2871: 6 Things That Are Destroying Your Muscle (Without You Knowing)

16:50Adam Schafer:Because then suddenly they had more energy to move more. suddenly their cravings dropped because they weren't so sleep deprived um their other behaviors changed that were all beneficial so it's just really but for me the studies are really fascinating because like in the controlled ones they're both at a deficit they both had the same weight loss twice as much muscle loss in the group with not great sleep wow yeah that's a big difference huge makes a big difference yeah uh the other one here is uh being deficient in nutrients this one's uh sucks and it's more common than you think very it could be sneaky yes and a lot of so we we're led to believe in modern societies that nutrient deficiencies are not that common now terrible nutrient deficiencies are not that common so it's not that common in modern societies for you to get like scurvy or to have such a terrible nutrient deficiency that you're you're you're hospitalized but so many people are on that borderline of constant like kind of in like in between deficiency and kind of hitting the cusp of what the bottom is.

17:53Adam Schafer:They don't realize it's like magnesium, zinc. Vitamin D is like chronic. That's like chronically low on people. And when those things are low, your body's just not operating the way it should.

18:02Sal Di Stefano:Vitamin D, it's just like, it's hard because too, like soil qualities change a lot over the years as well. So even when you're like eating whole foods and like you're really actively pursuing that, it's hard to balance all that. Totally. Yeah, I've always given the analogy to my clients, like all the micronutrients like that and nutrients that we can be deficient in is like running your car on low or no oil. It's like it's not the main fuel that gives you gas to go and do your day, like the major macronutrients. And so you can be fine on the macros, but your micros aren't good. And so, and eventually that engine - There's friction inside.

18:38Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, exactly. Eventually there's going to friction and that engine will break down and it will not, it won't go. And so if you're deprived or deficient enough in one of those major micronutrients, then your engine's going to run suboptimal. And so making sure that we've got that all in line will make a difference.

18:55Adam Schafer:I remember we brought this up before, and I wonder if they've repeated this, but they did this, and they showed us this as trainers, and I remember it blew my mind. They took trained dieticians, so not like everyday people, like real dieticians, and they said, make a diet for a day that hit the RDA's recommended daily intake of micronutrients and do it with whole foods. Like, we can't use a multivitamin. It was 3 ,000 calories. But it was a 3 ,000-calorie, well-planned diet, not a 3 ,000-calorie garbage diet. Like, they had to consciously put— The color spectrum was, like, completely visible. Yeah, they were, like, picking things for certain nutrients and putting them together in a diet.

19:35Adam Schafer:And we looked at the diet. First off, 3 ,000 calories, most people gain body fat on that because their metabolic rate's not that high and they're not that active. And then number two was just unrealistic. I'm looking at the meals. I'm like, nobody eats like this. Yeah, nobody's preparing a week like that.

19:46Sal Di Stefano:Nobody's doing that.

19:47Adam Schafer:So these deficiencies are relatively common, definitely suboptimal. And so it's an easy fix, multivitamin. Multivitamin, eat whole foods, and you can plug those holes, and it'll make a big difference. Then it was gut health issues, ignoring these. I know this one personally. Gut health makes such an impact on your body's ability to adapt to stress. It's crazy. When I finally figured out and fixed my gut health, which I had been managing on and off for years and years and years. And the way I managed it was there's certain foods I couldn't eat. I'd have to cut them out for long periods of time.

20:24Adam Schafer:I'd had to go on really low carbohydrate diets. Other times I'd have to fast for long periods. My symptoms were just, you know, all gastro issues. And, you know, and I managed. I managed because I know how to work out. I'm very diligent with my diet. But I managed it. I tried to manage it for a long time. And then when I finally figured out the culprit and solved that issue, I gained about almost 12 pounds of lean body mass. Just boom, doing the same stuff. Just suddenly I could eat and suddenly I could absorb the nutrients and suddenly my body built more muscle.

20:56Sal Di Stefano:What's happening on a physiological level there? Is that your gut is off, therefore the body is, it's got to stress, it's trying to repair, it's trying to fix. And so it's prioritizing that over building muscle or over burning body fat. Like what is it about not having good gut health that could hinder somebody's results in building muscle or burning body fat? Is that what's –

21:20Adam Schafer:So for my case, in my case, it was chronic inflammation. I think that's the case with gut health issues for most people. It's just this chronic systemic inflammation that sometimes is worse, sometimes is better.

21:31Sal Di Stefano:So is that, okay, when that happens, does that mean that the body is like systemically inflamed and it's constantly trying to handle that versus adapt to the strength training? Well, there's more.

21:42Adam Schafer:So part of it is you have this immune response that's kind of always kind of there. So you just don't feel as good. You just don't feel as good. You're more likely to hurt. You're less likely to have good sleep or you're more fatigued. Then the other part of it was I couldn't eat enough to support my training. because once I'd push my food intake a little bit, boom, I'd have issues. And I'd become very limited with what I could eat. And so with people with gut issues that are really bad, you ask them and they'll be like, man, I can't.

22:11Sal Di Stefano:Even the foods you normally can handle makes it difficult if your gut's off going into that.

22:16Adam Schafer:And so you end up avoiding them. Or you end up avoiding them for so long, then you get real hungry, then you eat garbage. A lot of people do that. In my case, it wasn't that because maybe more, I don't know if you want to say more disciplined, but I just wasn't able to feed myself enough because I couldn't. Because every time I did, boom, I'd get a flare up. But yeah, this affects nutrient absorption and assimilation. This chronic systemic inflammation means your body is just not as resilient to the stress of exercise. You can't exercise like you normally can. You just don't feel as good. For some people, it affects their sleep.

22:49Adam Schafer:Definitely impacts hormones, for sure. You're going to have higher stress hormones. Your insulin sensitivity is not going to be as good. Just it's overall, you're not well, is what this looks like. Even if it's just not that bad, but kind of constant. Last, drinking a lot of alcohol. Alcohol is, boy, is that killer. Was this not one of the more difficult things

23:09Sal Di Stefano:as a trainer to deal with? Totally. Especially the client that said things like, I will not give up my coffee. You're not taking my wine from me.

23:18Adam Schafer:Cut my calories somewhere else.

23:19Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. It's difficult for a whole host of reasons. It's not as simple as just the calories thing. I think people think it's just, oh, of course, it's just a bunch of empty calories. Like, well, yeah, that's one of the reasons why it's not beneficial. It's because we get a bunch of empty calories. But it's a lot of the, you know, the effects from that and then also the cravings that come from that. Sleep disruptions. The calories that it ends up replacing instead of. It's like I've never met a person who won't give up the drinking thing that also gets incredible sleep, also hits their protein. You know what I'm saying?

23:53Sal Di Stefano:Like does all the other things. Because in the context of that, like if you actually hit your macro targets, you actually got good sleep, and then you had occasional drinks, it's probably not that. Those are the clients that have had success. But it's the clients that will not give up the drinking, and they've got high stress, poor sleep, low protein intake. And it's like that's just a recipe for we're not going to see any results.

24:14Adam Schafer:Yeah, on average, the average person who drinks, quote, unquote, regularly but isn't in a bad place. So we're not talking about alcoholics here, but just people who drink it with dinner or whatever will have anywhere between 1 ,000 to 2 ,000 extra calories a week. Minimum. From alcohol. Minimum. And this is like conservative. Yeah. And again, to my point. And the calories you're getting from it are useless.

24:36Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, you're not. They're useless. And more often than not, if you're getting 2 ,000 extra calories a week, they're almost always missing that in protein. it's like it's rarely ever carbs because they're they're snacking crackers and stuff and all that that's rarely ever the issue so they're getting carbohydrates uh maybe they're getting their fats so they're either low on the fat or low on protein or the combination of both and their

25:00Adam Schafer:extra calories are going to alcohol well and then this is the other part of it alcohol has a inhibition lowering effect even a little bit yeah and so your food choices and discipline change a little bit and they do we all know this you have a few drinks with your friends and now

25:15Sal Di Stefano:you want pizza well that's the other the other category so either you're the person i just explained where you you keep your calories in check and you drink 2 000 of those calories a week but then you you're you're not hitting your your protein or you eat those two you drink those and then you do a bunch of other stuff on top of it so now you're over consuming on calories it's and maybe you hit your protein but then you're eating four or five thousand extra calories a week uh over over your limit and so it's really tough to find the person who can and so what i would always coach my clients that really enjoy because i also i i mean i drink alcohol uh we all we all do we all allow it into our lifestyle but you i always tell them like i want to get a hold of of the diet first and i want you to feel what it feels like when we feed our body properly we train properly and we do everything correct for a while so you can feel that and you have a home base yeah and then you can it's good to know what it feels like and then you can insert the occasional drink out on the weekend or whatever like that.

26:14Sal Di Stefano:And you know what you need to adjust for because you know what home base looks like. If you have never allowed alcohol to be out longer than a week, you don't know what it's like to eat properly, consistently, sleep properly, hit macros properly and train properly to feel what you should feel like for 30 days. And it's like, let's do that first. And then we can talk about how we can insert. And those are the clients that I think I've had the most success with.

26:38Adam Schafer:Yep. Totally. All right. So back to the gut health stuff because I do want to, because people are probably like, what did you do? Or what was it that you had an issue with, with your gut? I finally realized that I had a parasite and, uh, I didn't, didn't know it. Part of the reason why I didn't know it is testing can be interesting with, for parasites. Sometimes, sometimes you can test negative and there's still something there because they quote, they quote unquote hide, which sounds kind of gross. But what I did is I did a treatment for parasites and started to feel immediately different and then went through the process of healing because once you get rid of it, you have to give your body a little bit of time to heal whatever damage or inflammation.

27:20Adam Schafer:And it was like a few months of kind of getting better and kind of still being good with my food. And it was like, I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy because now I can eat things I couldn't eat before and I don't have this crazy reaction. and now if I get like if I my gut goes bad now it's like bad for like a half a day whereas before when I'd get a flare-up I'm like here we go I got three weeks of of gut issues happening and I got to clamp down I got a fast and it was parasite and parasites are so much more common in modern societies than we're led to believe it's not common like it is in third world societies like You don't have parasites in everything you eat, but if you live your entire life in a modern society in America and you eat raw vegetables or sushi or uncooked other kinds of foods and you've been doing it for the last 30 years, odds are you've been exposed and you might have a parasite.

28:14Sal Di Stefano:Do you think – so talking to Drew from Organifi the other day and he's telling me that their number one product right now is – The parasite cleanse? Is the parasite cleanse. Of course. It's blowing up. Of course. Do you think that it's more common today than it was 30 or 40 years ago? Or do you think we're more aware of it? Like I never heard that as a young trainer. It wasn't like a big conversation where I feel like it's become way more common.

28:37Adam Schafer:I don't think parasites are more common, but gut health issues are more common. And there's other reasons for that. So you have more food allergies, food intolerances, more just issues with things like gluten today than ever before. But that's a whole other conversation. Could it be that what we're eating, exposure to external compounds, chemicals? Could it be our microbiome is thrown off because of the antibiotics that we're consuming at high doses or we have been for decades? I mean, I don't know. All of that maybe. But parasites themselves are, I don't think they're more common, but your body's less resilient.

29:20Sal Di Stefano:We're making a better environment for them to thrive. So for the average listener who's like wondering like, you know, or maybe they've tried a lot of the gut health stuff and, you know, probiotics and things like that. And like you, you know, had a little bit of excess, not really. And it could possibly be a parasite. What would be like the symptoms that they would be looking for or like what's.

29:44Adam Schafer:So digestive issues. So constipation, diarrhea, bloating. That's just like abnormal. You're getting more and more food intolerances. so like man what the heck i used to be able to eat this now when i eat that it bothers me and that just keeps happening skin issues uh jaw clenching at night um inflammation um those are the main kind of main thing gut health issues in general are the big ones are the are the big ones but there's a lot i mean you can there's so many symptoms that if i start listing them all you're like wow it's everything yeah but that's just because parasites can affect lots of different things yeah the cool thing about uh drew's uh parasite cleanse from organifi is that because it's natural um it doesn't hurt to use it i mean on it i mean honestly i think everybody should do a parasite cleanse once every year once every other year especially if it's not it won't hurt

30:34Sal Di Stefano:you especially if i can say it's not like you're because i know other ones out there are like

30:37Adam Schafer:antibiotics right so no no no no yeah this is these are all natural yeah it's not gonna hurt you right so it's just might as well right might as well do it once all natural stuff so it's not

30:45Sal Di Stefano:like you're taking something that's nuking your gut or anything. Well, it's interesting when you see, because like having cats and having dogs, it's like, you know, it's a constant battle. And I do see, especially with the cats, like it's, you know, more visible. They got worms like crawling around, which is disgusting, but it also makes you think. And it's like, it's just so visibly rampant with your animals. It's like, we don't even like think that we're consuming.

31:12Adam Schafer:You get it from your animals too. You can get it from your animals? You can get it from your animals? Sure. people with pets uh have higher rates of parasites and people yeah yeah is that like one of the few

31:23Sal Di Stefano:things that we can get from pets because there's not a lot of things that we that transfer from a

31:27Adam Schafer:pet uh i don't know that's a good question i'm not sure but i know you can get parasites oh

31:31Sal Di Stefano:that's interesting from animals i didn't know that watch out for those ticks i finally saw that i know that i know you get for animals is there like a tick explosion or something yeah there is in you know and i and i don't want to create like like you don't care you don't want about bill gates sticks yeah exactly well the lone star tick so there was a guy that actually posted a video when and he had the symptoms of like being allergic to red meat this is the first one i've seen where the guy was like trying to describe um you know after getting bit and then now all of a sudden like his reaction towards eating red meat was like pretty visible and like these rashes and everything he had was crazy as a result of it um but it's like yeah because again And this is more of that conspiratorial stuff where you're like, dude, I just really hope they're not doing this.

32:16Sal Di Stefano:You know, like if this is just like a random occurrence. But apparently there's been an uptick of these Lone Star ticks, literally.

32:25Adam Schafer:I know. I saw a chart and it's like spreading to the West. Yeah. And people are taking their phones and filming. And you can see like ticks all over.

32:34Sal Di Stefano:So what did it fill me in? Because I only know surface knowledge of the conspiracy theory around Bill Gates and these ticks.

32:41Adam Schafer:They're genetically modifying mosquitoes. I don't know about ticks. Yeah, no. They're dropping them in areas. Supposedly he's the one who -

32:46Sal Di Stefano:They pointed in his direction in terms of like, yeah, scientifically studying. And like, you know, I'm sure for - Because he's involved in like the whole like meatless meat.

32:59Adam Schafer:So it refers to a debunked. Okay, thanks internet. Yeah, it's good. Conspiracy theory claiming Bill Gates financed the release of genetically modified ticks to cause a red meat allergy.

33:10Sal Di Stefano:Well, I don't know if he's responsible, but I know that I'm sure he's benefiting from it. Well, I certainly don't take the first thing that AI tells me is truth either. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

33:19Adam Schafer:Yeah, so they did pay for research to genetically modify a different species of tick called the tropical cattle tick to stop livestock diseases. But then there's another theory that our government was experimenting. And they're going to stop there.

33:35Sal Di Stefano:They're going to have integrity.

33:36Adam Schafer:Well, there was this theory, and maybe you could look this up, Doug, that our government was experimenting with modifying ticks, and they dropped them in an area to see what would happen, but then lost control of them. And I think that one might be true. Our lives are like a whole sci-fi movie now, bro. Yeah.

33:57Adam Schafer:The idea the government lost control of them. Ticks and mosquitoes and aliens. It's linked to the origins of Lyme disease. Can we just be cool? Yeah. Yeah. Stop battling all these things. Hold on, I got to read this. Proponents allege that between 1950s and 70s, the U.S. military government scientists experimented with dropping or releasing infected ticks to use them as biological weapons. They claim an accidental release from laboratories associated with Plum Island caused the Lyme disease epidemic. There's a book called Bitten. Bitten, yeah.

34:28Sal Di Stefano:That's supposedly where Lyme disease came from? That's what they said. Oh, yeah. Shut up. I did not know that.

34:34Adam Schafer:Wow. Yeah, dude. They would never create a disease and accidentally release it. Stop. Guys. There's never been a lab leak. That's crazy. That would not happen, you guys, dude. Yeah, dude. Dude, I got to tell you, and just bear with me, because this story takes a turn, but I had this spiritual experience today that just cracked me up so hard, dude. So I'm in the car, and I'm driving to the gym, okay? And I'm listening to this book. I'll pull it up for you. It's like Pray Like Fools, Live Like Monks or something like that. I think that's the name of it. It's a really good book by Tyler Staten. Yeah, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.

35:15Adam Schafer:That's it, Tyler Staten. And in there, he's talking about prayer, and he talks about the Lord's Prayer, you know, our father, one. And he starts off, and he breaks it down, right? So he starts out with our father, and he's like, okay, what this, it tells us who we are and who he is, but it also tells us who we are to each other, like that we're all brothers and sisters. So as I'm listening to this and I'm meditating on that, we're brothers and sisters, right? And I'm driving and I just start feeling all this like love. Like people are driving by. This is what it cuts you off. Sloan, listen. People are driving by.

35:44Adam Schafer:No, it's even better. Okay. People are driving by and I'm looking at them and I genuinely, I'm thinking of them like my siblings because I love my siblings.

35:51Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

35:52Adam Schafer:And I'm feeling all this love and this joy like, oh my God, this is the most amazing feeling and I'm praying and praising God. So I get to the gym and change and I'll get my thing ready. and I go and there's one remaining squat rack because I was in a squat today and there's a dude stretching in there. Like that's what he's using in the squat rack? Yeah, he's stretching.

36:11Sal Di Stefano:He's at least not bicep going in there. Bro, listen, listen.

36:12Adam Schafer:He's just stretching. He literally is just holding the bar. He's literally holding the bar.

36:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that might be worse actually.

36:17Adam Schafer:Bro, he's holding the bar and he's doing stretches, right? And it's the only You can do that over there. And all the other racks are being used by people who are squatting. Yeah. But this dude's stretching in flip-flops, okay? Even better. He's wearing flip-flops. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's squatting. So I go up to him.

36:31Sal Di Stefano:Probably wears deodorant too, I'm sure.

36:33Adam Schafer:And listen, I'm like on a time crunch because I got to work. I could come here afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm looking at him doing the stretches, and I'm like, maybe he's going to load the bar. And I'm also thinking, like, oh, you shouldn't squat and flip floss or whatever. Yeah. But no, he's just stretching the whole time. So then I go up to him and say, hey, man. I said, how much longer do you got? He's like, oh, I just got five more minutes, dude. I'm like, all right. So I stand behind him kind of waiting. 15 minutes goes by. no way bro and inside my body the fury in my body i'm looking at this guy and i'm like mad and i'm like ready to go tell him like you're like what do you do you're wasting you're in flip-flop whatever and i catch myself yeah it's your brother i catch myself love man and i immediately i'm like that's why i need a savior because i have messed up dude like that i went from loving people to this dude stretching the squat rack ready to beat him with his foot and To fight someone.

37:24Adam Schafer:Yeah, exactly. Dude.

37:26Sal Di Stefano:He can flip-flop. To my defense, that's annoying.

37:29Adam Schafer:Yeah. Yeah, I kind of agree with you.

37:32Sal Di Stefano:That's super annoying. Especially after you asked him that. And it's like, it's a little bit of self-awareness it just takes to look over and go, oh, look, all the squat racks. It is. I'm taking it up to stretch.

37:41Adam Schafer:Bro, and he wasn't even like really stretched.

37:43Sal Di Stefano:And he never lifted. He just was just.

37:45Adam Schafer:No, and his stretches were like, he'd hold on the bar and kind of twiddle. It's not even like a good stretch. Yeah, dude. And I'm like, oh, no. Oh, my God. I had so much fear. Oh, my God. It's not a big bro. It's so bad, bro. I got a funny story for you yesterday.

37:58Sal Di Stefano:So right now I told you guys that we're in full swim practice mode. So every day Max and I get in the pool and we swim. And he's now joining me. But he swims.

38:09Adam Schafer:He said right out the gate.

38:11Sal Di Stefano:Water wings are gone. But you know what's funny now? So Katrina can't watch. Because he's not a good swimmer yet. Yeah, so she gets scared. so so he bobs a little bit you know i'm saying it goes under for a while and but what's great is again it's been so funny that uh my son and on his terms right like we've never practiced really swimming at all and we've always let him have water wings now when he's in the hot tub he doesn't have he doesn't need water because it's only three and a half feet and he can stand up right so he doesn't wear those in there and a lot of times him and i just hang out in the hot tub together and him and i go underwater i've taught him how to hold his breath for so he can hold his breath for a really long time oh wow that's good and so i think when i'm teaching about a swim i explain to him like hey just don't panic and if you go if you go under because you you run just hold your breath yeah hold your breath and then kick off the bottom and so he's learned that he can just hold his breath and then he'll kind of work his way back out and he catches and so sometimes when he's trying to figure it out he's he's bobbing up gets his breath and he sinks back down and i just sit back and just like katrina's like get him i'm like calm down he's fine i'm like trust me he'll tell you because one time uh he did it and it he jumped in right and then he bobbed down and the his goggles got water in it and he oh yeah and and then he's also in the deep end and he's like and he could daddy and i'm like i'm right here and i grabbed him and i said and so i'm telling katrina i'm like don't worry he'll trust me he'll tell you if he's scared like he's he knows what he's doing right now but then he'll go under and hold his breath for a long time and katrina's like she had to just turn around and walk walk back in the house but anyways that's i was gonna tell you so i'm so that's our routine right now and i'm uh i'm letting him get in the sauna for a little bit for me just like five minutes he gets into the sauna for me and he gets it he gets in and he's and he sits next to me and he's like oh he's in there for like 30 seconds he's like oh daddy i'm i'm sweating like you and i'm like yeah maybe uh maybe that's the water from the pool though and he's like oh no i think i'm so okay yeah so and then he's like he's looking down at himself because we're like looking to sweat and he's like he's like yeah you see um you see my muscles no he didn't yeah so he's like you see you see my muscles like yeah yeah and he's like looking at it he's like which one do you think is bigger no and i'm like uh you know that one and he's like oh yeah that's the one i opened the door with it's always like comparing the right to the left he's trying to figure out why that one's bigger he's like you can't tell any discrepancy from the left or right or he's like that whatsoever but he's logically he's trying to figure out why that is he's like oh that makes sense that's the one i i open the doors with

40:44Adam Schafer:my son will pick things and like jessica be like which one do you want you want this or this he's i'll take that one because it's more muscular i was like what what do you mean by more muscular

40:53Sal Di Stefano:sure here you go buddy you can have it i know i was so cute i wish that uh you know this is another i gotta get better at this i really wish i journaled this is the type of stuff that like i'll forget this yeah you know no that's a good point it is and i and like i mean i what's cool is we do have this. And one day, maybe we can go back. Listen to the show. Listen to a lot, you know, and pull it out. That's true. But there's so many episodes. Well, I mean, here's a positive thing of AI. Oh, you're right. We'll be able to prompt AI, pull out every story I told about my son. Oh, that's great. I didn't even think of that.

41:26Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I mean, how cool would that be for our kids when we get older, that we could probably prompt AI, pull out all the stories I told about my son, and put together a catalog of conversations about it.

41:37Adam Schafer:You know, along those lines, I want to tell you, because I feel like you would be interested in this. So there's a website. I don't know what the name is. I'll get it for you. But Jessica, she organizes all of our pictures. And she's got like tons and tons of pictures. She'll take them, organize them by the year. And she makes these photo albums. And bro, they look amazing. Shutterfly? It might be. It might be Shutterfly. And so we have these books. And so she does a really good job of these books. And they're expensive, dude. They're not cheap. No. But you know what I realized? Without those books, you don't look at these pictures.

42:05Sal Di Stefano:No, no. Nobody looks at them. No. they stand your phone and they go anywhere they're gone I did that for Katrina for the first five years of our relationship have you done any

42:15Adam Schafer:since

42:16Sal Di Stefano:I have done some since do you have them in the house somewhere I have a stack of them they are really cool I wish I was more consistent I am good though about my phone so I do catalog all his photos are by the year so I have albums in my phone for that exact reason so i can just upload them to shutterfly and then i can i can print a book off i haven't done it in a while um i also i would never see i would never have the

42:45Adam Schafer:if it was up to me gone they'd be gone like they're somewhere but thankfully my wife's patient and able to do that because that's not something i would do well it's not but i appreciate it it's

42:55Sal Di Stefano:not something i i so i when i was a kid uh i dated a girl in high school who was into photography and it was the first time in my life I've been around somebody who's like really into it. And when I look back, it's one of the coolest things, the couple years that we were together, like I have a whole, I mean, I've got boxes of photos of like that whole timeline. I still have them.

43:19Adam Schafer:You have a bunch of photos with you and your ex-girlfriend?

43:21Sal Di Stefano:I have a very secure wife, so she's looked through them with me. Look at this. We both have them. I've looked through her and she's looked through them. Yeah, exactly. Come on, it was like freaking 30 years ago. but my point is that um it's so cool and so when i got older like uh that was something i always loved and appreciated uh and my wife is not into that stuff at all and so i've kind of picked that up for us it's not like something i'm i think i'm good at it's like that i just appreciate it so much that i'm like i make a conscious effort to do it because i've i got to appreciate it from somebody

43:56Adam Schafer:And you also, like I said, I won't look at these pictures. No, you won't. Until they're out in front of me in this book.

44:01Sal Di Stefano:Plus there's something more like about a tangible thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sitting in your like with family.

44:08Adam Schafer:Yeah, and you can't explain it, but everybody knows what you're talking about.

44:10Sal Di Stefano:So what I love about those books, like I'll have family that hasn't visited me in say years or they'll come over my house. They look through them. They look through them. And you pass them around. I mean, it's just, there's a different experience than looking on your phone and looking at photos or whatever.

44:22Adam Schafer:No, speaking of things that we know are different but we don't think about very often. In that book, he was actually talking about music and music's power. And I started to really think about how strange the power that music possesses. For example, how many things will not only affect your mind, so you can think about it, will also induce emotion. Oh, mood. And will not just do that. It'll do it to the point where you feel like you have to involve your body.

44:50Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

44:50Adam Schafer:You got to move. Think about this for a second. If this didn't exist, if dancing didn't exist, and then you suddenly saw music and you suddenly saw people dancing, you'd be like, what is happening? Are they possessed? Why do they want to move to this thing? And it's so powerful, and I was thinking about this, that kids, they instinctively or inherently know this. You play music to a kid, they could never see anybody dance, and they suddenly want to move.

45:14Sal Di Stefano:It was funny to watch that with my boys when they were really young. And, you know, you want to keep that as innocent as possible. So, like, I try not to, like, you know, because they do some funny moves and stuff. And I'm like, I don't want to, like, deter this at all. And so I remember being in Disneyland and they had, like, this jazz band playing. And all of a sudden the boys just busted out. And they're the only kids there just, like, you know, really throwing their arms and hips and, like, just going to town. And, like, they used to do that all the time when I'd go downtown Santa Cruz and, like, somebody would be playing.

45:46Sal Di Stefano:and they just get right in front and dance. I'm like, I never had the courage to do that as a kid. It's interesting to watch. No, but you mosh pit. I do mosh pit. Which takes a lot of courage. It is slam dance. In your 40s. It's its own art form. I think all these things like that, I'm so fascinated with that don't have to be taught, that we just do.

46:07Adam Schafer:Well, there's something very inherent.

46:10Sal Di Stefano:There's a lot of random things like that.

46:11Adam Schafer:It's something magical or spiritual, which is what I believe. about, I mean, also memory. Before books were a thing, people kept incredibly accurate records of things through song, through song, through singing. And you know this, if you remember your ABCs right now, you sing it. This is how you remember it. And what's crazy about this, as I was thinking about it, I'm like, you know what? We have this incredibly powerful thing called music. By the way, we could see this in fMRI machines. It lights up the whole brain. Nothing else does that. and we put no thought into the music we listen to other than I like it so like it impacts you so much it's preaching to you and you don't think about it

46:52Sal Di Stefano:well I think back in the day they put a lot more effort because they didn't have all this inundation of entertainment everywhere and so you'd get people like you know the Puritans that would like you know chastise everybody for playing certain types of music or if they shake their hips it's like oh my god this is sex right here you know like so it's gotten quite a different direction but i do think that yeah it's always been a powerful thing it's a force well think

47:16Adam Schafer:about this how many songs here i'm gonna trip you guys out right how many songs if you just had the lyrics and somebody said the lyrics didn't have music in the background they just read the lyrics would you listen to and have your and plug your kids ears like do not listen to this oh because it wasn't saying but because it's part of music we're like all having a good time and you don't even think about it except yeah here's what's even crazier the fact that it's two music makes it even more pervasive it actually makes it more dangerous than if someone was just talking in a monotone voice and reading the lyrics you're saying singing to the window to the wall is yeah dude

47:52Sal Di Stefano:well you bring up there's a whole there's a whole conspiracy rabbit hole on the whole hip-hop culture like that was like intentionally yeah that was intentionally well yeah because originally like hip-hop started out pretty like um clean clean yeah it was very very clean and yeah and you had like run dmc yeah like a lot of like really uh interesting cool like like educational almost like raps and then it just it turned into this like gangster yeah it was very and supposedly that's what was like all intentional i love both i remember what yeah me too i can't remember what documentary lots of things we liked that yeah no right that i was watching i wish i remember what it was all the old 70s rock was about like 17 year old girls oh my god i can't

48:40Adam Schafer:now as an adult i'll listen to old rock sometimes like what did he say bro throw him in jail seriously seriously arrest this guy

48:51Sal Di Stefano:hey you know what i wanted to tell you that uh you've got me doing now and i've been consistent with it and i swear i noticed a difference is the i've been trying to get really consistent with

49:00Adam Schafer:the taking the ketone iq i saw you right before the podcast before we podcast uh and there's

49:04Sal Di Stefano:definitely a uh a mental clarity sharpness totally that comes from it totally yeah and it's it's and you know i wasn't doing it because i was i'm normally drinking my my caffeine drinks and i'm like you know there's a non-caffeine version so i don't need to because they have compliments it so well it does compliment yeah and so i was you know i'm thinking like oh i'm already getting like a cognitive boost and the caffeine and this and that and i'm like so i wasn't no you can drink

49:25Adam Schafer:ketones and go to bed. It's not a stimulant. It's not going to keep you awake. It doesn't stimulate your central nervous system. It doesn't cause hormone responses like that. It's just you're giving your brain a fuel that it burns very cleanly. It loves that fuel.

49:40Sal Di Stefano:I'm enjoying the combo of I'm already having a caffeinated drink and then I have ketone IQ on top of that. Now, if you don't like they have one that has caffeine also, but I'm already drinking caffeine outside of that. You do the one without caffeine. and it hits fast too. Yep. Like I'm only, 15, 20 minutes. I'm drinking it like right before we podcast and I can like feel it kind of switch over about 10, 15 minutes into it. Yeah. No, it works. That's quick.

50:04Adam Schafer:Yeah, right. You can test it on a pee stick by the way. 30 minutes. I know you said that. I want to do that. Yeah, 30 minutes. Pee on a stick. Right before podcasts. Let's do that. Is that what the studies? Well, that's what I've seen. 30 minutes. I can see it on the, I can show up. We'll compare sticks. Yeah, but I think it depends on if you have food in your stomach or whatever.

50:24Adam Schafer:Amazon. No, I've had them before. And they turn purple or whatever? Yeah, yeah.

50:27Sal Di Stefano:I used them when we were doing the ketogenic diet back in the days. That's what I was using.

50:33Adam Schafer:Speaking of diets and stuff, have you guys, because now we're at the age, have you guys all done your colonoscopies? We're supposed to do it. Have you guys done them? Have you done them? I haven't done one now. I did a full body scan. Wait a minute. You never did a colonoscopy? I've never done one. So this is like a big deal. We're supposed to do it. I mean, I don't want to like...

50:52Sal Di Stefano:Kaiser's been hammering me about that. your public service announcement, but I've heard some various things that make me... Like what? Like perforated colons. Oh, like the risks. Yeah, I mean there are some risks associated with it. Let's just say that. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but I'm saying I've decided not to.

51:07Adam Schafer:Did our Pernuvo test cover that? It did, but it's not as detailed. So, when you go on the full body MRI scan website, I know this, because I went to the doctor for something else, for some other blood tests, and the doctor's like, you haven't done your... Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to get some heat from this. And I told them, I said, I did the Prunuvo full body MRI and she went on the website and on our website, it does say, uh, it'll notice, you know, large issues, but you probably still want to do a colonoscopy to look closer. So then she was like, well, there you go. So you need to do it. But yeah, I've never done it.

51:40Adam Schafer:Are you going? Well, so here's the thing. Uh, the, the, the issue with colon cancer is you don't get symptoms until you're in a bad position. By the time you get symptoms, uh, then they'll see and be like, Oh my God, you're at this stage. Now you got to do aggressive treatment. Colonoscopies will find it so early that it's really easy. Or they'll find precancerous polyps or whatever. So I get it, but it's so invasive. So I told the doctor, I'm like, I'm healthy. I did the full body scan. I really don't want to do it. She's like, you could do, there's this other test you could do, but it's also not one I really want to do where they send you a kit.

52:13Adam Schafer:Yeah. And you poop in the thing. It's a fecal one. Yeah. I have that just sitting in my house. That one I did. I do too. I have it sitting around too. Yeah, not today. I didn't know there was one that you could do. You poop in a bag, and then you mail your poop. Yeah, I should do that one, for sure. And then they look for markers. It's the opposite of Santa Claus. You're just like, send it off.

52:33Sal Di Stefano:You know, like, here you go. Here's my present.

52:36Adam Schafer:And then when they look for markers, and if they see certain markers, then they'll schedule a colonoscopy to double check. If they see no markers, then I guess you can wait two or three years or whatever. But you still got to poop in a bag. I mean, that's much better than the other way around.

52:51Sal Di Stefano:up and given you a whatchamacallit yeah don't you think so yeah it's better but it's still not great well no of course i don't know i don't think there's a great way around this i have i have the

53:02Adam Schafer:same kit jesse at home it's literally sitting yeah it's like right there like a week ago just

53:06Sal Di Stefano:sitting there there's stuff that you have to drink all day before you go do it it's crazy colonoscopy yeah yeah dude and i've never done it to clear you out it's my brother did one yeah some kind of sedative or some some kind of drug when you're doing that yeah and you're not asleep

53:20Adam Schafer:Yeah, because my friend did it. So you're awake, brother.

53:23Sal Di Stefano:And I was trying to get him to go. This was a long time ago.

53:25Adam Schafer:Do you know how many doctors are going to write in and just blast him? Oh, I know. He will get blasted. He was messed up, though.

53:29Sal Di Stefano:He was on something and was all out of it because he wanted to hang out that night, and he just had a colonoscopy. Your buddy? Yeah. You'll look right, dude. We should take you home, dude. I think they went in a little too far. You trying to hang out for a day of that? No way, dude. I don't know what it is about this colonoscopy. Yeah, he had to be my wingman. I'm in the mood to hang out. Oh, my God. Yeah, this is like way back in the day. I'm going to need a day. I'm going to need a day. Yeah, he was not. He was not. It's 50 is the number, isn't it? No, 40. No.

53:56Adam Schafer:Yeah, once you're 40, look at it. Oh, we're way past that. When do you get your colon? When are you supposed to do colonoscopy? I think it's 40. I'm pretty sure it's 50.

54:02Sal Di Stefano:I'm pretty sure it's 50. No, it's 40, dude. No, no, no. They thought you were already past 50. You saw my date on that. 45. Oh, it's 40, 45. Okay. They're going to be 45. All right. So you're barely passing. You're like, damn, he's almost 60. You need to do this, dude.

54:19Adam Schafer:So how effective, just look this up. Like how effective are colonoscopies for survival rates? I think let's look that up. Because I don't want to look up how effective they are at detecting cancer, but rather do they really affect like survival rates? Have they made an impact? What was it?

54:37Sal Di Stefano:Dr. Benson was the one that pushed us towards the full body scan, right? By 50 % to 88%.

54:42Adam Schafer:Who undergo the procedure once you detect it, right? here we go wow studies show that screening colonoscopy lowers the risk of death from colon cancer by 50 to 88 % well alright sorry that's a good number yeah dude that's pretty solid it is compelling can you do general anesthesia because I don't want to be awake you know I don't want to be awake when I'm doing that hey what's going on over there do you want to be put down how long yeah I don't want to know

55:08Sal Di Stefano:how long of a process is it I don't know look it up how long is a colonoscopy this is important stuff we all are in this we all need to get this done The conversations we have now are just incredible. We're losing our young audience. 15 to 30 minutes. I know. Depending on the barriers. That's a good range there. Why not? I want to be with 15 minutes. I can do that. 15 minutes. 30 minutes? 30 is a long time. 30 is a long time. Can you get out? Can you get out now? Yeah, yeah. We're way past here. But it says plan to spend two to three hours total? Yes.

55:37Adam Schafer:At the hospital. Yeah. So my brother did it, and he had to drink. I don't know what it's called. He said it was like an orange drink. I guess the color orange. and he's like, dude, it cleans you out.

55:46Sal Di Stefano:Oh, it used to be like a white milky look. Oh, I don't know. He's like, bro, you go.

55:50Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah.

55:50Sal Di Stefano:And you go until nothing. I was with somebody while they had to do it, and I was with them all day long. So it was like, it's just once it gets going, you're on there. You're basically just living on a toilet for a day. Miralax.

56:02Adam Schafer:That's all it is? Yeah, I guess. Miralax, you buy over the counter. Okay. I don't know. I've never used to. I thought it was like some special thing.

56:09Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. It was literally like a, she had to do like a gallon of it. oh my god yeah it was like a ton yikes it was a lot it just was a drink on it i almost had to

56:19Adam Schafer:get a colonoscopy once because i was in my 20s um and i had some issues going on and i went to the doctor and uh they checked me and they're like no you're fine but it was because i ate captain crunch cereal what yeah dude oh and you were bro it doesn't just cut it doesn't just cut up your mouth. You were so old at home. I went to town on a ball. You ate too fast. And I felt it the next day, but I freaked out. That's hilarious. Captain Crunch, dude. It stays crunchy. Tear your jaw up. It doesn't get soggy in milk, though.

57:00Sal Di Stefano:Just tear off the roof of your mouth. Pour me up a little bit. You guys want some unverified news, local news. A complete disclosure. I've heard this from just people that are at this gymnastic gym. This is local news. There was all this hoopla around this trailer park home. It's like an upscale trailer park home, if that's a thing. Adam used to live in that room. Sorry, Adam. The king. Sorry. astray sorry dude so uh yeah so there's all these cops and like everybody was wondering in the in the community like what's going on here they're like raiding this house it turns out the fbi was there raiding it and so then it became like a facebook thing of everybody like speculating oh what's happening this person of course they're thinking like maybe it's like child porn or like it's something bad something in that yeah direction well apparently like according to you know my insider source uh they said that like this person was actually then taken in in a in a ambulance to the hospital because of formaldehyde poisoning yeah and so now you start with how you get for formaldehyde poisoning right for me like immediately i'm like is this person like a freaking necrophiliac is this like a dead body eater yeah you know because that's preserved that's what you Uses a preservative.

58:29Sal Di Stefano:Uses a preservative. So I wasn't that far off. Apparently, according to them, they were saying that this person had got access to the black market and was able to buy testicles that were formaldehyde encased and was sucking on. What? Why? Eat them. I have no idea. Some crazy fetish or whatever. Oh, no. Oh. And yeah, so that's the kind of person that was living like, you know, a couple miles away. From your place? Wow. Wow. I was like, cool. So like a, you know. Ball eaters. A weekend kind of Jeffrey Dahmer type. Dude, great. You know, like, can we be out with the news with this and like a full report?

59:16Sal Di Stefano:Or do I have to like, you know, have nightmares of night? Hey kids, don't go in that direction. Yeah, I was like, let's just avoid this community.

59:21Adam Schafer:That's where the ball eaters live. Yeah. The Tezzies. The Tezzies are over there. The weird. Testicle eater. You know what glandular therapy is? You just reminded me of that. So back in the day, eating an organ, they believed, corresponded to your organ. For your own health towards. That's liver king. I mean, they would eat testicles of animals. Yeah, that's liver king. Isn't it still.

59:43Sal Di Stefano:Did he eat testicles too? Yes. That was his big thing. Tomorrow. Yes.

59:48Adam Schafer:Oh, he did, yeah.

59:50Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah, he did all that raw testicles, yes.

59:52Adam Schafer:And he raw. Yeah, and raw, bro. Why can't he cook them? That's what I always want to know. Why not cook it? Yeah. You're going to be gross? Cook it. What's the problem with cooking? Why does it have to be wrong? Is he still relevant?

1:00:03Sal Di Stefano:Like, he's fallen wrong. No, no. I have not heard anything about him. But Katrina asked me the other day about him. Because we watched that documentary a while back. And she's like, whatever happened to him?

1:00:15Adam Schafer:You know what's weird these days? The interest fell off a cliff. The cycle of flash-in-the-pan fame is so fast now that somebody will become everywhere. and then gone in like a year. Yeah. It's wild. What does it say there? He's still there, huh? Yeah, 6 million TikTok followers, 3 million on Instagram. But according to this, he's faded from his pop culture. Look on Instagram. I'm looking at him right now. Is he posting still?

1:00:43Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, he's still posting. But it definitely looks like he's way less relevant for sure. I should hope so. That's so crazy. Maybe he's the guy. I mean, he doesn't look good either. He didn't before either.

1:00:59Adam Schafer:It looked like he was eating raw testicles, actually, what it looked like. You know, what's interesting is to see Paul Saladino's progression from his carnivore diet. Bro. Yeah. He's adding in carbs. He's now eating everything.

1:01:12Sal Di Stefano:Lane roasted him so bad the other day. Lane did like a timeline. Lane lives for this. I know he does. Lane did like a timeline of his diets. I mean, at this point, he's kind of like - Do you know he was actually originally like vegan?

1:01:27Adam Schafer:He was a vegan. Yes. Then he went carnivore. Yes. And it's like cured everything. And I only eat meat. That's all I eat. Yeah. Then it went - Honey. Then it went honey. And then fruit. And then I'm going to throw in certain kinds of fruit.

1:01:37Sal Di Stefano:Doesn't that sound like the progression of like people that are super like - Dude. Excited. And now he's eating vegetables, fruit. I mean, now he's eating meat.

1:01:47Adam Schafer:And now he's coming down into balance. The next one, what's the next one? Sandwiches? Sandwiches are giving me more energy.

1:01:54Sal Di Stefano:Oh, man, dude. I mean, we - There's a lot of -

1:01:57Adam Schafer:Listen, I'm not going to discount that some people with lots of autoimmune issues can benefit from a massive elimination diet, which is what that is. But what you're looking at with a lot of people who eat in this way is dysfunction. it's a it's like a form of orthorexia and um so it doesn't it doesn't surprise me wouldn't you

1:02:15Sal Di Stefano:also even the people even the extreme cases right that have major autoimmune stuff yeah peterson's a good example right yeah but even her actually she's gone away from just doing that too she's re-entered she's had to reintroduce stuff what is she eating i don't i can't remember everything but i do know she's talked about it it's been a long time since i've i've peeked in on what she's doing um but i know she's not just eating just meat anymore so and that's a great example of my point i was going to make was i i think a lot of people can benefit tremendously from a very strict elimination diet which that's what that is and then heal whatever autoimmune issue you've got going or gut issue you got going there and exactly then eventually you would want to reintroduce things that are not offensive yeah that are in other food so you have flexibility yeah right and so remember when justin went carnivore for a little bit I still dabble every now and then I just like eating meat dude it's not even about like you know rigid lines or anything it's very rigid

1:03:13Adam Schafer:I feel like he's more I just like it

1:03:15Sal Di Stefano:I feel like it's a more simple approach for him it's the opposite of vegan dude that's why I don't want to be associated with that

1:03:25Adam Schafer:you eventually got sick of it right eating the meat you're not really energetic

1:03:31Sal Di Stefano:I don't have a lot of performance benefits from it or anything. You guys are giving me so much shit about being fat. Shut up, bro. Shut up. Just kidding. We traumatized this. It's boring. It's lazy, dog. It's just hell easy. He just took a bunch of meat on the barbecue, and then he threw it. That's it. 100%. Yeah. Let's be honest. I could just do bacon on top of burgers. For me, it was just a fun experiment. You didn't do it very long, right? And I still had a cheese, dude. I was like, again, no rigid lines. Cheese of war. You were a cheese of war. Cheese meat, dude. How long did you do it? I did it for a couple weeks.

1:04:08Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, it was only a couple. No, it was like a month. Hey, what cheese was it? Was it Parmesan? What was it that we brought up the other day?

1:04:14Adam Schafer:High protein per calorie or whatever it is. You know, they sell Parmesan crackers at the store now. There's like two of them, and it's like two grams of crackers. So I thought it was Parmesan.

1:04:22Sal Di Stefano:Okay, I'm glad I got that right, because I was making my potatoes in the oven, and one of the things when I make my tri-tip or something, I do these garlic, parsley, butter, and Parmesan potatoes that I make. And I went to town on the Parmesan because of that last thing. That's how I was like, normal. Protein. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Normally I sprinkle it on for a little bit of flavor, and I'm like, oh, let's make a layer of this. Yeah, yeah. So these are protein potatoes now. That's good, yeah.

1:04:49Adam Schafer:Joy Mode is a pre-sex supplement that boosts blood flow. and performance. The ingredients in joy mode have been proven in studies to do what they say they do, give you better erections, better sex, better performance. It really works, guys. Lots of people write in after using joy mode and they write in and say, I didn't think this would work, but 45 minutes later, I could tell a difference. Now, personally, I also like to use joy mode as a pre-workout because more blood flow is better for workouts as well. I get better pumps in the gym. So Joy Mode, good for pumps and your muscles and you know where else.

1:05:26Adam Schafer:Go check them out. Go to tryjoymode.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. Get 20 % off your order. Back to the show. Our next caller is Alex from Mississippi. What's up, man? Oh, hey, boys. Just doing, you know, sitting here doing a little reading. Y 'all seen this one? Don't want to interrupt. That's awesome, dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Looking at the routine right now, you know, trying to put a little something together. Good deal, man. What's going on, Alex?

1:05:51Sal Di Stefano:How can we help you? I'm going to work for you. Yeah, I'm going to read my question to stay on topic. My original question was, 34-year-old dad of three struggling to figure out correct intensity, consistency, and volume I need with everything else going on. With work and kids and spouse and everything, trying to increase these variables. Each time I change one, it seems like I go too far into soreness or tightness or just my central nervous system is toast for a few days. So like by the time I get to the next workout, a lot of weeks I just don't feel ready for it. I'm just exhausted from the previous workout or work or whatever.

1:06:30I have been to the gym since I was 17. I've done a lot of things wrong the last few years, but I've also learned a lot, especially from you guys. I've been listening probably since around 2019, and I've dialed in a lot of things that you guys have preached on the podcast. but still trying to learn how to adjust these variables as I progress, even as I age. And I'm wondering, could one day a week of training from like a MAPS anabolic be adequate or should I go the opposite direction and dive into like a MAPS 15 training protocol? To give you a little more background, as a younger lifter, I had some acute back injuries that led to several years of back pain.

1:07:10One was a par stress fracture revealed in an x-ray. other three bulging discs revealed in an MRI. I know that the pain from these may have started with acute events, but I've learned from another coach that I had worked with that the chronic symptoms stuck around due to overtraining, poor sleep, stress management, things that I've learned to manage better. I work for Pepperidge Farm as a vendor, so I deliver, sell, and stock grocery stores with Goldfish Crackers, Milano cookies, bread and buns. So I do walk 10 to 15 ,000 steps a day and I'm up and down, um, pretty active. I have dialed back a lot of my training.

1:07:53Again, advice from you guys, improve my sleep quality and increased ability to manage everyday stress. But I'm wanting to progressively dial up the training to get some of my strength back to where it was before the chronic pain. Okay. So where should I go from here?

1:08:09Adam Schafer:And your pain's okay now? Yes. It's, I actually, I hired an online coach out of Florida that works specifically with back pain. And he taught me essentially not only how to, you know, start at the right movement and progressively dial it up. and but also a lot of the stress management, the desensitization, the desensitizing techniques that he taught me to remove my brain out of the equation. He taught me a lot about the neuroplasticity of the brain and how pain can be a learned behavior. And so now that I've gotten a lot of that dialed in, some of the actual specifics to programming, I'm always trying to improve on those, especially as I want to keep getting stronger as I get closer to 40.

1:09:00Adam Schafer:Okay. And you're, uh, you said your sleep styled in now or, or you worked on it. What does that look like? Um, I probably used to sleep five to six hours a night. Now I average seven hours and on good weeks where my kids don't have like late sporting events and stuff, I can get closer to, you know, eight hours a night. Nice. What time do you wake up in the morning? Um, depending on the day, a lot of mornings it's 4am other mornings is 430, 445. It just depends on the day. And then diet wise, are you, how are you with hitting protein and all that stuff? Yeah, I hit between, I weigh 185 pounds. I hit between 160 to 190 grams of protein a day, probably.

1:09:42Adam Schafer:When you find yourself getting fried with your workouts, what does the workout look like? What leads up to that?

1:09:52Usually, so like right now I'm doing MAPS anabolic and I'm doing it definitely one day a week. And so I can feel really good. Like today I'll go do, like I haven't worked out since Sunday. So like today I'll go do MAPS anabolic day one and I can hit it pretty good. Like I feel really good right now because today's kind of a shorter work day. But by the time Saturday or Sunday hits and I want to hit day two, I'm still pretty fried. And so I'll either skip the workout or I'll do the workout at like 40%. Okay. Um, and I want to keep like, I guess, I don't know. I just can't seem to get past, you know, some of the milestones of like what I, what I, and maybe I need to get out of my head what I once was lifting, what I once could squat and what I can squat now.

1:10:45Cause my range of motion in a squat is definitely improved, but I don't even squat close to what I used to squat. Even in a shorter range of motion, I couldn't right now.

1:10:55Adam Schafer:I'm more concerned about getting fried after one workout with everything that you're telling me. So I want to dig a little bit deeper. Well, it sounds like he's over-applying intensity in those workouts. Well, that's another question. Are you going to failure? Are you like hammering yourself when you feel good? No, I feel really good in the workout. And then even when I finished the workout that day, I feel really good But I am like If I get in a set of squats Even if I'm doing a lighter weight I'm going If I'm feeling good that day I'm slowing the rep down And I would say it's like 80 % effort 80-90 % max effort We're pushing max effort And if I'm not feeling good I dial it back I might do a slightly lighter weight And I'll speed the rep up a little bit because I'm just trying to hit the motion.

1:11:47But yeah, the intensity is dialed back on those days. I do not feel good. But if I feel good, I'm hitting a pretty intense workout.

1:11:52Adam Schafer:But you're not going to failure? No, not failure. No. Okay. Have you had your nutrient levels tested? No, I haven't. Okay. This sounds to me like a potential nutrient deficiency, and I would also look at your hormones. Okay. Because you shouldn't feel fried from one appropriate intensity maps work out a whole week later you do have an active job uh but it's not like crazy you are getting not bad sleep again good sleep uh you are hitting your protein it sounds to me uh like a nutrient deficiency because you've got kind of some of the symptoms of what like a zinc or more likely vitamin d deficiency would look like and that's an easy blood test real easy blood test See where you're at.

1:12:43Adam Schafer:And vitamin D deficiency will feel like you can't recover, pain, could be low mood, definitely affect your hormones. I would also look at your hormones because if you're in chronic low testosterone, then it's going to feel like this also.

1:13:02Sal Di Stefano:Okay.

1:13:03Adam Schafer:Yeah, and those are easy tests. Those are real inexpensive, easy tests to get. and um could that also be like not even like sometimes i don't approach soreness that much but like there's definitely some tightness like in my hamstrings yeah like little okay okay because i'll feel that's when i'll it'll take me like even if i do a low effort day like day two of maps anabolic again i know the movement is is good at a lighter effort but it'll take me multiple sets of light effort and then it'll finally loosen up a little bit yeah and those are the days i wish i could push the envelope a little more to continue to improve over time but i have trouble doing that yeah and you're you're where are you located you guys get a lot of sun there is it seasonal oh oh yeah yeah i'm outside all the time okay we're over here and yeah go ahead yeah get your nutrient levels tested very inexpensive test and get your hormones level tested i have a feeling that's where you're going to see uh what's going on if those come back good, if everything's great there, the next place I would look would be any kind of heavy metal or mold exposure.

1:14:14Adam Schafer:Because the symptoms that you're giving me based off of the stuff you're doing and all that, it sounds like you're either nutrient deficiency or your body is dealing with some kind of chronic stress coming from an external source, like a heavy metal or mold. okay but i would if i had to bet and i don't know we can't know unless we test i'd say it's a nutrient deficiency and i've had a few of these with clients where it seems like everything's good but like what's going on then we then we suddenly they start supplementing with vitamin d and like a week later it's like you just turn on the lights everything's feeling okay okay so don't change the program keep the programming as it is and focus on those two things look at

1:14:56Sal Di Stefano:You're not overdoing it. I think that should be able to recover. If you're not training to failure, you're only doing MAPS anabolic. You're even backing off on intensity when you don't feel like it. You're hitting your protein intakes. You're getting seven hours of sleep. Good days, eight. I mean, you're doing a lot of the things that we would normally go like, okay, if you were really under-eating protein, you would feel this way.

1:15:20Adam Schafer:Or if you're like five hours of sleep.

1:15:21Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. But those two seem to be okay. and so I'm with Sal like it's most likely something else going on here and low testosterone or a nutrient deficiency would be the next two places. You get them all tested together

1:15:37Adam Schafer:it's a real easy inexpensive test you can get from your doctor and you got to have partners for that right? You can go functional medicine if you want which would be out of pocket but I mean you work for Pepperidge Farm I'm assuming you have medical insurance. Well we're independent a contract so i have to pay cash for all that type stuff okay but i mean i can do that that's not like a huge deal i wasn't expecting this answer so i maybe i'm but i do this this makes more sense because a lot of times i'm like just stop being a sissy and just push the envelope but i did that before and uh messed up my back so i'm trying to do that again which also is another

1:16:11Sal Di Stefano:sign too is that a little bit of you pushing it and you get an injury so it's a super it's a super easy test so what you want is a full hormone panel yeah and you want a nutrient uh um panel

1:16:22Adam Schafer:which will include vitamin D. Okay. You just get those and see what they say. Alex, how's libido? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's good. Okay, you're good. My wife probably wished it was a little less. Okay, well, that's a good sign. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good sign. But just so you know, I had really low testosterone. My libido was okay.

1:16:40Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. So it doesn't mean that. I just wanted to know. Because if you also had low libido, it would almost be a lot. Yeah, that would be a point of testosterone. Yeah. Yeah, I've thought about that before, but I know that doesn't answer all the questions. And again, there's days like I'll wake up and since figuring out the back problem, there's days I would wake up and I feel because for years when you're dealing with chronic pain, like you're just exhausted all the time. And then I, I like got to a point once I fixed that, there'd be days I tell my wife, man, I feel 22 again. Like I can't believe the energy levels I'm at.

1:17:14And then probably like the last six months, I don't have the pain, but I wouldn't say the energy and the ability to push a workout is where I wish it would be.

1:17:24Sal Di Stefano:yeah yeah why don't we do this great eight might be good just i mean obviously like the the amount isn't the issue and like we're kind of talking about that but i think like just doing one thing a day uh to express some movement and contraction would be good yeah in the meantime i'll send you

1:17:40Adam Schafer:maps grade eight which you could totally follow and see how you feel uh but why don't we do this why don't we have you back on in 60 days which will give you enough time to do your test both those tests and that way if you come back and they're they're good we could start pointing you in different directions or if they're not good then we know what the answer is gotcha okay that sounds great yeah we'll see you in 60 yeah thanks guys appreciate you yeah and i probably made him a little scared but um but that's what i mean because because it's not as intense a bit concerning not the intensity it's not the volume yeah his sleep's okay he's not you know his age is okay.

1:18:15Adam Schafer:His protein is okay.

1:18:17Sal Di Stefano:He should be able to recover from that. Those are kind of the order. And I'm hoping it's not heavy metal

1:18:22Adam Schafer:or mold because that's a much bigger pain in the butt. Then you got to move or something drastic. My dad, this happened to my dad. And my dad is always outside. He's always outside. And he had, his pain was getting worse and worse and worse. He'd feel like low energy. Didn't know what was going on. Go to the doctor. Take ibuprofen. Oh, you need more stretching oh and this happened for a while and now my dad's much older my dad's also worked hard labor since he was nine so of course he's like oh i guess my body's just breaking down mri show arthritis here arthritis there he went got a routine blood test his vitamin d was low we started taking vitamin d it was like boom total change it was like such an easy cheap

1:19:03Sal Di Stefano:yeah it's like a light well you know i you know my theory on that i've shared with you before

1:19:07Adam Schafer:my own experience maybe it's like a certain level that you're used to yes like he's he was his was

1:19:11Sal Di Stefano:so hot he was probably i bet if you were to ask him in his 30s and 40s he was in the sun way more than he is today at his age being retired and stuff um i think of myself as a teenager and and uh and kid i mean i lived in the sun on the lake like just 24 7 and then it wasn't until a few years after working at the gym where i was under fluorescent lights all day yeah still active yes and still go outside i still i still did outside stuff but nowhere near the frequency and amount of exposure.

1:19:42Adam Schafer:Vitamin D deficiency is relatively common and suboptimal vitamin D is very common. So it's not a bad place to look. I just, I'm hoping it's that because that's an easy thing to fix. If it's not that, then it's like, okay, we got to look at a little deeper, which then is a bit of a pain, but yeah, we'll see. Our next caller is Dale from Connecticut. What's up, Dale? How you doing, Dale? What's up, Dale? What's going on, guys? How can we help you? Just want to say thanks for taking my question. Really appreciate it. Um, so I'm going to do an abbreviated version of my question, but, uh, my question is, uh, what approach modifications in our maps program would you recommend for someone who wants to put a lot of muscle on and get stronger, but has some nagging injuries that prevent, uh, doing certain lifts like squat from my low back and, uh, bench my front shoulder, um, possibly from CrossFit.

1:20:36um someone who struggled to put on muscle in the past but uh i'm pretty sure i wasn't doing anything right so uh after listening to you guys um just a little background and context uh i'm 40 years old 6 '2 uh 162 pounds currently um somewhat active but um not working out as consistently as i'd like um i stopped doing crossfit uh probably like eight nine months ago and I was in pretty good shape but not where I wanted to be. And I've gained a bunch of fat and probably lost some muscle since then. I've always leaned toward being more skinny and always kind of thought of that myth of being a hard gainer.

1:21:24But I was doing CrossFit for about four to five days a week for about two years. and I quit because I was in a pretty bad place physically. I was really run down. All my lifts were suffering and they regressed. I couldn't touch any of my 1RMs from previous strength cycles. I was also full carnivore for most of that. I've had struggled with gut issues for the past 8-10 years and I did a lot of keto carnivore on and off, but then I did a stint of about three years of full carnivore. But towards the end, I started reintroducing carbs and I was tolerating them, doing well. So I was adding them in, in the last strength cycle and it really didn't seem to help.

1:22:18In hindsight, I probably was overtraining, under eating. So even with the carbs, I probably still didn't have enough calories, but, um, and just to speak to the injuries, uh, herniated a disc like 15 years ago, uh, got x-rays, went through a chiropractor. He got me mobile again, but, um, after that, um, a lot of re-aggravations and triggers, lifting stuff. Um, and I'd be back at the chiropractor. Uh, I actually went through, uh, physical therapy twice for it because it was pretty bad. And, um, then my front shoulder, uh, that happened during CrossFit probably after about a year. And, uh, it's just, you know, in the full range of motion of like dips, uh, bench press pushups.

1:23:08Um, I'll get this really bad pinching pain in my front shoulder. So, um, I have a three year old and I have like a limited work schedule. I do have like a kind of decent home gym, but, I was looking at maps 15 and, uh, I'm like, I don't want to get this and, uh, not be able to perform some of the lifts or, you know, how to modify them or address them or whatever. So, um, yeah, that's where that, and like the diet piece, um, now that my diet's opened up, kind of not sure where to go if I want to get, well, I kind of have an idea now from listening to you guys, but, uh, you know, uh, my, my biggest goals are, uh, strength and, uh, you know, putting on muscles.

1:23:51So, um, yeah. How's your gut health now? It's much better. I think that, uh, that stint of three years maybe really helped. Um, but after reintroducing carbs, um, I seem to do fine with them. I just have to, sugar is really the big thing. I can't do too much of that.

1:24:09Adam Schafer:Okay. If you, so bumping your calories and eating more isn't an issue, or do you start to get gut issues if you just start eating too much as far as i know no i don't think it would be an issue okay yeah okay it's actually a pretty simple formula uh for for you so long as the gut health doesn't become an issue because if it does you got to solve what that is um and then that would be a functional medicine practitioner uh yeah you got to get on a bulk um and map symmetry uh would be your program or maps 15 symmetry would be your program what does your sleep and activity outside of, uh, workouts look like?

1:24:43Adam Schafer:What's your sleep look like? Sleep's not great. I've always struggled with sleep. Um, I tend to, if I can get good sleep, it's like seven hours. Um, I having a three-year-old, she's kind of going through like a little bit of regression right now. So she wakes up like in the middle of the night sometimes and has a bad dream, you know, whatever. So that, that kind of will affect it. When you do get, uh, like she doesn't wake up or whatever, are you able to sleep all night or do you wake up in the middle? Uh, most of the time I wake up at least once okay so maps 15 symmetry you got to eat in the bulk um so that's gonna look at least like 33 ,000 3 ,500 calories eat your body weight and protein probably two twice as much in carbs at least to make up the rest and fat um and what i'd want you to do before going into maps 15 symmetry is do our seven day overtraining rescue guide which is free um and you can get that at mindpumpfree.com, but I'll have Doug send that over to you, the link to it.

1:25:38Adam Schafer:Awesome.

1:25:38Sal Di Stefano:He'll send you MapSymmetry too.

1:25:40Adam Schafer:Yeah, and he's also going to send you MapSymmetry 15. So do the seven-day overtraining rescue guide first. That's week one. Get into the bulk right out the gates. And after that seven days, follow MapSymmetry 15. And that's going to help with the pain. It's going to help with the imbalances. Use a weight that's appropriate. So if it hurts, go a little lighter. But I think it'll balance things out. and start to make it better.

1:26:04Sal Di Stefano:Three to five minutes in between sets. So we're real strength specifically focused. The only thing I would add to that is some sort of a mobility routine. I don't know if you got one from your PT or you had one when you were at CrossFit. Did you have anything that you were doing for like the hips and your upper back and things like that? Were you doing anything? Yeah, a little bit for the hips. Back has always been just, you know, like extensions and stuff like that, but nothing really beyond that.

1:26:32Adam Schafer:When you're talking about the front shoulder pain and you were pressing it with your hand, can you feel it if you push on it? If I push on my shoulder? Yeah, if you push on the area, can you find a sore spot? No, no, not really. Okay. But where you're poking looks like bicep tendon inflammation. So you might want to try some bicep static stretches. Like literally stretch your bicep out on that arm. It usually looks like the arm goes behind you with your arm totally straight. And you do a static stretch there. And if you notice pain relief right out the gates, then it's, it's probably that he's a doorway sometimes for that helps.

1:27:07Adam Schafer:Yep. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, that's it. Follow that protocol. Bulk seven day rescue guide, jump into mass 15 symmetry. Um, and so long as your diet is, is good, you're eating adequate calories, you'll get stronger for sure. Awesome. That's it, brother. Yeah. All right. Thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate it. You're good, man. Reach back in. If you have any challenges. Yeah.

1:27:29Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, for sure. Thank you. You got it. Uh, Send him a half off for Prime Pro also. Yeah. I think he would benefit from. Totally. Adding some mobility stuff just for like scapula. I feel like we need a CrossFit recovery guide. Dude. Don't you guys think? That's actually a good. You know what it looks like? Stop doing it. Stop it. Do this. This is your new formula.

1:27:51Adam Schafer:Hey, dude. A CrossFit for two years, four or five days a week, plus carnivore. Dude, carnivore. He's not like. Ooh.

1:27:56Sal Di Stefano:No energy and you're doing all that crazy. I wonder. Yeah. I know. Yeah, yeah. Our next caller is Elizabeth from Wyoming. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth. Hello. Hi. Thanks for having me on today. I really appreciate it.

1:28:09Adam Schafer:Yeah. Sure. Yeah. How can we help you? Okay. So, like I said in my email, I have been working out with a friend a couple times on and off, and I've told her about how important it is to rest between sets for weight training and muscle growth. and she was kind of hesitant but she went along with it because she was working out with me you know and she tends to be one that's she's an endurance athlete but she also likes to weight train but when she's invited me i'm like that just sounds like a bunch of cardio and um so her husband is a very proficient um physical therapist who i've actually been to see he's really incredible but she was saying well you know my husband said that's not true and so I've just wanted to have a conversation either with her or him but I wanted more to back up my what I'm saying about how important rest is besides just well on this podcast the mind book guy said it so um how else would you um recommend that I have that conversation and I know like even if you just do a google search it says best to rest three to five minutes but um anyhow that's my question how how would you recommend having this conversation well maybe yeah maybe his angle

1:29:36Sal Di Stefano:where he's coming from with her is from a movement perspective because that's how a physical therapist would normally and and whether you're resting 30 seconds or three minutes practicing the movement has tremendous benefit and is good for you uh but in regards of building muscle yeah muscle perspective he couldn't be more wrong yeah so if that's where he's going for so yeah this is

1:29:58Adam Schafer:interesting so you basically want to win an argument yeah um well i mean yes and no but i also because she's like i want it all i want to have endurance i want to be strong i want to be flexible and i'm like okay but if you want to be strong like stop doing so much stuff and just

1:30:16Sal Di Stefano:and the studies are pretty clear on this the best way to do that to have all of it is not to do it all in in a single workout it would be to cycle and run and run phases of each i'd really like

1:30:26Adam Schafer:to hear from him because it's interesting to me that a physical therapist would say that so i wonder if he's saying something else and she's hearing what he wants to hear or you know if he's saying you can you can still build some strength but you know doing it this way uh which she might selective hearing but you're very limited um but the the data on like what makes strength training strength training so anaerobic uh training versus aerobic training is uh like the most it's like some of the most established um science uh in the science of exercise it's like super it's not even something anybody debates because it's very very clear so it's interesting to me that he would say that uh but i mean honestly elizabeth like a simple google you could probably send him you know 20 peer-reviewed cycle video yeah and it's just it'll just it's so it's like i'm wondering if he's saying something else uh because sure because you have to what you're training when you're training for an adaptation what you're actually training is an energy system okay so if i'm training for endurance i'm training the energy system for endurance which is glycolytic.

1:31:38Adam Schafer:When I'm training, which strength also involves that, but I'm really focusing on something called ATP. And so when I'm training for strength, if I go pure glycolytic, I'm going to get stamina. I'm not going to get a ton of strength. But if I want to get strength and explosive power, then pushing into fatigue in that way takes away from that. And you can just look at athletes. Look at endurance runners versus sprinters. How do sprinters train versus is marathon runners sprinters sprint and they walk back real slow anaerobic they wait for a while they take their time and then they sprint again they're not like running as hard as they can for long distances because that would be uh stamina if i had to guess how this conversation

1:32:21Sal Di Stefano:went i can imagine i can envision the two of you working out together she's doing her crazy circuit training with no rest period and you're telling her hey uh mind pump guys talked about this before if we want to build muscle we need to have longer rest periods and then she goes back to her husband and says my friend tells me that i need to have longer rest periods if i want to build muscle and he goes that's not true so and with with that is that context if it went like that he's right you can build some you could definitely build some uh muscle and build some strength um without but very limited yeah but you're but you're limited to that right and at some point she will adapt to that mode of training and then the best thing for her to do would be to move out and i'd love to have that argue with him all day long because i'll concede that yes if she is somebody who never lifts weights lifts weights in a circuit fashion they can absolutely build some strength and build some muscle but it's very limited to how long like so she'll build a little bit she'll adapt to that and then she compares though and then she'll plateau yeah and so the next and then again the next best thing that she could absolutely do would be to to change now and the opposite would be true if i if she was a power lifter who rested for five minutes all the time and for 10 years she's done that throwing her through a circuit training with short rest periods uh would would build muscle too but if that's what she trains all the time uh it's not

1:33:41Adam Schafer:maybe i so i mean all you got to do is look at uh how strength athletes train versus endurance athletes are very different yeah it's very very different they look nothing alike um now oftentimes you'll hear someone that says, I want everything. I want endurance. I want strength. I want stamina. I want flexibility. And so, and you can get a little bit of all those things, but you'll never be great at any one of those because you're trying to do all of them, which is okay if that's what you want. So, you know, it really depends on the individual. But I will say this, you have to be very careful.

1:34:16Adam Schafer:Programming gets really, really nitty gritty when you're trying to get everything because the tendency is to overdo it all when people want that. So that's a different conversation. Right. And she's definitely one of those people that, I mean, she really enjoys it. And you guys would say, yeah, you're way overdoing it. But, you know, I mean, that's, like you said, another conversation. And she's fasting and stuff. And I'm like, you're making your life too hard.

1:34:48Sal Di Stefano:you know the best way to win these arguments is to not have the argument to just go do the thing go do your thing and and and when when she sees your transformation and strength and all the things you order like i kind of i tried to tell you i tried to tell you there was a better way

1:35:03Adam Schafer:to do this how tight how tied are you to training with her is this really important that you work out with her oh it's only it's just been a handful of times she's it's funny because she's actually my boss and so we were traveling for work so we went to the weight room together and she was like i'll do your thing you know work out with you and she did and we've done it a couple times and it's fun because you know like at work we'll take a squats break and we'll go do some air squats at 10 and 3 and we get a bunch of people and it's but um yeah i mean i i like to do some strength training and cardio like four days a week or so three to four days and she's every day and i'm like nah i'll give you a little life advice because she's your boss yeah uh you know don't

1:35:48Sal Di Stefano:push too hard to try to win this argument you know oh yeah and you just yeah and we're we're

1:35:53Adam Schafer:good friends too okay yeah just train yourself yeah and when you do your workouts with her if you're just having fun go and have fun and if she asks you questions uh about your training you can answer them but it's really hard when somebody's set on something like this it's really hard to convince them otherwise you gotta kind of wait it out until they really come back to you yeah

1:36:14Sal Di Stefano:best thing to do is just go get strong on your own and then bury her in squats that's exactly what I would do whatever she's doing you would say hey how's that circuit training working out for you well and I think it's working out because you know I mean we've worked out together two or three times tops and we are good friends and we can have those conversations and it's not like deal with work at all but um but she came back to me and she was like hey i mentioned that's craig so in my head i'm thinking oh so you thought about that and you questioned the way that you were working out so i was kind of like okay yeah maybe it's working i don't know yeah yeah no just keep doing you yeah you can refer our podcast too i mean she can just listen to how we describe it oh i do okay all the time all the time i'm like do not let your 20 year old get under gop1 she It just needs to work out.

1:37:08Oh, my God. Yeah.

1:37:10Sal Di Stefano:Oh, yeah. By the way, since you like this stuff and you're interested, I don't know if you use our AskMindPump.com, but our AI is incredible for this.

1:37:20Adam Schafer:It'll pull up episodes and stuff. Yeah.

1:37:22Sal Di Stefano:So you could have prompted that AskMindPump, but you could have got a really good argument and also clips. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. I kind of, I don't know. I hate the AI stuff, but I got it. I get it. I get it. Good for you.

1:37:37Adam Schafer:you know here's the other thing too and just that this is a trend i don't bring i don't know if this is true or not but in my experience when you have a couple that are both somewhat into fitness and one of them is really over training a lot uh the other one tends to be the same and so you get this kind of this this have a heavy bias yeah and so they start to feed into it you know like they're both just overdoing it all the time and so i don't know if this is the case uh with both of them but that might be yeah it could very well be i mean they run together a lot i think that's their main thing is runners and so you know and i'm like you know if you're outside and you're running together like i'm not raining on your parade at all but if you want to get strong like if you actually want that you have to rest yeah and you got to eat too you are correct she probably doesn't oh yes eating oh well at least she's big on protein so i was like well i could i could guess she under eats and over trains.

1:38:33Adam Schafer:Well, she said she intermittent fast already, too.

1:38:35Sal Di Stefano:She's a faster, a runner, and a circuit trainer. I already can picture her. I know exactly what she looks and trains like.

1:38:42Adam Schafer:Well, tell her if she ever gets to a point where she gets frustrated or hurt or burnt out, have her write in and we'll help her out on air, just like we did with you.

1:38:50Sal Di Stefano:Are you similar in age or is she a little bit older? How much older is she? I'm 27. She's 39. Sooner or later, her body will let her know. Yeah. yeah I mean she's good now you know but yeah I mean that was kind of an example too right because I'm not trying to call in for someone else but it's also something that I have run into at my gym but anyhow so I appreciate your help guys it's common yeah you got it you're on the right track yeah stay the course you know what you're doing use your intuition alright thank you so much I appreciate it you got it

1:39:28Adam Schafer:yeah when she threw in it was my boss I mean I get it

1:39:32Sal Di Stefano:I would just bury her in the squad

1:39:35Adam Schafer:she's coming back in with her husband's support but I mean I'm surprised because I'd like to talk to him I think it went down exactly like what I just said

1:39:43Sal Di Stefano:I think they were talking and she's trying to convince her hey we gotta rest if we want to build muscle and she's like no I don't think so and then she went back and told her husband hey my friend tells me in order for me to build muscle I have to rest for this long and he's like that's not true I bet it went down just like that.

1:39:58Adam Schafer:Yeah, maybe.

1:39:59Sal Di Stefano:Exactly. I mean, I'd love to have him on the podcast. I'll have that debate all day along with you. But it doesn't make sense.

1:40:05Adam Schafer:A physical therapist would know better. They know this.

1:40:07Sal Di Stefano:No, a physical therapist. He wouldn't be doing that with his patients.

1:40:10Adam Schafer:But they understand training modalities. They understand. He's correctional exercise. I guarantee he ain't doing circuits. That's what I'm saying. He's trying to get people stronger, too. He's a runner. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:40:22Sal Di Stefano:How many physical therapists runners do you know?

1:40:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, I knew a few. But I'm saying knowledge-wise, maybe he doesn't apply it, but I'm wondering. That'd be weird coming from a PT to say that. Our next caller is Jenna from Wisconsin. Hey, Jenna. Hi, Jenna. What's happening? Hey, guys. How's it going? Good. How can we help you? Good. Thanks for taking my question. I've been listening for probably seven to eight years now, and you guys have really added a lot of value to my life. So I really appreciate you guys so much. Thank you. How can we help you? Okay, so my question is, and I've condensed it just a little bit for time's sake, I've been dealing with a reoccurring right side hip slash psoas issue.

1:41:09And I think it's a tightness that flares up after heavy lower body lifts like squats and deadlifts. Should I continue working through this using map symmetry? or do I need to take a step back and modify my programming more aggressively before pushing lower body strength? So a little bit of context, I'm 31, mom of two, five foot 10, 187 pounds, and I've been lifting for probably about 10 years now. I recently started symmetry and noticed on my right side, especially during like the single leg suspension squats, my form seems to break down a bit on that right side and I do feel some discomfort in my quad and the hip area.

1:41:57I also recently had a trainer assess me and she said nothing major stood out as far as like the different movements she had me go through. Just a little bit of tightness in my posterior chain and I've been given a lot of corrective exercises but I do feel a little bit overwhelmed and would like a simpler approach if possible. My overall goal is I want to keep building strength, but I don't want to reinforce this imbalance and tightness. I feel like it's kind of been limiting me for a while.

1:42:31Adam Schafer:Yeah. You know what's interesting about this, Jenna? So, so as tightness usually looks like we got to work on strengthening the core. We got to work on hip strength and stability. but in people who strength train a lot work out a lot it sounds like you've been doing this for a while you know what you're doing sometimes it's actually weak hip flexors I know that sounds crazy because we're told it's tight but I've encountered this I've seen other people encounter this and for trainers this is like a mystery sometimes because that's almost never the case with the average person but with someone like you that might actually be the case and so hip flexor strengthening exercises may actually be what you need to do.

1:43:20Okay. Yeah. And like, uh, the trainer that I did meet with recently, she did give me some movements to do that would help with strengthening that flexors because she kind of had an inkling that that could be part of it. Cause she said it didn't seem like it was super glaring. Like, but I do tend to notice a little bit of tightness, but it definitely like flares up after those like heavier lift days it's usually the next day that i notice it what's the hip flexor uh like strengthening exercises that she's giving you so like she had like the one where you like sit on the floor and you have the kettlebell in front of you and kind of lift your leg over and up kind of on each side um she gave me um like clamshells with a band and I don't know if that seems more like um adductors yeah yeah um but she gave me a different like like hip like shifting movements um like squeezing a foam roller between my legs a little bit um more like a primer type of thing but I feel like a little bit overwhelmed with how many different exercises and things that I have in my tool belt I don't really know what's gonna move with the needle.

1:44:41Sal Di Stefano:What do you call your suspended plank one with one leg? What do you call that, Justin? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, the suspended plank with the suspension trainer? No, I think you're going to do it on the bench right here. Oh, yeah. I don't know what you call that, but I lay on a bench and I actually grab the bench behind me and I have my foot with a kettlebell and I'm pulling my leg in towards my chest.

1:45:03Adam Schafer:So when you do the one where you're sitting on the floor and you bring your leg over the kettlebell back and forth, do you notice any relief?

1:45:13um i guess i didn't i didn't really notice anything i feel like some of the movements that i've been doing have been making a little bit of a difference because i feel like it's more isolated where i don't notice it as much unless i do lift heavy whereas for a while it was kind of just like in the background like always kind of there i feel like it's a little bit better now that I've been incorporating some of these movements. I don't notice it as frequently. So I think maybe I'm moving in the right direction, but it'd be nice to just kind of narrow down.

1:45:46Adam Schafer:I got a movement for you. So do you know how to do a Roman chair, sit up on a bench? Do you know what that is? Okay. So sit on a bench so that it's this way, right? So you're sitting in the middle of it, right? So you're sitting in the middle of it, facing this way, anchor one foot in a dumbbell, the one with the hip flexor that feels weak, lift the other leg up and lean back like you're going to do a sit-up and come up. This is a hip flexor exercise. Okay. And it's a strengthening one. So going over the kettlebell back and forth is good, but it's very minimal on its strengthening. The one that I just said, you could try some of that, and I would do that a couple days a week, and I would back off on the weight and intensity and everything else and see if you notice an improvement.

1:46:26Adam Schafer:Symmetry is a great program to follow.

1:46:27Sal Di Stefano:I think you stay in the first three phases of that and repeat it. Yeah, just stick with that unilateral protocol. call for a while and you're going to see some of that just naturally strengthen and eliminate some of the discrepancies.

1:46:42Adam Schafer:And what it looks like is literally two days a week you would do like three or four sets of what I said. So you're sitting on the bench, hands behind your head, one knee is bent, foot under a dumbbell, the other one is up, and then you lean back like you can do a sit up. Maybe Doug can find a video so we can send it to her. I don't know if we have one.

1:46:58Sal Di Stefano:We should do a series on this because we've answered a couple like this. The reason why, I like Sal's movement so much, the trainer or at least she was heading down. She's pointing the right direction. Yeah, she's pointing the right direction, so I don't want this to come off like I'm criticizing. But in that position when you're sitting like that, it's shortened already. Sal's going to take you through a full range of motion. Yeah. And so you're going to get a full stretch and contraction on it.

1:47:20Adam Schafer:And you're strong, so you can do it because it's a hard movement. You don't need any weight, and you're just going to real slow come back. And the foot that's anchored, that's the hip flexor you're working. The other leg you're taking off, so it's not. Because if I put anchor both feet, I could turn it into an ab exercise. That's not what I want. I want that one foot anchored, lean back until you feel the tension, sit back up, and do that like a few sets twice a week. Back off on the intensity, stick to map symmetry, first three phases, and see how that feels.

1:47:45Sal Di Stefano:What would you call a single leg psoas crunch? Would that pop up? Maybe single leg psoas crunch. I'll look for something for you. I mean, I have links, but yeah, they're tutorials online.

1:47:56Adam Schafer:You understand what I'm saying. Can you picture what I'm saying? Okay. Yeah, definitely. Why don't we have you on in a couple months so we can see how it worked for you? Okay. Yeah, definitely. So just that couple days a week, just kind of add it in like at the beginning of my workout or something. No, do it at the end. Yeah, twice a week and go lower intensity on the movements that tend to bother you for the first few phases of symmetry. Don't go in the five by five. So stay in the unilateral. And then we'll see. You should notice some improvements. If I'm right, then you should see some improvements.

1:48:28Sal Di Stefano:I mean, we'll talk to her before the five by five. That's right. Because the five by five is three months down the road. So we'll have you up on in a couple months. Okay. Yeah, I'm actually in phase two. I just started phase two. I think I just did the third workout in phase two recently.

1:48:43Adam Schafer:Good. When you get to the five-by-five, cycle back through. And then keep it safe.

1:48:47Sal Di Stefano:Start back over to one. So don't go through the third phase. Go back to phase one. Yep. And then we'll be in touch with you then. Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks, Jenna. All right. We really need to make a little MPTV. You know what? I've been geeking out on this. It is, but it isn't. You know why? Because we have an audience bias of people that work out. You're right. You know, like it's not common in like the average person, but the people that actually work out, like you said. Athletes and, yeah, like people that work out a lot.

1:49:19Adam Schafer:Because you need a balance of strength between all the muscles of the pelvis, the hip, the whole complex.

1:49:26Sal Di Stefano:I get issues like this all the time. When I'm not addressing like mobility, stability, and strength stuff in my hips, And the hip flex is part of it. And I'm pushing the weight. It starts talking to me. And I start feeling it all over the place if I don't do that stuff. So that's why I think it is more common in our audience. And then also you're in a shortened position all day seated with our job. And so it's like, yeah, dude, I need to express that range of motion and strengthen it. Got to give credit to the trainer, though. Because that's not a common thing that a trainer would think to go.

1:49:56Sal Di Stefano:No. Unless you have some pretty good experience with somebody to know that. So she was heading down the right track. But the movement you talked about. That's going to strengthen her. There was another one I was talking about, Justin. You do like a plank where you're balanced. That's hard.

1:50:10Adam Schafer:Yeah. That's really hard. Yeah. Like what you just said is like you got to really have good strength.

1:50:14Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. I don't know what you call it, but that was what I was looking for that you do. You do it like a plank. I don't know the name for it. Otherwise, I would have thrown that out there. But what Sal said is a really good one because it's going to take her through full range of motion through it, and she'll get a good stretch and contraction on it. so it's a little bit more superior to the, you know, lift your leg over the kettlebell back and forth. Totally.

1:50:33Adam Schafer: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. 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.

1:51:17The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump. Most people overpay for car insurance, not because they're careless, but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side-by-side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease.

1:52:00Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over$1 ,300 a year. Switch with confidence, download the Jerry app, or visit jerry.ai.libsyn today. That's j-e-r-r-y.ai.libsyn.