2849: Are Deadlifts Actually Dangerous? The Truth About So Called Risky Exercises

21:30Sal Di Stefano:There's a joint stability component to lifting free weights that you don't get with the machine. That's right. It's on a track. It's stabilized for you. That's right. And so there's tremendous value to a weight on a barbell or a dumbbell that can move freely. And all those stabilizer muscles have to stabilize that movement that is incredibly valuable that you miss out on if you do that. Yeah, no, it's a really slippery slope to go down and eliminate a movement, especially a movement like that. It's like we could do without bicep curls. You can 100 % do without bicep curls. That's so funny. You know what I'm saying?

22:04Why did you guys both look at me right then? No, it's true. I still do them every now and then.

22:11Sal Di Stefano:You can, but you can. You can literally never do a bicep curl. If you're doing pull-ups and deadlifts and everything like that, you're fine. You can never do a bicep. We could do without certain exercises, but there's certain ones. You just lose a lot. An overhead press, a barbell squat, a barbell deadlift, the row, these movements are so important. For everyday life. Yes, for the way we will move throughout the rest of our life for the rest of our life. And to eliminate one of those because of the risk factor is just ridiculous.

22:43Adam Schafer:You know what my favorite example of this is? And we have the person here who can confirm this. Doug hired me because of back pain. Yeah. Doug went to a chiropractor. I have so many stories of clients I know.

22:54Sal Di Stefano:Low back pain and then deadlifting is what made them not have low back pain. Well, let me tell the story.

22:58Adam Schafer:For me. He had repeated back injuries. It just kept going out. And a chiropractor who I had started working with was like, go see this trainer. He knows what he's doing. So Doug, who had back problems where his back kept going out, started training with me. And we trained properly and appropriately. Eventually got him to do a 405-pound deadlift at a body weight of what? Probably 153 or 5. That's an incredible strength to weight ratio. Does your back go out anymore? It has been a very long time, knock on wood, but no. It doesn't. It used to go out all the time. Yeah. And that's an example.

23:33Sal Di Stefano:Well, I've shared on the podcast before deadlifting and barbell squatting, I had chronic low back pain. That's what got rid of it. Yeah. I mean, the irony of that, right? I know. As a young man, by the way, I had chronic low back pain. and learning how to squat and deadlift. Well, you were strong everywhere else too. That's right. Yeah, it wasn't like you weren't working out.

23:58Adam Schafer:You were a muscular bodybuilder.

24:00Sal Di Stefano:Yes, and it wasn't until I started doing that. I mean, listen too, the core strength required to stabilize the barbell when you're doing a deadlifter is so incredibly important and valuable too. And getting good at that skill forces you to do that. And that alone right there. And as long as I maintain that, and I notice a difference when I have these spells where I'll go on a kick for a while and I won't deadlift or squat for a little while. And that very first thing that always motivates me to get backlifting is I'll start to notice low back fatigue. I'll sit on a plane for an hour and it's like, oh my God, my low back fatigue.

24:36Sal Di Stefano:I'll drive somewhere and I'll be like, and I always know. It's like, God damn it, I haven't been squatting or deadlifting. And if that's consistently in my routine, I don't have chronic low back fatigue. You know what it is?

24:46Adam Schafer:You know what this conversation is? It's lazy. this is the conversation hey we're not even attempt to teach you or talk about why we're just to say don't do it because we're too lazy to explain it to you we're too lazy to communicate it properly and and to be quite honest we think you're too lazy to do it the right way so just avoid it you guys just just skip it put caution tape around it and move on yeah move on and it's like no that's not the proper that's not the proper it's just i i think it frustrates me because

25:12Sal Di Stefano:i would be okay with that with a lot there's probably a hundred exercises you could convince me that you could do without yeah it's one of the ones out of the most yeah it's it's one of the ones if there's only a handful there's less than a handful yeah of movements that like i feel like don't lose this skill yeah exactly do not lose this skill to be able to do this that would be that's one of them so it's like get rid of there's a lot of shit that we can get rid of that it's like yeah you know not a big deal if you don't do that or uh if we do this it gets it takes care of that like there's not a lot of stuff there's not a lot of stuff that replaces the deadlift yeah and I'm okay with variations.

25:47Sal Di Stefano:Like if you're not, if the skill isn't there to do a barbell deadlift, then we trap bar deadlift. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And we work towards that.

25:54Adam Schafer:You work towards it. You know,

25:55Sal Di Stefano:or if, or we do single leg, like you said.

25:57Adam Schafer:I had my 70 plus year old clients deadlifting, all of them, every single one. We didn't start deadlifting. Yeah. But it was like,

26:03Sal Di Stefano:you probably started with a single leg toe touch. Yo.

26:05Adam Schafer:Which is where I started. and I would start them off on a rack and it was barely bending over. And eventually I got them to do full on deadlifts. And every single one of them was like, I can't believe how good my back feels. This is incredible. Anyway, we're going to change subjects. Off air, Adam. I love the things that Adam gets passionate about.

26:21Sal Di Stefano:You're talking about my soap? Yeah, dude. Hey, listen. First of all, are you still doing like three showers a day? I mean, I always have been that guy. So we had Caldara Lab today. He's just raving about the lather. We talk about all this stuff. All this stuff is great. Their skin stuff. Yeah, it's amazing. But their soap is one of my – like once I converted over to using soap, I've never used – I don't know how many years now it's been. I've never used another soap. It's the best bar soap ever. And I just can't believe you guys haven't got on board as – because it's a – It's the lather you keep raving about.

26:55Adam Schafer:It's just this really thick like –

26:57Sal Di Stefano:And I know your argument back to that is like you know that the lather has nothing to do with –

27:01Adam Schafer:It's the experience.

27:02Sal Di Stefano:It is. You're such an experienced guy with your bath bathing. There is – and I'm very aware of the – I'm aware of the shampoo game. I'm aware of the soap game. I'm aware of the toothpaste game.

27:14Adam Schafer:Are you smiling when you take a shower? Are you like, ah.

27:16Sal Di Stefano:Yes. To lather up and see myself. You know who would be the. Make a nice little bubble hat.

27:24Adam Schafer:Like little kids. You know who would be the ultimate. If you could sell Justin. Because I for sure. I guarantee you Justin uses dish soap. I guarantee. He just uses diesel. He does use diesel fuel. Or whatever that. Whatever's there. I just steal from Courtney. Whatever that shop soap is that you use to get greased off. Oh, yeah. The orange soap. It's like sandpaper-y. I'm totally using that.

27:50Sal Di Stefano:So before Caldera Lab, I've purchased your organic goods, like homemade soaps and stuff like that. And I like those. In fact, we used to get them, although they're ridiculously expensive when you buy like that, which is just crazy. But the one thing I've never liked about them is I feel like I'm scrubbing on my skin and I can't see any lather whatsoever. so i've always wanted the best of both words and i know that a lot of the crap the crappy stuff that's got all the chemicals and the bullshit to make the lather yeah is that no caldera lab so

28:18Adam Schafer:here's a question i want to ask you because you're also you also have sensitive skin because you have psoriasis yes uh and i know caldera lab like does it dry me out i was just gonna say because one of the things that they what they focus on is does this work with your skin does it balance out the microbiome or does it just strip your body or whatever so you you you say no it doesn't make

28:36Sal Di Stefano:no okay no it does not dry me out at all all right good i know it's like dermatologist tested and they're it's all plant-based and so it's all natural but that's what blows my mind is i've for the first time i've tried all kinds of natural soaps like i said i've never had one that lathers the way that does and it lathers better than any chemical soap that i tried in the past and so to me it's like i don't know how that doesn't doesn't fire you guys up the same way all right I'm just lazy on that. I use all of those. And I'm like, what do you use, Sal? I mean, I've never even heard you talk about what you use.

29:09Adam Schafer:Well, I don't, first of all, I don't even know. I don't think you wash your body. Why would I talk about that?

29:12Sal Di Stefano:I don't think you wash your body. I don't think you wash your body. I don't. I'm convinced. That's why you're oily. I'm Sicilian. I'm supposed to be oily, too. My skin makes natural oil. I think you use that. I think you use that. It's like a pull the race card. You know what I'm saying?

29:30Adam Schafer:here's why i don't talk about it i've never been in a conversation you're the only man i've ever met my entire life who in full-on conversation with dudes is like hey i took a bath yesterday the soap yeah like and i'm like part of me is kind of like i'm getting this is weird that's what are we talking about here it's a bold dude so that's why i never brought it up but yeah you soap dude okay but i'll get some of the caldera loud anyway i'm gonna change directions again dude there's a study that's going viral right now i'm gonna bring it up on uh male versus female concussion have you heard of that have you heard of this okay no i haven't interesting you bring that up okay so this is crazy so um so here's what the what the article says as long as we win cool you had to throw that in there women or girls are up to twice as likely to suffer concussions as their male counterparts when playing the same sports under the same rules various various studies show because we have thick skulls by the way really by the way the reason why this is crazy is because the force at which men hit each other or or hit the soccer ball or whatever is so much higher yeah so you would expect men to have higher rates thicker skulls or what no uh it's because uh that the way that our brains uh work and the way they handle um impact and the way they handle inflammation it seems to be a lot better uh in men than it is uh in women and so they're finding that there's those differences uh make a big difference i wouldn't even think that i said that but i wouldn't even think the thick skull would would help because it's really shakes the brain yeah your brain your brain slamming to the inside of your skull anyways no it's neck muscles brain micro architecture and the menstrual cycle you know what's funny

31:17Sal Di Stefano:about this it's like we evolved to battle and wars yeah here's the deal it's not neck muscles

31:24Adam Schafer:biology there although strong necks definitely can help um you know when you have two professional uh soccer player men hitting the ball or running into each other or any other sport or boxers the force at which we hit each other is so much higher that it doesn't make up the difference it's it's it's the brain micro architecture and so they're like you know probably because uh we evolved uh with more getting blasted just being a little more resilient to yeah with that kind of impacts yeah this is important to know though with uh sports yeah uh it's funny because my my daughter plays um lacrosse is that the one she plays lacrosse and i know in women's lacrosse they're not allowed to hit each other yeah like men's lacrosse no And I think some people would look at that and be like, what's the difference?

32:14Adam Schafer:I think it's smart. I didn't know that. Yeah. They have different rules. Yeah, they're not allowed to like physically. So in men's lacrosse, what are the rules? How can you guys? It's like hockey. Yeah, it's just like hockey. I mean, and you can stick check, but it's like you can't actively like hit above the head. Can you run into each other? Oh, yeah. You can run into each other.

32:32Sal Di Stefano:You can check. You can use your fighting. You can use your stick to it.

32:36Adam Schafer:Yeah, see, the girls aren't allowed to do that. Yeah. If you start doing that, they'll blow the whistle. And you can shoulder in. I mean, they're wearing pads, so it's all fair game. But yeah, I don't think the women wear shoulder pads. No, they wear – Yeah, it's just helmet, I think. They wear helmet. And maybe like glove pads. Oh, they don't, huh? Yeah, because they can check at the stick where the hands are, but they can't body check. So I can get the ball out of your stick with my stick unless I'm doing this wild swing, I think it is, like this overhead. Then they'll call it. But if you check each other – because I've seen this.

33:08Adam Schafer:my daughter plays and they'll sometimes run into each other they'll blow the whistle I dig it and they won't let them do that oh interesting

33:14Sal Di Stefano:yeah I was under the impression it was the exact same rules as hockey no and hockey allows the shoulder full you can do a check you can do what you can't do is check in the back in hockey hockey you cannot have a guy turn around and check him in his back but squared up you can check him the high sticking thing yeah it's encouraged so yeah if you're like you're coming like a tomahawk yeah and you can't you can't lift a stick above their head and come down so that that that'd be high so this brings up another question is that

33:42Adam Schafer:because there was this there was this article that everybody is so funny when i every time i saw this article posted i'd read the comments i'm like thank god nobody's buying this crap it was the one that said that gender differences don't matter if the man transitions and then he plays sports with women the performance of they're trying to make this crazy argument that nobody believed and none of the data actually supports we've moved on to that haven't we uh there's there's still It just goes against biological science. And I'm like, you know what? Different brain architecture. Okay. So now we're all playing the same sport.

34:10Adam Schafer:We're boxing. And I'm a dude, but I transition. We're going to punch each other in the head. There's a difference. There's a difference with how that affects us. Safety. There's a safety difference.

34:18Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. You bring up boxing. It's so interesting. Just last night, my uncle brought this up to me. When Muhammad Ali died, did you know who did his eulogy? No. Billy Crystal. Oh. I didn't know they were like super close friends. Oh, weird. Yeah, I had no idea. I watched it on YouTube. It was actually really good. If you ever have time to look up Billy Crystal does Muhammad Ali's eulogy. Yeah, totally random. I had no idea. He got his big break from Muhammad Ali. Another comedian couldn't come through. They were doing some award ceremony or something for Muhammad Ali. It was when Billy Crystal was like an unknown.

34:53Sal Di Stefano:Wow, really? Yeah, yeah, unknown. Somebody fell through. He happened to have a bit that he used to do, even though he was unknown. like and so he's like hey this someone recommend Muhammad Ali is one of my favorite I love old

35:06Adam Schafer:I don't watch boxing anymore but I like old boxing he's one of my favorites of all he does this great

35:12Sal Di Stefano:thing so I watched this first then I went down the rabbit hole a little bit then the next thing I watched was he does a uh he did this tribute uh when he was being I think inducted to the hall of fame or something he was still alive and it was called 15 rounds so Billy if you look up Billy crystal 15 rounds of uh muhammad ali and he does a full-on impression and it's 15 rounds on it's his life it's really good wow and he plays he and he he uh he imitates a famous uh um sportscaster and muhammad ali and so he does both the voices and it's a story of his his life and his fights

35:46Adam Schafer:have you ever seen the interview where mike tyson is on arsenio hall this will date me a little bit It was an old talk show. And Arsenio Hall, I think - Is this when he gets -

35:55Sal Di Stefano:Mike says something to him about being close to him or something like that? No, no. Oh, that's a different one. No, that was with -

36:00Adam Schafer:Was that P. Diddy was sitting next to him? Yeah, P. Diddy was next to him. And he picked up his hand and he moved it over? He was like trying to put his hand on his - No, but he asked Muhammad Ali - Sorry, he asked Mike Tyson - How would you do if you fought Muhammad Ali? And the reverence he had for Muhammad Ali. And Tyson doesn't - You ask him to fight anybody. Yeah. Especially back then, he'd be like, I'll kill him. Yeah. But he was like, oh, he's the greatest of all time. He had such a reverence.

36:20Sal Di Stefano:He was there at that event, too. You see him in the crowd when they do it. But yeah, it was a worthwhile watch. I thought it was really.

36:26Adam Schafer:You know what Muhammad Ali kind of pioneered in boxing? Or in all fight sports? Do you guys know what he pioneered? Because obviously he was a great boxer. He was trash talking. Yeah. Of course. Nobody did it. He's an ultimate hype man. Nobody did it before him. He was the greatest. Yeah. I mean, that's where that came from. He backed it up. That's the thing. You can't have that bravado and not back it up. Otherwise, you're just. That was his strategy against Sonny Liston. You know that, right? So Sonny Liston was dangerous and scary. And Muhammad Ali knew that if he got in his head, that he would just mess with him.

36:56Sal Di Stefano:Win the psychological war.

36:57Adam Schafer:And he just pissed him off so bad that Sonny Liston was off.

37:00Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, do yourself a favor and watch that. It's only like maybe 10 minutes or so. It's a short little watch, but super worth it. It was so well. I had no idea about that.

37:10Adam Schafer:You know, we missed this prime, right? We never got to see the best of Muhammad Ali, ever.

37:14Sal Di Stefano:I know. It was three years. he was in prison. Yeah, because he wouldn't go to work. I mean, you could argue that about Tyson too, right? Both him and Tyson spent some of their prime years of boxing in prison. Yeah, that's right. Well, Tyson did something. Well, I know.

37:27Adam Schafer:I'm not saying one of them was... His was a little less.

37:28Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I'm saying that we missed out. Two of the greatest fighters of all time, we missed out on some of their greatest years of boxing.

37:35Adam Schafer:If you're a boxing... If you never watched his Frazier fights, man, that is a war. Just watch those fights. They're super awesome. All right, I got this other study that's really interesting. So there was a study that was done asking women questions about attractiveness. So here's what the title of the study says. Cues of upper body strength account for most of the variance in men's bodily attractiveness. In other words, perceived strength accounted for or explained over 70 % of the variance in male bodily attractiveness. What do you mean by that? So when they're looking at bodies, which one's more attractive?

38:17Adam Schafer:Yeah, that was the determiner. 70 % of it was perceived strength. That's like the vast majority of it. Right. It wasn't anything else. It was like, for the most part. Not just your good looking face. It was just literally like, he looks stronger.

38:31Sal Di Stefano:Which is why. So he's more attractive. Where the beach muscle training came from too, where guys just hit chest and arms. Chest and biceps. Yeah, they're like. You're going all in on that 70%. That's it, that's it. You know what I'm saying? she ain't seen my back she don't know what a what a strong back looks like legs are up

38:48Adam Schafer:just chest and arms yeah so go go lift some weights if you want to increase your attractiveness level and make more money that's the other one i don't think they talked about that i mean you know

38:55Sal Di Stefano:you know me i used to joke about that all the time about being uh all show no go right just uh no no girl has ever asked me how much i bench press when i took my shirt off as long as i look

39:04Adam Schafer:like i bench press is what matter i was i was watching this i don't remember how i got it was like on my algorithm and this woman was sharing how uh how unattractive it was she was on it she was with this guy and i forgot i should show my wife this because i'm like is this true she's like she was talking about how she was with this guy and she saw him do something that every man in her life that she knew was good at but she saw him and he was bad at it and it immediately made her like not attracted to him what was that i feel like you said did you share this before no But I was thinking about this.

39:38Adam Schafer:If you grew up with dudes that could fix things around the house, like dad is good at it, my brother's good at it, then you get with this guy and then you see him swing a hammer and he's just like, doesn't know what he's doing. Just imagine how that would make you go, ooh.

39:51Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, right. I thought I saw something like that, but it was like - That's why I won't do housework. Oh, you know what it was? I shared this a long time ago. There was a funny clip. There's this great clip. I shared this on social media. Someone made this funny. it's a it's a guy and a girl and they're walking on the on the uh sidewalk together and they're holding hands and you know and she's like looking at him and it's like you could tell that they're in love and stuff like that and it's like got some funny music going or whatever and all of a sudden uh a ball like some two guys were like throwing a football in the street oh and it went and it lands at his feet yeah and uh and the guys like they make a hundred they do like a head nod like that he's like yeah like throw it and he looks and he picks it up and he's like because it's his

40:34Adam Schafer:left hand yeah and she's like yeah like into it because his right hand was holding her hand yeah yeah and he like he throws it it's like this don't do that terrible throw and the chick's like just kick it dude like at that moment she's like just let go of her hand and throw the ball that's the real move to try to throw with your left yeah yeah it was such a great i was talking to i won't say too much i won't call him out but a friend a family member and she was talking about how um she started dating uh this kid this guy so they're younger and uh she told me this like huge green flag so they were walking green flag it's a green flag okay so they were walking and she goes and we were walking on the sidewalk and i was on the outside towards the road he was on the inside and he switched he made me go on the inside oh yeah i went to and i'm like that's that's that's good old school chivalry yeah dude i'm like he knew that he knew to do that that's great appreciate it anyway um i want to talk about ashwagandha because um it's the one of the main ingredients in organifies green juice i have a friend of mine who has a high stress valuable job uh does this this saves lives basically and um it's just his job he tries to do everything he can to manage his stress but he's often tired and stuff just because of the the nature of his job.

41:56Adam Schafer:He does emergency work. And so it's just, it's a stressful job. He's been doing it for a long time. He's good at it. And so he was like asking me like, what are things I can do that'll help? So of course we talked about, you know, diet, exercise. We talked about sleep and those are things that he's aware of. And he's like, are there supplements that can help? And I'm like, the one with all the data is ashwagandha. And so he's a, he's a smart guy. So he looked up the data he comes back he's like i can't believe i'm not from i wasn't familiar with this yeah so he started using it uh regularly um and a couple weeks later he's like i can't believe i can't believe nobody told me about uh ashwagandha he's like it feels uh like life-changing for do

42:38Sal Di Stefano:you think that's the main thing in the green juice that people comment because it gets obviously i mean it was for the longest time i don't even know if it still is or not but for the longest time it's been Organifi's flagship product. I mean, that's what put them on the map. I remember our first experience with it. Up until that point, every green juice I tasted tasted like crap. It tasted amazing. Oh, yeah. Felt good.

42:58Adam Schafer:Normal green juices taste like if you mowed the lawn and then juiced it.

43:02Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Disgusting. And so, you know, it's obviously gotten tremendous reviews for such a long time. Do you think it's the ashwagandha that is the main? It's a big part of it. It has a lot of good things in it.

43:12Adam Schafer:So it's better than just taking ashwagandha because ashwagandha is great. It's one of the main ingredients. but it also has the micro greens in there, things like chlorella, spirulina, and other things that when you grind them up enough and you make them bioavailable, they just have all these benefits. They have all these digestive health benefits, anti-inflammatory benefits. They help with digestion. It just feels good. So it's like one of those like, can I improve? Is there a supplement I can take that will improve my body's ability to handle stress that's also good for me? And of course, this is a supplement, so it doesn't replace diet, sleep, and exercise.

43:49Adam Schafer:It's like, yeah, green juice. Green juice. Take that regularly. Yeah, I always thought it was a deficiency thing, but I think it is, too. It's the calming of it, like with the stress management of it, for sure. Totally. That's what I notice it the most. Yeah, when I like to use green juice, the most is when I'm traveling, because travel messes me up. If I'm traveling for the show, my sleep is off. Airplanes, I get motion sickness easy, so I'll get off the plane. I always feel kind of weird. and if I do the green juice it makes a big difference. Do you have any flights coming up? Are you flying anywhere anytime soon?

44:21Adam Schafer:We were talking about one well yeah we are going to Arizona. What is that? That's in June.

44:27Sal Di Stefano:That's in June. I fly before that. I got Miami.

44:31Adam Schafer:That'll be the biggest talk I've done for Mind Pump in terms of length and amount of people. So last year when you did the talk it wasn't the main stage? It was not the main stage last year. I thought it was. I thought it was too, Sal. Was last year my second time talking? Yeah, second time. Okay, so I was on the main stage.

44:49Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, because the first year you weren't, you had such great feedback. They got such great feedback that he put you on it. Now the difference between this year and last year. Now you're the opener. It's a new place. Yeah, so you were already though on the main stage. I mean, last year the crowd was big.

45:05Adam Schafer:Yeah, but this is a longer talk. Is it longer? Yes, they want me to speak for 35 minutes, I think. which that's not really i'm not worried about that i could talk for a long time 35 days we're confident because the last talk was 20 minutes i remember being like oh man i gotta make sure i cover this and as i'm talking there's a timer and i started realizing like i'm gonna run out of time i better get through my slides yeah type of deal so i'm excited i'm excited for

45:31Sal Di Stefano:that event i mean the fact that uh they rented like a whole place now right so they have it's huge bigger than the vegas one they had which that was huge the whole peptide space is insane

45:43Adam Schafer:it's going crazy right it's insane yeah yes it's getting so crazy it's so interesting um everybody there is a practitioner most people so people who use peptides in their practice so you're looking at like doctors nurse practitioners wellness practitioners um so a lot of the talks are really technical um like newest peptides combinations how you can identify which ones your patients need, that kind of deal. But of course, I'm not speaking of that. I'm going to speak to - Did you watch that clip I sent you last night?

46:14Sal Di Stefano:Which one? You didn't. That's a no. It's the only one I sent you last night. Which one? It's the only one I sent you. No, I didn't. What was it? Oh, I want you to look at that. I don't want to bring it up until you watch it because I want you to comment on it. It was our buddies, Jordy and his buddy. They were interviewing a pharma guy and a peptide bro.

46:33Adam Schafer:I was going to watch that. I forgot.

46:35Sal Di Stefano:It's short. something like minutes so it's it's not a long commitment so you know what happens if i open a

46:41Adam Schafer:text and then it doesn't look like it's for me then you go no it's not that important he's trying he's trying to tell me to work no that's not what it is if i open it my add is so bad right and then i don't have the thing that says uh you should read it very quickly i forget that it's there so what what i got to do and i do this sometimes is i'll remark it as unread we see that you saw it and didn't read it. You're like a kid.

47:05Sal Di Stefano:I got to hide the vegetables inside the stuff. I got to have to find ways to lie about it. Hulk pancakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to sneak the things I need him to read or listen to into something else. So I got to figure it out.

47:17Adam Schafer:But I am excited to speak to people who are using peptides because I think the conversation around how to use GLPs is so important. Oh, yeah. It's so. We can't remove the fitness and the nutrition elements. Dude, I'm seeing more and more people lose weight successfully because that's what they do on a GLP and come out with other problems.

47:43Sal Di Stefano:Oh, I mean, look at our colors now.

47:46Adam Schafer:Osteoporosis, osteopenia.

47:48Sal Di Stefano:It's rare that we do a week of colors and not at least two or three of them are not used one of the GLP ones. I mean, it's because now, and a lot of them had huge success, like you said, losing weight. But so many people are losing a ton of muscle at the same time. And so, I mean, this is really, we've been having this conversation for well over a year now, almost two years, when we first started talking about it. And I know I was really early on very pro. In fact, I used to argue for, I think it's going to be net positive, so it's going to be awesome. I'm back and forth now. uh we've seen enough people entirely dependent on the person their approach that's right it's entirely dependent on what else you do with it and unfortunately i don't have from what i'm seeing i've i've lost faith in people yeah so when i started and i think this is recently for me when i started to see it uh you know penetrate the circles of friends i had that i would have never guest would be using it uh is when i went oh wow so it's it's too cosmetic the reasoning and yeah it really shouldn't be a reason yeah and and i was i was really hyped on it when i saw it with the people that were 300 pounds and struggled their whole life to lose weight and it's like this was a and these people this was like a huge huge benefit to helping them quiet that noise and heading the i mean we've seen so many great success stories success stories around that as I started to see it introduced and being used by people I would have never guessed and then how they were using it, I was like, oh man, this is turning quickly.

49:31Sal Di Stefano:It's turning into anyone and everyone is like, hey, this is a quick way to lose 10 pounds of weight.

49:37Adam Schafer:It's almost like people's baseline now. It's like, well, yeah, I'm on this, but I'm also doing this. I'll predict this right now. I predict we're going to come out of an obesity epidemic into a frailty epidemic. I agree. I think you're right. is what's going to happen, which brings me to another topic, because what they're now doing, this is just, pharma does this, right? Big pharma does this because this is what they know to do. I don't necessarily think that there's bad intentions or evil, although sometimes I think that's the case. But what they do is they'll come out with an intervention, then that intervention will cause other problems, and then they come out, their goal is to come out with an intervention to solve the problems that the first one caused.

50:16Adam Schafer:This is just what they do. And so what you're seeing now is lots of uh money and research is beginning to pour into uh muscle building uh compounds and the direction they're going is myostatin inhibition so uh and we've known this for a long time like if when you take an animal and you genetically modify them so that they're you knock out the myostatin they just build tons of muscle like crazy amounts of muscle like it's silly how much muscle these animals uh build because they don't have this um this something called myostatin, which is essentially the brakes on muscle growth. So what they're doing is they're trying to come out with interventions that will inhibit myostatin because they're like, cool, we can combine this with a GLP.

50:58Adam Schafer:It'll solve the muscle issue because they lose muscle on there, but they won't because they're on this myostatin inhibitor. But I've been doing research on myostatin inhibitors, interventions. So knockout animals where they genetically modify them is a little different than what they would do with people. Obviously they're not going to, you know, you've got your genetics. So they would have to, they would have to inhibit it through different means. And I looked this up in the animal studies and here's some of the stuff that they end up finding in them, which is interesting. So when the animals build more muscle through myostatin inhibition, through an intervention, not genetically modified, but through an intervention, we see reduced muscle quality.

51:41Adam Schafer:And one of the things they noticed is what's called lower mitochondrial density. In other words, to put it differently, there is not a proportional increase in athletic performance and strength to the hypertrophy that they see. Useless muscle. So they build all this more muscle and athletic performance doesn't catch up to it or doesn't match it. And so they actually become less less non-functional meat to an extent.

52:07Sal Di Stefano:And I would argue too that this is a will end up compounding too because if you have somebody who cares just about aesthetics and this thing gives them the aesthetics that they want, why should I go to the gym and lift any more weights? You'll lose the good quality muscle from the little bit of whatever training you might have done during this time because now you have this intervention that gives you this kind of artificial looking muscle that's practically useless to you. We predicted this. You'll have obese muscular people. Yeah, exactly. Well over year ago we were predicting this and we talked to dr seeds about it yeah and i remember him saying that this is that would be good looking weak people um but that's it's like it's like gaining 15 pounds of muscle but you're not strong but when i look at the people that are taking it to my my point those are the people that would want that who don't care well my that would say like a big segment of people yeah it's like oh i look good i mean what a perfect like plastic surgery what a perfect segue how you start you yeah you perceived strength is what is the that's all people care is i i look stronger and fitter right and so i don't care if i have less or more mitochondrial health i don't care if i can do you know what weight or not weight do you know as i look like i can do

53:21Adam Schafer:you know what happens if you're heavier and you're not stronger you're worse yeah you're just heavier

53:25Sal Di Stefano:it's more stress stress is gonna add up yeah so so my point with this is is less of what you're

53:30Adam Schafer:saying because that's important i'm not saying that's not important that's for sure important And people are going to go down that path because they just look better, even though they're not better. But my point with this is it doesn't solve the problem, which is you're still going to have to strength train. You're still going to have to work out. You're on a myostan inhibitor, go work out still because we need it to be strong muscle. We need it to be functional.

53:48Sal Di Stefano:But what I'm saying is that it's going to be so much worse because one of the signals that motivates people to go to the gym, in fact, the loudest signal that motivates most clients that we all train is the mirror. Is the mirror.

54:01Adam Schafer:I know.

54:02Sal Di Stefano:I don't look good. I don't like the way I look. I would argue that 90 % of those people that hired me wouldn't have hired me if they had this artificial signal that said, I look pretty good, but I know I need to go to the gym. I know I need to go lift weights because that's healthy for me or better for me. Like, I don't give a shit. I look good.

54:16Adam Schafer:Here's the real question. Would you trade health to look better? And the answer for most people is yes. They do it all the time.

54:23Sal Di Stefano:Or they would say no, but deep down they would.

54:25Adam Schafer:Well, their actions tell you the truth.

54:27Sal Di Stefano:I think a lot of people would say no.

54:29Adam Schafer:I mean, if you look at the risky procedures and surgeries and things that people do. Totally. In pursuit of looking better. Yeah. They want to portray that they have all those qualities, but then that's where we get to test it. Well, here's my prediction. Oh, less mitochondrial density? Here, let's add this other thing that's going to increase mitochondrial density. Right. And let's figure out this other intervention. Now you're on 17 different. And it's like, you got to work out, dude. You got to work out. fatty 15 is a fatty acid supplement that contains the newest fatty acid that's being shown in studies to have tremendous health benefits c15 there's over a hundred studies that show that c15 can slow down biological aging reduce inflammation make you healthier at the cellular level it's amazing it's definitely something people are going to benefit from supplementing with.

55:22Adam Schafer:No, it's not fish oil. It's a totally different type of fatty acid. I've been taking it for a while. I noticed less inflammation myself and I'm already a healthy guy. So it definitely works. Go check them out. Go to fatty 15.com forward slash mind pump. You can get an additional 15 % off your 90 day subscription starter kit. If you use the code mind pump back to the show. Our first caller is Mike from Switzerland. What's up, Mike? How you doing, Mike? Hey guys, how's it going? Good, how can we help you? Yeah, well, I got to tell you guys have helped me out a ton listening to the podcast. It's been super helpful with everything.

56:00So thanks for that, for sure. But yeah, a little background. I'm a 43-year-old American living in Switzerland. Moved here about 10 years ago as my wife. We have two young kids. And I've always been a bit overweight my whole life, even as a kid. I've been relatively active overall, but never really worked out on a regular basis until about 18 months ago. And started consuming information, fell into your guys' podcast and started to kind of dial in my routine and diet based off the advice you guys give. And it's been really pretty fantastic. I lost about 50 pounds. So I'm 5 '7", I'm down to 165, really feeling quite good.

56:39Couldn't be really more happy about the whole thing, but hasn't been without some challenges. and so what I want to ask you guys about was the first issue which about six months into this about a year ago I had a herniated disc in my cervical spine which resulted in some pain in my shoulder and arm I worked on it with the physio and he said basically the doctor thought it was due to looking at a computer screen and bad posture so we worked on that and after about three months got back into lifting again but my left tricep was really weak after all of that and so I took your guys advice. I've been running math anabolic.

57:11I've done it a couple of times, basically as written. And I basically just shifted everything to unilateral instead of bilateral and let that left arm dictate the work. And I got to say it definitely came back strong. And my left arm is stronger than before the injury, but the right arm, I'm still a new lifter is also getting stronger. So there's still a significant imbalance. Also, my arms are kind of a stubborn body part. My calves are about 16 inches and the arms are barely 13. Uh, and then the last piece to throw on top before asking your advice is I fell off my bike and broke a couple of hands to my bones in my hands the other day.

57:46So that's the same hand that the arm that has the problem. So now I'm going to be sidelined for another three months. So any advice, um, as far as dealing with the hand and overall, just dealing with the imbalance I have with that arm and the nerve issue would be greatly appreciated. So thanks for the advice.

58:01Adam Schafer:Keep doing what you're doing. Uh, so what you were doing is perfect and stay at it. I don't know how bad the nerve damage is. Uh, and if it's, if there's going to be any lingering issues, but the way that you're training unilaterally and starting with the weaker arm is exactly where the right direction. Uh, if you want to build, uh, or, or develop a lagging quote unquote lagging body part, the prescription is, uh, to build more muscle overall. So you're going to increase your calories, hit your protein. And then what you would do is you would move volume away from body parts that you feel like are pretty well developed and kind of add it towards the lagging body parts so if a if a program calls for you know nine total sets for biceps during the week and let's say you're very satisfied with your chest uh and you know it's calling for 12 sets for the chest you could take three sets off that and put it to the arms um and then just stay consistent and that's it you look great dude Doug just pulled up uh your

58:57Sal Di Stefano:your transformation. You look great. Yeah. You did a great job. Doing a really good job. Where are your, where are your calories at? Just curious. You know, I don't get too crazy about all the tracking and things. I can tell you one thing. If I do try to actually track for a day and I'm in the like 2 ,500 range, I'm like super hungry. So I got to guess some, somewhere around 3000 on average.

59:19Adam Schafer:Oh, nice. Good. Nice. No, you're doing good. Yeah. But yeah, I, I, you know, make sure that first couple of meals of the day, I try to get to at least 100 grams of protein and I just don't get too crazy about the diet other than, you know, getting away from starches, focusing on protein and focusing on fiber and veggies. But other than that, I don't get too crazy with it. I just kind of let it, let it kind of dictate where it's going to fall and go from there.

59:41Sal Di Stefano:You're healthy, dog.

59:42Adam Schafer:You just got to stay consistent. Yeah. You just stay consistent, dude, and follow our programs and do the little, little volume swap. Uh, so a little bit more arm work, a little less, whatever you think is doing great work. So if it's with your legs or your back or your chest or whatever, and that's pretty much it. Just stay consistent and you'll see the things, you'll see the lagging body parts start to develop.

1:00:02Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, feed yourself. If you're hungry, give yourself food. Keep eating the way you are, but don't deprive yourself. Continue to fuel the workouts and try and get strong and get stronger. Maybe, I mean, maybe switch up the programming if he's ran anabolic that many times in a row. uh maybe you have any of our other maps programs no i got that one used it i liked it and then i've been kind of just tweaking it based off the overall advice that you guys give yeah um but you know i'd be open to trying something else if you thought that it would

1:00:33Adam Schafer:make sense you know symmetry symmetry sounds like yeah you're making adjustments like that yeah symmetry is right along the lines of what you need to do anyway right we'll send that to you

1:00:44Sal Di Stefano:okay but you're doing good dude that's it man and obviously you gotta let the hand recover I mean, that's obvious, right? Oh yeah. I just, do you have any advice on that as far as obviously like grip strength is going to be kind of last. So I'm not going to be able to do any deadlifts for a while. Is there anything in that other than obviously I wait for the doctor to tell me I can do things, but do you have any advice generally about dealing with that? Do you use peptides? I don't, I'm generally not really interested in going crazy with, with any of those kinds of items. I do use creatine regularly and I focus on eating the protein, but other than that, I don't, um, substitute, uh, supplement.

1:01:20Adam Schafer:Yeah. I, you know, keep exercising what you can, uh, because that'll actually help with the atrophy in your hand. Uh, and that's pretty much it. Then you gotta just wait, wait till it heals. Okay. I know some people use like straps and things for grip and you guys generally say not to do that because it weakens your grip overall, which you recommend just waiting till the hand can deal with it. Or would you say that in this case, how extensive is the, is the break like what are you able to do with that hand yeah so it broke the um the fourth and fifth metacarpal and i had to have surgery and there's five screws in a plate on one bone and there's wires in the other bone so my guess is it's going to be three to four months and then after that it should be fine i think so here's the risk so the risk is if you use straps uh you're gonna have to really not use your grip.

1:02:10Adam Schafer:What you don't want to do is cause any healing issues. Especially with screws and wires. If you move things out of place, you'll be setting yourself for another surgery in the future. So you've got to be really careful. I know it's a pain in the butt because you've got to wait. And straps take some of the load off, but not all of the load. Now there are hooks. You can use hooks that pull at the wrist, but I don't know how much pressure that'll place on the metacarsals, even from here. So I would just be really careful because you want the healing to be good. You don't want a screw to be poking out.

1:02:47Adam Schafer:You don't want the bone to be misaligned because then what'll happen is you'll be like, cool, I'm good. And then you're going to have all kinds of problems later on. And that is a pain in the ass to have to continue to operate. Hands are just, you don't want to operate.

1:02:58Sal Di Stefano:It's a short phase of your life to be down and then you'll be right back versus trying to risk that. I mean, you could get creative with like ankle cuffs that you put around your wrist and be like cable machines and do things like that. But it's like I would just let yourself. Real slow articulations and just isometric, you know, type of work is, you know, but very gradually working your way back. Yeah. Okay. So you basically suggest wait, just wait it out. Yeah, that's right. And then go back to what I was doing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Then you don't run the risk of re-injuring. Yep. Makes sense.

1:03:32Sal Di Stefano:Your body will bounce right back. I mean, we always worry about, oh, I'm going to lose all that muscle. It'll bounce right back real fast. Way faster than it was to get it. Sounds good. All right. Well, I appreciate the advice, you guys. And I really enjoy the show and everything. It's been super helpful. Before I started this 18 months ago, I never in my life thought I actually could get in shape. Even in high school, I ran track and I was pretty flabby. So understanding what you have to actually do to get in shape is just so easy once you know what to do. It's amazing. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

1:04:09You're in a great place, bro. Keep it up, Mike.

1:04:12Adam Schafer:all right have a good day thank you i mean a pretty uh pretty simple straightforward uh advice um he's doing the right stuff i think symmetry would be a perfect program you didn't want to

1:04:21Sal Di Stefano:follow up you didn't want to push bpc over there huh he's he doesn't want to touch well yeah he's uninterested just lack of knowing what it is though i said people you know why people think you think you're injecting like some sort of a hormone or something that's like you know you

1:04:35Adam Schafer:He can also do oral BPC, but he's also in Switzerland. And I don't think they're available.

1:04:42Sal Di Stefano:Let that up, Doug. What's the regulations?

1:04:44Adam Schafer:First of all, here it's kind of iffy. We can get a doctor prescription here, but it's still, you know, FDA tries to on and off. They just let it go through again. When you're talking about like socialized medicine, they're even more of a pain in the ass with that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you can buy peptides in Switzerland for research, laboratory, or pharmaceutical. Yeah, so it's research purposes. So he's going to have to go to the gray market. But he's like, he's right out the gate. No, I know.

1:05:10Sal Di Stefano:I mean, when you talk about something speeding up the healing process, I mean, if that's something you're open.

1:05:16Adam Schafer:BPC, Thymus and Beta. Cut that time in half.

1:05:19Sal Di Stefano:If it's three months, you're talking about a month and a half. That's what I would do. Yeah, I mean, so would I. So that's why I brought it up. But I don't want to push him on it. But it's also, I think a lot of times people just think it's something more than what it really is.

1:05:30Adam Schafer:Our next caller is Mercedes from British Columbia. Hi Mercedes. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? How can we help you? So I'll kind of go through my questions so that you guys can get a full gist of it. I'm 5 '1". I'm about 102 pounds, 21 % body fat. I've been stuck at this weight for a few years now. I train with your course Muscle Mommy. My lifts have all increased, but my actual gym body scans that I've been getting have said that I have not gained a single pound of muscle at all in the past about three years, but all of my lifts have gone up. I can do 12 unassisted pull-ups, but I still haven't gained any muscle somehow.

1:06:18I strength train only. I don't do anything else, no cardio or anything like that. I'm sitting most of the day for my job and I eat 2 ,800 calories a day at least. Wow. Yeah. So I'm getting like at least 140 grams of protein per day, like 95 grams of fats a day. Now I'm, I've upped it to 3000 calories a day, which is really pushing it for me. I don't really know how my future is going to be sustainable because the more muscle mass put on them, more metabolism, you know, so I'm just going to be eating more and more and more food. And I just, I don't know if I can eat any more food at this point.

1:06:55So I was just wondering what you guys thought that i could do to help with this well what do you what first of all what do you want

1:07:01Sal Di Stefano:because you're in such an amazing place right now that many calories the body fat percentage you're at the height weight strength strength i mean what do you want what do you what's what are your goals gain more muscle i want to get to weight i want to get to like 110 one day you know okay okay

1:07:18Adam Schafer:wow yeah you're so and you probably look you probably look like a little jack chick in the gym. You're doing well. I think you just got to be patient, hon. Yeah, just stay patient because I could, look, you could force it. What are your lifts at? Tell us about your lifts. You should do a 12 pull-ups, bro.

1:07:33Sal Di Stefano:I heard that. I can do like doing 5x5s. I can bench press about 75 pounds. That's solid. What's your deadlift squat look like? What's my deadlift? Well, I usually do RDLs. So I can do

1:07:53like 150 for like 12.

1:07:57Adam Schafer:Wow. For RDLs? Wow. Squats are pretty quad dominant, so I don't usually squat too much. So I usually do like one leg or like hack squat or stuff like that. But the actual machine weighs like 135 and I'm putting like 245s on it. So my lifts are like pretty up there. Hello strong. Yeah, you're really strong. Yeah. let's get how far muscle or something like i'm not a farmer no no no listen you're doing well so okay so what's uh um your health deep into muscle mommy are you i've gone through it a few times but i've changed a few of the exercises just because i didn't really like okay you want to follow mass power lift yeah i could definitely try that let's do you think yep i do let me put on maps power lift now look you could try forcing this and what that's gonna look like is eating 3200 calories 3300 calories 3500 calories she already takes a mass gainer you're already taking a weight gainer you're yeah you're petite uh and and here's what'll happen you're gonna start trading things like gut health for weight on the scale and i don't think that's a good trade i

1:09:10Sal Di Stefano:definitely think you can swap your chicken breast for chicken thighs though so do yeah i'm doing now even though I kind of think chicken thighs are kind of disgusting. No, really? Oh, my God. You're so backwards on that. Do you like ground beef? Yeah, what about beef? I eat it all the time. Lots of ground beef. Okay. Yeah, enjoy some ribeyes and tri-tip. Like, fattier cuts of meat would be a way for you to creep the calories up without feeling like you're having to stuff yourself. You take creatine? Yeah, I do. Five grams a day.

1:09:39Adam Schafer:You're doing everything right. Yeah. Just stay consistent. Yeah. Be patient. How old are you? 26. Yeah, you're young too. So just stay patient. Stay consistent. You're going to slowly continue to build muscle. You've already got a lot of muscle. You're obviously very strong.

1:09:55Sal Di Stefano:I'm so impressed. Are you getting activity outside of your lifts in? Because you're a truck driver. Yeah. So you're somewhat sedentary? I mean, you don't really want... Holy shit. You have a crazy metabolism. Yeah, I seriously do. Yeah, no.

1:10:13Adam Schafer:stay consistent and you're going to do great you again you could force it i don't think you're going to like the way it feels you're probably already feeling like you're eating a tofu like i've tried drinking masking before i go to bed or like eating late at night and then i wake up in the morning i'm so sick yeah i'm like worth it no because i'm like throwing up or whatever so uh can i go like over my like fat intake yes yeah yeah definitely definitely yeah you can throw olive oil on stuff you can eat fattier cuts of meat absolutely yeah yeah so like let's say if I'm like 50, 30, 20, like for macros, like, can I go like higher in my fats and like lowering carbs to help get more calories?

1:10:49Adam Schafer:I mean, if, if you want, or you can just keep everything the same, the same and just bump your fats. Yeah.

1:10:54Sal Di Stefano:You can afford more calories, obviously. So don't even drop your carbs, keep your carbs with their out. Just add more fat.

1:11:00Adam Schafer:You know, it's easy to do a easy way to do that. You eat vegetables. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. You throw some olive oil on it. Okay. Yeah.

1:11:08Sal Di Stefano:Olive oil, butter, peanut butter, rice, put some butter

1:11:11Adam Schafer:on your ice like that's the easy way to add a few hundred calories yeah okay yeah and that make me like gain lots of fat or anything like that no obviously not no no where you're at your

1:11:21Sal Di Stefano:metabolism is so on fire that it you're it's you're here's the deal you have so here's the

1:11:26Adam Schafer:deal when you're hitting adequate protein which you are you're eating 140 grams you only weigh 100 pounds uh you can bumping calories at that point is fat and carbs it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't matter it doesn't really matter uh so yeah go ahead throw olive oil throw some butter on there um i'm gonna advise that you don't try to force this and just yeah just stay consistent follow mass power lift get strong yeah have fun with it and you'll you'll you'll keep gaining muscle yeah okay so should i be like believing my scans that i've been getting at the gym no

1:11:56Sal Di Stefano:i wouldn't even you're you're just you've told me enough already with your macros your strength numbers or like that that like you're you're doing perfect i wouldn't get hung up on what that shit says yeah yeah okay yeah just keep just keep getting stronger in the gym and and that's going to and keep pushing those calories comfortably uh and and that's going to serve you and and know this too you're you're you are 26 you still have many years of gains ahead of you yeah yeah yeah i mean yeah i mean my best physique didn't happen until my 30s and so yeah so you you still you still have gains ahead of you so just be consistent keep doing the thing and you're going to continue to build.

1:12:38Sal Di Stefano:You will. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate it. Good job. Yeah, we'll send you a power lift. Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you. I'll be great to see you guys. Me too.

1:12:48Adam Schafer:Every once in a while. That's crazy. I guarantee you. Bro. I guarantee you. She's got to look jacked. She probably looks like. I want to see a picture of her, Doug. She probably looks like a gymnast. I couldn't find her.

1:12:58Sal Di Stefano:She has to. She probably looks like one of those gymnasts. She has to. Yeah. You cannot sit in a truck all day long. and only be 5 '1 and 100 pounds and eat 3 ,000 calories and not be like. It's just an anomaly.

1:13:14Adam Schafer:She says she has visible abs at 21 % body fat, which tells me she's got good muscle. Yes. And here's the deal. And this doesn't happen that often. Typically, we're working with people who are struggling getting leaner or women who are afraid to eat more. But when you're working with someone who's trying to build muscle and they're already eating a lot, I mean, you can definitely force it, but there comes a point where it's not worth it.

1:13:37Sal Di Stefano:No, I mean, that's how you and I both got gut issues. That's right. I mean, that's exactly how we got gut issues, was trying to push so hard of getting bigger. Making yourself sick. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. No, she just keeps doing it. She's still young, 26. Yeah. And we didn't ask her when she started lifting, but I mean, say she started in her...

1:13:54Adam Schafer:She's going to, I mean, up until she's in her 30s, she's going to be building some muscle. Yeah. Our next caller is Jesse from Australia. Hey, what's up, man?

1:14:02Sal Di Stefano:How you doing, Jesse? What's going on? Hey, how you doing boys? How the fuck are we? How you doing, brother? How are you? Good, good. Fuck, I'm so excited. Sorry, I'm just fucking, this is crazy.

1:14:12Adam Schafer:How can we help you, man? Shit, okay. Like, about 10 weeks ago, I agreed to fight boxing. I was doing it once a week. It's like a PT thing. I liked the skill. And then to get back into it, did it for about six months, fell off for about a year and a half. Weights was always consistent, but wanted to come back to it because I really enjoyed it. Like the, I don't know, I guess progression every week, I'm getting better. And yeah, then my coach was like, you should fight. And I was like, ah, I know. And he's like, we got a fight night. You should do it. And I was like, ah, shit, okay. So I agreed to it.

1:14:55That's when I sent the question. So that was about eight ish weeks ago. So the fight is literally next Saturday, not this Saturday, but next Saturday. Yeah. So it was more, the question was more about like training for it. And I guess how I do everything else at the time I thought I'd have to cut weight. I'm about 70. I was at the time, like 71, 72 kilos. Now I'm at 69. The cap weight was at 72. so we're both good me my opponent are both good we both train at the same gym we spoke to each other so um we're both good weight wise don't need a cut or sweet uh yeah so i don't know so i guess the the question sort of now gone to i don't know how do i keep training weights wise if i want to also keep doing boxing because i really fucking enjoy it it might not be three days a week like i am now because i'm sparring a couple times a week and doing skills one-on-one and stuff like that and i've dropped my weights down to uh twice a week and i'm doing maps performance and dance and i'm in the second phase for more like speed power explosiveness stuff like that and it's um you know i just thought two days a week don't go crazy but keep it there so i got the speed i got the power everything else is cardio and boxing focused for boxing um yeah so fucking don't change a thing bro you're killing it how many days

1:16:23Sal Di Stefano:two days a week you're gonna keep boxing two days a week no no he's trained two days a week strength training right yeah yeah yeah but yes but yeah okay right you're doing three days a

1:16:32Adam Schafer:week now leading up to the fight what do you plan on doing after the boxing um honestly i don't know i don't know because this is like a i wasn't really planning on fighting so this is like a i'm scared to do it i should do it one of those things you know you should always do something that you don't want to fucking do every now and then. But yeah, so I would like to keep going with it. But of course, me and my body dysmorphia brain are like, nah, I need to be like as big as possible. You know, I need to keep doing the weights. But I really enjoy it. And, you know, like seeing like, you know, like Sal, your series and stuff and talking about like your, you know, your issues with like, you know, the weights and trying to be as big as possible and all that kind of stuff.

1:17:17Like I was always like a lot skinnier than I am now. The start, the photo of me holding a lightsaber is, is proof that you guys see that they might show you that. Um, that's when I was like 18, like barely touched the weight. So, um, and I have other photos too. There's an SG in there for you, Justin. Um, but yeah, so it's, it's good to challenge that as well. Like I, I, as well as, you know, um, being self self-conscious about that kind of stuff can um really fuck with shit and uh that's annoying it also it's good for staying consistent and you know motivation is temporary but discipline is forever which is great but at the same time you know at some point you gotta let go of that stuff and just fucking do what makes you happy as well it's good it's good to be strong and fit and all the other stuff but um yeah well jesse if you're if you're eating right you're getting good

1:18:14Adam Schafer:sleep you seem like you're fit healthy guy give yourself four days a week and then and then you could you could you could trade train those four days a week how you want so if it's two days boxing it's two days lifting if it's three days boxing it's one day lifting if it's three days lifting it's one day boxing and then it's up to you what you want what you enjoy doing and that's what it'll look like cool awesome um yeah sweet if i can that's just so cool god damn i like the

1:18:39Sal Di Stefano:idea of you boxing because of your self-awareness around um the body image stuff which uh i can relate to sal can relate to the guys can relate to that uh keeping you focused on like a sport like that is a healthier relationship with exercise in my opinion and so i think it's a good a good way to have checks and balances and you look badass bro i mean yeah no you're you look you look great so and you're moving and obviously if you're boxing you're moving well too so um You know, I regret losing basketball. You know, that's something that I wish I was still playing right now. And so if it's something that you can keep going and keep doing, I'd keep boxing.

1:19:20Sal Di Stefano:Even if it's not at the level of fighting somebody, at least doing it because you love to do it for as long as you can. That's right. Yeah, yeah. No, I used to play Aussie footy and then that stopped because of COVID and all that kind of stuff. but I played from like literally, I don't know, maybe like Auskick or like whatever it is for you guys, like peewee football. Yeah. You know, like as you're like four or five years old, all the way up until like, you know, maybe like I was 24, almost 25. So that just got like too fatiguing. I just don't. And also I go for a shit football team. We haven't won a premiership in like 30 years.

1:19:56So I'm just like, you know, don't go for Carlton if you go for a football team. Also, maybe please do, please. We need more supporters. But, yeah, so that was like a, that was a, yeah, that was a big part of my life, and then that's sort of gone. But it's weird to just sort of like not have the passion anymore, but that was like, boxing is something else that I found it in. Yeah.

1:20:22Adam Schafer:Boxing is a really good check and balance for how you feel with strength training. It really is because you get too big and bulky, you'll feel it in the boxing. You know, boxing requires a nice level of stamina. I like the mix. I think it's great. And then it's up to you what your mix looks like throughout the week. You know, if it's once a week or two or three days a week with lifting. And they work well together. Yeah, they do.

1:20:44Sal Di Stefano:And throughout the year, you can toggle the focus. So it's like half the year, you're heavy in the boxing. And so it looks like three days a week of training in that and only one day of lifting. And then you're like, all right, I've been boxing for a while. I kind of want to get big again. And then you switch back to three days of lifting and only one day of boxing. uh so i like that kind of rule of stay within this like four days of kind of intense type of training and be toggling between whatever your focus is uh leaning that way and then if you want to balance you split it down the middle totally yeah awesome fuck yeah no that's cool that's so good um there's one one small other thing yeah uh because my sleep is usually uh decent i put a lot of effort into my sleep routine especially like blue light blocking glasses all that kind of crap and you know like devices and all that shit but staying asleep is another thing because I'm a very light fucking sleeper I sleep with my missus in bed obviously but we also have two dogs whenever they move I'm up if they get up in the middle of the night I'm up is there anything you guys recommend on deep sleeping I do have an eight sleep that I bought off a mate which has been amazing for staying cool because I just fucking run hot all the time but in terms of actually staying in deep sleep i haven't checked my sleep before i got like six and a half hours but i woke up like five times during the night so it's like

1:22:09Adam Schafer:you could try yeah so you could try uh glycine theanine magnesium magnesium before bed and then white noise or earplugs okay some people do really well with that like like the white noise just keeps them asleep uh or the soft earplugs that you put in your ear and then you're you're good I don't. I do that. You do that? Yeah, earplugs. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I think I might have to. Yeah, dude. It's because then your dog moves and stuff, and you don't register it while you're sleeping.

1:22:38Sal Di Stefano:If you haven't tried Brain FM, I mess with that too. I'm more of a Brain FM guy than I am the earplug guy. I listen to Brain FM every night. Oh, cool. There you go. Oh, nice. And then mess with, like Sal said, the supplements. I do the same stack he just said, and I sip on some chamomile tea. That's kind of my routine, before I wind down before bed helps out.

1:22:59Adam Schafer:By the way, sometimes waking up a lot in the middle of the night means you're training a little too hard. Just an FYI. So another thing you can experiment with is reducing the volume of your training. And then if your sleep improves, then you know that was the issue. Yeah, shit.

1:23:17Hey, good luck on your fight, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'll put a picture. I've actually made cards like fight posters as well, which I wasn't expecting so there's actually that as well picture of my dogs, picture of my missus I don't know you guys have just been such a massive big fucking part of my life obviously with the fucking one pump hat

1:23:39Adam Schafer:I appreciate that man dude like I just like I don't know I found you guys like as soon as COVID hit you had like clips and stuff recommended on like YouTube shorts and I was like fuck this is perfect like you know podcast only about fitness but it's actual good shit and these guys are all jacked too um you know so it makes sense yeah uh yeah you guys have changed like the way i think about everything like to all my friends like i'm the fitness person obviously but like they come to me for advice but i feel like i can actually give proper advice because i've listened to almost every single old episode you guys have done and like almost every single new one um and listen to that many live calls i feel like i can also just fucking be like no you should do this and like focus on that and that's great body you know so appreciate thank you yeah thank you guys so much thank you so much appreciate the support brothers dude yeah good luck man go whoop his ass thanks boys yeah all right dude that's cool he's doing great yeah yeah it might you know it might be that he's pushing the limit a little bit with his training uh and that's just the common thing if you're a young man or you know you're fit and you get that kind of wake up throughout the middle of the night.

1:24:48Adam Schafer:Could be that. Could also be that you're a light sleeper. Some people's brains register noise and it brings them out. And earplugs. Is that you too? Yeah, it makes a difference. So, but he's doing good. Our next caller is Salvador from California. Hey, what's up, man? What's up, dude? Hey, how's it going, guys? Doing good. All right. How can we help you? I'll just read the question. I got a little lost. All right. So, I said, Hi, fairly new listening to the podcast. looking into getting a workout program. I need a little help choosing. I did football and wrestling in high school. Graduated 2015.

1:25:25Graduated at 220 pounds. After a couple of years, I went up to 280 or 290. 2018, I lost 60 pounds in about six to eight months doing just like HIIT workouts and like a mile and a half runs. And then during the pandemic, I kind of gained it all back. I was getting free money and Postmates was there.

1:25:56And November 2025, I was at 282 again. And since I've dropped to, when I sent the email, I was at 258 around there. I'm currently at 248. but I kind of hit a plateau like a really bad plateau around 255 I was stuck there for a couple months and I've still been floating at that weight haven't really dropped too much my current my goal is to drop to 220 by July I'm trying to compete in a 50 kilometer mountain bike race in October and I want to be in that weight range that way I can kind of ride the bike a little easier up hills and down hills uh at the moment i'm eating 180 grams of protein a day uh around 17 to 2 000 calories daily uh my workouts are like 30 minute cardio and then five minute jump rope and then i'll do like four compound workouts uh doing my workouts and i'll do two to three times a week yeah you're starving you're starving yourself you're too little way

1:27:08Sal Di Stefano:Way too little. Way too little. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And how dead set are we on this mountain bike challenge? Well, that's in October. No, it's in – Yeah, it's in October. It's in October. Yeah, it's October. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Because, yeah, I wouldn't even want you focusing on that right now. You need to build. We need to build muscle right now, and you're not going to do that at 1 ,700, 2 ,000 calories.

1:27:32Adam Schafer:Well, here's the deal. If you want to get down to 220 by October and lose body fat, you're going to have to eat more now. you're not going to cut now so you could still train work out, do everything that you're doing but build into a leaner physique because there's nowhere to go your calories are so low, if I cut you more you're going to have just a total decrease in performance you're going to lose muscle I would immediately bump you up to about 2400 calories 25 at least right out the gates and just keep working out and what you're going to notice is more energy more strength You're going to start to feel better and stay there for a little while.

1:28:09Adam Schafer:And then when everything feels good, you'd bump it up again.

1:28:11Sal Di Stefano:What I'd want to hear from you and what we should see after you go to that 2 ,500 is relatively quick. We should start to see your lifts in the gym go up. Which also, too, I want to give you a program of ours. And I want to make sure I tell this that you need to rest between. so the way you've lost the weight in the past with hit training and running is the opposite philosophy of what you've probably heard us communicate and talk about so when i give you maps anabolic to follow you need to rest for a minimum of two and a half to three minutes between sets so you gotta you gotta sit still no doing shit like crazy or not like oh i'm ready to go and go right into it you need to rest and your goal is to put more weight on the bar more weight on the bar week over week.

1:28:58Sal Di Stefano:So the first thing that I should see is strengths go up significantly in all the big compound lifts that you've been doing. That should be the first thing we notice. Second thing we're going to notice is appetite increase, and I want you to feed it. So if you're already at 2 ,500 and you actually start to notice you're getting hungry and strength is going in the gym, I actually want you to go up in calories again. That's your metabolism starting to kick up and your body wanting to build muscle. And where you're at calorie-wise with the amount of activity and the size you are is not enough calories to build 10 pounds of muscle on your body and we need to build 10 pounds of muscle stick to clean food keep eating whole foods

1:29:34Adam Schafer:uh and just feed yourself while you get stronger bro by the way you're not just going to notice a jump in strength your endurance is going to go up too by bumping your calories yeah everything yeah you're you're not taking enough enough energy uh guy your size to do to have any kind of good athletic performance what you're noticing right now is like your body's surviving yeah that's why it doesn't want to lose any body yeah yeah that's why it's hit a plateau it's hit a hard plateau because it's like we can't we can't go 24 2500 calories right now you stay there for a while you'll feel good then you go up another 200 calories and then then probably three months before october you'll probably get yourself up to about 3 000 32 3300 calories by that point and then you want to do a cut you go down to 2500 calories and you'll just call us back in three months

1:30:15Sal Di Stefano:do what we're telling you to do right now we're going to give you anabolic bump to 2500 if you get hungry go up to 2700 focus on getting strong get those long rest periods and then in three months i we should we should have shown you a significant difference by that advice alone and then we'll give you the advice from there to get ready for your your your 50k mountain bike thing got it does that sound cool does that sound cool yeah it sounds good all right let's do it let's do it thanks man all right thank you guys yeah i like what justin said with the just kidding yeah nice job i mean bro he's way too low no bro way too your body is is holding on for

1:31:00Adam Schafer:dear life to every bit of stored energy when you're working out that much and your calories are that low you're that big of a guy you know he's too what do you say he's at 200 he's 248 yeah he's 248 big dude and he's doing cardio he's doing a lot of working out uh he's eating enough to just to hold on to everything there's nothing's gonna happen so yeah i know it's a lot that's it look if you like the show come find us on instagram it's mind pump media thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com.

1:31:39The 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. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now, plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family.

1:32:26We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.