2704: How to Finally Reach Peak Fitness (Listener Live Coaching)

26:44It was wild. Like, currently. Yes, right now, yes. Has it been this bad? Yeah, it was a conversation. It was Ray Dalio and somebody else. They were talking. Harry Potter is sixth grade. Okay. So that's about as high as it goes for 60 % of people. Wow. Can you believe that? That was a hard book to understand when I read it. I couldn't understand. Did you guys get it? No, we didn't. You guys understand how it did? We never read it. Huzzah. But isn't that fascinating? I mean, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Well, the thing that more than half of those people are influencing how and what we do in this country is a little scary.

27:20You know what's wild to me? I see stats like this all the time, how terribly dumb Americans are. It's like these typical, you know, they, oh, our math level, our reading level. And yet our entrepreneurial production still outperforms everybody. Destroys everybody. Which I think points to other things. I'm not saying that it's good. You want to know what one of the number one factors for that is? What? Is the amount of money we have people betting on people. So no other country in the world has as many people that are betting on other people. and that is a huge factor. So explain that. What do you mean by that?

27:54So in other words, let's say Australia and here, equal smart people or let's say there's the equal, like an Elon Musk here and an Elon Musk there type of person. He is far more likely to get somebody to back him financially and bet on him than in Australia. And so just purely off of, and that makes, I mean, think about how many failed companies there are and how many times you do an, we know, angel investing that doesn't go the way you want to go. Most of them fail. And we can afford, the US can afford to keep doing that until you finally hit that one. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And so that's one of the major factors for that.

28:34That's part of it. I think the entrepreneurial spirit also has been with us for a long time because so many people came to this country, still do, with this idea that I can make this happen. I can do this thing. I can start. It's a melting pot of ideas. And so people come, so there's a culture of that. Well, yeah, no. Because I've heard people, like I have friends that are European, Italy. I have some friends, you know, in other countries, UK, whatever. And they say that the culture is more like, oh, come on, why are you trying to stand out? Or, you know, just go do this other thing. Whereas over here, it's like encouraged to go.

29:08Yeah, just blend in, like, yeah, in some of those other countries. Yeah, so that makes a big difference. Well, yeah, it's going to attract even those people. I mean, there's people that fly across the world to go directly to Silicon Valley. Yeah. And then them and eight other dudes live in a house together all while that – like that doesn't exist really. I mean there's probably places that have tried to create something similar to that. Yeah, I think it's a culture. But we are known for that so much that people will literally leave and move in with an incubator and go live with eight, ten other dudes that are all on computers just trying their ideas.

29:41And then you have a ton of people that are going, I think that – I like this kid. Let's bet on him. and literally being wrong 90 % of the time, betting on these people. But because we have that amount of times that we're betting on those people is so much greater than anywhere else in the country, it allows for more of those success rates, which only just perpetuates what you're saying, causes more of the culture of more people coming. Yeah, it keeps feeding. Yeah, it feeds into itself. I have family members on one part of my family that are really educated. They live in Northern Italy. And when you talk to them about their career choices, They'll go to school, get this education, and then I'll ask them.

30:18And there's two reasons for this, right? So I'll say, have you thought about opening up your own office? Why would I do that? I get this guarantee if I get this job over here and they give me a little stuff over here. Why would I take a risk like what you said? The other reason is in many countries, there's a lot of barriers. So it's difficult to do that. You have to get all these licenses and permits, and here it's a lot easier. But I think the culture plays a big role because the truth is being an entrepreneur is a lot of it is what there's a lot of sayings around it, right? Like an entrepreneur is willing is the only person willing to work 80 hours to avoid working 40 hours.

30:55Or it's an entrepreneur, somebody jumps out of a plane and makes a parachute on the way down. Like it's it's if you just base off a logic, it's probably more logical to go get a stable job. Well, imagine, too, how much easier it is to be that person or take that chance when you move to an area or a house where everybody is doing it. So it's not we're in a room this size, and we're looking around, and there's 20 of us. And it's like, OK, literally 20 of us in here, only two of us might make it. Yeah, I'm all in. I'm doing it. And it's like you would probably never do that unless you had a surrounding like that.

31:32You were all by yourself, and someone told you the odds of you. And work around, too, to the regulations because, like, work hours and all that, you know, they're just all living together, constantly working, and they're all dedicated to this one idea. So, yeah, to be able to foster that, you don't find that around the world very often. You know what that points to? I don't care what your pursuit is, but surround yourself with people who have a similar pursuit, and you're far more likely to be successful at that pursuit. Just to confer another stat that I saw, too. So Australia leads – or, excuse me, UK leads this.

32:04yeah uk leads this um 16 500 millionaires a year leave there oh yeah so and i'm sure they land in places like the u.s for the reason that you're talking about we've created that culture of you can come become a billionaire and there's a more we have a lot of the examples right so because it started out with the energy uh side where it's like okay we have all you know this oil and ways to these gajillionaires from that now technology. And so you have multiple examples of that. We have a disproportion of people that are trying to make it and that are willing to bet on people that are trying to make it in our country, which allows that to look that way.

32:45What is the exact number? 16 ,500 individuals departing in 2025. Pretty good, I remember that. Forecast, yeah. You saw that same stat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the stat I was talking. And they're the highest, I believe, right? They're the worst. So I think, I don't know. If you, I'll make it, I'll create an analogy that makes more sense just so people kind of get this. If you run a business, if you have a company, I don't care what the company is. You have this company and your most talented employees keep leaving. You're doing something wrong. Totally. Like, what are you doing wrong? Yeah. That your best people continue to leave.

33:23Now, I'm not saying that millionaires are the best people overall, but I mean, in terms of production, in terms of economic production. They're the best producers. Imagine how hard it is to solve that problem when someone like America is so far ahead of you in that. So back to my point that you've got, so let's say, just for argument's sake for this, UK has 10 billionaires that are willing to bet on these young entrepreneurs. The US has 1 ,000 billionaires that are willing to do it. You live in the UK. You're trying to build this business. Do I stay here and hope I get one of the 10 guys to give me money?

33:57or do I fly over there? So regardless of what policy, regulation, all the things are to the point you're making right now, I'm still going to go over there because my odds are greater. It could be, but I wonder what their tax, I wonder what it costs. Like, Doug, look up, how much does the average millionaire in the UK pay in taxes versus the average millionaire in the US? These are people that are bleeding right here. I want to see the stats. Wow, UK is losing a lot. China's gaining, it looks like. Is that what that is? China's at minus$13 ,000. Oh, why do I see two graphs? So that's 2023 and 2025.

34:30Oh, okay. Okay, I see that. Wow. Look at that. All these countries lose people. France gained some in 2023, but then lost some in 2020. I mean, but what does that highlight? I wonder what policy they changed. That's what I mean. And then I'm assuming America is in the plus, right? It's got to be. We can't see it. I think if Doug scrolls down, we can see it. Let me see. Yeah, I'm doing a double search here. I don't see the U.S. It's not on the list. We're positive. The rest of these are all the negative ones. But God, look how bad UK is. So here's what I want to know. In 2023, they lost 3 ,200.

35:02In 2025, they're projected to lose 16 ,500. Policy change. Something happened. That was a policy change. Oh, 100%. That has to be. That's crazy. It's got to be that they - Because look, nowhere else has gotten worse by that much, right? No. China got better. All China has to do is say you can't leave. Yeah, China got better. Everywhere got better. Did anywhere get worse except for UK? South Korea got a little worse. Oh, South Korea. Numbers are small, but got a little worse. Boy, I mean, you're right. UK had to have done something. They must have done some crazy tax. In 2024, something must have rolled out.

35:41What does it say, Don? There's been a lot going on over there. So anyway, I'm looking at taxes here. In the UK, it seems that the rate is about 45 % for those earning over a million pounds. So the average over a million pounds is going to pay almost half of their income in taxes. Yeah. The U.S. is a little more complicated because there's various tax rates. Obviously, our top rate, I believe, is like 38%. Yeah, but we have a lot of tax breaks and incentives. Yeah. So it really depends on how your income is generated. So, for example, capital gains. Why did so many millionaires leave the U.K.? Exactly.

36:17Just Google that because there's got to be some theories around that to have that alarming. I mean, nowhere else in the world is like that. Here's what's crazy about the mentality, too, is you have the average person's not a millionaire, right? Average person's like, you should give us more of your stuff. You should. But what you're doing is you're getting rid of the people that are innovating, the people that are moving. The best innovators and the people that are creating wealth, and they're going other places. So it doesn't necessarily work out in your favor. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

36:46I mean, that's like playing for the Yankees, and just because you're not the highest paid guy and all that, you're complaining you're wanting the management to actually lower paying everybody evenly new tax policies including the what scrapping of non what does that say doug domiciled tax status which i have no idea what that means and then there's anticipated future tax height oh so a new political party comes in it was like oops we gotta bounce i mean that's crazy though that's like a crazy mass exodus i mean compared to anywhere else in the world i mean that's wild that is wild here's another thing too the u.s actually taxes people on their worldwide income um so if you're in a different country the u.s will still find you and tax you you mean if you're a u.s citizen if you're a u.s citizen yeah not all countries are that way though so you can actually leave some countries and not have to pay tax yeah but if that's if you keep your money if you bring your money back over here if you keep it there you don't uh well no in the u.s you're still responsible for tax even if you keep it over there yeah yeah yeah that's why everyone becomes a citizen over somewhere else Oh, that's why everyone goes to Dubai, and now they live in Dubai, and that's where they become a citizen over there, and then they pay Dubai-type taxes.

37:53Speaking of companies and entrepreneurship and all that stuff, Element continues to explode. Yes. And now they have a bunch of new flavors. I'm digging the new pineapple flavor. I haven't tried it because you drink it all. It's good. I'm not going to lie, though. It does make me want to use some alcohol in it. I want to see what it is. Oh, gosh. Have you tried it yet, Justin? I have. Okay, I was going to say. It's tasty. Over some ice. I see what you're saying with that. They have smaller cans now, too. So you can get the smaller kind of Red Bull-sized cans. And then they have pineapple. Which is what?

38:21Is it half the dose? Is that what it is? Yeah, so instead of 1 ,000, it's 500. Yeah, interesting. It's just a smaller amount. Yeah, I like that. But you said the pineapple is really good. Really good. There's another flavor I didn't try. Didn't you try lemonade? Is it lemonade? Yeah. How's lemonade? It's really good, yeah. I wonder why they didn't have lemonade before. That makes sense. It's really actually one of my favorites. That would make a lot of sense. Interesting. Yeah, well, I bet you when they, I'm sure, especially a company like them, I'm sure they did their due diligence and surveyed and probably launched.

38:48My favorite's still grapefruit. But I haven't tried pineapple yet. Grapefruit's one of my favorites. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. It used to be black cherry. And I like that. You know what? Black cherry was for a minute, and I got tired of it. You just overdid it. Yeah, yeah, I think the same can happen to me. Yeah, but I've definitely done way more grapefruit. I have not got tired of grapefruit. I have not got tired of wine. It's just so refreshing, yeah. Those two, yeah, they have, and black cherry, maybe that's what it is. Black cherry had more of a sweeter taste to it. And so after a while, it wasn't as refreshing.

39:15Nothing is as refreshing as the grapefruit and the lime to me. All right, so I'm going to do a new vernacular or change, or I'm going to change what I call my favorite undershirt, which has been historically called a wife beater. What are you going to call it? I'm going to call it something different now. I was always resistant before because I hate that. I hate changing words, especially ones I grew up with in the 90s. Oh, God. Just because it's offensive. Are you going for a rebrand right now, dude? So here's the deal. Cracker Barrel. Don't pull a Cracker Barrel. No. And Jemima. Come on, guys.

39:48Here's the deal. Washington Redskins. Yeah, yeah. Cleveland Indians. Who are you now, dude? Come on, guys. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Here's what's going on. So I get why some people don't like it. I like the Caucasians. You ever say that? I don't think it's a good thing to beat people or anything like that. So it's just what it was called when I was a kid, which we grew up with. So let's hear it. But I finally heard a replacement that I like. That's why. Because all the replacements were done. We get any steam catcher. the racist stuff stop it it's a ribbed tank i mean they already did that sucks ribbed yeah undershirt dumb dumb not gonna do that okay somebody said in the comments of one of my videos my series are like why don't you call it a wife pleaser i'm like i like that dude pleaser i'm gonna call it a wife pleaser from now on don't squint your eyes doug it's a great it makes everybody uncomfortable yeah yeah well yeah you're gonna be uncomfortable either way I'd rather be a wife pleaser so I'm going to start referring to my wife pleaser which I think is also uncomfortable but I don't mind the discomfort I don't know if I like the rebrand I don't know if I can get behind it it's honest for me at least when I'm walking around in it my wife's pleased your thunder tank I like that too I like thunder tank speaking of pleasing people I'm going to put you on the spot Doug I'm going to bring up an old story I'm going to bring up an old story about your birthday.

41:09Remember your birthday when your date, we were all saying nice things about you. Remember this? He's quite the giver? No, that's not what she said. I remember exactly. We were all going around saying nice things about Doug because Doug's a great human being, great man. It was great. Doug, his eyes were watering. All of us were emotional talking about Doug, how much we love him. And then his date stands up. It's her turn. And she goes, yeah Doug is such a great lover she did say great lover she said he's a great lover that could have been an ad for joy mode right there that's where I'm going Doug how do you like joy mode do you use it in that way or do you use it pre-workout like I do I've used it a couple times I mean it's good it's great as a pre-workout I think Justin and I use it more like that I've actually given it to my brother-in-law I like the energy it gives me which is awkward to...

42:05I use it for what it's supposed to be used for. Oh, as a pre-love? Yes. You still do that? I do. I'm not like all the time, but when there's times when I know it's going to go down that night, and I'm waiting for her to get ready up there, and I'm like... I'm down in the kitchen. I'm down in the kitchen anyways. I know where the joy mode's at inside my... How much of a difference can you tell? I had to put a percentage or a number on it? Yeah, like let's say normally... You want to put inches on it. No, not like that. Come on, calm down. Let's say normally... I'd say normally you could throw a wet washcloth on it and hang it off there.

42:38She's getting like a bath towel. Like what's going on? It's like a beach towel. All right, boys. There's a little sound difference. No, no. Okay. So I'm like, yes. Okay. I've messed around with all the prescription stuff, right? So the Cialis, the Viagra. It's not quite on that crazy level. Anybody who's ever experienced that before, that's like almost uncomfortably weird. you know somewhere in the middle of that oh good right from where you normally would be to where that is it's like it's it's like leaving the gym with a nice pump so i like i do i do pre-workout i'll i'll give you a little probably more detail than you probably even want but i think i love this we're how i but not your bicep when i'm when i'm on like day three or four in a row that's when i like to use oh yeah because i mean everybody knows like you've had if i've had a day or two Yeah, if I've had a day off or two with my wife, dude.

43:32She just, you know what I'm saying? I don't know if it gets better than that. You know what I'm saying? But when it's day three, four in a row, I'm tired. You're reaching for the electrolytes and the joy mode. Then it brings me back to what it was like on day one. So that's probably the best way for me to describe it. Anybody that can relate to having four or five days in a row, what you feel like versus day one, it brings me back to day one on day five there you go joy mo there's a that's an ad right there that's what you're like good stuff dude yeah good stuff yeah doug loves it all right anyway i found this new uh category uh well i haven't found it my son found it my my four-year-old he's about to turn five actually a couple months but anyway uh he loves learning about he loves learning about anything which by the way this kid loves coming up to us he couldn't be more my son sometimes.

44:23He loves walking up to my wife and I or anybody and just throwing out facts. Like just random facts. And he goes off and it's just hilarious and he won't stop. Like my wife's trying to get him to go to sleep and he like does off and he looks at her, hey mom, did you know that during the Cretaceous period, like he'll go off on some weird things. Does he have his own like almanac series you bought him? We have books. He likes watching documentaries and he doesn't forget like if he's really into something or encyclopedia i should say he doesn't forget so he loves this kind of stuff but we we were reading these books i told you about those books did you get those for max not yet they haven't got me oh they're so good it's the versus books like you know polar bear versus grizzly or whatever like yeah i should have had that bro they're so fun that's the interesting stuff i'm with them it's so fun right so we were reading them and my son's like do they have videos of this in like real life so i'm like so we go on youtube and I find hunting videos because that's as close as I can get, right?

45:19Because you're not going to find a polar bear versus a lion video. Although that'd be cool. Yeah, it would be cool. Whoever's organizing that is getting in trouble for sure. Yeah, big trouble, bro. We don't have videos of what they did in the Roman Empire. But anyway, I'm finding videos of polar bears hunting or polar bears hunting a walrus or whatever. He loves those videos. He loves predators hunting prey, and he gets so mad when the predator fails. So if I find the wrong video, like the polar bear's getting the walrus, but then he escapes, I wanted the polar bear to catch him. Find another one.

45:57Find me one where it's a successful hunt. So I have to type in there, polar bear successful hunt. Oh, my God. So he can watch. He's brutal. He loves it, dude. Oh, my God. It's so cool to watch. It is. It's so cool to watch the kids get. I mean, obviously, this is my first go around, but to watch him get into things like, I mean, Max has been obsessed with storms now for a year. That is fun. Yeah, he just is. I mean, there's so many names of storms. I didn't even know that it existed until him. He's so into it. He would call something. I'm like, there's a fire tornado? Never even heard of a fire tornado before.

46:30Yeah. Something like a superhero. No, there's all these crazy storms. And he's even getting what we're working on right now is learning what states have those. So I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of geography in there so he kind of starts to learn the difference of the states while he's doing it. So it's a little bit of a reach for him right now, but he's getting to the point. Do you remember when you realized, well, maybe not you because you moved a little bit, but do you remember when you realized that our storms here are weak sauce? Some of the storms you see in other places? Yeah, once I moved to Illinois and they actually had tornadoes.

46:59I was like, oh, no, and lightning storms. We just don't really have lightning storms here either. We have earthquakes, though. Yeah, we do. I remember going to Florida to Disney World, you know, when my older kids were real little. And I remember looking up at the sky because everybody started going to the, what's that cafe, Animal Cafe so far? What's that one cafe they have that? Rainforest Cafe. Rainforest Cafe. Suddenly everybody was going in that direction. So I'm like, what's going on? And they're like, oh, storm's coming. And I look up at the sky and there's a wall of super dark, thick clouds.

47:29I've never seen that here in California. And it's moving towards us. And I'm like, is the world in me? What's happening? Yeah, yeah. And it just passed over. I remember growing up in California. And then when I was with seventh grade is when we went to Colorado. And we lived in Divide, Colorado, which is like 10 ,000 elevation. And Pikes Peak is in your backyard. And the lightning storms. I mean, I watched them strike on the ground in my neighborhood. Like literally standing in my garage. And everybody's house, every house has a lightning rod. Because it's that common that it's connecting to the ground.

48:04that you have to have a lightning rod on top of your house. And I remember standing in the garage and just watching it. And we're used to you hear it first, then see it, right? No, no, no, you see it first. You see it first, right? And then it's like a delay of seconds. You count the seconds. Yeah, you count the seconds. Far away. Yeah, where you see it, it's the same time, which is wild, because up until that point, I never experienced it. Have I talked about this yet, but the survivors of a lightning? A long time ago, you brought that up. Oh, man. A long time ago you talked about it. I forgot what you talked about, but I know you've talked about it before.

48:38Just how it looks like the burns. In fact, it looks like electricity went through them. Yeah. Like little branches off of it, almost like the Fibonacci kind of. Weird. Yeah. You know, there's some people. And there's been struck more than once. There's some people that have been struck many times. I know there's a couple people that have been struck. It's crazy to me you can survive that. That's crazy. Yeah, what are you doing that you're getting struck by lightning? I know. Oh, yeah, look at that. Wow. Yeah, see? That looks crazy, Justin. Yeah, because it's almost like you could see the electricity went through their veins.

49:07Yes, I know. I thought that was so trippy. Like, that's way better than a tattoo. You know, you got so many bragging rights with that. That's so tough. Yeah, that's the toughest thing you can get. Where'd you get that artwork? Yeah. I struck my leg. Actually, Adam, I don't know if you would be okay sharing this, but you shared a story with me yesterday that got me so emotional. You brought up your son. Oh, my son. And it really highlights. Oh, God, don't make me cry. What a special kid. Oh, God. Yeah, that's hard to not tell that. and not get emotional because of him. Well, first of all, he has, he's special.

49:41He's, every fucking dad says his kid's special. I know that, right? Yeah, but the story really is. Yeah, he, but he's, we've always have talked about how he has this weird gift that when we're in the room with the family, and we could, you know, Katrina's family's huge. Everyone's heard me talk about all that stuff where there's 20, 40, 50 people there. And as adults, you know, you know your family drama and you know your aunt or your cousin who's going through a divorce or had something, lost their job. Or as the adults, you know that. My son doesn't know any of that stuff because he's not around to hear that.

50:14And it's a trip that I'll know that, like say about a sister-in-law or somebody. And here we are and show up, my son and us, Katrina and I, to a party of 20, 30 people. And at one point, he will gravitate over to that person and just love on him. And it's a trip because it could be someone in the family he doesn't even know or hasn't even really been around. He just has that gift of empathy. Just so crazy, yeah, crazy, just, and he loves all, and I don't think they even know that about him, right? Katrina and I know, and we talk about it all the time. Anyways, it's kind of a known thing between Katrina and I.

50:50We don't really talk about it very much or share all the stories like that. It's like one of those things I think as two parents just like, you know, we get, I feel like we get the gift to see it and everybody else can just either believe it or not believe it. well I'm talking to my sister who has been really just ill going through it she's got a lot of stuff going on she watched him this last weekend and uh we were actually just on the phone we were talking about something else and I was again talking about oh man it's crazy Max did this thing and I'm sharing like this other this intuition that he has she's like oh my god brother I forgot to tell you she was the last night he spent the night with me she goes uh I had a really rough night she goes three different times uh i was woken up in in from my sleep and my mind started racing i got all kinds of anxiety just got emotional and like just this heavy stress on me she goes every time that happened she goes literally she was i was just closing my eyes and trying to calm down and a couple times i was in tears and she goes max dead in his sleep would roll over and put his arm across my chest and she goes it and then i she goes i broke down crying and looked up and thank god for that and she goes what was wild about it was not that it happened but that it happened three separate times through the night and each time it was just felt it yeah and so it's like he's that's so crazy stories like that i have so many stories like that of him that and i know that one of the most attractive qualities about katrina is katrina has a gift like that.

52:16She has this ability. It's why so many people love her. She's so empathetic. I mean, I take so much. I try and learn so much from her to be more of that. And to see it in my son as a child is just, it's a trip to watch happen. Love it. Luminose by Interra has skincare products backed with incredible peptide science. The highest doses of the peptides that work like ghkcu that you'll find anywhere. So they have skincare products. They also have products you can put on your scalp that have been shown to help regrow hair. This is medical grade stuff. It really does work. If you want the science, go with Luminos by Interra.

52:57Go to interraskincare.com. That's E-N-T-E-R-A skincare.com forward slash M-P-M. Use the code M-P-M. Get 10 % off your order. Back to the show. Our first caller is Josh from Virginia. How's it going, Josh? What's up, man? Hey, how are y 'all doing? Good. How can we help you? Yeah, so this is my first time trying a nine-day push-pull legs rotation where I do hypertrophy, PPL, strength PPL, then volume PPL. So each nine-day block has all three phases built in. In the past, I've always done the more traditional style of the four-week blocks. so four weeks hypertrophy, four weeks strength, four weeks volume.

53:43I train six days a week with one active recovery day. I'm not doing nine days straight. So my question is, would I see better results sticking with this new approach where all three phases repeat every nine days for 12 weeks, or is it more effective to dedicate the four weeks to each phase across the 12-week program? That's impossible. My goal is to maximize performance and muscle growth. I don't know. Yeah, that's impossible to answer, bro. Yeah, this is a – Either one is fine. This is a hair-splitting, hair-splitting question. How long can you be consistent? Maybe we could give you something that we think will give you some noticeable differences.

54:24Yeah, so I've been consistently strength training now for about three years. I've lost 60 pounds within the last two, I believe it was. Um, so like I'm seeing plenty of results. So I just try it like trying different techniques and different strategies. And I was just curious if it really made a difference. Well, you're the difference in this is only, uh, uh, you're going from a four week block to a three week block, but everything else is pretty much the same. It sounds like, you know, the only way to know Josh was something like with someone like you, cause you're in a good place right now. You're really consistent.

54:58You've been seeing great results and you can play with all these little tweaks and see how your body feels and how you respond. Now, that's given or that's assuming diet and sleep and everything else is on point. Because if those aren't on point, we always go there first. Yeah. And that's also assuming if you've been really consistent, like you don't miss a workout and you've been lifting six days a week for a while, oftentimes what gives you the best gains is to back down to like three days a week. Yeah. Or switch. This is very similar to what you're used to doing. And so if you create a new stimulus, yeah, do something completely different.

55:38Get out of the push pull legs, go to a full body, do that. You're going to get more from this. Isn't that novel to what you're, you're used to doing. So if you're looking for which one is going to be better, well, man, we're definitely splitting hairs on how similar these two training programs and blocks are. So if you wanted to get a stimulus that is going to give you more gains than what you're currently doing, it would, I would tell you to go way further away than what you're doing, like something totally different and that's more likely to give you more of a stimulus more result how do you how do you measure if you're progressing or not because you're saying you're getting good progress and gains what are you looking at yeah so right now um i'm getting back onto a lean bulk right now so i'm starting to see strength gains again um before it was just leaning downs so just how i felt uh how my clothes were fitting um how my weekly uh pictures were looking.

56:32Um, but now, like I said, I'm trying to just gain back, uh, the muscle mass. So, uh, just seeing strength, uh, over weeks. You're, you're in a good, you're in a really good place because this is when you can, you can try different things and start to figure out what works best for your body. The one thing I would say that I would ask you to consider is, are you training in different planes of motion? Are you avoiding developing, uh, imbalances? Because at this stage, when you're this consistent, you're seeing good progress and your training is getting advanced in the sense that you're starting to tweak things like phasing and stuff like that.

57:10You want to make sure you avoid overuse injuries and, you know, starting to develop pain because that could really be a roadblock to someone like you. But, I mean, have you tried a full body three day a week routine within the last three years? No, not full body. No, sir. You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised at how, especially on a bulk, at the strength gains and size gains you would see. Well, and it's just far more novel from what you're currently doing. You're not really moving that far away from what you were already doing. So if you're looking for a novel stimulus. Yeah, that would probably move things in the right direction.

57:48How much total volume? Give me an idea how much total volume you're doing per body part for a week. um so actually the program i'm doing right now is the map split program so that's a lot of volume doing something like that because it's so different. So is this how this was? Were you following like a different program and then you purchased a maps program that's kind of like with the style that you were already doing or you liked? Is that how this went down? So I've actually had a few programs from y 'all. I started, I know this is kind of backwards, but I actually started with the aesthetics program.

58:44Yeah. And then I also have the anabolic. I think that I got that one in like some package, especially y 'all had a while back. but the split one is the one that I've enjoyed the most. Yeah. I mean, I like, I like lifting like that too. Uh, you would really benefit though, from like performance or if you have, have you done anabolic yet since you've bought it? Uh, I have, but I have not done anabolic, uh, in a while. So yeah. And you do the three day a week version of that would be good. Anabolic advanced would be another program that you could do that you could try. Uh, yeah. But you know, when you're starting to, here's the thing, like it's, it's hard to know what's going to move the needle the most with someone like you at this point.

59:29Generally, it's the bigger the difference, the bigger potential for the needle to move. But that being said, you're at this great place where have fun with your training and pay attention to how your body responds and then kind of see. And now here's the rule. A lot of things work. Nothing works forever. Yeah. So that's the thing to consider. You're at year three. This is when things start to get more challenging, to really start to see things moving in the direction you want. So pay attention to how your body responds. Okay, I see now when I do this kind of rep range, I seem to do best with it, but I got to move out of it right around here.

1:00:14These exercises seem to do best for me. Full body produces this feel. Splits produce this feel. Mobility. man if I don't do mobility every three months like I start to hurt in these areas and so this is where you start to figure things out for yourself and really start to individualize you know what your routine looks like so but you know to what you're asking here I mean it could move the needle but I don't know maybe yeah one thing I've noticed with it I and it could just be a mental thing I do feel a little bit fresher doing it the way where I you know rotate between the hypertrophy volume and strength every three days.

1:00:53But like I said, that could just be a mental thing. I've only been doing it this way for about four weeks now. Yeah, I mean, split's got so much volume that the thing you want to consider managing the most is recovery. Yeah. Because it's such a high-volume program. So if you feel like you're recovering better, then that's probably the right direction. Yeah. And if you're getting stronger still. So, I mean, if it's not broken, you know, I wouldn't change anything. But if you want something more novel, which would in turn probably produce more results, then moving away from something that's – like when I go from program to program, I typically like to go from a program that's not like that program versus doing something that's similar to that program.

1:01:35Just because I'm going to get more stimulus. But you still are early enough in your journey to Sal's point that you could just keep focusing on getting really strong. And if you like that split and it works well for you, and as long as you're continuing to see results, we necessarily don't have to change it yet. The most valuable programs for you that are going to give you the widest breadth of experience and knowledge around muscle building, if that's the main goal that you have, you have split, MAPS split, which is you're already doing that. MAPS anabolic, which is more of a traditional full body style workout.

1:02:09uh symmetry which will help uh with you know imbalances you want to throw performance in once a year otherwise you're going to start hurting yourself that's aesthetic aesthetic is a different style of bodybuilding uh style training and then maps and uh anabolic advanced where you're going to experiment with low volume high intensity you know arthur jones style strength training all of them are going to really teach you something about how your body responds all them are different and will give you that value. And then as you continue going on, you'll really be able to develop kind of this intuitive feel on what really works for your body as you start to push the envelope.

1:02:47Awesome. Yeah. Once a year, kind of like generic advice we get, because it sounds like the building muscles, sculpting your physique is kind of the main focus. Just once a year, make sure you rotate through either symmetry or performance. As long as you do one of those programs every year, one time, that'll give you enough balance, address everything you need to and then the rest of the time you can toggle between the ones that sal just pointed out like that'll be that'll send you on your way real nice okay cool great all right man all right thanks for calling in brother yes sir y 'all have a good one thank you yeah this is uh it's cool when you get to this place uh when you're you're consistent for years then you start to mess around with things you get to play with it yeah and you have fun and there are others when it comes to muscle building, you have the low volume, high intensity, you know, train to failure approach.

1:03:38You have the more traditional bodybuilding approach. You have kind of this hybrid of, you know, power lifting, less exercises, more sets per exercise, maybe full body maps anabolic type approach. Um, then you have like the, you know, let's make sure I don't get myself hurt approach, which you got to throw in there. And then you just kind of go in and out and you start to see how your body responds and how long it responds to each style of training. And then you know what to look out for and it's real fun well i just want to address why it's impossible for us to answer that we you know but especially that that close of a programming right like he's they're so similar in in nature the way they're structured that it's like uh giving him a clear answer of which one is better for him is way too hard to say it's like you have to kind of go through that and determine that yourself and i think i think this happens though to all of us is that we tend to kind of keep gravitating towards programs that are similar or that we love doing.

1:04:34And if you're looking to break through a plateau, one of the best ways to break through a plateau, and it doesn't sound like he was at one, so this is not for him, but anybody else that is at a plateau, is to do something that's more novel than what you've been currently doing, not something similar, and that's probably going to produce the greatest results for you. Our next caller is Jeremy from Michigan. Hey, Jeremy. How you doing, Jeremy? What's happening? Not much. Good morning, guys. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. How can we help you? So just a little backstory for context. I've been working out in and out of fitness for the last 20 or so years.

1:05:09Usually my outs were related to injuries and things like that. And then, you know, rebounding back. Had a little bit of time off. And back in July, I started a strength protocol. Historically, it's been mostly about functional fitness. and I've got a pretty hefty goal of putting on eight pounds of muscle in the next 12 months. And everything with my protocol has been going fantastic. I feel good about my workouts. My nutrition is dialed in, but I'm just getting killed on sleep. I've been trying, I mean, literally anything that I could think of, I've been trying. And if I get 26 minutes of deep sleep, I am high five in the headboard, man.

1:05:48I mean, it's just, it's so rare for me to get a good night's sleep. I have my Apple Ultra, you know, that's my tracking device, if you will. And it's showing that, you know, some nights I'll get seven hours, but I'm maxing out at, you know, close to an hour of REM and it's usually 15, 20 minutes of deep sleep. But it's just starting to wear on me because now here we are, you know, at the end of September, I've been grinding pretty heavily. I'm doing a four day split right now. I'm doing interval sprints on my fifth day. And yeah, I'm just, I am looking for some advice on what I might do. I don't do caffeine.

1:06:28I'm not a smoker. I'm going to bed early. I mean, I've Googled everything that you can think of, you know, what supplements I might take, that sort of thing. But I'm just still coming up short, man. I just don't know what more I can do. Jeremy, have you tried to scale back some of the training intensity and volume? That's the only thing I've not tried. So I work out, I get up 5.30 every morning, whether I want to or not. I can't tell you the last time my alarm woke me up. It's just kind of in my DNA, right? So I get up early, do my workout early and start the day. And I'm in bed typically by 9 o 'clock is a later night for me.

1:07:04I start my wind down routine around 8 o 'clock, you know, get rid of digital. And I stop eating and drinking three hours before bed. Drop the thermostat down to 62. This is easy, Jeremy. This is easy. You're over-trained. Yeah. Classic. Yeah, you need to back off. Very classic over-training. So if you wake up in the middle of the night, restless, like you're awake, you've got a restless feeling, and then you're kind of tired but wired, you're over-trained. Yeah. Copy. So, I mean, what's a realistic way to scale that back without going to zero, right? Because I definitely want to keep you at it.

1:07:43Yeah, you can go to zero. You can scale it down if you want it to take longer, but if you want this to work faster, take the week off. Don't train for the next week. We did a reset guide that would be perfect for you to follow. Yeah, we got that. Yeah, it's a free guide. Is that mindpumpfree.com? Yes. I'll have Doug send you a link to that. Take a week off. When you get back into training, cut the volume in half. You're over-trained. Two days a week? Yep. Two-day-a-week type of program. Do you have MAPS anabolic yet? I do not. Okay, we'll send you MAPS anabolic. Follow that two days a week. This is very, very classic overtraining symptom.

1:08:22Yeah. Classic. Yeah, yeah. It feels like this. Go to bed exhausted, fall asleep hard, wake up in the middle of the night restless, and it's hard to go back to sleep, and I can't go back to sleep, and then I kind of do, and I kind of don't. And then I'm up, and I'm wired but tired. And context matters, Jeremy. It's not like you may not feel like you're like the training is so crazy or way over doing it it's in the context of you're not getting good sleep you're getting up early you're not getting a lot of and so therefore it is very much so over training so if you were getting great sleep and rested and all the things then then maybe it would be okay but i'm gonna guess that i think scaling back to two watch should notice a difference yeah i'm gonna guess that you're just like putting your nose down and just going through the workouts and i'm gonna make this happen no matter what and i got this goal yeah i mean that's that's just me in a nutshell regardless so i don't do anything halfway so maybe to my detriment sometimes oh yeah yeah here's what's going to happen you're going to take the week off probably by day four or five or by the end of the week you're going to sleep and you're like okay here we go and then when you get back on cut everything in half and if you're in and you should exercise appropriate amounts of exercise of course produces results strength muscle but it makes your sleep better yeah exercise does not make sleep worse unless it's uh too much yeah and then that's the that's the classic classic like like easy symptom to notice right out the gates it's that right there especially since you're doing all the other things yeah i knew right away i was reading your question as you were talking oh he's over trained yeah yeah yeah well that's good to know so then as i kind of tailor back into this um you know doing the two day a week what's the recommendation on how long i maintain that or should I never get back to that four-day split?

1:10:07Yeah, listen to your body. Yeah, listen to your body because two-day may be the – and listen, you would be blown away by what you can do in two days, especially if you – it sounds like you're doing a lot of the other stuff. Like if your diet's in check, you're putting together a sleep routine, you have all this other stuff that you're managing so well, and two good days of full-body routine, you can build a hell of a physique by just doing that. So if we start to do that, you sleep well. I mean maybe at one point if you're like you're missing the extra workout so much I go all right maybe try a third day see how you feel okay and and then slowly and then it's like try a third day stay that way for like three weeks and really determine on how you feel before you even consider strength is your indicator through this whole process right and here's the other thing as you get older less volume is required to build muscle okay so I train less now than I ever have and I get still good results.

1:11:04And it's probably going to continue to scale down. This is true for everybody. So two days a week, full body strength training, even if I had someone in their 20s, I'm going to give them great results. A 50-year-old guy is perfect. Perfect. You're going to build the most muscle and strength doing that. And the rest of the week, just stay active. That's it. Jeremy, one thing we didn't ask about or talk about, just curious, have you done blood panels and seen kind of hormone and testosterone? Yeah, I have. So back in July when I got started, just again, because I'm 50, I want to make sure I'm doing things right.

1:11:34So I linked up with the health and wellness kind of concierge company, and they did a full, they took six vials of blood and a urine test on day one. They did a full body scan. Back in July, I was about 12 and a half percent body fat, but that was using, you know, one of the InTouch or whatever those in body scans. So it wasn't like DEXA or anything. They said my muscle mass was great. Grip strength was great. Everything looked pretty dialed in. And I've been pretty consistent with my diet for years. I mean, that's not a new thing for me. I'm kind of ridiculous about it. It's part of my ADHD. I like to weigh my food.

1:12:09I like to track my macros. So I'm staying as dialed in. But that's just part of my life. So it's not a burden to me like some caution. Jeremy, you're going to see such great results with MAPS anabolic, too. Just follow that. Where was testosterone for you? Were you good? Yeah. Um, so I did start PRT quite a while ago. Um, and it actually wasn't related to fitness. Um, it was just related to absolute fatigue and I had the sex drive of a three-year-old. Um, so my doctor put me on that. Um, and I, so I'm still a little under the normal range. Um, is what he is saying. I can't remember the number guys.

1:12:44I think it was like six or 700. Um, you're good, but yeah, you, you do the right amount of volume with training. You're going to blow your mind. Yeah. Your body's going to respond like crazy. Yeah. That's exciting. I just don't know what I'm going to do with all this extra time. Jeremy, I'd love to hear back from you because I have a feeling that once you do this recovery week, you go to your two-day week, I think within less than a month's time, you're going to feel and see a major difference already. That would be awesome. Yeah, because, I mean, everybody knows that, you know, the muscles made in the bed, you know, and I just feel like I'm killing myself with trying to push out, but I'm not getting the reward of it.

1:13:19A hundred percent. A hundred percent. No, it's pretty clear. I think I'm almost a hundred percent positive. That's what it is. Yep. And that's great advice. I appreciate you guys. Thank you for that. I am looking forward to giving that a try. Awesome. My wife will be happy I got extra time. All right, brother. Yeah, circle back. Let us know how it goes, Jeremy. I will too. God bless you guys. All right, see you. Yeah, that's a classic, classic. Yeah, I know. You're training hard. Everything looks sound good. And you just wake up. Yeah. And you're restless. This happens to me. I talked to Mike Matthews about this, what's happening to him.

1:13:48I mean, everybody, I've talked to so many people. It's one of the first signs. And it literally feels like that. Like, you go to sleep, you're tired. You wake up. and you're like, why am I awake? And then you're restless. You're like, this sucks. Especially a guy like that who's got this, you know, he's like. He's got the personality. Yes, he's doing it all already. And it's like what he just needs to do is less. So crazy because I know that sounds so counterintuitive for most people. And maybe his workouts aren't even that crazy. That's what people need to understand. But it's in the context of what's going on.

1:14:17Oh, they are. I guarantee that. Well, he said grinding. Just based on how he was describing everything. He said grinding. What kind of mentality he has. It's like interval training and I'm grinding to him. He's also going hard. Our next caller is Lindsey from Florida. Hi, Lindsey. How are you doing, Lindsey? Hey, how are you? Good. How are you? How can we help you? Good. First of all, I want to say thank you for, you know, taking my question and letting me be on here. This is super, super cool. I'm going to go ahead and read my question so I don't try to ask you like five other ones. I'm a 34-year-old mom of twins that were born in December and a former head coach at Orange Theory Fitness.

1:14:51I've always struggled with weight, but recently I've lost 50 pounds on a GLP-1 while also starting HRT. I'm 5 '9", 153 pounds, and I'm pretty happy with my weight, but I still have a lot of visceral fat and underdeveloped areas, especially my glutes, which I've never been able to grow no matter how hard I've tried. I'd like to shift my focus from weight loss to body composition, reverse dieting, building muscle, maybe even do my first bulk. but where I'm kind of caught up is with my GLP one and HRT and losing weight so quickly. I kind of don't know where to start with maintenance calories, tapering off the medication and how to set myself up to actually build muscle.

1:15:32Um, what do you guys suggest as my next step? You're, you're still on a full dose of GLP one. I'm titrating down. Um, so they had put me up to five really quickly, which they shouldn't have, because I lost like 20 pounds in my first month. So I started working with a hormone doctor versus a primary care and I'm titrating down. So I'm now on three and I'm working myself down to under a standard starting dose and then probably eventually off pretty quickly. How is the current appetite where you're at now? Good. I feel like I'm getting the same benefits as I was with a five, just without the side effects.

1:16:10I don't really have food noise. My appetite's pretty controlled. um so i feel pretty pretty good right now are you able to reverse diet like you counted calories and are you tracking it all to kind of know where your macros are yeah so i think i'm kind of working myself into a reverse diet now i was eating at like 1700 calories on my glp1 i was still trying to be mindful of eating enough um so i was trying to work up to like 2000 maybe 2100 calories which is what i started yesterday yeah um but i don't know if that's kind of what you guys would suggest Yes. My maintenance calories are a lot lower now than they were before.

1:16:43Of course. Of course. No, I think that's, I think that's great. And then how's your training? Are you still, you're not still doing orange theory stuff. Are you, are you? No, I'm strain training five days a week, which I'm curious your thoughts on that. Cause maybe that's a little bit too much. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. In the context of where you're at, like you're so low calorie, you don't need to be training that that much in order to see the results you want. So less would be more in this situation. something like a maps anabolic program would probably be more ideal. Um, or even like muscle mommy, cause it has more glute focus than that.

1:17:14If you, you mentioned glutes as a primary focus, so like muscle mommy, it'd probably be a good choice. And then where you're at diet wise, as far as reversing the calories is, uh, is smart. That's, that's probably right where we probably would have put you. Okay. Yeah. Cause I know you guys answer questions like this all the time. I guess it was just kind of hard for me to figure it out because I've lost this 50 pounds since the end of April. Um, so I've lost it very quickly and a lot quicker than I wanted to. Um, I tried to come in here being super mindful on the GLP one, um, and weighing myself and stuff.

1:17:46It was just one of those things that I would be at the same weight forever. And then literally one day drop like five pounds and I'd be like, Oh my God. Cause you know, I was trying to lose like a pound a week. Um, but I have lost very, very quickly. So I know I kind of put myself in a bad spot to revert diet. Lindsay, can I ask you some more questions? Yes. Okay. So you had twins in December? Yes. Okay. Were you on fertility treatment in order to get pregnant? So I got pregnant with my twins the first month I was on letrozole. So that was my first medicated cycle, but I hadn't moved to like IUI or IVF or anything.

1:18:23But that was a medicated cycle to get my twins. Yeah. Okay. And then before that, how long were you trying to get pregnant? A little over a year. So we have three children. We got pregnant very quickly with my three-year-old and then we dealt with the secondary infertility. And I wasn't my healthiest during that time, which didn't help my cause going into the pregnancy either. And then you had the babies in December. When did you start the GLP-1 and HRT? I started the GLP-1 at the end of April and I started HRT in July. So four months postpartum, they had you go on. Why did they have you start HRT so quickly?

1:19:03so I don't no one really had me started it was probably more me and maybe I did it too quickly um I know someone who runs like a hormone clinic that I trust and I've known for a long time and I started working with her in July I mean she knew my full background of having the twins and being on a GLP-1 I asked her if I was doing too much too soon and she said that getting on HRT and working with the GLP-1 at the same time could be beneficial so I went ahead and moved forward okay yeah because uh that was really quick uh postpartum and a glp1 that was really quick to get on a glp1 uh postpartum as well and i'm assuming you stopped breastfeeding so you stopped breastfeeding then went on these things yeah yeah my babies are formula fed right now okay okay uh yeah i would take it easy i mean you're you're still you're not even a year postpartum and most most women so there's a lot of i hate social media because it puts out this just terrible lie that But, you know, four months after you have your babies, you get back to whatever.

1:20:01Baloney, it's bullcrap. I've trained a lot of women. I've trained athletes and women who are, like, really fit. And you're not yourself for, like, two years. Right. That doesn't mean you'll get back and, you know, you don't start getting in shape. But it takes, like, two years to get back to who you are. So, you know, HRT GLP-1, I think that, you know, was a little quick. I think it would be good to scale down the GLP-1 so you can reverse diet. I think you're moving in the right direction. More calories, less training. Five days a week is just, it's a way you'll do better with maps anabolic regardless.

1:20:31And then, you know, go up to 2 ,100 calories. You're probably not going to see any fat gain. You'll just get stronger and then move up another 200 calories. And every few weeks you could jump up and I would, you know, you're probably going to end up somewhere around 2 ,700 calories. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I know. I probably jumped the gun a little too quick on the GLP one, which is crazy because I'm not even, obviously people care about aesthetics to some degree, right? That wasn't my main concern. It was like I felt tired and terrible all the time with my three under three. And then I was starting to ache in places I've never ate before.

1:21:04And I started trying to work out and do everything. I've lost weight before twice, like 50 pounds or more. And the things I had done were not working at all. So I guess I moved pretty quickly to my GLP-1 along with labs, like my cholesterol and triglycerides and all of that were high. So I moved towards it. But when I say it out loud that it was four months postpartum, it kind of sounds a little crazy. was this baby weight that you were losing? Like what were you at before the, uh, you got pregnant? I was probably closer to like one 85. When I was a coach at orange theory, I hung out around one 60, but like I said, during my secondary infertility, I was, I was still working out, but my diet was definitely not that great.

1:21:40So I was a little higher than usual. Um, so I went into my pregnancy a little heavier than I normally was. Take your time is the only advice I'm going to give you. Yeah. Yeah. Cause even on HRT, if you push too hard with diet and training and all that stuff, especially with, uh, you know, three kids, two of them being under, you know, a year. So I know sleep is going to, you know, so it's going to be on and off type of deal. Like your, your body will crash if you, if you push. So just take it easy and you'll get better results if you take it easy. Lindsay, did you, did you see the muscle mommy group that we just launched?

1:22:12I heard about it cause I listen to your guys' podcasts all the time, but I haven't like looked into it. You gotta get it. you've got to get in there. I mean, we just had Dr. Lauren on there last week, who's all about women's hormones. And the community is not just women following muscle mommy, it's just women who want to build muscle. Yeah. So and it's 100 % centered around like we have two trainers in there that run it. And so you have access to really good trainers, they can help with this whole process of reverse dieting. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. It's that's what I need, because I've been doing in body scans and my in body scan says i'm at like a 19.5 body fat but like if my stomach does not look like that like my it's my stomach problem um which is what i'm like mainly i know it needs to be a body composition thing at this point you gotta build yeah build muscle that's it that's it everything everything's focused around building the next year it's all you should do is build muscle i wouldn't let you cut for a year i would just get you strong but you're doing the things coming down on the GLP one reverse dieting.

1:23:11This is, this is the right path. Scale back. We'll send you over a maps anabolic link for muscle mommy. Yeah. I think it would be beneficial and then get in there so I can see what we'll be in there too. So I'll be talking to everybody that's going on in there. So let's see you in there today if we can. Okay. Yeah, for sure. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much. I kind of worked so hard to get to this point. And then I'm like, Oh my God, what did I do? No, you're good. Yeah. You're on the right path now. Yep. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right, Lindsay. Bye. Bye. I'm so surprised that somebody gave her.

1:23:42I'm surprised that a doctor would recommend HRT and a GLP-1 four months postpartum. I actually thought she's talking about the previous December, not like this December just passed by. I was like, oh, wow. Very quick. That's just wild. And that's why I asked if she did fertility before, because that will affect her hormones. And I'm like, okay, was she on HRT before? Because then I'd understand continuing it. But no, she went on fertility. You got to wait till things balance out. Four months postpartum, that's - Got some healing. Yeah, what are we doing? That's, you know, unless there's an emergency situation.

1:24:16I don't know. You know, I'm obviously not a doctor, but to me that seems very, very quick. No, no. She would need to be like dangerously low to make sense to do something like that. And you need to do that in that situation for sure. So both GLP-1 and HRT, both too fast in that situation. But I mean, we got a hold of her now. She's scaling the GLP-1 down. She needs to reverse dive, scale back on the volume, training and I think she's going to rebound nicely. By the way, the link to that group is muscle mommy movement.com. Thanks, Doug. Our next color is Jason from Nevada. What's up, Jason. What's up, Jason.

1:24:49Hey guys. How you doing? How can we help you? A long time fan of the show. I love everything you guys do. It's great to meet you. Finally. Thank you. Yeah. My name is Jason. I'm 48, about six foot two, weigh 185 pounds and about 19 % body fat. I've been strength training for about the past seven years, initially through CrossFit, but now I'm more focused on traditional lifting. I also do some yoga, and I try walking as much as I can. I'm a business owner, a husband, and father to three kids. I have boy, girl, twins that are 11 years old and a nine-year-old daughter, so time's always a challenge for me.

1:25:30But fitness remains a priority. What's unique about my situation is that when I was 17 years old, I had a large lymph node in my neck and it was surgically removed. During that procedure, my spinal accessory nerves was severed, resulting in significant long-term damage to the nerve and leaving my left trapezius muscle essentially useless. For years, I avoided strength training thinking it wouldn't be effective. But fortunately, when I started lifting in my early 40s with CrossFit, I haven't looked back. I've seen amazing improvements, and I feel stronger and healthier than ever. That said, though, I do have a couple of issues I'd love your insight on.

1:26:15One is regarding the trap injury. So I have muscle imbalance and issues with my aesthetics. And so the surrounding muscles have to overcompensate. And, you know, so I noticed the asymmetry. Are there any specific exercises or strategies that you guys would recommend to improve balance and maintain aesthetics despite this permanent limitation? I did give some pictures of that imbalance. I'm not sure if you guys have access to that. The other question I do have is that I have suffered from chronic sleep problems my entire life. Rarely do I get seven hours of sleep. Typically, I get about six and a half hours a night.

1:26:58Sleep is tricky for me, though. Sometimes I'll go four to five hours. I'll go weeks, which is four to five hours of sleep. I've explored everything to fix this problem. Therapy, sleep hygiene, medication. Currently, I take magnesium, glycine, and melatonin. My big question, though, is with the sleep problem that is chronic for me, it's difficult for me to fix, is how much is my lack of consistent sleep quality? limiting my muscle growth. Is it possible still to make meaningful progress, even with the compromised sleep? I appreciate you guys' advice and look forward to hearing what you guys have to say.

1:27:35Okay. So with the sleep stuff, yes, you can make progress. Yes, it also hampers things. So it does make it difficult, but it's been a long time. Sounds like you've really tried to figure it out and kind of are having a tough time with figuring out what it is exactly. Hormone replacement therapy might be the next place I would look to see if hormone changes can help. You could also look at a peptide called deep sleep inducing peptide. Some people have found success with that, with increasing at least the deep sleep when they go to bed. As far as the trap is concerned, with the severed nerve, you don't have connection to those muscles.

1:28:12So there's not much we could do. Yeah. What I would recommend, however, is stim, and I would use that throughout the day just to keep them up. So stim should at least get that muscle to fire. Have you ever tried stim on the trap or their sternocleomastoid muscle? Yeah, I have tried it. I have that, but, uh, forget the name of it, but I do have the device that tries to fire that fire it, but I don't know if it really even works. To be honest, like I tried it a little bit. Yeah. Does the muscle fire when you put the patch on and turn it on? Yeah, I don't, I don't think it does. I think that only the renvoy does and the other muscles in that area.

1:28:47Okay. So that's the only thing I would say to try is to see if you can get them to fire. Otherwise, what you actually want is typically what we tell people to avoid, which are compensations. But you need compensations because there's two muscles in particular that are not working. And so when you're training your body, try to have good form. One side's going to look a little different than the other. But in your case, that's okay. We want those compensations so that we avoid too much pain and injury. Because of that, would you keep him more bilateral because he needs the other side to work with it, or would you recommend symmetry for a while?

1:29:22Both. They're both going to be good. Bilateral is going to be good because the compensations, unilateral is going to be good because the compensation is going to be there anyway. So you would train just like anybody, but you're going to have a little bit of a difference on one side, especially with things like rowing, pressing. You might notice a little bit of difference. but you want compensations, which you probably already have. It's been a long time, right? When did you have that surgery? I was 17, so it's 30 years. Yeah, you've got compensations that are already there. Yeah. And so stim is the only thing that I've ever had clients that have used that have helped a little bit.

1:30:01But it's interesting because sometimes the muscle will fire, sometimes it won't. So you could look at more expensive stim machines that are stronger to see if that'll get the muscle to fire. and you could try using it more consistently to see over time if you start to get that muscle to fire because it's an external signal. It's not coming from you. Do you have any pain or any issues because of the imbalance like that or is it just more of an aesthetic thing for you? I do have some pain. It's not constant, but it comes and goes. I'll get some shooting pain down the back left side of my arm, underneath my armpit.

1:30:36um i find though that if i if i continue to work out it's always better yeah um and so i noticed though if i if i focus like on just like uh front muscles that the pain gets worse so i have to do you know deadlifts and bench pressing to kind of keep my balance on both sides of the body it seems to help reduce and limit the pain do you get any mid trapezius activation or is it just upper trapezius activation that doesn't happen you know that's the thing is like the upper trap definitely doesn't work the lower and mid trap i might be getting something there but i can't really tell it still feels like it's awkward but like when i look at it visually i don't get sometimes i've seen the injury with people like really bad winging of scapula yeah my winging isn't super pronounced so i might have some a lot of seated row yeah yeah well you got your your your serratus muscle still works so that's stabilizing the scapula your rhomboids are still good so that's helping to stabilize things you're probably getting some mid trapezius activation the sternocleomastoid muscle is also not working but you have other muscles there that help support the neck um and you know your imbalance doesn't look that bad honestly i could only really tell what the picture that you sent where your arm's out because he told us to yeah you're looking right at it yeah but it doesn't look that uh that pronounced i but the standing one i couldn't tell if you if you just said hey you notice anything i wouldn't i wouldn't notice anything so but keep keep training as normal i like the two to three days a week that you're currently doing have you ran are you running any of our programs um i did you guys is a your legacy program the uh anabolic okay match 15 might be really tried match 15 would be good for you with the lack of sleep that you had mentioned i think that would be good yeah you might experiment with the volume of that would be good yeah match 15 might be great for you yeah send that to him that'd be great you'll have doug send you that one it's hard for me to fit in long workouts that's for sure oh yeah you'll like it you'll like it it's very convenient but you're doing a good job jay you're doing a good job with what you're doing cool appreciate it thanks guys yeah you got it yeah all right we'll send that over to you great i appreciate it thanks thanks so much you got it yeah when I mean, a nerve is severed.

1:32:52I mean, there's nothing you can do. No. I'm like, you can't add mobility drills to reconnect. It's just like one of those. Well, and it's. You have to pull the plug. Sal's point, too, this is opposite advice than we normally give, right? We want to try and fix that where you want. We want to reinforce the compensation. You want those compensations when you don't have a muscle. If you didn't have a muscle firing or working and you can't fix that. It has to take over the function. The thing, too, is when you have nerve damage, although his was severed, so that's a whole other ballgame. but you know i've had people with who've had some nerve damage if the closer it is to the injury the the higher the odds are that you could get some function back the longer i mean his was severed at 17 he's just 30 years ago i know it's gone it's gone the quicker you get to working on yeah it's gone there's more likely now if he's getting some lower trap activation though i mean i would probably double down on a lot of rowing exercises to develop that at least and so i think that would And just that would help support scapula and aesthetically help a little bit.

1:33:47Stabilize it. Totally. So like seated row, barbell row has become some of my favorite movements if I'm him. Totally. 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.

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