2681: Get Way Rounder Delts in 60 Days & More (Listener Live Coaching)

16:58Sal Di Stefano:I love this, not only from a development perspective, but from the point that Justin made. I felt doing shoulders before chest for a lot of clients just set the shoulder girdle up into a better position and they were more stable, more controlled, and then there was less issues going on when they were chest pressing. A lot of times it's very common. So when chest press, they hear clicking or it feels off or one side's not, and doing the shoulders, getting a good shoulder pump tends to set the girdle in a better position or at least make them more aware and stable in that position that when they went to do their chest press, they'd see even better benefit.

17:31And most of the time, yeah, it kind of eliminates the need for that first set that's really the warm-up set. Totally. Because you're just getting through all the cobwebs. Yeah, 100%. It gets you in the groove.

17:40Adam Schafer:Lastly, mobility helps a lot. Now, mobility helps everything, but it really helps the shoulders. Yeah. There are exercises that are so effective that a lot of people don't do because it hurts them? Because they lack mobility. They can't do upright rows. They can't do behind the neck presses. They can't do certain types of laterals. They can't turn their pinky out when doing laterals. It's too dangerous. It hurts my shoulder. This is a big gatekeeper right here. It's huge. Like mobility, like shoulder dislocates, handcuffs with rotation. These basic mobility movements allow your shoulder to be expressed fully.

18:12Adam Schafer:And when the humerus and the scapula work in harmony, you could do all kinds of exercises and get all the benefits from all these incredible exercises. So mobility, it's important for the whole body. Don't get me wrong. But it is especially important for the shoulder joint. And so focus on them during the 60 days so you can maximize the benefits.

18:33Sal Di Stefano:Now, would you guys attribute that to the fact that a lot of people suffer from just weakness and instability in the shoulder because it's a floating joint? That's why? That makes such... Because I agree. I totally agree that mobility in the shoulder is such a game changer to make that an emphasis or a focus. And would you attribute that because a lot of people have a lot of weakness and instability there? And so that focus of mobility addresses some of the weakness and instability.

18:58Adam Schafer:It's also just the way people perform a lot of shoulder exercises. They stop their reps short. They don't go all the way down. So it hurts. So what happens when it hurts is you shorten the rep even more or you try different exercises. You avoid exercises. And so you just lose a function. By the way, shoulder mobility will allow you to develop your chest and back more too. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, it gets in the way a lot of times. the chest because you know you're not fully expansive with your chest and you're not really activating it to the optimal amount because your shoulder is so protracted so it stops there it's like you know that's the weak point in the movement yep yep 100 all right i got a study for you guys that is crazy oh yeah it is crazy i'm gonna read this to you and i can't wait to see i'm sure lane our buddy lane norton is getting hammered with this study oh really yeah in a good way or

19:45Sal Di Stefano:I think people are just sending it to them.

19:47Adam Schafer:Like, explain this or whatever. So here's the title of the study. This was University of Copenhagen. This is a human study. It was controlled, so it's not bad. And the study showed that ultra-processed foods, ready for this?

20:02Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. They make you gain fat even without additional calories.

20:05Adam Schafer:Oh, boy. Really? So here's the big issue. Here we go. And we've said this forever. The big issue with ultra-processed foods is that they're hyper-palatable and they make you overeat. That's a fact. Trying to eat an appropriate amount of calories with the ultra processed food diet is like, good luck. You're just going to white knuckle this entire time. They're engineered to make you overeat. That's still true. But here's what they did in this study, which is pretty crazy. So the scientists in the study were trying to compare the health impacts of unprocessed and ultra processed diets on the same person.

20:37Adam Schafer:This was a well-made study. They recruited 43 men between 20 and 35 who spent three weeks on each of the two diets with a three-month washout in between. So the same person, half started on the ultra-processed and half started on the unprocessed diet. Half of the men also received a high-calorie diet with an extra 500 daily calories, while half received the normal amount of calories for their size, age, and physical activity levels. They were not told which diet they were on. Both the ultra-processed, unprocessed, and ultra-processed diets had the same amount of calories, proteins, carbs, and fats.

21:10Adam Schafer:They controlled the calories and the macros. Men gained around one kilo, so that's over two pounds, of fat mass while on the ultra-processed diet compared to the unprocessed diet, regardless of whether they were on the normal or excess calorie diet. Wow. Okay? Yeah. Several other markers of cardiovascular health were also affected. It wasn't just weight on the scale. there were cardiovascular markers that were also affected even though the calories and the macros were the same because of the processed food everything else controlled the activity all that all the same i mean i haven't looked super deep in the study because this is a review on the study it's on science daily yeah but from what i'm reading they did a pretty damn good job controlling things remember they did a three-month washout so you're eating processed foods then you'll stop we'll measure weigh things or whatever we'll give you three months of just whatever, then we'll start you on this other diet.

22:05Adam Schafer:So same person, two different diets. What's the difference? An extra two pounds of fat and cardiovascular markers look worse. That's significant, man. Okay. Here's what they also discovered. This is where it gets crazier. They also discovered a worrying increase in the level of hormone disrupting phthalate. This is a substance used in plastics and men on the ultra processed diet. Men on this diet also saw decreases in their levels of testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone, which are crucial for sperm production. This is a quote from the scientists. We were shocked by how many body functions were disrupted by ultra-processed foods, even in healthy young men.

22:45Adam Schafer:Remember that, these are healthy young men. The long-term implications are alarming and highlight the need to revise nutritional guidelines to better protect against chronic disease. Wow. I see you guys are speechless. Yeah. So was I.

22:59Sal Di Stefano:So I have a theory. that so food plastic i'm so curious i hope lane goes after this so we could we can hear his how he defends this or or picks it apart i would think okay so you say they control macros and calories that's right but do they control it this way that's like here's a whole foods uh 500 calories okay this is 500 calories of process are they actually scientifically measuring that or are taking the label that says 500 calories because if you just go by the uh 3 000 calorie label diet this brings what i always bring up which is the fda allows 20 for that to be off 20 and you got to believe all these healthier processed foods are going to lie or lean towards the lowest so it's probably you're probably eating 20 more calories than you think you're eating so maybe

23:51Adam Schafer:that would be my guess maybe but here's the other problem you saw changes okay so that doesn't

23:56Sal Di Stefano:address the other part you said where hormone disruption and everything like that yeah that's not going to happen from being no no 200 more calories or 220 more calories uh in that short

24:05Adam Schafer:of a period is not and i don't know about the the two extra pounds of body fat that would be way

24:10Sal Di Stefano:off well i mean depending on the the calorie diet uh a 20 increase could be a significant

24:17Adam Schafer:consider this they were using ultra processed foods not ultra processed health foods so ultra processed foods are going to under report calories not over report i'm sorry yeah they're going to they're going to make it look like they're lower so maybe you're right with that but the phthalates the phthalates the sperm product the lower like testosterone i mean that doesn't

24:37Sal Di Stefano:that doesn't solve that that doesn't i mean that doesn't uh that that's my guess for the although if somebody puts on more body fat all those markers are going to show a negative won't they

24:49Adam Schafer:Not really. No. Not like that. No. 200 calories? No. Not like that. I mean, this was not a, when they say significant reduction, this is like, they always allow for a little bit of changes. But to see something like, and I'd like to see the actual studies. See how much of a reduction? Because obviously. Because the part that alarms me the most out of all of this was a worrying increase. So they were testing a lot of things, you guys. How do you measure that, Sal? Oh, P. They're looking at. Worrying through P? No, no, no. They're looking at, they're testing specifically for phthalates. And I think they're going to look at your urine and your feces to see if you get an increase of these things or blood tests.

25:29Adam Schafer:It's one of those things. And that's correlated to worrying? In other words, there was a, when they say worrying, you see a dramatic increase.

25:38Sal Di Stefano:Oh, worrying like that. I thought you were like, they are more worried or paranoid as - No, no, no, no, no. No, the scientists saw. How are they measuring that to their pee? That makes no sense to me. No, the scientists saw it. You can see it. They were worried by it. Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah, that doesn't... I definitely feel like I'm on the right track with the calorie increase and putting the body fat on. I bet you it has something to do with that. Because if they literally just took all labels at face value and said, those are 500 calories, and then they give you...

26:10Adam Schafer:Well, let me put it this way. Do they have microplastics in it? That's of course. Look, you remember the guys. this is three weeks okay you're gonna gain two extra the both of them are in calorie surplus two extra pounds of fat in three weeks how often these labels like 20 25 that's seven at least bro at least that that's seven that would be 7 000 calories but when you see a change in hormone levels and these look these these phthalates are connected to obesity you know what you'll be

26:40Sal Di Stefano:interesting too because and i'm sure this is all connected to that is you know somebody on a highly processed diet versus somebody on a whole food diet like how much better is your sleep how much better is your digestion everything right everything and like how much does that because

26:53Adam Schafer:they saw cardiovascular markers uh change as well yeah we know this we know hormones affect

26:58Sal Di Stefano:i mean i love this i can't wait to hear lane discuss this because i mean this is one of this is one of the few areas where we don't see eye to eye with each other well we we always said like

27:09Adam Schafer:i don't care what the macros and calories say fine it's equal um i still don't think they're They still think they're worse for you. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in processed food that is - They don't nourish you. That has been put in there to improve its palatability that are not chemicals found in normal foods. What do all those things combined do to you? And the production, the production of these foods and the plaxis that are in your food because of just the production and the wrappers and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But we know this. We know hormones affect fat gain or fat loss, muscle gain, muscle loss.

27:41You could take somebody, change their hormones,

27:43Adam Schafer:change nothing else and suddenly they get leaner and build more muscle because hormones tell your body what to do so and they change the calorie out part right so it's like oh calories in versus calories out that doesn't change that's true but you change your hormone profile and the calories out thing changes suddenly your body starts to either burn more calories or want to build more muscle which then burns more calories this is wild yeah it is and this is showing because look follicle stimulating hormone goes down that's going to change that's going to alter your fertility these hormone disrupting chemicals change fertility in women as well I don't think it's just a I think eating too many calories is playing a big role but I don't think it's the only role and we've suspected this I mean come on we've all suspected this you have the people on the other side who are like well show me the data well I think they downplay a lot of those chemicals because it's a lot easier to mass produce and also keep a longer shelf life and all that so money line it's like Like, you know, let's not look too intensively into this.

28:42It's just wild. It affects you a lot more.

28:44Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

28:45Adam Schafer:How wild.

28:46Sal Di Stefano:I can't wait to hear the internet go here.

28:49Adam Schafer:Yeah, and debate it and discuss it. Yeah, because this is - Remember, these were 20 to 35-year-old men. Yeah. So imagine what it's going to do, a 45-year-old, a 55-year-old. Yeah, they're in their prime. And this was three weeks. This was three weeks.

29:01Sal Di Stefano:I know, that's a short period of time. Okay. What does that look like stretched out for a year?

29:04Adam Schafer:Year?

29:05Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

29:05Adam Schafer:People eat a processed food dominant diet for decades.

29:10Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

29:10Adam Schafer:Not three weeks. You're eating that. So if your phthalate, you know, if these chemicals increase in three weeks, what do you think is happening to you over 15 years? Your chute is shrinking. Or 25 years. Or your life, your whole life. Yeah. Interesting. Wow. Interesting. I know, right? Yeah, yeah. I know. I read that study. I'm like, oh, this is going to be. It's pretty alarming. I think we've, and we make the case for eliminating processed foods because it helps control your intake, which I still, I think one of the biggest reasons. But I think the, like, if you did anything with your diet, everybody, if you just eliminated processed foods, you would solve the majority of your diet issues.

29:51Sal Di Stefano:It's not benefiting you at the end of the day. It's so funny because when I think about my own personal journey as a trainer, like helping people, like going from the tracking down to the calorie macro, writing a meal plan out that matches that's ridiculous even and stuff like that to like, okay, letting go of that a little bit, but still really writing meal plans for people to literally getting to the place where it finally was like, oh, you know what? Just stop eating processed foods. I'm going to tell you your macros or this or that. And like literally go eat whole foods. Just the basic. Yeah, go eat whole foods and eat the meat first.

30:26Sal Di Stefano:Like became like the advice. And it was like enough to radically change 90 % of your client's physique. Like that's not going to get you on stage and win a show. But 90 % of all the clients that would ever hire you, just convincing them to move away from processed foods, eat whole foods, eat their protein first, solved most all the problems that you were having diet related with helping them getting in good shape. Isn't that great? Crazy. I know, I love it.

30:53Adam Schafer:All right, I got another cool study for you. This one was, let me see where this was done. This one was done at the University of Exeter. Drinking nitrate-rich beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in older adults. It reshapes their oral microbiome. So your oral microbiome plays a big role in how much nitric oxide you produce. Yeah, how much nitric oxide you produce. By the way, this supports other studies that show that mouthwash. Yeah, so bad. Not a good idea. Because it literally kills - Kind of nukes all the beneficial bacteria. That produce nitric oxide that you need for vascular health. By the way, poor vascular health, low nitric oxide for men.

31:33Adam Schafer:This contributes to erectile dysfunction and stuff like this. So this study was pretty interesting. And I brought it up because our partner's joy mode, one of the main ingredients in there are nitrates from beer. That's right. Oh, yeah. That's right. And so it's a pre-sex supplement. You take it 45 minutes before improved blood flow. You can argue as a health supplement. I love it. I take it, and I don't take it before sex. I take it pre-workout. I take it throughout the day. I've been drinking more. I get energy from it. I feel good. One of the best things you do for your health is improve your vascular health, and nitric oxide does that quite a bit.

32:10Adam Schafer:Higher nitric oxide reduces risk of things like heart disease, heart attack, stuff like that. But pretty cool study. And again, if you don't want to go supplement route, beet juice. I just don't like the taste. but with beet juice which is yeah i mean most most of those supplements all have that right

32:26Sal Di Stefano:that's like the main ingredient the main ingredient that works for most like your pre-workout supplements

32:29Adam Schafer:is that isn't it no they don't no not not nitrates are expensive uh you want to put them in a supplement it's going to cost you a lot so what are they'll use arginine oh okay okay so i mean no acid cheaper precursor yeah they're precursors yeah nitrates will boost nitric oxide for sure in a big way Oh, interesting.

32:46Sal Di Stefano:So that is a cheaper way of doing it. Totally. Oh, totally. I didn't know that. I thought that's what the science point to is the better route. That's why so many times.

32:54Adam Schafer:Oh, interesting. Yeah, citrulline, arginine cheap. Of course, it's a cheaper way. Nitrate, expensive. So, you know, again, for people who like that blood flow when they work out, you get better pump, you get more better performance. Yeah, try joy mode. Watch what happens. It's like it doesn't even come close to, you know, the other stuff.

33:13Sal Di Stefano:You know, talking about overall health and predictors or something like that, I saw this Peter Atiyah interview. I wish I could give credit to the lady he was interviewing. I don't know what her name was, but I thought it was a really interesting clip. They were talking about what's the number one predictor for somebody like falling down, when they get an advanced age, falling down and breaking a hip or getting hurt. You know what it is? No. Toe strength. Oh, wow. Toe strength. Toe strength and ankle mobility is she like is making the case is like the number one thing and one of the most important things to focus on when we age.

33:43Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you know what? Let's fix that, by the way.

33:44Adam Schafer:People are thinking ankle mobility. People think, oh, just tight ankles. No, no, weak.

33:49Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Weak feet. You have to be strong. It's strength all the way up and down. I mean, yeah, let's just address that in general. Anytime you hear us talk about weakness or lack of mobility, or anytime we talk about lack of mobility or needing mobility, that's weakness and instability. That's right. So that's exactly what that is. The root of being immobile is weakness and instability. So having weak, instable feet is the cause of all those issues. Getting ahead of that, you take your shoes off, you articulate your toes, and just keep walking around. Yeah, I think people don't think to do that enough.

34:22And we get so comfortable in these shoes that totally cater all of your different articulating movements.

34:28Sal Di Stefano:I was squatting the other day, and then I walked on the treadmill afterwards in my chucks. and I actually could feel, what's the right term, degrading in my gait from lack of attention. I haven't been training very consistently and definitely haven't been doing a lot of my mobility, ankles, stuff like that. It just hasn't been a priority and I noticed it after squatting and then walking. I think what I really noticed was on the treadmill. I could tell by my gait and like, oh wow, how I'm atrophying. I absolutely have atrophied an area that I take a lot of pride in that I've worked on, I would say is my ankle and my feet.

35:07Sal Di Stefano:Like that was a big focus for the, you know, I don't know, mid part of mind pump. And so I haven't been doing a lot of that and I could tell the difference. Yeah.

35:15Adam Schafer:Yeah. The reason why you get tight when you're weak, because people think when you're older and you see when people walk or they stumble and they can't catch themselves and you're at the weaker you get, the more limited your range of motion becomes as your CNS tries to keep everything safe. And so you lose mobility, you lose mobility because your body becomes less and less able to control and stabilize in ranges of motion in different ways. So you become more and more and more and more and more limited over time, losing the ability to be more. It's funny, this weekend I was at church and one gentleman introduced himself to me.

35:50Adam Schafer:His name is Justin, he's an ER doctor. And we were talking about this with the elderly and how he's like, their balance. And we were talking like, it comes from lack of strength. So we had this great conversation about this. and I was telling them how towards the end of my career I trained a lot of people in advanced age and the changes that they had in their independence and mobility just from getting and listen, I wasn't doing like deadlifts and I couldn't. These people were in their 70s and 80s. They were deconditioned. Some of the exercises were like, we're going to sit down and stand up. Yeah.

36:21Adam Schafer:And you're going to sit on this bench and oh, the bench is too low. I'm going to put some pads on it. We're going to sit down and stand up. It was like the most or I'm just going to have, you're going to hold my hands and I'm going to have you try to come up on your toes and come back down. Like that would be an exercise. And the improvement they saw in their independence and mobility was profound. It was life-changing. Yeah, some of the most basic – even that's why I love the sled so much because I can get them driving up on their forefoot. And the thing is they walk around and it's just all flat-footed movement all day long.

36:52And same plane. Yeah, and they never strengthen that. And two, you know, so that's just like one of the most basic ways to get them up and going and it's not too complicated skill-wise. Totally, totally.

37:02Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, all mobility and strength in all directions too because she pointed, thank you. Doug pulled up the interview. It's 296 on Peter Ortiz and it was Dr. Courtney Conley. Correct, yeah. Huh? Yeah. That's correct, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Courtney Conley was the doctor. So I didn't listen to the whole episode. I just saw an excerpt from it and I thought, oh, this is really interesting and a really good topic. We haven't brought up the foot in a long time and just I think it's so important that you do that. I think it's a good habit to, if you don't already practice being at home, like I love having like a nice grassy backyard now where I'll just, I take them off and we'll play soccer barefoot in the grass with Max and just kick it around.

37:39Sal Di Stefano:So like that is, is a good way. But if you don't, if you don't actively go do that, it probably a good idea to incorporate it into your training is to get some barefoot days of your, your training sessions. Otherwise it's one of those things you'll just lose it if you don't actually practice. That's right.

37:54Adam Schafer:All right. I'm going to tell you guys about something that sucks really bad. so uh i went today's day four i think of going off kratom completely oh now my dose no fun my dose wasn't even that high okay so at the worst at my highest my dose looked like about what would that be about five grams maybe six maybe five and a half grams a day oh i don't even think you were

38:17Sal Di Stefano:that high five grams you know how much that is those little those little the pills 500 milligrams

38:21Adam Schafer:each.

38:22Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

38:22Adam Schafer:So at my highest, I would take like eight to 12 in a day divided. So maybe. Okay. And then, but on other days it would be more like, um, just like, like seven of those about 33. Okay. So, and now people use up to like 20, 30, 40, 50. Okay. Grams a day. So I didn't even get that high. Um, I started using them just for context. Uh, my uncle passed away about three months ago, just total moment of weakness. In fact, it started, I was on my way home from, visiting with family the day he passed away. And I'm going to drive home and I'm like, oh man, I'm so tired. I'm going to fall asleep, obviously feeling just totally just down.

39:00Adam Schafer:And I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to use some. It'll keep me awake and help numb and distract me from just this terrible feeling. And so that started a three-month cycle of me eventually using it on a daily basis. And the root of that for me is like makes me feel capable, puts me in a good mood, whatever. um so it was about i want to say a week or two ago um and i told you guys i had this where my wife kind of asked me point blank if i was using it i lied to her next day i told her the truth and so i told her you know i'm gonna i'm gonna and you know she's very give me a lot of grace with it i'm gonna come off and my last day is gonna be you know on this day or whatever so i tried to kind of work my way down i was taking uh maybe five or six capsules a day which is like three grams.

39:46Adam Schafer:And then my last day ended the day after I was like, okay, I'm not getting the good feelings, but I think I'm cool. So maybe I didn't, maybe I'm not going to get any withdrawal. It was the day after the day after.

39:58Sal Di Stefano:I hate it. Cause it fully got out of your system. That's why. Yeah.

40:01Adam Schafer:And what it was for me, and I've been reading what people will go through. So mine are not anything like other people, but for me, it was like lethargic, like crazy. Like, even right now, you guys, I feel like half asleep. I was just worthless. Sauna will help. I hate that.

40:21Sal Di Stefano:Big time. Sauna helps. Helped me big time to get in the sauna and kind of sweat it all out. It'll speed up that process because it is an awful that can drag out to be a good five days, five, seven days afterwards. So even when it's completely out of your system, I would say it takes...

40:39Adam Schafer:Well, it's the opiate receptors have to kind of upregulate

40:41Sal Di Stefano:And it takes about five to seven days to kind of reprime them.

40:44Adam Schafer:But just exhausted, lethargic, taking naps, which is even, this is my kryptonite because I used stuff like that to feel more capable. Well, now I'm like worthless. Now I'm not helping my wife. I'm not playing with my kids. They want to play with me. I just, I'm just like, I feel like I'm, like I took a bunch of sleeping pills or something. It was really weird. And just absolutely horrible. But I had this great moment, this blessing, because I'm like going through this. I feel like I'm worthless. I'm like, I don't know what to do, whatever. My poor wife thinks I'm mad at her. And I'm like, I'm not mad at you.

41:14Adam Schafer:I'm just, I feel like garbage. So I'm trying to navigate that. And I had this moment where I was praying and God showed me how far things have come for us. And I felt this joy, which while you're tired, you can feel joy. So I was trying to explain this to people. Felt this joy that was just such a gift. And I'm like, okay, I'm going, I'm moving in the right direction. Let's do this. But I tell you what, man, that, For anybody who wants to get into that product or whatever, it's nasty. And I wasn't using a lot, man. I was using it daily, which is not a good idea, but I wasn't using much. To feel like this, I still feel like garbage, but I feel better than I did the other day.

41:58Adam Schafer:You should have seen me the other day. I was on Benadryl or something. It was weird, man.

42:02Sal Di Stefano:Well, this is why I'm so glad that we had that foresight way back when, when I remember when Mark Bell first launched his and that was around the same time we were kind of talking and hanging out with him a lot. And I remember it was, I could feel he was like offended that I was like, yeah, no, we are not going to promote that. And he was like trying to sell it on me. And I'm like, no, I'm already aware enough of the benefit. I mean, of the addictive properties that it has. And so it's like, it's not something that we're going to promote on the podcast. You know, it's caffeine, kratom. weed i mean all of them become a uh can become a thing like that where you know they they start off with just a little bit and then you creep up creep up creep up creep up and then before you know it it's something that you find yourself some things are worse than others for sure uh oh yeah i mean the crate coming off a kratom it is harder for me than caffeine or for sure for sure i can go like i can forget to smoke and go for a week two weeks no big deal not even a big deal.

43:03Sal Di Stefano:Caffeine, I have to make a strategic effort, so that's a little bit harder. That's when it gets me all the time. In fact, even when I'm coming off caffeine, it's a little rougher in the day, but I actually sleep better. I'm fine. Kratom will... Mess your sleep up? I can't sleep. I come off, and then I go to, oh, it's just awful. So I would agree that of all of them, it's one of the...

43:25Adam Schafer:I tell you what, man. I'll use the word sin, but you can use whatever you want in your head. Sin feels fine until you try to stop. then you realize who you who you're worshiping or what you're worshiping and uh so you know if you're like oh yeah i'll just stop whenever all right go ahead try it oh you don't want to you make up excuses there might be something that's ruling over you yeah but that's what it feels like feels cool i'm cool i'm managing it oh yeah try to stop and then see what happens if the psychological stopping was the hard part first because i'm like i don't want to stop it makes me feel give me energy when i'm with the kids at the park i'm playing with them and having a good time and it's fine it puts me in a good mood or whatever and then the second part now is the physiological but now i'm in it i'm like i'm this is i'm going through it and i'm not gonna i'm not

44:09Sal Di Stefano:gonna stop i'm gonna stay off of it what day are you on right now this is probably day four oh you're gonna be yeah yeah go get some steam sonic but the lethargic part man i am bro you know how you go off caffeine and you feel tired yeah it's way worse avoid it no i'm always trying to find other creative ways to do a little less and then no way worse bro i thought i was getting sick or something like this is not right well speaking of sick like dude my whole house has been sick and um i never get like you don't get symptoms and yeah and it's like i don't know if i'm actually sick ever like i just it's always like it's it's not like definitive you know and like i have these weird symptoms this weekend like my legs were like really achy and like i just i felt a little like like what is that you know so i'm i'm trying to figure out you know this mobility yeah a lot of my doll a lot of uh chocolate and um i'm working through it and actually it's funny enough like so i i was like you know i'm gonna take a bath you know like i yeah i don't do that i don't take a page out of adam's book i didn't put any bubbles in there oh yeah do you listen to death

45:18Adam Schafer:metal in the bath because i mean he would keep me awake at least but no i it's usually like I have like a whole other playlist for chill. Like I do like a lot of like sublime and more. I don't always listen to the metal. I don't always listen to metal. I do listen to it a lot. So you guys are correct. But yes, I'm actually the only tub is in my son's room. And so he was gone hanging out with his friends. So it's always kind of weird too. I'm like using his bathroom and I'm kind of in there like looking around. I haven't been in there in a long time. What's he doing in here? He's always in here.

45:51You know, like you don't want to find stuff. He's at that age, bro, where you don't even want to ask questions about - He's a full-on teenager. I don't want to uncover things and find things. But I was looking in his little, whatever you call that - Medicine cabinet. Medicine cabinet. He's got the good. He's got the serum. He's got all this stuff from Caldera. The skincare. It's all completely organized. He's doing it systematically. Psychologically, like I didn't even know he literally just stole it from me. And I was looking for it the other day. And of course, you know, he finds the good stuff that I have and takes it all the time.

46:31But I thought that was kind of funny. I'm like, dude, you're a kid. Like, of course, like they're going through skin issues and stuff and pimples and all these things. So I'm sure it helps. That'll help, yeah. I was thinking that. And I'm like, well, that's smart that he's getting ahead of this.

46:44Adam Schafer:Yeah, the Caldera Lab serum helps with acne. So that's actually good. Because it balances the skin, right? That's right. It balances out the microbiome. It's funny, as you're talking, I laugh whenever, why does a 15-year-old need to make their skin look younger? That's what I was like. You rubbed dirt on your skin. You were just fine. I never used anything. Oh, my God, bro. I'm not a good example. I wash my face with dish soap sometimes. I'm all broke. It's fine. Dish soap. Is that a soap? This will do it. Yeah. You know? But I'm like, yeah, I'm sitting in there just hoping nobody comes in. Why are you in my room, Dad?

47:17It's vulnerable. Don't you feel that when you're in a tub? We're just like looking around the caps of time.

47:23Sal Di Stefano:I don't know. I'm all in, dog. I'm all in. Candles, bubbles.

47:27Adam Schafer:You know what's funny about what you said? Is this a dad, a mom and dad thing? Moms are all about snooping around their kids' stuff. Yes. Dads typically are like, I don't want to find anything. Like, don't tell me about it.

47:39Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I don't want to. I mean, is this like a man-woman trait thing? I think it's more like that. I don't know because moms are like sneaky.

47:46Adam Schafer:They want to go through your room, look through things. I'm like, look at your text.

47:50Sal Di Stefano:Well, I was going to say, who's in the, at least all of your guys' relationship, like who's more likely to grab the other person's phone and snoop through their phone? Like, that's, wife is more likely. Even though my wife doesn't do that, she's probably more likely than I would. I'm thankful she doesn't do that with me. I don't even want to. Like, I'm like, I'm the type of husband who's like this. Like, she wants something that, like, in her purse, like, I'm afraid to even go in her purse. It's like, I've caught myself doing that. Like, this is my wife. Why can't I go through her purse? It's like, but it feels so intrusive.

48:16Sal Di Stefano:you know it's like i don't want to know if there's something mad because they shuffled something yeah i don't want to see something i don't want to see you know i have no idea it's just like no here like bring it over like it's some sort of like nuclear bomb yeah could you get this dismantle this for me yeah yeah so and same thing like with like a phone like i don't know i don't know dude i'm like

48:33Adam Schafer:i don't want to look if somebody butt dials me okay somebody butt dials me and i can i hang up i don't want to hear conversations i'm not supposed to hear yeah yeah yeah yeah okay like Like, I think a lot of women are like, I don't know, I'm not here. What's happening? Yeah, I catch Courtney all the time. Like, if we ever leave the house, she's, like, on the ring camera already. I hate that. Like, looking at things. And I'm just like, what are you doing?

48:54Sal Di Stefano:Okay, my thought on that is because you always make up, it is in our genes to make up the worst case scenario. That's what you're default to. So it's like, to me, I don't even want to risk, even if it's something innocent, because the brain will automatically go to the worst case scenario. So it's like, why would I do that to myself? It's so torturous. You know what I'm saying? I know. I don't need that. I don't need that. I'm actually talking about this. I'm sure you guys get this. We've had our same. I've had the same phone number since I was a kid. Never had a different phone number on my cell phone.

49:25Sal Di Stefano:And I get at least three to four a week, at least, of people texting me that are strangers. even like like spam girls sending me pictures to hey oh yeah or hey what are you doing tonight and it's always a number i don't and like so i've a long time ago like i won't if it's if your name isn't in my phone i won't answer it if you're if your my name isn't in the text i ain't responding to it that's a you better leave me a voicemail and then describe who you are write me an email or something because i'm not i won't answer it but she gets those now but i remember when that first started happening and i'd have to tell her about like hey random people are like something she's like yeah okay sure and i'm like no i swear to god so now she she gets it all the time and she's like that is crazy i'm like i've been telling you this for years it happened that's

50:08Adam Schafer:a strategy that's like uh what is it fishing is that what that's called it's a strategy yeah well they'll they'll they'll send you a message like hey you know it was good to see you last night yeah something like that huh didn't we know somebody who just got just got screwed over like that all the time say what when i was single like especially new year's eve that was like my move. I would just start yelling out certain girls' names, and then whichever one would turn around, I'd start talking to them. No, you didn't. Yeah, bro. Why are you talking about this? This is just funny. It's like a drunk guy strategy when he's like 20.

50:41Adam Schafer:Yo, Susan! And then you turn around, and it worked. It totally worked. One time I yelled out Courtney, and here we are. I got two kids. End of story. I would never do that. Oh, my gosh. it was a drunk idea for sure yeah those drunk ideas are never good ones no oh you want to hear

51:00Sal Di Stefano:a bad bad idea i i saw this uh this clip some actually was like a podcast of guys that uh that talk about movies and history and movies and stuff like that and you guys have seen the fast i don't know i haven't seen all of them but you've probably seen at least a handful the fast and furious right yeah did you remember that the like before ludicrous because you know ludicrous is part of that series right it was jaw rule in the first one did you know that okay so jaw rule was the and he had like you know a couple cheesy lines or whatever like that and i can't remember what he got paid we got paid decent money but that was right in the thick of when jaw rule was popping off and be like a thing and he turned down that role for the second one it wasn't enough money and they want and it was like it's still good money and that's why and ludicrous took it the irony of that is I think Ludacris has made like you know 15 million dollars on the whole on the whole season yeah like yeah because he passed on that role and like you know the big joke is like you know no one's paying attention to Ja Rule or cares anything about what he's doing and even if he when he tour he's the one Firefest right yeah it was around that time actually Justin I think that was part of the decision was like oh I got Firefest I got this going on and stuff like that I'm not going to do this this film or whatever so he shit on the film and then it ends up ludicrous ends up doing it and fire financial consultant millions you remember you guys remember the the prank that 50 cent did on jaw roll too on his like one of his last concert tours so jaw roll all those tickets yeah 50 has always been like messing with jaw for a long time they have beef right and so he what he had uh he would he had a concert tour and 50 cent bought i want to say the first like all the front row yeah like like first four or five rows of the entire arena because their tickets were so cheap.

52:48Sal Di Stefano:They just left it. Yeah, just left it, so it was all empty. That is such a gangster prank right there.

52:54Adam Schafer:I would do that to a friend. I would, too.

52:56Sal Di Stefano:If I had that kind of money where I could just mess with someone like that, I would. I feel like DMX would have been a better replacement. They're like the same guy. Yeah, like they sound the same. I know. Yeah. No, I agree. You brought up the other day, I have to share this with you because I shared it with Justin, and I think Doug wasn't here, too. I wasn't sure. uh remember the other day you just talked about how guy nicknames are like horrible horrible right real insecurities so i haven't seen my buddy greg in a long time right and obviously i wasn't even thinking about this you're talking about orphan greg yeah hey bro it's worse i'll do worse than that oh my god so i haven't seen him in a long time i haven't seen him in a long time he's an ultra marathon runner and stuff like that used to be a trainer for me good good buddy of mine and uh i and he he shows up at my house we hung out this weekend we did our fancy football thing had like a little barbecue pool party and stuff like that and uh he he pulls his shirt off to get in the pool and he's got this massive scar down his stomach and up his back and he was like oh yeah it was my back surgery goes in tell me all about it's like messed up bro and they they re-stitched him up and they like his ab is all off to the side oh bro mess serious serious surgery like that so the rest of the night I was called him c-section c-section great I told the rest of my boys all night long everybody's drinking some of this oh bro it's so good April c-section I bet he loved it obviously I wasn't thinking about it what happened it was in the moment drinking having a fun time with the boys but it made me think oh this is so funny Sal just brought up how vicious Katrina came over and she's like I can't believe you were saying that to him.

54:35Adam Schafer:Like, is he okay? Hey, listen. Hey, we're different, man. We're different. Yeah. Like female, maybe there's outliers, but if a woman said that to her friend, they would cry and hate them forever. Yeah, it would go off like a nuclear bomb. Can you believe she called me C-section? And she would be done. Can you imagine a woman calling her friend C-section for having a C-section? There's C-section Susan. They would hate your enemies for life. You guys just became closer. Oh, yeah.

55:02Sal Di Stefano:And not even like a moment of thinking about it. Pooferated patty. Like I was like, I'm going to intentionally be mean. It was just the go-to thing to say right there at the moment. Yeah, dude.

55:12Adam Schafer:If you're the short guy or the fat guy or the old guy. Stumpy Stacy. Every other. Yeah. That's a good time. We should get them to do it. I don't know what's wrong with us. So good. If you listen to Brain FM and you select focus or sleep or meditate, The music has been designed and engineered by scientists to induce states of mind that match that. In other words, listen to focus five to 10 minutes in, your brain becomes more focused. This is engineered sounds and music. It really works. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself for free for 30 days. Go to brain.fm forward slash mind pump. Back to the show.

55:53Adam Schafer:Our first caller is Andy from Missouri. Andy, what's happening? How's it going, Andy? What's up, man? Hey, what's up, guys? How are you? Good. How can we help you? Just going to get straight to the question. I am a 40-year-old police officer. I'm looking at competing in my first powerlifting competition that our department's putting on at a local gym. I've cycled through anabolic, performance, aesthetic, and symmetry two to three times over the past couple years. my squat is 465 my bench is 335 my deadlift is 445 I weigh 233 pounds I've been on TRT for about a year I struggle with my deadlift especially since my deadlift is usually higher than the supposed to be higher than a squat how can I best get ready for this competition and increase my deadlift yeah good question by the way thanks for what you do as a profession by the way um I mean is this competition can be three lift total or just one lift?

56:46It's three lifts.

56:47Adam Schafer:Okay. And it's, uh, I guess they called it wrong, which is so you can use straps, knee sleeves. It's kind of a brand new novice thing that we've never done. So, yeah. Okay. So, uh, maps power lift would be the program to follow, um, which we'll send to you. Uh, you know, some, some, some things to consider too, with this, if it's, if, if you're like, I just want to get my deadlift to come up, then you, you do with the rest of your list is you kind of take a break on them for a little bit, to place more focus on the deadlift. And I'll give you some tips on things you can do. Although when you get powerlift, follow it as it's laid out because it's a very well put together program.

57:20Adam Schafer:But a couple of things to consider. One is sometimes you get guys that are better at squatting than deadlifting. And they also tend to be really good at bench press. And so really good benchers tend to not deadlift. And that's more really a leverage thing, just the way that their bodies tend to be built. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, I'm a good deadlifter, but I'm not a heavy bencher. Maybe I have long arms, I think. So there's always leverage. It's something to consider. The other thing, too, is have you used progressive resistance like bands and chains with your deadlift? Never done that.

57:52Adam Schafer:Those make a big difference. Huge benefit. Big difference. Yeah, so let's say you're going to go and your workout consists of doing singles with, say, 405. You would put, let's say, 370 on the bar, but you'd add maybe 20 pounds of chains. or even 30 pounds of chains. So the top of the lift, you're real heavy, but at the bottom of the lift, it's much lighter, uh, chains and bands, bands could be assisted, uh, assisting as well. That progressive resistance tends to break through those types of, uh, plateaus. Nonetheless, mass power lift, follow that. Cause you're doing a three lift total. So you should get better in all three lifts, uh, with that program.

58:30Adam Schafer:So caveat to that is I'm actually going to, um, I had, I'm going to have to have surgery on my finger due to a work comp thing. So I'm going to cycle through this for the next competition next year. So as I'm doing that, I've started powerlifting, but obviously I'm going to have to put that on hold for now. What other programs should I cycle through to get ready for that? Oh, so powerlift is great. I love symmetry and performance as ways to mitigate any potential injury, which you already have, it looks like.

58:58Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Yeah. It looks like you're doing all the right stuff right now, to be honest. Yeah. Sounds like it. Okay. Is there an order that I should be doing it in any particular way? And then obviously do powerlifting probably about the three months before the competition.

59:09Adam Schafer:Yeah. No, I would go. Which one did you just finish? Uh, I just finished symmetry. You can go into powerlifting. I started on powerlifting, but then I haven't quite got it there. So yeah. Do you have any nagging injuries or pain anywhere? I haven't, uh, just, you know, kind of old man knee stuff here and there. So yeah, you know, you could do another round of symmetry and then get back and then get to power lift and then make sure that you lead up to the competition, giving yourself enough time with power lift. Gotcha. Okay. But otherwise, otherwise you're doing great, dude. I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

59:41Adam Schafer:Yeah. You got it, man. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It was easy. Yeah. The, um, straightforward. Yeah. Progressive. The chains and bands were a game changer for me. Oh yeah. My deadlift was stuck in the, in the mid fives, uh, low fives actually for a while started using chains and bands, bands in particular chains are good too but those are such a good bridge yeah between oh man it got my deadlift to progress uh like especially if it's the first time you're using them oh yeah you know yeah he's never messed with and with bands i would do interesting things i would do it where they would assist the lift i'd do it where they're at the bottom just kind of similar then i would do it to where the bands were uh attached kind of away from the deadlift to help with my pullback and my lockout and you could do this with bands where you make the resistance different angles to work on different parts of the lift.

1:00:2620 forward or, yeah. Oh, yeah. That helps a lot.

1:00:29Adam Schafer:Made a huge difference. But then the leverage thing, that's a big one.

1:00:31Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah. A lot of people assume that the deadlift should just be higher. It's not true at all. I mean, you're that way, right, Justin? Your squat is bigger than your deadlift, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah. No, it's embarrassing, but it's true. It's not embarrassing. I mean, I wish I had your squat. So it's like, yeah, it's typically one or the other.

1:00:46Adam Schafer:Great deadlifters almost are never great bench pressers. The long arms are great for deadlifts, terrible for bench pressers.

1:00:51Sal Di Stefano:That's what I like about powerlifts, though. it's kind of like an equalizer in that. Yeah. Right. Cause it balances it out. Right. No, I agree. Our next caller is Juliana from Korea.

1:01:01Adam Schafer:Juliana. How are you? What's happening? How can we help you? What happened? I'm just waking up. So is Justin too. Yeah, I got Krusty still working through it. How can we help you? So I, well, thanks so much. So I sent an email a couple days ago and a little bit of a story about my background. I've been training for the past 14 years since I joined the Marine Corps. I competed once. after my competition, I went down on a road of eating disorder, depression, and I was bullying for almost two years. And then I got back in a really good relationship with food. Little by little, I incremented my macros and I was in a really happy relationship with my macros until I got an injury back in February.

1:01:55So I stopped training for almost six months. I had a femur fracture. Now I can't, now I'm clear to go back to training, but I really don't know where to start now. I'm like, I don't want to get fractured again. I don't know how to do it again. And I'm really good on following guidance, if that make any sense.

1:02:14Adam Schafer:Yeah. No, good. I'm glad you asked this. Typically, Gila, typically a stress fracture is due from years of overtraining. Is that what happened to you? I believe so I was overtraining I think I was on my peak of my training and I started running with my co-workers and I started loving it and enjoying it and I went from three miles to five miles to seven to ten and I was doing a strength training and my diet I balanced it more on fats than carbs so yes I definitely overstrained myself I know that and I fracture the stronger bone in the body how I don't know but definitely yeah so you mind if I go through your background a little again just kind of recap so we can give you the best advice yes so I be training has been a part of my life my whole entire life I started doing sports when I was five years old my mom had us and doing any type of sports when we were a child.

1:03:20Then I moved to the States. I enjoyed ROTC in high school, so I did a lot of running, a lot of military training, to call it that way. Then I joined the Marine Corps, and for 14 years, I've been doing mostly running, no more than three miles. I never had a good relationship with running. Now I do, but I also did weights. never had a guidelines before the competition. I did a bodybuilding competition once. I loved that. But after that, I got very upset with maintaining the body fat percentage that that's impossible. So then I went to my, couldn't cope, depression on eating, my eating disorder, but I was continuing always working.

1:04:09And every time I felt that I was eating bad, I used to next hour in the treadmill and next hour in the cardio. After that, I overcome that. My mindset changed. I started doing more of reverse dieting and getting my body back to be healthier. So, yes, never nothing specific. I started listening to you guys because I started looking into strength training more than hypertrophy. so that and i was doing a strength training for almost two years so low reps and i was doing five reps every squad rack and i got to live i was doing 245 if i wow 245 to 65

1:05:01Adam Schafer:wow typically when somebody um trains themselves to the point of a stress fracture especially on the femur and then they say they love what they're doing it's it's more about what they they're not doing in other words it's that it's taking you away from something that you hate do you know what that is when you're exercising what is it taking you away from or what is it distracting you from if you don't mind me asking uh don't know honestly i was enjoying doing my exercises like getting the gym but i was focusing more of not becoming super big i'm guessing yeah so i didn't want i didn't want to just great gain a lot of weight i just wanted it to maintain with a low body percentage but not really was running away from something and my time my military standards yeah because of your background and how long you've been doing this this is going to be a difficult, because I can give you the right answer.

1:06:04Adam Schafer:I know what the right answer is, but, uh, it's going to be hard to stay on the right path because you're going to veer back to what you were doing before and your, your tolerance for intensity, uh, or what you, what you would judge to be the right amount of volume and intensity is skewed. Part of it is because of your background. Part of it is because you were in the Marines. It did result in an injury that kind of stopped you in your tracks, but that's always a terrible way to stop because you're forced. And when you're forced to stop doing something like that, it's really difficult, really hard.

1:06:38Adam Schafer:As you start to feel better, it'll be very hard not to veer back to what you were doing before. So what I would recommend is map starter. I'd recommend just walking and I'd recommend eating a reverse diet. The challenge is going to be being able to do that and not start to slide back little by little incrementally, maybe sometimes quickly to really pushing your limits. Um, yes, you would be the perfect, you would be the perfect person to work with a coach through this process. Cause I can give you the advice right now, but there's, there's, I have zero confidence in my advice on one call like this.

1:07:12Adam Schafer:I would have to work with you for a little while because psychological training needs to happen with this. Yeah. Cause right now you're in the mindset. That's right. This mindset is not going to stick around. I promise you. You're going to get to a point where it's going to shift and you'll be like, man, I feel good. I'm going to do a little more. And everything feels great. I love it. And I'm going to do a little more and everything's good and I'm improving. Therefore, I think I could do more and it's going to continue down. You're going to keep going down that path and potentially cause another injury or problem.

1:07:39No, and you're right because I got clear from the injury that it was getting better. It got better to a 90, 80%. and I started back training. I said, I need to take it slow. I was, I promise I was taking it slow, but no, it's slow to my body. And the pain started to come back. I was like, okay, I got to stop again. So yes, you on that one. Yes, you are definitely right. I do. I do need to like, just because I'm doing more doesn't mean, just because I'm doing less, it doesn't mean it's not working.

1:08:16Adam Schafer:Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard. This is going to be a very hard path out. But the end of this, if we do this right, is going to be so amazing. It's going to be so amazing. You're going to have a real relationship, a healthy one with all of this. But you got to get out and you got to get through the tough parts. And coaching, I think, would be necessary, at least for the first six months or so. Okay. It will be good to mention that I have a training in January that I have to get ready for. What's the training? Well, hopefully, hopefully. So I'm waiting on results. If I go to, it's like a basic training.

1:08:57It's an officer's training. So I will be going to the officer basic training in January for 16 weeks. And there isn't quanticose in Virginia, so the weather will be cold. Good thing in Korea, I will have that cold and I will have the opportunity to train for it. At least to have climatized myself. But yes, the training is more to endurance.

1:09:23Adam Schafer:Yeah. I was like it. And the last thing I want is get dead and get injured again and not be able to complete the training. The training will be easy for you to pass. That's not going to be a problem. It's not going to be a problem. But what it's going to do is it's going to give you a target that you're going to overtrain for. But the training is going to be easy. For someone like you, it's going to be a piece of cake. So long as you're healthy, it's not going to be hard to pass that. I think you know that. I think you could probably pass that with your eyes closed because you've probably done it so many times.

1:09:53Adam Schafer:So I don't want you to use that as like, uh-oh, I got to push super hard. If we do this the right way, that'll be a piece of cake for you. Okay? But I'll send you Map Starter, but I'm also going to have one of my coaches call you because I think that will be the only way to do this the right way because they're going to have to be with you when you get to those stumbling blocks, which are going to happen. They're going to happen. I'm speaking from personal experience. Yeah, they have. Yes, I do tend to push myself more than that I need. However, Jack February was like my pick of my, I was like on my pick.

1:10:34And I, in the competition, the competitions that were the most rewarding moments of my journey of training journey. And when was the reverse diet? The competition was 2019.

1:10:50Adam Schafer:When did you get the fracture? The fracture, I got it last year, just this past year. I mean, this year, at the beginning of the year, February 26th, to be exact. That's when I found out. Do you see the connection between the competition and the stress fracture?

1:11:10Yes. Okay. That I put my mind on both, like, really hard.

1:11:16Adam Schafer:yeah well here's what i was like here's what happens when you have a competition and then that's like the peak of your like that's the best thing when the competition is over where you go you chase it and you just chase it you chase it or you go the other extreme or you go on the other extreme yeah yeah so i'm gonna send you starter but i promise if you don't have a coach you're not going to want to do it because it'd be boring. So I'm going to have a coach call you and we're going to individualize something for you. And then when it gets really hard, just talk to your coach. Definitely. Okay.

1:11:58No, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And that's how you don't want to hear this, but you need to.

1:12:04Adam Schafer:Yeah, I know. I know. I know what you're feeling right now. It sucks. It's nerve wracking. but uh having someone there to coach you through this is your best bet for sure you're gonna make it through it you'll be all right good to hear that body yeah well quick question uh just on that uh about i'll be looking into vitamins or multivitamins any recommendations i'm on i'm taking calcium right now for sure that's the first thing i started taking vitamin d and calcium and everything that it will help my bone which it did back to eat a lot of not a lot but a balanced dairy because that time of my my journey of my life i could quit quote and quote quit dairy not not thoroughly but i did but now i'm back to eating more yogurt more milk and having that natural vitamin d on my body yeah but that's all the vitamins i'm taking yeah so multi i would add a multivitamin to that.

1:13:04Adam Schafer:D, calcium, magnesium, a multivitamin. But too low calories and overtraining will cause the same problems too. And that's probably - I'm good at that. Yes, not right now. But that's what'll happen. That'll cause that. I've seen women who strength train a lot get osteoporosis because they were under eating and overtraining. Even though they were strength training, they would get osteoporosis because of those two factors. So you can't fight those two factors with nutrients. You need the calories, you need the rest, and you need appropriate strength training. Otherwise, you'll start tearing things down.

1:13:40Awesome. Okay. No, thank you.

1:13:42Adam Schafer:All right. I'm going to have someone call you, Juliana. Awesome. Thank you so much. Great show. I get to hear almost every day. I was on vacation, so I haven't listened to it in a couple of days. and you always I noticed you guys always had advices for for the for males there when they are studying they're having that support as a the spouse and I'm like what about us the females when we need to find the spouse

1:14:11Sal Di Stefano:we got you no but it's a great show it's a great show thank you so much thank you

1:14:16Adam Schafer:I have learned a lot from you guys thank you so much for calling in we appreciate the support I hope to see you in our team thank you uh when i go back to the states all right okay thank you so much thank you bye-bye we need to have someone call her because yeah i mean there is zero we could do on this call no that's going to really help her substantially yeah i don't think we told her anything she doesn't know yeah uh but it's going to be i mean you could feel her uh her nerves yeah even her trying to recover and go through that little bit of training was already bored with it a stress fracture of the femur and once she said marines and all this stuff like she she she goes hard she has intolerance

1:14:56Sal Di Stefano:hard and she doesn't eat and there's and there's combos bad and there is such a disconnection

1:15:01Adam Schafer:because she's saying i love it yep so you always ask yourself how can someone say they love something that is causing so much grief and that is a that is a position that uh you need someone yeah to coach you out of because you are seeing things in a completely in the wrong way and to get out of that on your own is very difficult, even an injury.

1:15:21Sal Di Stefano:I hope she does it because I know that we can help her. I just hope she, I hope she does it. Our next caller is Justin from Oklahoma. What's up, man? What's going on, Justin? What's happening, dude? Hey guys, thanks for having me on. First of all, just wanted to thank you guys for everything that you do. You've really changed and enhanced my thinking when it comes to health and fitness in a big way. So I appreciate that. And then Sal, you specifically with your faith journey, it's been really inspiring. I grew up in church. I've been very active in church all my life. And so your bravery and your courage in just being outspoken about something that you might not be comfortable with is really encouraging.

1:16:00So appreciate you guys. I'm going to read through my question just so I stay on track and get through this pretty quick. So I'm looking for some practical advice on how I can begin to train for some endurance events. I'd like to start with a half marathon potentially at the end of this year. And I'm currently on a weight loss journey working to improve overall health. I'm down almost 30 pounds from the beginning of this year so far. And ultimate goal would be to lose another 40 pounds or so over the next 12 months. I'm aware that running and cardio in general is not the most efficient way to lose fat.

1:16:33So that's not necessarily my main reasoning for doing it. There's always been something intriguing to me about building for endurance events. I'm pretty overweight still, 245 at 511. So I want to do this right. I've gained some strength over the last year and don't want to sacrifice my strength or muscle mass while trying to improve cardiovascular health as well. I want to avoid injury burnout and would love to get even stronger during the process if at all possible. So how can I go about doing this the right way to avoid injury, to improve these areas at the same time? Is that even possible? Or should I just delay endurance training altogether for now and keep focusing on strength and weight loss?

1:17:12Adam Schafer:Yeah. So, okay. So, yeah, I would totally avoid the marathon right now. And here's why. Here's why. It's not working in your favor. No. And the injury risk is going to be really high, dude. You're a big dude. You're still trying to lose weight. I mean, how often do you run? Or when's the last time you did a lot of running? I've, I've been on my feet quite a bit for the last couple months and I've run probably two or

1:17:37Sal Di Stefano:three days a week, usually around a mile, mile and a half, two miles somewhere in there, probably three days a week.

1:17:42Adam Schafer:When was, when was the last time before that you ran consistently?

1:17:46Sal Di Stefano:It's probably never been super consistent. I would go two weeks on and then fall off. I've done a couple like 10 Ks and half and five Ks. But other than that, I have not done anything big in endurance.

1:17:58Adam Schafer:So here's the thing with, uh, with running, um, like a marathon or half marathon, um, just like with strength training technique is paramount. And if you start training now with the little experience you have with running, uh, and you just go to train for fatigue, your, your, your, your injury risk is through the roof. So that's my main reason why it's not for the strength loss. Cause that'll happen. It's not cause you're going to postpone the weight, the fat loss. Cause that'll also happen. It's cause the injury risk is so high. You're a big dude. Your technique, I can guarantee, isn't great.

1:18:31Adam Schafer:And if you go to push endurance, it's going to be even worse, and your risk of injuries is going to be real high.

1:18:36Sal Di Stefano:If you were my client, this is what we would set as a goal to reward yourself for getting to our weight loss goal. So if you were my client and you told me that's something you want to do, I'd be like, cool, all right, let's set ourselves a goal. Let's shed some of this weight, and then we're going to train for a marathon as your reward. And that's how I would position it as the better strategy as far as trying to do that. I know Sal's pressing the injury thing. I just think it's a terrible idea metabolically. It's just losing 50 pounds is a journey and a half. That's a big journey, and you want all the muscle you can keep to help you with that.

1:19:15Sal Di Stefano:It's only going to be that much more difficult to do something with endurance training right now.

1:19:21Adam Schafer:Here's what it would look like if we were to do this perfect. We would focus on the weight loss with strength training and diet. 50 pounds is your goal, so you'd be down to 205. Once you got down to 205, I would hire a running coach. And I would work with a running coach once a week on biomechanics and technique. And I would do that for a while before attempting to push. Before actually jumping into a program.

1:19:46Sal Di Stefano:That's right.

1:19:47Adam Schafer:I would work with a running coach because that will make it so much of a better experience. Now, you could probably grind your way through this, but you're very likely to set things back. And the risk of injuries, again, it's high, dude. Every time you hit the ground, you're 255. That's way more than 255 that's hitting the ground because of the impact. You're Clydesdale. And then because of the technique. A short, stubby Clydesdale. Hey, I am too, bro. So, yeah. So, I would wait until I got down to 205, hire a running coach, and take your time, dude. Get the biomechanics. And you would turn yourself into a really good running machine if you did it right.

1:20:26Sal Di Stefano:I also think it will be important for us to evaluate where you're at calorically when you get down to that 205 and how to make sure we increase calories as you start to build up endurance training. Because you're probably going to get down to pretty low calories by the time you get really close to your goal, right? If we slowly reduce calories over time or even if you kind of manage where you're at, you're eventually going to get to a lower cow. And then to go right into doing endurance training, we're going to want to make sure that we supplement those calories to support the training you're doing.

1:20:59Sal Di Stefano:And that psychologically can be difficult from somebody who just lost 50 to 100 pounds. Like, that's tough to tell that person, like, all right, now I want you to start eating three, 500 more calories. But you're going to want to do that when you get back into your running, too. You're not going to want to add the running on top of where you're at calorically because that'll just lose muscle like super fast. Well, that's the other thing I was worried about was I'm going to have to bump up my calories just to sustain where I'm at if I'm going to put that much activity in. Because right now I'm probably anywhere between 24 and 2 ,600 calories consistently.

1:21:31And that's not going to be enough if I'm running four days a week on top of trying to do some strength training too. So that was another one of my worries. Yes.

1:21:39Adam Schafer:Slowly increase your calories right now. Focus on building strength and walk. And what you're going to see is this nice, you'll see your body slowly lose body fat. Once you get down to like close to your goal, hire that coach. People do not view running as a skill. You know, it's like this. If you told somebody, hey, you're going to go deadlift for 20 minutes straight, go for it. Without the person having perfect deadlift form, we'd all know what's going to happen. but for some reason we look at running like it's not a skill like you just got to just go just gruel yourself through it no that's it's a skill like anything else and we can get good at it with practice people can get really good at running if they treated it like a skill so so do it that way and you'll find it way more enjoyable dude way more cool well awesome all right that's all i had

1:22:28Sal Di Stefano:all right i'd love to talk to you get justin reach back out as you get closer to your goal and getting ready to start that because i think we could also help you you know talking about where the calories are at and all those things as you start to, well, I mean, basically all I've done right now is just a ton of walking, a little bit of running, um, and just maps anabolic. Really? I've loved maps anabolic. So that's great. Yeah. Sounds good. I like where you're, and I like where your calories at too, cause you're not so low that you're going to get really bad. Like that's a good amount of calories to probably keep sustained weight loss, but then also feed you enough to keep on that muscle.

1:23:01Cool.

1:23:02Sal Di Stefano:All right. Thanks y 'all. Appreciate you.

1:23:04Adam Schafer:Thanks for calling in. Yep. Yeah, I've trained at least 10 people for half marathons or marathons. And I always had them, well, not all of them. In the beginning, I didn't do this. But towards the end, I would make them get a running coach. Because I'd go to these events. And these are like marathons raising money for breast cancer research. These are marathons that people join for some kind of cause, right? It's not like you have these highly competitive runners. And I've even done a half marathon. And just from a biomechanics standpoint, you stand at the finish line and you watch 99 % of the people crossing that finish line, terrible biomechanics.

1:23:41Adam Schafer:They're just drudging through it. And what we do is we make shoes and devices to try to correct. It's like we're putting crutches on everything to try to fix the problems that should be fixed with just proper technique. Then you see the occasional runner who has good technique, and it looks amazing. Especially if you're over 200 pounds, honestly. Oh, yeah. What are we doing? No, yeah. Because, yeah, I know how that feels, And then, and two, if you're not trying to actively lose body weight, uh, you know, that's, that's just so much to keep you flat footed and you're not going to have good technique.

1:24:12You're not going to absorb that impact. And so it's, you know, that would, that would be the pressing issue for me is to really kind of like, if that's your serious goal, like we got to lose the weight and then get strong for this first. That's right. Our next caller is Joshua from Australia. What's up, Joshua? What's happening, dude? Hi, guys. I'll give you the normal greeting of you've changed my life. You've changed so many lives. You are fantastic at what you guys do. And not just change lives, you've saved lives as well. Thank you. But thank you for having me on. You guys are just an awesome trio, to be honest.

1:24:56Thanks, man. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you again for putting me on. You got it. How can we help you? How can we help you, dude? I'll just go, I'll go to my question. It might be a little bit changed. Not, not really, but do you have my, do you have my pictures there or not? Yeah, it looks like I do. Let me pull those up. Okay. So, so I've been training on and off for, 12 plus years. And when I say, you know, on and off, you know, life gets in the way or whatever.

1:25:41I had my rotator cuff quite badly. So I couldn't train as well. I'm sorry, I'm trying to, again, it's very early in the morning here. So what I did is I went into a slight maintenance, slight bulk around a month and a half after rehabbing my shoulder. I think my main question is, if you can see those photos, like my back muscles and my arms, I don't, I guess I don't, I don't need to train them at all. like two sets a week that's it but my chest will not grow at all now I've asked forums I've asked everything it's like do I at the moment like I'm I'm at 2100 calories calories and it seems to be all going to other body parts I know you can't pick a body part I know that, but for some reason, my chest will not grow.

1:26:59Sal Di Stefano:You can actually pick up a body part to build. We can't spot reduce, but you can pick a body part and say, hey, I'm going to go build that body part and train specifically to do that. So in your case, when you get a client that says, hey, I really want to develop my chest, we can organize the program focused on that and eat in a calorie surplus and absolutely spot build. You can't spot reduce, but you can spot build.

1:27:29Adam Schafer:Are you following any of our programs, Josh? Yeah, I've done anabolic and anabolic advanced. Both have been awesome. Like I said, my arms and back just grow like crazy, and then my chest just won't. That's kind of where the question is. It's like I do, for my chest, I do Smith incline mainly and dips. And then I'll do dumbbell full ROM just to get that full stretch. But for some reason, it's mainly my upper chest. that just, for some reason, it's just not growing. Well, here's what you'll do, okay? You can reduce volume from the rest of your body, especially arms and back, throw it to chest, and put yourself in a calorie surplus.

1:28:32Adam Schafer:And so what this would probably look like is about 20 or so total sets for chest throughout the week, and then the rest of the body, maybe four to six sets total for each body part. Oh, really? So drop it that far? Yeah, so every other body part, maybe four sets, six sets total for the week. 20, roughly 20 sets for chest, split up over three workouts, but also getting a calorie surplus.

1:28:58Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, bump your calories at least 300 to 500 calories. Yep. You really think so? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Because I do have a little bit of the body dysmorphia that we all kind of go through. I'm not going to put on that much fat am I?

1:29:19Adam Schafer:No, it'll go to muscle Yeah? It'll mostly go to muscle So like I said, around 20 sets for your chest for the whole week and maybe 46 for each other body part for the whole week and at the beginning of your workout, start with chest and then give yourself time This is the one thing as well I'm a little bit impatient with the I guess like waiting between sets that's definitely a problem should I wait more

1:29:51Sal Di Stefano:give yourself two minutes at least two to three minutes two to three minutes alright Josh I see you're also in our private forum so if you shot me a video of you doing your bench press too maybe there's something mechanically we can help you with too like the next time you're in the gym and you do your your chest workout maybe give us a couple videos and tag us and so if there's any tips that we can give as far as your mechanics too because if uh if those are off a little bit that could be playing a role also here's your connection you might not be as strong as you want and so to be able to prime it properly going into your workouts you know it's going to have a little bit more opportunity to recruit and maximize that recruitment process yeah so i think because of my shoulder yeah when i was going forward like i'm definitely flaring out more deliberately

1:30:47Adam Schafer:when i'm like chest pressing just to get that full range of motion and not like because when if i if i go from that range to that range the shoulder still hurts a little bit yeah the dumbbells will probably fill up yeah yeah and did you get it repaired uh i rehabbed it yeah like with a physio okay okay yeah just just be careful with your technique don't if if too much weight hurts go lighter and slow the tempo down yeah and then yeah and then the other part of this is sleep josh how much how much sleep are you getting every night consistently uh i just got back from san fran actually i was there for 12 days um so i've messed up my sleep routine yeah um i don't know how important you guys sleep like talk about sleep is to heal everything the most important thing um i'm just taking ea's creatine just trying to get everything back into motion again yeah so so consistent sleep calorie surplus less more volume for the chest, less volume for everything else and rest in between.

1:32:06Adam Schafer:Yes.

1:32:06Sal Di Stefano:Longer rest periods.

1:32:07Adam Schafer:And then wait, give yourself some time. Building muscles is a slow process.

1:32:11Sal Di Stefano:Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. I thought I thought you would say, give me a second. Let me take this one out. But yeah, I thought I thought you would say, um, do you have, I guess, any tips on,

1:32:31I guess like getting back into a proper sleep routine.

1:32:36Adam Schafer:Yeah, you got to be consistent. Okay. So turn everything off an hour before bed. You don't want to use any substances that can influence sleep. So alcohol, nicotine, cannabis. So you want to stay away from those. Caffeine early in the morning, but after that, off of it. and go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Yep. Is it okay to take melatonin to get my rhythm back? Correct. Yes. So especially because you just got back from, you know, from a totally different time zone, you would take a large dose of melatonin before bed for the next couple nights and that should speed things up. Okay, great.

1:33:20I also know creatine helps with that. when you're waking up. Take a larger amount. Yeah. I've been taking a larger amount, and it has been helping with my, I guess, like my own tiredness, whatever you want to call it.

1:33:39Adam Schafer:Yes, but it doesn't fix it, but it'll help with the cognitive performance. So it's about 20 grams that you would take split up throughout the day. Yeah. It doesn't fix it, so it's not a replacement, but it is a nice Band-Aid. I do have one more question for you. I know you guys have got a lot of people.

1:34:00The warrior stack with the peptides. Can I get on that?

1:34:06Adam Schafer:I mean, you can do whatever you want. It'll help with injury recovery, but what we just told you is 99 % of it. Okay. Yeah, so the peptides aren't going to – they're not going to – it's not going to replace anything I said. The Wolverine stack or you say warrior stack? yeah i think you're talking about bpc and thymus and beta or tb500 yeah yeah that's yeah that's good for inflammation and healing if you still have an injury yeah okay awesome yeah oh thanks so much guys i just needed kind of that uh that clarity you know what i mean like just like okay hear it from you guys and you know

1:34:46Sal Di Stefano:well you're you're in the forum so keep us posted as you go through this journey just let us know as you're going through and then tag us. And be consistent with what I said.

1:34:55Adam Schafer:Consistency's king. If you do it consistently, you will see over the course of a year or two years some changes for sure. Get your sleep, stay in surplus. All right. All right. Thank you so much, guys. Go get some rest, Josh. Go to bed. All right, dude. I'm going to go slate my ass off, to be honest. All right, man. Thank you. Take it easy, bro. Bye, guys. Bye-bye. Yeah, it's a lot of people with the volume, take away volume from other body parts. You have to do that. You got to do the trade. You just add, you're going to overdo it. And then it's slow, man. I've developed body parts, but it would take me like two years of consistent application.

1:35:36It works, but you just have to keep it going.

1:35:37Adam Schafer:That's it.

1:35:38Sal Di Stefano:I mean, like Justin said, poor connection, also potentially not enough calories, also maybe not resting like you should in between sets. All that stuff will play a factor that's making this more difficult. So if he listens, if he takes all the advice, he should see a difference, and he should see a difference relatively quick. 90 days? Yeah, yeah. He'll start to see a difference. I mean, he's not going to build a massive chest in 90 days, but he should start to see a difference. Get stronger at least. Yeah.

1:36:03Adam Schafer:Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, Check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

1:36:47The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.