2741: The Best Training For Stamina, Power, Strength, and Mobility

In short

Podcast Episode Summary: Mind Pump - Episode 2741: The Best Training For Stamina, Power, Strength, and Mobility

Episode Overview In this episode of Mind Pump, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews address various listener questions related to training for stamina, power, strength, and mobility. They offer insights from their combined 40 years of experience in the fitness industry, debunking myths while providing science-backed advice on effective training methods.

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Key Discussions

Best Ways to Train for Stamina, Power, Strength, and Mobility (2:44)
Discussion emphasizes that while athletes often need to train specific attributes for their sport, non-athletes can benefit from structured workouts focusing on:
Stamina: Best built through HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training); involves short bursts of activity followed by rest to improve overall endurance.
Power & Strength: Important to practice without fatigue to maintain performance. Use compound movements with appropriate weights.

Negative Brain Changes from Porn Use (22:03)
The hosts discuss research that highlights how excessive porn use can negatively affect brain function and emotional response, emphasizing the importance of awareness and moderation.

Eccentric vs. Concentric Training (34:04)
The episode highlights the benefits of both types of muscle contractions, noting that careful incorporation of eccentric training can lead to greater strength gains and muscle development.

Handling Negative Comments (38:58)
Reflects on how to deal with criticism, particularly in fitness and social media environments, stressing the need to focus on self-improvement rather than external validation.

Unique Physical Experiences (40:52)
The hosts share personal anecdotes and discuss unique physical experiences like seeing underwater without goggles, linking it to performance and adaptability.

Listener Coaching Calls
A significant portion of the episode involves answering listener questions, with specific topics including:
Maintaining Weight After a Cut (52:14): Strategies to avoid regaining weight after dieting.
Ass-to-Grass Squats Safety (1:02:26): Evaluating the safety and effectiveness of deep squats, especially for those with previous injuries.
Regaining Athletic Ability Post Weight Loss (1:12:17): Tailored advice for listeners looking to return to sports after significant weight changes.
Building Leg Strength After Injury (1:24:15): Recommendations on safely building strength in the legs while managing a history of injury.

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Key Takeaways

Balanced Training: Emphasize the importance of balance in training routines to avoid overloading any single aspect (stamina, power, strength).
Mindfulness and Recovery: Recovery is as crucial as the workout itself, particularly for those with past injuries.
Body Awareness: Understanding your body’s signals is vital—what feels uncomfortable might not always mean something is wrong.
Individualized Approach: Each listener's journey is unique, and advice must be tailored to individual experiences and goals.

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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump with your hosts, Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pumping. Today's episode, we coached people on air. They called in. We helped them with their fitness and health. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 50 minutes long. This is where we talk about fitness and current events, fat loss, muscle gain, family life. It's always a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this one, submit your question.

0:35Send it to mplivecaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Deep Clean Coaching. If you go to deepcleancoaching.com forward slash mindpump, you can get a free copy of the last relapsed book. This has helped 20 ,000 men quit pornography. If you want to stop using pornography, reclaim your freedom, go to deepcleancoaching.com forward slash mindpump. This episode is also brought to you by Z Biotics. This is the pre-alcohol drink. It's a genetically modified probiotic that breaks down acetaldehyde. So you take it, then you drink alcohol, you feel way better.

1:14Go check it out. 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. Also, we got something cool for you right now. Happening right now until the 6th, okay? So right now to the 6th of December, we are offering 45-minute coaching calls with our coaches for reverse dieting. They are going to make you a 90-day customized reverse diet plan. If you want to learn how to reverse diet, you want to do it the right way, work with one of our coaches. By the way, this is normally a$99 call. It's$49 right now. So for$49, work with a real coach, with a mind pump coach, have them set you up with a 90-day customized reverse diet plan.

2:05Go to reversedietcall.com. T-shirt time! And it's T-shirt time! Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Two winners this week. Actually, one winner this week. One for Apple Podcasts' Be Better Tattoo. You are the winner. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com.

2:42That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. Strength, stamina, power, mobility. They're all awesome attributes. They're athletic and physical attributes. How do you train for each one? What's the best way to structure your workouts so you can get those? And what if you just want one and not the others? What if you want all of them? You're going to hear from three experienced trainers right now on how to do them. Let's go. Yeah. Three experienced trainers. That's us. all different pursuits yeah these are all different physical pursuits uh and use your workouts well i should say your workouts or how you train will contribute largely to one uh but not to the others um and so i think what we will be cool is if we kind of talk about what we think you know if you're trying to get somebody to improve each one of these attributes and then maybe at the end what a routine would look like uh that would give you let's talk a little bit about what not to do and probably the mistake that all of us probably made early on in our career and you probably see consistently which is this idea that well my sport requires all these things so therefore my workouts are going to look incorporate all of it all of it at one time or very crossfit-esque right you got a lot of remember when crossfit got popular you had a lot of sport teams like going like oh put our players through this yeah let's let's do let's do crossfit because They address all these things in a workout.

4:09So isn't that a good idea? So you got to explain that. That's kind of common knowledge is to think to do that. It is. And here's what used to be common knowledge now, although not so much. But if you want to get the physical attributes of a sport and you want to improve those, the best way to do it is to practice more of that sport. That used to be common knowledge. That used to be the way people trained. Now, that's not to say you can't incorporate other forms of exercise. to do things like improve power and strength and speed and all these other things. But what I'm talking about here is what you do in the gym.

4:45Like if you're an athlete and you want to get better at your sport and get more fit for your sport, what you do in the gym is actually quite small in comparison to what you do out on the field, let's say. So that's the best way. The best way to get in shape for jiu-jitsu is do more jiu-jitsu. Best way to get in shape for basketball is play more basketball and so on. that being said there's a lot of people who are like look i'm not necessarily actively playing a sport you know maybe i do a little club ball here and there but i just want how do i improve my stamina like what do i just go run for a long time or power what is power strength you know okay i know it's strength training but what's the best way to improve strength or what about mobility so that's kind of what i you know the direction i want to go to start with because again with athletics it can get a bit nuanced yep but the general thing again i want to say it's very clear the general thing when with athletics is if you want to improve the physical attributes of your sport practice your sport that'll give you the most carryover because there isn't any carryover because you're doing the actual you know it it i wonder what happened because you talk about how that was kind of like common knowledge before it shifted and if you uh if you've studied the great ones in like basketball for example which i'm more familiar with like the kobe bryans the steph curry's the michael jordans um the the amount of time that these guys spend in the gym they spend a little bit of time in the gym yeah but a majority of it is just practicing basketball that's right i mean they like kobe was notorious for getting up at like four o 'clock in the morning and going hitting a little bit of weights but then from 5 a.m all the way till that's right it's all skill training it's all skill it's all basketball it's all shot it's a thousand shots it's you know a hundred and something free throws it's i mean they just yeah they did their sport but but yet people were were so curious about what do you do in the gym his workouts when it's like it if you looked at a pie chart of of it it wouldn't it wouldn't even take up a 10 of their their time it's like such a fraction and if you look at steph curry who's you know younger newer most of his strength training is very rehab looking focused.

6:49To support the playing. Band distracted type stuff. Like he's rotational movements. His training actually looks a lot like stuff to protect his body and not like, and granted, everybody who looks at him goes, oh my God, he put like 20 pounds of muscle on in his career. And so he did build some muscle along the way, but a lot of that's through diet and some strength training. But we highlight on this podcast all the time, you don't got to do that much weight training in order to build some muscle. And it depends on what stage the athlete's in. Yes. So you're talking about really the peak of their career in the pinnacle where they're only focused on their skill.

7:29And then preservation and maintaining this level they've already built up strength-wise, performance-power-wise. However, when you're starting from the very beginning, the foundational strength in establishing that and the body mechanics and just the overall coordination required to then apply the skill better, you know, that actually matters a lot more. And then we focus on that and then we start kind of tapering off and then, you know, incorporating a lot more of the skill specific type drilling. But however, we have to establish that first and then build upon that. Right. But, you know, again, like if someone said to me, I need more stamina for jujitsu, what's a great way to build stamina?

8:14There are ways to train to improve general stamina, very effective ways, which we'll get into. But there's also movement efficiency that comes from being very proficient in a particular movement pattern or movement. And that comes from practicing the sport. so I remember doing this as doing jujitsu and at one point I was training a lot I had great jujitsu stamina but then I practiced boxing and I gassed but it wasn't because I was out of shape it was because my movement efficiency was terrible boxing first time I did that you know and it was like I thought I was in shape round two dying yeah rather than choking on my mouthpiece that's right so so there's translate that's right there's general fitness and then there's uh fitness that's specific to a particular activity or sport you want to get better at running you should run you want to get better cycling, you should cycle.

9:02If you want general better endurance or stamina, let's talk about that. You want general strength. Again, I can get really strong in the gym, but if I want to get really strong at wrestling, wrestling is going to get me really strong at wrestling. Wrestle more. That's right. But let's talk a little bit about these physical attributes because there's a lot of people who, you know, they're listening and they're like, I just want. Yeah, they're not playing a sport, but they want those attributes. They want the physical attributes. Sure. Right? So we'll talk about stamina. Now, you could kind of break stamina up into different categories.

9:33You have that steady state where you're kind of exerting yourself at a low level. It's long endurance, right? And what that looks like is your traditional cardio. I'm going to get on a machine, and I'm going to plug away for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, or an hour, and challenge myself somewhat. Just how long can I endure, right? This is like long-distance running. Looks like this. the kind of stamina though that I have found that most people are interested in is less of this and it's more of the kind of stamina that requires high exertion repeated high exertions and what I mean by that is I would get clients that say I want stamina and it's for what well when I go to the park and I chase my kids yeah uh you know or I'm doing work in the yard or available it's there it's you know I'm moving for like the kind of stamina that you know it's it's not this like steady constant yeah it's accessible that comes from uh hit style uh cardio uh that's the best way to accomplish this form of stamina what does that look like sprints interrupted by uh recoup recuperative interval short sprints short sprints 15 seconds all out then letting the heart rate come all the way back down that's right heart rate and then repeating that and what happens is that period of time in between the sprints where you're waiting for your heart rate to come down as you become more fit that gets shorter and shorter i would add there's there's another endurance that people like yeah that i think we should touch on is strength endurance yes yeah work capacity thank you yes it's thinking along the same lines and really it's like how long can i you know hold this load how long can i hold these weights and and carry them um And still be able to maintain my composure, maintain my posture, maintain this grip.

11:26And that's a very valuable asset, especially when lifting weights or pursuing anything athletically. Yeah, now strength training is the best for that. But the type of strength training looks very much like big gross motor movement type exercises. For higher reps. Compound lifts, a bit higher reps. And or unconventional type exercises. carries yeah carries turkish get-ups you know using a sled um you know carries you at the side like suitcase carries overhead carries those those really contribute well to work capacity the kind that you'll want when you're doing things like yard work and the reason why i wanted to touch on that is because you know one of the things that will get recommended is uh so it's common someone gets started in their strength training program uh i mean i i i feel this too when i especially when i've been off for a little bit but i'm about to feel this today when i get in is like my strength endurance will be really down it's like it's not like my capacity to lift more load is there but it's like by the time i get it's quick oh it fades quick because i don't have any strength endurance a lot of people recommend oh well they go get on some cardio or treadmill get there like no if i keep high reps in my squatting and stuff like that that'll get there better and faster and it translates way better to that and there's this idea because that's also one of the arguments you hear fitness influencers make for why people should do cardio oh it improves your strength stamina inside the gym well it does have some carryover but if you and if you do do 20 reps and squats way be way better yeah you'll get way better strength endurance than you will right so uh just that's why i wanted to point that out because that's a common uh things it's spoken about with fitness influencers that are making the case for why these people should be doing this cardio because for the endurance inside their training yeah and i want to just add like Like the real value is like, you know, how long can I stave off fatigue?

13:16Because that's really like what cardio is like, it's superpower. Like it, and two, to the work capacity point, it's like, you know, how long can I perform this thing without like the fatigue coming in, which then interrupts everything? Yeah. Yep, totally. So, you know, okay. So what does a routine look like? You know, three or four days a week. If this is what you want, you want stamina. This is your main thing. about three days a week of this HIIT style training with maybe a couple sessions of steady state recuperative type cardio, you'll get stamina pretty quick training this way. And your strength training, if you want strength stamina, it's high rep stuff, supersets, high rep stuff, but you're not doing a ton of it.

13:53This is where people mess up. Five days a week of high rep supersets. Good luck. You're not going to recover very well. It's like two days a week. You still need to train it like, treat it like strength training if you want that. And then we get to power, power, building power. Uh, people mess up building power because they allow fatigue to enter into the, uh, the mix into the formula. You can't build power, uh, when fatigue comes in. Now you can improve your capacity, uh, to be able to exert power without fatigue as much, but that comes from training your stamina. Yeah. Building power is I need to be able to, what I'm trying to train my body to do is to produce force quickly.

14:34So I have to practice the ability to produce force quickly. So if I practice jumping, I have to wait until I'm ready to exert maximal force. If I jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, and I'm fatigued and I'm no longer training and building power. I'm just training endurance. You're not able to summon that same amount of force. And so it actually degrades a lot of the value of that exercise. that you're performing if you're at the point where it's fatigue. So that's why the thing about when you're training, you're practicing these things, you want to practice them with that same perfect type of mechanics, the same something that you want to replicate every single time is like, this is the standard because that's what you're telling your body.

15:21This is how I perform it every time. Well, think about it this way. If I'm trying to throw a ball as far as I can, let's forget about biomechanics and technique and skill for a second. Let's just say it's the same every time. I want to throw a ball as far as I can. So my first throw, I throw it and it goes, I don't know, 50 yards. Like I throw it real far, 50 yards. And they're like, okay, I want you to beat that throw with the next one. Am I going to throw it right away? No, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until I'm totally ready to throw it as hard as I can again. What I'm doing is I'm training power with that.

15:51That's how you treat your plyometrics. This is how you treat your power if you're training with Olympic lifts is you wait until you're able to try to beat what you did previously. This is another thing that people get wrong so much. You can always tell when you've got a really good trainer inside of a gym with how he or she trains plyometrics with their client. Like right away, I can walk in and see someone doing jump boxes with a client, and I know that that trainer understands these principles or not by the first two or three reps they do with that client. Is it a placeholder for just something to get your client tired?

16:25Or are they actually training power? Right, and what a good trainer will do is they will do that rep, and then they'll be talking for the next 30 seconds to a minute, breaking down what they just did. Like, okay, I want you to explode more on your hips, get your feet more like this, and there's this long rest period between each rep, and they're putting so much intent on them generating that force in order to jump as hard and as high as they can, versus, all right, let's do 10 jump boxes, and you just see a client jump, jump, jump. Oh, my gosh. Which you see all the time. Totally. Wait, mobility.

16:57Let's get to mobility. Mobility, you're looking at challenging ranges of motion, but you're trying to own the ranges of motion. So it's not passive. So you're getting into the range of motion through your own ability, and you're moving into them while keeping your muscles active. And here's the thing with mobility programming. This is probably the most simple of all programming. This is one of the ones, the more the merrier. You practice these all day long if you want. And the more you do this, Now, of course, there's a limit, but I have yet to know somebody that would reach this limit, except for maybe the most crazy fanatical person.

17:32But if you did mobility work three times a day, you would get mobility faster than if you did it once a day. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it because you're active in it and you're not passive. Because when you start getting passive, this is where we can get dysfunction. When you're in a range of motion that you don't really own, like I don't have access. I can't all of a sudden recruit a bunch of muscle fibers to take me out of this, you know, safely, effectively with strength to support my joint and that. It's like you're not really supported in some of these movements if you get there passively.

18:03So really, it's a strength at the end of the day. Like mobility is strength. And it's just expressing that in its longer form. I think that's the most difficult part about explaining mobility is to the average eye, it looks just like stretching. It looks like something that you're passively doing. Or just like a warm-up. Yeah. So it's so important, the intent that you go into the mobility movement and how much you're trying to contract all those muscles while you're in this stretch position. An example would be like, I'm trying to improve my squat depth. So I'll get down and sit in a squat and just relax there.

18:46That's not what we're talking about. What it would look like is I get down to the bottom, but I'm supporting myself. My muscles are supporting me and I'm active as if someone was going to jump on me. Squeezing intense. So it's like if someone were to jump on me right now, I could hold them. So that's the position I'm taking. That's the intent that I'm taking. Not like I'm so relaxed that if my kid comes and jumps on me, I'm going to hurt myself, which is what people will feel in this stretch. Like when they're doing a deep stretch, like don't touch me. If you do, I'm going to tear something. You should be able to support something or someone if they were to come push on you because you're in these positions and you're active.

19:17And the more the merrier, which is cool mobility. If you want to improve your mobility, it's like real easy with programming. Pick some mobility movements that you can connect to. Do it all throughout the day. Practice them all day long throughout the day, and you'll see dramatic improvements. I mean, I think my recommendation always to clients is pick one or two that's it and drill those down as many times so you can see the benefits of when you really... Versus what happens sometimes is you have these people that have all this dysfunction and they have aches and pains and they're doing 10 different mobility moves and the likelihood that they're going to do 10 different mobility moves three times, four times a day is so unlikely versus if I go, hey, let's pick one area that's really egregious and let's do that one mobility move and you try and do that four or five times a day and let's be consistent with that for a while and watch what an improvement that we can make so I can sell you on the idea of why you want to do all these other ones.

20:10Now we get to strength. This one we talk about all the time, but with strength, you know, for most people, if you were to practice a handful of movements, the best movements, you know, the five to eight movements that are the best ones, your bench presses, your rows, your squats, your deadlifts, your overhead presses, you know, something with rotation or something lateral. if you practice those few movements a couple days a week you know two days a week or three days a week you go in the gym and you practice them and you use a moderate to high intensity you're not trained to failure but you're training a decent intensity and you're practicing them and you feed yourself appropriately you will see very nice strength gains pretty consistent strength especially if this is the first few years of your your strength training uh you know routine or whatever You'll see some nice strength.

21:00So now the question is like, how do I combine all of these? Here's what's interesting. First off, mobility, you can combine with any of these. So mobility is one of those ones that if I work on this while I'm doing everything else, it'll help all of them. Definitely won't hurt all of them. But when you get to stamina, power, and strength, really the ones that you want to be careful with balancing are stamina and power and strength. Power and strength, you can work on those together. That looks a little bit different. But stamina is the one that you want to alternate. Now, there's a couple ways you do this.

21:29You could do this where you have a stamina day and a strength day or a stamina day and a power day. Don't you think weeks or phases? That's what the data is showing. The data is showing if you did a stamina week and then a strength week and then a stamina week and then a strength. You'll do better at both than if you did them all in the same week and definitely better than if you did them all in the same workout. So this is what's interesting. And a lot of people don't do this, but give it a shot. One week of stamina, one week of strength, one week of stamina, one week of strength. you'll get better at both than had you combined them in that same way.

22:01Love that. I love that. I pulled up some. So we have, so Inner Circle has given access to our listeners. I've been meaning to ask you since we've been working with him. You know, I know you've openly talked about, you know, for a while now, you working, because it's been over a year now for you, right? Yeah, yeah. How long has it been? Yeah, no pornography for me for longer than that. it's been almost two has it really yeah it's been almost two years wow uh-huh now after all these this long of time urges creep back in and you still need you know what's interesting this is what's interesting so with so and i'll just mention this inner circle is a this is a a course or a group that helps uh people uh break the addiction because pornography is an addiction for a lot of people and by the way this is like a couple times a week so a lot of people oh it's only a couple times a week and they try to stop and they find that they can't do it um and i was going to get into some of the negative uh brain changes which we'll get to but one thing i want to mention he's giving he's giving away a book doug yeah yes it's it's called the last relapse so where they go for that so yeah let me pull that up so you could get this book it's deep clean coaching.com forward slash mind pump okay all right so check that anyway so back to what you're saying adam um what's interesting is for a long time i thought if okay if i don't have that outlet or whatever whatever you want to refer to it as am i just going to be is my libido just going to go crazy like what's going to happen really because yeah well yeah because i mean ever since i was a kid you know since i was a teenager like am i going to go crazy and i have a head going to explode and i have a high libido i do have a very high libido so i thought is what's that going to be like?

23:50Is it going to put so much pressure on my spouse that she's going to, you know, this and that and the other? No, here's what's weird is that because of the way that affects the brain, the novelty effect, it's got drug-like effects on the brain, which we can get into. When you stop using it over time, that lust, which is what, it's actually lust. It's not libido. It's lust, which is different. It starts to come down and then you have more of a healthy libido so i have a very good libido for my wife yeah but i'm not walking around like uh you know i'm not getting my drug yeah which is pretty wild yeah so no yeah no i don't get these the urges were worse when i was using it yeah it was always uh it was never i mean we all have our thing right if anyone's been listening you know i openly shared what i went through and stuff like that i never had uh pornography addiction and even the dabbling in and out with it like one of the things that keeps me not to and katrina and i both have connected because we're both not anti the other person doing that at all it's like whatever but what we realize is like our sex and intimacy is so much better if if the other person doesn't and we know each other so well that you know if the other person did so it's like what dude come on you know it's been two days you know you don't say it's like oh man i couldn't help it was just a rough day i needed it like so we've talked about that so many times in our relationship that for a long time it's just been like a like a pack because it's like clear difference how the level that's everybody that's what the data show i mean it is it is like it's not even in this like we are no matter what we have great intimacy and great sex but it's like in another stratosphere when you're not when the when your partner you two of you are not doing that it's like well the way that it wires the brain is pretty wild uh because of the novelty because of the imagery um it desensitizes your brain so much that it will affect it does factually affect intimacy with a partner uh it's like um it's like using a drug and then going to something that's natural uh your brain is wired for the drug and so well i can only imagine like okay so again the reason why i share that is i think i like katrina have a very healthy good relationship and like very very positive like i see a difference even that i can only imagine if we were struggling and going through things and that's kind of my outlet and it's just like man that would just be compounding on how much harder it would make the connection and the intimacy and our our sex work if if i was that was my outlet in addition to that so i see how it can impact a very healthy good balanced relationship that doesn't have any any issues going on i can only imagine if we had other stuff going on well here's here's what you see in the data uh from just normal what they would consider normal users okay what which by the way a significant percentage of pornography uh consumers are a daily users okay and daily would be considered uh like problematic so i know a lot of people listening right now are like uh oh is that really me um reduced gray matter in reward areas of the brain lower volume in the stratum especially nucleus accumbens and parts of the prefrontal cortex, similar to patterns seen in substance addictions.

27:16In other words, part of your brain is smaller, literally atrophies. There's downregulation of dopamine receptors. There's hypofrontality or weakened prefrontal control, desensitized and reduced sexual responsiveness, altered reward prediction error signaling, craving and Q reactivity patterns, and changes in white matter connectivity. So from a health perspective, it has pretty, I mean, measurable effects. And we're not just talking about like, you know, questionnaires. If all this stuff has been studied and we know all the negative effects, why is it that you have sex therapists that are pro-pornography then?

27:56I don't know if they're any more. I think they might've been, but I don't know if they could say that they are anymore oh really yeah i don't i don't know i think sex therapists will now say like this is actually it's not a good idea oh interesting yeah i didn't know that yeah i was under the impression they're still all pro i think you have people that are like they call themselves like pro what do they call themselves like pro sex people yeah uh which really they're just it's like talking to they're just hyper sexed uh trying to trying to sell you on some toys and shit like that's always that's all i get out of those you know what it's like you know it's like bro it's like when you talk to a pothead about the benefits of weed you ever talk to a pothead that's what i sounded like back in the day when i was oh it's got all these great benefits and you know it's good for this and it's good for that it's like you're not it yeah because it really just always amounts to the intimacy between the relationship you know it's like you're not just going to get that from the visual aspect and like you know yeah for men it's definitely a powerful draw but it's not like that's not what the uh you know the nucleus of of the the problem is well i i was listening that's why it was such an easy sell for me to nod it's like it was such a clear difference with the intimacy with the wife we didn't we also didn't grow up with yeah no i know like i mean i i feel grateful for that because i for sure being a 16 year old boy i would not have with an iphone yeah yeah it's self-discipline no oh god no i'd be i'd be an idiot I'd be an idiot.

29:25So I have a, for the 20-year-old listening right now, I have so much empathy for just not knowing, you know? Because talk about trying to unwind that. Trying to unwind a decade or more of that. I was listening to this woman who was explaining, and she did such a good job. I don't remember what her background was. I know it was a medical background, but she also talked about just the behavioral effects and cultural. And she said that the act of sex or sexual release flows should come from intimacy. So it's a result of intimacy. But what we've done is we've separated them and severed them so strongly that now what's happened is we think that they're separate.

30:13We objectified. It's totally separate and or the sexual release a lot of people believe leads to the intimacy. So they're like, I'm going to start here with someone with a one night stand or hookup or whatever. And hopefully it will lead to the intimacy. Now, women are more aware of that. So women will often say, yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking for. A lot of guys are like, nah. But the reality is they are because when you really boil it down and especially when they're in a relationship where they have real intimacy, they're like, yeah, dude, I don't want to go back to what it was like before.

30:48But we've severed, we've totally separated the two as if they're supposed to be. What do you mean by that? What do you mean we've separated though? There's like sexual release and then there's intimacy. Sexual release is supposed to be a result of intimacy, not by itself, not without any intimacy. So it's like we've taken the, it's like what we've done to process food. the enjoyment of eating uh which should flow from nutrition and nourishment and connection yeah now it's just all about hyper palatability and what does processed food do okay causes disease yeah you know although we haven't completely separated them we're we've done a decent job with food but with pornography it's totally separate there is no intimacy there is no relationship that's only stimulation it's only sexual personal you know gratification release with nothing else yeah which is very very damaging and again the data on this is is super super well what do you say it was like just like three times a week was problematic yeah right yeah even i'm like i've been known to do that before i mean i know it's not hard for me to stop one time and is well is enough to change the the level of intimacy that we have a hundred percent it's like it's a joke in our relationship Like we talk, like we'll call somebody out.

32:10Like we have like, your only rule, you're only allowed to masturbate if one of us is traveling. Like you're out of town for a week. Like, okay, you get a pass. But if I'm in town, we're in town together. It's the area code rule. Yeah, it's like, you don't do that. Yeah, yeah. No, it's wild. And, you know, talking to, I was talking to some friends the other day who were doing this, like, it's like a high school ministry. So they talk to kids about sex and this and that. And we were talking and they're like, focusing on all the scare stuff i'm like you said you guys you can't scare kids into not doing this kind of it's never worked for thousands of years no i said talk to them about what they're missing out yeah not that it's scary yeah you can get pregnant you can that's all true they know that already hasn't stopped them tell them about what they're missing out that's what it tells me that's what it's like how amazing it is on the other side on the other side of that one of the things i was pointing out was like you look at the data on i wish i knew this uh you know before people who report the the the most satisfied or satisfied the best satisfaction from their sexual sex lives are married couples they're old who are in their 60s yeah they're old yeah okay that's way outside of what you would think yeah because the world sold you that it's about how young you are Yeah, you would think it would be prime young 20s, one night stand.

33:29Yeah, lots of promiscuity and craziness. It shows you also how long it takes for you to really find those buttons. That's a true picture. Fucking 40 years it took me to figure that one out. 40 years. Finally nailed it, you know.

33:47Figured it out. Up, down, left, right. Amy Slickstart. Why don't you just tell me that? You know what I mean? Everybody from the 90s knows that code. Yeah, they do. The Konami code. Yeah, it's Konami. Super Konami. Yeah, you're finally a master. Anyway, I was reading this study on strength training, comparing eccentric to concentric training. Yes. It was a really interesting article. So if I were to tell you guys - This is going back and forth, by the way, the science. So if I was to tell you guys which one causes more muscle damage. Okay, so everybody has - All the science and literature had pointed to the eccentric, but that's also comparing a four-second negative to a regular one or two.

34:29What we know now is they're equal. Well, so here's what I was reading, kind of along those lines, that number one, people don't practice eccentric. So the second they practice it, it's a novel. Yep. It messes them up. Of course. Here's the other one, too. The load is never the same. Whatever you can do concentrically, you can add, I don't know what it is, like 20 % or 40%. No, it's way more now. I was going to say double. or double yeah you can you can take you can it's a big you can lower twice as much as what you can lift is that what it is yeah yeah so yeah of course it's gonna hurt more you know because you're using way more load but if you control for that it's all the same yeah that's what so we've always been like all the books and stuff we read back in our starting time right it was like the eccentric does all the extra damage but that's the point right there it's like yeah well you're slowing it down and you can do more load do you guys remember they used to make these machines I don't know I've never seen them I haven't seen them since but in the late 90s when I was working in gyms.

35:23They used to have these, and I think it was, I want to say Nautilus made them. I'm not sure. But you could load, it was an electronic resistance. So there wasn't a weight stack. So you type in the number. So let's say I would bench press 150. When I'd press, it would be 150, but then it would automatically adjust to lower with a much heavier weight. Do you guys remember those machines? No, not those. I mean, you can do the tonal kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah, the tonal kind of does that. So you know what sucked about those machines? What? the second that would change directions the weight would hit yeah it's so abrupt yeah oh you have yeah dude i haven't i haven't done like legit eccentric training in so long it requires partners it does like i can't i'm not gonna do it it's also so like i mean all this stuff is novel and so cool it's like i mean i don't know at least my training is you got it's so much more simple today than it was i just get so much further with just frequently doing like the right thing yeah i mean like it's so my mindset at my age now it's just like what is the least amount of things i can do to maintain this health and strength thing that i want it's like exactly trying a bunch of novel shit this works it's tried and true yeah i'm gonna i feel good afterwards i think i'd like to try i think what i want to do only thing is a pain in the butt But I think I'd like to do eccentric squats.

36:45Like go in there, rack it up, bring it out, and just lower it to the rack and then get out. I mean, I tell you what, if you do, I mean, I remember doing those. And it was a big, obviously it was the first time, so of course novel and probably made the biggest difference. But just loading something that you can't technically squat. You can't go up. You could lower. Yeah, just lower it, real control. what it just for everything else i guarantee you'll hit a pr after that yeah i guarantee you will just like doing that sold you have serious like you'll hit up you'll if you like you put i don't know what's like really heavy you put five plates on there and you and you you train lowering it for a couple weeks and then you decide to go for a pr you'll hit a pr i just too psychological yes it's just getting over getting that feeling of oh i'm yeah i'm i'm bringing down more than i could ever come up and you get comfortable with that so then when you go to the pr weight it's lighter than what you were and then you find a way to get out i mean that's half of what i was battling i remember trying to do this pr for you know push press and it was like just holding the weight initially was was crushing and you're like dude what am i doing like it's just a psychological mind fuck yes and split press yes i will never talk you know my my back foot was like crooked and it doesn't count dude yeah obviously you're unstable so touche fair enough i hate it when people talk crap they couldn't even do i've seen videos i've seen videos criticizing like i wish we like ronnie coleman's like dead dude yeah i do it i wish i knew people were full of shit once we had like mike salemi who's like the most accomplished kettlebell person i've ever met so we're talking shit about mike they were talking shit about his technique and form when we were doing like he was teaching me like techniques and I was looking at the comments and I'm like, this is wild, dude.

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38:49Where are you getting your information from? Yeah, like, I want to look through and I looked through and they have nothing, you know, no, like, background to even, like, back their claims. You know, we have this big, uh, this big 10-year anniversary thing that we're doing this year, right? Oh, so excited. I know, I'm excited too. I can't believe we worked together. You know what I wish we would have done? I wish we would have kept every negative comment from each, that was said about each of us and would have played that on part of our thing. oh that would have been hilarious you guys have do you guys have one that stands out to you that's just like weak chest that's mine bro i have so many i can't i can't think of the one it's so school you know dude bully somebody somebody got me really good one time what did they say it was a really good insult that it got me good what did they say i we we repeated it for a long time too like the weak chest when it was like ones that have stuck around for a while that That somebody said something that was really good?

39:43Yesterday, I was sitting down with that. I don't want to encourage this, by the way. I know we're talking about this now. We're going to get a bunch of shit out of this. We're going to get plenty of comments. Because you know why? Because it took me a long time to realize that a lot of them were actually fans of the show that were just kind of joshing with you. And it's just like, they come in hot, so you just fire back. And then you realize, hey, man, big fan of the show. Own all the programs. And it's just like, oh, fuck. Sorry, bro. Just came in hot. You know what I'm saying? You need to give me a warm-up what up, bro, before you came at me.

40:13I just had a conversation with Jessica yesterday because we were sitting on the couch. I'm like, be honest with me, babe. She already rolls her eyes. She's like, all right, what are you going to ask me? I'm like, is it disproportionate? Is my chest disproportionate? You can be honest. We're safe here. I actually had a comment under the series I'm doing. They're lying. This is not true. But underneath it, they're like, it's actually a strong body part on you. It's not a weak one. I'm like, all right, thanks, buddy. lying is worse you can say it's improved thanks mom your calves are huge dog stop it come on bro I want to hear about this sounds to me when I read one of your notes here Justin it sounds like an urban dictionary like thing Navy Seal Goggles sounds like a technique you've tried the dirty set You guys haven't done this?

41:09Have you tried the Navy SEALs goggles? It's great, dude. It does sound like that. What is that? No, I saw this cool video, and it was this guy that was describing. Well, he actually went down into one of those pools and showed how without goggles, he was able to see clearly, because they had to find, I don't know if it was some kind of nut and bolt. Oh, yeah, it's part of their training. At the bottom of the pool, they have to put together something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's like, I claim he could do without any goggles. And so he goes down there and he just basically blows air and bubbles and holds his hands like this over his eyes.

41:52Shut up. And then the bubbles come up and they kind of glue to his face like this. What? And it creates this weird air pocket. That's cool. And so he's looking down like this with this air pocket bubble. I thought it was like some guy. I never even thought of that. You know, like, I wonder if it works. I want to try it. Can you come on, Doug? Google away. I want to see if that's true. That is cool. I've never seen. I feel like I would have seen that on Tik Tok or on Facebook or on Instagram. That's why I was like, I was like, man, why hadn't I seen this before? That just seems like such a. To keep them from both not popping would be insane.

42:24Yeah. He just had his hands like kind of shielded over like this. So the bubbles just stop right here and he could look through. So he's blowing. So he has to be blowing. You would have to close this off, though. wouldn't you have to close from your notch they just go up apparently it's real it is yeah I'm going to try it and report back you never know I might have to put some bolts together at the bottom of my pool it's called an air bubble mask let me see it I'm going to try this I can play a video I'm not a bath guy anymore Make this a bedroom technique. I don't know. Why don't you take the bathroom?

43:05So I only have one bath, and it's one of those spare bathroom. So when I was going through my whole withdrawals thing, I did take a bath one time. I had never been in that thing. And Katrina got it all ready for me. And she's like, I don't know if you can use it. I don't know the last time you've been in a little bath. Oh, they're tiny, bro. I was like, I can only get either my legs wet or my upper body. So I'm like, watch this. oh look at that wait it works let's see it let's see it get down there okay it smashes over okay here's how we're gonna do it and then do it wow i don't see the bubbles this is a terrible video

43:48wow that's cool anyways we'll give it a shot yeah i believe i believe the video yeah don't dude They dive deep without anything. It's crazy. Did you ever watch that documentary? No. Oh, that's a good documentary. Like Bud's? No, no, it's called Free Dive or something. It was a really good documentary. Oh, oh, oh. Of the world record holders of like, it's crazy how far down the - They go real deep. I don't know if I ever told you guys this, but although I'm a terrible swimmer, I'm going to hold your breath for a long time. A long time. Me too. I don't know why. You can't. A long time. It takes a lot of work for me.

44:20I don't know why. It was just, I remember I learned this as a kid. I took swimming lessons as a kid. Yeah, it's a free diver. And they told all of us to hold our breath underwater, and I smoked everybody. I am like the worst swimmer, so I think that's probably part of it. When we were kids, we used to have challenges. How many times back and forth on the pool length could you go without taking a walk? But you're a good swimmer, too. You swim better than me, dude. Well, I mean, I can swim. It's just like, you know. You just have Justin swims better than you? You have a heavy butt, that's all. I sink, dude.

44:47I don't float at all. He should not. Yeah, he's like a tugboat. He should not be able to swim better than you. I don't. I'm just not a good swimmer. You have a bird. you have like a nice like what stop it he just doesn't practice you really go through the water like this like a boat you know what i'm saying you should have just parked the water hell easy dude kick your narrow waist you should be fine i got the floating raft in the bottom no i just i'm not a good swimmer dude i think i get a little anxiousy you know what i mean yeah in the water yeah i'm just not comfortable you know like you don't when my feet can't touch the bottom do you think you had like a did you have a traumatic thing when you're a kid you know it's crazy i I used to be, I used to not mind at all, but my mom is terrified of swimming, terrified.

45:28So she won't go in the water below, like if it's like above her waist, she's like not going. I don't know if it like - Inherited, imprinted on you? Something. I wouldn't be surprised. This is something I always give Katrina a hard time. It's like Katrina is like terrified of bees because she claims to be allergic to bees, right? So I don't know if there's a lot of proof for that or not, but she says that she's allergic to bees, right? So if a bee is in the backyard anywhere, she's like, ah, and runs in the house. and only because my son has seen that he's like that now and i'm like max you're fine i was like they don't it doesn't even hurt that bad if it stings you it's not a big deal but because of that i'm like yeah so i'm always trying to get on to him like can you calm down just a little bit when you see a bee definitely because my son is now going to be terrified of bees because you're terrified so i i cause i try and play with them when they're around like look they're fine you know i'm saying like yeah it doesn't even hurt that bad it's not a big deal like but you see him getting that way because he sees his mom definitely i think things can imprint for sure I watch it.

46:20I'm watching it happen. Because my mom was also terrified of spiders. Although I'm not that bad anymore. I had to learn to not be scared of spiders because I'm a man. My wife won't smash them. I'm still afraid. But my brother, you guys know my brother. He's a big dude. Yeah. Bro, you put the tiniest spider next to him, he will move like you've never seen before in your life. He will jump and move. I've seen him jump off a bike. He was on his bike and there was a spider on a handlebar. And he jumped off. That's what makes spiders is because of how small they are. So a big tarantula will creep me out way less than a little tiny little star.

46:56Really? So if you're driving and a tarantula is going to jump on you. Yeah, so we grew up. I don't think it's going to jump on you. So October season is when they all come out, right? And I grew up where they used to be everywhere. And we'd let them crawl on us. So I'd let a tarantula crawl on my arm. But a little spider in my house, I do not like. Have you seen those videos where it looks like a furry wall? and then they tap it and it's bazillions of little spiders yeah yeah have you seen that this is in australia where they had those where it was just like just blankets of webs and it was just like all in the bushes all in the power lines and all this like and it just happens a couple times a year or something where they like they breed and it's like this crazy like does australia have the worst too much yes yes i think it's i think so but i don't know Remember when we talked about this years ago?

47:45Going to Australia? Yeah. We talked about spiders and so that. And somebody sent in a picture of a spider carrying a rat. And that was enough for me. I'm never going there. That's enough for me right there. A spider carrying a rat? Like, that doesn't even make sense. That's not supposed to happen. No, it's not supposed to happen, dude. It's like crazy, man. Are you guys all stocked up on your Z-Biotics for the holidays? No, I just ran out, and I need to get some. I'm actually ordering some because, yeah, I've gone through those. This is not right. We're sponsored by them. I know. Buy them ourselves.

48:18This is where we're at now. Yeah. Who's doing the sponsorship? It's because of the staff, dude. It's because of the staff. They all send us stuff for free, but now you got 20-something people in here plus. Are they taking them all? Well, I make the mistake of hyping it up to all my friends, too, and then they come over and they're like, oh, is this what you're talking about? And they just grab them. Well, it works. It really works. I'm still shocked that bars don't carry them. I thought I heard them say they were getting into something. I thought I heard that. Yeah, I think a few do. Now, I don't know if they're actively pushing it or not.

48:48It's silly for bars not to because, I mean, it would increase the amount of drinks they would probably sell if they were to do that. I think it would be really smart. At least like nightclubs or something. I think it would be great. But anyway. I think the reason, I mean, I know they were always so careful about that. Like they're not trying to promote like binge drinking or lots of drinking. I'm trying to go together. Not the binge drinking, but alcohol. I know. Well, that's what it's for, right? So have you ever followed up on them? Because the last time we had talked to them, they did that because it was easy.

49:20Remember? That was their first product. Genetic modifying. Oh, yeah. Remember? It was like low-hanging fruit was why they started to come so they could fund all the other projects that they were going to do. No, I haven't talked to them. But I remember there's some stuff I can't talk about on the pipeline. There's other things down the pipe. They have the sugar-to-fiber product. How come we haven't tried that? We have. We all got it. You take it, you eat sugar, it converts it to fiber. For reals. Have you tried it? I've tried it, yeah. Doug's tried it. You have? Yeah, it's great for regularity.

49:49Seriously. Yeah, dude. I'd like to try that. You don't need regularity right now. Huh? I said you don't need regularity. No, no, no, no, no. Thanks a lot, dude. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on blast. Hey, no, he's speaking of that. No, my son peed his pants at school. right and uh we get a call it happens we listen though if we get it we get a call and i was with katrina she's like oh my god school called right now i said what what's going on she's like max didn't make it to the bathroom and i'm like what i'm like okay weird and she's like i'm going now i'll be back so she goes to pick him up and uh you know i'm wondering like oh man did he get embarrassed is this going to be like a traumatic thing so i actually like i greet them at the i i I see him pull up in the driveway and I get out.

50:35I want to see if he's doing okay. And he climbs out and he's got some other kid's high water pants on. He's like, you know, all chippery. He goes right up. Hey, dad. I was just like, how was school, buddy? I was good. I was like, anything happen? No. Oh, I peed my pants. And I was just like, what happened? He's just like, oh, I didn't make it. It's not a big deal. And he just walked past. That's great. Dude, he was so. Wow. I looked at Katrina and she just kind of like, she just shrugged it off. Wow, that's great. Yeah, she goes, I tried to talk to him. He just kept telling me, Mom, it's not a big deal.

51:06I just didn't make it in time. I was playing in the sandbox, and I held it too long. And he's like, Mom, it's not a big deal. He kept telling her it's not a big deal. She's like, all right, it's not a big deal. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I was ready for him to be kind of like. Well, yeah, because that couldn't. No, no, I thought about that. Justin never lived that down when he was. Yeah, I mean, I was also a senior. I'm known as peepee boy. I was totally prepared to like, hey, it's OK, buddy. like accidents happen. Hey, next to like the whole dad speech and be there for him. That's why I met him at the door.

51:37He's fine. He just walked right past me. That's awesome. Yeah, no big deal, dad. He's wearing these little tiny pants. It was so hilarious. That's so great. That's so great. He's too much. Probiotics have been shown in studies, not just to improve digestion. They do, but they also improve the health of your skin, athletic performance, strength, recovery, mental state. Probiotics are effective. The world's best probiotic is seed. All the rest suck. Seed is the best. Go to seed.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code 20 mind pump, get 20 % off. Our first caller is Stephanie from Ontario. Hi, Stephanie.

52:18Hello. Hello. How's it going? We're good. How can we help you? Good. So I've adjusted my question a little bit because I've had a bit of an update, but I will just go right into it. So I've been a listener for about five years now, and I absolutely love your show. It's completely changed my relationship with health and fitness, and I follow all of your programs and even got my dad to change his lifestyle thanks to you guys. He used to be the Atkins diet's biggest fan, and now he's no longer afraid of carbs. A bit about my journey, I've been an athlete all my life, but always struggled with my weight being taller and bigger than most of the other girls.

52:53Over the years, I've done a few bulking and cutting cycles, have been able to get down to around 21 % body fat. And that's where I would ideally like to maintain somewhere in and around those low 20s. The challenge is at the end of my cuts, I really don't want to track everything that I eat. So I typically track up to around maintenance and then I'll stop tracking and weighing myself because it just feels like a bit of a negative relationship. And then inevitably, my body fat always tends to creep back up. So I guess the update is that I ended a cut in March and decided to reverse back up to maintenance.

53:29And then over the summer, I was no longer tracking and I'd say my body fat now is probably around 25%. Originally, I planned to do a bulk for the last three months of the year. But like Adam talks about, I actually hit a place where I was just kind of like tired of eating wasn't really hungry, or having too many cravings or anything. So which I had never actually experienced. So I figured it'd be a good time to start a cut. So this probably longest I've spent out of a cut in a while. So at the start of November, I began a cut eating around 1900 to 2000 calories with 150 to 160 grams of protein.

54:05I'm currently running map symmetry on phase two. I'm still not weighing myself, but I am tracking my food. So my current plan is to continue cutting till probably around Christmas, take a week or two break over the holidays, and then go back into a cut for maybe around seven or so weeks. Uh, for context, I'm five, 10, I play soccer one to twice a week, strikes training three to four times a week, uh, eight to 10 case steps, 150, 160 grams of protein. I do have PCOS managed with birth control and yeah, feel better eating higher fat, which is like 70, 80 grams minimum. I like this plan. Yeah. I like this.

54:48I like this plan a lot. You're doing great. I think you're doing phenomenal. You're doing great. By the way, a lot of times I'm not surprised that you do better on a higher fat. Oftentimes women with PCOS do better with a lower carbohydrate, higher fat approach. And the exercise you're doing is perfect. Strength training is great for that. One other thing I'd like to comment on is, so let me ask you this. When you're feeling healthy, what I mean by that is like you're consistent, diet is good, workout is good, but you're also mentally healthy about it. You don't feel like you're controlling everything, tracking everything.

55:22Like you just feel good. Uh, in the kind of, when you imagine that sphere of health, where does your body fat, if you were to guess, where does your body fat percentage tend to like to maintain? Probably this like 24 % and that's not tracking. Yes. So, and the reason I'm glad, I'm so glad I asked this question. So, um, in my experience female athletes, especially strong athletes, their body fat percentage when they're all healthy and doing everything right tends to sit in the kind of low to mid twenties, which by the way is a healthy body fat percentage. And now give or take, right? There's this individual variance.

56:02Like some women will sit leaner. Other women will sit a little higher, but that's a great, that's a great place to be. It's fit. It's healthy. You're strong. Your hormones are balanced. you're not like obsessing about food you don't feel stressed about it and so that's probably where and that's a great place to be and so the reason why i'm communicating this is don't get too caught up with the i got to get down to 20 21 body fat yeah you're talking about three four percent difference which you know is you know and you got to ask yourself is it going to be worth the you know the the mental you know stress about it because and also the potential lack of performance That's right.

56:43Because, yeah, you know, we could technically cut down to 1800 calories for longer and be stricter. And, you know, and then, OK, maybe you shut off another percent or two body fat. But then, you know, then does soccer suck, you know? And do you feel like you're like restricting all day long? And so you're just thinking about food. And it's like, I mean, yeah, we could do that. But you're in a very healthy, good place right now. You have a great plan the way you're going about this. Yeah, I think you're in a really good place. Yeah. So there's, there's this kind of genetic, you know, fit and healthy body fat percentage range.

57:18And there's a, there's a range there because for some people it's leaner and for some people it's a bit higher and it's your healthy range. and so if you're sitting at like 24 and you're like active and you're strong and you can play soccer and you feel like you're kicking butt and you're not like stressed over your diet and stuff like that you're just like you just really have this good quality of life like that's great like go for it in fact aesthetically like being lower which i feel like probably everybody yes you know we've done, Stephanie, is we've placed this aesthetic quote unquote ideal, which is, oh, it's always so funny to me how it's always 3 % away from where you like to be healthy or whatever.

58:00But we've placed, we've taken this aesthetic quote unquote ideal and we've elevated it above where it should be. And so we've sacrificed all these things that are more valuable. If you really look at it to you than just this, like how much better of a quality of life do you have when you're at 21 % body fat, but you're also tracking and stressed about your life with the food, right? So is it really a better quality of life? No, it's not. So that's just the thing that I want you to think about when you're doing this. And then here's a little kicker. Here's where I'm going to sell it to you. If you start to get comfortable in this kind of zone, oftentimes people do get a little leaner because what kind of happens is this bouncing up and down while we're playing with it.

58:48And then when people kind of settle into this healthy kind of place, then what usually happens is you see a little bit of body fat loss anyway. Okay. And then what would you guys suggest? So let's say I go through the maintenance cut or maintenance for two weeks after Christmas and then continue to cut. And then I'm around, again, that low twenties. Would you suggest doing like slowly maintain and then every couple months add a couple hundred calories to get my maintenance up from there. Sure. Yeah. Sure. If you want to. Okay. And then do you have a suggestion on which program to follow after symmetry?

59:25Oh gosh. I like a power lift and strong. Okay. I've never done either of those ones. I have, um, aesthetic muscle mommy and anabolic. Oh, you know what? You probably would really like strong. Yeah. I bet you would like strong. Let's send that to you. Okay. How many days a week is that one? I think it's, I believe it's. Four or five. Well, it's five, but that's because of the work sessions. Because of the work sessions. So there's like two workouts and three work sessions. Foundational and the rest are work. So in other words, if you are also playing like soccer or something, you could literally cut the work sessions out and just do the three foundational days.

1:00:02So it's like three foundational days. Then we have the two work session days. If you're doing some other sport or activity. Modify. You can modify and drop the work session for however many days. So if you've got two days of soccer, drop the two work sessions. you've got one day of soccer, drop one of them. You could totally do that. Okay, cool. And then in terms of cardio, I typically just add like maybe 10 minutes on the Stairmaster at the end of my workouts. Do you guys think that's - Totally fine. Totally fine. Good enough, not pushing. Okay, cool. No, you're good. I mean, how do you feel on the soccer field?

1:00:32How's your performance? Since adding quite a bit more muscle, it's definitely different, but it's kind of cool. um but it's still good i think uh i should i probably need to get my cardio up a little bit more for soccer right now you can you could do those those 10 minutes of stairmaster do more like interval training for those 12 minutes yeah so like hit style hit style cardio post workout would be great that'll especially the way soccer is where you have just bouts of sprints like that and so you could do those bouts of sprints in a short 12 minute window and you'll get some good benefits just from that.

1:01:07By the way, the, the, the things that you're doing is great. Yeah. Everything you're doing is good. I'm just talking about the, the, the, the mindset around it, which I think you're heading in that direction anyway. Yeah. I think you, sometimes you hear, like, obviously I listened to you guys and you've listened to other callers and stuff and you're like, Oh, does that apply to me? And you kind of like, I don't want to deviate my plan too much. So I just wanted to, I guess, confirm it's right. Yeah. No, you're good. Doing great. You're doing great. We'll send Strong over to you. Okay, awesome.

1:01:36Thanks so much, guys. You got it. Bye-bye. Yeah, that was good. Do you think, too, because she's talking only about 2 % or 3 % of that. And with birth control and autoimmune, how much water weight do you think she holds on a regular basis? I mean, it depends on the person. Because in my experience, someone who's got autoimmune and taking birth control pills, you got just this, that layer of what they think is fat is just water retention a lot of times. Could be. You know, it's interesting. I'm like, okay, so where I was getting at with her is oftentimes you take someone like this and you take away that little bit of stress over cutting, bulking, cutting, bulking, and they settle.

1:02:14They tend to get leaner. It just tends to happen rather than the ping pong, you know. But she's not extreme. She's doing good. Great plan. I think she has a great plan. Yep. Yep. Our next caller is Emily from Colorado. Hi, Emily. Hello. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question. And just first and foremost, I just want to thank you guys for all you do. I've been listening to y 'all since 2021. And you have become my North Star when it comes to health and fitness. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. How can we help you? Great. Yeah. So I'll just read my question as I wrote it here.

1:02:50I hear a lot of conflicting information on the usefulness and safety of ass to grass squats. How do you know if it's safe to do so? If I'm able to do it unweighted, does that mean it's safe to try with weight? I'm asking this because I'd like to improve my squat depth, but I definitely have ankle mobility issues and chronic knee pain probably as a result. But I've noticed elevating my heels does help a lot. I'm able to get all the way down. So is it best to start with lifted heels with the goal to eventually not need that? Or should I just avoid squatting altogether and only work on my ankle mobility?

1:03:26Good question. You can do what I do. So I just don't mow my lawn for a long time and it's easy to go ass to grass. I just go barely down. All right. So it's definitely a mobility issue. You've pointed it out. Yeah. We'll send you. Sorry. Do you have prime pro? I don't. Okay. So prime pro and use the ankle and hip mobility movements in there. Practice them once or twice a day, every day. Watch the videos. And then as, so practice those regularly. And then when you squat, range of motion is very important, but it has to be range of motion that you can own and control. Strength and supported range of motion.

1:04:06If you move outside of the range of motion that you can control and support with good stability, good strength, you are now in the realm of injury. So ask the grass is only good if if you can own that if you can't do not do it but if you can elevate your ankles and you can own it and make a squat look really good just by elevating it which by the way the grass is good for the grass is good for the grass. squat with them with heels elevated while we worked on those mobility drills so that just becomes a ritual for you and do that as much as you can like every day if you can multiple times a day and for sure before you always squat like so mandatory always before you squat i'm doing my hip and ankle mobility that's a bare minimum but then i'm trying to do it every day as many times i can even if it's just five minutes get down on the ground do some of my 90 90s do some of my combat the more frequency you do those those mobility drills primarily combat stretch in 90 90s it's going to open those hips up get you better connected and also get you greater range of motion in the ankles and then eventually you can you can peel the the heel raise out but doing it simultaneously is totally okay because there's also value in getting your hips and the rest of your body comfortable with that deep range of motion while you're still working on those things good point the more you can actually like add and infuse more isometric tension at the bottom of the squat and that being the focus for you uh the more likely you're going to be strong and stable in that position which is where we can start thinking about loading it and um and i think too like even slowly and gradually adding load but then still working on that pause squat so down at the bottom i'm really emphasizing that muscle recruitment process and then you'll feel a lot more comfortable and confident uh going astrographs yeah it's a mistake that you might make with prime pro is you'll watch the video and just copy the movement be very it's all about the cues be very careful to listen to the video and the cues how you activate your body and muscles in the pose or in the movement makes all the difference in the world so just watch the videos associated with like combat stretch is probably going to be good for you and and the 90 90 variations will probably be good for you but there's others so when you're doing it watch the video listen to the cues and do what the cues are telling you.

1:06:39That'll make all the difference. What's my Prime Pro video, Doug, called? Where's the webinar? Primeprowebinar.com. That's for anybody who doesn't have it. You can watch that. Yeah, but even if you do, I think what I did on that a little bit better than what we did in the Prime Pro program is what you just said. And so on the Prime Pro webinar, which is free, so we'll send you the program, and then go to the primeprowebinar.com and go to that webinar I did. and in there I'm coaching through the whole thing so you can hear me telling you intensify it drive your knee into the floor and so you get the coaching kind of with it um I do recommend going through that with me because then you'll get kind of like the idea of like oh okay this isn't just like a yoga stretch when you do this you're supposed to be working in these in these movements but uh and also um squat shoes are a decent investment unless you got like a unless the gym has a nice little heel raise that you can just get foam one or one of those nice ones or if If you're having to like put plates underneath your shoes all the time, you know, I'd buy some, some squat shoes.

1:07:39And when I'm, when I'm squatting, I'd bring them with me and I'd continue to work on my ankle mobility and then it'll come together. Okay. Yeah. I'm currently, I work out at home, so I'm using plates and it does kind of add a little extra time that I don't particularly like spending doing. So I might consider, yeah, getting some squat shoes. I wasn't sure if I was kind of going down the wrong path by elevating my heels and practicing that without doing mobility. So it's good to know I can do both at the same time. And I'm essentially doing it with like basically no weight. I don't have a standard bar.

1:08:12I don't have an Olympic bar. So my bar is only 15 pounds. So I'm doing it with that, just an empty bar and feels okay. But yeah, I just wasn't sure if I was going to end up injuring myself because I don't have that mobility. No, no, you're good. Yeah. You follow prime pro mobility, those movements, keep practicing the squat just be safe yeah and you'll progress you'll see intentional with it yeah you're doing a good job i will tell you this though there's an interesting thing that i i find unique to squatting that there's this when you start to load it and i'm not saying like load it so heavy you're scared to squat down in it but all of a sudden once you put a good amount of weight where your core has to stabilize and you have to really posture your form gets better so if i literally to this day with all the years i've been squatting if i go out there and do a 135 squat it'll look worse than my 225 squat.

1:09:00And it's just because as soon as I get about 225 on my back, my body goes, okay, we've got some weight on there. Even though it's not mad, it's enough for me to go, okay, I need to really tense up. And that's so important to a good squat. And so I do recommend at one point, you kind of loading it a little bit to where you kind of get that feeling. You don't need to go so crazy. You feel scared, but enough to where it's like, Ooh, this is a good amount of weight that I got to move. And you'll, you'll find it interesting how your body naturally kind of goes, Oh, I need to tighten up and tense up.

1:09:25And that's really good for squatting. okay okay that's good to know i i've kind of wondered if maybe my knee pain could be because i i only squat to parallel and i have for years and i'm wondering if maybe because i haven't gotten strong in the full range of motion that it could be that could be affected by it it could be a few things uh so it could be a few things but knee pain oftentimes where's your knee her tracking yeah let me know where it hurts um the inside area essentially like if you're looking at the kneecap it's kind of like on the inside of the leg right below it okay so that's probably that's probably coming from your ankle yeah yeah your knees are either probably doing this or there's tension going in that direction it is almost always when it's just like unless you acute injury it's almost always ankles or hips yeah so yeah and then the knee is just taking that stress because our ankles are weak and lack mobility and our hips leak are weak and lack mobility once you get gain mobility gain strength in those areas it takes all the stress off the knees it's incredible how that works yeah it's been a long progress i've gone to an orthopedist and my pcp even podiatrist to see if it could be related to you know i've got some feet issues too but I haven't had any injury.

1:10:44It definitely occurred after having my baby back in 2018. And about a year after that, I started working out again and the knee pain came. So I went to physical therapy and they suspected it was from pregnancy and how it kind of changes your gait and your stance. So, yeah. No, you're on the right path. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. You got it. All right, Emily. Thank you. All right. Yeah, when it comes to what you said, Adam, where you add weight to the bar. Yeah, yeah. If somebody. It's so wild how that is, right? Well, so if you're strong but tight, it'll help. But if you're weak and loose, it doesn't help.

1:11:25And I want to say that because sometimes someone could be like weak and like loosey-goosey and you add weight to them. Yeah, yeah. But like you or I, definitely me, I'm strong but tight. And so what happens is it'll force my ankles into mobility. It'll force me into position. Adds the pressure to get you in position versus not. That's right. It also forces my upper posture to push my chest up high so the bar is balanced. Super aware of where you are. My core has to tighten up because it's wanting me to fall. So it's a trip how much loading the bar on my clients I realize. And you don't have to load it crazy, right?

1:12:02No, just to give them some feedback. Yeah, but if you, I mean, you tell me she's got a 15 pound bar on her back. That's like, that's like 25. Yeah, she could do it. She could do at least a 45 pound bar and that alone, that kind of weight will make her body kind of stiffen up a little. Our next caller is Kay from Denmark. Kay, how you doing? Hey guys. So this is surreal. So I wrote this email because I feel like I'm at a crossroads on my fitness journey. I started working out as of January, 2025 and have been going at it consistently for 11 months. You guys have been a huge inspiration and driving force for me to keep bettering myself, and with your help and guidance, I feel like I have achieved a far better physique than I had expected.

1:12:44I have just completed Maps on Abolic and have the entire RGB Super Bundle to go through, so that's very exciting. My driving force when I started out was football, or soccer, as you call it in America. I love playing football, but since I was about 20 years old, I have weighed about 220 pounds. So playing the sport I love felt really difficult. So I ended up just stopping. My feet and legs wouldn't connect to my mind as I wanted to. And every turn, chop and burst of speed turned sour as my legs burned out from the attempts. I have now dropped down to 190 pounds and I'm currently packing 97 pounds of muscle.

1:13:25And when last on an in-body scanner, my butterfly percentage was at 14.8%, although I think it's a little bit higher. Through my teens, I was very active playing football and volleyball, even playing volleyball at under-17s and under-19s for the Faroese national team. I'm not expecting to go back to that level. I just want to feel athletic again. So here's my question to you guys. is there any form of workout routine or diet that will get my feet and legs to act like i want them to so that i can do like one chop and sprint away from someone without losing my balance or slowing down or does my age of 32 just limit that factor well i could of course try some stuff out myself and see but i really want to hear what you guys have to say about it my big dream now is to get to play one more complete season of football where I feel proud of myself and feel good on the pitch.

1:14:24Yeah, good. Good question. Well, what's really cool is that if you got the super bundle and you've just completed Anabolic Nexus Performance, which would be the foundational thing we would do first and then probably progress you in that direction athletically. That would lay a nice foundation in that pursuit. Yeah. Especially phase two. Kay, there's also, so this is a unique situation because you played at a high level. So what you are referring to in terms of your performance, your benchmark is what you used to be able to do at a very high level. In other words, if I were to take you out and test your athleticism right now, you would be remarkable.

1:15:08But compared to how you used to be, you feel slow and unresponsive. and I'm going to tell you the best way you're going to get back to if that's what you're looking for it's not going to be gym workouts now we can give you gym workouts that are athletic but to make you feel the way you did before the best thing you can do is a little bit of strength training and a lot of playing nothing is going to replace getting on the field and playing in terms of giving you that feeling that you're looking for that athletic feeling So if I had you and we didn't have like a very, if you didn't say, Hey, I need by this month is that, and we had a nice timeframe, what it would look like would be taking you through performance, the way it's laid out.

1:15:52And then after that, reducing to like a one day a week of it, or make them like a mass 15 performance and starting to train and go practice and go practice your sport. because that'll lay a nice foundation of muscle. It's going to address some multi-planar stuff, mobility stuff, a little bit of endurance training. It's going to lay a nice little foundation. And then we really start to ramp up the amount of sport that you're playing and reduce the time in the gym. And honestly, all that volume is accounted for in performance advance. There's two major foundational workouts per week, but it's the skills that's highlighted the most.

1:16:29And we don't talk about this a lot because there's not a lot of people that are very much focused on their sport specific. You know, you can be intentional about getting faster, getting more responsive with organizing your body. So, you know, when you go to move, you're efficient with your movement, which there is a lot of value in that. You know, that does translate immediately to field play. And so if I were to, again, these skill training days aren't that long. So, you know, it could be anywhere from like 20 to 45 minutes. It's not going to be super fatiguing because it's the reps are very intentional.

1:17:09And so it's really just drilling. So if you want to like compare it to something, it would be like if I was practicing and drilling my specific movements. So I would recommend that. And then on top of that, even like getting in again, the actual gameplay and the movement of it and putting it all together. But you do lose that. You lose that ability to immediately access that kind of like quick and powerful movement ability and control. Yeah. I'm assuming you're pretty tall. How tall are you? I am 180 centimeters. Yeah. What is that in feet, Doug? He's a big guy, especially if you played on the national team for volleyball.

1:17:47I'm not very big. I could jump real high. Okay. I think it's 5 '11". According to this, it's 5 '9". 180 is 5 '9". You said 182. Oh. Oh, 182. Okay, let me fix that. Right. That's, yeah. You said 182. Okay. Well, all right. Nonetheless, so when you're - 5 '10". Okay, so keep, yeah, 5 '10", 5 '10". So keep this in mind, right? That there's definitely a size component and a fitness component to what you're looking for. But there's also a skill component that you'll lose if you don't practice the skill often. So Matt, I like what Justin said. I love what you said, but I think what matters difference in all of our advice right now is when you want to do this.

1:18:33Like, when do you want to be on the field again? Is it, like, by next summer? Is it, like, in a couple months? Because I think... So right now, we're out of season. I'm playing once a week with my friends, like, an indoor game. So I'm keeping myself going. And I'm actually... I am doing the MAPS performance right now. Okay. I'm in phase one. because after MAPT on a Bolic, I felt that my body after phase three, it like took a toll on me. I started feeling a bit of pain and something. And my endurance was really… Not there. Yeah, not there, exactly. But I feel like I am getting to a place where I ran a 5K in 22 minutes the other month, last month.

1:19:24So my endurance is getting better. uh but the the season starts in march and march april okay so reverse it right justin maybe january start january start advanced and just focus on power yeah we'll send that to you so we'll say performance advanced follow that in january and then make sure you practice more soccer and then diet wise eat for performance yeah okay so eat for performance so whole natural foods, high protein, make sure you eat your carbohydrates. Yeah. Get enough energy. And eat for performance. So judge your diet based on your performance, not on how you look. Okay? But what he's doing right now is great for right now.

1:20:05So what you're doing, running performance, playing soccer once a week to kind of maintain. And then in January is we're going to follow Justin's protocol, go to performance advance. That'll really ramp up the soccer and then play as much soccer with it as you can. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You can get it back for sure. Yeah. That's a good plan right there. Yeah, I would be very thankful if that would be the case. My last complete season I played, I think I was 21. So it would be amazing if I could stick to it. The reason I stop is because I expect so much more of myself. And when I can't deliver, I get like, what do you call it?

1:20:47Discouraged. Discouraged, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to the club. Yeah. Okay. The one mistake that you could make, okay, is when you start to really pick up soccer more than once a week and it goes to two, three times a week and you're practicing more, is to try and maintain the strength training along with it. Make sure you reduce that. Yeah. So once you get to a place where you're playing, if you're playing soccer three times a week or more, the weight training needs to be one time. That's it. No more. Okay. So that's the mistake that athletes will make, and that's where you'll get injured.

1:21:20is if you... Save the intensity for the sport. Yes. Right now, your plan's perfect. The mass performance, one day a week of soccer. January comes, you're going to follow Justin's performance advance. But you start hitting soccer four times, three, four times or more a week. Scale back on the weight training should only be like one day a week. Yep. Okay, so it would be like a full foundational workout for like an hour or so. No, like three, four exercises. That's it. Yes. Very, very minimal. Very, very minimal at that point. that that is going to make you great on the field and protect you from getting injured that's right your mistake that you could make that people make everybody is they try and keep the weight lifting routine up and now they're playing soccer four days a week because they want and they that's where they get hurt that's right okay so so we're thinking like four compound movements or like three three three four compound movements at most yep okay cool yep yep and even at that and even at modern intensity does not need to be going to fail don't be just because you're now you're only doing one day don't go oh i gotta go to failure because i'm only doing this one day you're just you're just trying to maintain the muscle and strength that you've built in the off season you're not trying to progress in the gym no trying to progress on the field and it takes very it takes very little that's right volume and intensity to maintain the muscle mass you built so just you get in there do those four good compound lifts do it at moderate intensity get out it's soccer time and that's your focus soccer time it's soccer time soccer time you like that well i'd love to hear back from uk you'd be a fun person to talk to after uh after january so if you yeah yeah i'd love to circle back and hear hear how your uh your hero went for you yeah of course okay that would be that would be very cool yes all right and and i just have to say that like i just started it feels like i've just started working out and to be here talking with you guys already if you told me this a year ago i would have told you to take a hike this is uh this is really incredible guys and i'm so thankful that you are willing to have me on of course man we'll have you back on all right okay perfect take it easy brother thank you thank you bye yeah just uh athletic trainings totally i just to put it differently okay and this this is even more pronounced the more the more advanced or more elite you are in athleticism the more pronounced this is so just to illustrate this for people your base is already there if you took an athlete that was at a very high level, college level, definitely pro level, but like you're really good, and you increase their strength by 20%, their timing's going to be off suddenly.

1:23:54So you have to match your strength gains. All your gains match the skill. The skill has to follow. Otherwise, it throws you off. And then suddenly at that level, I'm stronger, but my timing's off a little bit. My performance isn't any better. It might even be worse. Your conditioning, your endurance. So it's a very, it's totally different. Our next caller is Jessica from California. Hi, Jessica. How you doing? Hello. Hi. What's happening? This is so wild. I know everybody says that when they come on. They're like, ah, this is so weird. I've been listening to you guys for a while. So it's really awesome.

1:24:32Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it. As most people do, I guess I will just read my email. It's quite long. I hope you'll bear with me. I'm trying to provide all the relevant data and details in here. So here's my story. I'm a 49-year-old married working mother of three. One of my kids is in college, but I still have a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old at home. For many years, I was a serious long-distance runner and occasional triathlete. And I sort of lifted a little bit in there, but not seriously. I wasn't seriously weight training. I was also a yoga teacher in my 20s and continued to practice yoga and Pilates as a complement to my running in my 30s and early 40s.

1:25:19My third pregnancy and perimenopause both kind of really threw me in for a loop. And among other extremely annoying symptoms, I developed a lot of hip pain and tendonitis and had to take long breaks from running. and for the first time outside of pregnancy, I gained about 20 pounds. I finally had to give up running entirely and subsequently went all in on lifting about two and a half years ago. By the way, I was ultimately diagnosed with moderate hip dysplasia, labral tears in both hips and early signs of arthritis in both hips. So that's crappy. When I first got into lifting, I went for traditional lifts.

1:26:01I actually started with strong lifts five by five and, and I did try to chase the deep squat. Um, but my MO is going too hard. So I went too hard, too heavy, too deep. And I'm pretty sure that that led to more hip problems. I'm pretty sure that spring I got a new labral tear. Um, and so I kind of had to back off. I realized that, okay, after my diagnosis, Like I have shallow hip sockets, so deep squatting may not be the best exercise for me. Another thing that I had to come to grips with was that pain means stop. So as a distance runner, you get really good at ignoring pain and discomfort and powering through.

1:26:40So when things would hurt in the gym, I just was like, oh, that just means I have to work harder. So eventually I had six months of really good physical therapy with a great PT. I got into your podcast and I started trying to accept the gospel of rest. So now I try to focus on good form, rest and recovery. And I really am trying to work with my body rather than against it. As part of that, I realized I've been under eating for years. That was just my lifestyle. Not too bad. You know, I wasn't eating like 1200 calories a day, but I was definitely in a calorie deficit. And I even up until last year, 2024, I know I was in a calorie deficit all year because I was tracking.

1:27:27I pretty much. I don't know if I was a deficit. Let's just say my maintenance was low because I lived at 17, 1800 calories a day and I'm five seven. So in January of this past year, I decided to try my first reverse diet. I made it up to about 2150 with a slow increase over three months while I was running MAPS anabolic. then I did a little bit of a cut for about eight to ten weeks I cut back to 1800 and did performance 15 and then I switched to like a two day a week full body workout at around maintenance calories like 1900 ish so what I'm trying to do now is start I just started muscle mommy a couple weeks ago and I'm trying to do another kind of bulk during this program as an aside I also walk about nine to 10 ,000 steps a day.

1:28:20Like a low day for me would be about 8 ,000, a high day about 12 ,000. So it averages out to about 10 ,000. Let me give you some data from my DEXA scans. I've been getting approximately quarterly DEXA scans for about two years. So between December, end of December, 2024, and a recent DEXA scan I had at the end of October, I have gained about seven pounds of lean mass. And I took my body fat percentage down from about 29.1 to about 28%. So a little bit of a decrease, even though technically, according to my scan, I gained a little bit of fat, like about 0.4 pounds of fat over that time. So I'm really pumped about the lean mass increase, even if it's not seven pounds, like if there's error, even if it was five pounds or four pounds, I think at 49 to gain that much muscle in a year or 10 months is pretty good.

1:29:20But I'm frustrated by body fat percentage not really going down. I realize now in the past that I was kind of skinny fat. In January of 2024, I was at 33 % body fat. So now that I'm at 28, that's better. But as much as I workout and as like as active as I am, I, my goal is to get more into the range of like 25%. Um, I gained muscle everywhere, but especially in my arms and my back and my chest. Um, I put a lot of details in the email, but the bottom line is I'm very strong in my upper body and like I'm 90th percentile for lean mass for my age and my arms and my trunk. But my DEXA scan says I'm in the 10th percentile of lean mass for my legs.

1:30:11Also, my fat percentage of my legs is much higher than my body overall. So I can tell I'm getting stronger everywhere. And I'm happy about that. My shoulders, my arms, my back, they look awesome. But progress is slower than I would like in both strength gains in the legs and in fat loss. Okay. I told you this was long. A lot of background. Now I'm ready to get to my questions. So my first question is, considering my history of hip injury and having to modify a lot of leg stuff, what's the best way to go about building up my leg strength? I definitely have gotten stronger. So I've gone from, for example, being able to only do bodyweight Bulgarian split squats to now I hold 30 pounds while I'm doing them for 12 reps.

1:30:58Same for step-ups. I went from bodyweight step-ups to holding a 30-pound dumbbell. My hip thrust, I got up to 195. So I'm definitely getting stronger. But I can do more with my upper body. So for example, I can only do a sumo squat holding like 40 pounds, but I can overhead barbell press 75 pounds. I can curl 22.5 pounds for reps with my biceps, but I'm only holding 15s in each hand when I do Bulgarians. so it just seems nuts to me that I can do heavier weight in some of my upper body lifts than in my lower body um I'm doing muscle mommy but it just doesn't seem like it has enough lower body work towards correcting this huge difference in body composition and strength between my upper and lower body so how if at all can I modify the workout can I add substitute you know substitute in a lower body lift into the workouts or something just to get myself more balanced.

1:32:03Jessica, Jessica, I love you. Yeah. So hold on. You're so great. Let me put this all in a nutshell first. Is that okay if I kind of summarize real quick? Yes. You increased your calories, body fat percentage went down, you got stronger, you built more muscle. Everywhere. Lots of, you had some injuries in both hips and lower body, and your MO is to overdo it. Yes. Okay. What's the, okay, what's the complaint? She wants to be more muscular in her lower body. Now, what's the complaint? I want to hear that. I just, I want to be stronger in my lower body, and I want to lose fat in my lower body. Now, you do realize that it's not only normal, but it's healthy for a woman to store more body fat in her lower body.

1:32:48Not only that, but for over a decade, we beat the hell out of our hips. So that's, A, you're going to have more body fat in your lower body as a woman. That's just, you're supposed to. It's actually a healthy sign. Okay. So that's number one. Okay. Okay. So you got way stronger. Also, remember when you're doing a squat, if I overhead press 45 pounds, but I do a squat holding 30, you're forgetting that your body weight's in the squat. You're not overhead pressing your body weight plus 45. So your legs are much stronger than your upper body. Okay. So also consider that. Would you say your heart, if I were to ask your husband or your friends that really care about you and I'm like, hey, is Jessica too hard on herself?

1:33:32What would they say? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I call myself a recovering perfectionist. I'm trying. I'm trying. You are, and I think you're being, you are kicking butt. Yeah, you've done incredible. And you're recovering from probably a decade of not being so kind to yourself. Right. And you're doing really well. Now, I could give you some advice. First of all, Muscle Mommy's got plenty of volume. Yeah, that's not the answer. It's not more lower body stuff. No, no, no. You're doing everything. You're good right now. but you're a perfect candidate for having a personal trainer work with you through this process.

1:34:11I know you're in the Bay Area. Are we close to you? Are you near San Jose? No, I'm East Bay. San Jose is like an hour and a half away. Okay, forget it then. I think you would be a perfect candidate for coaching or personal training because they'd be able to move you through this process. By the way, pounds of fat gained on a DEXA scan don't matter. Body fat percentage matters. So if you gained four pounds of body fat, but your body fat percentage went down, you got leaner. So it doesn't matter what you're, so in other words, 10 pounds of body fat on a 100 pound person is a higher percentage than 15 pounds of body fat on a 200 pound person.

1:34:55Yeah. Well, and I can tell from my progress photos, like I'm definitely leaner. Even though I'm heavier. You're doing so good. You're doing so good. Honestly, you would probably see the progression in your upper body and your lower body at the same pace if we didn't have decades of beating our hips up. I know if you've been listening to us long enough, this is why we scream at people about endurance running. It is so rough on the body. And you said it to us already that you were the type of person that, oh, fuck that pain. Just keep running through it. You know what I'm saying? And you did that for years.

1:35:2920 years. 20 years. okay and then yet yet in a year you've already gotten strong in those legs it's crazy so you're you're doing really well incredible the good news is you're going to keep progressing yes so so whatever you did with the 20 years of whatever but the answer isn't more shit no more intensity more stuff the legs just keep the pace girl no you're keep it you're doing so good you got to be kind of body adapt and and and i'm going to relax into this just relax into it you're doing great just chill into what you're doing trust the process like you have been it'll move you so much further if you do yeah the fact that you got leaner bumped your calories got stronger you're like there's i mean what else can we do right now there's not much just keep going yeah just keep going then the worst thing you can do right now is add more yeah that's absolutely not what you should do yeah especially to an area that's already been beat to death for 20 years It doesn't need to be beat through the weights now.

1:36:30That will set you back. We're trying to build. I think you would benefit from working with a coach through this process. I could have somebody call you because I think it would be beneficial just to guide you through this process because what will happen for someone like you, and you're probably like this in your career as well, where you get after it and you go for it. What would really help someone like you is for them to help you get out of your way. Yes. you know so you got that person to bounce off of like and remind you how awesome you are you know i was thinking about that just this morning i was thinking about what are they going to say they're probably going to tell me i need a coach to tell me to chill

1:37:10just through the process through this process but honest to god you're doing i mean no yeah i'm i read your email before you came on i heard you talk about it and i'm like you're doing you're very hard on yourself you're doing really good yeah well i i have been trying to do this on my and i i'm big on data and evidence and so i've been trying to follow an evidence-based process i've been trying to keep track of everything um but honestly like you know when i was younger i just had so much energy yeah and i could do so many things and i was so uh physically strong And then this whole thing with being in my forties and perimenopause and everything being different, it's been a real challenge.

1:37:54It's just been very challenging. We all get older, but you also have three kids, a job, a house. Yeah. Your daily habits are completely different. It is not the same. It is not the same. But you're doing really well. Yeah. I mean, you're doing exceptionally well. So stay the course, relax into it, because you've got another three or four years of consistent progress with this. Literally, you've got another three years ahead of you where you're just going to continue to progress at a nice pace, so long as you don't overdo it and get in your own way. That's the key. Yes. And I do that. Yeah. Well, that's why Sal is suggesting the coach thing.

1:38:33I mean, if you're open to that, we'll have one of our coaches call you, and they can talk to you, and you can decide if you want to do something like that or not. Yep. I mean, I think I was thinking about that this morning. Like maybe, maybe it's time. Maybe it's time because it's not that I don't have a discipline or consistency or even, even knowledge. But you're the best client to coach. You're the best. You're my favorite type of client to coach. Cause I know if I tell you to do it, you're going to go do it. And Dave, just put your trust in me that, okay, he knows what he's doing. He's been doing this for a long time.

1:39:06He's probably trained a lot of people like me. He's doing a good coach. You just trust the process. Jessica, for someone like you, this is really important to hear, okay? Data is very important if it connects you to your body. If it pulls you away from connection to your body, data is no good. And so there definitely are people, and many of them fit that kind of personality profile that you have, where the data becomes the idol and I start to ignore my body. And I start to look at the numbers and the data and compare and what's happening here. and if it disconnects you from your body it is not such a good point because if i was coaching you i would have for some reason for some reason we did a dexa scan and the dexa scan didn't come out exactly how you want it but i knew in my heart we're moving the right direction i would have to counter you you know what i did you would go adam the data is saying this we're going the wrong way and i'd be like no we're not stay the course i don't keep it all to myself thank you this is what we would do with clients with you like you is i would get the measurements and i wouldn't tell you yep like no i'm not gonna tell you i'm it's for me not for you you're progressing that's all you need yeah all right all right i think i needed to hear this i kind of knew you were gonna say this but i guess i just needed somebody to to tell me you're gonna you're gonna do so well with a coach you will do so well with a coach i'm gonna have someone call you i'm excited to see what happens here great i do have another question sure um which is that i just am really finding bulking quite challenging.

1:40:32I found it difficult the first time too. I'm trying, I really am trying to get my calories up, but, um, I'm consistently hitting my protein. Um, I, you know, my BMR again, according to the DEXA scan, it's like, I'm something like 1640 at rest RMR or something like that. Um, so I'm trying to, I know I need, I know I can handle more calories. I'm up to about 2 ,200 calories on average right now. And I am just so uncomfortable. Like I'm physically uncomfortable. Like I feel bloated. I feel over full. I wake up full from dinner the night before. I think it's affecting my sleep. I do eat mostly whole natural foods.

1:41:19I really don't eat junk food or fast food. And, but that said, I can't meet my protein goal without at least one scoop of protein powder a day and I'm considering including two just so I don't you know because it's just easier to take a a smoothie or something like that than to feel like I'm force feeding myself another piece of chicken yeah um I have stopped weighing myself because that definitely messes with my head so I don't weigh myself but I can definitely tell I'm putting on fat and I guess that's all part for the part for the course it's just I do want to trust this process. It's just, it feels like it's impossible to imagine getting up to like 2 ,500.

1:41:59It's not, it's not as difficult as you think. And there's, there's multiple options. There's not one way only to do this. Uh, I doubt I would ever do it through chicken breasts that produce so much satiety with you. It would be like this, uh, all your meals, whatever, whatever, I don't know what your carb of choice is, rice, sweet potato. I don't know what you're doing. Uh, add one ounce every meal okay one more ounce of that carbohydrate uh we'll do that or if the shake is convenient and you like it and that's easy on you digest like that's fine too it doesn't need to be this like add a meal and and and everyone wants to go to protein because protein is this great healthy safety but if it's hard for you and you feel bloated from it i'm not going to force you to eat a protein meal especially if you're already hitting your protein yeah but there's two sides to this there's digestive issues which if you're experiencing digestive issues then we need to examine what you're eating and maybe identify any intolerances.

1:42:51And then there's this, when people are disconnected from their body, uh, what it can, what can happen to somebody who chronically used to over, sorry, under eat and over train is when they feed themselves appropriately, it's uncomfortable. Okay. So it might also be that it might also be that I'm so used to being underfed and feeling what that feels like, which feels like empty, which feels like, everything's empty and I feel and then you start to identify you start to connect that to good then feeling fed is uncomfortable and so this is what I mean by the disconnect from the from from the body so I've worked with people like that we're like we're feeding them appropriately I can't eat more than this much food and so we start to talk a little bit it's like you just don't know what it feels like to be properly fed now that's separate from digestive issues if you're experiencing legit digestive issues then I'd want to examine the foods that you're eating and maybe move towards things that are easy to digest.

1:43:45Avoiding things like gluten, dairy, sometimes legumes can sometimes cause issues, which is totally different. And digestive issues tend to be much more pronounced. It's like, man, at the end of the night, I look like I'm pregnant. My belly is really painfully bloated or gas or heartburn, constipation. But sometimes it's just, it's uncomfortable because I'm not used to being fed. Yeah. I think it might be a combination of both. Like I definitely feel like kind of bloated at the end of the day. I do eat a ton of dairy because Greek yogurt is like one of my go-tos for protein. Um, and I like it. Um, and I do eat a lot of beans for fiber.

1:44:28I actually do better with beans. Um, like on a day I have beans. I feel like my digestion is better. Um, I don't, I eat some bread, not a ton. Um, just naturally. I do eat other grains like oats and rice and you could try, try psyllium husk, uh, with, with, with a couple of meals as a fiber. Uh, if it's a fiber issue, that'll make a big difference. I'm definitely, I've tracked fiber. I easily, I'll get 30 grams of fiber a day. I get a lot of fiber. But there's soluble and insoluble fiber and some fibers can cause bloat. And so psyllium husk doesn't do that. Psyllium husk isn't, your body isn't doing anything with it other than it just helps things move through.

1:45:09So if you don't have good, yeah. So if you don't have good motility, um, then that may help. And just give it a shot. I can try that. But I also do think that there is a thing in what you said about sort of like the feeling of being fed because, Because, yeah, I actually had this thought the other day of like, I don't like never feeling hungry. It's weird. It's weird to me. You know how we tell people, listen to your body? Okay. You need it in the warriors. Yeah. Listening to your body works when you understand the signals of your body and when they're not distorted. Yeah. So there are many times when I have a client, I'm like, ignore your body right now, and we're going to rebuild a new relationship with it.

1:45:57I'll give you an example for me. I force-fed myself for so many years that not getting stuff from a meal felt like I was hungry. And then I realized, wait, I'm not hungry. I'm just not stuffed. And that took me a while to kind of figure out. This is why I like the strategy of one to two ounces of the carb in every meal because it's so subtle. And if you came back to me and said, oh, Adam, that extra ounce was too much, I'd be like, bullshit. One ounce of rice or one ounce of carbs is not going to make you feel stuffed of a difference. That's definitely psychological. And so I could creep in those extra calories spread out over your meal so it doesn't feel like this.

1:46:34Coaching is going to – you're going to really do well with coaching. Yeah. This is all stuff that we work on. And you know what? None of us have the perfect answer right now. We're throwing a bunch of things at you that we might – but this is what your coach would do. Experiment with it. Your coach would say, hey, this week we're going to do this. and then you feed back and you're like, well, that was horrible and I didn't feel it. Okay, cool. We'll try this now. Until you guys figure out the perfect recipe to get you into a good, healthy reverse diet, which, by the way, is really going to support this leg building you want to do.

1:46:59Because that might also be part of our problem right now is you're so under-calorie and just at maintenance and you're doing all the right things, strength training, and the body wants to grow, but it's saying, hey, you're not giving me enough building blocks. I mean, you want these legs to build some muscle on them, but I need more nutrients. But I will say gaining seven pounds of lean body mass is phenomenal. That's great. That's phenomenal. But she could also be getting towards her peak until she gets to more calories. So you may be tapping out of what your body is capable of doing with the nutrients you're giving it, and this is why you might be feeling like you're not putting on any more muscle in there.

1:47:35We've got to get these calories up. Yeah. But slowly and correctly, and we'll help you. You're going to love it. Yeah, I'm going to have someone call you. We got you. And then I'd love to talk to you in like three months because I think you're going to be in such a cool place. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be very curious. I mean, my my idea is to go through Muscle Mommy sort of bulking and kind of natural over the holidays to good time to do it. And then I want to set myself up for a cut so I can take off a little bit more body fat. And I don't want to be extreme, but I'm going to turn 50 next summer and I want to look great.

1:48:13I want to feel great. I want to feel strong. I want to be able to do some strict pull-ups. I can already do some strict pull-ups, but I want to be able to do like 10 strict pull-ups. Wow. That's a big goal. Yeah, you know, you probably got really good genetics being a triathlete. You just never really – you're tapping into them now. Just promise me, Jessica, you'll listen to our coaches. They're all trained by us. We took – we're very, very tough to even come work for us. They're all very, very good. Well, I like being an A student, so I'll listen to the coach. All right, good. I'd like to hear that this will be great alright Jessica thank you so much I really appreciate it guys you got it thank you bye yeah she's that's a great client to work with a coach yeah yeah so open very educated my sense we're not coaching her so you'll figure this out as you work with someone but my sense is the discomfort for meeting is really just no that was a great call you hit it on the head because I could tell by the way she looked and responded I'm like oh you're right but my advice is spot on then because that's a perfect way to deal with someone because you add if you add one ounce i can't do yeah it's like bullshit one out if one ounce is like a couple spoonfuls you're not telling me i just bloated you for two and so that's how that's when you know somebody has that bad relationship with that was when they'll come back to it so but no wonder because eating a full and then choosing something like a chicken breast to add that would feel that's so satiety producing and dry and boring it's like oh yeah that's not gonna feel good i can't do that No, no.

1:49:40Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram at MindPumpMedia. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

1:50:25The 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.

From the publisher

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin coach four Pump Heads via Zoom.

Mind Pump Fit Tip: Best ways to train for stamina, power, mobility, and strength. (2:44)
The negative brain changes from porn use. (22:03)
Eccentric vs concentric. (34:04)
Negative comments. (38:58)
Seeing underwater without goggles. (40:52)
Imprinted memories. (43:54)
Stocking up on Zbiotics for the holidays. (48:07)
Accidents happen. (50:00)
#ListenerCoaching call #1 – I'm struggling with maintenance. Any advice on how to break out of this cycle and finally find a sustainable approach? (52:14)
#ListenerCoaching call #2 – The usefulness and safety of "ass-to-grass" squats. (1:02:26)
#ListenerCoaching call #3 – Workout/diet advice to regain athletic ability for football after significant weight loss. (1:12:17)
#ListenerCoaching call #4 – Considering my history of hip injury and having to modify leg stuff, how should I go about building up my leg strength? I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. (1:24:15)

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Through Dec. 6th, 50% off a Reverse Dieting Strategy call with a Mind Pump coach. Visit: http://www.reversedietcall.com/
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Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code 20MINDPUMP for 20% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. **
Adam Schafer's DEEP Squat Mobility Secrets | Behind The Scenes at Mind Pump
MAPS Prime Pro Webinar
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