2716: Are You Fitter Than the Average Person?

27:02Well, it's like, okay, in a controlled lab where they told these 50 people and these 50 people do the exact same thing. But now let's throw life in there and go, what normally happens? And factor that part in. And that's my point of this conversation right now is I understand that it's pretty equal in a lab, you know, body parts splits. But that never works out that way. In fact, I would think less people are like you that never miss a workout. More people are probably like me where they're in rhythm sometimes. They're off for a while. Life happens. Then they get motivated. They have a couple more guys in a row.

27:36And then, ah, shit. they fall off again and then you know like that's that's a lot of my life of training and in the in my 20s what that looked like is i come back and and and the the how i modified in my 20s was early on it was like always started with arms and then i realized how stupid that was for a long time right it's like so i ended up developing these great arms in my early 20s and totally neglected legs because legs were always like the last part of my workout and then that then it became like okay i really need to focus legs so then i'd start legs but the same stuff was happening was sometimes I'd only get day one, day two, and then stuff happened, and then I'd get pushed back.

28:09And not only am I not hitting the muscles that I missed because I kind of fell off again, but what I was really thinking about yesterday was just how much I was overreaching when I first get started back, too, that was unnecessary. It's like unnecessary volume, unnecessary intensity to send the signal to build and gain. Like, that's wasted volume. It would be so better. It's not just wasted. It's detrimental. It is. it's wasteful and detrimental and so it's like forever that's changed for me so for me like i love body part splits but i tell myself i have to earn the right to do a body part split it's like you adam you haven't been if you never miss a workout you're super consistent yes your body requires at that point a lot of yes because now you're so trained yes right by all means have fun with it i'm not going to tell you you can't do a body part because we know what the studies say in a perfect lap yes but are you like you better you ask yourself are you like that or are you more like me where you have rhythms and you're in and out and so for me the the mentality that i've had now is like i love body part splits but adam you haven't you only strung six weeks straight together of no missing workout so how about i stick to my full bodies do the minimal amount of volume required to send the loudest signal to build muscle earn the right to go like okay i'm in a zone now this is month three haven't missed any workouts let's move that program over to a body part split you know adam even though for being consistent like i said if i did seven sets of bench press, seven sets of incline press, seven sets of flies, all in one workout.

29:36By the time I get to my eighth set, like I'm weaker in every exercise. And that's just because of fatigue. If I did seven sets of bench on Monday, seven sets of incline press on Wednesday, seven sets of flies on Friday, because I'm not as fatigued, I'm going to lift more weight. So guess what happens? More volume. So the volume is never controlled because the fatigue always plays a role, even if you're super, super consistent. This is why full body workouts, again produce the best results in most people across the board and let me i'm so with you on this and it's coming from somebody who likes body parts of course and so and i know that there's this case that we always make too like oh if you love it and that gets you consistent well that trumps it but it's like agreed but there still is there still is a way better pathway even to your body part splits and so that's the argument i wanted to make today is like hey i and and the The reason why I say that is because it's still so rare for me to see full body train trainees.

30:32It's still we still are all training like bros. We all I mean, not I know it's an overgeneralization, but you walk into gym and what would you say? Eighty percent. Well, the whole gym's organized that way. You got chest stuff over here, back stuff over here. Yeah, segmented like that. You rarely see people doing full body routines. And I'm just telling you that even to your argument, even if you're an advanced consistent lifter, you're probably better off doing that. I'm saying if you're for sure. Add real life into it. Yeah. If for sure you're anything like me. Way better. Way, way better. And what I've recognized, it was an amazing epiphany for me because I've had probably more inconsistency in my late 30s and 40s than I definitely did in my early 30s.

31:16Obviously, I was at peak training those times and even in my 20s. yet I've been able to maintain a better physique relative to – In the context of how much you're doing. Yes, relative. I'm not by any means trying to say that my physique today competes with peak Adam at 33. But when I look at overall volume and training consistency that I know right now, I would consider myself in some of the most inconsistent times of my life, yet I'm able to maintain a – and I attribute a lot of that to this. In fact, if you're advanced and you're starting to scale down your training for whatever reason, Two full body workouts will maintain probably most gains.

31:53Two full body workouts, that's it. And this is for the advanced person who's cutting way down. So by the way, speaking of recovery and all this stuff, I have people ask me all the time, you know, peptide questions because I use, I've used all of them. And I have a lot of experience with all of them. And I got to say, like, peptides have tremendous value, depending on their application. But there's a combination that is the best by far. It's actually profoundly effective across the board. And I notice it not just for, because these are the peptides I'm about to mention are for healing and recovery.

32:28And they're remarkable for that. But I notice them for muscle growth, fat loss, just the way my body looks and feels. And that's the, it's called pentadeca arginate. This is a version of BPC-157. So it's BPC-157 with an arginate salt, which makes it a little bit more stable. So that's what they use now. That in combination with thymus and beta. Using those together, I could 100 % tell a big difference in the way that my body responds, looks, feels from that combination right there. So if someone's curious about using peptides, and they're great for healing injuries, that's what they originally are used for.

33:08But even if you don't have an injury, you combine those two for a three, four-month period. Like, you notice. So you're saying it almost like it had an anabolic effect? 100%. Just because, yeah. 100%. The healing process. Oh, yeah. It goes right into the recovery. Oh, yeah. I get a different look to my body. I get more of a quality look to my muscles. And then if you add GHKCU, GHKCU would be in that kind of category, but more for skin. Now it's like cherry on top. And those three right there is like, I think that is, I was just talking to my buddy who just finished competing. I won't say his name.

33:40I don't know if he wants me to share this, but he just competed. And for the first time in his life, and I remember, this is someone who's competed for years. And they've used all the stuff, including anabolic steroids. And the difference they said that those peptides made just in the way their body looked, recovery, all that was just remarkable. I know who you're talking about. Did he win? He looked really good. No, no, no. But he ranked pretty well. And he's also older. Does that not show you how crazy competitive it's gotten? Very competitive. I mean, he looked amazing. I know who you're talking about.

34:11And he looks so good. I mean, he always looks good. He's actually looked, in my opinion, better than I've seen him. Yeah, I think so, too. He said the peptides made a big difference. Yeah, he looked, I saw his photos, and I went, dude, he looks amazing right now. And he's used, he used lower. He's competing in classic now, right? He used lower doses of anabolics. I've always, I was always trying to tell him that. I experimented that personally myself. Now, I get it, though. Everybody is different. Because I do have buddies that respond well to higher doses. Personally, for myself, though, the lower, it was almost the lower the dose, the better I felt.

34:44Low enough to where you're putting me in a little bit superficial numbers, but not crazy, you know, pro bodybuilder huge stacks that you hear about. Like I made, I noticed a huge difference. Speaking of which, the one I mentioned, GHKCU for skin, it boosts collagen production so significantly. But one of the things that people are turned off by with peptides, understandably, is that you inject them. So you inject them with an insulin needle right under the skin. It's a tiny little thing. but ghkcu is efficacious topically so like our partners at uh luminose by intera um you they have a cream that you put on your face very high dose of ghkcu and it works on the skin and it boosts collagen production like 70 i love that and then if you want the injectable peptides mp hormones that's where the doctor you know what's funny is i don't and maybe it's because i maybe i'm not consistent enough uh and i'm very consistent with the topical i notice better benefits for the topical but it could also admittedly it could be because i don't inject every day yes where the the i mean i'll do the the cream twice a day i mean same here yeah every time i shower your head too all my psoriasis everywhere oh yeah no i love it so does katrina i mean like we go through those we go through those puddles faster than i would like because the two of us are using it but again if you want like peptides the injectable versions you want to go all the way uh mphormones.com is these are doctors and these are peptides made in pharmacy not research labs.

36:12So funny you went to this way in these conversations. This was in the ride in the car last night from the comedy show. The group I was with was asking all these questions and I was telling them the exact same stat because they were like, they're naming all these stuff. I'm like, listen, these are the ones that made the big difference. I mean, you could try their stuff. They all work. They all do different things, but you want to feel, see a difference. Nothing compares to those. And they're like, yeah, but where do you get it? I'm like, you know that we work mphormones.com is like that all of them were just like oh i didn't even know that i'm like they didn't know that no yeah and you know what friends they were these are close friends i'm like oh my god but some of that makes me happy because then it makes me feel like it's not like we're running out there like pushing it on people and trying to do it so it's like it's there like if you want a reliable source a trusted source uh for that stuff you guys can i have a for me at least It's a paradigm shattering shift in how I see things.

37:06Really? Yes. And my wife brought it to me and I kind of knew this, but she really illustrated it well. And I think whether you're religious or not, it doesn't matter. I think you don't have to be, but this I think will shift your paradigm to the point where it will change the way you see the world. Okay. So one of the hardest questions that people, who have faith get asked is if there's really a God, why is there so much suffering? Why is there so much bad stuff? Always. The real question is not that. So here's what I'll pose to you. If I picked up a bunch of rocks and threw them in the air, we would 100 % expect them to just fall on the floor and scatter.

37:46They would not self-organize. I wouldn't throw rocks in the air and it turns into like a house. Nothing works that way, right? So the real question is not why is there bad and why is there suffering and why is there all this terrible stuff happening? The real question is, why is there order and why is there good? That is the real question because that's the weird part. Why is there good at all? Because our nature is to think that. Right, the animal instinct is to cop, you're killed, whatever. Like expect good. Like I'm supposed to have a good job. I'm supposed to not get sick. I'm supposed to have good health.

38:19And when things go bad, we're like, ah, why is this happening to me? But the truth is, even if you don't believe in God, The truth is, it is far stranger that there's any order and any good to begin with. It makes a lot more sense. You start with chaos and disorder and you realize through going through this to organize and to collaborate. It kind of evolves into that direction. Well, look at the rest of survival and growth. Look at the rest of the animal kingdom. I mean, that's just chaotic and survival of the fittest and just death and destruction. Yeah, well, think of the paradigm shift, right?

38:57If you think to, and by the way, again, the Bible will tell you that the nature of man is bad and the nature of the world is broken, right? But take that aside. Don't even look at that. Again, look at order versus chaos. Look at entropy. If I leave this table out here for a million years, it's not gonna become a better table. It gets disintegrates and it falls apart. So when you realize that the nature is bad and that good is actually the blessing, now you go about your day and instead of being like yeah i'm supposed to have a good job you're like oh man i have a good job or i'm not sick today like everything becomes a blessing that isn't bad now you start to see the all the blessings in your life versus feeling like bad stuff's just happening to you because you you think everything's supposed to be good i mean just like you said take the esoteric part of it out i think it's just a better way to live totally i mean even if you're not religious or even believing that it's like believing or at least thinking that way i think that serves a greater purpose for sure 100 all right we're gonna talk about ai because i love this oh good i had some ai stuff too so so i'll tell you what i'll tell you a little this this the story that i read this article and apparently this is happening and it's it's like a bit concerning so there's a personal not a personal story for me but this woman told a story she's a therapist and she was talking about how she had a couple who needed marriage counseling from her and they were buried three kids everything seemed fine the husband started to get become more and more distant and so the wife's like god something's going on what's happening he sat her down and had a conversation with her and he said listen honey i think we should open up our marriage to a third person and she was like what who is this person and she said ai my ai girlfriend and the wife laughed because she thought he was joking yes she thought he was joking and the husband was 100 serious he goes look i talked with my ai girlfriend about this she would like to be a part of our marriage she'd like to be a part in raising our kids i'd like to include her shut up yes and this is happening dude this is happening right now i just can i do i want to see that person i just feel like i want to see the person who gets manipulated by ai like that to present that like the character that person's got to be a character yeah that's a reality show waiting to happen or these people oh so wild i know i know you guys don't think that's going to happen more and more of course yeah of course it's definitely gonna do of course it's i mean it's we're infancy right now bro it's barely even oh yeah it's only it's only going to get wild i'll tell you something speaking of ai stuff have you guys seen i think it's china that has this the uh ai robotic legs no oh my god doug pull this up this is so cool this is xiaomi 17 oh no no that's something else Yeah, that's something else.

41:42Is this robotic legs for people? So it's like you rent them. Prosthetics? I think the bottom of this popular hiking mountain is one of the places they rent this. And you put it around your waist like this. Oh, like an exoskeleton? Yes. And then you just go walk. And then the AI figures out your cadence. And then you basically turn it on. Matches your gait and pattern. Yes. And you can make it a full-on sprint or just assist your walking. Dude. And I watched the guy do it. It's like your own Sherpa. Dude. How bad would you want to hack your buddies? Yeah. Make them run around. I mean, the video I watched of the guy testing it out, there was two guys testing it out for the first time, and they were just, you could see the look on their face, like, I'm not using any energy to move.

42:28You know what's crazy is that these devices should be for people who are paralyzed, but what's going to happen? Bro, you understand that this is literally, okay, we've been saying this already about WALL-E. this is another version of that i mean this isn't the like yeah there's some right yeah getting something else to do the work for you wow that's actually the guy i saw using it that's not this not the same video but that's the guy that i saw using it can you turn it on you have superpowers i know that's not i mean i'm not gonna want to hear it i know yeah i do yeah yeah i i want to try it too listen to these guys that i'm in china and they have robotic legs to help you hike.

43:06China is so advanced and they said we can try it for free. Sport assist robot. Yes. It can help you climbing, walking, running and riding. So if I'm running I can run faster? Yes. No way. Get me on this thing. Okay. This is the best technology in China. Really? The best technology. I can say it's the best technology in the world. In here you have AI. And it can fill you walking through things. It's very slow. The robot is like, I'm putting no effort into running and I'm like running so good.

43:50He's not putting any effort. None. It's walking for him. Bro, it walks for him. The original one I saw him do was when he first puts him on, which is even better because it's just flat ground and you see him like turn on for the first time and he's like, I'm not moving my legs. They're just moving themselves. But it learns your cadence. so your stride length, your gait, everything so it matches to that so it doesn't, you would think originally what I thought I thought something like this would happen and you would be like it's going to make people crash and it's like no it's so fluid and smooth the way he describes it again, what if somebody hacks these though yeah, it better have like an emergency pull button, you know what I'm saying, they can pull a string and it shuts all the power off, that's wild but I mean, come on decondition people I mean if these get relatively inexpensive you just slap these on you just forget riding around scooters in Disneyland anymore you just throw your AI legs on and then it powers you around I was having such a great discussion with my buddy and his wife on AI and she has friends who work on AI directly they're in high positions here in the Bay Area and she said every single one of them is very concerned with AI, is very concerned.

45:04Every single one of them is like, I don't know if I want to do this or be a part of it. I'm afraid. Oh, God. And so the question came up, well, because her husband is like, well, why are we doing this? And it's the same reason why we had the nuclear arms race. It's because the other guy, we're afraid the other guy's going to be. Somebody else is doing it. That's it. That's always the justification. Yeah, and I was thinking about this. I was like, what's the best case scenario with real artificial general intelligence? the best case scenario is we make it exactly like us, except way smarter. That's terrible.

45:36That's the best case scenario? That's our best. What can we do? Our best case scenario is to make it like us or what? What could we possibly do? I just think of things like this. Okay, because this is such a simple thing. It's what,$1 ,000, Doug? Yeah, you can get an Alibaba. We can buy some? We can buy some. We could get as many as we want and we can have them customized. I just feel like, and imagine this tech is still relatively new. Just explode. But think about somebody who has a labor job that like you normally an eight hour day taxes you and you're done. Like now I run a 12 hour day. No problem because 50 % of the less than 50 % of the work I'm doing.

46:21My exoskeleton is running the rest. Like it changes the game for a lot of different things, dude. and then again help your friend move no problem i can see that or like stilts like i at the house they're remodeling they're doing the um sheet rocking and on the like the ceilings so you got the stilts and everything they get it done in like a fraction of the time you mean stilts they're standing yeah stand on stilts so you don't have to do a ladder i've never seen that that's way more that's cool way more effective yeah this one guy actually like uh didn't have the stilts and so like just took uh buckets and like tied like these ropes around and was just like doing it with one hand it was pretty impressive like skill wow yeah i've seen i've seen that before too who had the soccer game incident yeah so my niece this is the first time i've actually been able to go up because she's they live in benicia and so they're like far in the east bay and like i was able to kind of go up and watch because they're in san francisco area and so i went up to watch and i'm hanging out my brother and having a good time and we're watching the game it's just this girls soccer and it's a pretty elite level so um you know it was competitive but like they were just you know it was it was not a great game for her they were getting beat it was like five nothing or something and um reason i bring this up because there's an incident like so uh this one girl on my niece's team was kind of you know fighting for the ball and was getting a little bit physical and kind of shouldering and they were both going after it and then um the ball kind of goes out of bounds and you know the play's kind of over and this girl was really frustrated with the other girl that she was like you know being a bit physical with her literally just stops open hands and hits her right in the face like so hard just smacks her just smacks like literally assaults her like in front of the whole crowd where i literally jumped up out of out of my chair out of the bleachers and was just like what like because it was just so unnecessary didn't rush the field completely just like threw me off out of the game and that's it it's just like like obviously has like some kind of psychological issues or something dude because i was like who does that dude who just like i mean might as well just been punching her in the face for no reason wow what did the other team did they do anything or did everybody just kind of everybody was shocked and the uh the ref gave her a red card and she kind of you know had to leave um the field but yeah exactly i was like dude i and he was telling me like this league there was another incident where some girl like literally picked up another girl and then like ground and pounded what i was like this is like girl girl soccer i didn't realize it was so violent wow and aggressive like that you know one of the beauty one of the that's it actually brings up a really good value of sports is it teaches kids to be very competitive but also measured composed and within the within the realms of the rules yeah which is if you think about it you guys think about how valuable of the skill that is in life it's such a it's why we talk did you see the forum post with uh jen cohen's thing that about sports yes no i didn't read oh my gosh dude it's so you know why it's so funny to me is i have the kid that probably won't play sports and i'm not offended by that yeah it's like it's not as shot at you as a parent that you're a bad parent because you you didn't put your kid in sports, whatever.

49:39But it's like, it's more so sports are such an incredible teacher for life. So many, I mean, I can't think of a single thing that has as many lessons as sports does for life for a kid, in an individual. I can think of a lot of things that you can do to try and like, which is what I'll have to do, right? I'll have to create a lot of these scenarios to teach my son the same things that he would organically get from playing sports. And so, and I don't think it makes me a bad dad because my kid doesn't like to play sports and I'm not going to force him if he doesn't really want to. So everybody on there got so knee-jerk reaction of like, this is a terrible mind-pump take.

50:15It's like, calm the fuck down. It's like, it is what it is. There's plenty of research to support how beneficial sports are for kids' development and all these life lessons. It teaches that, because we think of it as just physicality. Oh, it's exercise. No, no, no. It teaches you how to win, which is very valuable in life, to learn how to win and be humble. It teaches you how to lose, which is just as valuable because you get your butt kicked in life. It teaches you how to work with other people. It teaches you how to be measured and play within the confines of the rules, which in life, like I said, like that girl that you just talked about, Justin, imagine you're at work and you're competitive with your fellow coworkers.

50:55And you're competitive and you're losing and you don't learn that skill. So what do you do? You cheat or you gossip or you use politics versus - Or you sabotage just so you can win. Yes. You do things that are unethical. That's right. And have it. Yeah. And being able to regulate your emotions. I feel like it's very important. I don't know that that gets highlighted enough. We're so like polarized and like the algorithm is really dictating a lot of people's reality right now to the point where it's like, dude, step back, like step back and assess yourself and like how emotionally volatile you are right now.

51:29This is a real problem. I mean, I wonder, I wonder what exactly would have happened. It would be really interesting, had I not found sports, what I would have turned out like. I think that I definitely. You know, it saves the life of a lot of troubled kids. I mean, I think it saved my life. Because I tell you what, my parents weren't probably feeling that. Had I not done sports, I don't know if they would have had the, because they were young, had the awareness to fill those gaps. I think about that. I'm a 40-something-year-old dad, and I recognize my son's not into sports at all. so it's like I'm trying to find these lessons and playing Uno I think I really actively have intent going into those things like okay I need to show him when he loses to be like this when we win he's got to learn those lessons it doesn't have to be through sports sports as a parent who's busy who works who does a lot of things sports are such a nice easy way to put it it's an easy assistance you know what I'm saying like your kid comes back home from a day at practice and something happened and you as a dad now have an opportunity to go, oh, so tell me about it.

52:36And then I can teach right there versus I didn't have to go take him to practice. I didn't have to go practice with him for an hour or two hours. Like I can have him in sports and allow sports to be that catalyst for those conversations. And if you have the opportunity, it's such a great thing. Now, granted, some kids don't. I get it. I got one. You know what I'm saying? And it doesn't make me a bad dad because he doesn't want to. It just means I have to really be intentional. I have to be thoughtful of like, okay, how am I going to teach? Yeah, that I definitely learned through sports because I absolutely was.

53:06I definitely lost a lot. I got to win a lot. I was leaders on some teams. I was a bench rider on other teams. I mean, I've got a whole host of emotions. I know it's like the politics, right? You know what sucks? Being the man and then somebody's son to the coach. I sat an entire season out. Baseball was arguably one of the better players. Like I had been on a lot of all-star teams, But they because of the new coach who had worked with, you know, all these kids that are a little bit younger and they had, you know, all worked all spring and everything else like they had a tight unit. You know, it was just because of that fact, like I didn't get to play.

53:46And I had to sit and endure that. And my friends left. And it's like that was such a lesson for me that you're not going to get fair handouts. You're not going to get a fair opportunity all the time. That's right. And you got to fight. How you handle it. You got to handle it emotionally. You got to handle that rejection. You also have to like, you know, find the lesson in it and see where there is like I can improve on my own, regardless of like this coach is not giving me anything. What a great point. That exact point I've talked about on this podcast before. You remember I told you when I was 26, one of the most frustrating points in my career was I'm on year five or six in a row of being like the top guy in our, in our, in our company, like for what I did and to still be overlooked for promote that point.

54:32I've already promoted eight different leaders underneath me. I'd done all, I had all the accolades, all the trophies, all the things. You're supposed to be next. I should have been the next guy. And I was my guy and I had a leader above me, keep me in that. I, and I remember this moment. This is that way, what made me become a big reader. I didn't, wasn't a reader at all before that. And I remember having this talk with myself and like going, you know, I had this moment of, I was had, I was feeling like a victim that, I couldn't believe that I've been overlooked. this is bullshit anger and then i had this moment i realized i went wait a second why am i allowing a company dictate my growth because my boss isn't promoting me and pushing me up like i could go around him and grow other ways yes and that's like i became this voracious reader after that and and you know what i never got promoted in that company didn't happen i moved on to other things but it served me so well to be able to endure that in a time like that and not just play the victim role be angry don't do anything sit on my hands it was like okay there's there's another way for me to keep growing i'm gonna figure that out i don't know if i figured that out if i haven't hadn't had similar experiences in sports as a kid i don't know if i would have either i gotta tell you guys uh so i with my he's almost five now right my five-year-old i had taken him to some martial arts classes to watch uh about i want to say about six seven months ago and he didn't want to do it which is okay he's young still so he's like he didn't want to get up there he wanted to with everybody so i'm like all right i'll take it i'll take a break yesterday when we're walking to the park and he's talking about you know those books i told you about which animal would yeah i still haven't got mine so maybe it's in order it's sparked it sparked this like conversation so first he's like what would win in a fight a rhino or an elephant starts there and then he goes what's the best fighting style i'm like i'm like what do you mean he goes well and he starts naming like what does jujitsu do what does karate do so we're talking about like the different guy he's So smart.

56:20So then he goes, so I said, do you want to read a book on the different fighting styles and what they do and which one's the best? He's like, yes. So I'm like, oh, my God. Because if he gets into it, it'll be so great to start to, because he's right around the 80s, young still, right? Because kids can start later. But I can't wait to get this book. I got a whole book on the major fighting styles. I can't wait to read it with him and explain what they do. It's so awesome that he's into that. He has attention for that. Oh, it'll be, I can't, I mean, if he gets into wrestling or judo or jujitsu, those are ones I love.

56:49Yeah. That would be so exciting for me. Dude, that'd be so awesome. Those are the only sports that I can help with. That'd be so cool. The rest of them. I mean, the fact that he's interested already is massive, I think. Because even if he's not going to do it right now, the fact that he's curious is probably going to spark that. So I got this big book coming in the mail right now. You know, I have a bone to pick with Doug. Uh-oh. So just because I believe. Yeah. I'm not letting this podcast hang up without me picking this bone right now. Please, yes. I know what you're going to bring up. So Doug brought this up.

57:18So Doug was quick to fact check me on my rattlesnake facts. Oh, through AI. Yeah. Lies again. Yes. Rattlesnake fact. And I was like, damn, I could have sworn. What was the fact? So remember that I said that baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than big rattlesnakes. Because they squirt out more venom. And that was the logic was that. And so it's partially true. But Doug quickly looked up and then it denied me. I was wrong. I was wrong. So here's why. So full-grown rattlesnakes do what's called a dry bite, where a lot of times they will just bite someone to basically warn people off. And so many times a rattlesnake bite like that, you won't even get venom.

57:57They're just kind of warning you like that, where a baby rattlesnake doesn't have that. They don't have the regulation. They pour all of it in whenever they hit you. So there's the real. So, yes, baby rattlesnakes are still more dangerous than full-grown rattlesnakes, like I told you before I was fact-checked on this podcast. Wasn't this somebody from Texas that wrote in and explained that? Yeah, somebody emailed in. I forget what their qualifications were, but it made totally sense. Yeah, this is an ICU and ER doctor in Alabama. There it is. Oh, Alabama. Yeah. And I was like, I know I learned this before.

58:31And I grew up around rattlesnakes, and so we were so taught to watch out for those babies because of that. And now it makes total sense. So it's a dry bite is what they call it. I'm going to shout him out. It's David Page. Thanks, David Page. Thank you, Dave. Thanks, man. Thanks. Z-Biotics is a pre-alcohol probiotic drink that has been designed specifically. In fact, it's been engineered to break down something called acetaldehyde. So what happens? You drink this. Then you drink your drinks with your friends. And because none of the acetaldehyde or far less of it gets absorbed through the gut, you feel way better.

59:07You guys, this is a game changer. If you like to enjoy a night out with your friends, take Z-Biotics with you. Go to zbiotics.com. That's Z-B-I-O-T-I-C-S.com forward slash MindPump25. Use the code MindPump25. Get 15 % off. Our first caller is Carla from New Hampshire. Hi, Carla. Hi. How are you doing? Hi. This is so weird. I can't believe I'm on this side of the screen. You guys are amazing. I love your podcast and all the information you put out. So I just want to say thank you for that. Thank you. Um, so I'm just gonna read for my email and then I do have an update for afterwards. Um, so my question is, how do you know you're overtraining if you don't have the classic symptoms of overtraining?

59:50More specifically, am I overtraining? For context, I'm a 21-year-old female. I'm 5 '9", 160 pounds. And this question originates from my first official cut that I ran the beginning of this summer, so a couple months ago. Prior to cutting, I was intuitively eating and strength training over a two-year period. Over those two years, I gradually gained 20 pounds without realizing it. I got up to 180 pounds. One day I looked in the mirror, decided enough was enough. So I started to track my calories and go into a cut. So my maintenance was about 2 ,200, and I got down gradually over a five-week period to 1 ,700 calories.

1:00:33And then I started a reverse diet. During that cut, I lost 20 pounds. And I was still reverse dieting when I sent in this email. I got up to 2 ,600 calories without gaining any weight. Wow. My question, I'm asking my question because during my cut, my strength plummeted. That's why I ended it after five weeks. However, my strength is just now returning to where it was prior to cutting after a couple months of reverse dieting. So my strength is increasing, but the progress is painfully slow. I was also fatigued every day despite getting good sleep and eating what seemed like enough food. Every workout was just a fight to get to the bare minimum.

1:01:17I worked second shift four days a week, and I am still a college student. Am I working out too much, still not eating enough, or is my work and studying affecting my body and recovery more than I realize? And then for additional context, when I sent in my question, after sending in my question, I started another cut. My strength started to improve regularly. So I went down to about 500 calories. So about 2100 calories. That's where I'm currently sitting right now, four weeks into the second cut. So I'm seeing fat loss in the places that I want. However, again, it's going very slow. I know I need to continue cutting to lose the fat that I want.

1:01:59However, it's the fourth week and I'm pretty hungry. And I don't think I can continue cutting anymore to get to where I want to be. with all this said, how do you go about cutting and bulking in a way that doesn't destroy your strength, but also allows you to lose fats. And then when bulking to minimize fat gain and maximize muscle growth. Awesome. First off, you're doing a great job. Yeah. Great content. You're doing a really, really good job. I love the fact that you reverse dieted up 900 calories, didn't gain a pound. Right. That tells us that your metabolism is in a kind of a good, healthy place.

1:02:34But you built some muscle. You built some muscle. There's some things that you want to consider whenever you go in a cut, training volume, people tend to do the opposite of what they should. They tend to increase the training volume while they're in a cut or they try to maintain the same amount of volume. You're going to almost always lose strength, even if you don't lose any muscle in a cut. Now, this doesn't always happen, but the longer you've been lifting, the stronger you are, the more likely this is to happen. Just less energy, less glycogen in the muscles, central nervous system drive is not as strong.

1:03:07I mean, you could see this when you bump your calories and suddenly you're stronger, you know, by five pounds in a short period of time. So that's one thing to consider. So what you don't want to do is bump up volume in a cut. And if you are feeling fatigue during the workouts, then reduce the volume of your training, regardless of what it looks like. Because sometimes what we do is we look at our workouts and we judge based off what we think we should be doing versus what's actually happening. So you are a student, you do go to, you do work. Um, and then you're also working out. I'd like to hear what your workout looks like.

1:03:40Um, at the moment, like how often are you strength training? Are you following one of ours? So I bought anabolic and performance a while ago when it was like a bundle deal. I do, I pulled like aspects from those programs as well as kind of like a maps 15 style. So I strength train four days a week. It's about 40 to an hour minutes worth of a workout. And then I try to run or sprint once a week. But again, I just don't always have the energy to do that. So, and I do get about 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 steps a day. So what you're saying isn't, is not bad, but it's a lot. Yeah. There's this weird misconception that like, well, I'm only strength training four days a week or, you know, some people do it six days a week.

1:04:27Most of the time, the volume looks for most people like three days a week, most of the time. And then you'll have these kind of short sprints. Like I like four days a week for you when you're in a bulk. I like three days a week for you when you're in a cut. is kind of how I would work it. Throwing in sprints in there also adds another element of stress to the body. So I think the volume is probably too high. Like if you're going to follow MAPS anabolic, follow it. You could also do less of a drastic cut when you go to a cut too, which will also help a little bit. So you don't have to, you just accept that the progress may seem slower because you're not doing such a drastic cut, but you probably feel better.

1:05:06You'll recover better. You'll probably sleep better. You won't have as much of the hunger pains, by feeding yourself just a little bit more and hanging around closer to maintenance than actually a true cut. We tend to encourage these mini cuts or mini bulks because psychologically it's easier for people to be like, okay, I'm on a bulk right now or okay, I'm on a cut right now. But honestly, where you're at in your life, you've got so many other responsibilities that are really important that it's like probably just hovering around maintenance and eating good choices, So eating whole foods, hitting your protein intake, and then following a good program that's appropriate volume, which like in a MAPS anabolic or maybe a MAPS 15, I think you're going to see a nice exchange of losing body fat and building muscle.

1:05:51Yeah. Are you, so your height and weight is not bad at all. Do you know what your body fat percentage is? I don't. I've never done a DEXA scan. I've been wanting to get like the body pod scale, but it's just not in the budget right now. Okay. And I also listened to one of your guys' podcast saying that that's also not one of the best metrics to measure, like, progress. Yeah, no, it's just to give a kind of general idea. I think you're doing great. Yeah, I think you're doing great. I really do. I think what Adam said is good. If you kind of coast like that and feel good, your body's going to just recomp over time slowly.

1:06:26Here's the thing, too. When you go in a cut, especially if it's somewhat aggressive, you know, 600 calories, 700, you're going to feel hungry. Yeah. Like, that's normal. It's normal to be like, ooh, because your body's starting to tap into its own energy reserves. But I do think the volume is probably too high right now. I think if you cut it down, I think you would start to see some good progress. If you're doing this modular approach where you're kind of cutting and using the MAPS 15 style in between, I'd like to get you MAPS 15 performance. So you could, on some days, you could stack and do like a more 30 to 40-minute workout, or some days do your 15, just so you have better options with that.

1:07:03so you can kind of draw up your week a little bit more effectively. Okay. And would you guys say that like, I'm not quite sure how to word this, but like is cutting and bulking like a good, like. Good strategy. Yeah. Or would you say like going more maintenance and kind of cruising, hovering there? If you were my client with everything you have on your plate and as good of a job as you've already done, you're now in a place where I'd be like, you know what, let's hover around maintenance. and let's do MAPS 15 type of a protocol and hit your protein intake, eat whole foods, try and lift and be strong and watch what happens.

1:07:41Yep. And I think that - If your calories were really low and you've just dieted real hard and you have all these other symptoms, I'd reverse diet you. If they were super high and your body fat was really high, I might cut you, but Adam's on point. I think you're better just kind of - Just feeding. Yeah, staying around. Just feel good. Yeah, like you're probably around 2 ,400, 2 ,500, 2 ,600 calories and just kind of staying there and enjoying your workouts and feeling good and going to school and getting stronger and just letting your body recomp. Okay. I had a feeling that's what you guys would say.

1:08:13But again, I just kind of wanted that guidance on that. So thank you. You got it. You're doing great. Yeah, you're doing great. We'll send you a 15 performance. So you have another program you can pull from. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for calling on. Thank you. Bye. I love it when young people call in with good questions and are doing a good job yeah as you say i love when i hear uh a girl that age cut get down 20 pounds reverse diet yep you know uh like doing it right yeah adding all the way up to 2600 calories and not putting a pound on the scale here's what would it so awesome here's what's more often what a young woman would do she would cut lose 20 pounds and then stay down there being afraid of oh i'm gonna yeah yeah and allow her body to really ramp up the activity more and you You know, oh, it added cardio now, and now I'm cutting even lower.

1:09:01And yeah, no, no, definitely. So it's great. It's pretty good. Our next caller is Leon from the UK. Hey, Leon. What's going on, Leon? What's happening? Hi, guys. Okay. How can we help you? Yeah, I'll read through my question. I'm a massive fan of the show, having struggled to make a difference in my own weight and physique for a long time. Subscribing and listening to your podcast over the past 18 months has changed my life. I started listening in March 2024. before and my Spotify wrapped up stated I was in top 0.5 % of listeners for your show last year a little bit addicted I am slightly obsessive in nature I can absorb a lot of information very quickly so in the journey I believe I've got a good working knowledge of training and during sessions I started getting approached in the gym and asked how to train specific body parts I'm slowly becoming happy with my own physique and that's thanks to your very unselfish approach to the advice you give.

1:09:56So thank you very much, guys. Question in particular, my 17-year-old son sometimes trains with me, but constantly complains he's not seeing any progression at all. He's a typical teenager. He eats crap, drinks cans of Monster, and doesn't hit his protein goals. He's fully aware of what he should be doing, but he's a typical teenager. But aside from that, he has fantastic technique in the gym. he trains regularly but is diagnosed with hypermobility in his joints and ends up having to go into abnormally deep stretches in the training exercises in order to feel the muscle from working for example a chest press with a barbell isn't deep enough even with the bar on his chest he cannot feel any strain or stress on his chest the cable flies his shoulders are rotating about 30 degrees further backwards than mine plus because of the depth of the hypermobility he does not feel any muscle connection and often complains that the targeted muscles is not worked at all during the movement which is the case for his chest and for his back in particular my concern would be lifting heavy weights and due to the having hypermobility this could cause more damage to the tendons and in his joints but that's just me surmising and with this in mind should he focus on lighter weights and higher reps or can he train for hypertrophy does you have any specific training do you have any training specific training advice for someone with hypermobile joints are there any tips you can give so you can feel a better connection to the muscle when he trains hypermobility so glad you wrote in yeah so glad you wrote in great question training someone with hypermobility goes against uh all of our typical advice yeah okay so typical advice full range of motion get a stretch do not do that when you have hypermobility.

1:11:42With hypermobility, you actually want to shorten the rep. You want to stop his reps short of what his potential is. So a squat would not be all the way down. It would be like an inch or two below parallel. You would pause for two or three seconds at the bottom and then come up. You're trying to create tension throughout the whole exercise. You're trying to control the weight. But again, the reps are short. So our barbell is perfectly fine. In fact, I would not use dumbbells on a chest press with him because he's going to bring him way down and way up. The bar is going to give him a nice place to pause.

1:12:18So with every exercise, stop the reps short of his full range of motion. Have him pause at the bottom for two seconds. Then come up, pause at the top. Lots of control. If you do that, he could train for hypertrophy. He could train for all these different things, but you've got to shorten the reps because if he goes to his full range of motion, what happens is he loses control, which is part of the reason why his hypermobility The CNS connection isn't there like it should be. And you definitely can cause problems. Yeah. On the dumbbells in particular, he's going so deep that it just looks abnormal.

1:12:54And the worry is something's going to happen, isn't it? Right. Yeah, yeah. Don't go down that. And two, when he gets to the bottom, like he said, really pausing and squeezing and tensing up. That's the whole work for him is really to gain that kind of access and control. So to recruit. So basically in any one of these exercises to really like take your time with the tempo and have them really gradually kind of go through that eccentric phase and then hold the isometric a little bit longer. I would even go through a phase of very specific isometrics just to really generate more muscle recruitment because that's the challenge for him more than anything.

1:13:34And then once he kind of like, you know, gets a little bit further progressing with that, I would go through like the full range. So I was going to ask, do you guys think that he would be great for symmetry because of the first two? Not because the unilateral would not be a good idea. Because of the dumbbells, yeah. And the hypermobility would not be a good idea. So then just run something like an anabolic, but then every exercise you do, instead of doing the traditional, you know, five, six reps or like that, he's going to do two reps, but then with long holds. He can even do the five reps. So think of it this way, Leon.

1:14:05So what we're trying to do is get your son's CNS to connect more. So let me explain. Typically, let's say you're going to do an incline press. You're sitting in the bench. You're pressing the weight up. Good technique, good form. Your son is going to focus on squeezing the bar. He's going to focus on grounding his feet, activating his legs, activating his glutes. He's going to try and be tense through the exercise, which is going to feel strange and hard for him. You're going to stop each rep short of full range of motion. You're going to pause, not because he's resting the bar on his chest, but he's holding it and hovering it there and staying tight and coming up all the way.

1:14:41Another thing you could do with isometrics, because of your lack of, because you're not a trainer, here's something easy, Leon. Take the compulsory bodybuilding poses and have him practice them. Have him practice a front double bicep and having to flex his quads and his abs at the same time. Have him practice a rear double bicep, but also squeezing his glutes and his cat, just like a bodybuilder would on stage. And it's just have him practice that at the beginning of a workout or when he's on his own, side tricep, front lat spread, rear lat spread, like side chest. All of that's going to help him, his CNS, learn how to connect.

1:15:19And then you cut, like I said, cut the rep short, stay tense. That actually applies. 100%. And then I think you already know why he's not seeing the results. if he's not hitting his grams of protein and eating what he needs to eat, he could get better at training and we could work on the CNS regardless of how his diet is, which that's all positive and can help and at least work towards the hypermobility. But if he wants to see visual change, he's got to get that protein. And really with my young kids, I really just stress that. You're not going to get a teenager to not eat a candy bar. I'm not even messing with that.

1:15:56Go ahead and have that, but just hit your protein. Just get the protein. Just get that protein. And that alone will make a huge difference in the way his physique will start to look. Do you have safeties by chance on your squat rack? Do you have safeties on your squat rack by chance? Okay. For bench especially too, if you can put those safeties up a bit in the bottom position so he pushes against it. So it doesn't move. It doesn't move. Like if you can set up, you know, like so it's optimal in some of these lifts, even with the squat as well in the bottom position, if he's pushing up against an immovable object, you know, this is a huge way that he can recruit muscle fibers.

1:16:38And so that's a great technique to apply. Very, very special attention to form. So what happens with hypermobility with those kind of isometrics is they'll push into something and their form will just go out the window. and they're rounding their back and they're trying to, and so he's not going to be able to push as hard as he can because it's going to cause things to move out the way. The other thing too with this, Leon, is you know your son better than we do, okay? The most important thing is that he develops a good relationship with exercise because he's only 17. So even if he does it wrong for the next three years, if over the next three years he's like, man, I love doing this with my dad.

1:17:14This is a good time. That's going to give him way better return down the road. So it could look like this, like, dad, why am I not, Why am I not seeing any gains? You laugh. Come on, you eat like crap. You know that. All right, let's do the workout. Like, it's it. That's it. That's it. You hit your protein. No. Yeah. He knows I'm going to ask him. He knows I'm going to ask him. And you joke about it. You joke about it. Ah, you knucklehead. He'll come around. Yeah, yeah. Even if he does nothing right for the next three years, all he does is just enjoy hanging out with dad and doing these workouts.

1:17:43His odds of doing this on the rest of his life go through the roof. If he's doing it with you and you become that dad that like, you know, there's some kids that like grow up playing soccer they're really talented they stop playing why'd you stop playing man i hated the way my dad was with me you know made me feel like i had to or you know beat me like you don't want to create that relationship even if everything even if he's just doesn't listen to at all for the next few years which by the way that's not uh atypical for a teenager they typically don't listen at all to it so you're going you're going through with your daughter right now yeah absolutely yeah i mean he tends to be listening on the training he just we do we do a session together and he'll say i can't feel it i feel no you know i just feel he feels nothing in any of his muscles.

1:18:20I'm saying, how can you not feel it? Your technique looks fine. Everything seems to be going well. And then, obviously, you guys are saying the pauses are important. That'll make a huge difference. Here's the other thing, too, with a kid. They usually don't feel it. You know what they'll feel? Arm exercises, maybe leg extensions. I didn't feel my back or my chest for years. Don't you guys think that he will benefit more from a phase one, so lower reps with long pauses in heavy weight than he will with high reps because high reps is going to keep him in such a light weight. So I would keep him in like the three to five rep range.

1:18:57And in the three to five rep range, there's a pause for at least three to five seconds with every rep. So that's what every set looks like. And you're going to pick a weight he can do perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Sounds perfect. Yeah, yeah. You got it, dude. With hypermobility, it's all central nervous system training. Think that. Think the whole time. Train the CNS. Train the CNS. Train the CNS. Recruit, recruit, recruit. The muscles will follow. Okay. And Leon, I don't know if you know that we have this, but if you go to askmindpump.com, that's our AI. And so if you type in, what do the boys think about hypermobility or training hypermobility, you'll see everything we've talked about regarding that in the past.

1:19:35I've used it for something else. I just didn't think to put hypermobility into it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can't think what it was now a few weeks ago. I put something else into it. It was quite useful. And then the reverse dieting elements, that's quite good. because that came up a few weeks ago as well in one of your shows. So that answered my other question, which is how to do a reverse diet at my age. And you've already answered that. That's really useful. Perfect. Thanks, man. I got it. Appreciate the help, guys. Hey, can we send you a program? Yeah, yeah. What do you guys follow? What do you want to follow?

1:20:03I tend to do my own. I actually really enjoy making my own because it's just a challenge. I like the challenge. Yeah, but can we give you a program that maybe you can learn from or pull from? Give Maps and Ebola. You should have the least foundational program. MAPS and a ball could be good. We'll just send you that. That's our foundational program. I appreciate that, guys. Yeah, thank you. You got it, mate. All right. Awesome. Have a good one, guys. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you. I only ever say mate to an English. I don't know why it just comes out. It makes me uncomfortable. All right, mate. Yeah.

1:20:34You know, so for trainers from a programming perspective, you're probably never, I don't know, I don't want to say never, but if you train for a career for years and years, you will eventually run into a hypermobile person you might not that's how rare they are but when you do it's weird it's weird it's weird i had two clients like that i had i've had less than a handful yeah and i had a woman that was like that and she was literally my test dummy because i couldn't i was like what do i i don't know what to do here and i remember having to really think about it and then we started doing what i was saying here and i finally saw progress because hypermobility or tightness or whatever that's all central nervousness has nothing to do it it's not the muscles that are tight or it's literally the cns and so getting somebody with hypermobility to get stronger is literally about getting their cns to learn how to fire yeah the fact that he's got really good form is a good sign because a lot of times they look like a baby deer yeah i'm saying the way they move the weights and stuff like that so if he's got good technique and form it's hard to control 100 yeah it's like 100 yeah yeah the first time i saw i remember her dropping down the squad whoa yeah i thought i was gonna have to catch her you know so yeah if he's got good technique that's a good sign add those isometrics in but then of course got to hit that protein if you want to see that muscle gain our next caller is tyler from kentucky tyler how you doing tyler what's going on how you all doing good good man good good uh so yeah i guess just jump right in with the question and all let's go dude let's go all right so a quick version of it is i'm uh i'm 35 years old i've been training uh mostly crossfit style and a little bit of like powerlifting style since about 2015.

1:22:142016, I got put on testosterone replacement. I was 26 years old. So stayed on that for years, had great results with it, had a relatively easy time, you know, get my body to do whatever I wanted, gain muscle or lean out, whatever. Well, wife and I decided we want to try for kids. And of course, TRT makes an amazing male birth control. Yeah. So cycled off, um, October of last year, uh, numbers have been okay. Um, I think last time I had my blood work done, I'd gotten back up into the four hundreds for total tests. Um, but basically I'm just, I'm still feeling super beat up all the time, super tired, uh workouts take you know obviously way longer to recover from and uh it's also harder to get my non-exercise activity up to help with uh fat loss so you know had some weight gain and all that that's really not pleasant especially because i work as a trainer so really just looking for any kind of help and guidance and how to attack training because essentially what i'm trying to do right now is do a cut on hard mode yeah yeah you know sal is our all doctor it's so interesting because sometimes i hear this with with people that are on trt it's like it's 50 50 some of the docs would not even take you off trt they just throw hcg into the protocol and you on i got katrina pregnant on testosterone just doing and so to say so

1:23:57so yeah so you uh you absolutely uh i mean i'm not a doctor but uh i mean yeah that's interesting so my my hormone specialist said oh don't even worry about it you'll be just fine we'll add some hcg to the routine every week and you'll be just i wasn't even trying to get my wife pregnant because of the hcg uh she got pregnant so my question okay first off let's back up um you got on tier tier 26 yep okay previous anabolic steroid use what led to that or was it just nope i didn't do anything like that uh when i started reading up on it afterwards um at the time i was on the max dose of vivence so like a um yeah an amphetamine stimulant they also had me on 20 milligram adderall booster so i was met that met that of my mind Wow.

1:24:47That'll do it. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And then I was also on gabapentin to help me sleep. So like my brain, like my body never went into that, you know, parasympathetic state to relax and, you know, recover. Did you get a fertility test back then before you went on? No, I did not. So you don't know what your baseline was? No, I have no idea what my baseline testosterone looked like. I have no idea what my baseline fertility looked like. Okay. Now the good news is my fertility has come back in spades. Wonderful. Um, yeah, HCG. Yeah. Wonderful dude. And you're on HCG now. Yeah, that's right. Yes. I'm on, I'm on HCG and a Clomid.

1:25:23Yeah. Yeah. So I would ask my doctor. Yeah. Okay. Again, I'm not a doctor, so I have to say the ones that we work with, they don't take us off. They don't take guys off testosterone. They just put them on HCG and then they got, uh, yeah, they're the only time they would take someone off testosterone is if they're really like something's not, but you've already got your fertility up. I'd be surprised if they wouldn't consider it that being said if you're staying where you're at you don't take more testosterone you're like look I don't want to mess with this I really want to have a kid which is more important in my opinion as a father you just got to reduce the volume brother you got to cut the MAPS 15 is going to be your workout and you'll actually start to see progress and gains so you just got to drop the volume way down and you'll get the progress again.

1:26:17The challenge for you, Tyler, is that your reference point was you on testosterone for years. Your recoverability was a lot higher back then. Yeah, so what you're going to go through, and this is probably what you struggle with or wrestle with, is you look at your workout and you're like, it's not that much volume. And you feel probably a lot weaker. Yeah, like what's going on here? You're weaker, you're not recovering the same, and so psychologically, it's a bit of a mind fuck, but truth is, you run Mass 15 and you stay off. you're fine. I mean, there's really two, I think, viable options here.

1:26:47There's the stay off if you really want to. I think you could totally get back on and just run HCG. Ask the doctor first. Ask your doctor. Okay. So in fact, you can actually get into our MP Hormones forum on Facebook and post on there and see. Everyone's talked about this in there many times. And so either stay on it and do that. That's one option. Or reduce down to MAPS 15 and stay off. And that alone but be okay with the fact that everything is going to come down i mean when you you're used to being on trt and then you come off like you're significantly weaker in everything yeah especially if you're down and you don't recover as well you don't recover as well and you're weaker so it's what was your dose when you were on trt if you don't mind me asking uh i was usually around uh 0.4 mls like every three to four days okay so you were on almost you were like 180 milligrams a week.

1:27:43So your, your test probably went from, you know, 1200 total. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Is that what it was? Uh, so most, whenever they would do the blood work on me, I ran anywhere between 800 to a thousand times depending on when it was relative to the last injection. So your testosterone, I know. Yeah. Uh, yeah. As of now it's a half and I'm also still rebounding because, uh, in November I went down to 50, like it was non-existent. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're at, uh, You're at about half, so that's definitely going to have an impact. Talk to the doctor. If they're like, nah, we don't want to mess with anything.

1:28:18Your fertility is doing well right now. Cut the volume way down. Here's the other side of this, though, Tyler. Let's say the doc's like, yeah, I think you're safe going back on testosterone. Now that your fertility is up, we're going to keep you on HCG. Don't increase the volume either. Stay MAPS 15. Stay there because the volume will naturally increase because you're going to get so much stronger. When you add weight, that's more volume. so because another mistake guys make is they'll go on TRT like cool I'm gonna triple my yeah I'll triple my volume don't just keep it where it's at the other thing I'll recommend is a couple things you can use that may augment or support your HCG would be uh tonkat Ali ashwagandha and then use and then red light therapy on your uh yes on your test I mean no no I'm not I'm not even joking I know you're not.

1:29:09It's just funny to hear it said out loud. Yeah. I wasn't going to say it. I was trying to think of the word to say it. Can I say it? Because I think I may be in a good... Well, I've come home like, what the hell are you doing? Don't worry about it. Getting ready. Making you a kid. Hang tight. Well, because, so, I mean, basically I can, I feel okay saying it's here because I don't think I know anybody who follows the podcast as well. But my wife has her 12-week appointment this week. so I you did it basically at this point yeah so I did it I went from firing blanks to you know going all in but um so now it's just kind of figuring out like okay when do I you know working with the doctor to figure out when do I go back on to stop trying to make sure we're like in a safe place in terms of like miscarriage risk yeah good job dude congratulations all right here's what it here's what it may look like and I'm just going to tell you this so you have more questions to ask and maybe a little direction.

1:30:06Hey doc, uh, I'd like to go back on testosterone. I don't want to come off HCG. I'd like a maintenance dose of HCG to keep my, my fertility up. And then I'd like to test my fertility, uh, in a couple months to see if there's been an impact. If so, then I'll come back off the testosterone. Uh, or if it looks good, I'd like to stay on it. Um, and what they typically do with men who want to maintain fertility is they are on testosterone and then they run a small maintenance of hcg the whole time yep okay cool cool cool cool um the only thing i'm thinking about also is like i said right now my main goal uh through all this is because you know i'm trying to i'm really trying to get the ball rolling as a trainer made a career jump so i feel like in a lot of ways my body is my advertising so i really want to focus on hanging on to the muscle mass i've got and losing some weight and of course part of that has made that tricky is i've got the energy loss uh from being off the testosterone so if i cut my calories no and increase my non-exercise movement i'm wrecked no no no no no no don't do that yeah stay at maintenance stay at maintenance follow maps 15 focus on getting stronger and you'll recomp and and if you want okay pick up your walking walk more yeah make it make a conscious effort to increase your activity on a daily basis not through hard cardio but through just activity walking, moving around, doing more.

1:31:31And you'll love Mass 15 for this too, Tyler. This is your first kid? Yeah, this will be the first and possibly only, but we'll see. You're going to have to figure out low volume for a little while because kids are very, especially in the first six months, your wife's going to need you for the first couple months at least. So you'll love Mass 15, bro. That's going to be your program that you're going to turn to all the time. And you'll progress on it. It's not like, oh, I'm going to drop down. You'll see yourself get stronger following that. Sweet. Sweet. We'll send that over. cool cool cool i appreciate it yeah good for you and then also use that use that mp hormones on facebook group uh because it's really useful with a lot of the stuff that we're talking about right now so just poke around in there and you want uh what are you looking for boy girl does it matter uh i personally don't have a bunch of a vest in it uh one way or the other but i'm i'm like convinced it's gonna be a girl oh i don't know like i just i had someone several years ago said like I see you in so many years with a girl.

1:32:27And like, so ever since then, like, it was just like, if I have kid, the first one's gonna be a girl. So now it's like, it's just set in my head. Hey, can we follow, can we, can we follow up with you again in a few months just to see how you're doing? And because I'm also curious, I want to know what you're having. Yeah, that's great to me. All right, dude, we'll reach out to you. We'll have our assistant set you up for like three months from now. So you should know by then. And we'll talk a little bit about how it's going. All right. Awesome. Love the content and I'll look forward to talking to y 'all again.

1:32:53You got it, man. Congratulations. appreciate it so glad he told us it worked yeah because i was like oh man i hope this really so why i don't know old school is that what it is yes because i mean most uh i remember when i first brought that up to dr ryan he kind of laughed at me he's like no he's like you just well just add some hcg you'll be fine and then he explained to me how they don't compete or conflict with each other at all it's like like you can literally have the the high testosterone levels and then your fertility goes down but you take the hcg and it just brings the fertility right back i'm again I'm not a doctor, but from what I understood for interviewing these experts and looking at the data and all that stuff, you have old school hormone therapy methods.

1:33:35And the old school methods look like this. Oh, you want to have a baby, we'll take you off testosterone, and then we'll try Clomid, and then we'll add HCG, and it's like this process of like whatever. and the way that the guys and girls now do it the the hormone specialists that do it now is they're like we're not going to touch clomid we're just going to go hcg don't take you off trt and that works 90 of the time yeah i remember testing too like it's quick fast it's like within days after oh yeah oh yeah and you can see and feel it uh one of the reasons why sometimes men will take hcg on trt is also because some get some guys get uh testicular atrophy and so just to maintain the aesthetics, they'll do it.

1:34:17Our next caller is Alicia from Minnesota. Hi, Alicia. Hello. Alicia, how are you doing? Hi. How are you? Hardcore fan-girling, so this is really cool. Thank you for having me on your show. I know everyone says it, but I really do appreciate all that you guys do and all of your advice, and you guys' going back and forth with each other is really entertaining as well, so thank you. Thank you so much. You're so lovely. I appreciate it. How can we help you? Okay, so I'm going to get right into it. I'm just going to kind of read what I wrote. So it was around 2014, when I became aware of like weight on a woman and like what's attractive.

1:34:58I started struggling with like yo-yo dieting and losing and regaining weight repeatedly. So over time, that kind of chipped away in my confidence. I hated taking pictures, hated looking at myself in the mirror. So fast forward to 2024, when my boyfriend of four years, we were having dinner. And I mean this in like the best way, because he said it out of love. And he said it like with caring, and it wasn't like, to diss me at all. But he was looked at my plate. And he was like, man, you've been eating a lot recently. So it just kind of stuck. And then I was that I was battling like pre-diabetic, I lost my mom to breast cancer about 15 years ago.

1:35:41So when he said it out of love, it really like clicked. And I was like, I really need to like do something and like get this into motion because it was going downhill kind of fast. um and so around this time I got into what's Beachbody by Autumn Calabrese's 21 day fix program and it worked like 10 years ago lost weight for like three months but then I would you know go back and forth um and so I did that for about a month and this time it wasn't working but God luckily he was looking out for me and I ended up finding a program based on like consistent habits, nutrition, and community. And so after a year of work, I'm down from 221 pounds, 43 % body fat, to 179.4 pounds, and 32.6 % body fat.

1:36:36Awesome. Great job. Thank you. So now that I'm at like a comfortable weight, I love taking pictures. I love going out and getting pretty and everything, go out for date nights. I'm also helping other women and coworkers as well, kind of on their journey too. So I'm ready for my next chapter, which is building a nice round peach butt. So I ended my deficit around August. And so I'm wondering how to start this new building phase. So my question is, what's the best way to transition from a deficit to like maintenance surplus after a long term cut? kind of like what my macro balance should be for like booty building?

1:37:20And is there any specific glute focused workouts you would recommend? Yeah, we'll take care of you. I'm just gonna, God bless you. I really appreciate the way you communicated all that and the challenges you went through. And it sounds like you're in a great place. And I'm going to give you some of the answers. I'm going to send you a program that I think is going to help. We're going to talk about your calories and macros, but I want to remind you, and I think this is what you're kind to figure it out is that all the, all train the right way, all the, the good results, all of the, you know, I'm picking the right exercises.

1:37:52I'm treating my body right. It all flows from caring for yourself in a genuine way. It doesn't flow from the self-hate or the, um, you know, where you're, where you're criticizing yourself, our insecurities. It all comes from, I want to care for myself. I want to, I want to care for myself in a genuine way. And if you stay there, the rest of it starts to take care of itself. Okay. So I think a good program for how many days a week do you like to work out? So I like five, I try to do three, but I find that when I go down to like three, even four, I'll like skip a day, miss a day. So being consistent Monday through Friday helps me be consistent throughout the entire week.

1:38:32Okay. Do you have our muscle mommy program? I do not. I have heard you guys talking about it, but I'm, I thought it was just for moms. and so I'm not a mom. No, no, no, no, no. Muscle mommy is a term that refers to women who like to build. I'd say half the group of women that are in the muscle mommy group are not moms. A lot of them are young women that want to build muscle. That's really what it is. Oh, okay. It's just the woman that wants to build. And you would love that group, by the way. So I'm going to send you the link. It's musclemommymovement.com. You get a trial to go in there. Here's why I like it for you.

1:39:04You get the program in there, so you'll get the workout program. Okay. And now not everybody in there follows that program, So it really doesn't matter what program you follow. Really what it is, it's a group coaching community. So once a week, our coaches and trainers get in there and help guide and assist you through this process. And we have special guests like Dr. Gabriel Lyon who's speaking in there tonight. She's in there tonight. Talking about women's hormones and helping. So it's an incredible community. So I'm going to send you that link. I think that would be great for you. You'll get some of that guidance.

1:39:35You'll get that program. I'll give you some general advice, but I think the guidance in there will help the most because they'll be able to modify it as you continue. Do you know where your calories are at now? Yes, I did write that down. All right. So my goals, which I'm not sure, this is kind of what I gathered for myself. So my goals is to be at 165 for protein, carbs at 230, fat at 77, and then calories around 2300. But I've been averaging, last week I was out of town for a wedding, so it kind of threw off last week. So I did the last two weeks, it's between my protein's been between 148 and 169.

1:40:16And then my carbs have been between 214 and 243. And then my fats have been kind of high between 81 and 85, averaging around 1800 to 1900 calories. That's a great place. You're in a great place. You got it. great place yeah no you're what you think you should do is perfect yeah 22 calories yeah yeah just do that yes follow muscle mommy program that's a great uh strength training program with emphasis on glutes because women tend to want to build the glutes and i think you'll be you're going to be great you may want to and i would you know get in there start the program first but you may even be able to afford since the goal is to build our butt now now we're trying to build so maybe bumping the calories 150 to 200 calories so but get in there first start the program and run it for a week see how you feel and i like your starting place yeah you're in a great starting of your targets and your macros are great balance like even even your fat you thought that's not high fat that's good fat that's a good amount in fact it's one of the number one mistakes i think my female clients that are wanting to get in shape do is they think oh go to cut the fat and that'll work against you.

1:41:21So you're in a good place. No, the targets you gave, uh, were, were fine. We're perfect. The 2 ,200 calorie. I think that's a great start. If you were averaging around 1 ,800 calories, that's perfect. Just do that. And then your gauge is your strength. If you get, if you're getting stronger, you're probably building muscle. Okay. Okay. Especially on your exercise, like hip thrusts and squats and deadlifts and stuff like that. Muscle mommy is heavily focused on butt. So you're going to love it. Okay. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Yes. Yeah. Excited for you yeah thank you so much yeah i'm excited thank you so much all right and we hope to see you in there yeah we pop in every once in a while so okay all right thanks alicia thank you bye love love love when people can go through and be honest about the journey and how they felt whatever and she sounds like she's in a great place she's gonna do really really well yeah really good yeah i mean she did so well on her own getting there and i mean i love to hear when someone does their macro breakdown and i'm like yeah right there you know that's such a good and I love the comment you made, the point you made about fat, Adam.

1:42:19I know what the – you look up online, like, oh, 50 grams of fat, maybe 60 grams of fat. Most women I've ever worked with did not do well in the 50s or even 60s. Yes. Fats are essential, and women tend to – in my experience, tend to need more as a percentage. Their hormones and their skin and their hair and everything else tends to do – I can't tell you how many times I had a client, and all we did – Bump fat. was bump fat 20 grams, 30 grams. And then boom, boom. All of a sudden just felt amazing, hair, skin, seeing results. Like, yeah, I think there is a total misconception around how low of fat that women need to be eating.

1:42:58And I think it does a lot of harm, more harm than good. Absolutely. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you there. 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.

1:43:36With 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. The 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.