The Importance of Trusting the Process

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Yeah They are they are the power lifts perfect by themselves I want to be clear. It's good to do lots of other things as well But if you get really strong on the squad deadlift and bench press and you have some good programming with other exercises, like you've got really good overall general Strength. You've got a lot of things covered there. Well it's the foundation of pretty much all pursuits. Yeah fitness. E athletic aesthetic, health, longevity Um, no matter what your pursuit is you get strong in those lifts, that lays a very solid foundation for whatever the thing you're going to pursue for the rest of your life or whatever you're going to move in and out of if you decide to change your mind through it. like laying this foundation is the best way to totally build the long term. Now when I train people, when I train clients always my goal was always generally to get them stronger Um But the lifts that I would oftentimes look at the most for strength gains We're the squat, the deadlift and the bench rest. And here's the interesting part. I didn't train power lifters. I actually never trained a powerlifter. I trained with power lifters, but most of my all of my clients We're regular people who just wanted to improve their fitness, get leaner, Build some muscle, have better mobility, better quality life And the payback, the return that I always saw, that my clients always saw with getting stronger generally, but specifically with the squad deadlift and the bench press was always phenomenal. In other words When they would get stronger at the squat, the deadlift and the bench press, there was just so much more carryover than when I would pick other big car exercises. Yeah, and it's one of those things too. like there's been controversy over the years. I follow like You know a lot ofrength conditioning coaches, some of them like deter their athletes away from these types of lifts, But at the end of the day, I always brought my clients to these lifts specifically for that foundational strength. They can maximize their effort, generating as much force as possible. There's really not a lot of exercises that you could hyperfocus and gain all the benefits from. Even the brilliant coaches that you're referring to, like the Mike Boyles and stuff like that that are like heavier on the Bulgarians and lunges and things like that I still would make an argument for laying a foundation in the squat first first. Absolutely. Right. Like I totally can get behind everything and his philosophy for training athletes and one of the longevity wise, yeah. one of the like it makes sense. Yeah, but they're also high level already. Yeah exactly. They've already built that foundation strength. So this is why it makes sense for me always. we start here. aggreed. one hundred percent agree. And I mean, even applied to my even older clients U in their sixties, seventies and even eighties, when I would get them and of course, I want to be clear Like all strength training exercises, you have to have really good technique. And these are technical exercises. Meaning they're higher on the skill required to do them properly than other exercises. So a good example would be like, There's a lot of skill required to perform a squat properly in comparison to like a curl, right? Not much skill involved with a curl. so you're probably going to do it right the third time you try it where the squat's going to take lots of time, lots of practice to really get good at it, which by the way, that skcale acquisition is one of the reasons why there's so much carryover to the rest of your life. But my older clients, like these were the lifts we would focus on when I could get them to be able to perform them U because oftentimes they couldn't do them at first, but we would get to the point where we could do them And it would just it was remarkable to see the difference in their lives from getting addding ten pounds to the squat or being able to deadlift off the ground versus just off the rack as an example. So ye let's start with the squat. Okay. So aside from doing more squats, so that's always the best way to get better at squats. So aside from doing more squats, there are squat variations that have a lot of carryover to the squat. and I'll start with the first one. And this one was popularized by strength athletes. It's the box squad. Was it Is this Louis Simmons, who's responsible for this? Is he I would say Westideonent of it I believe Westide they were the ones that really pop I mean, it I wasn't familiar with it until seeing like Westide Barbell type stuff. Before that, I don't remember too many people communicating or talking about it and then I feel like they popularized it for sure. Yeah So the box squat is a lot of times people do this wrong. A box squat is not putting a bench under your butt or a box under your butt. and tapping it and coming back up. o, That's not a boxquat Bx squat is you lower slowly, you actually sit down, end your momentum. You end the momentum, then you stand up. So you're actually sitting on the box for You know, a second and a half, two seconds, three seconds and then you stand back up.. Now why is that such a great way to improve your squat. It breaks up the eccentric from the concentric. So eccentric is lowering the weight cononcentric is lifting the weight, both two different types of muscle contractions That transition from one to the other can oftentimes make things more difficult for people or increase risk of injury. Why was a couple of reasons. One, chang in directions. Two, that slight change in directions temporarily makes the weight heavier So if I'm lowering with the one hundred and thirty five and I squat up the one hundred thirty five, that changing direction is actually because of the momentum A actually makes the weight more. Yeah, what is I've seen the formula before for the the physics breakdown on that. like it's it's significantly more like if it like depending on the speed Yeah squat. So if yeah, if you're dropping down in a lowering in a squat one hundred and fifty pounds like you're saying, like it's that moment of changing direction, your body is feeling like two or three times the weight. I don't remember what it was. Maybe Doug can lt that up like It depends on how fast you're moving the weight because that momentum makes they different lot more force on the joints to continue. It is. and I'll be straight up. Bx squats, I did Probably as often with my clients as traditional Barbell squats. Probably as often In fact, I will say this and there might be a little controversy around this. it's the one exercise I would say is interchangeable With a squat, meaning you want the benefits of a squat, You want to do a safer version of it? Yes. Lowered risk factor. Way lowered risk factor Now from a strength perspective, I'm going to say this right off the gates. like when I implemented box squats into my routine I added it was a big number. It was like thirty pounds to my Barel squat over time from doing the box walk. Just the ability to sit, pause, stay tight Come back up I saw immediate improvement in my traditional squat from doing that. Now, recommendation for height of a box Be that because the limiting factor of a box squat is the potential range of motion.. So if you take a standard kind of box that you see in the gym or like the West side Barbell squats that you see U very different than the range of motion that somebody who has a full range of motion for a squat can do. Well you want it exactly where you want to generate the most force from that bottom position. So wherever that range is for you specifically, like that you're trying to optimize Like I guess for some people, you know, you could go a little lower like you're you're trying for a full a fuller range of motion. you work on that with the same, you know, just lowered position with the box, but you know, for athletes, it's going to look different because they care about squad. They care about where you're generating the force primarily. I think that's why did I bring this up because I think it's an important conversation because if you just looked at like what Westide Barbell is doing They are They are training to compete in power lifting and they only have to hit parallel have to break parallel. Js justel Yeah justust slightly break parallel. So that's your target and come back up. So that's where they put the bx. so that's where they put the bx.'s right We recommend that people learn to take a fuller range of motion squat. And so if you already have the ability to say go six inches deeper than that bx, get a lower box. Get a lower bx. That's right Be an aerobic step I've used before with. And what's cool about what you're saying Adam is let's say you're working on your depth. Yeah. Let's say you could squat to parallel, but once you go below parallel, like my technique' a little off I feel my knees shift that just doesn't feel as comfortable You can get a box that's an inch or two lower than your normal squat. but because you're lowering it slowly sitting pausing and then standing up, but actually offers a safer alternative to challenging your range of motion. to your point about the what we're bringing up about changing direction. There's so much more force that is on the joints to change those directions. This is how I got my squat a lot lower than parallel than what I could do before was by getting a lower box, lightening the weight, going down slowly, sitting on it, pausing and then coming back up. Yeah. It actually trained me to be able to get a deeper range of motion. Then you have belt squats. I love belt squats. We didn't havet enough of them because toine. Yeah, exactly. There's not a lot of jym. Do you see more of them now But they were really uncommon. No, they're in every gym I've been in nowadays. Really? Yeah, every gym I go to now will have a belt squat. They're really popular. Wow. And you can buy attachments for your home gyms now. that they have like flywheel setups for. So a belt squat, it's a belt that goes around your waist with a cable that goes down and it's pulling you at your hips So if you have back issues, core stability issues, or you want to just Train your squat more but not overload your spine and your back. Um you can add in belt squats because a traditional barbo squat, I mean yeah, it's a lower body exercise but's really a full body exercise, especially when you're you' got that weight on your back. But use a belt squat and it's all at the lower body. This is also great for working on range of motion. A belt squat will pull you down into a perfect squat And that's one of my favorite ways. I love the ones that have like kind of the bar in front of you so you can hold assist the bar to keep your chest upright and then slowly. If I had access to a belt squat with my clients, this would have been my primary way of helping them Yeah we I never had it in any of the gyms I trained in. I don't even I didn't know if they even existed. They did. They've been around for a long time. They just were they weren't popular. Yeah. You just didn't I never saw one in like physical therapy Clint. our lifters have had access to it for a long time. I never saw a beltts. They just they were such a big machine. It was such a big machine that you got to have the space in the gym to do it and then justify it like, okay, well people use this. And so I think that's what why? And I imagine they were probably pretty expensive when they first came out U But I didn't realize that you've seen that many. I still don't every gym I go to now. But I'm also not in I'm rarely in commercial gymsm so I'm not throwing. And I mean, I went to one that's got like a lot of strength training equment then I go to the other one that's more of the country cllub. They have a Bllt squad as well. Wow. Yeah. ye Then we have the front squat, which I will wr I'll say it right here Super underutilized. Okaykay. Oh ye. The front squat is the barbell squat of twenty years ago. Like twenty years ago, nobody Barbell squated. Today, I never see I was to program that in. I was gonna say the front squat is the incline bench press, the bench press It's just it's so complimentary Yeah It's such a great movement that nobody wants to do because you're so much weaker than the traditional. That's true. It's like like nobody wants to do inclineed bench press.comfortable. Yeah because you're so much better at flat bench and you can put more weight up so you neglect inclinine bench press, yet it's so good for developing your chest and getting a strong bench press I think the front squat is so good for developing your legs and so good for getting better at your back squat, But because you're so much weaker at your front squat, you never do it just do back squat. I feel like it's so similar. It it forces you be more upright, a little bit more quad focus. It's very compleimentary to a back squat. a lot of core strength. If you're stuck at your back squat for a long time, I mean you could swap it out for front squats for like a month, go back to back squats and then watch what ends up happening. You'll see why I went on a kick. I remember this when I Aain also, like everybody, neglected the front squad and like I was with the incline Benerest. I'm like, I'm going to try and get my front squad up to my back squad. And I never passed what my my max, but I got my front squad over three hundred fifteen, which was a lot for me because I think I started at like one hundred thirty five. I had to start really low Boy going back to my back squat after I could front squat three hundred fifteen. L I had never felt so comfortable with four hundred five on my back as I did after getting strong on my front squat life. same here. Well I noticed it even really helped a lot my overhead press because of just holding the weight and then you know, really getting comfortable in that racked position Pus it's such a transitionary move. So it's like anything you want to do for Olympic lifting, like we have to get solid with front squats. Then you have the split stance squat. This looks like a lunch, but essentially you're splitting your stance in a lunch position. you just go up and down before you switch your stance. But it places a different torsion on the pelvis and the core. And if you never do these, you will be shocked at how weak you are in comparison to your squat This is how you know. This is how you know you need to do these. You could squat three fifteen suddenly get a split sance like one hundred five. I still I still I still have a vivid memory of the like first day of training Bulgarian split squads And And I remember and I remember like seeing actually a girl in the gym doing it.ember like And I know and like I know logically the benefits of it. I'm like, I need to train that. I never trained that. And I remember going to do it. And I remember I couldn't hold on the dumbbells heavier than what she was holding ono. And I remember I was just roasting was like, oh my God, I'm so weak here And then of course, right after that experience avoided it for a really long time embarrassed that I was so weak in it. And then again later on coming back being like I'm setting a goal. I'm going to get strong at that. talk about again carrying over to your squat to the whole point in this conversation. man, when I got to the point when I could Bulgarian Sit squad some serious weight, getting back over to the Barbell back squat, holy crap. I felt so The reinforcement of control stability, like what that provides your hips when you go back to you know bilateral Oh my go was it was phenomenal. And it yeah, it was very humbling, very humbling exercise to just jump into that after being good at squatting. But I actually yeah, it took me a while but then I finally really like intentionally tried to get stronger in that and then started using like a barbell with it Yes and it's like, oh my God My potential for squat went crazy. and the and I know this that's not the point of this conversation, but the leg development and glute development I got from that Of course the instability of being in a split stance like that and getting really strong with all those stabilizer muscles having to come up. I mean, that's what contributes obviously to the bilateral squatting, which is the point of conversation suuper for somebody who was aesthetically motivated like I was, man, I had incredible leg development by focusing over on that. Totally. All right, let's get the deadlift and I'll start with the trp bar deadlift I think the Tat bar deadlift is exceptional. I think it's a wonderful suppupplement and or replacement. So deadlifts with a straight bar, great. love them Practice them get good at them. R't hate them. But if you're really if you're really If you're really afraid of the deadlift. If you're like, man, my skill around it, I'm not sure. like a trap bar The skill required to do a proper trap bar deadlift is much less than a traditional Barbell deadlift. And there is some carryover. It is a different lift and I know some people argue difference but I'll tell you what, it'sifting something off the ground while you're holding it. The weight is more to the side of your body on either side. So it's a little bit less of the hip pinge, but it's still a hip pinging lift athletically speaking, athletes do more trap bar deadlifts than they do traditional deadlifts. Well I mean I can I can get behind the ripit toe type of camp from that just the conventional deadlift covers all that endome unless you're an athlete because then I can see the carry over that. I used the truth is with clients, I use the trap bar far more than I used usevict live So it's like The reality is, even though I can agree with someone like Riitu that the conventional deadlift is the king and the place we want to get to, the reality is The average person who comes into the gym that hired me as a coach We couldn't get there without Trapar deeleing first And so there's tremendous benefit for for sure, the beginner. And then to your point If you're somebody who's been stuck at, let's say a four hundred deadlift for a very long time you might get comfortable with being able to do a trap bar at like four fifty five hundred and then go back over to I see care. And so There is but there is there is benefit there. So I don't think it's one of those things where it's just like, it's a oh, it's terrible. It's horri. You shouldn't do it. There's useless. No, there's lots of application for it. I still think conventional deadlift is the keing, But if you're stuck in a plateau and you can't break through that tootally and you're scared to feel what five hundred pounds withth, it's like go over there and trap our deadlift that and you'll be to do that one hundred percent Th then we have Zcher Squats. urcher S squats is kind of a front loaded Squat. I know it's helping you the deadlift that says squat But it's kind of a in between exercise. You have a short lever in front of you because it's on your elbows You're squatting down, there's some hip pinging involved. U And I've noticed with myself and with people I've trained that this has a nice carryover actually more carryover to a deadlift than a squat. Yeah, is urtra squat. I think it really highlights the importance of like your core involving one hundred percent. Yeah with the hundred percent lift and the hinge. like it really just lights up your core. So you went this direction I was going to go with the huge benefits that I got from this was the core was bracing Such a big piece of both getting a stronger squat and deadlift is learning how to brace to really well totally. If you get in order to get strong in a zircher, you have to brace your core. J to do one. J. Yeah. it forces you to do that. And so as you progress and get stronger at a zurcher, you get really good at bracing. Then you go over back to a deadlift or a squad and you really learn how to lock in that core And all of a sudden you see your weight go up in that squad that deadl h this was the big notice that I got from the arch res because I think the average person will scratch their head. Even the average trainer that understands biomechanics will be like, how is that really helping that much that you can't even load that much not. But the amount that you have to learn how to brace and because it still is a hinge pattern, it's like the carryover is actually far better than you would imagine And then we got a couple movements that really help prevent injury. The suitcase carries is the first one. So suitcase carry, got a heavy dumbbell at one side. I'm walking Nice, good tight controlled form. and I like I said,'s just a heavy dumbell on one side. What it's doing is it's strengthening the opposite side QL muscle and the lateral stabilizing muscles of the other side. So why is that important Well, when you're deadlifting, especially when you get really strong You get really strong moving in one direction. Those lateral stabilizers, although they're active can fall behind. And this is where you often see back injuries. One of the more common back injuries with the deadlift is not because of a herniated disc or something like that. It's because a QL got pulled. Yeah. shhifting weight. Yes. It's like the weight came up and it came up a little faster on one side. It was a little twist. boom, QL gets hurt. And what that feels like is a lot of low back pain on one side. I love that you brought this up for bulletproofing that because it's it is one I actually got injured from that you know, deadlifting and it became one of my staples And too, that just the walking patterns with weight, I think really like highlights and emphasizes a lot of those like opposing forces pull left pulling you into rotation, you know, and to be able to stay fixed concentrated and get your body to really respond just in that vertical line, I think it really tests that. one hundred percent. then we have reverse hyper. Reeverse hypers were popularized, I think, by Westide Barbell again very interesting movement and you look at it and you go, how does this help me Dead lift. It bulletproofs your low back. lower back. It really does Blletproof more than a traditional hyper extension. Reverse hypers is where you're lifting your legs up. and I don't even need a lot of weight to do this. And what I notice with this when I do these is it's hard to get my lumbar spine to move through because it wants to stay tight. And so it just improves my lower back Mbility and I've seen recently carry over to my deadlt. Yeah. that's another one. Youve see the more like you don't see them in a lot of gyms. Crossfit gyms have them. Yeah, but you don't seeem in a lot of The two gyms I go to have them Why you going if think J Yeah. I don't know think Jeess will have them. but I think, you know, as you know, just side note As strength training becomes more common in mainstream, you're seeing more Strength like really good strength training. Machines in gyms. And I just think like squat racks for example, now squat racks are in every gym whereas they weren', you know twenty years ago. It's kind of it's I mean, it's an interesting point. I mean the fact that a reverse hyper and a belt squat are in Tw of the commercial gyms that you go to is such and and that we've all we've talked for a long time, like what we've seen the transition in the you know, squat rack and the deadlift platforms like that's been insane. Like to see reverse hipers and belt squats and gyms K kind of a cool time. Well, you see bumper plates, you see you know squat racks, you're seeing people do all these lifts that normally you hip thrust machines too, which everywhere. Yeah, I never saw that before. So kind of cool. Yeah yeah. All right, let's get to the bench press. So here's an exercise that will give you some carryover that. I don't see a lot of people doing, especially not with weight Aed, which is dips. You can get really strong with dips everybody. If you practice dipbs, you can get really let me tell you, you get really strong dipbs, Your bench press will go up for sure. And I almost never see anybody doing weighted dips. I'll see people doing dips. I don't see people challenging range of motion on dips often D deffinitely don't see people I love deep range of motion and even isometric contraction down at the bottom, you know, a pause rep to really You emphasize that, but yeah, so much carryover to that when you go back to the bench press in terms of escially at the bottom. Yeah, the bottom, bottom position power that you can now. That's how I start them. I always start them with an isometric. So it's just a great way for me to prime and kind of warm up before I even get into. I get in that as deep as I possible shoulders Yeah and then just do a couple isometrics in that position. That's kind of like my first set. and then I'll get into like loading it and going It's a great way to start those. And man, get it teaches you how to dig out of a bench press. O one of the sticking points on being able to increase your bench press is obviously the dig getting it out of the bottom out of the bottom position and it's kind of like deficit deads, right for deadlifts. It's like that ability to get deep out of it like that and get strong in that position. And you're right. It's not one of those movements you see a lot of people grabbing the belt chain and loading it. It's normally something you see body weight reps and rarely as deep as they can go Get deep and doing single double triples loaded on that Well, you want to see your bench press what that'll do totally. And then we have the inccline press, which you know, people typically treat this as like a You know, kind of a secondary lift, but one thing that I did and I know lots of people have done, is so they kind of abandoned the bench press for a little while and just saw how strong they can get on the incline Th thenen they went back to bench press. And suddenly they were able to bench press more weight. And because people treat the inclineed press as kind of a secondary exercise A lot of people don't realize their full potential in the incclAamp press, but I'll tell you this much right now Fus on the incline, makeake that your primary pressing movement, getet really strong at it. There's carry over to the bench press. For sure. And then we'll get to a couple of things you can add to all these things, bands and chains This just adds what's called progressive resistance. bands added to the bar. makes the weight heavier where you're strongest and it lighter where you're weakest So when I'm bench pressing with bands out of the bar It's lightest at the bottom. As I push up and the band stretches, it's heaviest at the top. Well I just so happen to be strongest at the top So now I'm training my strength curve Chains do the same thing. As I lower the weight, chains hit the ground, it's lighter as I lift Chains come up This is a power lifting But the carryover for people wanting to build muscle, strength, who just want to look better. like I love using bands and chains. I love using and alleviating a lot of that needless stress around the joints too. It's kind of nice to apply that technique and you know really focus on some like either the lockout or digging yourself out of the hole. And I know we've talked about this before But you just described how the strength curve is the same on the two things, but they feel different. Yeah. So they're both different tools Fandans versus chains. Yeah. even even though they they this they match the strength curve, right of Very different. They feel different doing it. And so chains take more out of you. There's a there's a value to you doing both of these both of these to help you with this. just a's they're a great tool And I'd say most gyms have the ability to set up chains or bands and bands are easy to carry them with you. Chains are a little bit more ridiculous to carry in your gym. Bands are easy.. If You walk into am with your chains, your're hardcore. is neck. is like a junk dog. Yeah the reststl carred dog. That actually would be like a funny reel to do you say come and show up and You mister T, d Bring it back. I used to use chains on dips. I used to. They were just bring some big old gold chains in throw. It's so awesome It' be a move. Justin, you look nice and tan, which is weird. You doice gl you notice. You do. You look like gray. You what I'm saying? This L little bit of a mom. You do look tan. No you went you worked it outside You were down in Palm Sring oralm Emore freckles. And usually you come back Snburn Usually. But you came back ten. What are you doing? Yeahes. so well, I'm trying this out. L my sister in law, like we used to fourth of July we would go to like CQord'lane and they're just as fair skinned as us. And so it was like They're out on the boat like all summer and you know, some of their kids are like very fair skinned, but They weren't putting on sunbock. we're like passing around like, nah, we're good. we don't have any sunblock And she's telling us about Astocanthin. is this they've been taking the supplement? U to help Which I don't even know how to describe this. like So don't rely on me for that I feel like I've heard you sow bring it up before I don't know in certain seafood.' It's a pill. Oh, you know what? it's from Flamingos. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. algae is another way they get it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the flamingos eat it. No, no, no, look up As this Ananth and Sunburn's dog Ag. So you can if you Justin is it a powder a pill that you're taking? It's a pill. Yeah It's a precursor to vitamin A, right? Is that what that is? It's an antioxidant internal sunscreen. Yeah, dude, you take it before, during and after You're in the sun Yeah. and like your sk is your skin is way more resilient to the UV rays. Yeah. did I know that. I was like, I don't know. it's a risk. you know, like with me because it's like I'm going to leave and if I don't put anything on, like usually I'll get to the point where it's going to blister if I have like that much exposure Uh, but I was like, you know, around the pool and I kind of started taking it a week before we went to Palm Desert. And I was like, okay, I got a little bit red, you know, and it was hot, but then I kind of went back, you know, inside and I was fine the next day. And so then we spent a lot more time like at this water park and like all day long. you know, you're at a water park. there's no shade, like it was Hstant, I didn't have anything on. I was nervous, dude. And I came out I was like hot and red and then like once we I cooled down, I was like fine. and there was no It wasn't even like you could like I didn't have any like like heat that night. Normally like even my my skin would be hot when I'm trying to sleep So yeah, it it was wild. It's so weird. Interesting. Whenever I hear Justin talk about like him and his kids and wife and the st you guys don't have to worry about. I've I've never thought of that. It's never been a thought for me. when I go on in the sun like, o crap Yeah. I'm gonna sumber. Yeah if I put sunscreen on, it's day one for a little bit, one time Yeah. And the rest of the time there, never in my life, do am I worried about? I'm always looking for alternatives though because I hate it. There's so many chemicals and just You know, and it's the whole process and Yeah, I'm always jealous because like guysy like he it'll go and no big deal. I'm just like, you know, that dad' put on my toose and they place I missed, you know, L told Dork. Its o, you have great calves. Yeah. So I mean there' I I've tried the skin complexion for the calves you know. Yeah. So yeah, dude, I mean it was nice. L I was like, oh, this might be a thing. you know, I'm gonna try it again and see if it So Doug had it pulled up. so it says ideally you you load it for a couple of weeks. You do it for like a week before Yeah a week or so. so it's something I'm assuming it's healthy for you to take on a regular basis. Yeah, it's good for to take anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're reading up on it. and it so in Courtney's kind of like particular about sourcing and so you found a good like mom and pop kind of place that does it, you know, in house and so we're like, okay, we'll try this Um, but yeah, I mean, I Now it's like, you know, the whole dryness and all that. I'm like, Ohh, maybe I gott to keep it if like, you know, if I'm getting darker are you doing the hyay the Calderab hydrolay to keep you all Yeah. Yeah, all the moisturizer, all the serum on my face and like mainly my face because like You know, like I'd never keep a tan on my face. I use I use their u sunscreen on Max So it'sty it's thirty SPF and it's that's all chemical stuff. It's not chemical. it's all natural. so that's I use that for him. Yeah, that's a great option. So yeah, they have they have a great because it's hard to find these sunscreens that don't have all the shit in it. know dude. And that was like one of the biggest fights with Katrina and I was because she's as soon as Max would go outside, she'd like lau him like, let him. Be out for at least fifteen, twenty minutes there and get a little bit of a base and then I'm okay with you put on him, but you go lather him up with this chemical shit right away before he goes out there. and so that's why we switched over to that. And I know it's like a kind of a small ball. I don't care. That's what I use on him. and it's thirty, so it's and it's all natural. So that's a way to go. I have a friend of mine so I'm training my buddy and we've been working out together now for about I don't know to fight Five or six weeks, and it's so funny. He's like he comes over you know to work out, train him in my garage He's like, hey he's like does that caldera lab stuff really work I start laughing and I'm like did you one of my commercials? He's like, Yeah, I did. And I'm like, it really dude, it really works. We had this whole conversation about it. and he's like I've never really used anything a guy, right? So never really use anything And then he gave me a compliment. He's like, your skin looks really good. I thought maybe it's because you were Sicilian. I said, Well, I also use their stuff, but it really does. In fact, Doug, show me the so I was looking at this earlier at some of the ingredients to oh, by the way, hydrolayer one. Best moisturizer in men's Health and Esquire. Oh yeah. They got first place in both of them. Yeah, they're killing it. Yeah. and they they have compounds in their hydrolayer that holds up to five thousand times its weight in water. So it attractset So there are two as far as like keeping you hydrated. That your skin hydrated? Y. So five thousand times itss weight in water. It's polygltamic acid and hyalonic acid So those are two primary ingredients in their hydrolayer. So it keeps your skin So basically basically you rub it in and it gets absorbed in your skin and then it holds the water. That's right. Almost like what creatine does in the muscles. M yeah. kindinda. interestnteresting. Yeah kindinda.nteresting. It's got exosomes in there. They're patent pending too, twenty times more active in the skin. so yeah, So I was telling all the stuff. He's a doctor so he likes science. so we're gonna go there and him out. Yeah now he's gonna use it st, which is kind of cool. What did everybody do on the memorial? I mean, I know I was laid up sick and did absolutely nothing. So you went down drove down. Yeah. Yeahah, it's a long drive, man. it's funny because every time we drove. Yeah, every time we do now' Chis dude flights Right now' so dumb and it's like, dude, it takes forever to get through security and like there's delays and like all over the place. I don't know if you guys know this. like you've obviously like why are there delays everywhere? I don't know. It's just it's like because all they had all the all the witm call all the protesting and stuff. Yeah with the again, we went through that whole thing with What are they what are they called that work there? Okay? Oh, the TSA. TSA. They don' TSA protesting. prrotesting or strikings. Whatever. That's stririke Striking This web meat strike. Yeah. same same thing they went through that whole process again You didn't know that just happen again? No. Yeah, that happened again. So there was so yeah. We were avoiding all that. Yeah. So we just we drove for twelve hours. Basically it's up hours, dude, but how feels like Is eight hours? Yeah. Oh, that's a long drive. Yeah, well, I mean, we cut it to like seven five' like my limit Yeah. We took ways, like Ways has taken us on so many I've gone like, I want to say at least six different ways down there now Like and it all through like central Valley desert and like all that like, So it's been it's been weird, you know, like finding all these new paths to get there. But yeah, we we went down there and then just just hung out and I actually took the boys to the gym And I think I might have brought this up on another podcast, but yeah, we got to work out. So I got them That was like my first time of having like a real in gym session with them two times and it was aw. Did you guys go up there the whole time? O did you guys get were you here for a few days? and went down? We were here for a couple days and then we left because we we're in the process of like trying to sell my house. We're kind of in and out with like people coming to show the place and then wanted to look at it. We got to Hurry up and leave, grab the dogs and everything and it's been kind of stressful, but it's have you transferred a bunch of stuff to the other house yet? You have. Oh, you already have moved some stuff. Lots of stuff there, yeah.. It's really just like the stuff we have on display for show. you know, a few clothing items. I'm like literally rotating like, I don't know, maybe like ten or twelve different outfits. Yeah I'm like is other house done enough for you like to have your master bedroom and be able to put some there O like it's got walls. It We got lighting upstairs now, which is great. Okay. I've not seen any updates. haven't sh it a lot. You haven't shared any updates with us, like I haven't seen any updates. It's I mean Like we're getting there. L it's like it's not like your car because I I know it exists. I've seen it. I've seen it. I've there I've been there. sorry I know it's forrove my carce so I know that it does exist which this is great. Once I finally get it, I'm gonna reveal it, everybody's going to be like, well, you have this You actually had it for a long time It's going on like Almost two years. Two years. Almost, yeah. That sucks. Probably not gonna be a recommendation. for everybody else. You know, it's like it's so tough because everybody I know, everybody I have that's done a build, it's just it's forever. Yeah. It's just part of the process. Classic cars. Yeah. It is one of those things where I was like very I mean, I'm not say I'm naive, but like I knew it was going to take a while, but not this long. I didn't two years come on. Yeah. like what But then again, it's It's tough because like too, I know the guy and like He's downsized. He had like a wholeopeull staff working for him. Now he's just just him. likeike the last year has been just him. And so it's like, you know, I'm like What's crazy you chose to build a classic car and build a house at the same time? That was not intentional, dude at all. J aough stress. Yeah. I really do. L I'm like I'm not, you know, I don't like chewing.'s like, I don't have enough stress to. I should buy a b add some. You should buy a puppy and have a kid. Yeah Another puppy two We al got two cats like in the mix. like Courtney snuck those ones in What Well, yeah, I to Yeah. I mean, they've been rad because they're actually productive and they kill things Uh, so I'm cool with them But and they're pretty low maintenance, butid you just keep your chickens or did you bail on the chickens? We bailed on them. We actually gave them to one of our friends, didn't eat them. started. Yes, she started one. They're good egg producers, so you know, they're happy to take them. Dude, I got I got I got a chart I want to talk to you guys about switch directions a little bit. I just read this today. It was a study on young adults. So twenty two to thirty five year olds They their happiness has dropped significantly All of them. You guys ready to hear this? It pretty wild. So in this is this chart this Study starts in nineteen eighty and it goes all the way to a little bit past twenty twenty So young adults were eighty three percent of them in nineteen eighty said they were pretty or very happy. Today it's sixty eight percent. But there's one segment. so that's a huge drop from eighty three to sixty eight percent But there's one segment of young adults whose happiness has barely changed or not changed at all Married inng adults So the young adults were single Their happiness plummeted. All the married ones, same. ninety one percent, nineteen eighty,, ninety percent You're so pro young man. Yeah Well well, it's se marriage. This is data. This is data. theseese are a twenty two to thirty five data of what they report, right I mean, how many how many married guys are sitting next to their wife and he go like, Are you happy? Yeah, I'm happy. You happy too? Yeah, Market She's over your shoulder. like this. She's looking at like this like. Yeah, yeah, I'm happy. They're real happy. Just so you know just see how these surveys aren done together. They're done. Okay. you don't think she goes like this. How didd you answer? Yeah. How did you answer? I'll tell you what, theres there's no change since nineteen eighty. Wh other one happy? The other one plummeted. I mean, listen, this is good to bring up. And these are twenty two to thirty five year olds now. this isn't like nineteen year olds But's what's what's the divorce rate between people that get married between the ages of twenty and twenty five versus twenty five twenty thir twenty two and thirty thirty five. No, no. what I'm saying is I'm not talking about that that's one study. I'm say I'd like to see what's the report say on people who get married between the ages of, say eighteen to twenty three and then twenty three to twenty seven and then thir I don't know But if you but the older you get married, the divorce rate goes up typically, but that's typically because it's second and third marriages So when you look at people who get Yeah, I like see first marriages between all those ages and what what the divorce rate is like. I don't know. That would be interesting to me to see teeen marriages are extremely high risk with nearly forty eight percent. So the ideal zone is twenty five to twenty nine. where the divorce rate is the lowest is the lowest your sweet. This isistically one of the most stable brackets boasting a divorce risk of only ten percent ages thirty the thirty four now Yeah Yeah. So as you get older, it gets hot, it gets worse. No, ten percent. The odds of divorce actually increased by roughly five percent for each additional year you wait This is age thirty two and older. That's thirty two and older. betweenetween thirty and thirty four statistically is the best time. Yes. but twenty two twenty five to twenty nine is also is also very good. Anyway, my point is twenty three twenty. My point is. that the data from twenty two to thirty five year olds, there's a huge discrepancy fromom married and not married. huge. Why is this such a big deal becausecause everything would have you believe otherwise. They would have you believe the happiest people in that age group are not married. Not true And this is data. This is my opinion. I'm pulling up it' kind of your opinion. I mean, it's not I mean, you're using that to make your your opinion. It's like just they report letter because they report that. I mean, there's so many other variables that could be going on there. J's not like it's not. I mean they can make up things that you think because then you just because when you read when you read that when you read those right there, then if they're not getting divorced, their divorce rates' the lowest at thirty to thirty four. This goes from twenty two to thirty five years. So that falls within this. Right. So again, that that the the better age could be, say thirty, thirty four and it's not really getting married at twenty two, twenty. My point to your T counter your point is I'm not pro getting married between twenty and twenty three years old And you're so pro getting young and it comes off that way when you say that. So I'm coming back the other direction being like, okay, I understand that married people are happy. And I agree that we've sold this dream of or we've told people that, oh, be single, make all this money, bang lots of girls and the Peter Pan syyndrome. and I don't agree with that. But I also think that People getting married at a really young age is not always a good idea. Yeah, I'm not saying that I'm just saying Well it can come off that way when read it when you read what you I'm reading exactly what the data says, which is that the happiness rate from twenty two to thirty five year olds has plummeted Among those who are unmarried. R. Whereas those who are married have stayed the same. Yeah, whichich would account for even divorce and all that stuff, which is what you're looking for. I know But when you report a study like that and you give a range like that, it could be interpreted to somebody who's twenty one years old that, hey, it's a good idea for me to get married. Do You you know how many people or how many women who are childless are childless and it was not intentional You can look that up significant percent becausecause there that is and I agree with that. I mean So when you look at so when you think of it this way, okay, especially if you're a woman and youre looking at this, you know I'm gonna witil I'm thirty Uh Now you're thirty three, like, I got to get married and have a kid right away. Yeah and the odds that you're going to remain. I think I think I think the conversation is different for men and women in my opinion So I would encourage a woman to get married a older age. I would encourage a man to get married at an older age I think a twenty five year old woman is totally different maturity wise than a twenty five year old boy. Yes, you want to know what's interesting about that? Young men plac getting married today, which is really weird. It was never like this before Young men place marriage and having children higher Yeah than women do theseays. Yeah. And I think that's because of the stupid narrative that we've pushed on women for. That's my last. Yeah. And I agree with that. But again, that's say, I think that women are far more mature at middle twenties than men are. And so I think in an ideal world, it's like Guys are waiting tntil they're closer to thirty especially probably around twenty five. Yeah, especially when you look at the age difference when people get married, it typically is like two to three years. Yeah. So a guy will typically be two to three years older But again I think that there's I know there's in this narrative, which is Don't even think about it until you're in your thirties And just enjoy your life. And here's what's happening. They're not enjoying their life. Yeah. They'reess happy. Yeah. They're far less happy. I think the commentary that I want to bring that conversation is because I don't want to happen what I feel like we always do a society, which is swing from one extreme to the otherreme. Oh don't married. go this way. Oh, get married right away. It's like there's actually somewhere there's some logic. Do you think people were less happy when it was in the other direction becausecause it was in the past When they were really young. Yeah. Do you think they were less happy forty years ago? When the narrative was get married early and have kids. No, I know they weren't. I mean you're bringing up the studies that prove the opposite of That's right. But I also think that thirty, forty years ago, there were a lot of the things. thirty years ago, a family, a sing a family could have one person working and they could survive in a single home. We talk about this. The data on that's not true Well, they're because we have lived in bigger houses and things like that Well well below Yeah. I'll tell you what right, I had this conversation with my cousins. They're like, oh, no, no, my grandfather. He was able to buy a house and support. and I'm like, okay Let's do apples to apples. Yeah. He didn't have internet, so cut that cost out. Yeah. He didn't he only had one car, so cut the other one out. He didn't have TVs, so cut that out. He didn't eat out, so cut that out. He didn't buy clothes all the time.. So if we actually do apples to apples, sureure,' that's a logical argument. Problem is perception is reality.. And in this young generation receives right It this way. so That's whys I don't disagree with the logic that you make, but the average person who's twenty years old doesn't see it that way. And if that's their perception, that's the reality, which then will cause him to be depressed, sad and Yes. I can't afford both me and my wife have to work No one hundred percent That's why it's important to talk about. And there are many places. I know, we don't live in one of these places. where we live is one of the most expensive in the world. But there are many places in America which' very affordable. Yeah. And a lot of the issue, L I have family members or friends, I have friends like this who Both cou, you know both husband and wife work, they work like crazy. And it's like if you just moved You're so stressed out. you're both working crazy hours. Your kid is going to daycare If you just moved, you'd be okay.'re like, I don't want to leave the area That's like there are options. Yeah definitely options. No, I think there I think there is I think I think great advice is for a young man to build himself, grow, learn, educate, build skills. Get mature Wait till you're twenty five to twenty eight And then you find a girl who's three years younger than you and you live somewhere in the middle of the country and you absolutely be disciplined and happy al right? even you can be confident. I'll even add to that.pecially if you're in that age group, I think you should date to marry. Not because I'm just I need to get married, but yeah with an objective, likeike, Hey, I'm gonna date but I'm going to date because I'm looking for somebody I want to be with, not just some, you know, whatever And it's the opposite. and people are less happy. peopleeople are way less happy living that life. And when I saw that data, first of all, I expected everybody to be less happy because that's where you keep seeing the data. Yeah. But people who are married, stayed the same. Well I I believe the dating process is part of what I when I when I allude to, you should grow, learn and I mean, that's part of that. Like the best experience for dating for me in my twenties was not like, just because I was trying to have fun. it was like, I was learning about myself Like that would like that whole process was, I mean, when I when you're, I mean, and this is why I'm not a fan of a twenty one or twenty two year old young man getting married is because At twenty two, you think you know what you want And most men don't By the time you're thirty, you get a little bit better idea of what you want. probablyroably thirty five, you real realize, oh shit This is what I value. know, it is what I want. You know think that's, you know, it's interesting. I was just at a wedding. young couple. They're in their I want to say early to mid twenties It was the most Christian marriage wedding I' ever been at. So I'd never been at a wedding that was that like both but the support and the families that they had around them and how they talked about Marriage at the wedding I was like, man, they have such a high odds of success because They're going to definitely change. There's going to be challenges. Of course. if you're with someone long enough,'s going be massive challenges But they have all these people around them The way they were communicating marriage was incredible.. And they have all their parents around them and grandparents and this culture And I think that's another big part of it. I think a lot of us don't grow up that's a huge part of it. I mean and also a great ar. Can imagine having people to talk to that you know Well even even just having mean, it's unfortunate but we don't have a lot of people don't have don't come from a family. That's all you like. Having an example of a mother and father that stuck together and did it and work through things and uncles and aunts that did it and like You know, if you had this big family that you could. I just imagine like them having str I was watching this and I was thinking about this like imagine haveving big challenges and he goes to his buddies who also are in this kind of culture. His buddies are not going to say, Dude, just leave her They're going to say things like, man, you got to stick it, Let's work it out. Let's figure out. Let's get you guys together. We're all going And when you look at successful families and marriages, they have a lot of that But a lot of people don't grow up in that like you said, which makes it very, very different. Yeah, No, agreed. agreed. I mean, that's all part of the growing process though. It's just wild to me when you look at when you start to look at the data, obbjectively speaking We should be happier today by the things that we tend to measure, which is material success access to health care Um, you know, education andh, freedom And we have more of those things, but so many people are less happy. There's something missing. Oh, I mean, I think it's one of the greatest analogies to that or examples is when you talk about like what kings and queens had. Yeah I mean, like somebody who is in like Poverty has more luxury. I know than somebody and yet they this I mean, so think about that for a second. like that's Wild That's like and that wasn't that long ago. We're not talkking about like you're only talking about a couple hundredrier pigeons and we have, you know, faking like door dash so. Oh, it's ye. Yeah, no, it's it's I mean, I catch myself I got a sw throw. I was probably gonna die. Yeah. man. man. He's gonna die.. Yeah. Well I mean the convenience that we have in everything and convenience and luxury in our daily lives is wild just comparedative to, say twenty, thirty years ago It's and so we you're right. We have and it's only accelerating with three D printing and AI robots to come do everything for you like I mean, it's we're only going to have more And the irony of that is we're only going to get more depressed and sad and lonely and all those things because we keep creates meaning and you know, eliminating it. It's crazy. I speaking some more good news for young people. Dude, this is crazy. And I'm not going to say The elephant in the room, but I know you guys are going to think the same thing So there was there there's some st some data coming out showing and I'll pull it up here showing how strokes So the instance of strokes is spiking in young people So doctors are now seeing People in their twenties thirties and fories elephant are getting suddenly they're seeing a spike in these young patients getting strokes and they're confused as to what. sibly was a couple years back before we like go back at time. Dude, I keep seeing like data like this in the comments underneath, everybody posts a little emoji of of a shot little shot. Really? Dude, dude, it's of course we're gonna to inevitably hit this reality and face this reality, you know, of what We all went through it end dirred. and it's like, it's hard because you just can't talk about it, you know, likeike we can't talk about like this might have had an impact. I know. Well, you know, you meanwhile, we're trying again, right? What's what's the one going around right now? it's already dying No What was that called Ha Hantawire? Yeah, Hanta vire Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they that felt like they kind of rolled it out. Like let's see if we can do a part two though And just like every part two no flopped It's just like, o, didn't No evidence like in terms of benefit, you know, it's just If you go back and look at benefit versus, you know, us like saving people, like I would love to see like real statistics like. It's wild though to see people old It's not good. It's not good. It's like overwhelmingly not good. Yeah. Yeah, dude. And then that one, there's that one tick disease that's exploded over a thousand percent. They're now starting to investigate as bioterrorism. I brought that up and I was like,h this is like freaking super conspiratorial, but you know Would you called gal something? like you get bit by this tick and they to eat you cant eat red meat. can't eatdat Yeah, what's it called What kind of enzyme that it I mean, what's the u what it what's the, um the stats on people that It's called alpha gal centres that are allerg Allerg. Yeah, what's what's allergy increase to red meat in the last decade? Do we know? Oh, a lot. Is it a lot? Yeah because of alpha gal mainly.pha So so it's gone up a thousand percent recently. Wh thousand percent. No. Yeah, Doug, look up Nth Gal. Well there's like there's like a heat map over the US of like where they're they're they're getting reports of that incre. Pretty alarming. Yeahah. Look at this scroll down Doug because you can see the last there's massive spikes in positive test results. for alpha gl antibodies over the last decade. But I read in an article that was something like a thousand percent increase So it's like suddenly exploded lot of the That's crazy numbers. Yeah So they're there's they're they're now trying to potentially look at it as a u bioterroris Yeah, like maybe hip. mayaybe someone did that Yeah there go alphagel on the rise, the alarming growth Oh there you go Three thousand percent. Adults, twenty five to forty nine had increased sixteen thousand percent. That doesn't sound like a natural occurrence. Three thousand percent. So weird, right? Well, so weird what states most common? It's not coming hasn't been in California yet, right? No Do doesn't need to. It' already doesn't m This is the lowest st start tick I don't know if this is start in Texas or like like the Midwest the south all the meet or T conmedily Yeah Convenily hit in the south first. be I'm gonna be going to Yellowstone. you need to be careful Not really on When you go to Yellowstone? When we're all taking that time. Oh, that's where you're going. Yeah. Iving fun. Are Are you staying in Yellowstone the whole time? We're gonna stay like thirty minutes outside of it. I got I got like an Airbnb so we're gonna to stay there. Oh, I'm surprised you're doing something like that. Why I' ever been ellstone before? I know it was so not like you to do anything. What? I mean That's like an adventure. like to actually go out into nature and do that for a. It's a national park. I really like going. I'm to go where I'm supposed to. I' I still see some people like going too close to those buffalo. Wh you do on. It's a freaking huge like Oh wild an just you and the kids? or are you doing it? Me and the kids my niece and my mother in law and my brother in law and sister in law Oh cool,'re all going. And you're going to get a place you get all finished. We'll have one big place. Oh cool. Yeah yeah.. Have you ever seen by the way, like a buuffal one of those buffalo before? Yeahah. Yeah O what's a moose is crazier. it looks like a d more. Dude they're like one of the scary it's funny because they look all like cute and whatever. dumb. Yeah, like d you think like blwinkle or something and you're like, no, dude. it was terrifying. It was so big. was it had to be like over a ton Yeah. and So I was like canoeing actually, this was in Minnesota like at the boundary waters and I was there with the football team. We all like had this like canoe trip that we did together and I'm like just canoeing and all of a sudden it just came out of the woods down this hill. We're in the water. it goes in the water. starts walking in the water, it like submerges completely. and then we lost it We were like d it was like walking on the bottom of the lake and we're getting like we get the hell out of here. It was scary. I got video of one as close as me and you when I was up at what you call it? Yeah. Well Jackson Hole. When I was in Jackson Hole, there was one walking around where we were all staying and stuff. They get pissed. they'll go come after you. Oh, yeah. Eespecially they have their baby with them or whatever too. Yeah. They just They just look cartoonishly big. Yeah. you look at wait a minute, that's way bigger in real life. It's insane. It makes a cow look tiny Yeah so ye or like a horse that makes a hor look little tiny. for sure. Anyway, I want to talk about essential amino acid supplements because so we work with Kon, so this is for our listeners They need to know this that essential amino acid supplements, when you look at the data on how effective they are The thing you have to look at is how much of it is coming from Lucine So leucine is one of the banch chino acids, but leucine is considered a trigger for muscle protein synthesis makes a massive difference So if see comp, if you see an essential amino acid supplement, that's not forty percent looucsing It almost does nothing in comparison to the ones with. So it is it more expensive of other things because that's typically what you'll see with supplement brands. If they're going to try and cut corners, it be the That's a good question. Yeah, like so because it makes sense it doesn't make sense to cut it out unless it saves the supplement company a bunch of money to cut it out and to claim there' still an EA and then do that. So it'd be interesting to see if the looucine is one of the more expensive parts. But when you look at the studies, like there was that one study that was done on women where they took just the centr amino acid supplement compared it to a scoop of whey protein and how they got It is typically a bit more expensive per serving. It makes sense. So talk about I didn't know this. So it's prary it's the primary driver for muscle protein synthesis. So muscle protein synthesis is what we measured if you're building muscle, or building tissue It's the loosing that triggers it. you want the other amino acids in there because when it's triggered, then it uses those amino acids to do what it needs to do. But it's the looucine. That basically pulls the trick synthesize. They leave it to shady supplement companies to skimp on that because they can save for the margin. That's expensive. No, totally. I mean, like the margins are so slim in the supplement industry and the fact that they're not regulated then a company can easily put ten percent in there. Yeah Sve money so they and charge a premium like that even though it's a l So Konss is forty percent forty percent is from Lucine. And then the rest of the amino acids are in there So this will make a difference. So if you've tried essential minino asses before, like they didn't do much try theirs and see what happens. And that's the one that we started taking. Yeah ye because we had the interview with the founder, it made a big difference. Oh yeah What is Butcher Box? Well, Butcher Box delivers better meat for better you at low prices. This is grass fed beef. This is crepe free Chicken hereritage Cork. Wild caught fish delivered your door. Some of our favorite picks are their rib eyes their bone and chicken thighs. They have premium steak tips, they're baby back ribs. loveove their gluten free. chicken nuggets and they're flat iron steaks, but there's more So what you do is you go there, you sign up, they deliver the meat to your door Now you get high quality, healthy protein at incredible prices. And if you sign up now and choose, you can choose, sorry dollars off and you can also get either free sirloin tips for life, free chicken wings for life or free ground beef for life included in your box for the life of your membership Just go to butcherbox d. com forward slash Mind pump Back to the show Our first caller is Earon from Indiana. What's up, Earon? How you doing? Aaron? How going guys? Good. goodood. How can we help you U So I guess my question is should I do a bulk cycle a cut cycle like every six months to achieve the body fat percentage I'm looking for U For reference, I'm currently five, ten and two hundred sixty A about twenty nine percent body fat I would consider myself an advanced lifter. I competed in Strongman for several years And then life happened, got away from me and now I'm trying to get back down to my original size. Let's see the original size. whereere were you before? When I was competing, I was two twenty. Okay. Okay. Now what was different about your lifestyle when you were two hundred twenty And what are you weighing right now? sorry? . So what's the difference in lifestyle, would you say that accounts for the forty pounds extra? Uh, life really happened, uh Advancements in careers. I got married I had a kid Time got away I wasn't working out twice a day That's only working at once a day. It says you came from three hundred something right now too. How long that take you to get down to that Yeah That was about twelve years ago. Oh So twelve years ago was when you were at your highest at three hundred sixty Yeah. Now Earon, was the only difference when you were two hundred twenty versus two hundred sixty working out twice a day versus once a day or are there changes in diet as well? Yeah, my diet was way better when I was competing as well. What are the differences would you say, the big differences in diet back then versus now Uh, now I've got it dialed back in R. But that's just recently And what does that mean specifically? Are you tracking at all? Do you know calories and protein and what you? Yeah Yeah. I'm currently at like two hundred and sixty grams of protein a day And about twenty eight to twenty nine hundred calories per day. Okay. And where were you before? So what were the things, what were the knobs that you had to turn? What were the things you had to change Beuse you said you're dialed in now. So what was it that you had to change to get dialed in or what was ye Yeah, a lot of it was like I cut back on the beer drinking. Okay Mh And then really why I start eating whole foods again, not eating fast food and processed foods. Okayfect You're good I was just say you're no how to do anything. You're probably in a sweet spot now. I wouldn't want you to cut Too much lower calor. unless you're pretty sedentary. What you have any idea like what your what your step count, likeike how much you move throughout the day? Ill make sure I get ten thousand steps a day. Oh yeah. o, your size moving that much, lifting, I'm sure, good weight. Here's the m. I'm sure I want you to go much lower calories than what you already are. And here's a mistake that you can make. Here's where I see the big the big challenge and this is just based off of the fluctuations And your body weight, you know, at low two hundred twenty up to as high as three sixty. three hundred sixty Um, it seems like it's like an all or nothing. kindind of thing And so consistency or sustainability is the main thing to consider And so you've already made a couple of big changes. Cut down on the beer, probably substantially based off of what you're saying and changed from eating you processed food and eating out to eating whole natural foods. Those are two pretty big damn big changes. Yeah. I would not want to add on top of that chasing a calorie deficit. I think you're probably already in a deficit just from doing those things. Yeah. I don't think you should chase a bulk or a cut I think if you just focus on that, if you just did that consistently, as consistent as you could and when you fall off, jump back on and just focus on the whole food, protein, not having too much beer. I don't know what your limit looks like that right now with the beer, but just you know, keep it limited You're going to slowly get into a nice body fat percentage range. So if you're at twenty nine, I think just doing that alone will get you down to probably eighteen secent. at it. Yeah, you'll probably get down to eighteencent seventeen percent. J nice and consistent with all these crazy drops in strength or all this hunger from going on a cut I think that's just the way to go. If you get impatient This is where you'll mess things up, dude, because then you'll go too far toally and you'll only be able to stick to it for so long before you swing in the other direction How How do how do you feel in the twenty twenty nine hundred calories? Like do you feel hungry? Do Do your workouts feel, you know, fueled and like how tell me about how that feels when you eat that amount of calories On the days that I do live use I' following map static right now. So on the days I livet, I'm a little hungry. Yeah. But on the off days, it's okay. Okay. You're good, dude. Yeah, you're probably good right. I mean, honestly, if you just, if you just stayed consistent with that, you're going to see some nice changes in your body. You'll probably still feel good, feel strong. athleticism will improve, good recovery and you'll see yourself drop some body fat without Any drastic changes or any more changes to your diet? What were you running before Map's aesthetic? Have you been on this aesthetic for a while? What were you doing before I ran Map strong. Okay before then. Okay. good. How were your results on that I saw a lot of gaines, Oh good. So of my lifts that I competed in when I was competing came back. Oh wow. All. Oh shit. That's really good. And so were you eating about the same through Mapstrong too or have you changed eating way you are now or is that about the same It's about the same. Yeah, I would just keep going, dude. You're good.. Yeah. I think I think you're at a good a good calorie place and after aesthetic, I think symmetry would be good for you. I think that'd be a good program to follow up with. Do you have that one Oh, good, All., you're all set, dud And then just just to get a little deeper into this, how what was how big of a change in the beer consumption was it? because it's such a high calorie beverage It really doesn't contribute to gains and all of stuff. Is that a pretty big change for you Yeah I maybe do it like once a day now or once a week now And was it every? one like once a week? Was it daily before?? But it's probably all weekend Okay. Oh, good for you, dude. Yeah. Berl, you got to do nothing else. I know. You're gonna to get nice changesca keep chipping away. If you get impatient, this is where you're going to mess up, dude. And then what it's going to look like is you'll get where you want and then you'll swing again. and you'll be stuck in this like this back and forth type of deal But if you want to maintain this, like that's it. Do nothing else. Just stay consistent with those two things. I mean, I think you're in what we always talk about is a little Goldilocks area, which is tough psychologically, right? You want to see the quick moves down or the quick moves up But I think you're at a really good intake that you're going to continually lean out and as long as you have enough energy to get to those workouts and you're feeling good I'd say you're okay on the calorie. get really hungry. You just eat more whole foods. Yeah. that's the other thing too. If you're like, man, I am starving, my energy's low Throw on some whole natural foods, but stay in that those parameters and you're good, dude. Yeah. I agree Awome Yeah, you're kicking ass,arr. You gotta man it up. I love I love to hear where you're at in the next three to four months after you get through this and get into asymmetry Yeah,ck sound good. Yeah, check back with us. Thanks for calling in, man. All, thanks. I got it. Yeah Yeah, I mean, again, just, u just takes time. Well, it does and also like when you're looking at When you look at someone's history of these these really dramatic swings Yeah it's one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty pound differeifference. And he competed at one point. So he was obviously very fit. with good athleticism, Strongman is very athletic strength sport. When you see that, like the thing you want to really consider is like, okay, let's not go too crazy becausecause I have a tendency to go all or nothing. In either way, by the way. In either way like an extreme cut will cause him to see maybe leaning out for a little bit, but then inadvertently will have a bench step te And a bulk, a quote unquote bulk tends to turn into a dirty bulk or an excuse to eat outside the boundaries or have a couple extra beers where he's eating in a place and that's why I wanted to hear how he felt. hisis workouts feel fueled He's hitting numbers that were like what he was hitting Strongman Yeah. And he feels a little hungry on days that he liifts, which is normal,? especially if you're. He intuitively like switched up his training. so it's like, you know, more hypertrophy, which I thought was smart. Yeah Yeah. I'll say this, if you went to one beer to drink it all weekend and went from fast food and processed food to whole natural foods His calories probably dropped thirteen four ten or calories on average. Oh yeah.ily Yeah. average. I probably' eatating closer to four thousand a day easily.y. throw them beer calories and lot of stuff and then you, beer lowers your inhibition, youat more garbage than the wholele. so He's already made some big changes. J stay there Nxt callor is Derek from California. What's up, man,'s happen, Derek Hey guys, thank you for taking my question. You got it? How can we help you U So I'm five seven and I started weightlifting in January of last year and at that time, I weighed one hundred and thirty nine. About a year and a half later, I'm now one hundred and fifty eight pounds. I did gain four of those pounds just in April, but I also started taking creatine then, so that might have helped But prior to last month, I was gaining less than a pound a month on average. and I've been eating three thousand four hundred calories. I try to get enough protein. And my main goal with starting lifting was to build muscle and get stronger. And I have seen some progress through my lifts and a little bit aesthetically but it's just been a little bit slower than I would have thought And additionally, my body fap percentage has gone from ten point seven percent to eighteen percent And I'm actually glad to have more body fat overall, but it seems like it mostly goes to my stomach and at some point I would like to see my abs again. But I don't necessarily need to be back at ten percent body fat, but I'm not sure at what point I would cut if my body fat percentage keeps getting higher. And my concern is that I will lose too much weight If I do try to cut, and it'll be really hard to build this back upp again later since I've been trying to bulk at three thousand four hundred calories already and it's, you know been slow going Do you guys have any thoughts about this? Yeah, let me do some math here real quick. So you started at and you were and by the way, how were you testing your body fat What do you Well, I have a smart scale. I mean, I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's just I've just been able to see the practice through that. So you just every time that's what you use to test yourself. Yeah, yeah.. By the way, those things can be really thrown off by hydration, but we're going to take the numbers at face value. How much did you what was your body weight when you started thirty nine? one hundred thirty nine to one hundred fifty three, ten point seven percent to seventeen percent. So let me see here. you had one hundred twenty five pounds of lean body mass. I just want to see how much lean body mass Yeah you gained through this process. So let me see here. minus one fifty three So so your lean body mass didn't go up that much. How based off of the body fat percentage, whichich could be true. it's most likely here's the two things. O, U really inconsistent with the training and or not really progressive overloading or two You're focused just on eating that many calories and you're not really focused on your macros, that e. protein consistently Would you say that's true R how are you with your protein U so I'm shooting for like a pound or one gram per pound of body weight Yeah. So I sometimes get like one hundred forty, one hundred fifty, like so a little bit less. Okay. Are you consistent with that though? Do you consistently do that A. So I consistently get it when I track, but I'm tracking maybe like eighty percent of the time. Okay. And then and let's talk about your strength. Give me an idea of some of your key lifts and if any changes in those through this process so Well I've been I know you guys won't like this, but I've been just doing like an AI program. but I it's kind of like, you know, upper body, lower body like splits. And so I've done some Um, like, like for squats, I mean, I have it in my email, but I'm not really Oh I can say' right. No I can see here. So your bench press one from eighty five to one hundred forty Your back squat went from ninety five to two o five and your deadlift went from one hundred five to two hundred twenty. Those are huge. Yeah. Yeah. it's good Joones of strength. Yeah. You got to be careful. So here' the thing without without seeing a picture of you before and afterout because you got to be very careful. with those stupid smart scales because they're really strange. And the more you build and the more hydrated you are, Creatam will do this. The more it throws it off. and it's really not that accual. It's very difficult The one objective metric that we have here is your strength Be that's not something that there's no error there. You know you're stronger. If you're lifting more Your bench press back squat deadlift went through the roof Yeah Like, your' deadlift more than doubled. Right. Yeah. So those are the things I would pay attention to more than anything else. You're not gonna to be building that strength without muscle supporting it. No Now here's the thing, okay. so just just for, you know, just to play deevil's advocate Let's say you are around seventeen percent body fat A good healthy, strong, fit, maintainable body fat percentage that's also going to give you good hormone profile is probably only two per or three percent lower than where you're at So most guys fourteen, fifteen percent It's kind of the best of all things. Y fit, you don't have like a belly. U your're strong, testosterone is good. It's maintainable for ninety five percent or more of men going down to ten percent, there's a lot of trade offffs. yourour performance, your strength, your testosterone, your energy, just plummet. It's typically not an ideal body fat percentage. We like the way it looks in pictures But it's just not great. It's not, you know, it's not as athletic. you're not as strong It's just not as good. The only difference is cool I have abs and fifteen percent, I kind of have abs, you know, type of deal. How clean is your bulk? like is it all from Whole Foods or you incorporating? Yeah. It's pretty and I'm pretty clean. L it's a lot of like meat, eggs, rice avocado. Dk, what are you coming from? Like meaning like you were at one hundred thirty and ten percent. What were you doing to be at that? Was that just low calorie eating? Were you a runner? Like what was keeping you at ten percent Yeah, so I used to be a runner. so I ran a few marathons and things like that. but ye at my lowest, I was like one twenty five but I was starting to get sick, like running like long distances and so I kind of just wasn't doing anything for a little bit, but that's why I got into lifting because I was like, oh, I wanted to do something still where I'm you know, challenging myself and trying to, you know, get new PRs and that kind of thing, but something that wouldn't be maybe so hard on my body. Good. Okay, so I got more questions because I really want to get a full context here U subjectively, any differences and I know you're stronger and you're eating more But any differences in how you feel fromr when you were one hundred thirty nine to Yeah one fifty one hundred fifty three one Enerergy, Lbido, sleep. Yeah, do you feel subjectively better U Yeah, I feel I feel good. I don't know if I feel necessarily better than I felt before, but but yeah, but I've been feeling like healthy, feeling energized well and all that stuff. So Okay. Would you trade your current Body strength, size feeling for what you were at one hundred thirty nine or you like lone. If I had to pick one or the other, I'd pick this Yeah, I would pick this. Okay, good. This helps a lot. This helps me a lot with with the kind of advice I'm going to give you. So If you want to get a little leaner, you're at three thousand four hundred calories at your size A small cut in calories will get you there slowly and nicely But we don't want to sacrifice your quality of life, your strength. You know, you were kind of overtrained before getting sick, like you said So you could go from thirty four to twenty nine hundred calories and stay there. Yeah. And you'll see nice, slow, consistent fat loss without these crazy drops in strength. In fact, if you change your programming, your workout programming, if I put you on a maps program, I' bet you I could get you Even more strength gains evenven at two thousand nine hundred calories versus three thousand four hundred Okay, which one would you recommend? Now you're working out with four or five days a week Yeah Okay, let's put you on maps in a b bollet And I want you to do the three day a week version I want you to keep your steps high every day, Do you track those Yeah, and I usually get on average, like five thousand. so Okay. let's double your steps to ten thousand Follow maps anab ballic, cut to twenty nine hundred calories, and I bet you get stronger while getting leaner on a protocol like that. I don't even think you need to go the highest steps. I think you just go you add two thousand steps and you cut those calories like that and you put them in a ball. So seven thousand. Yeahah ye.. Yeah, that's more than enough. Let's do that. seven thousand steps a day. goodoodap anabolic.. Maps anabolic, long rest periods, even if they say short, keep the rest periods long because we're in a little bit of a deficit. And let's let's see what happens. And what I want, Derek is I want you back on in about two months and we're going to get you back on and hear what's happening All right, Thankk you C a man. Y. All filling in Thanks. Got it. U body fat tests are just, u they I mean, they're okay. but sometimes they're not going Yeah, especially those homeom scales. What's your what's your what's your intuition tell you what went on here? I think the scale is off Yes. like quite a bit. I also think some of the stngthers came from energy. and rest So you don't have to gain a bunch of muscle to get a lot of strength. You can also just have more rest and energy. But I also think he gained more than one pound of muscle during that period of time, which if those body fat percentages are accurate and it says you only gain a pound of muscle, I doubt it. When you double your strength in a lot of those lifts I doubt it's just one pound. But that's a that's quite a even if even if you're right, like, let's say he gained five pounds It's still a lot of body fat is right. So my my hearing only five thousand steps. he's only one hundred he was only one hundred thirty nine pounds. Yeah. We just got off the call with a two hundred and sixty pound stronglifter eating twenty nine hundred calorers. So his high a bulk and ten thousand steps, right? So too much of a bulk. Wait yeah, too much of a bulk, even if it was clean, which then the next question I'd have and he said to When he tracks, he's close to those numbers, which is eighty percent time he tracks. My experience the twenty percent the twenty percent of time that people don't track is the weekends. That's when they missed the pro. And that's when they And if you're already kind of a like not a big stepper and mover sedentary, you're even more sedentary typically on the weekends when we don't work And then you also overconsume So I have a feeling that he's just been really over consonsuming on his calories. I think a better program like you put them on, I think even just bumping those steps a little bit and cut those calories, watch what happenens. And here's the other thing too. this is why I ask those questions. Part of it was for him, the other part was for people listening. We don't we tend to ignore quality of life in favor of metrics in the mirror But he doubled his strength He's eating way more food. He said he feels energized Even if those numbers are correct, who cares? You're better off. We get so caught up with numbers and aesthetics that it's like we think, oh, I'm going to be happier, leaner, even though I feel more like garbage. it's almost Always never the case So but again, I think if if he does a little bit of a cut, does what you said, Adam, bumps the steps a little bit and follows a better program because I Pre pretty sure maps on a ball will be moreropate for him. I think we'll see some good progress Greed Our next caller is Nick from Alberta. What's up Nick? How you doing? How Nick.? How you doing?? How's going? Good, man? How are you Good Basically, I'm just going to jump right into my question here twenty seven years old U I'm three hundred pounds and I've been having issues with my energy and libido. I went to a doctor, got blood work done Found out I have a total testosterone of three hundred twenty five. And a free testosterone is three hundred five. Um I'm worried about having issues with fertility and stuff because of such low numbers. so I've u started taking some supplements and Eating mostly wholeo foods, right? I'm kind of ninety percent, right I've been listening to you guys for a little bit of time and just kind of going off what you guys say for that. I've always been into sports. I've played a lot of hockey, lacrosse football, that kind of stuff growing up. I had my last pretty bad concussion when I was about eighteen all kind of just stopped And I sat in aark dark room for about three months And then I've had a lot of obviously neck issues and such to go along with it. so I was pretty inactive for a couple of years and gained quite a bit of weight U at my biggest I was three hundred and thirty Right now, I'm down to about two hundred ninety five, so I'm doing a little bit of good there. Basically my question is, what do you guys recommend for kind of going going forward you R? I've always kind of like I've got into the gym a bit, right In the past, when I did it, I would try to cut calories and start working out more and it never really worked out. What I've been doing here for the last month, I've lost about ten pounds in the last month And what I've been doing is just trying to eat better quality food, not so much processed and just trying to go to the gym four four days a week sort of thing and just just getting moving is basically what I've been doing so far. I've been basically doing someome squat deadlift, like compound movements as opposed to just hitting one particular thingsings. Basically just wanted to see what you guys think I should do, much how much protein you think I should. Like I don't know how much I'm supposed to weigh to be honest with you. You know what I mean? I've always just been big Right So I don't know how many grams of protein I should aim for for my target body weight sort of thing, right? So Good questions.. So I'll answer the protein one for you. How tall are you again? sixix foot. I think two hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty or fifty grams of protein is perfectly fine for a big guy like you. Yeah. I think that's a good target to start with I do have some more questions, though. if you don't mind me asking Yeah, for sure When you you're training eat wholeo foods, your strength training, you're kind of adjusting your lifestyle Were you doing that when you got your testosterone checked? or were you doing or did you start doing that after you got your? I justed I just started doing that after the last month Okay, R. So I got my I got my test done at the end of March And that's kind of when I started doing all this. So it's only been about a month. Okay, okay. What did your lifestyle look like before when you leading up to the hormone test Um, You know we mainly ate kind of more processed stuff, you know, like chicken fingers, craft dinner, that kind of thing, right? So we've transitioned into a lot more roasted potatoes and some beef and chicken and mainly trying to eat as much whole foods as possible It was my birthday on Sunday, so I didn't have a great weekend when it came down to what I ate and drank, but That's all right. Now were you exercising leading up to that? So processed food diet before and what was the activity exercise like I it' very off and on again. Like I was never consistent.'ve I've been quite consistent going at least four days a week for the last month right. But otherwise my activity is not great. I work at a body shop, right? Um I only get probably five thousand steps a day would be my guess.ight? So that's another thing I wanted to talk to you guys about because a lot of people say don't do cardio and and resistance training in the same day. same sort of thing, right? So I'd wanted to talk to you guys if I should be hitting the treadmill for half an hour as well as doing my resistance training? Yeah, I think it's a good idea. And your phone does this, but you can also get a real cheap pedometer.s getting steps. trrack your steps and try to aim for like seven to eight thousand a day. And if you need to walk on a treadmill to do it, I think you should just because activity is good for you. Okay.et it through walking though. Don't get it through. don't get on the treadmill and start trying to burn away, like running move. Yeah, J just get your steps up. And if you could do that without getting on a treadmill Uh, you know, like take a little walk at lunch,, park a little further than the like little things like actually add up If you can get seven to eight thousand steps just moving, Without having to get on a treadmill, I would prefer that because the consistency and sustainability with that, in my experience is just way better than having to schedule walks Since you've been doing these changes, it's only been thirty days, but have you noticed any changes in libido U yeah, I mean, it's gone up a bit for sure. I'm I u I noticed I'm a lot warmer. Now. Like I feel like my metabolism was kind of kicking up a little bit Frank goodood sign, dude. because here's what I would want you to do. So Go from an un let's I'm just going to be generaliz, right? Youo going from an unhealthy inconsistent activity lifestyle to a much more healthy act, you know, more active, including strength training, appropriate strength training lifestyle. It's not unheard of to see a man's total testosterone double I've seen this many, many times. okay Um, so I would and since in Lbido isn't perfect But it is a pretty strong, for most men indicator of testosterone levels So if you're noticing a little bit of a bump now It could mean that your testosterone is going up. It could also mean you just feel better But what I would want is ninety days of consistency And then I'd want you to get retested Now I'm going to go back to the concussion. okay. It sounds like it was a really bad concussion. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I've had I think five diagnosed. concasions. Okay. And then yeah, I've had some some ones that I don't remember a whole lot about, right? Okay. So here's why it's so important, Nick that you get retested in ninety days, okay? There is a moderate association depending on the severity of the concussion, it sounds like you had a bad one with concussions in low testosterone because of damage to the pituitary stalk in the hypothalamus. So you see this with athletes across more, especially athletes that to really get after them and bang their heads as you'll see this like correlation. And it's coming from just damage to those parts of the brain But we don't know We don't know because your lifestyle wasn't healthy before, which is also very strongly correlated with low testosterone. So try to stay consistent. You're already in thirty days in, sixty more days Get your blood work done again If it comes back and they're like, you know, it went up to four hundred or barely changed. Then I would look into hormone replacement therapy And they can maintain fertility with hormone replacement therapy. So a lot of guys are afraid because,, if I go want to testoster, I can't have kids. That's not true Yeah they'll put you on something called HCG, which maintains fertility. I mean, my wife got pregnant, you know, while I was on hormoneal platino Adam, same thing. So it's not an issue. They can just like I said, they could put you on HTG at the same time But there's no way of knowing until we do this consistently. So sixty more days, get retested If it comes back low, then it would be a good idea to talk to someone about hormone replacement therapy. And we have really good partners at nphormones. com They're super great. It's probably the least expensive, just pure hormone replacement therapy place you'll go with, and they're doctors so you're not dealing with salespeople U so you can go there and get retested and see what's what's going on Okay. Workout wise is are you following one of our programs or doing your own thing U no, I haven't got one yet. I've just been kind of just doing Typically what I'm doing right now is I'm doing two leg days a week And like and when I say leg day, I mean like I'm doing like three exercises. So I'll do squats. And like yesterday was squats for Romanian deadlift and cab raises. and then I go home. Okay. Right. So I was only there for thirty minutes. Okay, I'm going to give you maps andabbolic Do the three day a week version of it. Long rest periods in between sets. So you're only going to be at the gym three days a week. You want to go back for an extra day, just walk on the treadmill And I think you'll get better results with that versus kind of what you're doing U two hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty grams of protein, whole natural foods. Make sure you get good sleep U And let's see what happens is sixty days. In fact let's get you back on is sixty days and so we can get back on the phone and see what's happening Okay, sweet. there is there any supplements you guys you recommend I take to help with this or just kind of stick to the whole foods and see what happens. Yeah, let's go multivitamin. makeake sure you take separate vitamin D. supplement and a zinc supplement. U and you can take creatine on top of what you want. There's really nothing else. unless you need protein powder to hit protein targets. I think that's it Perfect. With my creatine, Does it matter if I take it all at once. I've got like a big water bottle and I kind of just drink that water bottle throughout the days and I just put creatine in that in the morning Or should I make a separate glass with creatine in it and just drink it out? dont I don't want you to leave creatine in the water all day long. Yeah, it might degradade. Yeah. So do how much are you taking today Just five grams. Okay, I want you to take takeake it bump. I want it to take fifteen to twenty grams a day because it's gonna be good for your brain. Cognition, yeah. But don't take it all at once because you get diarrhea. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna take five grams breakfast, five grams of d with lunch, five grams of dinner. So fifteen grams a day And you should notice some mental clarity and energy. How was going say any new tropic I might be exploring this. Yeah, let's's let's yeah let's just do that for now. and see what happens. I'll have you back on a sixty days and let's get reevaluated Awesome, guys. Thankk you very much. You got her brother. Thank you Thanks. A lot of people don't realize the correlate with had trauma and lookuma. Yeah I've read up all. I mean, he had serious ones. Yeah. F that He was in a dark room for three months. fiveive documented. Yeah and three months in a dark room. D Dbilitating. Yeah. and I know a few of my buddies have had that happen. Is that the protocol? if you have a really bad one? Do it keep you in a dark room? like that? You can't handle it Well? yeah, it's his sensitivity Yeah like he's I don't think I know anybody that's that's had a concussion. Yeah. Yeah rud old de. Yeah I don't know if I don't know anybody personally who's had one. You know what's crazy too about concussions is and this was this is not recent data, but when they came out with this, everyone was shocked Soccer players. Yeah have a high rate of CT Yeah. they're just hitting the ball. They're not like playing footballs yeah, that, even when it hits the chest too. I mean you're getting that kind of like impact and it's getting the brain to hit Yeah. So it's not just the severe ones, thoseose are obvious. It's also just the repeated banging Yeah. And there's kind of long term effects of that Our next color is Kathy from Florida H Gathy. are you doing Gathy Hey God How can we help you? Thanks for having on the show. You got it, S So should I just go right into my summary of my email? Yes, please Okay. So I'm fifty five years old, five three, one hundred and three pounds, postmenopausal. So I started my fitness journey after being diagnosed with MS about twenty three years ago in two thousand three. I didn't have a lot of energy to training back in those days, but over the years I've become very consistent and I'm very disciplined. Jyim Pon I also stopped working about years ago. which gives me more time to work on my health and my fitness Then last October, I was diagosed with osteoporosis, which when I started watching your program So my goal is to build as much muscles as possible for my health and bone density. and I train about five days a week I say very active, twelve to fifteen thousand steps a day. And my nutrition is very consistent. I'm currently eating about eighteen hundred to no two thousand to twenty one hundred calories And my protein is about one hundred to one hundred and twenty Okay So my question is Based on my age Weight activity level. Do you think that'm in enough to build maximum muscle Or am I just maintaining And my next question is If your goal was muscle gain and bone density at my stage, would you prioritize first nutrition, training or recovery? Yeah, great, great question. Can I ask a few more questions Of course. Okay, so tell me about your symptoms from MS. I know you got diagnosed twenty three years ago, you said Do you have a lot. Do you have a lot of symptoms now or does it feel like it's pretty manageable? I mission. mion I haven't had relapse in eight years. Wonderful. awwesome.wesome. So there's a few things so but that is a strong consideration. And I've trained a few clients with MS and as you probably already know T much stress can definitely trigger, you know, a flare up in the symptoms of MS. Now the answer to your question is actually kind of easy and I think it'll work well with what you're trying to do and also with not pushing you into any kind of a flare up You're definitely overdoing an under ereating, for sure That's what's out. Yeah. So it' said here you're following Map's aesthetic. Yeah notot the program for you.. That is entirely the wrong program. That is way too much volume For most people, let alone a postmenopausal woman with osteoporosis eating you know, two thousand calories a day who also has MS. That's like the absolute worst one of the worst programs that you could follow U Now the challenge is, I'm going to recommend something to you, but it's to be a lot less And so I need your honest I need your honest feedback here Do you think you could do a lot less and stick to it You know, it's gonna be hard. And it's gonna be hard to do a lot left. Yeah Yeah. But I call because I want to get your opinions. so. Okay. I think the program you should follow I would love it if one of our coaches. Yeah. So two piece of advice here I'd love to see you and it's going to sound crazy. Okay, so forgive me But I'd like say follow a Maps fifteen protocol You can keep your steps as high as they are. That's a lot of steps but that's fine twelve to fifteen, okay, unless you're going crazy you know, getting on a treadmill all the time U No, I won't take that away from you And I'd like to see you get your calories up by like three or four hundred. Okay. Now when you're at the gym and you're done with your workout You're like, what do I do now I don't mind if you do mobility. I don't mind if you do stretching I don't mind if you do like really low kind of stress type movement. But this is the protocol that'll help you build muscle and build bones. Okay Okay. Now here's the other piece of advice I have because it's going to be really hard for you Like going for maps aesthetic to mast fifteen is going to feel like you went from working out to not working out Even though you're going to see strength gains even though you can see, you're going to be like I'm losing my m U working with a coach, I think would be a really good idea. to walk you through this and also to individualize the whole thing. So what a coach will do is take, you know, maps fifteen and turn it into maps Cathy And we'll just individualize it for you as you go through this process, coach you through the hurdles, which are going to be mental and also encourage you in the right direction. when you're seeing progress in the areas that we want to see progress, but you feel like you could or should be doing more, which is probably what's going to happen. No. Okay. so okay. that would be ideal But I think map fifteen muscle Mommy would be fine, trraditional map fifteen would be fine, Mass fifteen powerower lift would be fine. All three of those wouldould be awesome, but definitely a bump in calories and reduction overall training. Okay That's I mean, I can do that. Okay. All right. D. wouldould you want Would you want a coach to call you to see if you'd want to work with a coach? or you want to get go after it yourself to see what happens I mean, I do. Whatever you think. I mean Okay U the odds of success are way better if I have one of my coaches call you and work with you through this process. I just know just from experience. Psychologicalool. Yeah, you're gonna do this for like two weeks and you're, I want tona pull your hair out and it's like, oh, am I eating too much? I'm not exercisingough. What am I going do And having a coach work with you is going to be so valuable. Plus, they'll be able to individualize it, modify it as you go along Okay I want a question and so you definitely think that I'm over trained for sure. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh no no doubt the athetics is what. I mean, sure' a program, but I know I like it. I'm on I have one more week cl. I'm on phase three right now. Yeah. my second time around. It's inspired by what I did when I was bodybuildt. He was a pro physique competitor in his early thirties. and he was enhanced with performance enhancing substances. So it's very different Yeah with the amount of volume,'s also his life was dedicated to it. He didn't have at the time that was his job U Yeah. so I wouldn't I wouldn't train like that right now. It's just not appropriate for my lifestyle right now. And I mean, I'm still fit and strong and all those things, but its it's just too much, just too much. not it's not necessary That's be better results. have other options. ye. Yeah The reason why you're seeing bone density issues, even though you strength train and probably have been strength training for a while and even hitting your protein is it's too much Yeah too much exercise combined with not enough nutrients. I don't care how much strength train you do You're going to see bona mess. go down I've seen that with I've seen it with girls in their twenties and bumping the calories and reducing the training volume will send it the other direction. So that'll fix it. I mean, that's what will send us in the right direction. And if we see some really good strength gains U and muscle gains bone is gonna follow. It just it's very predictable Okay Do you think the scale is going to eventually go up or Yes it's not It hasn't really gone too where the coaching It's going to go.. And that's's Justin's point. This is where the coaching really helps is because it's this is the tough part psychologically is challenge. You're gonna see that, you're going see the reduction in activity, the increase on the scale and it starts to be a bit of a mindfog. So just I'll give you what this would look like? It's going to sound shocking But this would be a process, okay. You know, if you were my client, Kathy and I'm working you through this, I'd want to see you gain fifteen pounds on the scale, ten of it being muscle, five of it being body fat Totally V it fifteen easy E E. fifteen, one five. Yeah. You gain ten if I got you to gain eight to ten pounds of muscle, five to seven pounds of body fat Yeah, we would be moving in a beautiful direction. great. Okay. So I like the skill to go to one seven at least one ten. I'd be fine with that. Yeah. I think what you need to do is really not weigh yourself through this process is going to mess you with you I'm just tell you that right now. U But yeah, I really think working with a coach would be So valuable. You give it six months with the coach You just do what they say, no matter what you how you feel U And I think probably four or five months into it, you're going to be like, okay, this is this is great. Yeah I feel good Okay Do you think that'll just The sccalees go up Ionestlyep. Yeah It has to go up. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm not one ways myself to see it You go down. I want it to go up. I just keep an eye it so I don't sl too much in the wrong direction, which is going down. Yeah. Okay. Oh good. All right. Well that's good's I got on scale becauseuse I say one on one. I'm like oh, go, I need to be one hundred three one hundred four. and it goes down to one hundred one. I get nervous. I start eating a lot and it goes back to one three one hundred four and it comes right back down., that's good. That's good. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna to have a coach call you when we get off the phone here and they'll talk to you and I'd love to see you in it. I'll probably pop in on some of the calls because now I've talked to you But I think six months will be a nice start Okay All right, Cathy. We got this. We got it Oh you guys, I love you guys. Thank you, right. Thank you. This will be great We'll see you He Be. Be It's it's it's remarkable to me how many people follow the least appropriate programs that we have for most people. Yeah because they see how much is in it. Maybe the name. because it's I think I think that's part ofs the marketing Yeah, it's the power of marketing. Yeah. It's I mean We should put a warning. We also we also would m make them want it more. We also have a bit of a bias U I would argue that a large percentage of the people that listen to a fitness podcast or the ones that call in. bothoth evenight. Yeah. So you're I mean, these are avid listeners. These aren't just somebody who listen one time, right? Most people that call in have been listening to us for quite some time Um, are fitness people. Yeah. You're into it. You want to learn about it. Yeah. You're you know what I'm saying? this is not something that you're not interested in fitness fanatic side. Yeah, exactly. And so you're going to have people that tend to teeter like this is not your average client or average American. No. You're average American, you're doing everything you can't you're you're just trying to get them to move. get them to move more They're not doing anything. Shove to the gym consistently for a while you know, very few are going to be attracted to this level of activity and training. But because we have this bias of people that are already interested in fitness, we tend to see this more often than I think is is s The good news for people listening like if if you sound like this woman and you're able to do what we say, which is hard. So I'm not, you know, I'm not going to, you know, lighten that or diminish that. It's hard But if you do, we say The changes are nothing short of dramatic Big time Yeah. Damatic changes. It's just you gott to go through that period of trusting the process And it takes like Half a year. It's a one hundred eighty. Yeah Yeah your mentality. And it's not a half a year of because you need to see results in a half a year. It's a half a year of you trusting and letting go, and then finally being like oh, wait a minutere restoring the body. whole body needs it. one hundred percent. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mine Pp Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Palmer. 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 mindpumpmedia dot comot The RGB superbundle includes maps anabolic, maths 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