2868: Every Lifter Should Do This at Least Once — The Case for Powerlifting

29 May 2026 · 1 h 6 min · 28 chapters

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In short

The hosts argue that powerlifting-style training (bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press) should be done at least occasionally by most lifters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain, fat loss, or general fitness. They claim powerlifting is technique- and skill-focused, improves programming quality, and provides objective progress via strength.

Guests

No guests are featured; the episode is hosted by Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. (They reference listener questions and personal client stories.)

Key claims

  1. Powerlifting programming is movement-based (not “leg day/chest day”) and emphasizes skill, leverage, and central nervous system adaptation.
  2. Powerlifters use the safest, most biomechanically advantageous techniques because they must maximize performance.
  3. Strength is an objective metric: if you’re getting stronger, sleep/macros/training are likely on track.
  4. Powerlifting can reduce mirror/scale obsession and help with reverse dieting.

Notable examples

  • Justin’s high school weightlifting class emphasized form and bench/squat/power clean.
  • A recovering anorexic client improved by focusing on getting strong rather than weighing herself.
  • A “basic lifts” vs “advanced” programming comparison (Bret Contreras post) supporting fewer exercises for better physique results.
  • Justin’s anecdote: focusing on squats after a knee dislocation led to ~13 lb muscle gain.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The Case for Powerlifting

1:48 to 2:01

Discussing the benefits of powerlifting for everyone, regardless of goals.

“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?”

The Case for Powerlifting

2:03 to 3:08

Discussing the benefits of powerlifting for everyone, regardless of goals.

“It's a form of strength training, and it's something almost everybody should do occasionally.”

Technique and Skill in Powerlifting

3:08 to 4:54

Exploring how powerlifting focuses on technique and skill for better results.

“But to your point, all goals, you know, for sure.”

Learning from Powerlifting Experience

4:54 to 8:01

Sharing personal stories and experiences with powerlifting and its programming.

“It's the skill of it is difficult, like in terms of learning the skill and like really mastering it.”

Powerlifting vs. Bodybuilding

8:01 to 12:55

Discussing the differences between powerlifting and bodybuilding and their respective benefits.

“squat in a way that's going to minimize back injury or knee injury or deadlift in a way that's going to minimize back injury, you look to power lifters because they are kings and queens of biomechanics and technique.”

The Misconceptions of Training Styles

12:55 to 14:01

Addressing common misconceptions about training styles and their impacts on physique.

“If you had to bucket everybody of what they most identify, because what I'm trying to do is I think everybody identifies with a look or a type of lifter.”

The Misconception of Training for Aesthetics

14:01 to 18:00

Learn why training like a bodybuilder may not lead to the best aesthetic results.

“If I look at the best bench pressers in the world, we're going to see a really round-looking upper body with really short arms.”

The Importance of Strength over Aesthetics

18:01 to 19:59

Understand how focusing on strength can lead to better overall fitness outcomes.

“They don't care about no, no bodybuilder is touting my bench press numbers, my squat numbers.”

Transforming Body Image Through Strength Training

20:00 to 22:04

Discover how strength training can help shift focus away from aesthetics and improve overall confidence.

“Which takes us to the next point, which is it's one of the best ways to take the focus off the aesthetics.”

Basics of Effective Workout Programming

22:05 to 26:05

Learn why simpler workout programs can produce better results than complex ones.

“So Brett Contreras is one of my favorite people on social media.”
Show all 28 chapters

Athleisure Trends and Brand Comparisons

28:00 to 29:00

Discussion on athleisure brands and the evolution of women's fashion.

“Wasn't there a big lawsuit or something that happened over that?”

80s Fashion Nostalgia

29:00 to 30:50

A nostalgic look at leggings and 80s fashion trends.

“Yeah, they really addressed the athleisure wear for men originally.”

Strength Challenges and Personal Stories

30:50 to 31:50

Sharing personal experiences and comparing strength limits among friends and family.

“Every once in a while, it's not common, but every once in a while, there's a dude in the gym wearing leggings and working out.”

Family Fitness Legacy

31:50 to 34:40

A narrative about the host's father's unexpected strength and fitness journey.

“He's like, well, yeah, you work out a lot and Justin's still way stronger than you.”

Youth Athletic Performance

34:40 to 37:10

Discussion on the athletic achievements of the host's son and his potential.

“No, they were iron, but it was like a 45, a 35, a 25, a 10s, 10s, 10s, a bunch of little weights.”

Olympic Aspirations and Balancing Life

37:10 to 42:01

Exploring the pressures of pursuing Olympics and the importance of a balanced childhood.

“They have a sports performance class, and he's just been learning technique, which is great.”

Kid's Athletic Development and Body Awareness

42:01 to 43:03

Discussing the impact of early sports on a child's body awareness and athleticism.

“Like, he isn't really expressing it yet.”

The Four Types of Aliens

43:05 to 44:33

Exploring the reported types of aliens and their characteristics.

“Justin, you're familiar with the four types of aliens, right?”

Government and Alien Interactions

44:35 to 45:29

Speculating on the potential agreements between governments and aliens.

“If they actually exist and they've been in communication with our government or whatever, what do you think is happening?”

Antarctica and Cartography Mysteries

45:30 to 46:39

Discussing the mysteries surrounding Antarctica and historical cartography.

“And so they all have this agreement that they kind of maneuver away from it.”

Media and Trust Issues

46:40 to 48:14

Debating the trustworthiness of media narratives and reports.

“How many crazy things are turning out to be true?”

Viral Trends in Media Coverage

48:15 to 50:36

Analyzing viral media trends and their authenticity.

Humor in Fitness

56:00 to 56:40

A humorous discussion about fitness anecdotes and personal stories.

“I know it's dark, but I mean, that's what happens in this situation.”

Humor in Fitness

56:44 to 57:07

A humorous discussion about fitness anecdotes and personal stories.

“These are meat sticks that are fermented, so they're not dry.”

Adaptation in Training Phases

57:16 to 59:12

Discussion on how changing training phases affects strength adaptation.

“Two, MAPS programs consist of different phases, which are three to four weeks.”

Tempo vs. Reps in Workouts

59:15 to 1:01:54

Exploration of the benefits of tempo versus rep ranges in workouts with lighter weights.

“So to go over to one to five reps, you know, you're not going to probably be there until a couple weeks of training there.”

Strength Training for Runners

1:01:59 to 1:03:10

Advice on incorporating strength training into a running routine for 5Ks.

“that serious, but I would go do the thing that I don't do the most.”

Going to Failure in Training

1:03:12 to 1:04:40

Insights on the benefits and risks of going to failure in strength training.

“And lowered volume and intensity of running.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Adam Schafer:If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we answered questions that our listeners wrote in on Instagram at Mind Pump Media. We picked four of them, but this was after the intro. Today's intro, 56 minutes long. where we talk about muscle gain and fat loss, overall fitness, current events, and family life. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors.

0:36Adam Schafer:The first one is Viore. They make athleisure wear that looks amazing, lasts a long time, is super comfortable. They also have now business casual, and this is both for men and for women. And we have the largest discount you'll find anywhere for Viore clothing. Go through our link. Go to vioreclothing.com forward slash mind pump. That's V-U-O-R-I clothing.com forward slash mind pump. And that link will get you the big discount. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep. So this goes over your bed, under your sheet, over your mattress, and it warms or cools your bed, uses AI technology to modify the temperature throughout the night to maximize your sleep.

1:15Adam Schafer:This is easily the most advanced sleep system in the world. If you want to get better sleep, burn more body fat, build more muscle, feel better, balance your hormones, all come from better sleep. get yourself an 8sleep. Go to 8sleep.com forward slash Mind Pump. That link will get you up to$350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. We also have a sale. Buy any MAPS 15 style workout program. Get any other MAPS 15 style program for free. It's buy one, get one free. Go to maps15bogo.com. All right, real quick.

1:48Justin Andrews: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. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

2:02Adam Schafer:Power lifting. It's a form of strength training, and it's something almost everybody should do occasionally. Gives you great results, builds great muscle. We're going to go into why almost everybody should power lift. Let's go.

2:15Sal Di Stefano:Hear, hear. I wish I heard this earlier in my life. Totally. Yeah.

2:19Adam Schafer:Totally. It's a specific form of strength training. uh, it's somewhat unique to other forms of strength training, but people will think, Oh, powerlifting. This is for people who compete in powerlifting competitions. So this doesn't apply to me. My goal is to build muscle. My goal is to look better. My goal is to burn body fat. Why would I, why would I train like these athletes who are competing in a specific sport? That's oftentimes the objection that people will give, uh, around powerlifting uh and the truth is um the benefits are far-reaching um and most people most people except for maybe those where it's an inappropriate form of exercise either due to injury or whatever most people would benefit tremendously i don't care what your goal is from doing a cycle of this

3:08Justin Andrews:style yeah it's hard for me to think of somebody who wouldn't benefit but yeah you're right maybe

3:11Sal Di Stefano:if you had limitations oh it only it'd have to be a like a like a special case that's right right They have some sort of condition that doesn't allow them to do so. Injury. Yeah, yeah. But to your point, all goals, you know, for sure.

3:24Adam Schafer:Totally. This took me a while to figure out, but when I started to apply it to myself and then to my clients, and just to be clear, the vast majority of my clients were everyday people. So it's like 99 % of them were just everyday regular people. So I'm not talking about like strength athletes or competitors. These are just people that wanted to look better. when I would put them through these cycles of power lifting style programming, it was oftentimes the best results they got was through this. So one of the reasons why power lifting style training is so great is because it's entirely technique focused.

4:00Adam Schafer:It's about skill. So typically when people do strength training, what they're thinking of is the muscles that they're working. In fact, if you look at workouts, typical strength training workouts, They're broken down in terms of body parts. It's back or shoulders or glutes or legs or calves or biceps or triceps. Power lifters don't – power lifting programming doesn't look at it that way at all. There is no leg day. There is no chest day. It's movement-based. It's skill-based. We're going to bench. We're going to squat. We're going to overhead press. We're going to do movements that help strengthen those particular movements.

4:39Adam Schafer:it's about getting really strong at these particular movements and now why is this so beneficial to the average person because people don't realize that strength training uh is skill based and the better you perform an exercise the better the results regardless of what your goal is if you could perform a squat better you're going to get better results for your quads and your hams and your glutes if you could do a bench press better you're gonna get better results

5:02Justin Andrews:for your pecs and your shoulders and your triceps well the simplicity of it i think can't be overlooked with these movements. It's the skill of it is difficult, like in terms of learning the skill and like really mastering it. But the movement itself is pretty straightforward. And to be able to organize your body in such a way where you can recruit maximal amount of muscle fibers that you're going to include and really train your central nervous system to ramp up to its fullest degree like you can't really do that with the other styles of training as effectively

5:36Sal Di Stefano:as you can with power with you now you both uh you know were introduced to training this way early in fact i think that's how you both really started right i mean you share your story of the guys that you met inside the gym relatively early on your journey i know you were training for sport and this is basically more about yours justin because i think i've heard your story less when you first were doing like this for sport uh was there because i remember what it was like for me in high school in the weightlifting routine was pretty pretty whack it was like this there was no real programming it was like we all went in there and everybody some guys were trying to max out on their squats some guys so so was it like that or did were you taught like really good technique and programming and stuff early or like when did that happen yeah i was actually lucky it

6:24Justin Andrews:It was high school, and we did have a really good weightlifting teacher. Oh, you did? And I took – I was actually in a weightlifting class adjacent to also being on the team. And so I was working on form with a lot of, like, your basic lifts. But when we'd actually train as a team, we only focused on bench. We focused on power clean and then squat. Those were our main three. So it wasn't deadlift, but pretty much power clean from the floor. I was emulating that. um and then you know maybe overhead press but like it was all about how to increase numbers there and so we would all work in groups um you know with guys that were like in similar strength ability and it was like just this constant um you know overloading and trying to figure out like

7:13Adam Schafer:where our capacity lies yeah i i learned the lifts but i don't learn power lifting programming until later but i was taught the power lifts uh which was already by itself yeah a huge uh bonus i think with technique uh and i'm going to say something that some people may may think is controversial but it's not the safest uh strength sport in terms of how they apply their technique is power lifting power lifters have the best technique for the major lifts now someone may be like what are you talking about power lifts to get hurt all the time well that's not because their technique is bad. That's because they're trying to maximize performance to crazy levels.

7:53Adam Schafer:But you have to use the safest, most biomechanically advantageous technique to lift the most weight. So if you're going to bench press in a way that's going to minimize shoulder injury or squat in a way that's going to minimize back injury or knee injury or deadlift in a way that's going to minimize back injury, you look to power lifters because they are kings and queens of biomechanics and technique. The carryover of this for the average person is tremendous. You're looking at like the three power lifts, the deadlift, the squat, and the bench press, which are easily, I could easily make the argument that are three of the most effective exercises in terms of building muscle and strength and building a physique.

8:34Adam Schafer:That doesn't mean you should only do those lifts, but if I had to pick three like top exercises or five, they're going to definitely make that list. But they're very technical. like the bench press I think a lot of people look at that as a technical lift it's a very technical lift they're all very technical lifts and so like learning any technique the better you get at it the more you get out of it and powerlifting style training is it's all technique focused it's like how do I maximize my leverage how do I allow my depth to feel better how do I activate the most strength through this lift and you position yourself and you learn you learn how to how to really do those lifts really really well you know you you said

9:15Sal Di Stefano:it's less than ideal to uh just would you just focus on those three lifts but god i would make the case for most young lifters uh that if all they did was practice getting good at those lifts it would care it would serve them so well they'd build way more muscle they would they would build so much they get in so much better shape yeah they would get just just doing that which that That's a bit controversial because I think people, oh, well, you need this and you need to do that. And it's like, no, you don't. If you just focused on those lifts and tried to get good at those lifts technique-wise and strength-wise.

9:49Sal Di Stefano:That's your foundation, yeah.

9:50Justin Andrews:Man. You can go so many places once you establish that. Totally.

9:53Sal Di Stefano:Exactly. It doesn't mean that you do that for the rest of your life, but as far as laying the foundation, for your first couple years, if that's all you did. And maybe do other exercises. I wish that's what I did. I wish going back and watching.

10:04Adam Schafer:How much more muscle do you think you would have built if this is what you focused on for the first year?

10:09Sal Di Stefano:Like, you know, what I for sure would have done. What I don't know is because obviously I've reached peak levels of building muscle, right? Being a men's physique pro, right? Like obviously. But that was in my 30s. Yeah. So I think I would have reached closer to that physique at a much earlier age had I done that. So that's what I think back. Like what I saw in my early 30s was, you know, a decade and a half of strength training, you know, a lot of wrong way and then eventually the right way to finally reach that peak physique. I might have reached that peak physique a lot sooner had I laid a foundation of power lifting first.

10:49Sal Di Stefano:And that would be what I'd be most interested in is like, would I look more like that at 25, 26 than 32, 33? Which is years.

10:57Adam Schafer:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And here's the other thing, powerlifting. So all strength training programs involve what's known as programming. And programming is the workout. And what is a workout? Well, it's the exercises, the sets, the reps, the order of the exercises, the way that the week is laid out, the way that the weeks are laid out, the way that the months are laid out, how you alternate intensity. There's lots of variables that create a good program or that go into good programming. and really good trainers and coaches and strength coaches understand this, right? Otherwise, you just slap exercises together and you get the same results.

11:33Adam Schafer:But we know that that's not true. Some of the best workout programming or strength training programming in the world is powerlifting. Powerlifters have way better of an understanding of programming than people who lift weights to bodybuild or people who lift weights for CrossFit or anything else. They have some of the best. Same thing with Olympic lifters, by the way. Why? Because they're competitive sports. You're going in there. You're trying to be the best at moving the most weight. And so what ended up happening over the years is they figured out the best programming. Why? Because you've got this school over here and this school over here and this method over here.

12:08Adam Schafer:It's so objective, yeah. And, oh, wow, that method seems to produce eight out of ten bench press records. What are they doing with their bench press? And this school over here, this squat programming, they have like the ten top squatters or keep coming out of that school. What are they doing with that programming? So ever since the 60s, when powerlifting started to grow, what we've developed over time is incredible powerlifting programming. If you went online and got an established powerlifting kind of programming schedule, 99 % of the time you're going to have better strength training programming than if you went on and looked up what's a good strength training program to develop a great physique or whatever.

12:46Adam Schafer:Or what's a bodybuilder routine. Nine out of ten times the powerlifting programming is going to give you way better results. Even if your goal is just to develop your body, not even get stronger, it's just to develop your body. Would you say that if you had to make two or three buckets and you had to categorize everybody who's lifting weights into two or three buckets,

13:04Sal Di Stefano:you think that bodybuilding obviously would be one, powerlifting one, and then maybe endurance? For strength training? Just in general. If you had to bucket everybody of what they most identify, because what I'm trying to do is I think everybody identifies with a look or a type of lifter. You know what I'm saying? And so what kept me from powerlifting is because I so strongly identified with what bodybuilders look like.

13:30Adam Schafer:So let me address that. I know exactly where you're going. So here's the problem with looking at the best of each sport is what you're looking at are people who train hard, eat right, they're dedicated. but you're also looking at polymorphisms that work really well for that particular sport. So here's what I mean by that. If I look at the best basketball players in the world, one of the things they're all going to have in common is they're all really tall. Now, does that mean playing basketball all the time is going to make me tall? No. That means that tall people who are also gifted and practice a lot are most likely to be the best basketball players.

14:01Adam Schafer:If I look at the best bench pressers in the world, we're going to see a really round-looking upper body with really short arms. Does that mean if I get really good at bench press, that's going to happen to my body? No. And this is the mistake. People look at bodybuilders who do a really good job of getting shredded and also get awarded for what's known as aesthetics. And they think in order to get the best aesthetic look, I've got to train like a bodybuilder. When the truth is, for everybody listening, the best aesthetic look comes from building a lot of muscle that's balanced on your body and getting lean.

14:34Adam Schafer:And for a lot of people, for most people, doing cycles of powerlifting will get you there faster than if you don't.

14:40Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that's exactly the direction I was going with that. I think that's the biggest misconception is that we look at a type of athlete or lifter and we go like, oh, I'm more of a runner, so I should train the way they do. Because I want to look like that. Yeah, or I want to look better, so I'm going to look at what the bodybuilders are doing. Or there are people that I just want to get strong and care about performance, like Justin's. And so they kind of lean towards that power lifter. But it's unfortunate because the power lifting foundation is probably, it's like we talk about kids, right? That your sport may be basketball, football, or baseball, but the best sport to start every kid in is gymnastics.

15:21Justin Andrews:Yeah.

15:21Sal Di Stefano:So you don't, like, so it's like.

15:23Adam Schafer:It develops the best body awareness, kinesthetic awareness.

15:25Sal Di Stefano:Like, so, but I bet a lot of baseball player kids don't go like, oh, I should be, I should do gymnastics. They go like, I need to do more of that.

15:31Adam Schafer:You got to do what the top baseball player do. Exactly. As a pro.

15:34Sal Di Stefano:And it's like, no, what actually will serve your body the best towards that goal is actually a different one.

Read the full transcript

15:39Adam Schafer:One of my favorite examples of that. Long term. I'll never forget. There was a picture of Michael Phelps next to the world's top marathon runner. And they were standing next to each other. And here's what was crazy. Michael Phelps was a lot taller. I don't remember how much taller he was, but he was a lot taller. All on his waist. But his legs were a lot shorter than the top runner. And they had them standing next to each other. And you could see the extreme physiques. The top marathon runner looked like a grasshopper, short body, long legs. Michael Phelps looked like a canoe with legs, like short legs.

16:11Adam Schafer:Does that mean swimming or running is going to turn you into that? No, that's just because at the top level you have these polyvorecisms.

16:17Sal Di Stefano:Well, what's great, too, is that if you take those two who are premier athletes. Super endurance, super fit. And you flip-flop their sport. They'll suck. They will suck. They will suck.

16:25Adam Schafer:Michael Phelps is a terrible runner, I guarantee you. Yes.

16:28Sal Di Stefano:That just shows you how much that plays a role in that.

16:31Adam Schafer:The next thing is that strength is objective. The mirror is not. I know as much as we like to think the mirror is objective, we're so distorted and twisted on what we see in the mirror. It's really easy to focus on the imperfections. It's hard to see the improvements when we're just focused on our love handles or I need to look this particular way. Or even the scale, which can scare people a lot. They may be building muscle, getting leaner, but because the scale didn't go down, uh-oh, I'm failing.

16:56Justin Andrews:It's misleading.

16:56Adam Schafer:Do you know what is black and white? Strength. Did you lift more weight? Yes, good. Here's what's also good about that. You have to do a lot of things right to get stronger. Can you have poor sleep and get stronger? No. Can you have really low protein and get stronger? It's going to make it tough. Can you overtrain and get stronger? No. So like getting stronger, I'll tell you this as a trainer, the number one metric that I paid attention, because I paid attention to lots of metrics with my clients, but the number one I paid attention to was strength. If my clients were getting stronger, high fives across the board.

17:27Adam Schafer:If they weren't getting stronger, okay, I got to look and see what's going on.

17:31Justin Andrews:Because the byproduct itself is going to really produce a lot of those benefits that they're looking for anyway. That's right. So it's like, yeah, let's focus on this because we know objectively things are moving forward.

17:42Sal Di Stefano:I didn't get that. I didn't understand that as a kid. I just didn't. I cared nothing about strength. I really didn't.

17:48Adam Schafer:You didn't realize how strongly correlated it was? Yeah, yeah, no.

17:51Sal Di Stefano:No, I was like, I, so, and it can be misleading to, to not focus on that and actually get results from not focused on it. And I think that's what happened is it was like, it confirmed my own bias.

18:00Adam Schafer:Yeah.

18:00Sal Di Stefano:Right. I was like, oh, I want to be bodybuilder. They slow. They're all about tension, tempo. Yeah. They don't care about no, no bodybuilder is touting my bench press numbers, my squat numbers. And so I trained that way and being an early lifter and novelty and beginner gains, like

18:15Adam Schafer:I got gains, you know, it's hard to realize what you're leaving on the table because you don't know.

18:18Sal Di Stefano:Exactly. And I think, oh, I'm, I'm progressing. I'm building muscle. I'm on my way of looking like these guys when it's like, man, if I would have actually just focused on the strength thing first. So many things would have taken care of themselves. Yeah, it would have accelerated everything.

18:31Adam Schafer:It's also phenomenal for reverse dieting. It is a phenomenal form of strength training for reverse dieting. Why? Because in a reverse diet, you're trying to build muscle, boost your metabolism. The last thing you want to focus on is how you look and how much you weigh. Yeah. what's great is just to get strong because it's it's encouraging because on a reverse diet you're bumping your calories your protein is high and your strength training properly you're following good power lifting programming you're getting stronger it's a very clear metric it's wonderful

19:02Sal Di Stefano:it's a very clear metric where the the mirror the scale even body fat is not as clear um so you could be doing a lot of the right things but in the mirror you don't think you look really good or you see the scale not move in the direction you want, but that's just because you're holding more or less water that day or not or you're inflamed and didn't get good sleep. I mean, a million things could happen. Or maybe you gain some muscle. Right. I mean, there's so many variables when you are using those as a measurement of your success where strength is a very clear metric. That's right. You're not going to probably get stronger if your sleep sucks and you're not hitting macros and not doing those things.

19:45Adam Schafer:And when you're reverse dieting, the last thing you want to do is focus on the mirror. What you want to do is focus on boosting my metabolism. And what can I look at? What's positive that I could look at through this scary process of bumping my calories? Oh, strength. This is awesome. I love it. Which takes us to the next point, which is it's one of the best ways to take the focus off the aesthetics. I learned this, and I'll never forget when this first clicked for me. It was actually early on. It was such a gift. I've talked about this particular client before because it was one of the pivotal moments as a trainer.

20:20Adam Schafer:I had some clients who then eventually trusted me enough to train their daughter. And their daughter was a recovering anorexic. She had been hospitalized the whole deal. And so they're like, hey, we want you to train our daughter. She's in recovery and she needs to start strength training to build back her strength and bone, all the issues that come from starving herself. And so I actually consulted with an expert and I said, okay, what do I do? And the expert said, don't weigh her. Don't focus on how she looks. Don't focus on any of these metrics. Now, I'm an early trainer. I'm like, that's all I focus on.

20:52Adam Schafer:So I'm like, oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get her strong. And that's what we did. And eventually, she started to really like getting stronger. And it cured these issues with her. She focused on performance. Everything else followed. She stopped caring so much about the mirror, stopped caring so much about the scale. She was excited to come to the gym because she was getting stronger. It built so much confidence. getting stronger is a wonderful segue away from body dysmorphia. Now, strength itself can become obsessive as well. But if you know you've got body dysmorphic issues and the mirror and the scale is like, ah, and I'm so scared of gaining an ounce of body fat, what's going on?

21:29Adam Schafer:Powerlifting gets stronger. Watch what happens over the next three months. You're going to feel like you're in so much of a healthier place.

21:34Justin Andrews:It's one of those behavioral hacks that we just kind of came across. This was a little bit later in my career as well. When you have that real hyper-focus of aesthetics and mirror and scale and to really just draw all that attention into just getting strong and recovering the energy and like all the other metrics. Because you can still get excited about that. It's still something that, you know, will drive the client. But if you can maintain that focus long enough, it's like, it's amazing what the turnaround. Totally. 100%.

22:04Adam Schafer:You know, this reminds me of is that post you shared from Brett Contreras.

22:08Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah, yeah. So Brett, Great, great post.

22:11Adam Schafer:So Brett Contreras is one of my favorite people on social media. He's a real trainer. He's a real trainer. He's been training people for 30 years.

22:18Sal Di Stefano:35 years as a trainer. I think 15 years as a scientist. I mean, he's...

22:23Adam Schafer:But he's got lots of experience training people. A ton. His post said, you know, basic workout programming versus, what was it, advanced?

22:31Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, he just gave two examples. And what you can clearly see, one side's got all, you know, like six or seven different exercises. there's like some you know uh supersets and drop sets in this one and like all these and the other one's got like three exercises yeah yeah you know three or four and he's like he's saying and just

22:48Adam Schafer:basic block he's like the basic one's gonna gonna build a way better physique than the advanced one yeah and experienced trainers know this it's 100 true i didn't figure this out so very experienced

22:57Sal Di Stefano:trainers know yes knows that i think i want to make that clear because there's a lot of trainer I mean, myself included, for a long time. I mean, I was still, you know, I was probably eight years in, still, you know, writing. So, I mean, part of how we met was because that light bulb had finally clicked for me around the time that you wrote Maps on a Bullet. So I'm almost 10 years in by that time. So for 10 years, I'm still doing stupid stuff like that, trying to appease clients, thinking that, you know, unique movements and all this stuff. Let me razzle dazzle. Yeah, and it's like, it was really around that time in my career.

23:35Sal Di Stefano:I was like, you know what? Like, it's the stupid basic four or five movements that if I just practiced those. And then that's when we met. And I saw the promo thing that you did with Doug from Absinthe Bulk. And I went, this is exactly what I was just figuring out. That's part of why we connected. And so I think there's a lot of trainers that have been trainers for quite a while that still don't get this. Yeah, that's and I and I think it's I think there's a lot of factors there. It's not just simply because they're not knowledgeable and they don't get it. It's that they're juggling maybe what they think or know like they might know and like what they're also being pushed by the client.

24:14Sal Di Stefano:And they haven't figured that part out, too.

24:16Justin Andrews:Like, how do I also like they they're trying really hard to get them to do what's optimal a lot of times. and it tends to be overwhelming and it tends to be just too much for them to focus on so it's less effective. So it's like you're going to have the most perfect, detailed exercise protocol, warm-up, cool-down, like yada, yada, yada, go through the whole list. And it's like, well, if we just focus on maybe these three major movers, like how much further we get?

24:46Adam Schafer:As an early trainer, part of my challenge or what I would think about would be like, okay what different exercises are going to show and then the workout looked like do this do that okay this is a different way of doing that and every time they came in i'd have to kind of think of this later on when i was a way more successful trainer i mean as defined by my clients got way better results they were more consistent more muscle more fat loss they loved to show up i had more clients my workouts if you saw them sometimes it was two lifts sometimes clients would show up like oh we're gonna do five sets of deadlifts five sets of overhead press i'm gonna focus on your technique we'll do a little mobility in between if we see these issues and these were clients that trained for years and they got exceptional results every kind of result you can think of and the workout itself if you saw it on paper you're like that's it it's like yeah

25:32Sal Di Stefano:well look at i mean look at what we're even experiencing uh in in this business right now uh i mean our programs that we're getting incredible feedback are the 15 i know two

25:43Justin Andrews:lifts a day volume program yeah it's the most minimalist thing that we have

25:48Sal Di Stefano:and it's because of so many people that that serves them so well is to just simplify it to these are probably the two best things that you could do today and just do those two things and get really good at those two things and look at the results that that people are having now sure uh optimal they'd have this mobility routine and this other thing that they do and like sure you know optimal they could their body could potentially overload and handle a little bit more over time But it's like if you just did that, you'll get amazing results. And most people lack the discipline to do even the bare minimum.

26:23Sal Di Stefano:So just giving them more stuff that they're not going to do is not serving them.

26:27Adam Schafer:I'll give you guys some details of what happened to me when I was a kid with this. So at 14, I had dislocated my kneecap. I had this long injury. I couldn't get my knee stable. And then I figured out, oh, if I strength train, it gets more stable. And so at this point, I'm like 15 and a half, maybe 16. And my leg routine, I know it. like I literally know it because I used to write it down. It was leg press, hack squat, leg extension, leg curls. All good exercises. I didn't pick a bunch of crates. Those are all good exercises. And I did those. Then I met those power lifters in the gym who taught me how to squat.

26:58And all I did that summer for legs was get strong at squatting.

27:03Adam Schafer:That's all I did. And I gained, I think, 13 pounds of muscle, which is a lot of muscle to gain. And I remember I came to school and the kids were like, what happened to you? And I remember some girls were like, dude, your butt got big. Like, what's going on? And I'm like, I just stopped doing everything else. I just focused on getting really strong at squats. And I got these crazy gains from doing that. Anyway, speaking of butts and stuff. So my wife owns both. Oh, she's going to love this. Yeah, she's going to like this. My wife owns both. She has Lululemon leggings that she's always had. Yeah.

27:36Adam Schafer:And now she also owns the Viore All the Feels, I think it's called. All the Feels, yeah. I tell her this all the time. The Viore ones look way better.

27:45Justin Andrews:Yeah. Like the shape that they create. And the material and everything else. I know Courtney's actually had some of the Lululemons where, what do you call that, the sheen or whatever. When a certain light hits it, you can see underwear.

28:01Sal Di Stefano:Didn't they get sued for that? Wasn't there a big lawsuit or something that happened over that? I think there was.

28:05Justin Andrews:And they had to adjust their material because of that. But yeah, it's never been a problem. But yeah, I always get feedback from Courtney that it's the most comfortable, especially.

28:16Adam Schafer:But from a husband's perspective, they look the best. Yeah, they look great. When she puts on the Viore's, I'm like, dude. And they don't pill. You know how the Lulu ones will do the pilling? Where you get the little balls of fabric, whatever? Yeah, the Viore ones don't do that.

28:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, when Katrina and I first met, I used to bring her home Lulu almost every week. And she completely converted everything. Yeah. They look way better. Once she got introduced to Viore. And they've really scaled their line for women in that time. I mean, so we're talking, we've been with them for almost, God, has it been almost 10 years?

28:52Justin Andrews:I know, there's some male folk. Eight or nine.

28:54Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, eight or nine years now. And when they, they did a reverse model of Lula. I don't know if you really realize that or not. They went men and then women. Yeah, they really addressed the athleisure wear for men originally. And then really, as they grew, grew the woman's side. Now the woman's side is crazy. Crushes. Yeah, yeah. It used to not be like that. It used to be flip-flop. You know what's crazy about this?

29:13Adam Schafer:Because we're old enough to know this. Do you remember when leggings were not a thing? Yeah, of course.

29:18Sal Di Stefano:And now they're not just the thing. They still were not. They were for more of our – well, okay.

29:23Adam Schafer:When did you see women wearing leggings out in the – So leggings and –

29:27Sal Di Stefano:It's like an 80s thing for – Yeah, but it was a robin classes. No, no, no. It was like spandex.

29:31Justin Andrews:It wasn't leggings. Who was it?

29:33Sal Di Stefano:Is it Cyndi Lauper or who made it popular where girls wear leggings and then the big sweaters that used to hang down. You remember that look? That was super popular. Leggings? That was like an 80s thing. It was an 80s thing. I'm taking us back to like fifth grade for me.

29:50Adam Schafer:You know what I'm remembering now in the 80s that they used to do with leggings? Remember they used to wear leggings with thong on top of it?

29:57Sal Di Stefano:Over it.

29:58Adam Schafer:Over it. The jazzercise outfit. Yeah, so it's like you're wearing a thong, but with leggings. That was like an 80s thing. Totally. Because sometimes I'm like, what are they wearing these days? I'm like, oh, they did worse than the 80s sometimes. they used to wear what does it say oh yeah flash dance oh flash dance oh that's what came from I couldn't remember what it came from

30:16Sal Di Stefano:but I know it was iconic and I was I was watching I was watching some old 80s movie did you guys watch flash dance

30:23Adam Schafer:have you seen that yeah

30:24Sal Di Stefano:yeah it's been a long time since I've seen it yeah not like a million years it's been a long time since I've seen it

30:28Adam Schafer:remember that iconic scene where she like I think that's coming back in style

30:31Justin Andrews:except with dirty dancing a lot of times totally different movie

30:33Sal Di Stefano:yeah I think that's coming back in style though again I think that the leggings and then the big sweaters I think I've seen that already coming. Everything's coming around, dude. Like double sock thing. Katrina, you see Katrina wears leg warmers all the time now.

30:45Adam Schafer:I bought her all kinds of leg warmers. Dude, have you ever guys? They're in style again. I like them. Every once in a while, it's not common, but every once in a while, there's a dude in the gym wearing leggings and working out. Don't. Yeah. Nobody wants to see that. You can do his shorts over them. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about straight up leggings while you're working out. Like, I don't need to see that, dude. Yeah. And then they're deadlifting.

31:09Justin Andrews:I just like 180 out of the gym. I'm out. It's not my day, you guys. What's going on, bro? I don't even see if you're circumcised or not. That's disgusting, dude.

31:21Adam Schafer:I got to tell you, this is my conversation. I helped my cousins. It was cracking me up. So we always talk crap to each other, right? Yeah.

31:27Sal Di Stefano:Is this in person or over text? Text.

31:29Adam Schafer:So it's our love language, right? And so the conversation, they were talking about exercise. and then I was telling them like, I was like, oh man, you know what sucks? I have these strength limits that I know that once I get to them, my body starts to hurt. So I'm kind of telling them like, once I get up to this number, no matter what, my body starts to talk to me. So I don't think it's like a good idea to even push myself. I was having this conversation. My cousin Alex gets on there. He's like, well, yeah, you work out a lot and Justin's still way stronger than you. I'm like, oh.

32:00Adam Schafer:He saw some of our videos on there. And I'm like, I tried to educate them I'm like, he's stronger than most people. You guys realize that, right? Really strong guy, dude. So I told them what your split stance overhead press was. And I don't think they knew that you did that. Oh, really? Yeah, dude. And they're like, 315? I'm like, yeah, 350 pounds, bro. Over his head. Oh, really? I'm like, yeah, bro, that's a lot, dude.

32:21Sal Di Stefano:We probably should highlight all the series that we did.

32:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, the ones we never aired, Justin. Nobody knows. That's my fault, dude.

32:29Justin Andrews:I hate my fault, bro.

32:32Adam Schafer:I have the circus lifts that I can do sometimes

32:34Justin Andrews:he just crushes our grip

32:36Adam Schafer:but I was like giving them like some of your numbers and they were just like what? I'm like averaging everything

32:41Sal Di Stefano:so I hate all those things that we do it's so so not fun for me

32:46Adam Schafer:you're the Captain America of superheroes you're not like Hulk not like Spider-Man

32:52Sal Di Stefano:I'm the guy who's like admittedly said like I was all all show no go for like 90 % of my lifting career so it's like let's do all these like challenges Let's see how strong you are.

33:01Adam Schafer:Yeah, no, you guys are both really strong at your top. But what sucks about being in our space is you just go through the fitness space. It freaks everybody.

33:08Justin Andrews:It's like you never even highlight it because it's like I'll get buried by everybody. I was never strong.

33:13Sal Di Stefano:I was relatively strong for a 6 '3 lanky guy. You know what I'm saying? But I've never been really strong at this.

33:21Adam Schafer:So when we were having this conversation about you, Justin, I was pumping your tires and stuff. Just kind of, again, you're comparing me to somebody super strong. my dad i'll never forget this i've told you guys about like his strength uh back in the day so i was probably 10 so this is like 37 years ago kettlebell story no no no this is like 37 years ago so he's like younger okay he had a helper that worked for him who was into bodybuilding and my dad knew nothing about lifting weights at all you know he's a sicilian immigrant you know he did judo as a kid i'd say he didn't know about lifting weights and this guy kept talking to him about his bench press and I could bench press 315 pounds.

33:58Adam Schafer:So this is the reason why I had a weight set. My dad, because of his helper, bought a old school free weight set because this guy kept talking about it. My dad wanted to like, okay, I'll try doing this. So my dad had no, he didn't know what the hell he was doing. I remember vividly, he would go out in the backyard, he'd load the bar up and try things. Okay. And my dad at 180 pounds, he, and I think he practiced for like a couple months, benched 315. Are you serious? I swear on everything. Wow. And I know this because I spotted him. I'm like, by the way, don't have your 11-year-old spot you. On 315.

34:34Adam Schafer:Bro, I was terrified. But he loaded up the bar, and he didn't even have three plates because he had bought the set that came with 315.

34:39Sal Di Stefano:Like those sand weights?

34:41Adam Schafer:No, no, no, they were metal. They were all like this. No, they were iron, but it was like a 45, a 35, a 25, a 10s, 10s, 10s, a bunch of little weights.

34:47Justin Andrews:All the way out to the very ends.

34:49Adam Schafer:And he hit 315 at 180 pounds. That's insane.

34:52Sal Di Stefano:for someone who doesn't lift. He's got crazy. Took me damn near half my life to get up to that.

34:57Adam Schafer:He had the kind, I'd swear if my dad trained properly in his youth. Well, I mean, your brother, I feel like your brother's a good example of that.

35:04Sal Di Stefano:Your brother's a moose.

35:05Adam Schafer:Hella strong, but he's big.

35:06Sal Di Stefano:But he never lifts. He doesn't lift. Yeah, so I mean, the fact that he comes in and grabs weights and does stuff with, it's wild.

35:13Adam Schafer:Dude, my favorite, this is one of my favorite stories. I was managing the 24-hour fitness in Sunnyvale. No, I was the assistant manager, So I was 20, maybe 19 or 20, 19. I was 19 years old. So my brother was 13. My brother comes in with my dad to work out. And one of my big, I had this trainer that used to work for me. His name was Lamont, big black dude, Jack, bodybuilder looking guy. So my brother comes in and Lamont's like, oh, is that your brother? He said, yeah, dude, he'll beat you in arm wrestling. And Lamont's like, ah, no way. I'm like, I bet you he'll beat you in arm wrestling. So the whole staff got together.

35:50Adam Schafer:I paged my brother up to the front desk, and my 13-year-old brother beat him in art wrestling.

35:53Sal Di Stefano:That's so funny. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's so funny. Oh, that's great.

35:57Adam Schafer:And he was like a skinny 13-year-old. Yeah, he has my dad's. You guys have that much of a gap? How many years? So I'm four years older than my sister, two years older, and she's two years, so six years. I didn't realize you guys had that much of a gap. I thought he was closer to you than that. No, no, no, six-year difference.

36:10Justin Andrews:Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It's funny because, yeah, my brother has no interest. He never had any interest in lifting weights. I mean, he played sports, and he was really good at basketball and volleyball. And he was like all-American volleyball. Oh, wow. Yeah, he had like no interest in lifting weights or getting big. And I was always like drinking protein shakes. Because it was like I was always wrestling my dad. And my dad's 6 '7 and huge. And I was always like, dude, like I think I just had this target of like I have to. I'm not tall. Like my brother's 6 '3. My dad's 6 '7. And I'm like, I got to have something, you know.

36:43Justin Andrews:So I was like, at least I could get strong. Bro, your son just pulled 315?

36:49Sal Di Stefano:300. Oh, 300. How old is he? Deadlift. Bro, 300 pounds?

36:53Adam Schafer:He's hella strong.

36:54Sal Di Stefano:You couldn't do that, could you? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. For sure, I didn't do that.

37:00Justin Andrews:He also benched how much? Yeah, so he benched 185, and we're working on that next. Get him up to 205. Now, keep in mind.

37:06Sal Di Stefano:Bro, I was 20 before I got the wheels on there.

37:08Adam Schafer:Yeah, but keep in mind, he's not focused on lifting weights. He does gymnastics.

37:12Justin Andrews:Yeah, exactly. This is him just at school. They have a sports performance class, and he's just been learning technique, which is great. And I'm like, oh, this is perfect. And so he's just been chipping away at it. And then they tested him out, and he was like, oh, duh, I did like 185. I'm like, what? Really? I'm like, go show me. Does he have a girlfriend right now? No, he doesn't. All he has to do is he's focused, bro. And I want to keep him there. Show up at school and forget his shirt one day.

37:40Sal Di Stefano:I was just going to say, dude,

37:42Justin Andrews:don't tell he won't listen to this does he listen to this only if I told him that don't tell him to listen to this

37:48Adam Schafer:but if he went to a pool party with a bunch all he had to do is take his shirt off oh my god he'd get all especially nowadays like nobody works out he's casually forget your shirt

37:56Justin Andrews:his back's filling out it's kind of

37:59Sal Di Stefano:he's got a six pack no I saw a picture of both of them they're both gonna be funny little studs

38:04Justin Andrews:it's funny to watch

38:05Sal Di Stefano:but that's crazy I had no idea that he I knew he was messing around with the weights a little bit but I mean that's that's ridiculous to be pulling that. He'll be pulling.

38:13Justin Andrews:If he dedicated, I mean, he'll pull 500 pounds in high school. That'd be crazy. It'd be crazy because we haven't even dedicated any real programming around it. Right, because gymnastics

38:21Sal Di Stefano:is the focus, right? Yeah. So I imagine that's like 90 % of the time he spends is on training for that. Yeah, and he's so explosive

38:29Justin Andrews:with that and very, obviously, body awareness and everything. So it's just a natural... Yeah, the gymnastics has for sure gotten stronger.

38:37Sal Di Stefano:Okay, so what happens next for him in that journey? Like he did nationals. Like he's highly ranked. Are you guys, are you guys in an off season yet?

38:46Justin Andrews:Or is he still in season? And so he made, he qualified for nationals already. So he went through that process and then they think it's like, you know, in a couple of weeks, I think it's in June where he actually goes to nationals and then competes. But he, from there he can actually try out for the national team. And so they have like a national team. Like once he gets a certain rank of like a level, like a level nine, level 10. And then they would travel and compete. So then, you know, from there go to the Olympics. So it's kind of like a stepping stone towards the Olympics.

39:26Sal Di Stefano:Now, has he expressed to you, dad, I'd like to be in the Olympics?

39:29Justin Andrews:You know, he's kind of like back and forth. I get like hot and cold with him with that. I mean, as a dad, do you ask that or do you just let him come? Oh, I asked, of course. Oh, you did? You have asked. like hey are you yeah because the thing is like if that's your goal you have to be laser focused it's intense yeah and he as much as he trains now he'd have to like ramp it up right you know

39:52Sal Di Stefano:whole nother level so you you you feel him kind of uh back and forth like there's a part of it that goes like i want to but then it's like knowing that there's a lot of sacrifice because

40:00Justin Andrews:he's friend and school focused too and so that's the the part of like his childhood i'm not i'm not trying to rob them good job bro i was just gonna say that good job because when you hear

40:10Adam Schafer:interviews from olympians uh it's i don't have any of that it's a massive sacrifice because you have no you don't have you don't build lots of friendship i mean that's what i sleep in what

40:21Sal Di Stefano:made me stop sports was working making money and girls like having a social life i wanted i wanted which is important yeah and it's like not everybody you know i was i knew i wasn't that good naturally so i had to work a lot yeah so you know which would have a conundrum because it is a

40:37Justin Andrews:conundrum i see the potential and i'm like i could be like the tiger woods dad that's like right you know but i don't think he would he's not the personality that would even respond well to that to begin with and then also it's like yeah he has to really want that himself right

40:52Sal Di Stefano:or else you you risk him resenting you for robbing him of his social life and or what happens

40:57Adam Schafer:sometimes is after they reach whatever their top level is and then they're done uh they flip in such a crazy direction yeah oh i missed out all identities wrapped in it yeah i missed all the parting let me go crazy let me do all this stuff and yeah the other thing too with with him is if he just got to a high level like he's already there there there are some pretty cool job opportunities for things like cirque de soleil and i only know this because my wife worked for them

41:20Justin Andrews:yeah and yeah it does translate well to that if he if he did that because we're always looking for

41:25Adam Schafer:people if he did that like that's a great like they travel the world he makes a ton of money they pay for his room and board and in food and he just collects money and travels for like three

41:35Sal Di Stefano:years i know yeah it'd be cool i'm selfishly interested in in seeing him do another sport

41:40Justin Andrews:because he's got such a good foundation it's the same but like yeah i just you know i i know that's that's me yeah that's where i'm at like let's what does that look like size and again like Like, hand them over to me, and I'll do some of his weight training programming, and then we'll see where it goes. But it's like, you know, I'm kind of, like, waiting for that opportunity of, like, well, Dad, I kind of, you know, I'm feeling like I want to try something else. Like, he isn't really expressing it yet.

42:05Sal Di Stefano:Okay, yeah, because I'm just, like, so – I mean, you put a kid like that on, like, a wakeboard and see him, like – I mean, instantly will know how to do flips and do stuff like that.

42:13Justin Andrews:He does that all the time now, too. Like, when they go to lakes or they go to, like, the river or anything, like, you know, and his friends want him to do some kind of flip and flex. It's so sick. He does it all the time now. Yeah, because his body awareness is ridiculous.

42:29Sal Di Stefano:I mean, that's why it is so foundational for all other pursuits of sports. Like, imagine him as a tight end. Like, I can just imagine how good he would be as, like, a tight end. Like, he would be good at anything. Anything that he has such great coordination and body awareness now and strength, too. Like, oh, my God. Like, that's a recipe for, like, anything he touches, he's going to be pretty damn good.

42:50Adam Schafer:You know what's cool too about it is you develop these foundational skills as a kid when your brain is developing, you actually don't lose a lot of skills. Oh, yeah, it's plastic. Yeah, you've got this really good body awareness that stays with you for the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah. Which is really, really cool. No, no, super cool. Did you, all right, I'm going to change directions here. Justin, you're familiar with the four types of aliens, right? What, what, what? We have four types of aliens? Okay, wait, let me see if I can remember. Hold on, I'm going to pull them up because Fox News is reporting on this.

43:17Justin Andrews:Shut up. I swear. This is where we're at right now. Dude, they're reporting on this. The Nordics. Nordics. Okay, the reptilian. Yes. Okay, the greys. Yes. One more. What's the last one, dude?

43:31Adam Schafer:Mantis.

43:32Justin Andrews:Mantis. Oh, I was going to say ants.

43:34Adam Schafer:So there's four types of aliens that are reported, and there's these four type of aliens. Now, they're reporting the news that they're going to release that these are the four species of aliens that we know that exist.

43:44Sal Di Stefano:Bro, how fun does this get? This is getting so wild, dude. There are four different planets these things are coming from. Bro, I just. It's not just one set of aliens. It's all demons.

43:51Adam Schafer:Anyway, Mantis is six to seven foot tall, large compound eyes, highly agile, excellent eyesight, telepathic abilities. Then you have the greys. Those are the famous ones. Yeah. They're short, four or five foot. Short little guys with the body eyes. Large eyes, great complexion, slender build, advanced technology. Then there's the reptilians, six to eight feet tall, highly intelligent, strong and resilient, advanced technology. Then the Nordics are six to seven and a half feet tall, human-like appearance. advanced intelligence, peaceful in nature, highly advanced society. How weird.

44:22Sal Di Stefano:Why are we the least advanced, the dumbest, and the weakest? I mean, this is just like, this sucks.

44:27Adam Schafer:Because they're all demons, that's why. They're all demons or they're crossbred with demons.

44:32Sal Di Stefano:Going off your demon theory, don't you think they would be messing with us in a bad way more if it was demons?

44:37Adam Schafer:Yeah, I think they already are, dude. You think so? I think so, bro. If they actually exist and they've been in communication with our government or whatever, what do you think is happening? you think that they're like just talking to us or maybe they're helping to control things or there's a deal these are some of the reports that come out is that they made deals with government saying you allow us to abduct people and to perform experiments that's what that's

44:59Justin Andrews:what comes out yeah i've heard so many theories dude this is so weird to talk about but yeah it's just like all stuff you like i was into this like a couple years ago you know now it's like oh this is a fox news is reporting on it did you ever think this would happen no No, that's why it's weird.

45:17Sal Di Stefano:It does feel like in our lifetime that whether it's true or not true or whatever, we should find out. Doesn't it feel like that? Yeah. It feels like that. It feels like it's ramped up to a level that the truth has to come out.

45:29Justin Andrews:Yeah, one of the theories was there's an alien base in the Pacific somewhere that the Navy already knows about. And so they all have this agreement that they kind of maneuver away from it. But their sense is that a lot of it is like an AI. Like it's an AI and it's there to like build these UFOs and like send them out and do reconnaissance and whatnot. Yeah. So that was like one theory was that. And then, you know, that's why I've always been into like Antarctica too because there's like – what do you call a person that draws up maps? Like a crow – Cartographer. Cartographer. Yeah. So there's this one, like, I don't know, period where, like, all the cartographers were drawing it, Antarctica, all of it the same.

46:19Justin Andrews:And so, like, all of the coastline was totally in alignment. And it was, like, way more land mass than is shown now. And you're not allowed to go there. Nobody is. Nobody's allowed to go there. And so it's just like there's so much mystery surrounding it because of the fact – and two, certain islands I didn't know about that they're talking about might actually be like a gold reserve where they kind of moved all the money.

46:47Adam Schafer:How many crazy things are turning out to be true? This is like crazy. Like there's too much now. What's next?

46:52Justin Andrews:Yeah, but then you look at Operation High Jump and all this kind of stuff where the whole U.S. government sent like fleets of ships down there to investigate. I'm going to be honest with you.

47:03Adam Schafer:I used to nerd out on this stuff as a kid. I thought it was cool. But there was not a single fiber in me that wanted to realize this was real. There's a part of me that's like, yeah, I'm cool. This is fun to learn about. But I'm glad it's not real.

47:13Justin Andrews:To me, it was like a cool story that was like, you know, you kind of read crazy people online, like come up and they contribute to it. And you're like, oh, this is fun. It was always fun to me. It wasn't like it was real. And they're reporting it.

47:28Sal Di Stefano:I wish I knew like somebody who like, you know, there's obviously been all these uh story people that whistleblowers that have come forward from government that have said like we've i've absolutely seen this or that like i wish i had some sort of like because the hardest thing for us as viewers of that is like i don't know anything about that guy yeah like is that guy completely fucked up and like crazy and just like and known for telling stories you know i'm saying whereas if it was like a direct like i feel like if one of you guys were that guy and you told me i'm like then i would be then i'd be bought in i'm bought in because it's like my boy who i trust is like and i know isn't crazy you don't trust the news yeah exactly i don't trust some random no whistleblower that the that the news network that the media agreed to be allowed on i mean there's so much stuff that they control and they police i find it so interesting that they allow these people to be on there is it because these people can be disproven and discredited so much is it because they're totally gaslighting us like so part of the i don't like it's so hard for me to believe you guys remember the miami mall incident

48:28Adam Schafer:right where this was reported that there were these weird like beings that were flashing in

48:32Justin Andrews:and out and wait like when did that happen because that was like during covid years wasn't it i think

48:36Adam Schafer:it was like right around three years ago four years ago maybe okay like that anyway maybe look it up this was wild but there was crazy reports there's some videos remember they shut it out cops like hundreds of cop cars and they blacked everything it was uh january 1st 2024 they blacked everything out cut off the communications shut down the airport over there remember yeah and like oh it's just kids with fireworks yeah and people in reddit are like i was there because it's near the fourth of july right cops were taking january actually oh never mind people were taking away new years yeah it says uh yeah there were eight to ten foot tall extraterrestrial creatures is what they were saying so there's this theory that says that the reason why they're releasing this is because they have no choice that this is happening so we got to let people know

49:18Justin Andrews:before this all comes out yeah you know i kept looking because there was some people that were like trying to post the videos and then it got taken down and i was like oh i almost saw one of

49:28Sal Di Stefano:them i was always like trying to like you know be on the inside i know i see i don't know what to believe i mean i saw this thing and i don't i still don't know if it's true or not maybe doug can do a little bit digging so um one of the things i follow uh aside from sports and car stuff is also like the watch stuff that's going on and there's uh there's this big collaboration that happened with ap and swatch which ap is a really like a luxury brand watch and they're partnering with kind of a lower end so it was like this all this controversy like is that a good idea smart business and so it dropped day before yesterday so look up uh yeah look up videos though doug of uh people uh basically trying so what would you there's tons of viral videos of people trying to go get the the when it got released so release do yeah viral video release of that and see what you get and i've seen both i've seen videos and it's just showing pandemonium of people trying to...

50:22Sal Di Stefano:Rushing to get in. Rushing to get in. And from all the cities. Miami, London. It says global chaos erupts. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Wow. It was just like two days ago. So it just happened. We need to know the time. So I was following... I've been following the release of this because I was curious of just the move on it for the brand AP. And I didn't think it was a smart move. And I still don't know if it's a smart move or not because you're talking about a high-end luxury brand. that it's like uh rolls royce doing a collab with a honda yeah right you know and it's a way lower price point so and i guess the theory is you get more people to know about that high-end brand by introducing a little but then you're also those are the people that you're outpriced not really your customer yeah yeah so it's like all of a sudden a civic buyers could buy a rolls royce lined car or something in the curve a little bit more than a civic but you'll never i don't know I don't understand the logic, so I'm so curious about that.

51:18Sal Di Stefano:That's why I'm following. But my point of bringing it up is now I've seen all these influencers reporting on this, and then I've seen videos that they're manufactured and they're not. So is this like what we just saw? Oh, is it like hype? So I've seen videos of people show me that footage, and there is no pandemonium. They're just people chilling, waiting in line.

51:40Justin Andrews:What if they just take clips from like Black Friday?

51:42Sal Di Stefano:So that's what some of these clips are showing is that they're showing these viral clips of this people tackling each other trying to get in there and then like the same footage but there's no nothing. And so did these guys put this out to make it seem like there's this crazy frenzy for these pop watches when there's really not that crazy. You can't trust them. I know. So I don't even know. I'm like I'm trying to follow this and I'm like I don't know what's true and what's not true to my point of like the media.

52:12Adam Schafer:a shit you know so yeah well um speaking of things you can trust i have some data uh from some trials on the sleep of the eight sleep oh i love on yeah on what people have gotten from uh using the you know their their product for their on their bed so check this out so for people don't know eight sleep it's it goes on your bed under your top cover and it warms or cools depending on what you want. And then it also tracks your sleep and adjust itself in real time just to give you the best sleep ever. And it's like super, it's like the best technology you can get to get the best sleep. It's the best.

52:47Adam Schafer:Yeah. So here's what the trial showed. 44 % less time to fall asleep. So cut the time you need to fall asleep almost in half. 34 % more deep sleep because they've tracked the deep sleep stages. So 34 % increase. Yeah. 23 % fewer night wake ups. So you wake up, One-fourth less time in the middle of the night.

53:09Sal Di Stefano:Did you guys not see the Brian? You know Brian Johnson is partners with 8 Sleep, right? Oh, I don't know. Oh, he is? You know he holds the record for the most 100 scores in days in a row.

53:19Justin Andrews:Like eight months worth.

53:21Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, did you see it? Yeah, I did. Look at this. So 100 scores. Okay, I think three times I've scored like a 92. Never 100. That's crazy. Never have I scored 100 one time. I've never put back-to-back 90 days. back to back 80 days is the most I can do I've done consistently he scored a perfect score what's the thing on it

53:42Justin Andrews:yeah so he achieved a perfect 100 % sleep score for 8 consecutive months

53:49Sal Di Stefano:and he attributes that to that's nuts

53:53Justin Andrews:I sleep the best I mean

53:56Sal Di Stefano:he also says you are an absolute loser you have nothing else going on in your life but I mean kind of crazy impressive great commercial for 8th sleep I know, yeah. Well, I know. Obviously, he does a lot of things. He does everything. He does everything, right? So obviously, 8 sleep doesn't give everybody a 100 score, but he does attribute a big portion of that consistency of his night's sleep.

54:16Justin Andrews:Well, he has his blueprint here.

54:18Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah.

54:19Justin Andrews:So he goes to sleep every night at 8.30 p.m., wakes up at 5 a.m., optimized temperature. He uses 8 sleep to regulate your sleep temperature, maintaining deep sleep at 71 degrees Fahrenheit.

54:32Adam Schafer:height and ram at 73 so by the way see what eight sleep does yes it it changes just slightly to maximize the stages of sleep yeah like people like this is crazy and it learns your patterns

54:45Sal Di Stefano:yep to consistently adjust to it when you should be there yeah it's crazy that's so speaking of

54:50Adam Schafer:brian johnson did you guys see the post he did about his girlfriend's vagina what yeah sorry Yeah, left turn. They tested the microbiome.

55:00Sal Di Stefano:Eight Sleeps, like, we'll cut the commercial right there.

55:03Adam Schafer:And click. Doug, look this up. Brian Johnson's. It's good, right to there? Brian Johnson's girlfriend's vaginal microbiome. Okay. He tested her microbiome. Listen, and she had, and he bragged, she has the best microbiome of anybody.

55:18Sal Di Stefano:What?

55:18Adam Schafer:Yeah, dude. I mean, bread. No, no, no.

55:21Sal Di Stefano:Okay, is there a part of you that thinks that he's like, there's a brilliant side to understanding the virality. Oh, look, look.

55:28Adam Schafer:This is our vaginal microbiome report. 100 out of 100 score. Top 1 % of all vaginas. Who bragged about their wife's vagina? What a flex.

55:38Sal Di Stefano:You know, my wife has the top 1 % of vaginas, right? What do you mean by that?

55:41Adam Schafer:Her microbiome? The bacteria score in there is incredible.

55:44Sal Di Stefano:What is that? Oh, what a flex. I know, dude. Give it a whiff.

55:48Adam Schafer:I know, this guy's weird.

55:48Sal Di Stefano:That is hilarious, dude. He's weird, bro. He is weird. You know what? It's going to be what a letdown when he gets hit by a bus when he's 65. Oh, come on. Come on.

56:01Sal Di Stefano:I know it's dark, but I mean, that's what happens in this situation. You're doing so well. That's what happens in this situation, right? Everybody's a cliffhanger, like, waiting. Is he going to make it to 150? And you're like, we're not wishing that on you, Brian. No, I'm not.

56:18Justin Andrews:I mean, he's going to walk outside a bubble. Like, yeah, he's going to maintain that.

56:22Adam Schafer:I just think it's hilarious that he posted this about his girlfriend's vaginal microbiome report. Like, you know, let's post this, honey. We got to flex on this.

56:31Justin Andrews:Anything to brag about.

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57:13Adam Schafer:Here comes the show.

57:15Justin Andrews:First question is from ColonelFG82. Two, MAPS programs consist of different phases, which are three to four weeks. Do you lose the adaptation when going into a new phase?

57:26Adam Schafer:That's a good question. So when you switch from, let's say, low rep training to higher rep training, some of the strength gains that you got, you're going to lose a little bit for that specific rep range. Okay. Because what you train shifts, there is a specificity that happens with your adaptation. Like you get good at five reps, you get really good at five reps. Now, there's carryover into other rep ranges, but most of the gains come at the five rep. Now, when you go to train, let's say, 15 reps, you'll lose some of the ability and skill at the five rep range, but you're gaining them now in the 15 rep range.

57:59Adam Schafer:But here's what's important to know. When we design MAPS programs, and this is the way most people should train, they need to think in terms of long-term results. I want great results, but I want my results to continue going. I want to minimize injury, and I want to just progress, and I want to have this great workout routine that I can do for years and years and years and years. and the best way to do that is to move in and out of different phases and there is crossover so getting stronger at one is going to give you a little bit of the other one not as much but a little bit and if you continue to do this throughout your career you'll avoid injury more

58:31Sal Di Stefano:you'll hit less plateaus and you'll just get better results this is why it's so impressive when we have somebody who and you hear this all the time uh who's following a maps like say maps andabolic and they come back around the second time and when they phase one in phase one and they see strength gains right away is incredible. Like you don't expect to do that because you, you know that they've lost some of that adaptation because they've been, they've moved to two other phases since then before revisiting it. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect or want even care to see the client see a PR or strength gains until week three of that again.

59:02Sal Di Stefano:But a lot of times we see people right in phase one, week one, again, already back to like PR numbers for them, which is so it shows you the carryover potential that's there, but don't expect that because you, you have, You've been training in high rep and superset. So to go over to one to five reps, you know, you're not going to probably be there until a couple weeks of training there. That's right. Back up to that strength right above.

59:24Justin Andrews:Next question is from JT70374. For times when you only have access to lighter weights, is it better to slow down the tempo and do fewer reps or keep a normal tempo and do higher reps? They're both good. Yeah. They're both really, really good. They both build muscle.

59:41Adam Schafer:Here's the caveat. If the high reps start to get into like the 25 plus rep range, then I would say definitely slow down and try and do less reps. And here's why. Because here's what the data shows for muscle growth. High reps, low reps, moderate reps, they all build the same amount of muscle so long as the intensity is the same. So close to failure. Here's the problem though with high reps for many exercises. Your cardiovascular endurance becomes a hindrance. In other words, if I'm doing barbell squats, and I picked that for a reason because it's a good example. If I'm doing barbell squats and I'm doing sets of 25, the wall that I'm going to hit before muscle strength fatigue is cardiovascular fatigue.

1:00:22Adam Schafer:And so now I can't train at that same intensity to build muscle because I'm gassed out. And so this is the thing that you need to weigh out. But aside from that, they're both great.

1:00:31Justin Andrews:You don't want to train bad patterns, and there's like a tipping point to that. So that's kind of what I'd be conscious of. But I mean, I usually tend to push people towards the slowing down in the tempo, mainly because the natural inclination is to do a lot of reps anyways. So to shift it over into that and really focus on form technique and, you know, get all the value out of that while performing it slow and making it heavy. I think there's, you know, there's a lot of value.

1:00:58Sal Di Stefano:There's a bit of overthinking going on here because it's like for times when only have access to lighter weight. So what I think of is like your hotel traveling or something like that. And you only have access to this. And so these are probably short windows. This person only has that. And either one of these is going to be completely fine in that situation.

1:01:15Adam Schafer:I tend to go slower.

1:01:16Sal Di Stefano:Well, I'll tell you. So the way I coach this to somebody or myself is I actually ask myself or my client, well, what do you tend to normally gravitate to? Do the other one. so if you're somebody who when you're home and you have all your weights you do cycles of high reps one time but you never really manipulate tempo well then here's a great time you're in a hotel you know it only goes up to 30 40 pounds hey maybe you'll do a bunch of tempo stuff this time or maybe you are somebody who's really good about manipulating tempo when you're back home and you have all access to all weights but you never really push high reps go push high reps the truth is if it's a short period of time that you're limited these weights either one of these is not going to be the difference maker of you changing that big of a difference.

1:01:58Sal Di Stefano:So it's not that serious, but I would go do the thing that I don't do the most.

1:02:03Justin Andrews:Next question is from Skitty Markson. I'm getting back into running just for the enjoyment and to run 5Ks. What level of strength training should one incorporate in their weekly routine when running three times a week?

1:02:16Adam Schafer:I think you should try the alternate week approach. I think if you like to run and you want to run 5Ks, those aren't super long distance. I think you should have a week where you focus just on running and then a week where you focus just on strength training and alternate. And what you'll probably find, and there's limited data on this, but there was one study I saw that pointed to this where people got better gains in both strength and endurance when they alternated weeks versus doing them all in the same week and much better than when they did them all in the same workout. So I love this approach for many people.

1:02:49Adam Schafer:You want the endurance from running and you want the strength training, alternate the weeks. I'm just doing strength training week. And then next week, I'm just doing running. And watch what happens. You'll get better at both. Most people get better at both by doing that.

1:03:01Sal Di Stefano:Well, we just had a live caller who we had just recently. Confirmed it. We called back after we gave this exact, like almost exact thing that she was trying to accomplish and you gave this protocol to her.

1:03:11Adam Schafer:And she built more muscle and got faster in her runs. Yeah.

1:03:14Sal Di Stefano:And lowered volume and intensity of running. So less running and less intensity of running. stronger more energetic and got stronger lower body fat percent i mean all things move the needle

1:03:26Justin Andrews:next question is from cognitive posture in a recent episode you were discussing the one set to failure programming what rep range to failure i'm assuming between six to twelve reps so uh

1:03:38Adam Schafer:depending on the face yeah well here it technically doesn't matter but here's why i push more towards to higher reps, like around 12 when going to failure. In my experience, the low reps to failure tend to be too little volume. Well, also a higher risk too. And then the risk is high. Going to failure with a really heavy weight can be a bit precarious. So I think like 10, 12, 13 reps to failure. I've gotten better results going to failure with the higher reps. That's not high reps, right? But it's higher. And my clients typically did as well. And I think it has to do with like the volume is either too low with the low reps or the risk of injury and you're just handling a heavy weight your form breaks down when you get you know to failure so in my experience the these the moderate range that like that like i said around 12 seems to work i agree i've gotten great results though

1:04:29Sal Di Stefano:from a low rep failure but it's i've also that's also when i think of injuries and nagging pains that's when they happen so to your point like i for most people i think it it's in their best interest to to do failure training in the higher rep range stresses the hinges a lot yeah yeah i've definitely seen great results though from from doing that with you know singles doubles triples and going that way but i mean that's also when my hips start talking to me and my knee or my low

1:04:55Justin Andrews:back it's like that's the risk why it's like super infrequent if you're gonna do it yeah yeah if you are gonna do it you know every now and then i would definitely go more but i never get that

1:05:04Sal Di Stefano:from like high rep if i go if i'm doing 10 12 reps and and i fail on the last one like i don't At all. You're not going to pay for that as much.

1:05:11Adam Schafer:For sure. 100%. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

1:05:17Justin Andrews: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.

1:05:57Justin Andrews: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 5-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 the guys break down why almost everyone should do at least one cycle of powerlifting-style training, regardless of your goal. They cover why the squat, bench press and deadlift are the most underrated tools for building a great physique, how strength is the only objective metric that tells you everything is going right, why powerlifting programing beats bodybuilding programing for most people, and how focusing on strength is one of the best tools for getting people out of body dysmorphia. 

They also get into Brian Johnson's perfect 100 sleep score streak on Eight Sleep and his girlfriend's vaginal microbiome flex, the four reported species of aliens now being covered by mainstream news, Justin's son qualifying for nationals in gymnastics, and the AP x Swatch collab that caused global pandemonium. Then they answer questions submitted through Instagram — covering MAPS phase adaptation, lighter weight training strategies, combining running and strength training, and the best rep range for one set to failure.

MAPS 15 BOGO — https://maps15bogo.com Buy 1 get 1 FREE — limited time (all 7 MAPS 15 programs same price)

SPONSORS

Vuori — https://vuoriclothing.com/mindpump 20% off first order — no code needed, automatically applied

Eight Sleep (Pod 5 Ultra) — https://eightsleep.com/mindpump Up to $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. Memorial Day Sale running May 14 – June 12.

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LINKS

Mind Pump Store: https://mindpumpstore.com 

Maps Fitness Products: https://mapsfitnessproducts.com 

Instagram: @mindpumpmedia

0:00 - Intro

1:49 - Why almost everyone should do a cycle of powerlifting-style training

4:07 - Powerlifting is skill and movement based — not body part based

7:26 - Why powerlifters have the best technique for the major lifts

9:07 - The three power lifts are the most effective exercises for building a physique

11:07 - Powerlifting programing is better than bodybuilding programing for most people

16:29 - Strength is the only objective metric — why it beats the mirror and the scale

20:00 - How powerlifting focus cured a client's anorexia and body dysmorphia

22:10 - Bret Contreras post — basic programing beats "advanced" programing every time

26:23 - Sal's story — met powerlifters at 16, gained 13lbs of muscle just from squatting

27:44 - Vuori vs. Lululemon — which one actually looks better and holds up longer

29:01 - Leggings through the decades — 80s flashdance, jazzercise & the thong-over-leggings era

31:24 - Sal's cousins call out that Justin is way stronger than him

33:16 - Sal's dad benched 315 at 180lbs with no training

36:48 - Justin's son pulls 300lbs deadlift at 16 — nationals in gymnastics

43:09 - Fox News reports on the four species of aliens — Nordics, Grays, Reptilians & Mantis

46:06 - Antarctica conspiracy, alien AI bases & the Miami Mall incident

49:39 - AP x Swatch collab causes global pandemonium — or did it?

52:48 - Eight Sleep trial data — 44% less time to fall asleep, 34% more deep sleep

55:22 - Brian Johnson's 8-month perfect sleep score streak & girlfriend's microbiome flex

57:49 - Q&A: Do you lose adaptation when moving between MAPS phases?

1:00:12 - Q&A: Lighter weights — slow tempo and fewer reps or normal tempo and higher reps?

1:02:44 - Q&A: How to balance strength training with running 3x a week for 5Ks

1:04:07 - Q&A: What rep range should you use for one set to failure training?

 

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2868: Every Lifter Should Do This at Least Once — The Case for PowerliftingMind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth · 1 h 6 min
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