Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 884: When Cardio Prevents Muscle Gain, How to Train for Maximum Muscle Separation, Lower Back Protecting Squat & Overhead Press Strategies & MORE

Episode Date: October 20, 2018

Organifi Quah! In this episode of Quah, sponsored by Organifi (organifi.com/mindpump, code "mindpump" for 20% off), Sal, Adam & Justin answer Pump Head questions about of it is better for muscle development to add weight and barely make the prescribed rep range or add no weight but max the rep range for weighted dips and pull-ups, if pickup games of basketball tell the body to not to build muscle, how much lumbar extension is too much when performing a barbell squat or overhead press and how to train to achieve muscle separation. Technology has us spoiled. (3:53) The transition when you became attached to the internet. (6:07) Was Sal an easy target growing up with his love for books and reading? (9:45) The misconception of being a “dumb jock.” How we create stereotypes. (13:50) Caption This! Giveaway Winners! (16:53) Fostering an environment of being purpose driven and belief in what you are doing. (18:16) Start with Why and the power of self-improvement through fitness. (23:07) Will you benefit the most pre or post workout from consuming caffeine? (26:28) The benefits of turmeric & Organifi Green Juice to optimize your immune system. (32:00) Many dietary supplements contain unapproved, dangerous ingredients, study finds. (33:50) The dark side of the supplement market. (38:53) #Quah question #1 – Is it better for muscle development to add weight and barely make the prescribed rep range or add no weight but max the rep range for weighted dips and pull-ups? (45:04) #Quah question #2 – Will playing pickup games of basketball tell the body not to build muscle? (54:20) #Quah question #3 – How much lumbar extension is too much when performing a barbell squat or overhead press? (1:00:40) #Quah question #4 – How does one train to achieve muscle separation? (1:08:32)   People Mentioned: Mike Matthews (@muscleforlifefitness)  Instagram Branch Warren (@thebranchwarren)  Instagram Dexter "The Blade" Jackson (@mrolympia08)  Instagram Phil Heath (@philheath)  Instagram Links/Products Mentioned: Organifi   **Code “mindpump” for 20% off** MAPS Fitness Products October Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic ½ off!! Start with Why: : How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Book by Simon Sinek Post-exercise Caffeine Helps Muscles Refuel Effects of Caffeine on Muscle Glycogen Utilization and the Neuroendocrine Axis during Exercise Mind Pump Episode 875: Stephen Cabral Dietary Supplements Can Contain Viagra, Steroids, or Worse Tainted Products Marketed as Dietary Supplements List Mind Pump Episode 580: Mike Matthews Bodybuilding & Weight Loss Supplements Online - Legion Mind Pump TV - YouTube How Do I Choose The Right Weight? (LIFT RESPONSIBLY) – Mind Pump TV Do You Have Back Or Shoulder Pain? YOU NEED TO TRY THIS! | Mind Pump How to do a PROPER Plank - YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

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 Before the internet, yes. It existed. There was life before the internet. We talk about winners of the Instagram caption contest. This is on our Mind Pump Media Instagram page. Adam tells you guys. That's all that fun to sell. Yeah. Who won? That's basically what it was.

Then we talk about what drives the Mind Pump team. We had a nice all staff meeting the other day, very humbling to hear from our team members. Then we talked about starting with why, when starting a fitness business, kind of continuation of that conversation. Justin's cold remedy. He sounds you're gonna listen to this episode

and you're gonna wonder why Justin is starting to sound more like Adam. He might be getting a cold and he's using Organifies Tumoric and Green Juice to bolster his immune system to help fight off this demon cold. It's working. If you go to organify.com,

forward slash mine pump, enter the code, mine pump, you'll get 20% off. Then we talk about supplements that are tainted with pharmaceutical drugs. There's actually a list of like 700 companies that the FDA has tested and found them to contain. If your protein powder is giving you boners, it has my own.

You want to give this a listen. And then we transition to the dark side of the supplement industry. I don't even know there was a bright side. Then we get into the questions. The first question was, you know, in some of our programs, we include weighted exercises and rep ranges. Is it better to add weight and stay in the lower part of the rep range or try to do more reps

and hit the top part of the rep range? Good discussion in that part of this episode. Next question, is playing a game like basketball, maybe two hours a week, is that going to take away from my body's ability to build muscle, is doing these kinds of, you know, more endurance focused type sports, detrimental to building muscle?

Next question, this person wants to know how to correct an over-arts lower back, especially when you do things like squats and overhead presses. We give you some correctional exercise tips, and we do mention our program Maps Prime which helps address some of these things. Of course, you can find out more about Maps Prime at MapsFitnessProducts.com. And the final question, how do you train to get more muscle separation?

In other words, when you look at someone, you can see that their delts look very distinct from their biceps and their triceps and their quads look very distinct from their hamstrings. Is there a particular way to train for that? Find out at the end of the episode. Also, maps aesthetic, this is our Bodybuilder Physic Competitor and Bikini Competitor inspired program. It's a lot of volume. it's focused basically on getting you to look at your absolute best, so it's an aesthetic focus program, you can actually pick which body parts you want to focus more on and plug them into the program yourself to individualize the routine.

That program, a very popular one, for the first time ever, 50% off. It's half off all month long and the month of October. All you gotta do is go to mapsblack.com and use the code black50, BLACKK, the number 50, no space, at checkout to get that discount. And if you have any questions on our other maps programs, we have quite a few of them. We also offer bundles,

where we combine them together. Just go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and few of them. We also offer bundles where we combine them together Just go to maps fitness products calm and read about them and if you like them sign up hit it up So the other day my and I don't know maybe you guys can help you can back me up on this or maybe I'm crazy You're crazy. Oh, but the most one of the most annoying things in the world for me is when my Anything in technology doesn't work, but especially my Wi-Fi, so I'm at home. Count, I'm ready to watch something great on Amazon Prime or Netflix and not working, so I'm like,

all right, let me try to re-cut. Nothing's working. Like it's like in that buffering, continuous loop that never closes. Yeah, dude, and I'm like, oh my God, so I go on my Xfinity account. Would you like to restart your whatever the thing's called? Yes.

Right, you have to get the kick it and then blow on the machine. Yeah, it's like, okay, you know, this may take up to five minutes. I'm like, God, five minutes. And then I realize how spoiled we are. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Insanely impatient. When I was a kid, if something didn't work, like you'd be happy if it got fixed in two days. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Insanely impatient. When I was a kid, if something didn't work,

like you'd be happy if it got fixed in two days. Yeah. Like all my cassette player broke. Ah, you know, and then dude, you remember? Two days later, dad's like, I fixed it. Like, oh my God, now I have to wait five minutes. And I'm like, I'm contemplating canceling all internet forever.

Like, fuck you guys, I'm done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You forgot all about dial up. Yeah, exactly Remember when you would the first times you download like a naked image. Oh my Yeah, it goes like line by like You lose your motor before finishes Are you are you're an idiot you leave the printed copy in the corner of the shower and your mom finds it.

That's a very specific, really happy real soon. That was a bad move. But I hated it because this is for the young guys listening right now. You would click on an image, but it wasn't the image. It was a description of the image. It was like, naked girl on the bed. You're like, ooh, this might be a good one. You click on it and then you'd wait for the lines

that come to, and then there'd be a bad one. You'd be like, oh, this one sucks. Go to another one. Wait, it was terrible. It was a terrible way to handle things. That's like half year after noon right there. Exactly. Trying to wait it out.

You guys, you were great. I. Trying to wait it out. You guys, do you remember great? I'm trying to remember when I personally had that transition of pretty much never using the internet to like becoming attached to you. Do you remember like the transition? Oh. Was it a gradual thing over time? Like, where did we go? At what point in your life did Did it also become necessary at all because there was a point where it wasn't even necessary

I didn't need to use it at all. No, right? You got a lot you got a long just fine without it for a very long time and even when it first came around It was very very slow and it's like yeah If there may be like email like you were using it for that maybe even then I wasn't a big thing That's what's interesting. Yeah, when it was slow, you could put it off easy because it was just like a pain in the ass, you know, to log in and then check email and do all stuff that took forever.

So it was maybe a few times a day, you know, at most. Like you would check, you know, maybe like three times a day. Yeah, I remember, so internet for me is like, it's like perfect for me, because I'm the kind of person that throughout the entire day, I'll have a random thought and I'll want to learn about that random thought and I'll want to dive deep. But when internet was slow, that was tough to do.

But I do remember, it's when I owned my personal training studio or wellness facility and I had a computer at my desk and in between clients because this is before smartphones right it was before you could get online and access the internet so easily like you can now you had to go on a computer but the internet at this point was relatively fast and I remember in between client I'd be talking to a client and ideas would pop on my head and be like you know you know for example this this literally what happens to me literally I'm sitting there, what's the difference between a sheriff

and a police officer? Like, and I go on my computer and I'd read all about it, you know what I mean? And just the case that comes up in conversation, a party, you know, I guess. Dude, this is how I operate. This is how we all, this is something that we're all said last night.

We were like, Katrina and I are like, doing a bunch of work. We had finished up from our meeting late last night and we continued on and getting it ready for the meeting that we had this morning. And so we're like, oh, and then also, and I kind of like, she's like typing away. And I'm kind of like staring off into the like,

like, of the wall, right? And it's like, there's silence for me for like 10 minutes. And she's like, she's like, what are you thinking about? I'm like, what it means to be an influencer, right? I just say it's a random, but I'll be like deep and thought. Like, what exactly does that mean? And what are, came up with that term that was widely accepted

by all these people? Right, and then I started processing that, like, okay, well, think about all these people online that refer to themselves as a social media influencer, and then you look at what they post. It's like, you know, cool cars, beautiful images of themselves. I'm like, this is what we define as a influencer. How many followers do you need to be an influencer?

Right, all these things are going through my head. Like it's like, it's so. Oh, it's making it up. That triggers the down the rabbit hole of like searching and looking up stuff. Oh, I love doing it because I'm so ADD. I got actually gotten trouble this morning for being so ADD.

I was walking with Jessica and the morning, we're doing like we do a morning walk sometimes and she's like telling me something, a story. And yeah, great story. And you guys know how bad I can be with this. As she's talking, like as she's saying what she's saying to me, you know, and this can come across as such a jerk thing to do, but I'm not trying to be a jerk.

I'm literally, you know, I explode with attention issues. And as she's talking, I go, hey, did you drink coffee today? She's like, what? Why are you even asking me this? I don't know, I was just wondering if you had coffee earlier and just so annoying. But internet is perfect for someone like me because my mind does that and then I'll just go on my,

you guys see me throughout the day, go on my phone and I'm reading about some random thing But that's how that works the way I used to do it when I was a kid was I used to you know my parents had you know encyclopedia Britannica and Throughout the day when I was at home I would think of something and I'd walk over to the encyclopedia and pull it out. And I'd read about whatever just popped in my head or sometimes I would read from cover to cover. Do you remember if somebody taught you that? Because I think whether we had, my mom actually used to sell world book and encyclopedias

and all that stuff. We had the collection too. And for a while there, one of the things too, I think that my mom did really well for for me when I was younger was she used to read those to me when I was a really young kid. But I don't remember her ever teaching me to like go research and look for, look stuff myself, look up stuff myself. Do you, were you taught that?

Was that something like your parents and still like you'd ask a bunch of random questions because you have your ADD going on, they go, Sal, there's books over there, go read it. Like how did you decide to start doing it? So it started with PBS. So PBS, public broadcast station, whatever, where the goal of that channel was to educate, right?

So they had all these TV shows on sharks or science or Mr. Rogers was on there too and all this other stuff. So when I was a kid, if my mom put that on, I would be glued to the TV. And then if I'm into something, I remember it. And so I'd recite it. And then my mom bought Snoopies encyclopedia set. So this is an encyclopedia set for kids. Yeah, isn't it great?

This was a encyclopedia set for for kids and so she bought them and she just put them up in the bookshelf And then I found them and I would sit in the living room and I'd read through Every single one of them and so and I would sit in the living room and I'd read through every single one of them and so, and I remember my dad kind of having a problem with it because I wasn't going outside and playing with all the other kids, I wanted to be inside of read. And so he kind of get upset with me, you know, and be like, go outside, you know, and the kids would knock on my door or sell home

and I'd hide, tell my mom, tell them not home because I want to read Snoopies and Cyclopedias. Oh, look at that, your dad was concerned about you being too much of a nerd. Yeah, and then, well, you know what, he's an athlete. So, you know what I mean? It maybe has contributed to some of my insecurities, dad,

thanks. But, but no, and then it was just encyclopedia Britannica. And no, nobody's saying anything. I just picked them up and they're really fascinating when you'd read them. It's like Wikipedia, it's the same thing, except it's A through, you know, C. So, everything that they it's the same thing except it's A through C. So everything that they could think of

that they'd list under each letter. And I didn't read all of it. I would read through and the ones that would interest me then I'd read. So if you were like that and you really didn't go outside and play that much, I find it really fascinating because you're not socially awkward. I joke and I poke all the time like that at you

But you're really you're absolutely not at all you're incredibly Chrismatic people are drawn to you soon as they meet you What where did that come out then like where were you because if you were the nerdy kid who was reading in cycle p He is and you I was outside playing I was building ramps. I was jumping Yeah, I was getting hurt. I was playing yeah, knee football flag football like wrestling with friends like that I was outside all the time digging digging holes in parks, making traps, forget their kids to fall in, like shit, like, bombing down hills on my skateboard with my shoes on.

Right, so I was smart stuff. Yeah, I guess. Just adjusted, I were socially integrated really. Kid stuff, I had a lot of bees. I was seeing what I could break with my head. Yeah, so where was that transition for you to? It wasn't a transition, I've always liked talking to people. So if I'm around people, I would always want to talk

about what I was learning. So I just always enjoyed conversing and, you know, I guess my family encouraged it because everybody likes to. Yeah, but as a kid aren't kids teasing you for that? Like if you're kind of an nerd of kid, you got along with kids right away. No, I was also very assertive. So if you tried teasing me, you'd know right away.

That's not a good idea. I was very assertive kid on top of it. So I wasn't an easy target. So you know you were nerdy, you were still confident. Yeah, but were you physical like at the same time? I started lifting weight. Yeah, you started for 14. And it, you know, 11 and 12 I was doing judo.

And that was kind of the extent. Oh, you were doing it that early? Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the confidence is attributed to that. I don't know. I'm, you know, it's, of course. Here's the thing too, is there's certain stereotypes exist for a reason, but many of them are inaccurate. Like, for example, there's the, there's the stereotype of the, you know, and this one plagues the fitness industry till this day, that jocks are dumb. The dumb jock. Like, if you're physical, you're not smart.

Now, I understand where that stereotype came from. If you're a high level athlete, you're dedicating a lot of your time to mastering that craft. If you're a very intelligent science person, you're probably dedicating a lot of your time to science and not a lot to other things. So you're not necessarily developing these other skills.

So I get where this stereotype comes from, but the reality is, like physical activity contributes to, you know, cognitive ability. Of course. Cognitive ability, definitely, especially if you apply it with physical ability, can improve physical ability. Like some of the best athletes are the ones that study and know the game. Absolutely.

There's a lot of people that think that there's, I mean, because some maybe how, how some of these athletes articulate their points on television or the set that they think they're stupid, then you get to meet them behind scenes and you look, they're very, very intelligent. And then the work that they put into study, I mean, if you're at the professional level, you're, I don't care what anybody says,

you may sound stupid on TV. You're a master of your craft. Yes, and the amount of study in that it takes to be at that level is pretty high. I think the other thing, there's exceptions to rule because I know someone's listening, oh, I know, I know somebody's really stupid. Of course there's exceptions to the rule, but I think that's a blanket statement that people make that mistake that athletes are done.

It is, and also I think it's important when you, a lot of times we create stereotypes based on the popular representations of particular things. And if we think of the most brilliant people of all time, when you're at that level of brilliance like Einstein or Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, those guys are not just smart dudes. They're not just really smart dudes that are interested in things. Those guys are exceptionally brilliant. And when you're at that level of intelligence, you're, first off, you're not like everybody else. Obviously, it's what makes you so intelligent. You're very different. And so because they're so different, then we develop the stereotype of

the weird, awkward, smart guy or smart girl, you see what I'm saying. But in reality, most people, look, that's like, it's like the one in a billion fastest people in the world, or when you're talking about that level of intelligence, that doesn't represent the average smart person that you meet. And the average smart person that you meet, you know, might very well be very charismatic and able to communicate. And there's also other level, there's different types of intelligence. I mean, there's kinesthetic intelligence. You know, I know people that can't articulate themselves

very well, but they can move their bodies and they understand where their bodies are in relation to space in ways that are absolutely brilliant. And then you have verbal intelligence, people who can communicate exceptionally well. You have mathematical intelligence and musical intelligence. So, you know, but anyway, it's all fascinating stuff for me. Tell a very interesting stuff.

You know, I wanted to shout out some of the people that were do, I don't know if you guys saw the post that Taylor did on the main page, the picture of you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got basically, I wonder what I was looking at. Caption this. Yeah, so he's, so he's so he's hooking up. And we're going to do more of this like this is something that recently that him and I

have been discussing. I know there's a ton I always put on this guy's play, but I'm like, hey, man, we're in a place now where we have we have the team to make this happen pretty fast and we can do this on a more regular basis. So I this is something that I hope to do more often and more consistent is just give away free shit because we like people. And so he did the caption. He was going to give away a mind pump shirt to the best caption that got the most likes. It got so much traction. So many people are doing it and loving it and they're hilarious that he actually picked three people. So the three people that he's gonna hook up is Mike Bentley 51

is one of the people healthy, happy, and free is another one and then Ashley, Ashley Tacks or, no, excuse me, Ashley Stacks is the third one. So if you guys wanna read what they put on there, go on the Mind Pump media IG. How do they get their prize? Taylor will take care of that. So he'll inbox them and then get them.

We'll have an email thing set up, but he'll take care of getting their prize. Oh Taylor will take care of that. So he'll he'll he'll inbox them and then get them. Yeah, we'll have an email thing set up, but he'll he'll take care of getting their guitar. I just wanted to give him a shout out on the show because he just sent that over to me right now. Dude, you know, I want to I wanted to just reminded me because you're reading feedback of some of the stuff that we talked about yesterday in our all staff meeting, which I really enjoy. I really enjoy these all staff meetings where we get to have everybody together and talk about what we're trying to do or whatever.

And something I brought up in the meeting, I thought might be an interesting thing to bring up on the show where very interesting that I've never really experienced this before, but on a pretty regular basis, and maybe it's because of the feedback we get from our fans and really the direction that we're really trying to go, we constantly get humbled. There's always these reminders of what we're actually doing for some people because we can get lost in the fun and the business of what we're doing

and forget sometimes, not purposely, but just kind of forget the real driving purpose behind what we're doing, which we say all the time is really to help people and to, you know, to change the direction of the fitness industry so that actually becomes a solution to many of our health problems. And we're sitting there, we're having this meeting and at the end of the meeting, each of the staff members was asked to give us feedback as to why they are a part

of mind pump. And I'm not going to go into details. It was all kind of personal good stuff. But there was a common theme among everybody. And that was that everybody was very purpose-driven. Like everybody believes in this higher purpose of what we're doing, everybody on our team, and I think that's rare, having managed big teams and whatever, it's hard to get everybody to have this. If you run a gym, for example, you have a business and someone works your front desk,

and your bigger purpose is to get people healthy or whatever, and you ask your front desk staff, why are you here? He's like, I just needed a job between four and eight. Yeah, exactly. Because I'm going to college. Yeah, you'll get some of that, right? You're going to get some of that. And the goal of any manager or leader

is to try and foster an environment where everybody's driven behind this purpose because that's what gets the best out of people. And if you really are, if you have integrity about your purpose, you're going to do better at getting closer to accomplishing that purpose. Some of the hardest working people you'll ever meet in your entire life are people who work for free

and volunteer for associations and organizations that don't pay them at all. Like you meet a volunteer who's feeding the poor or saving animals or whatever and you'll find some of the hardest working people you've ever met in your entire life, and it's all because they're driven by purpose. So to hear this from our team, and I'll be at house, it's not a massive team,

but the people with us is really humbling, you know? It makes me feel really good about what we're doing. It's powerful to see, you know, just that their mentality, like it's shared with us. Like they're driving towards a purpose, like they want some kind of meaning out of what they're doing, and how they can contribute towards that goal. And I think that, you know, having that

is like sort of the baseline for us and the foundation of what we do is so important because if we didn't have that, it would just be, yeah, we're just gonna spout off information in whatever we know and like hope that people grab onto that. But we're just trying to get followers and we're trying to get downloads and we're trying to get, you know, this and, you know, it's like,

no, it's much deeper than that. And we don't really discuss that a lot. And I know that's kind of the underlying theme of in why a lot of companies, they start out with, you know, sort of that mission statement and they try and like keep that as a part of the company, but a lot of that times that that gets lost in the mix. And I think that, you know, it's great to hear that people that work with us or work around us, like they still notice that, you know,

that underlying theme to everything we do. Yeah, it's a nice feeling and it's very humbling. It's very humbling to hear that from people who are working for your company. I find it very interesting and again, extremely humbling. So it just reminds me of why we're doing what we do. Sometimes I'll get messages from people and talk about. I just got a message the other day

from a guy who lost a hundred pounds. And he was feeling, it was obviously very difficult task. And anybody who's ever lost, even 15 pounds knows a heartic and beast. This is a hundred pound weight loss. He did it through the process of listening to our podcast and did things the right way he said, in a very healthy way, he says he has a totally different relationship with food, although he's still challenged by it. He said that, you know, in the past he thought, if he lost what he'd be happy, but he realized that he needed to be happy first and then that would result in weight loss. And you know, when I read stuff like that and hear what the staff says, fucking great man, it gets me really, really pumped and driven. Oh, this is why I think that Finder Y is such an,

or start with Y, excuse me, with Simon Sinek, Sinek is an incredible read, just because I think I get a lot of people that inbox me about wanting to start their own fitness business. And when I kind of ask them, what, what is it that you want to do that's different than everybody else or what, you know, what exactly, what exactly is that, you know, just, you want to be in fitness and you want to, you know, be a personal trainer and you want to get lots of clients. Like, what are you, what's your purpose,

what's your why, what drives all of it? I think that was really clear for the four of us when we all first met. I mean, we saw a major need in the space and we knew that we were gonna try and move a big ship and we knew that it was gonna take a long time and it still is. I mean, as humbling as what you're saying is so true because of all the feedback and the growth of the business and the show.

But I mean, man, we're still just a... We're just... Not even a blip on the radar. It's just still, I mean, this is a big fucking ship that we're trying to move. And we have moments where I think I go, oh hell yeah, I feel like we're part of that. I feel like we're part of that movement and I feel like we're really helping steer this space in that direction and I do take a lot of pride in that. But then there's other times where I'm like, fuck. We have a long way to go. There's still a lot of shenanigans out there.

We need to expose and bring light to and stuff. So yeah, the work is endless, is how I feel. Well, pragmatically speaking, I know, we all know this very, very well because this is what we do, that if people improve their health, that lots of things, if not everything would improve in their life, not that it's the answer

and the only answer, but if you improve your health, you have better mental capacity, your emotions, or better, you can handle more. Obviously the cost of being alive is much lower because you're healthy. You live longer, you have more, you know, just it solves a lot of problems, at least makes life much more enjoyable. So that's the pragmatic aspect of it. But then

there's this philosophical part of fitness where when you're trying to talk to someone or communicate to people that, you know, the most powerful things you could do to improve the quality of your life and to give your life meaning, one of the most powerful things you could do is self-improvement realize that you have a lot of control over yourself and try to improve yourself and make yourself better rather than focusing on all these external factors, right? Now fitness is so awesome because it's such an easy way to get there. It's a very easy way to get there because I can talk to the average person.

If I take the average person off the street who's not working out, kind of feeling down, whatever, they don't, they eat like crap, and I bring him in here and I go, hey man, you need to do some self improvement. You need some self growth. You need to focus on yourself. They're gonna look at me like, fuck you, right? But if I take him in here and I go,

hey listen, I'm a fitness trainer. You ever work out before? No, I think I can help you out with your training. How many days a week do you think you can work out? I can barely do two days a week, no problem. Let me figure this out for you. Now I've got my foot in the door because fitness is kind of an easy sell, right?

It's easier, I should say. I've got my foot in the door. Once I communicate that right, and once they taste what it feels like to improve yourself through fitness, it bleeds over and everything else. You know, so anyway, pretty cool stuff. Justin, did you say you had an article?

No, I had some interesting information. I wasn't aware of, there was like a statistic, or not a statistic, but like there was a nutritionist that was on a podcast I was listening to, and they're talking about caffeine post workout. Oh, increases glycogen. Yes, increases glycogen stores. And I thought that was just interesting just

in terms of like that being a factor for somebody that does like a double or triple there, like is like into like serious conditioning, like what an interesting little advantage that would be. Yeah, studies show that a little bit of caffeine post workout accelerates the speed and uptake of glycogen replenishment of post workout. So if you have like, you know how they always say,

like, why is it happening to do with the blood? I think I don't know. That's the thing they were speculating, but they didn't know, like there was no real like science there to find it. I think it has to do with increasing insulin sensitivity, but I don't think it quite know. But here's the thing about something like that.

And this is why you need to read a study, but then you need to also look how it applies to real life. Are you gonna get more benefits from caffeine post workout because of the small increase in glycogen absorption and uptake, or are you gonna benefit more from caffeine pre-workout when you need more energy and drive to get through a hard workout? And so that's my big point, right?

So yeah, it's okay fine. The study shows that caffeine helps with glycogen replenishment post-workout. I don't wanna take caffeine after I'm done. I know I was trying to think about how that would work, especially with trying to recover when we're going to sleep and then the next day, like say you have double days, like throughout the week,

right? Yeah, I was like, well, how do we schedule this? Like, didn't we just talk with Dr. Carburell? Carburell. Carburell. What's up with my tongue this morning? It's fucking everywhere, sorry about that. I followed you.

I followed you. Yeah, didn't we just discuss with him about the benefits and the importance of like trying to get parasympathetic as fast as you can? Yeah, we did. So that kind of defeats that purpose, right? It does, and this is what I'm saying. So a study like this, what happens is they study one metric or parameter, so they'll say, okay, let's look at glycogen, how fast the body replenishes glycogen postworkout,

and let's see how caffeine affects that. Oh great, caffeine greatly improved glycogen replenishment. They'll publish that. Now people will look at that, and they'll look at that one soul thing and be like, cool, this is a good idea. But you're not looking at the whole picture. If we did a study that compared,

and this is my guess, I don't think a study like this exists, but just based on my experience, if they compare groups of people that took caffeine pre-work out and caffeine post-work out, and forget glycogen replenishment, let's just see who built more muscle, burn more body fat, had better performance. At the end of it, I would bet money that the pre-workout use of caffeine

would be more beneficial than the post-workout use of caffeine. Let's also consider caffeine is, it stimulates that sympathetic response. We'll release cortisol in the body. And then let's also talk about just feeling. Like when I'm done with a hard workout, why would I want to go get amped up with caffeine? I like that Zen feeling post workout.

I want to be able to let my body kind of rest. Now what if it was your first workout, right? If you had like a double workout schedule that day, like if you did a post caffeine, it's your first workout but not the second. Or if it just is simply in the morning like you're saying. If it's an early morning workout, I can see that. Because then you've been stimulated the rest of the day is not a big deal. Yeah, I would do, you have to have a really good tolerance for caffeine because, and the other thing too, is it would be, I think it would be wiser to have the caffeine. You'd be free.

30 minutes to an hour before the workout. Rather than, right after the, you know, like, let's say we do two workouts and one of them ends, let's say, first one ends at 10 a.m. and the next one starts at 3 p.m. It wouldn't make any sense to have the 10 a.m. caffeine post workout. It's going to wear off. It's effects by time I get to 3 p.m. See, I'm saying I'd rather have it at 2.30 before the next workout. But if you have like a really, like you, for example, you can handle a lot of caffeine,

then maybe what you do is you do your 200 milligrams pre workout and maybe 25 or 50 milligrams are real small dose post workout. Yeah, I just heard about this for pro athletes. With their manipulating and with sodium and glycogen and it's just interesting to me to see how nutritionists are sort of scheduling these things to get them to recover a perform at the highest performance. But it always goes back to splitting hairs

in all these different directions as far as like the benefits, you know, outweighing the outcome. And so yeah. And can you guys think of anybody, Climbing clients that you guys have trained that caffeine at all is a bad idea? Yeah. Yeah, right?

Yeah, for sure. You know, all the super type A aggro. Oh, yeah. You know how many, how many of those people I've told to not have coffee, it was worked out great It's a no caffeine whatsoever for you because your your HP access is all over the place. You're having trouble sleeping You're working 12 hours a day. Well, I already feel personally like I've been I've been driving way too hard And like I was trying to like make up for the fact that like my house and all these different things were sort of a state of chaos and so just ramped,

like it had like this crazy sympathetic, like drive the last few days and put myself into being susceptible to like getting a cold. So I'm like fighting this right now. Is that why your voice is kind of, yeah, I'm like extra sexy to this. He's got a little bit of the atom. I've got a little bit of that.

So I'm like, I mean, I don't know what your guys' recipe is. Mine was, I started with the green juice and with the turmeric, that was like one of my go-to's with that and then also the elder berry. And that's sort of something that I've been trying to. Now, I haven't added the turmeric into that. What's the idea behind adding turmeric into the mix there, too? For which one? For what Justin's kind of remedy right now for when he starts to feel cold coming on as he's saying that I'm just very inflamed.

Yeah, just for the inflammatory aspect of it, just to reduce that, it also has. I guess so with the cold you're gonna have that. So that makes sense. Yeah, and also turmeric is, it actually, if I'm not mistaken, know if I'm wrong just DM me let me know But I pretty sure that there's some of the active ingredients in in turmeric Act on the cannabinoid receptors in the body

differently than like cannabis would and not this is a this can be a good thing because it helps modulate the immune system so if you're You know immune system seems to be under fire, Tumoric may help your immune system be a little bit stronger or at least be able to handle a little bit of boosting your immune system. That's what turn me in that direction. Yeah, and here's the thing with immune boosting type products.

It's not always necessarily a good thing to have a hyper immune system. What you want is something that's going to get your immune system to operate when you want it to. Optically. Because an immune system that's too reactive may give you more inflammation. It may give you autoimmune issues, of course,

on the Xtreman. So yeah, turmeric and then the green juice, probably. Yeah, green juice is always stable for me when I started to feel that way too, but I didn't even think about the gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this.

I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. I think I'm gonna be able to agree on this. in 2007 and 2016, there were 776 dietary supplements that contained, that they found, contained, uh, unapproved pharmaceutical ingredients in them.

And how many? 776. Now, there's a website, uh, that, where they list tainted products. And the website itself, and you know what, we got to put this in the show notes because The website's a freaking long ass link or whatever, but their tainted products marketed as supplements list and it's It catalogs anytime the FDA reports find unapproved pharmaceutical ingredients in Supplements so it's not supplements that had nothing you know like like this said that has you know 500 milligrams Like it's like you'd like sprinkling some cocaine in your pre workout or well

Viagra was found in some of them and of course and a ball of hormones were found in some of them Meridia was found in some of them so Any do you see the brands are you looking at the brands? You can go on the site and look, it was a time, at a 776. Well, I mean, that we recognize. I see, I'll look it up. I mean, are these like all the shady things? Well, does it examine, like covers a lot of products

as certain rates them as certain supplements or... Exammin.com? Yeah, exammin.com. Exammin.com is really good website just to tell you about the efficacious, you know, nis of supplements and all that. Yeah, but it doesn't like go down and test brands and stuff. Check this out. They found that 20% of the products on the FDA's tainted list

contain more than one and unapproved ingredient. So not just one pharmaceutical they throw in there, another one also. So 20% had more than one. That's not good, man. That's fucking, I heard that there was like birth control like in like that kind of stuff found in powders and things that they've tested and like oh my god Dude, you know what this so this is why this makes me mad because

What's gonna end up happening through this? They're gonna they're gonna have to regulate it, bro, and then that they're pushing That's what they're pushing of course, you know, of course. well, so some of the supplements And it'll just be more expensive for everybody and more whoops I'm gonna jump through wow slim fast slim fast had a Subuch for me and what's that yeah, I'm looking through all I'm seeing a big one. Oh my some of these are hilarious. There was a supplement called Can you okay? I want you to guess what this supplement was designed for okay? It's called zoom zoom zoom. Like this game.

Zoom zoom zoom. That's a pre-workout or a faver. It's got to be a sat-fatter or a pre-workout for sure. It's a boner pill. Oh, zoom zoom zoom. It had fucking biagrine it. Take your own I want to do zoom zoom zoom zoom. Wow, you know it's funny. Here's what's funny. You know, a lot of people are gonna go on this site now to buy these supplements

Yeah, I'm saying like these actually work. Yeah, I could get what's this one called extra strength instant hot rod That would had seven Johnny bones Jones was shopping Yeah, it's like the Wild West out there with these guys They're stupid. they're stupid. They're gonna kill the whole industry that way. Because then they're gonna all get, what's gonna end up happening is at some point, they're just making Amazon's job that much easier.

They're just making Amazon that much, they're like, yes, more idiots doing so that, because they will. They'll put out a great product and reviews, the reviews will handle everything. I hope it will. Yeah. Of course it will.

Well, here's the problem with reviews. Let's say you buy a boner pill and you take it, not knowing it's got a background in it, what kind of review do you think you're gonna write? Yeah, but all it's gonna, five stars. All that works. Yeah, but all it's going to take is rock heart. One person like this, so you remember what Mike said,

you know, if someone blasts it on there, I mean, Amazon pull shit right away. So if someone goes on there and says, hey, we had this tested and we found this, this, and this in there, within 24 hours, that should be yanked off there right away until they do more for the research on it. So that's the cool part about Amazon.

Yeah, because what will happen is you're gonna end up, you got forbid somebody dies, and then there's this big media thing about it. Then some politician who's gonna act like he cares about everybody, because that's what they do. He's gonna come out and be like, hey, we need to regulate to save our children or something like that.

Then they're gonna pass these regulations, and then you're gonna go to the store, and you're gonna buy a bottle of vitamin C, and it's gonna cost you $85. And there's nothing else, like there's vitamin C, vitamin D, it's gonna cost you $85. And there's nothing else, like there's vitamin C, vitamin D, you know what I mean? And there's gonna be nothing else, like herbs or supplements or anything else that comes out that may have some, you know, efficaciousness to it, is gonna have to go through this lengthy regulatory process and it'll take five years and then maybe

they'll do it, maybe they won't because they don't have enough money to go through this whole thing. And at that point, it's like, I just going to eat oranges and then those are going to go away up in price. Yeah. Did we share it on the podcast? Did we share what Mike Matthews had shared with us about like the hustle with the Amazon game with supplements and like that? I think he talked about it on his episode. Did he talk about that? Yeah, because we talked about it more when we were up at the podcast hard event. Well, so here's so one thing that he said that some of these supplement companies will do to fuck with each other is they'll buy all your stock. So like if I go on let's say, let's say Adam and I are competitors and we both sell

creatine and I want to fuck with Adam. I go on Adam's Amazon site and I buy a thousand bottles of creatratee, which instantly makes it say, out of stock. But because I can then return it within 24 hours, never have to pay for it. Or whatever, it still takes a three or four, five days or a week for that to register that, it got returned. So in the meantime, no one can buy anything from you

because it says out of stock. And that kills you on Amazon It kills you don't they have they have limits on like one person buying up all the inventory They do that now, but yeah, but they could still get around that by having other names and Because I went on you know, I went on there to buy my dad wanted to he said what should I take for caffeine? And I found this one caffeine product that you know that I could try I went on that, I was gonna buy a more than one bottle. It only allowed one per customer. I think that's why, because they fuck with the other.

They figured that out. I'm like, why would they limit me to that? Well, that's so dirty, man. Well, and you want to imagine it. And people may not realize they, someone like it, Mike's size, like Legion is a big company. So the amount of, you know, from... Did you stop selling for three days?

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about 30, 40, 50,000 all more. Thousands and thousands of dollars that that business is losing instantly. Or the other one he told me that I thought was so fascinating was, you know, so there's a big hustle to be on the top three, right? So if you search an Amazon and create a team, it means everything to be that one of the top three

that everyone sees right away. If you're five, six, seven, eight, it doesn't matter that much. So there's this big hustle to be. I did jump the top. Yeah, so they're constantly leapfroving each other. So if you know that, you know, Legion is coming out with a, a creatine and you, I mean, you're dropping a creatine and they're like the number one creatine and you're getting ready to release your creatine, right?

I could go on there, put a false claim on, you know, giving me, you know, diarrhea and vomiting and I got a really sick competition. Yeah, right. It has to go through this review process that could take 48 hours a week. Right. They don't have to immediately take it off. And that during that 48 hours, I have an opportunity to leapfrog you and get up there. Meanwhile, Legion loses tens of thousands of dollars and now I'm up there making a budget. It's just, that's what he deals with on a daily basis, man. It's gangster out there. Meanwhile, Legion loses tens of thousands of dollars and now I'm up there making a butt. That's what he deals with on a daily basis, man. It's gangster out there. Fuck that. It's a fuck that. I don't want to be none a part of that, dude. Yeah, I know. That's kind of crazy. But the crazy part though, that they're going to be

the platform, you know, for all of that. I mean, that's where you go to sell now. So you can have to deal though that shit. You know what? It may just get to the point where it gets so bad that everybody just says, all right, let's just go like sell a person to person. Yeah, let's just be cool. No, let's just all be cool because who knows, you know, the thing about the supplement industry that, one of the things that I hate the most

is you get these people that start these companies and they're shady as fuck. And their whole attention is to make a bunch of money and then close it out. Like they didn't even care about lasting long. They just want to sell a bunch real fast, and then as soon as they start to get heat, shut it down. Well, that's started another one. That's like what we just talked about

on the one of the last episodes was the whole rise supplements. I mean, that's the hustle was you go from shreds, you blow it all out, you make millions of dollars. I got those perfect anti-brand for that. Fall. Fall. No,-brand for that. All Well, I'm great. I'm creating false false But that's I mean, that's what you do right you you blow it up Then you get enough hate and reviews from it you shut it down you cash out

Yeah, you you you then it went in the markup on supplements are so high that you can have a stock of you know $10 million with a product you can cut it in half and you still make a profit off of it. You'd sell it off real quick, then you'd turn right back around, you'd relabel it something else and attach yourself to some superstar person. It's just so unfortunate, they still just capture all these idiots. I mean, it's such a machine,

it's such a formula that still works today. It's like frustrating for me to watch. It is, and it's because a lot of people don't have foresight. They're not looking long-term. The cannabis industry does this sometimes. Like, I've talked about this so many times. The cannabis industries, they're gonna make themselves get, if they do legalize, which they probably will,

they're gonna make themselves get so regulated that it's not gonna even be cool, because why they keep putting out products that are candy and fucking cereal and all this shit that's high dose with THC that's just begging for some kid to find and get sick. And so then they're gonna come out and be like, we need to regulate no more edibles, you know what I mean?

Or no more edibles over two milligrams of THC like some states have. And it's their own fault. Like stop being, like look, have some foresight, man. You want some longevity in this. You know, have some integrity, because what you're gonna end up doing is you're gonna end up, you know,

poking the regulatory bear, and once you get regulated, you'll never go back. You know, it never, ever goes back. You know, they don't undo that. No, it's never backwards. It's always more and more and more. And then you're fucked, good luck. Now we have a market where now we can't sell certain things.

Or again, God forbid we have a supplement market that becomes regulated by the FDA. It'll destroy the market. In fact, the people who probably will promote and support regulation of the market of supplements are the mega supplement companies that have already done so much. I want to eliminate the competition and then it'll become a much less dynamic industry.

This quads brought to you by Organify. For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, Organify fills the gap with laboratory-tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health a performance-the-edit edge. Try Organified totally risk-free for 60 days by going to Organify.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com. And use a coupon code MindPump for 20% off that checkout. Alright, first question is from VMA Mr. Black. In some of your programs, you include exercises like weighted dips, weighted pull-ups, etc. Is it better for muscle development to

add weight and barely make the prescribed rep range or add no weight, but max the rep range? So I think he's referring to like in our programs, we give people a range, right? So like, you know, and let's say you're in, I just did a great video for this. I had to pick the right way. Yes, I just did a great video for this on YouTube. So if you haven't gone over there, go over there to our Mind Pump TV.

I apologize for the sound. We actually put it up because the content we thought was really good, even though we had an issue with the mic. So, and so far, so good. I. I mean, obviously we always have our trolls that want to point that out right away. And we know that the fucking sound was good. But it's good enough that you can hear what I'm talking about because this is probably one of the most common things that I get asked when talking about programs. You know, and it's pretty typical. You have the three most common rep ranges is five, 10, and then 15 is your basic strength, high-perturacy and endurance type training prescribed reps.

How do I decide, do I go up and wait or stay the same, or how do I pick the weight for those rep ranges? When I talk about in the video is, I give a two rep buffer, meaning that if it says five, three to seven is what is going in my head, right? That's what's helped me, because if you go two more reps than five,

it doesn't mean you're not strength training. If you go two less reps than five, it doesn't mean you're not strength training. You're still strength training, but that's how you kind of gauge that. Now, when something specific to weighted dips and weighted pull-ups, if I'm training in a strength phase, I'm going to lean towards adding more weight and maybe falling short on the reps or just barely being able to get the reps. If I'm more in a hypertrophy type of a phase, I'm going to go

the other way, right? I want to make sure Iperture fee type of a phase, I'm going to go the other way, right? I want to make sure I get the reps because of the adaptation that you're desired what you're trying to get, right? When you're strength training, we're really trying to push strength, you're trying to push weight. So when I'm doing in a lower rep range, I'm going to lean more towards being able to increase weight if I can, if I'm in the higher repetitions. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think what he's referring to

is in our programs we give people a range. So we'll say 12 to 15, you know, six to eight, 10 to 12. And so the question is, do I go for the higher end of it or the lower end of it, do I add more weight? Yeah, so I go unweighted because it prescribes weighted. But like, you have to assess already. If you can do, say if you can do perform 15 reps, but in the rep range, we have like eight or ten.

Yes, we want you to add weight to that so you struggle your way through that. That's not like an easy accomplishment. There's two approaches here, so I'll give you to make it more clear. Let's say I'm in a phase one of Maps and a Ballet, which is a classic strength phase of any of our maps programs. And let's, the rep range goal there is, you know, let's say four to six reps, okay. My goal can be two, I can have two different goals.

Either A, I pick a weight that I do four reps with this week, and next week, the goal is to add weight and do four reps, or B, I keep the weight the same, and now instead of doing four reps, I try and do six reps. The way I like to personally do it, especially in a strength phase, where my strength is ramping up very quickly, is I'll first week aim for the lower end of that rep range,

then I'll wait until I start to move out of that rep range and then I add weight. So in other words, if my rep range is four to six, I'll pick a weight that lets me do four, the following week, ooh, I did six, the next week I'm gonna add weight so I can go back down to four, rather than going out of the range.

So you're utilizing both. But really, we're kind of splitting hairs. It's all progressive. It's all progressing your body. So I'd say mix it up a little bit. I mean, here's the other thing too. Another way you can progress is, let's say I do squats and I did 10 reps with a weight.

And the next time I do it, I feel stronger. Rather than adding reps or weight, maybe I just make it my form even better. Maybe I just slow down a little bit and make the exercise feel harder because naturally it feels easier because I'm stronger. These are all ways to get your body to... Many ways to impress.

Many ways to manipulate intensity. That's right. Many ways to manipulate intensity. Yeah, I've done it to where, you know, one of my favorite techniques is to start emphasizing the end ranges of motion of an exercise. So, like let's say I'm doing a fly and I feel stronger now because I'm getting stronger in my workouts, then what I might do is instead of grabbing heavier dumbbells is maybe I hold

the stretch for a half a second to a second longer, or maybe at the top of the rep, I squeeze my pecs hard for one to two seconds. I like doing things this way, because sometimes adding, always adding weight, even if you're stronger, encourages potential risk of injury and imbalances. Sometimes it's better just to, I'm stronger, so I might exaggerate your compensation. That's it. Maybe I'm just to, I'm stronger. So I might exaggerate your, your

compensation. That's it. You know, maybe, maybe I'm just gonna, I'm stronger, but instead of adding weight, I'm just gonna get more perfect. See for it. A typical rule of thumb for myself personally is, it all depends on the adaptation focus. So all of our programs are phased for a reason. You either have a strength type of focus. You have some sort of a endurance or a hypertrophy focus. And so when I'm doing something in strength, which is the low rep ranges, I'm going to flirt and push more with trying to really stretch myself weight wise.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to just fuck form off. I'm a stickler with form for sure, but I'm going to stretch myself that way, even if it means I follow rep or so short of the target of the program. So if a program is saying six to eight, like Salis saying, I'm, I personally, when I'm following a strength phase, I'm, as there's a lot of times where that set, I might only got four because I was trying to stretch myself. Wait, I'm okay with that because I know when I get to phase two or three in that program and I get in the higher rep ranges, my focus tends to change a little bit different.

That's where I start to slow down the rep and because I'm chasing more of a pump, I'm moving a lighter weight, I start to increase the intensity through slowing down my tempo and focusing more on my form. Not that I'm neglecting that in lower rep ranges, It's just that if that's the main adaptation, I wanna be stretching myself. And I find that people tend to, depending on who you're talking, because there's, of course,

there's so many individual variances. But for the most part, when you have somebody who is super, super all about form, then when they get in a strength phase, they treat it the same way too, and they probably could stretch themselves a little bit further on the way, and the vice versa is true.

So it really does depend on how do you normally train, and you'll probably benefit from. It's funny, because just through my experience of training, people, women tend to not want to add weight, and men tend to want to add weight when they shouldn't. And that's just, of course, that's a generalization, but it's more true, more often than not, where I'll be training a female client, and I'll be like, oh, we could definitely add 10 pounds. I don't wanna add 10, and then to my male clients,

I'm like, bro, you need to take 10 pounds off that bar because your form is going to be. I rarely had to tell a woman to slow down and control her form more. It's rare. They tend to be more meticulous about detail to form and technique. I most often had to tell them to push yourself a little bit more.

You can stretch yourself. You got this. I'm watching you, you look great, push and they, like you said, the guys tend to be the opposite of that. I can add more weight. Yeah, your form's already breaking down. It's way too much easier to train. It's just so great. form's already breaking down. Wait a minute, it's so much easier to train. It's just like so great.

It's like, very true. You know, like, yeah, there are very meticulous and very like receptive to, you know, like improve like, like real time, you know, whereas we get into that moment of like, you know, where we wanna press ourselves always. We're always trying to press ourselves. Yeah, I'm always pushing Katrina.

When we're working out together, I'm always trying to tell her like, you look great, like add another 10 pounds on that. Yeah. Add another 10 pounds on that. I'm always pushing her to add way because I'm watching and her mechanics are great and she's, you know, afraid to go to that.

I'm like, I'm right here. You know, you're getting five, eight reps out, no problem. When was the last time you did something and you thought you were gonna get five and you had to only do three? That's rare. It's very rare when I would be teaching a female client or when I'm talking about Katrina right now where we're squatting and today we're working in the six to eight rep range. It's rare that she gets under the way and she had to stop at three because she overstretched herself by putting too

much weight on. That happens all the time with me. I'm training squats and I'm pushing the weight up and I'm supposed to be getting six to eight reps and oh shit, I only got three because I was pushing too far. It's very typical. So whatever it is that you tend to do, probably going the opposite direction like I always say on the podcast is probably best for you.

Next question is from 406 Montana Viking. We'll play and pick up games of basketball for about an hour, twice a week. Tell my body not to build muscle. Oh, this is a good question. Yeah. You know why I put, I picked this one because first off, will it, could it potentially influence your body in a way to where it's not going to maximize building as much muscle as possible? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, two, you know, two hours a week. But you know what, who gives a fuck? Like who cares? Well, I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit here with that, as far as who cares.

Here's something that I have put together with all the people that I've trained. I believe, I believe again, this was another great point that Dr. Cabral brought up also with the body types. And I'm an ectomore for sure. So I struggle with putting muscle mass on my frame. And this was a big game changer for me was when I let go of playing basketball so much. I had a goal of being bigger. I wanted to be much bigger. I wanted to build a lot of muscle in my early 20s, but I also loved the game of basketball so much that I played it almost every single day. And it definitely did not add to my building muscle. In fact, I struggled with putting size on because I could not keep up with the amount of calories

that I needed to consume based off on how much I was burning from all the basketball. And of course, I'm sending a signal to my body to be leaner and lighter. I mean, and yet so they're conflicting goals. So and I think depending on the body type, it can be more conflicting. So I think when I look across at Justin and know he played ball also, I think him playing ball once or twice a week would not hurt him as much Billy Muscle as it would hurt me. So you have to kind of know your body, your body, and if you are somebody who struggles with putting mass on and you're doing any cardio based type of stuff for an hour or more in a week.

It's interesting to think about because it did enhance my train. I remember that was like part of my my training regiment. I would lift heavy throughout the week, but then I would add just two hours or whatever, pick up games to get a bit of conditioning in there and move really quickly and explosively. But I wasn't drawing out these games to where I felt like it was a serious marathon or anything. But so that's why it's like two hours a week, you know, like that to me,

doesn't sound like, you know, much other than just kind of supporting, you know, the process, but you do bring up a good point. If you are that type of a body that you burn, you know, that's a concern. It's like really hard for you to gain. You have to account for all these additional activities. I mean, I do want to address this like cardio may actually help you build muscle in some cases. Right. If it's gonna make you healthier. No, it may. Here's a thing. You You should know if this is you or not. I mean like Justin just said like if you were if your goal is to build muscle and you're playing basketball and your building muscle

It's totally fine. Yeah, but if you were stuck in a plateau and you're not building muscle and you're playing basketball and you're building muscle, it's totally fine. But if you were stuck in a plateau and you're not building muscle and you're playing basketball, it very well could be one of the reasons why you're struggling with that. 100% was something that I struggle with because I was playing so much ball. And my point with the whole who cares thing is this. At the end of the day, okay,

if that's your ultimate goal is to build muscle and that's what you wanna do more than anything, okay, take the basketball out and see what happens. But if your goal is to build muscle and that's what you wanna do more than anything. Okay, take the basketball out and see what happens. But if your goal is to build muscle but also enjoy your life and you really like playing basketball and you like hanging out with your friends, who gives a shit?

Like go do it. How much muscle are you not building from doing the basketball? You know, an hour, twice a week, a few pounds maybe? I mean, it's not 15 pounds of muscle, it's not gonna affect you that much. So the reason why I say this, I think people need to view activity and what they're doing in their goals and look at total, total quality of life.

And is it improving the quality of your life to play basketball? Do you really enjoy it more than the potential of gaining a few more pounds of muscle? If the answer is yes, keep playing basketball. If your goal is just to build muscle and that's the most important thing and that's really your laser-like focusses on that, then any type of training that's asking your body to adapt in a way that is not in the direction

of building muscle, you wanna take those things out. Right, it's just not advantageous. That's all. And that's the point I'm making. It's like, because I agree with you, Sal. I mean, basketball is a passion of mine. So, but you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with you're doing two things

that are sending a conflicting goal to your body. And depending on your body type, it can be more conflicting than you realize. And that's my point. My point is, if you're like I was, because for this was a very major missing piece for me that the light bulb never went off until I finally teased that out. I thought, you know what?

I really have never tried to not play ball for a while and just focus on getting bigger. And it was a 15 pound gain for me. It was a big deal. You were playing a lot though, right? I was. I was. You know, this person's saying two hours. I was more like playing five to six hours a week for me. It was a big deal. You were playing a lot though, right? I was. I was. You know, this person saying two hours, I was more like playing five to six hours a week for sure. I was playing a lot of basketball at that time. But the more I scaled it back, the easier it was

for me to build and gain. And this, I believe that's really true for somebody who already struggles with putting size on and struggles with getting enough calories. If you have a different body type where you actually struggle with getting lean and you don't have a problem with building, then I think that affects this person way less. So that really, you have to know if you're this person or not. Because I build muscle if I do zero cardio and all I do is lift and I incorporate a little bit of cardio, actually build more muscle. Because I think my health improves. And that's what the study proves.

The studies show that. The studies show that that it's- Just because you're healthier. Right, it can be very beneficial. But this conversation really matters to who I'm speaking to on how detrimental playing basketball at X amount of times per week could be to your body type. And I definitely think that if you're struggling

to put muscle and size on, it could be absolutely something that helps you out to tease out. But if you're somebody who's building muscle and you're playing the game, I mean, absolutely. I think that's a quality of life does exceed that. Next question is from Mark Deshark.

Mark Deshark. How much Lumpar extension is too much when performing a barbell squat or overhead press? If it feels like it comes naturally to have an arched lower back, what are some things that may be causing this and are there correctional exercises to help eliminate the need to arch?

So Lombar extension is literally, what are you saying? Arching your low backs, sticking your butt out. Now here's the thing with the, when it comes to joints, okay, what you don't wanna do with any joint is you don't want to, you don't wanna... You don't wanna attack all the force on time. Yeah, you don't wanna support it in its end range of motion.

So if you have a natural arch, but that's not the end of that range of motion for you, in other words, you're not relying on the spine itself to support itself, then that's okay. If it is doing that, then it's not okay and you want to go in a different direction. Another example would be like, if I'm locking my knees out with weight on my back, and I'm almost pretty much relaxed, in what's supporting me standing with lock knees is my knee joint itself, because they're locked back,

and it's the ligaments and tendons and stuff that's supporting me, and that necessarily the muscle, not a good thing. If I can stand up with straight knees, but what's supporting me is muscle, not a bad thing. So that's number one with this. Number two, if it is an issue, and you are feeling like shearing force in the low back

because it is kind of close to your end range of motion, just do the opposing movement, which literally is, and I would have clients like this all the time where we do a squat or a deadlift, they'd arch their back, and then they'd say, oh, I feel pressure on my low back. And it's okay, here's what we're gonna do in the next set. Why you're doing your set, I want you to flex your abs,

like, like, like, you're gonna be getting ready for me to poke in the stomach, like, someone's gonna poke you, you're kind of, you're brace down and automatically that will create a little opposing force with the abs will pull the pelvis in the opposite direction a little bit and boom, nine and a 10 times the pain would go away. So one throw move begins the wall. Oh, yeah, I know Adams mentioned that before,

like in between sets. I think that's brilliant. I have done that too, just with my clients and myself, doing our simple wall test of just TVA activation, so just trying to work on that and rolling the hips and getting my back as flat as possible and really connecting to the abs. I found it would be super beneficial, but that's just a simple thing that you can do in between sets. That's been huge for me.

That's something that, this is, so I have this, right? So I have an excessive arch, so this is a problem that I have. So I have to. Look at that Instagram pose. I do, I have the, the, what is it called?

What is it called? Bumple models. That's nice. Yeah, yeah. I love you, man. You just got rolled, sir. I love him, dude. I got so much love for that guy. He's so inappropriate.

I just like, We did a Legion, I gave a Legion plug so I'm gonna throw him in the bus with the buzz. I kind of wade him out with the but whole models. I just think that's such a great name for him.

I just think it's so great. So I definitely suffer from this and I know why 100% I don't do enough ab exercises. I don't do enough of TVA or core type exercises to stabilize my hips better. So like Justin was saying, I go over to the wall and do our zone one test and then roll my hips and flatten my back out against the wall. I believe we did a YouTube video on that just last month that I think is an incredible tool to use.

And then also when I do the overhead press, before I press the barbell up, I literally squeeze my glutes and exaggerate the opposite. So I squeeze my butt squeezed while I press over my head. If I don't do that, I will default out. I 100% I will arch. 100% if I am not actively squeezing the glutes forward or squeezing my hips forward by activating my glutes,

I will arch. And that slightest bit of an arch holding 100 plus pounds over your head, I think is absolutely dangerous and you gotta be careful that. So that is a cue that I have to do every single time that I do a press. And you should be, if you're a trainer and you're training a client that you notice they have an excessive arch that is something you want to make sure that you can.

And, too, if you're doing this in the squat, the squat is really where your concern is as far as, you know, your back and, you know, being able to maintain muscular tension throughout this range of motion to take the stick and then place it behind your back like we show also in our compass test to be able to maintain contact points and really focus the whole time on keeping it drawn in as you're squatting down the whole time. If you want to break it down and really improve on that, like I highly suggest you work on that specifically.

Yeah, if you were to take a spine without muscle supporting it and you would see that it's made up of many, many, many different joints and it will just flop over and bend over and move in whatever direction because nothing's supporting it. But you can't fold the spine completely in half because the joints have a limited range of motion.

So that's what I mean by not letting the end range of motion be supported just by the joint. Now that spine inside the body is literally surrounded by muscles that whose sole purpose and job besides, you know, certain movements, whatever, is to stabilize so that the spine can stand up in its natural position without going into these end ranges of motion. That's the job of a lot of these muscles. And so, you know, your abs, your internal external bleaks, the muscle

that Justin has referred to now, the TVA, the transverse abdominis, which is it is literally the muscle that sucks in your stomach. So if you're standing up tall and you wanna make your belly look small and you suck in, that's the muscle that you're in. Your internal weight belt, that's how I refer to people. That's exactly what it is. Then you have muscles that stabilize the spine in the back.

You know, like the rectus spine. A rectus spinae, and even your lats have a roll and their hip flexures attach to the spine and they all have a roll. And hip flexors attach to the spine and they all have a roll. And really the goal is to stabilize your spine so that your limbs, your extremities, can move heavy weight. Like when I'm doing a squat, I'm hinging at my hips,

my knees are bending, and I'm lifting lots of weight. And the last thing I want is for my spine to support the weight with the actual joints of the spine. It's a very dangerous situation. So that's why stabilization exercises are so important. And if you have that excessive arch, here's the best thing you could possibly do. We'll put this in the show notes. You know, I taught in one of our YouTube videos a long time ago, how to do a proper plank. And plank is a great exercise for this. But the way I teach it really helps

that offsetting this problem of arching. And really, when you get into a plank, you're tucking your tailbone and crunching your abs and then supporting yourself there. That's a fantastic exercise to offset. Great exercise. Potential arching of life. I was gonna add that with the, just the back press, right?

So if you're doing those two things, what a great way to prime yourself. Oh, perfect. If you have it, and this is where, this is again, what prime was all about was helping people figure out their specific in balances. Here's a great, this is a very common one, the excessive arch and the low back,

two moves that I think are staple before squatting, the active plank that Salves talking about, where you're actually activating the low back, two moves that I think are staple before squatting, the active plank that Salves talking about where you're actually activating the glutes and actually rolling the hips in, and then a back press where you actually lay on your back and you actually press that arch down. So you press against there and activate the core and press the low back flat into the grass or the ground, whatever you're laying on. Those two moves, priming before you get it into a squat. It'll help you feel what you're supposed to do. Incredible, yeah.

Absolutely. Next question is from PD Pitbull Fitness. How does one train to achieve muscle separation? Is it mostly genetic or can it be improved by training a specific way? Oh, I think it's very little genetic and mostly all diet. Lean. Yeah, getting lean. There very little genetic and mostly all diet. Lean. Yeah, getting lean. There's definitely aspects that are genetic though.

Like, you know, when I get really lean, I have this very striated, separated look to my muscles, that kind of grainy, striated look. Some guys will get really shredded and they don't get that. They just have what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what,

what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what and they don't get that. They just have what bodybuilders were referred to as clean lines where the muscles look very separated, but they don't have the stration. And then other guys, you know, Branch Warren was like this. He was a bodybuilder, pro bodybuilder, and he would get shredded, but when he would pose, it would, he's lean and he'd be vascular, but he wouldn't have the crazy separation of like a fill heat.

Oh, so yeah, I think that it's just level of leanness. I think that that's the branch would be shredded. I see, I don't think he's that shredded. I think when you look, think of some of the pro bodybuilders, he's not the most diced and shredded guy. Yeah, I see a lot of veins, you know, pro he's a lot of shit you're taking, but he is not, he's, when you get super, super lean,

like sub, you know, 2% body fat, that, that striation comes out on almost everybody, everybody does. You know, he's definitely strided and separated, but if you compare him, because he's an upper, right, this is a guy who competed at the top, he's an ornal classic winner at one point, compare him to like a Phil Heath or a flex wheeler who didn't, doesn't have the same vaney grainy look, but they have this very like, you can clearly see the entire deltoid. You can clearly see the, you know, every muscle looks round and separated.

See how Doug just pulled up pictures of him and that middle picture, to me, the difference is he's the leanest there. Because look at the feathers in his quad, the separation in his deltoid. Oh, his quad's for sure, but like... Yeah, I mean, I just think it's levels of lean. I'm because that's what our, this is what our muscles look like underneath. We didn't have fat and skin over them.

We all pretty much look pretty similar in, Yeah, but there's a different look to him, right? Like, I could be shredded. Yeah, I don't know. Like, by the way, we're talking about like, the smallest degree. Yeah, these guys are, I know, we're, of course, we are totally speculating right now,

and this is all opinion. But when I see competitors that I, when we get backstage, and some people had just better separation, but when I saw better separation, it was always because you were, you died a better. You were leaner, you got leaner than anybody. And I've seen it in myself, like I've gone on stage before where I am

fucking I'm probably one 2% body fat. And there's been other times I've hit stage it probably 4% body fat. And there's definitely a visual difference between the muscle separation when I'm lean when you're the leaner you are the less fat that you have between your skin and muscle and water that you have there, the more of the definition that you're going to see. Most people that don't have good separation. There's two major contributors too, because obviously if you have built up a good muscle there, it's going to be show separation without having to be as lean. There's the genetic difference that I think you were pointing to is some people just have,

I mean, I remember those kids when we were in school, he already had deltoid. He didn't even do anything yet and he already had a good deltoid and separation from his bicep. And that's because genetically, he just was built that way. There's also like, you know, and we, there's always been the speculation that if you train really, really heavy, you get that dense, granite look. If you train lighter, you get the more bubbly kind of look, although Ronnie Coleman kind of flips all that on his head because he had all of that and he was also strong as shit.

But like Branch Warman, you know, you just, because we just brought him up as an example, his style of training very different than someone like a Dexter Jackson or a Phil Heath. And if you look at them side by side, both shredded, both great conditioning, both striated, you know, Dexter or Phil have like the really round, like if Doug, if you put in Phil Heath, you can see what I'm talking about. Like the muscles look very distinguishably separate, even though they're both super lean. So there is some kind of a genetic component. Right.

No, no, it looks like. I know I'll go, I'll agree with you there too that there is, and we see this a lot with bodybuilders in comparison to like strength athletes, right? Bodybuilders tend to have these, these, this more separation in the mouth, and that's because they're training. Yeah. You, if you have a, a, a, a strength athlete who is training in the low rep range, a good 80% of the time because they're training. If you have a strength athlete who is training in the low rep range, a good 80% of the time,

because they're a strength athlete. One muscle that goes all the way from your fingers to your shoulders. Right, right. So there's separation, it looks less. Now, someone like a body builder, like a Phil Heath, he trains probably in the higher rep range, lots of supersets, a lot of hypertrophy training,

which gives you this bubbly or more lot of hypertrophy training, which gives you this bubblier, more filled out looking muscles, which then gives you the illusion of separation. So, I agree with that. I mean, I think that that does make a difference, but nothing. I mean, I don't care if you've never lifted a weight before, if you get down to 2% body fat,

you will have muscle separation. Yeah, yeah, way more than for you to do. That's what I mean. So, that's my point is it has everything to do with how lean you are. You can be. Arms look huge in comparison. Yeah, but do you see his, do you see how his muscles look so like separate?

They're both shredded. They're both absolutely diced and shredded. And they're both and a branch had this quality of muscle that looked like he was made out of granite. Phil doesn't necessarily have that look, but he also has that more of that flex wheeler, kind of look or appeal. There's some genetics, you know there, you know, and there's some bodybuilders that'll hit the stage

and have this very strange looking strations in their muscle. But here's the deal, you can't see the difference in their genetics until they're all shredded. It's not gonna make it, by the way, if you're listening right now and you're like, oh, okay, I'm going to work more on separation and you get down to like 7% body fatty, which is lean.

It's not going to make that big of a difference. Like, you can't really tell until you're so shredded that you're depleted as hell. Which is, and that's really the point I'm trying to make is that there's not a way you should be training to get better separation. Nothing is going to give you better separation in your muscles

than getting leaner, frankly. That's good. Getting leaner and building muscles. Right, yeah. Getting leaner, building muscles is going to give you the illusion of that. I learned this lesson with my abs. So for years, I would be able to get lean and get myself down to 5 or 6% body fat. And at this point, for me to see a six pack in my midsection, like visible abs, I'd have to get below seven or eight percent, which is really low. A lot of guys, they'll have a six pack at 10 percent body fat. Now, I thought it was because I just stored a lot of body fat in my midsection. But really, as I learned later on, it's because I didn't develop my abs very well. Later on, I started to do hypertrophy training for my abs, and I started to build them out,

and then they became visible at 10, 11, and 12 percent, just because the muscles were bigger. It's all about that illusion, and that's part of the process, again, if you want your muscles to be more visible, you've got, but you also have to have, you know, build bigger muscles. Both of those make a big difference. So, so check this out, we have a lot of free guides. The most recent one that we put out, how to squat like a pro.

There's some advanced train techniques in there, like how to use bands and chains and what's the right frequency and all that stuff. You can find that guide and other guides at mindpumpfree.com. Go check it out. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com.

The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout nutrients and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbumble is like having Sal and an adjusting 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. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.