peril Nike peril inside your facility?

Starting point is 00:05:43 Yeah, Nike slash Boxing Burn. So we've got hoody I'll have to get you some next time you come down on next week. Yeah, but yeah, we've got a night. You stuff in there. It's great. Oh, that's so cool. Oh, man. Excellent. Now, how's the how's the classes and academy stuff going? How's that going? The academy's going really, really well, you know, we we the only ones that's really doing it, but we're doing it right. We're doing it right You know, we are well, I'm spending so much in my time now not so much concentrate on the James book concentrate on the Boxing Bonacademy this our education program where we teach trainers how to teach boxing and other people

Starting point is 00:06:15 You know, I think boxing is one of the biggest trends in fitness right now Everyone wants the box, but the only problem is not everyone knows our teach boxing right and that's where we come in Yeah, what I see with what I see with it but the only problem is not everyone knows that we're teach boxing. And that's where we come in. What I see with, what I see with it is the same problem. I see with a lot of things in the fitness industry, which is people treat it as a way just to get sweating and get sore. So they'll go in and they'll want to lift weights

Starting point is 00:06:36 or they'll want to run. They don't know how to run. They don't know how to lift weights. But their idea of a good workout is, oh, I got sore and I sweat a lot. And that's what a lot of these boxing, not your classes, but other boxing classes I've seen is people are terrible technique,

Starting point is 00:06:49 they're not learning how to throw punches properly. It's just swing your arms and get really sweaty, what separates yours from the ones I've seen at least is you're teaching boxing. You're teaching trainers how to teach boxing, not just to make people sweat. Yeah, I mean, that's a big difference. The real fundamentals of boxing, and if you're a trainer and you teach teach boxing, not just to make people sweat. Yeah, I mean, that's a big difference. The real fundamentals of boxing.

Starting point is 00:07:06 And, you know, if you're a trainer and you teach them boxing, yeah, you might get someone a good work out, but if someone asks you when I move to me left, which foot do I move first, and you're a trainer and you don't know the answer to that question, you look like a bit of a dick, right? You can do it. Yeah. But we teach them all of that stuff. It's like, I'm not big on strength work,

Starting point is 00:07:25 and I wouldn't try and teach one of my clients how to do like a Turkish get up or something like that. So I would, if they said, what would I use, why is it hurt my back? I wouldn't have a clue, you know, and I would look like a bit of a dick. So unless you get trained in something like that or like boxing, that's, you want to really stand out

Starting point is 00:07:42 from the crowd and stand out from all of the people in the industry. That's a very specific skill. And I think that, yeah, people don't realize that until they go into one of your kind of classes where you guys really break it down and get all the fundamentals in place. Yeah, we'll break it down into the fine, fine detailed teaching the trainers.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Because it is very important that the trainer knows what the hell he's talking about when he's teaching boxing. So when's the next, we have one coming up here in my pump media and then you have some other ones. One of the next ones people can sign up for. San Jose in this beautiful gym, that's June 10th, then we'll be in Sydney, Australia, and we've got a great following in Sydney, in Australia.

Starting point is 00:08:22 That's July 6th and 7th, We're going to level 1 and level 2. Yeah, right. Take the elevator. Level 1 and level 2. That's level 1. Level 1. And that's where you start off. And then Sydney, you said there's 1 and 2.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Yeah, back to back, Sydney, 1 and 2. So that's July 6th and 7th. Then we go into England, where obviously we are from. That's in August as well. So we're traveling around. We're, yeah, we we traveling around we yeah, yeah We're traveling around how do people sign up for this box and burn academy.com on the website with all the information on there And then they sign up and then are you are we giving are you giving mine pump listeners?

Starting point is 00:08:55 Yes, so we've got the coupon code is mine pump and that's for everything on the website We do online courses as well with the box Boxingman company, you can do the level one, level two online. I knew it was the cool MindPum and you'll save $100 on any course. $100, excellent. And I hope, I hope people come here to San Jose and take some of the classes here. I know it's coming up soon and June 10th,

Starting point is 00:09:15 but one of us may pop in and say hi, maybe, but you'll be in MindPump media headquarters. Or we do all of our filming and stuff like that. And last time you guys were here, you had about 25, maybe 30 people. Yeah, it was, it was great. And I had incredible reviews, cause afterwards people were DMing me

Starting point is 00:09:33 and we're saying it was phenomenal. And there were a couple of people who were trainers, they've been trainers for a while, who say that they've been able to use it with their clients. And that's just said, if you're a trainer and you wanna separate yourself from your peers, part of the way you separate yourself is the breadth of skills that you have.

Starting point is 00:09:50 Oh, level up your education. That's it. And I feel like in training right now, there's a ton of ways to do that through basic training, but you guys are the first ones to do this. I feel like with the certification for actual teaching boxing, for teaching clients, I wish this was around

Starting point is 00:10:05 when I was training because I was that asshole. I was 100% one of those assholes who I had so many clients that wanted me to teach boxing. I just was YouTubeing it and trying to learn and like holding pads and had some people teach me but just I wasn't even good at doing that and if there was a certification out there because you guys are certification too,

Starting point is 00:10:23 it doesn't account as CEUs for other certifications too. Yeah, so you could see use for Nassam, ES, ISSE, EFE, EFE. So you got to see a use for that so the continued education units, which is massive as well. That's what makes it a no-brainer to me. It's like, as a trainer, you already have to do these continuing education units. So keep your search anyways. So why not add different tools to your tool belt like this? So I think it's brilliant.

Starting point is 00:10:44 I'm looking forward to having you guys back in here We always love you stopping by your tone. Yeah good people. So boxenburnacademy.com the code is a mind pump It takes a hundred dollars off every single course the first one San Jose June 10th That's level one then there's Sydney Australia July six and seven that's level one and two do it and seventh that's level one and two, do it. T-shirt time! T-shirt time! All right, we have 15 reviews. We're giving out four shirts.

Starting point is 00:11:10 We've got Mitchell James, Maria Maya 22, Gina Gutierrez, J. Biscuit, all of you are winners. So the name I just read to. Whiskrubiscuits at minepumpmedia.com. Send your shirt size, your shipping address, and we'll get that right out to you. What's a whisker biscuit? I don't know, sounds delicious. Dude, I'm telling you right now, these new,

Starting point is 00:11:32 all right, bro, they're the business. These new sweats from, how from Viori, we're not even supposed to do a commercial right now, but I'm gonna be honest with you, it feels like these are made with baby skin. Hey, baby skin. I don't know if we want to put that in the market. No, no, no, no, it's not real baby skin. Okay, but it feels like baby skin. It feels like baby like baby skin. Baby skin. I don't know we want to put that in the market. No, no, no, it's not real

Starting point is 00:11:45 baby skin. Okay, but it feels like baby skin feels like baby seals like rabbits for. Like we're just using a belt velvety. We're using a bunch of like like things that people would hate you know, made with a real baby seal skin baby panda for how, but it's really soft. How good of a job did our boy Taylor do this last trip? I'm really, really proud. It's not bad, not bad. I feel like he's halfway there. Yeah, he's on the rise.

Starting point is 00:12:13 You know what's, though it sucks. He barely ever listens to the show, so I can't make fun of him. I know. Expecting him to hear it. You know what I mean? He's saying Katrina sees him, she tells him. She's like, do you listen to the show at all?

Starting point is 00:12:24 And he's like, I tried to when I can, this and that. She's like, you don't do. He's like, yeah, honestly to this show at all? And he's like, I tried to when I can listen to that. She's like, you don't, dude. He's like, yeah, honestly, it's been a while. The day that he starts listening is the day I know, like, oh shit, we're fucking. We're killing it now. Yeah, we win our own in that level. We win our own employees over. We just got to the family.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Now, you know, we gotta get our employees to do. I just did an interview with somebody who was asking about that about all the other people that work for us. We just got to the family. Now, you know, we gotta get our employees. You know, let them, I just did an interview when somebody was asking about that about all the other people that work for us. And, you know, I think it sounds probably crazy. I don't think, I don't know too many businesses that hire people that don't,

Starting point is 00:12:57 like as far as other podcasts, right? When we meet other podcasters and their staff of people, they're all like raving fans. You don't get that with ours. I mean, look at Casey Brett. I mean, you have Ann and Breonna that do, but I mean, as far as Drew Taylor, I mean, they don't even really listen to this show.

Starting point is 00:13:17 You know what? I see benefits to both, right? I see benefits to fans working for you because then they really know, you know, the style of the show. Yeah. And they know what you're talking about. What's going on brand, what you guys talk about.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Yeah, but then I also see the benefits of having someone come on that's outside of it because it's a new pair of eyes. And let's be honest, Taylor and Drew, that's their job. Part of their job is to be outside of our space and to make us look and feel different than the typical fitness brand. Plus, they're younger than us.

Starting point is 00:13:49 That's a huge advantage for us because we don't think the same way. There's things that they consider are like, what's hot and what's new coming out that people are really getting into and it's like, we're not doing that kind of research. Well, in our space, it's really common to like, everyone does the same thing.

Starting point is 00:14:06 That's what I mean. It's the same mold, same mold. It's the same mold. And it's proven, so I get it, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, I know that that works. It works to do that. But, I mean, again, that's where, I want to be different.

Starting point is 00:14:19 And I love that, they're like that too. They look at the space and they go, instead of looking at like, oh, this company's doing really good, let's mock, like, which is what they teach like that too. They look at the space and they go, instead of looking at like, oh, this company's doing really good, which is what they teach you in business. I mean, they tell you, like, find a company that's doing what you're doing and doing it really well, and find the things that they do really well and model after it. And a lot of what Mind Pump continues to do is to do stuff that others aren't doing in our space. Yeah, I think what they're doing is they're looking at other brands that are not in fitness that do really well

Starting point is 00:14:48 Yeah, and in deriving inspiration from from those types of brands which None of us would really I guess know how to do or we'd have to spend a lot more energy on in order to even come close It's the outside of our bubble. Yeah, you know, we're sort of in a bubble even though it feels like a big bubble It's just like everybody's sort of big bubble. This bubble you know, we're sort of in a bubble even though it feels like a big bubble. It's just like everybody's sort of bubble. This bubble is about to bust. Dude, how do you guys tie? I was exhausted the last time. Still tired, bro. Dude, I last night, we should have done this when we were 20. I was like, I feel like we fucked up, dude. Oh, man, I'm too old for this. I mean, I don't even like really talking about it on Android. I was talking to Trina yesterday. I was just like, I'm too old for this. I mean, I don't even like really talking about it on an intro. I was talking to Trina yesterday, I was just like,

Starting point is 00:15:25 I'm just exhausted, it's only fucking San Diego. You know what I'm saying? It's not like we came up, you're up. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, why? You know what it is? It's because when we do these things, the amount of energy, yeah, the amount of energy we're put,

Starting point is 00:15:39 and it's our first event and all of us were super excited. So that's a lot of energy. We're trying to do our best. Then we don't go to bed on time. I tried one night by going to bed early and you fuck sticks were out in the jacuzzi, you know, having a party. And you know what?

Starting point is 00:15:56 It's hard. It is hard for us to like, because you're just go, go, go. And so then we come back. And then the best part is that come back and then kids are here school. You know, gotta do laundry, gotta do this thing. Oh man.

Starting point is 00:16:08 You gotta catch up. It's tough man. I feel like such a bitch saying that too right now because people are listening and going like, fuck you guys, like you talking to a guy. You just say that. Like I don't even like talking about it. But it's true, like I was so exhausted. Like we passed out last night at nine o'clock or I did

Starting point is 00:16:26 Could you know really yeah, could you know we were getting we're going upstairs to watch the karate kid thing So I download the YouTube read because I just was rantin raving about it So I was like, you know what let's let's go in our room And we'll just we'll throw it on the laptop and we can watch that so bad relax right so we went upstairs And I think we watched the first episode together then she went down to let the boys out to go the bathroom at like nine and by the time she got back upstairs I was like out Yeah, she's like dude you were so out. I was so tired and that's the second day yesterday It was exhausted. Well what I'm starting to realize is what these with the stuff that we're doing and how when we do this

Starting point is 00:17:02 We sprint really hard. Yeah. It's more important to do everything that we can to maintain ourselves so that we can perform really well because I don't wanna do, and it is push on all cylinders and then don't, don't do all the things that we know that can help us maintain that and then crash and burn or get sick or just not perform, you know, tour festivities. Yeah, I guess we're a health and fitness podcast, so we've got to be able to find that balance.

Starting point is 00:17:31 And it's hard. I mean, it is hard, but I think we're better. I think we do a really good job. Like I think that we... I don't think we're great. Yeah, I think we're better. I think we're a lot better. I think our food choices are getting better.

Starting point is 00:17:41 We're not staying up quite as late. The last two trips, I felt like I've ate great. Like I've had, I've compared to what we were when we first started, like we would use a trip as like, ah, let's read just totally nothing. You know, we're gonna just eat whatever we feel like it for a day or two just because we're on it all the time. But it's now I've realized how important it is

Starting point is 00:18:03 that we're dialed even more so while we're gone. So you can perform and be well. I think we've been looking for gyms and getting our exercising in a bit more when we travel. That was something that we'd get a little more infrequently, but we're really pursuing it now. I mean, that obviously could be something we could schedule a bit better, but it's like, we're there to do a specific, you know, objective.

Starting point is 00:18:26 You know what it is? And this is a good learning experience for all of us, I think, because when we're on these trips and we're doing these events and podcasts and we're interviewing people, we're in that space, we're in that like, this is what we're doing type of space and it's hard to remove yourself from that space to get a workout in or instead of buying food somewhere, going to the grocery store, getting something that's maybe healthier, you know, going to bed early because you're in that space and you don't want to leave that space because it feels exciting, exhilarating and it's just, it's hard.

Starting point is 00:18:57 It is very hard to go to sleep when we do, you know, when we podcast or do these events and then we're in the same house together and all we want to do is maintain know, when we podcast or do these events, and then we're in the same house together, and all we wanna do is maintain that energy and keep it up. But the way I'm looking at it is I'm looking at it like, you know, like a, I guess like a coach, like okay, here's the deal, look, here's the deal. If you're, and you guys, I'll be using sports analogy, so you guys, oh god, I saw it.

Starting point is 00:19:23 So put my seatbelt on. Yeah. Think about this way. When you guys, oh god. I just put my seatbelt on. Yeah. Think about this way. When you're playing in the best of the best, when you're playing in the NBA or the NFL, and you're playing other talented players, other people with great genetics, you're playing other individuals who also work hard, who do what it takes.

Starting point is 00:19:40 Then sometimes the difference between you and them is the differences, you know, the players that get the weekly, get the massages, get the acupuncture, go to bed, do the cryo therapy. You're talking about what LeBron James does. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And so the way I'm starting to look at it in my mind is I'm starting to process this and say, okay, I'm going to, I'm normally, I mean, yes, we do a lot of things good, but I want to try and make it

Starting point is 00:20:03 perfect and just be perfect. Like, do you ever think? Yes, because that, you know what? That'll be our advantage. I don't think anybody can keep up with us on all the other stuff, plus throw that on top of it. I think we'll be unstoppable. So I think it'll be something that we're starting

Starting point is 00:20:18 to get into more of a rhythm. No, I can see it. I can already notice a difference just in like hormonally, like feeling better finally, you know, I'm saying like I can see it. Oh yeah, you're a different person. Yeah, no. No, I can feel that coming out of that, you know, the last six months was really tough.

Starting point is 00:20:33 So, man, imagine what's going through me as we're doing all this stuff, like, and then also feeling the dip in that, like I can already feel my energy coming back up because my hormones are getting back up. Oh, because what I want to do is I want to go, because now we're going to be leaving for L.A. and Seattle, right? So we came back two or three days here, boom, right back on, and advanced like two this time. What I'm going to try and do is I want to like,

Starting point is 00:20:58 at a particular time at night, I'm going to meditate, and I'm going to try to go to sleep. How hard, how hard it can be? Wake up at a specific time. I'm gonna set my alarm. Cause here's the other thing that I noticed that kind of, you know, messes me up a little bit is if I wake up at different times,

Starting point is 00:21:14 and I think check might even talk about this. He said to wake up at the same time every morning, regardless, and try to go to bed at the same time cause that's how your body gets in a rhythm. And even though you may still be getting eight hours or seven hours of sleep, if you normally go to bed at 10, but now you're going to bed at midnight,

Starting point is 00:21:32 and you think, oh, I'm going to wake up at seven or eight instead, that may not be as good. So I'm going to try and do set my alarm for 5, 30 or 6 a.m. and go to bed, or at least try to get close to that, because it might not be possible, right? Because we might be somewhere for a long time or whatever and see how big.

Starting point is 00:21:47 But as far as you mentioned, your testosterone level is, Adam, you still haven't tested. No, I haven't. I've been kind of just basing it off feel. Yeah, I've been waiting till like, because I mean, it's was pretty obvious about three months ago and beyond, or further back that it wasn't there.

Starting point is 00:22:04 Say, and it's very obvious to, that it wasn't there. It's very obvious to me when it's not like, now I'm more on the like, okay, am I back to normal? Am I getting back to normal? How close am I to where I was before? I mean, it's been years since I have gone this long with not even the therapeutic dose of testosterone. So this is the longest in the last four years

Starting point is 00:22:25 that I've gone, or five years even at that, that I've gone with no testosterone whatsoever. We're already coming up. I'm already coming up on like eight months or something. That's great. So what I was gonna say to you is, because there's a couple of theories that I have, because you look way different,

Starting point is 00:22:40 and you're talking about how great you feel. So your testosterone levels are definitely higher than they were, but it'll be interesting to see if they're in a good range or if they're just higher and you have so many more receptors now that are open because you were so low for so long. You know what I'm saying? Because I think when you go off testosterone for a while

Starting point is 00:22:58 and you're testosterone dips, think your receptors up regulate, the same way that they down regulate when you have too much testosterone. So I wanna see what's going on there. And we tailor set something up with, uh, Everly Weller, are you guys familiar with Everly Weller? We met him at Paleo-Eleofex.

Starting point is 00:23:12 Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know much about them. I know that they do, you know, several different tests. Did you at home, uh, hormone tests? They have specific ones. So you could do testosterone. You could do...

Starting point is 00:23:25 I did a food sensitivity. I grabbed that test. I haven't done it yet. Yep, you could test yourself for... I believe they test for IgG antibodies, which can point you in the right direction in terms of food intolerances. So, you know, the elimination diet

Starting point is 00:23:39 is still the gold standard, but a lot of times people are like, well, where do I start? Mm-hmm. And these tests can help point the right direction because you can see what food. Now I've heard people knock some of these at home tests. I saw this one on Shark Tank way back when

Starting point is 00:23:51 when they first came out and I've heard good things about it, but I haven't personally investigated the accuracy of it. Is it, you know what I think of? Because I've heard some people hate on them. But then I've also heard from, now I've heard from people that are connected to them about how accurate it actually is. And it reminds me kind of like comparing body skin fold versus the dunk tank versus, and

Starting point is 00:24:17 we get into this. Bob, Bob, and all these things. Right, is it one of those things where it's like it's more about the, getting it done and then following up and seeing it again, like it's just to see the change or it should be really accurate to where I'm at. So, two things. So, when it comes to hormones, saliva tests are pretty damn accurate. From what I've read, the problem with saliva tests is I think they're harder to administer

Starting point is 00:24:42 because when you go to, if you're in a lab, you have to spit in a vial and that takes a little while to fill up a vial with, or a few vials with spit. So I think that may be part of the problem. I think, first thing in the morning, no food, I think is important. The food intolerance test, there's a lot of controversy surrounding those because they're not foolproof and they're still controversies to whether or not food and tolerances exist in Western medicine. Well, still, you get a lot of people saying, they don't really exist.

Starting point is 00:25:12 So, but no, everly will, everly wells, you know, products are legit. Like, you know, it's gonna tell you if you're low or if you're normal. And the way I suggest you use them is you take one test and then wait a few months, make your changes and then take another one, just like with a body fat test, make sure it's done at the same time,

Starting point is 00:25:31 same circumstances. That's how I was gonna use it. Like I was gonna use it the exact same way, no matter how accurate they tell me it is, because I think that's what happens a lot. For me, I know all of this stuff could literally change per week, you know what I'm saying? Like if you're sleeping really well, your diet's down,

Starting point is 00:25:48 your training really well, you take one of these tests, and then three weeks later, you go to take it to the test again, but that just happens to fall in the week where you miss sleep, your stressed work is fucking, you lost your job, stressed out, you missed workouts all that week. Like I'm sure you're gonna see a difference. I. Like I'm sure you're gonna see a difference. I mean, I'm sure you're gonna see a significant difference in the test. So I think it's important that that that's how you're using tests like this is,

Starting point is 00:26:13 okay, you know, it's not the end all be all, but it's a great way for me to measure and see if the things that I'm implementing in my life is actually having a positive effect on like my hormone level. So I'm excited to take it. I feel like it's about time for me to... No, and the way you're using it is exactly the best way to use saliva test is to use it as a gauge and to track yourself.

Starting point is 00:26:34 And if you really wanna get down to it, you can do several throughout the day. So you could test some in the morning, afternoon, evening. And here's the thing, it's like when we had, what's his name, the Carnivore diet? Sean Baker. When he came on the show, he was pointing out how cholesterol tests can be so crazy

Starting point is 00:26:54 from, during the day, like you could test it in the morning, test it at night, after a workout, it'll be way lower. If you fast, your cholesterol goes up temporarily, during the fast. And so he pointed out how multiple tests are probably the best way to go. The way I look at it is do the testosterone test once, test it again maybe a couple weeks later same time and then you can start having fun with it and see what's going on. But these are cool because they're at home, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Anybody could do that at home and you've already done it. I have one now so I'm just waiting to take it so I'll get on it and take it now

Starting point is 00:27:27 I think it's a good time probably when we get back from this trip that's coming up because we got Me here, I mean doses first and then we got me here and then I then we're back home for a little one Thank God, it's not a drug test, you know me Bro, we did how how funny was it? The other day when we did the talk at the, was it Vince's mastermind? Oh, Vince Del Monte. Yeah, yeah, Vinnie!

Starting point is 00:27:52 What was the nickname, Skinny Vinnie? He said, when we did a talk at his mastermind group and we're up there holding our copper, you know, Moscow mule cup, smaller time, to everybody about podcasting. Hey, we gotta loosen it up a little bit in there. It's kind of stuffy. Somebody took a picture and posted it on Instagram

Starting point is 00:28:12 that like, this is the first time I've ever had a speaker, I've ever seen a speaker drink. Well, they're, but leave it to my friend. Yeah, we like to do the first. We're like a lot of directions. We're like a wild card or whatever. Yeah, man.

Starting point is 00:28:23 That was a good time. It was a really good time. Shout out to anybody that's listening to a show that we got a chance of directions. We're like a wild card or whatever. That was a good time. It was a really good time. Shout out to anybody that's listening to a show that we got a chance to talk. Because when we went into Vince's talk, or have to be honest, that I wasn't sure how many people would already be on to podcasting or even interested in it, much less have already been listening to Mind Pump. When I got up there and first started, I was like, okay, well, how many of you guys even listen to a podcast and like the whole fucking room

Starting point is 00:28:48 raise their hand. So I thought that was surprising. And then I said, how many of you guys listen to Mind Pump and half the room kept their hands up. So I thought, oh, wow, okay, this is cool. This is our people we need to talk to then. And these guys are all like guys and girls are all killers. They're, it's a seven figure mastermind group.

Starting point is 00:29:02 So most of the people in here are making a few hundred pounds. They're doing well. Yeah, they're already killing the game. They're just trying to make it to the next level and get in a seven figure. So really cool audience to talk to. I see. I'm seeing a lot of these groups now are starting to pop up. These mastermind groups. They've been around for a while where people get coached by...

Starting point is 00:29:20 I think they've been around for a really long time. But I think that, and I think a great interview that talks about this is when we interviewed Lewis House and how he built his first off of LinkedIn. I think, you know, listening to that story and when LinkedIn and, you know, Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all these, all these social media platforms that were created and gave us the ability to connect to people all over the world like intimately like that. I think it made it a really easy transition or pivot from there to create these mastermind type groups. So I think it just made it easier. Like before you'd have to

Starting point is 00:29:57 have a book out there or you'd have to already be on TV or radio and be kind of really well-known before you could go to a city or go somewhere and say you could, you know, go to a city or go somewhere and say, Hey, you know, pay me X amount of dollars and we'll all get together and I'm going to teach you how to do what I've done. Where now we have this, I mean, even like us going down to Viori, you know, we didn't, when Taylor first set this all up, like I don't, you know, I don't know how many like die hard mind pump fans are in San Diego. Like I don't know how many people are going to on a Thursday night roll out to come see us. Like I really didn't know.

Starting point is 00:30:26 It's not like we aggressively promoted it or anything like that. So that was really interesting to see the show. So that's, in easily we could turn that into mastermind. One thing that I got from it is how much I enjoy talking to you guys with an audience. Cause you get that feedback. Like right now, recording the podcast, enjoy talking to you guys with an audience. Cause you get that feedback.

Starting point is 00:30:46 Like right now, recording the podcast, I feel like would be more awesome if there was like five or 10 people. That we're not talking to them or anything like that, but we're just doing our show, but there's people in the background. And then you can read them and I don't know, I feel like it's almost like a studio audience

Starting point is 00:31:02 when you're, you know, it was the first time it actually felt like what we've kind of done on the podcast, like live. And I think that the interaction with the audience was natural to where they're asking good questions, but it just fueled our conversation instead of it just being like a lecture, which was great. I loved that it was different.

Starting point is 00:31:24 Yeah, I'm really thinking hard about how awesome that would be to every once in a while have, and that would be down the future, nothing now. I'm stoked about where we're gonna be doing with Mir, up in Seattle this coming weekly. Or Wednesday, this goes live one, Doug, tomorrow. So we still have a couple of days before that. And I know it's a much bigger

Starting point is 00:31:45 vignia. So there's room for people. If you're just now listening to this that we head up to mirror, and this one's this will be the last one of all. Now this one we're actually interviewing someone first, right? Yes, the owner of the founder of mirror. That's right. In fact, that's what we have this morning Doug. We have a call with him this morning to follow up. I don't know if you remember that or not. Make sure we check on the time on that. But yeah, we talked to him first, and then we'll still do, it'll be very similar to Viori,

Starting point is 00:32:09 the only difference than Viori is that we will open up with kind of an intro to Mir and why mine pump and Mir and things like that, and then we'll transition into our Q&A with our audience. But it's gonna be a good time. I'm excited. I'm super excited. I'm really excited because Viori, I felt like everybody needed to get that out of their system just so they could kind of feel what it was gonna be a good time. I'm excited. I'm super excited. I'm really excited because Viori, I felt like everybody needed to get that

Starting point is 00:32:26 out of their system just so they could kind of feel what it was gonna be like. Now that we see what it's gonna be like, I think it's gonna be really exciting. Because before a lot of these, the seminars, the meetings, the things we go to, it was like a split of some listeners, some not, where we're finding out at the tour, these are all like.

Starting point is 00:32:46 I can't wait till we've done 50 of these. Because we know what happened when we started podcasting. However fun it was and however good we thought we were when we started right around 100 episodes or so. There was like this... Oh, you're getting a groove. This shift, right? And how good we got.

Starting point is 00:33:02 And you can actually clearly list. If you listen to our podcast, you can clearly see there was a change right around 100 or 150 where really, we really got just a lot better, just like anything that you do a lot. Same thing with YouTube, like we start off and we do our thing and now we're starting to feel

Starting point is 00:33:20 like we're really getting into our groove and it's morphing into its own style. I can't wait till we've done 10, 20, 30 of these where it really starts to turn into its own thing and then it really gets fucking fun. It's like learning how to play the piano. Like, even if you really enjoy learning, you're not making music until later on.

Starting point is 00:33:40 Then when you really know what you're, when you're really getting comfortable with playing this instrument, it's even if you enjoyed it in the beginning, there's nothing like making music and I can't wait until, you know, we get to that point, you know, I mean, I feel like it's going to be, I feel like it's going to be just another flow state for us, another awesome thing and I'm really excited about that because I have yet to, I have yet to not like anything we do, everything we do has been so rewarding. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:05 I really, really enjoy the connecting with people. I mean, I was... The after part. Yeah, when we spent some time with people talking to them afterwards, I said, you know, this is the piece of the business that I have to be honest. Like, we're over three years in now

Starting point is 00:34:20 and we're finally getting to the stuff that really excites me. I really get excited to talking to other entrepreneurs, other people trying to build their business. And I really like connecting one on one with people. And it's funny because, and I was sharing this with some of the people that I got a chance to talk to, when we've met our peers in the podcasting space,

Starting point is 00:34:39 a lot of them are very talented and brilliant, but a lot of them actually prefer the at your house on the podcast, in their space, where they get their computer in front of them and that's kind of how they like to do things where that shit scares me. I don't fucking know how to turn on our computer. It wasn't for Doug, we wouldn't be able to do this.

Starting point is 00:35:00 I put me in front of people, put me in front of somebody that I can talk, I can look you in the eyes, and I can connect with you. That to me is more natural and I enjoy it even more. It's actually taking a lot of work to do what we do right now on these mics where we're talking to tons of people, but it doesn't feel like it because I can't see them. You've made a point about why, and it's so important, I think, when we're up there talking, I'm looking at people in the audience and you

Starting point is 00:35:26 can see the feedback if you're striking a chord and you can see a feedback if you're not. If you're looking at an audience and they're chattering to each other or they're looking off or they're looking at their watch, you're not on it. After we did that event, we came home and I was just up until I don't know, 130 thinking about the whole thing. And when you start to experience these different modalities or these different ways of presenting yourself

Starting point is 00:35:55 or what we're trying to communicate, there's always a learning curve. And so I was just studying it. And I've also been studying effective speakers, people who speak in front of large audiences to see it, you know, because that's a skill. Besides the fear aspect and the anxiety aspect and the, oh, I don't like talking to a lot of people, that's definitely a hurdle.

Starting point is 00:36:15 Once you get past that though, there's the, how can I be effective? How can I get people to engage? And one of the things is, you know, you're not talking to a group. You're talking to a lot of individuals. And so you look at individuals and don't be afraid to ask them questions or to point or to nod or to, you know, to really to address the individuals in the audience. And that also simultaneously, I've discovered makes it more comfortable. When you start doing that, it's effective communicating, but it's also, oh, I've discovered, makes it more comfortable. When you start doing that, it's effective communicating, but it's also, oh, I feel more comfortable now, because I'm talking to this guy in the front,

Starting point is 00:36:52 or that girl in the back over there. Well, it's inclusive as well. Yeah. You're not up on stage to just like sing and dance, and it's all about you. You know, like, that's not really our flavor anyway. We're very inclusive. We want people's opinions.

Starting point is 00:37:07 We want people to throw us curveballs. You know, we want that interaction. And I think that's the only way to do it is to really just pull them in, draw them in one by one. Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was pretty awesome. So, we just had Mother's Day. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:22 What'd you guys do? Just do anything? Just, yeah, like all kinds of stuff for my wife. I was like, on a mad dash to like, honey doing everything. And, no, it was fun. I mean, we went out and had some lunch

Starting point is 00:37:37 and just spent some quality time with the kids. And I mean, everybody had just come over this sickness over the weekend when we were gone. And so it was light. We'd do a little bit of hiking and just getting out and kind of you know just just trying to get away from a lot of distractions. Do you get your wife a gift from the kids or from you or both? Well what was nice was like I did kind of like a double whammy where we were at Viori and I just like scooped up a bunch of cool gear for her there and so she was stoked on that alongside you know getting

Starting point is 00:38:10 her some flowers and just for me it's really just like taking on a lot of like house things that need to be accomplished. She just gets a lot of you know joy out of that. Now when you're when you're married like that is it is you have to take care of your mom and wifey? Is that like the deal? So this one, two more of a priority. I've got two moms. I balance that out. Sometimes I, I mean, unfortunately,

Starting point is 00:38:34 my mom gets sort of the lower end of the attention. But this year, actually, like the weekend before, since my mom had been like heavily doing a lot because my aunt had died, had passed away, and she was taking care of my grandma. The house is now like she's trying to get this house ready for market. And in my mom's the kind of person that doesn't really ask for a lot of help, she's very much like me. We're like the same person, which is why we kind of clash a lot. But I've been really trying to kind of reach out and no, ahead of time and anticipate like she needs things, right?

Starting point is 00:39:11 And so I actually was, we worked it out where it was like kind of a trip or just me and my mom, we went to go to the house and then I just, I mowed lawn, I straight and organized, got a bunch of stuff out of the house for a ticket back with my truck and, you know, helped her get it ready for market. So she really appreciated that. So that was that earned me some, some equity. I got a, I kind of messed up a little bit. Uh-oh.

Starting point is 00:39:41 Yeah. So not because of my mom, I always remember my mom. So I got her, you know, nice card and I wrote some nice stuff in there and gift card and all that stuff, but in flowers. But so Jessica's mom was visiting, and you know, we got her, I got her something to, and her mom's wonderful. By the way, I can see where Jessica gets her wisdom. Her mom is one of the most wise, calm people I've ever met, just right away you feel like you wanna,

Starting point is 00:40:05 you can open up and talk to her. Jessica's got that quality as well and I totally see how she gets it. But they were both asking me, so we get back and it's like the day before Mother's Day from our trip. And that night, right before bed, Jessica's mom's like, so would you get your ex-wife? And I'm like, what? What do you mean?

Starting point is 00:40:29 She's like, Mother's Day, what did you, what did you get it for, you know, from the kids from Mother's Day? And I'm like, oh, I guess I should, should I, I mean, I guess I did it last year. I got her something from the kids last year. Uh, but yeah, I didn't even think about it. And then I realized like, she's like, well, why not? Like, she's the mother of your children and this and that. And she's both co-parent and she's totally, I didn't even think about it. And then I realized like she's like, well, why not? She's the mother of your children and this and that and she's both co-parent and she's totally,

Starting point is 00:40:49 I mean, I'm point with it. But then I realized I have a little bit of, I don't know what it is, a little bit of like, what's the right word? Anomosity, you know, like I don't like I'm gonna buy your present. Yeah. But you're a lot of shit already.

Starting point is 00:41:02 You got plenty of stuff. At least you're honest. Well, I could feel it, you know, I could feel it. I could feel that left over feeling inside of like fuck you. You're on the prayers. But not because I hate or anything like that. Like I said, we work together.

Starting point is 00:41:15 No, I get it. But it feels like an extra step to do that. Totally. And you know what's funny? And then I started thinking more about why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like, and obviously, you know, you get divorced and all that and you have to divide up your assets.

Starting point is 00:41:28 So that's always the bad, deback your head, like, oh, you get this, and that, but there was, you know what it was? She ruined gift giving for me a long time ago. I was like, probably seven fathers days ago, maybe, maybe seven years ago. For fathers day, she got me a gift and it was fucking nose clippers Like like electric nose clippers

Starting point is 00:41:49 You know I'm saying the ones that yeah, yeah, and I remember after that like all right, you're not gonna get shit That's cool anymore. Yeah So I thought about it. I'm like, oh that's maybe that's still left over from that. That's funny But anyway, I got it right I might appreciate that right now, dude. I think I appreciate that. That's like the evolution dude. It always goes down. Little that I know she was just looking into the future. Yeah, I was gonna say maybe she just knew you were gonna need it one day. Or was it hint? Yeah, or hit. You're gonna get someone one like long wizard. Like when you give someone a mint. Hey, would you like a mint? Why? But anyway, so yeah, I got her, I did end up getting her something and then we went to my

Starting point is 00:42:25 aunt's house and you know, typical, you know, my family can never do a party that doesn't have at least 30 people. So we're there, just like a million people there and had a really good time. My grandma, my old Sicilian grandma, who's, I want to say, God, how's my grandma not? 76, 77? And she kind of walks in and she doesn't walk very well, and she doesn't have good mobility and all that stuff. But she's adorable, my grandma's so sweet.

Starting point is 00:42:50 And she just walks up to Jessica, just randomly, and she doesn't speak very good English. And she puts her hand on Jessica's shoulders, goes, I love you. She's just like, what? She's like, I love you a lot. You're a good girl. She's like, oh, thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:43:03 She's like, hugging my little sister very much. She's like hugging my little sister-in-grandma. So cute. I just want to pick her up and squeeze her. Did you guys do anything for? Yeah, no, I was at, we spent most of the day with Katrina's mom and their family. They go all out for everything. I've told you guys that before. So, I mean, for sure, Mother's Day, because that's actually like a national holiday. So we said, we already celebrate, you know, two days later. Not like Columbus Day. Yeah, exactly. We already celebrate every holiday with them as it is.

Starting point is 00:43:29 But Mother's Day is cool because it is neat to see the kids all kind of rally together for their mom. So everybody comes over to her house and everybody heads and they do a really good job of all the siblings of coordinating stuff before there. Like so mom doesn't have to do anything. And was like we did a brunch for her and so I mean we got in there like at I don't know nine o'clock in the morning and began preparing all the food and Drink and everything like bears mosa's that were served It was a really fancy brunch that we threw at her house with all of us collectively getting ready for it So we spend most of the day with her mom and hanging out there.

Starting point is 00:44:06 And then every year I've started to make this tradition where I send my mom, Justin and Jared's mom, who were like moms to me when I was growing up, those that know my kind of childhood history and so with that, a lot of times I was at my best friends house and their parents feeding me or hanging out with me or taking good care of me too. So I look at them like my mother's also. So I have kind of three moms. And so I send all of them, you know, Cherries Berry.

Starting point is 00:44:37 So shout out to that company for free. They deliver chocolate strawberries. And so I send it and I write a nice note for each of them individually and have it sent to their mom's houses So I did that for my mom, and then I called my mom That morning and just wish her happy Mother's Day and stuff and then we spent the rest of the day with Katrina's mom That was pretty much what I did good deal boys This quaz brought to you by Organify

Starting point is 00:44:59 For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, Organified fills the gap with laboratory-tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health a performance-the-at-it-edge. Try Organified, totally risk-free for 60 days by going to Organified.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com and use a coupon code MindPump for 20% off at checkout. All right, our first question is from Nelly Mynell. and use a coupon code mine pump for 20% off at checkout. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz My mom is one of the most honest people I've ever met in my entire life. To the point where, you know, the little white lies that you do, you know, like, you know, mom, tell them I'm sick or, you know, little little little things that your mom will do for you for, my mom wouldn't do that.

Starting point is 00:45:56 Like, she simply would not lie. So she's got incredible integrity. She's extremely hard working, extremely hard working. I mean, you know, when I was really young, she would stay at home and then as I got older, she was a teacher. She teaches and works with special ed kids and children with autism.

Starting point is 00:46:16 And she would come home and still just do everything for us. But, you know, one of the best life skills I ever learned from my mom was how to communicate, how to express myself. So you know, in my culture, there's a very authoritative style of parenting where, you know, the kids do what the parents say because they said it. There's no explanation, like, you know, you don't explain, like, you just do it because I told you.

Starting point is 00:46:43 And that's very calm in my culture, like like you just do it because I told you. And that's very calm in my culture, like you just do it. But my mom used to let me argue. So if there was something that I disagreed with, I would start to debate and argue with her. And my dad would get mad and be like, why do you even let him argue? Just tell him that he has to do it or else. And she used to argue with him and say,

Starting point is 00:47:02 no, I like it when he expresses himself. And so me and her would get into these long debates and discussions about whatever, whether it was, you know, should I, you know, I remember I did band. I was in band when I was in fifth grade. I played the trumpet. Naturally. Yep. And you were in band two asshole.

Starting point is 00:47:20 Except you picked the saxophone, right? Because you're trying to be cool. Trumpet, I am not including you guys in my bag. You know what's funny? At this age now, if I was good at the trumpet, you can't tell me that wouldn't be awesome. At a party. Play some jelly. Yeah, we're cool, dude.

Starting point is 00:47:37 But anyway, that's true, Mary Occhi's. So I convinced my mom to buy me the trumpet, their expensive as hell, and I did it in fifth grade, sixth grade, and seventh grade, but by the time I got seventh grade, I was like, I don't wanna do this anymore, because the main reason was I hated carrying the big ass box, the trumpet in it.

Starting point is 00:47:59 It's like you wearing a big tag on your head that says, Kink me. I'm gonna go. Kink me. So, or sigbull, or'm going to go. So, you're such a bull. She used to tell me like, no, you convinced me to buy this. Now you're going to keep playing.

Starting point is 00:48:12 And so when I got into eighth grade, I remember I sat down with her and actually sat her down as a muddy of 10 minutes. She's like, why? I'm like, I'm busy right now. I'm like, sit down, I need to talk with you. And so she used to do this for me. She'd actually take time aside and let me express myself.

Starting point is 00:48:26 So I sat her down and I had it all planned out, like how I was gonna close my mom on not letting me do band anymore. So I said, you know, mom, I said, school is very important. I think right away she knew I was up to somewhere, I said that. She said school is very important, it's important,

Starting point is 00:48:43 I get grades and I'm gonna give you guys a't be, I was up to something, where I said that. So school's very important, it's important I get grades. And I'm gonna give you guys a short version because I went on. I said, in order for me to focus on my school work, focus on staying stable in class and paying attention and all these different things, I need to not have too many of these extra stresses in my life and I really don't like being in the band.

Starting point is 00:49:05 And I feel like it's taking away from my ability to do these, and my mom, after I said that, as I'm talking, she's smiling, and she says, well, I will say this, she goes, you've made a very compelling argument. And I'm like, oh cool, she goes, you're still gonna be in the band, so fuck. So I had to stay in the band for another year.

Starting point is 00:49:23 But she used to let me do that. She used to let me argue with her, and we'd'd go back and forth and I really honed my ability To communicate and I swore to God a large part of my sales ability goes to Trying to sell my mom on stuff and her letting me do that. That's cool That's worth it. We're very similar in that area too That's something my mom if I were to give my mom a lot of credit for some of the things that shaped me into the man I am today, that's definitely a similar trait we had this,

Starting point is 00:49:51 but we always had this ability to communicate back and forth. Sometimes it probably wasn't the healthiest in our house, but we were allowed to do that. We definitely did not live by the, you know, no, because I told you so, it's like, you know, we would discuss things like that. But I would say, as man, the probably the most, the most are the best life skills I've learned from him.

Starting point is 00:50:14 My mom established values and morals with me at a very young age. And, you know, as a young kid, I probably didn't appreciate it very much. You know, I was like, oh, church again. Oh, we have to do devotion now. Oh, we have to do all these things. And so as a kid, I probably resisted a lot of it,

Starting point is 00:50:33 but now as an adult, I look back and realize that that, much of that is my foundation and much of the things that I've applied that have served me so well as I've gotten older are a lot of the values that she established in us at a very early age. And I just learned to separate the dogmatic piece to it that most people have when they get indoctrined by some religion. And I think that there was a time there where probably in probably my late teens to really twenties were I

Starting point is 00:51:06 Resented it. I was like ah about it. I didn't have the right attitude. And I think once I got old enough to realize like how important those values were to to making me a good human being and people liking me and excelling in life I think I began to appreciate more of my mom making me kind of go through that as a kid. So if I would say that was probably one of the most valuable things that she ever taught me. Yeah, I think for me, my mom was very, I want to say like a word like tenacious, like she very much like as a go getter and like it's all about action and

Starting point is 00:51:48 Like one thing that I did I mean It's we're so much alike that it was very tough for me to I Guess appreciate a lot of What my mom was kind of teaching me growing up because we just clashed like all the time because you know She's very, very bullheaded, but it was all in my interest. She would fight fights for me all the time just because she cared so much. She puts herself all in on people.

Starting point is 00:52:20 I think that she does a really good job at just keeping constant communication with people that are valuable to her and also like maintaining this crazy like active lifestyle. So these are these are things that I've definitely seen myself sort of picking up on as far as just staying active, just being constantly doing stuff. And like she accomplishes so many things all the time and never asks for somebody to be there to thank her for it. So I think that now being older, I'm realizing like I'm trying more to acknowledge those things, you know, with her. It's crazy how much wisdom people who are older than you have that you don't realize when you're young.

Starting point is 00:53:16 And then when you yourself get older and you have kids and you go, oh shit, man. Like there was so much wisdom that they were presenting to me and I resisted for so long, especially when it comes to parenting. Once you have your own kids, boy, you have a whole new appreciation for your parents, right? Huge appreciation. Yeah, the other thing my mom was, my mom didn't take any shit for my kids. She was also very strong. And I was very strong.

Starting point is 00:53:44 I got one red head. I got one one example of that. I was in the car with my cousin. I was probably 14. So we're sitting in the back and you know by time you're two and 14 when you're a boy around 14 years old when you think you're you think you're a badass, right? testosterone's coming up a little bit. You're bigger now. You're like yeah whatever you don't know anything and you know I'm tall and whatever now and you know you just think you're bigger now, you're like, yeah, whatever, you don't know anything and, you know, I'm tall in whatever now and, you know, you just think you're, you think you know it all. And so we were in the back of the car, my mom was driving us to the mall,

Starting point is 00:54:12 and I was just talking back to where I was just being a shit, acting like a teenager. And so my mom says, you better apologize. I don't remember what I said, but she goes, you better apologize for what you just said. I'm like, I'm not gonna apologize. I got that was being cool next to my cousin. I'm like, I'm not gonna apologize I got those being cool next to my cousin. I'm like, I'm not gonna apologize We were on Santa Teresa, okay, so which is it so if you don't live in San Jose is like three or four or three

Starting point is 00:54:35 Lane Road it's a big road So we're on there She says you if you don't apologize, I'm gonna stop right here in the middle of the road Then I'm like I said, literally, I said this, I said, I dare you, she pulls a handbrake. We're going like 40 miles an hour. She pulls the handbrake, ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- streaks down the road, turns a little bit of sideways. We are in the middle of Santa Teresa.

Starting point is 00:55:05 My cousin's holding onto the sides of the chair, or the back seat, and she turns around, she goes, apologize, or I'm not moving. And my cousin looks at me and he's like, please, he looks at me. He didn't even say, he malved it to me. What he malved to me was, please apologize, please, please, and so I'm like, so I like, under my breath, like, I'm sorry.

Starting point is 00:55:28 And she's like, say it like you mean it. Oh, I'm sorry, I was whatever, you know, and then she finally takes off. And we get to the mall and she drops us off. And my cousin's like, he goes, man, I would never fuck with your mom, dude, because she's crazy for, I'll never forget that moment right there where she pulled the handbrake and the other

Starting point is 00:55:44 other, that was good times. Great game, sir. All right, our next question is from DuFlash. I'll never forget that moment right there where she pulled the handbrake Great, sir. All right our next question is from do flash do flash what up dog? Hey do flash With the full range of motion mantra ringing in our ears Can you explain the benefits of the Romanian deadlift over the conventional deadlift and why you include it in maps black? This is a question you picked, Doug? I did pick this one. Well, they're two different. They're two different, actually. Yeah, totally different exercises.

Starting point is 00:56:11 You're putting a lot. Focus is different. Yeah, you're putting a lot more focus and emphasis on the hamstrings when you're doing a Romanian deadlift and there's so much more going on with the conventional deadlift. I mean, obviously you're gonna get more quad activation because you're gonna sit down with the hips more

Starting point is 00:56:24 and then the back lift that you get from a conventional deadlift in comparison to a stiff leg, a deadlift. When you do the stiff leg, a Romanian deadlift, I mean, most, you feel everything in those glutes and the hamstrings when you slide the hips back, but very, very little in the back. Yeah, it all revolves around the hip hinging, you know, in that movement, in particular. And so that's definitely one that takes a little more focus and control. And so it's something to you. You're not going to load a ton of weight with, initially,

Starting point is 00:56:55 I mean, in comparison to like your conventional deadlift where we're trying to get like everything. Now, that being said, I think it's a good place to start people. Like, I like to teach a Romanian deadlift for a stiff leg a deadlift before I teach a conventional deadlift. I think a conventional deadlift has got more moving parts or is tougher for people to do.

Starting point is 00:57:14 Well, just activating your post to your chain for a lot of people is very tough because a lot of people don't focus on that and to be able to get that involved in your conventional deadlift is a huge benefit. This highlights something interesting. The person's obviously whoever do flashes, great name, by the way, this highlights that they're confused in terms of what full range of motion looks like, because I can kind of

Starting point is 00:57:40 see what they mean, although it's inaccurate, right? They're looking at a conventional deadlift versus a Romanian deadlift, and they're comparing one because it has perhaps a longer range of... A better example of what he or she is trying to say, right now would be a rack pull compared to a conventional deadlift.

Starting point is 00:57:57 Yeah, so what I was gonna say is, yeah, if you look at a conventional deadlift and you look at a Romanian deadlift, you'll notice that there's a longer range of motion typically with a conventional deadlift than there look at a Romanian deadlift, you'll notice that there's a longer range of motion typically with a conventional deadlift than there may be with the Romanian. That doesn't mean that one is full range of motion, the other one is short range of motion.

Starting point is 00:58:13 What it means is, what you need to understand is every exercise has a range of motion potential. And that varies dramatically depending on the individual and their mobility and control. So when we say, when we say full range of motion is superior, what we mean is, first off, the full range of motion that the exercise allows for, there are limiting factors many times with the exercise itself. For example, with the Romanian deadlift, you're going to be limited by the floor or by your

Starting point is 00:58:44 shins. Even if you took the weight off the bar, you're only gonna be able to go down as far as your body will allow because then you'll hit your shins with the bar. So there's a potential there, but then there's also a potential that you have within yourself. And when we push full range of motion, it's the fullest range of motion you can achieve with control, stability, and good mobility. And that may be, that can be drastically different from person to person. It may be, for example, it may be a parallel squat for someone.

Starting point is 00:59:14 And maybe they go below a parallel squat, things start to break down, they lose mobility, and they lose control. In which case, that is not their full range of motion. Whereas with someone else, a full squat, or a full range of motion squat may be sitting all the way down on the backs of their legs because they have good control, good mobility. So the key is to aim for to play within your fullest range of motion, meaning go as far as you can within the rap with good stability, with good control, where you have control of the weight. This is important because I've seen people, for example, I've go as far as you can within the wrap with good stability, with good control, where you have control

Starting point is 00:59:45 of the weight. This is important because I've seen people, for example, I've seen people do dips and they think if they just go down as low as they possibly can, that's full range of motion, but you can clearly see that they have very little control at the bottom. The elbows flare out or you know, things shift. And so they're just going outside of the range of motion. So you want to test that range of motion by pushing up against the edge of it of your control. And then little by little, see if you can slowly increase that range of motion by increasing your control over new ranges of motion. That's all we mean. But yeah, it's very subjective. Full range of motion is very subjective. I've trained people with injuries whose fullest range of motion

Starting point is 01:00:26 would be short range of motion for somebody with fantastic mobility. But in terms of these two exercises, they're different. Romanian deadlift is all hip flexion and extension. You're supposed to bend your knees a little bit, but then fix them so they're no longer bending, they're no longer flexing, extending their stock, it like they're frozen. And then you're just bending flexing extending their stuck it like if they're frozen and then you're just

Starting point is 01:00:46 Bend and you'll just changes from the femur. Yeah, if they're doing drops down That's it and you're just bending at the hips you're maintaining good posture So your spine is up flexing and extending so you're getting this tall posture Maintain that and you just bend at the hips right where you're your glutes and your hamstrings attached to and that's it Conventional deadlift your spine still should stay relatively stable, but now you're doing knee flexion and extension. Now we're bending the knees as we come down and we're squatting more as we come down and come up.

Starting point is 01:01:13 And they both have their benefits. One is going to allow more weight to be lifted. Overall, conventional deadlift is probably more functional, but Romanian deadlift and the ability to hip hinge is extremely important, it's a very important movement. It's why I teach it first, because I think it's one of the challenging things to get people to even be able to deadlift,

Starting point is 01:01:34 or conventional deadlift correctly, is getting them to understand the hip hinge process. So floor bridges and then stiff leg of deadlifts or Romanian deadlifts are great ways to teach somebody the mechanics of hip hinging and keeping a nice neutral spine I do because I think it's easier to focus on that versus picking the bar all the way up off the ground

Starting point is 01:01:52 for the very first time. Somebody who picks the bar up off the ground the very first time, getting them to get in that little sweet spot where they're hinging at the hips back and they're making sure their shoulders are over the bar and they're sitting down a little bit deeper but then they're also keeping everything stiff and tight.

Starting point is 01:02:07 There's a lot more going on with the conventional deadlift. So I like to teach like a Romanian or a stiff, like a deadlift first, just to get the understanding and get them that communication between the hip-hing process for their body once they get that down, then I like to transition into like a... You should feel a stretch in your hamstrings at the bottom of a Romanian deadlift into. You should feel a stretch in your hamstrings at the bottom of a Romanian deadlift.

Starting point is 01:02:27 You shouldn't feel a stretch in your hamstrings in a conventional deadlift. And that's just super tight. Like if you're a really, really tight person, you may feel a little bit of a stretch in your hamstrings with a conventional deadlift in which case I would raise the bar a little bit and get outside of that.

Starting point is 01:02:40 But with a Romanian deadlift, the goal is to go down until you feel your hamstring stretch with excellent form or at least with excellent posture. So what that means is as you bend over, what's going to happen is your hamstrings are going to reach their end range of motion and then you're going to want to keep going down and you're going to start to bend at the spine. In which case, you know, now the exercise is wrong. If you can maintain that rigidity in your spine, go down as far as your hamstrings will

Starting point is 01:03:07 allow you to stretch them, but don't compromise your spine, then come up. Now you're doing that full range of motion. Yeah, you may find boxes, you know, initially, because your range of motion probably needs some work and that might be challenging for you. Or, you know, like if you have 45 plates on there, they're a lot taller than, say, if I'm doing less load, but I have to get lower. That's a lot of substantially lower. I think it's important to know too that it, full range of motion is extremely important.

Starting point is 01:03:35 And I think you should work towards that, but not at, not at sacrifice, not at sacrificing good form. So in other words, like if I'm training a client and they don't have the shoulder mobility to let's say do a chest press all the way down for the bar touches their chest. Ideally, I want them to get there but that doesn't mean I take them there when I know that their body their form breaks down before it gets there. So you know if I'm speaking to a trainer, this is where your job is to put in the work to do corrective movements and get them reconnected to that new range of motion so they can go to full range of motion. So when mind pump promotes full range of motion, it doesn't mean that we promote

Starting point is 01:04:16 you, take a client who isn't doing full range of motion or potentially can't do full range and make them do full range of motion. That's an injury. Yeah, this is why we created Prime and Prime Pro. You know, we're talking about bundles and stuff this month. I mean, this is like the trainer, but the person who is looking to get to for range of motion, if you know that you don't have the capability and a lot of your joints, like most people, then Prime and Prime Pro was designed for that is to teach you what movements you should do before you go into your lifts so you start to increase your range of motion.

Starting point is 01:04:47 We're gonna be on that unloaded. Right. And think about it this way, like, if you're going beyond your ability to control a weight, that's no longer full range of motion because the exercise is no longer the exercise anymore. In other words, if I'm doing a barbell squat and I have good control and stability down to, you know, where I reach parallel and I heard some other bodybuilder say, you gotta go ask the grass. And so I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go all the way down now.

Starting point is 01:05:14 But when I go below parallel, I have no stability. So I force myself to anyway. And my heels come up. Either in your collapse. Yeah, all kinds of stuff is happening. I'm not doing a full-arrange emotion because I'm no longer doing a squat. So, you need to understand that too.

Starting point is 01:05:27 As awesome as you think you are by doing a longer range of motion, it's no longer a full range of motion. What you've done is you've gone your full range of motion and then you've gone beyond it with some other shit that you're doing now. Right, and the rest of the body's compensated. That's it. Next question is from Crescenti.

Starting point is 01:05:43 Order some positives for competing in bodybuilding? You guys have talked a lot about the negatives. What are some awesome lessons and takebacks from competing? Oh, I love this question. This is a really good question, and I'm glad we did this because I do feel like sometimes we beat the fuck out of the bodybuilding industry and we pick on all the competitors. But I'll tell you what, you know, been doing this for 15 years and my level of knowledge or my ability to be a better coach accelerated in the three years that

Starting point is 01:06:16 I was competing 10 times more than anything else between, between getting together with these two gentlemen and creating my pump and bodybuilding. Nothing has grown me as a coach and as a fitness leader than those two things. So bodybuilding did a fucking ton for me. And the crazy part was I knew all the science heading into it, but never did I have to apply it at the professional and competitive level, as I did, obviously, when I was competing at the professional and competitive level, as I did obviously when I was competing at the professional level. And that really made some major connections for me that made me or gave me the ability to help others

Starting point is 01:06:53 on a whole new level that I didn't really understand until I took myself through it. So, and I'll give you an example of just one of the many things. I was blown away and fascinated by the fluctuation of water and in out every single day. And why that was such a like game changer or a light bulb for me was,

Starting point is 01:07:16 here I am for the first time ever in my life, I am like meticulously tracking everything. Every ounce of water that goes in my system, every gram, every calorie every every step I take every calorie I burn every workout. I do the volume. I do it. I mean, I was tracking everything and So I would start along my journey of getting shredded and I'm tracking all these things now I understand the science behind all of it So when I decide I'm going to increase my volume, I'm going to reduce my

Starting point is 01:07:45 calories or increase my movement. I know my body is going to be responding in the direction that it's supposed to as far as leaning out. But then what would happen sometimes is I would get up in the morning and maybe I wouldn't look better than I did the day before or the scale would say I was up, you know, one pound. And it now, it didn't freak me out, but I did realize that it made me go, what the fuck for a second? And then I realized that, okay, well,

Starting point is 01:08:15 I did do, you know, a, you know, 16 more ounces of water yesterday, and I did have, you know, 22 more grams of carbohydrates. And oh, wow, that was enough for me to hold on a little bit more water today than I did the day before. Now, it's just water, it's not fat. So I'm actually going, I'm still on pace to go where I need to go.

Starting point is 01:08:36 But what a mind fuck that has to be for somebody who doesn't understand the science. Like imagine somebody, and at that point, I remember remembering my clients and thinking of all the clients that you know I tell them to eat the certain way and work out this way and they would come back to me the next day frustrated because they don't feel like they're seeing the change they want or they don't see the change in the scale that they want and So that really made a connection for me that wow We really can get detoured by this you know day-to-day

Starting point is 01:09:07 We really can get detoured by this day-to-day fluctuation of water in and out of our system, or maybe even the way we look if we're retaining a little more stress goes up. I didn't sleep very well. I'll sit in my body, holds on to water that day. I started to see all these little details day in and day out on the way to getting lean, and it just blew my mind. Then it made me a better communicator to people that I was coaching and helping, saying, listen, this is what's probably happening with your body. And I could prepare them before it could even,

Starting point is 01:09:32 before it even happened. That way, when they saw the scale, say the same, or they even saw the scale go up, they didn't get discouraged, or they didn't go do, which I knew a lot of clients didn't have paths, which is they would see the scale, and then they go to the gym, and they would, they would power on some cardio or they would restrict more calories that day

Starting point is 01:09:48 when I had them right where I wanted them to be, but because the scale or the mere fucked with them mentally, they changed the plan. I think it's, it's great. It's, it's a way that people like, they're forced to be hyper aware of all their habits and all of whatever they're putting into the body and invisibly seeing of the result of that and so to to be able to track on that level and Check up with yourself Continuously it's gonna educate yourself on a whole other level as far as what your body

Starting point is 01:10:23 potential could be You know know, if you were to instill new habits or new ways of eating and training your body towards, you know, a specific goal. So, you know, on that level, it's extreme. It's a sport, which, you know, we've brought up to where, like, to get to a show, you know, stage sort of presentation, it's going to take like extreme levels of discipline and dedication. It even made me more skeptical about supplements, which I already was very skeptical about as it was heading into competing. And what I mean by that is, you know, we've all taken a, you know, protein powder, a

Starting point is 01:11:02 creatine, a branch chanemino acid, a testosterone booster, some like that, and then had this amazing workout, and being like, oh shit, this stuff fucking works. Like this is, I like this, I felt it, I felt it, I noticed something different, I felt stronger today. Well, what I started to realize when I was so dialed on my food and my nutrition and my water

Starting point is 01:11:22 and all these other things, that those little spikes occasionally that happened, 99% of the time was connected to the things that I was measuring for the first time in my life and not some supplement that I was adding in there. And so, I could really change the way I felt in a workout, everything from my strength

Starting point is 01:11:44 and the way I even looked in the workout by manipulating carbohydrates, you know, by restricting for a couple of days and then giving myself a surge of carbohydrates. Then I go do a workout and let me tell you, that workout shit on the fucking best stack of supplements I'd ever taken in my life, just because I was manipulating the carbohydrates like that.

Starting point is 01:12:05 And so then I realized like, oh shit, when I hear people talk about like, oh dude, you got to try this supplement. It works so well. You got to try this. Dude, that person probably has no idea that they slept better the day or two before. They fed themselves better nutrition than they did the last time they did that workout. And then their building upon that was what probably made the big difference in their workout, but they don't they don't connect it to that.

Starting point is 01:12:29 I think how you approach bodybuilding can determine whether or not it's a it's a massive positive or a massive negative. There's two things, a couple things of bodybuilding that I really appreciate. Number one is the amount of information that you start to gather and learn and become more aware of. Now that can be a double-edged sword, right? On the one hand, more information, if you have a healthy mindset, can be extremely valuable.

Starting point is 01:12:55 If you know how specific macros affect you and specific foods within those macros affect you, and when you eat and how much water you include, if you know all these things, you can become more aware and move yourself more towards a healthy eating relationship, or it can become obsessive and it can rule you and run your life and then it becomes unhealthy. Now the same is true for getting on stage. If you have a body image issues, going on stage can either empower the hell out of you

Starting point is 01:13:28 or it can make those worse. Now, I've seen people who it's done both for. I've seen people who've become incredibly empowered, very shy people or people who are like, would never get in a bathing suit in front of a lot of people or bikini in front of a lot of people who go through and compete and do it the right way and go in with a good coach, with a good mentality, and

Starting point is 01:13:49 come out of it and become much more confident with themselves, much more empowered with themselves through that entire process. I also think competing in bodybuilding can teach you incredible information about yourself in terms of how to control your body. You know, posing on stage isn't fucking easy. A lot of people think it's silly. Like, oh, you just gotta pose. No, it's not like flexing your bicep for your friend.

Starting point is 01:14:14 It's totally different. You're on a stage, you're wearing a speedo or a bikini. When you're doing a front double bicep, your biceps are one of a whole bunch of muscles that are being looked at. So it's not just, the judges aren't looking at your biceps. They're looking at the whole package. So learning how to control your body, present yourself,

Starting point is 01:14:34 and you're not looking at a mirror. So it's different to, when I flex in front of a mirror, I can position myself a move in a way that I look good. When I'm posing in front of judges, I can't see what they see. So I have to get another level of body awareness through my posing and positioning, and that is also a double edge sword.

Starting point is 01:14:52 It can be extremely positive. If I can become more aware of my body, more in touch with my body, and if I have a healthy relationship with it, or I can turn it in the negative and become extremely self-conscious, and super self conscious for myself and lower myself as a result.

Starting point is 01:15:10 So like anything that has powerful impacts on you, the power can be done in either direction. If you go into bodybuilding or competing with a good mindset, you're going to gain so much information on your body, so much more than you would have you not competed in bodybuilding, you're gonna gain self-confidence, you're gonna empower yourself to be comfortable doing things in front of people, and to be comfortable with weight fluctuations, because it can also be a positive thing to be okay with being shredded and gaining a little bit of weight afterwards and all that stuff, or it can definitely be a negative. And we talk more about the negatives typically because it's more of a warning. I think the people have the positive. It's the same. We don't need to say

Starting point is 01:15:52 much. It's the same way I feel about CrossFit. It's the same exact way. I think bodybuilding's fucking awesome. I think CrossFit is awesome. Do I think it's for a majority of the people? Absolutely not. That's it. They're both sports, treat it like a sport. Get good at the sport before you even try and compete at the sport. You have no business in my opinion getting on a stage if you haven't learned to manipulate your body on your own already. If you haven't learned how to change your macros, change your movement, change your program to drastically change your physique up or down any way you want to go. You don't have any business in my opinion being on a stage. Just like I think that you have no business trying to compete at the CrossFit level or do these fucking wads, if you haven't learned good mechanics. Like you're talking about, you know, Olympic

Starting point is 01:16:38 lifts at that high of a level is one of the greatest expressions of movement, which I think is fucking beautiful and awesome. And I think there are a percentage of people out there that have got solid sound mechanics that have that should be doing that and can do that and it's neat to watch. Body building is the same way too. And the I think the reason why we talk negatively about it is just because there's way more people that are doing it that shouldn't be doing it than the other way around. And so it's more like that. I thought it was the most, arguably the most incredible

Starting point is 01:17:07 experience of my life. I mean, I have memories from it now that will be with me forever in moments that were huge for me. I learned so much about myself. It's made me a better coach, so many positive things. But I also believe that I was in the right headspace to do that.

Starting point is 01:17:24 That's the key. And you went into it, you went into it with the right mindset. Right. That's it. Yeah. Next up is DH Bodybuilding Life. What are ways to break through plateaus, strength, and size-wise? I love these questions. We're right today, dude.

Starting point is 01:17:38 So, I did this morning when I was pooping at my bed. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. My scheduled,.M. So ways to break through your plateaus and strength and size. Well, very simple, very easy. I'm going to give you more specifics,

Starting point is 01:17:55 but generally you just got to change things. Generally when stuff isn't moving, stuff is stagnant. When your body's not progressing, when your strength's not improving, mobility's not improving, whatever, what you're doing isn't working. So that means you need to do something else. Okay, so that's very general. You know you need to change things.

Starting point is 01:18:14 The easiest ways to change things for strength will start there is to train in a totally different rep range. That's a very simple, basic, easy way to change things. Well, we just, I mean, we call these acute variables. So any of the acute variables in your programming, whether it's reps, whether it's time of, whether it's rest, whether it's,

Starting point is 01:18:37 you go across the board of like every little thing you can change as far as the focus being, more endurance-based or more of a max strength and powerlifting type of a programming approach. There needs to be an alteration of something where you've internally, I'm not drawn to that type of training where you would actually benefit quite substantially if you were able to then go through that process for a couple of weeks and then apply back to.

Starting point is 01:19:08 Well, that's just it. That's the problem. I think what people do is they're in a plateau. It's uncomfortable. Well, let's say, oh, my squat's not going up. So, okay, I heard a mind pump, I need to change things up. So today I'm gonna do a front squat. And then next week they go right back to a back squat.

Starting point is 01:19:21 Yeah. Whatever you change, stick to it long enough to where you get good at it. So if you are always in the five reps or less phase, move it up to 10 to 15 reps, stay there so that you give your body a chance to adapt and get stronger. And it usually takes about between two to five weeks.

Starting point is 01:19:41 Stay there and then go back to where you were before and then test yourself. It's not just the one, because I remember reading Bodybuilding Magazine when I was a kid and they would talk about routines to shock your body, like shock your biceps and to growth, and to growth. And it was always like one workout, right?

Starting point is 01:19:58 It was always like this one crazy ass workout and then go back to your regular workout and you're gonna notice all these gains. Or stick to that one workout forever. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Pick something different, whether it's a new actual, I did this once for bench press. This is before, you know, I can't push too hard now because my left shoulder head have surgery years ago, but before that, I was always pushing my bench press and I remember

Starting point is 01:20:21 I got stuck at, I think I got stuck at like 320 pounds for a max. And it wasn't going up and that, you know, for me if I got on my side, it's pretty good. And so what I did was, I got frustrated, it wasn't going up and I tried everything, you know, shock sets and strip sets and did everything I could. So I stopped benching and all I did was incline.

Starting point is 01:20:40 And I did incline for, I don't know, three, four months. So I stopped benching straight to incline. And then I went back to bench and I added five pounds to my bench press and I did incline for, I don't know, three, four months. So stop benching, straight to incline. And then I went back to bench and I added five pounds to my bench press. And I was like, oh shit, and I didn't even bench press anymore. Now, and they're close enough to where there's carryover. And so, whatever you change into, stay there

Starting point is 01:20:58 so that you start to get good at it. And then when you start to get good at it, then you can switch back out and see what's happening. Yeah, I look at this too, And then when you start to get good at it, then you can switch back out and see what's happening. Yeah, I look at this too, because from a performance standpoint, there's sticking points and there's these. So if I'm in a lift, like I'm in a bench press

Starting point is 01:21:14 and I get to a point where I hit a wall, there's a few techniques and there's different approaches even strength athletes apply, whether it's with using different things like chains or you use bands or you use isometric type training where I address that very specific sticking point. So I'm at the bottom of the lift, where's my sticking point is,

Starting point is 01:21:37 well, I wanna be able to recruit neuromuscularly a louder signal at that particular spot. So that's one of my go-tos as far as if I know like specifics of where in that exercise are places I need to address. I'm going to stay there and I'm going to drive through that for a few weeks to really bump that back up. So I'm going to address this like a bodybuilder since this looks like a bodybuilder person is asking this question based off their handle.

Starting point is 01:22:07 And the best way, or in my opinion, one of the easiest ways that you can break through these plateaus, which I think is necessary if you're competing that each time you come to the stage, you're supposed to be improving your physique. This was one of the things that I loved about competing was the challenge of this.

Starting point is 01:22:26 And I saw a lot of my peers. The only thing I saw them really messing with was intensity or drugs to do that. And I just saw the opportunity like, oh my god, like that's sure that's if those are variables too. But in my opinion, volume and frequency are the two easiest ways for you to guarantee you're going to break through a plateau. And so I follow kind of like the fit principle, right? Frequency, intensity, time, and type.

Starting point is 01:22:56 So those are all the different variables that we can mess with. And I would pick one or two body parts that I want to focus on. Not that you can't bring up your entire physique, but I like to measure like one or two things and see like, okay, how much can I really change this body part? How much can I really develop my shoulders more between this show and the next show? And so I would pick one or two muscle groups.

Starting point is 01:23:19 This is also the how maps aesthetic was developed. And I would implement more frequency on that muscle group and I would also track the volume. So a lot of people I know don't measure and track their volume. One of the easiest ways that you can guarantee to break through a plateau is by doing that because naturally what happens is you kind of,

Starting point is 01:23:39 after you've been training for a while, you fall into these routines. Maybe you change your rep range this or that, but you typically kind of do about the same amount of volume. You feel it, you can feel it, you hit your workout, it's like, oh, I broke the sweat, I got this much in, it's pretty good. But if you were incrementally moving up that volume week

Starting point is 01:23:58 over week, you 100% are going to see size change for sure. The problem is most people will have one or two weeks like that where they move up and volume and then they come back a week and then it all ends up being about averaging out for the month about the same amount of volume they were doing the previous month or two, maybe give or take a tiny bit.

Starting point is 01:24:17 So volume is set, sets times reps, times weight, and that'll give you a volume. So I would pick a muscle group that I'm trying to develop and let's just use the shoulders for an example. It was the first one that I put a lot of focus on when I was competing. So what I would do is I would all the exercises that I do for my shoulders, for that week I would measure, I would go, okay, sets, times reps, times the weight, which is safe for argument sake that it was 10,000 pounds of total volume I did on my shoulders that week. Well, next week I'm going to move to 10,200 pounds, and then next week I'm going to move

Starting point is 01:24:54 to 10,500 pounds. Then I would move to, by the following month, I would be moving 12,000 pounds of volume on my shoulder shoulders. The way I would increase that was I would do that through frequency. So I would, you know, maybe I was at that time only doing my shoulders twice a week. Now I'm gonna throw in a third day where I touch my shoulders again.

Starting point is 01:25:13 And that would be a way for me to increase the amount of total volume that my shoulders were now getting. And then they would respond. And so it really is that easy. I think we just get caught up in all the mundane things and like, oh, trying this workout, trying that workout. Oh, I was at this rep range. Now, this rep range, like

Starting point is 01:25:28 measure your volume, measure your volume. And to increase the volume, I always recommend increasing first frequency and then intensity and watch whatever you're trying to focus on blow up. And then we didn't even mention nutrition here with us. You might. I think that's an obvious. Yeah. You might need to switch up your diet a little bit and go into a mini-cut or a mini-bulk, especially when you come out of a mini-cut. You'll notice this little rebound effect we start to put on muscle.

Starting point is 01:25:55 You can even get this from a fast. I've experienced this myself where I'll do a 24-hour fast, then I'll go back to eating my normal food and I get this rebound effect when my body seems to assimilate more of the food that I'm eating and I tend to gain a little bit of strength and size, but you know food of course nutrition is I think in bodybuilding in particular if They're gonna go anywhere and it's not gonna be the drugs that they'll add it tends to be like we'll change your diet We know we talk a lot about exercise programming

Starting point is 01:26:26 because we know just how important that is in getting your body to progress. And although nutrition does play a massive role, many times in my experience, it's the workout that seems to be the limiting factor. So check this out. You can find all of our own personal Instagram pages on Instagram.

Starting point is 01:26:47 We all have Instagram. So I'm Mind Pump Sal. Adam is Mind Pump Adam. Justin is Mind Pump Justin. Just go to Instagram, check us out different content that you'll find on our podcast. Different content.

Starting point is 01:26:58 Different content that you'll find on our YouTube channel. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, on our YouTube channel. 9 months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout nutrients in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a 430-day money back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.

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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 771: How to Break Size & Strength Plateaus, Conventional vs. Romanian Deadlift, the Benefits of Competing in Bodybuilding & MORE

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