Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - BONUS: The Equipment-Free Solution to Building Muscle & Getting In Shape at Home and on the Road

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

There are a lot of at-home, body weight workouts available but the vast majority of them are good at one thing... making you sweat. What is missing is thoughtful programming designed to keep you making progress as time goes on.  You CAN build muscle and shape your body without equipment and in this bonus episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the creation of MAPS Anywhere, the equipment-free program that was designed to provide the most beneficial exercises and produce real strength and muscle gains. Phased like MAPS gym-based programs, MAPS Anywhere is phased to keep you progressing and avoiding plateaus. Perfect for anyone who wants to workout at home and on the road with minimal or no equipment. It can even be customized for the advanced user. Get MAPS Anywhere at: www.mapswhite.com.  Use the code WHITE50 all November 2018 for 50% off.  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Saldas Defano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Hey, it's a bonus episode from Mind Pump. B- Maps Anywhere, why we created it, who it's for. So if you're interested in figuring out more about our program that was designed to be used without equipment, you can do it at home, you can do it on the road, at work, pretty much anywhere. It's why it's called Maps Anywhere.

Then listen to this 20-something minute episode. If you want to take advantage of the promotion, which is 50% off the normal price, there's only four days left, so you gotta take advantage of it soon. Go to mapswhite.com and use the code white50whit and the number 50 at checkout for 50% off. Here we go.

When did we make maps anywhere? Was that the fourth program we did? I remember where we made it. Was that it was the fourth program? Santa Cruz. Remember? It was the third together, the fourth total program. Fourth total. Yeah, because you went red. You went red first without us, then we went green together, then we went black, and then we went white. And then white. And where did we do? I remember film. It wasn't in Santa Cruz wasn't it? Yeah, that's where we,

that's where we formulated the idea of it. Anywhere it was done at the house in Sacramento. You're right though Justin, we came up with the idea. We filmed the idea. You're right, we came up with the idea at the Santa Cruz house. Yeah. And then we filmed it like like a porn set.

Yeah, what was that? I don't know why we, yeah, it was like very low key. What a house was that? My pump didn't have a lot of money back then. We had to make do with what we had. We did a, we did a VRBO in Sacramento, which is not very, isn't very expensive. Yeah, it was very convenient.

And what we did was, we normally, so the formula to a program now is we go stay somewhere nice and we get away for three or four days And then we write the program and then we go shoot in a nice gym and it's another two three days of production and Where maps anywhere we were like well, this isn't anywhere program. So technically this is for people Let's film in the house. Yeah, let's just film it in the house and With my Ray bands on and stuff like that with my Ray Bans on and stuff like that. So, they're, oh man, we were crucified for this program.

We've been trashed for the, but you know what? There was so much Easter eggs in there. And I remember like, Sal or, I think I was laying on the couch while you were doing exercises. Yeah. We were just having fun. Well, there was some where I was doing flagpole, or what they call dragon flags.

Yeah. And the couch would flip up. Yeah, you need some where I was doing flag pull or what they call dragon flags. Yeah. And the couch would flip up. Yeah, you need some weight. So you just laid on the couch. Yeah, laid there and I was just like, chilling. There was also some exercises that we forgot to do. And so Doug and I had to run down to like the nearest park.

And I just, oh yeah. I had that's where I have my sunglasses on. I'm in a different outfit. And we just like, yeah, running down. So I'm doing jump rope just randomly. That's back in the day because we had to get it out real quick. And well, I mean, MapsAnywhere now has been completely redone. So if you look at the program now, it's all,

Hey, listen, we do these things, we do things different, right? I think most people spend so much time dressing everything up. They spend all the money on the packaging. Right. And we were the opposite. We're like, listen, we're going to deliver some solid-ass content. So a lot of the energy and effort goes into creating all this. The creation

part, the sitting down with the long hours of writing the program, the arguing back-to-fourth. Yeah, that's the part that is it's it's it's arguably one of our best programs for sure amongst the trainers that purchase it in our forum. Always comment. Always comment as it's one of the most underrated programs that we ever did. I love that. That's my favorite part about this program, just the response we got from other trainers who are actually using it, especially with beginners

or in group settings or whatever it was, just because of those, I mean, we really wanted to focus on those foundational sessions as addressing a lot of postural issues we saw. Well, the reason why we created it, because we were sitting around with each other, I remember the conversation,

we had just finished maps aesthetic. So we had anabolic performance and aesthetic, all gym-based type programs. And I remember we're sitting there, we're like, okay, we need to create another program. What should we do? And it was like, okay, we need to create another program, what should we do? And it was obvious to us that we needed to tackle the at-home workout market,

because when you look at fitness programs online, that's all of it. They are the by far, not even by, it's not even close by far, the biggest sellers are the programs where people buy them and then they work out in front of their TV or whatever at home and But the programs are terrible. They're all terrible garbage We had access to all the big popular ones in sanity in P90X and all these other programs and as trainers who know what we're doing I would never have a client work out that way ever

I mean the programs are designed to just make you sweat and soar and move constantly, and but they sold a lot and so we're like, okay, let's come up, let's write a truly effective responsible program with integrity that's gonna get people, not just results because they're burning shit tons of calories, but long-term results, where they're building muscle, they're getting stronger, they're correcting muscle imbalances, they're burning shit tons of calories, but long term results where they're

building muscle, they're getting stronger, they're correcting muscle imbalances, they're feeling better. Let's create a real at home no equipment needed and type workout. Not just addressed at beginners. We had to find a way to also entice people that were, you know, like a little bit more advanced and they wanted a serious challenge out of it. That was the hard part. Remember we were sitting there trying to figure that out?

Like, okay, how are we gonna make this bodyweight program suitable for people who are new, and then people who start to get real advanced? Like, how are we gonna do that? And so at first we're like, well, I guess we could show like a real easy version of a squat and then a moderate version, then like a pistol squat, and then we'll do all these variations of different exercises and I remember us sitting there going, ah, that's like creating five different programs, you know what I mean?

That doesn't really make sense, it's going to take a lot of time. We don't know if that's going to really benefit anybody. Then we came up with the concept of the amp sessions. And the amp sessions and what we did was as we flipped and reversed kind of our approach where our normal approaches, these three foundational workouts with two, we call frequency builders, like a MAP center ball gets trigger sessions or it's mobility sessions and math performance, we said, no, no, no, let's do two foundational workouts and three amp sessions. And that's what allows people to really ramp up the

episode. The same old tricks. No, it's not just about like jumping you to death and throwing all these like plyometrics at you. Yeah, like, you know, that's like easy parlor tricks. Like, so we introduced like new concepts, which for some people aren't new, but like for even for myself,

I got really into like the concept of tension type exercises and using nice metrics and things like that that have, you know, strength athletes have used forever, but don't really have a lot of popularity behind them but are very beneficial and are safe and are ways to definitely intensify your exercise. Yeah, I would have to say of all the things that we do, that's probably my favorite thing to do,

is write programs. I think that's up there, like on the top three. Probably because of everything that we do, it probably challenges us the most. I mean, to sit down with two other guys and, okay, decide, we're trying to write a program for the masses, which already we agree is extremely difficult because of the individual variance and say and take all of our experiences into consideration, like

who we've dealt with and the type of client that this is going to appeal to. All the different personas, all together in the pot. Right. And what are all the pitfalls? What are the things we know they're probably going to want to do or try to do or the common mistakes they all make. And so it's definitely the most collaborative thing we do. Trolley challenges and stretches as the most.

So I feel the same way too. I mean, it's always a blast for me to get away with you guys and to really do that. It always stretches my programming skills. Because when you write it yourself, you just write it and then you don't have a question anything because it's yours and you don't have two other people that are telling you it yourself, you just write it and then you don't ever question anything because it's yours and you don't have two other people that are telling you, no, you shouldn't do that. It's like, hey, I'm based off of my experience, my knowledge.

I'm writing this program to the best of my abilities. Well, it brings in a whole new element when I have two other people who are gonna be like, well, wait a second, I've had a lot of clients that have done this, this, and this, and then like, okay, you're right, I've dealt with that also. So it's always,

So that point maps anywhere was the hardest program we wrote, because that, and then I'm like, okay, you're right, I've dealt with that also. So it's always, still that point, maps anywhere was the hardest program we wrote, because that's before we created maps prime, which I would say is. Yeah, that's right before. Maps prime is the one that really took the most brain power, but up until that point, maps anywhere required a lot of creativity, because there's a lot of challenges. Like how do you really work the posture, your chain

without weights, you know? How do you really work on posture, your chain, without weights? How do you really work on the lats without weights? How do we deal with the lower body getting strong without having them do a million and one repetitions? How do you deal with these problems that you run it? Because here's the problems with bodyweight type routines at home at least, is it's hard to compete with a gym in terms of of ultimate muscle building and performance building potential. At some

points like you need weight or you want weight on your back or you need a machine or something to provide more resistance. And so it challenged us, the challenge is to come up with answers to some of these problems because I know what body weight programs typically look like. Cause typically like here, do this for a month and then okay, now you're good. You gotta go to the gym now. And I'm like, well, what if these people

never wanna go to the gym? Yeah, and I think it's unfortunate for this program that we all, I mean, we all love weights. You know, we all know what a difference weights make. But now you take away that tool, now you're forced to kind of create something that is just as effective without one of your favorite tools. That was challenging and sometimes that may come across

as we're like maybe a little less excited, but in fact this program, I definitely feel like we put just as much of not more effort into than all the rest of them. Well, I think it belongs in everybody's library, even if you're not somebody who trains only at home, like if you're somebody who travels a lot and you're on the go, I also think it's an incredible way

to cycle through all the other programs and use this kind of like a de-loading phase. So many times like when I've just been hammering the weights for a while, I'll take a day or two out of maps anywhere and I'll just follow it for a day or two and then return back to regular traditional weight training. So there's a lot of different ways that you can use this program in comparison to those. It's also their shorter phases, right? Everything is in two week phases. We have the am... We... The first time ever that we flipped it's also their shorter phases, right? Everything is in two week phases. We have the amp, we, the first time ever that we flipped it on

its head were, you know, there's only two days of the foundational days and then the what would be the focus trigger or wasn't this the first program that we really incorporated some of the tension movements that Justin was a, you know, big fan of. You also got the whole, you know, we never talk about this, but I think it's a very valuable part of this program. We've never sold it on this point, but I think just for this point alone, it's valuable. I mean, I think there's what, 70 videos

or 50 something videos of the TRX, Justin. Yeah, that we did previously at this gym, and you know, we, yeah, that was all just another bonus, like a mod we threw in there that has a lot of value to it. I mean, I loved using the suspension trainer. I used that for like almost a year. And this is the only program you'll find us, you know, using and giving videos for the suspension.

Yeah, that's the, those are ones with, where Adam's in the videos doing the exercise. Look at, look at, look at, look at all the young, young handsome. I'm gonna have all my hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the full head hair. Big, big, big, big head hair. Full head of hair. That's all gonna have all my hair. Yeah, yeah, the full head hair. Big old head of hair.

Full head of hair. That's all we have. We didn't re-shoot that one. Big old time. No, no, no, no, leave this. Yeah, we'll go ahead and leave that. That's still like young hair. No, but there's like 70 exercise videos

of suspension training, which is a great at home tool. Now, maps anywhere was written without suspension training. However, you can easily add it in there, and all you have to do is go, because the program comes with it, go in there and look through, again, 72 exercises. And suspension trainers are awesome because they really allow you to increase the resistance

that you use with your exercises without weight. Because again, one of the problems with bodyweight exercises is once you get to a certain strength, your bodyweight becomes too light for certain exercises. problems with body weight exercises, once you get to a certain strength, your body weight becomes too light for certain exercises. But with a suspension trainer, because the way you can angle your body, and you can make shit really, really difficult.

Like you could do presses, chest presses and flies with a suspension trainer that'll rival very, very heavy weights in the gym. But I wanna go back to the tension movements, Justin, because right around this time, when did we write maps anywhere, Doug? When did we put that together? Was that three years ago?

Yeah, it had to be the, it was close to the beginning. It was so long ago, right? Yeah. When we wrote that program, I was, I was privy to the benefits of tension training just because of reading old school strength books and stuff, but I'd never really incorporated it a lot into my training.

And it was you just, and that really brought that to the table, and you were like, we need to include these type of movements and focus on tension, especially since it's a bodyweight routine. And that's when I started incorporating some of the stuff. Yeah, it just had, I mean, I was going through the process to kind of going through the invention process with Axon and I'm going through all these different movements and just, you know, feeling my way through a lot of these tension movements

and really started to feel the benefit and the carryover of how that even, you know, translated into barbell training as well. And it just was that hyper connectivity, it was that the way I just felt really attached to my body and if I could get my body super responsive. And so it was one of those things too, like it was super challenging.

Like I didn't realize how challenging a lot of these movements were to perform. And I knew that that would be something that people would find interesting. Yeah, I noticed with the tension movements, the word that I like to use is it makes me feel more solid. You know what I'm saying? I think that's the best word. Like I'll grab a weight and just feel like a statue.

I think it's important to tell people why tension movements are so valuable when exercising, because what happens and pay attention to this the next time you're in the gym, the next time you're in the gym, pay attention to the negative, the eccentric part of an exercise, right? Someone dropping down into a squat, someone dropping down a bicep curl, lowering the barbell for a bench press, pay attention to all that. And pay attention to how many people maintain tension to them, meaning they resist it, controlled all the way down. And then they press up or they stand up or whatever. Pay attention. And you'll notice that a majority of people allow gravity to take over like a movement. They work the

concentric parts of the positive part of the exercise coming out of the squat, curling the barbell up, pushing down the cable machine, pressing the barbell, but not a lot of energy is put on the negative portion of the action. Nobody connects to the negative. Yeah, nobody really connects. They allow momentum to take and gravity to take the weight and then they use like this reflex to shoot it back up the other direction. And one, you lose a lot of the benefits of the eccentric person or the movement, which were a lot of, if not the majority of muscle was built. And you're also at risk injury-wise, especially as we get older,

and we lose a lot of control in those new found ranges of motion. So, man, the benefits of incorporating tension, they're very similar to why I think prime and prime pro or central programs is that's what that's really what prime prime is. When you, when we're priming people, we're creating tension movements. We're taking them to end range of motion. So we stretch them to an end range. Then we ask them to activate and connect and create tension. And yet we can stop them in any angle of that rep and they're going to have strength in that rep.

Right. And so that was something that, yeah, that's why it felt like a grind going through these exercise, these tension movements, the whole time you have to produce that muscular contraction. And you will, you will find it's odd because your body's natural tendencies to make things easier and to be able to get through the movement as efficiently as possible. You're going against that internal mechanism

and you're trying to maintain that nice tight squeeze the whole time. Your body is, will only ever be as strong as it believes it needs to be. That's just it. It always meets what it thinks it needs. It's never going to exceed what it thinks it needs because it's a waste of resources and energy. So that's why training is so important. When you think about tension movements, think about it this way. I've used the analogy of the amplifier and the speaker before, but let's take it a step further. Let's say I have a light that has a tremendous potential to

shine brightly. Let's say I can, it's got like a billion loom in or whatever word they use to describe how bright it can be. But I plug it into a regular outlet. And that regular outlet is only giving enough juice to power it up to half of its potential. But I plug it into a regular outlet. And that regular outlet is only giving enough juice to power it up to half of its potential. If I take that outlet, if I take that plug and I plug it into a stronger power source, I'm going to get more light out of it. And that's what you want to do when you strengthen your central nervous system. And that's what you do with a lot of these tension movements. But it goes even further. It's also you have this power source, which is your CNS, you have your muscles, which is this light

But you got to be able to connect the two of them tension movements make that cable thicker too They actually improve your ability to communicate from one to the other They improve the amount of power output that you can have under control This is very important. So for those you, if you can remember when you were a beginner, if you can think back to the first time you lifted weights and how shaky you felt, how you curled the weight or you bench pressed the weight and you felt like it was,

a lot of times you feel this even being an experience of the who's just taken a week or two weeks or a month off. Take a month off and come back and I feel this way. It's that loss of connection. Your body's putting out that power, but it doesn't have good connection. So it's not smooth, it's not consistent. And you're getting this kind of inefficient power. When you do these tension movements, like the ones that you find in maps anywhere, you are harnessing your power in a way that makes it effective, efficient, smooth and consistent. Now when you go do your pushups or your prone cobras or your band rows or whatever other

exercise that you'll find in maps anywhere, now you're connected to it and you're really generating this smooth power that you can control, which of course reduces injury, but even more important than that for the people listening, because I know how motivating it is, gets you faster results. You build more muscle and you burn more body fat. So what we've done with maps anywhere is what we did, and this is why I considered it one of the harder programs we wrote, was you've tried to hack that.

We tried to hack the system and figure out how can we make this as effective as fucking possible. One of the ways we knew is that we need to maximize how the person's central nervous We tried to hack the system and figure out, how can we make this as effective as fucking possible? And one of the ways we knew is we need to maximize how the person's central nervous system is controlling these exercises, because I know as an experienced lifter, so do you guys, that I can make a body weight squat very effective intrinsically.

Like I can myself make the body weight squat effective because I know how to generate some more tension. How do I teach that to somebody? And even more, how do I make a video teaching people how to do that? You can't see it, but these tension movements do that. That's why they're in there. There's just natural drop offs of force production.

Right, so that just happens. And to be able to understand that you can still generate force in certain parts of these lifts is very eye opening and that will carry with you going into, you know, barbell training or whatever types of movements that require even more of that control and that force output. Yeah, I tell you what, I'll challenge you, I'll challenge anybody listening right now. If you've been working out very consistently in the gym and you're somebody that doesn't take time off and you know that it's probably a good idea that you change things up for a little bit just to give your joints a little bit of a break. You know, give your body a little bit of a change of pace.

Try this. Enroll in the maps anywhere program and do it for 30 days. Give yourself four weeks where you don't go to the gym. Do the workouts at home, do them in the park. I don't care. Put a lot of effort in that intrinsic tension. Do the workout. Go back to the gym and Do the workouts at home, do them in the park. I don't care. Put a lot of effort in that intrinsic tension. Do the workout. Go back to the gym and lift weights and then write to me if you haven't improved in some way, shape, or form because you probably will. The change of pace alone will get your body to improve. But then doing a workout like this one where you're doing more closed chain movements, you're doing tension movements, you're doing the amp sessions. watch what happens to your body.

We didn't write this program again for just somebody to do once and never have to do again because now they have to progress to the gym. We did this as a program that can work for anybody and that can work again anywhere. The people that are going to have the hardest time using it or doing it are the ones that are so and the ones that will probably benefit the most from it. The ones that are so attached and married to lifting barbells and dumbbells only at the gym. And I can totally identify with that

because this is someone like me. And what it's really cool about following something like this is that I know the importance of tension, I know the importance of body weight movements. And so I used to try and incorporate them whenever I could in exercise, but I never had fallen a real routine that is written just around this. And so now I've been able to take this and I take the weeks out of it and again use it

like a de-loading process. And it's awesome because here I am de-loading on lifting heavy barbell and dumbbell type stuff, but then I'm also getting these benefits from the tension movements. So it doesn't ever feel like I'm regressing and then when I go back, I only go back feeling stronger and better into my routine. So if you can trust the process and do that, you're not going to lose a bunch of gains from it. You're not going to lose a bunch of size from it.

What you'll end up seeing is you'll probably come back to lifting if you're somebody who's already in the gym and this is out of the ordinary for you. You'll probably benefit greatly by taking a break from the gym for a little bit following a program like this and then coming back here. And then of course, don't forget, you know, people who travel for work or, you know, who can't get to the gym.

It's a great way to continue working out. This is my go to program when I'm on vacation. Yes, vacation. This is what I do. I do my maps in Anywhere type workouts. And I actually come back and I feel fantastic, of course, because I was on vacation, but also because I'm doing these phenomenal workouts.

And this is a bonus episode because we are only four days left for the half-off sale. So Maps Anywhere, redone, we've read the whole program, but it's also 50% off, and that promotion is ending in four days. So if you wanna take advantage, you go to mapswhite.com and use the code white50WHITE and the number 50 no space

for the 50% off discount at checkout. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle 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 blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family.

We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump.