2880: The Program That Built Mind Pump: 10 Years & 100,000 Transformations

0:00If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Guess what? It's the 10-year anniversary of the most popular fitness program that we've ever sold, MAPS Anabolic, over 100 ,000 transformations. And here's what we're doing. In today's episode, we talk about it, by the way. We reminisce on the origin of MAPS Anabolic and the origins of Mind Pump and why MAPS Anabolic became so popular.

0:38But we're also doing a relaunch of the program and we've got some updates to it. So we have an updated female blueprint. So some different programming for women because they like to focus on certain areas of their body more than men do. There's an updated frequently asked question section. There's master class videos where Adam, Justin, and I break down some of the core lifts of the program. And then if you get MAPS Anabolic right now, which by the way, it's on sale. I'll get to that in just a second. You get three days of live coaching with one of our top personal trainers here at Mind Pump. By the way, if you already have MAPS Anabolic, all this stuff I said is going to get updated for free for you.

1:14So if you already have MAPS Anabolic, you'll get the updated blueprints and all that stuff. But if you don't have it and you want to find out why is this program so effective? Why have so many people done this program? Now's the time to get it and you can get it for 50 % off. Go to mapsanabolic.com, use the code anabolic. That'll get you 50 % off. By the way, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Z Biotics. This is a genetically modified probiotic drink that you take when you go and drink. Now, what does it do? Well, it's genetically modified bacteria that breaks down acetaldehyde. This is one of the negative byproducts of alcohol consumption.

1:52When acetaldehyde gets released in the gut, it causes a lot of different problems in the body. What Z-Biotics does is it breaks down the acetaldehyde in the gut. So you feel, or at least when I use it, way better. It's a pre-alcohol drink. Go to zbiotics.com. That's Z-B-I-O-T-I-C-S.com forward slash MindPump26. Use the code MindPump26 and get 15 % off. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

2:36It's been 10 years and over 100 ,000 transformations. It's the most popular fitness program that we have here at Mind Pump, and we're relaunching it with some new stuff. So today's episode, we're going to talk all about MAPS anabolic, and what we're adding that's new if you want to get the relaunch. Let's go. Don't sell yourself short. it's maybe one of the most popular programs on the internet oh yeah i mean there's not a lot of you can pit it up against any of those a hundred thousand a hundred thousand is a lot of programs dude that's a lot a lot of people that have gone through maps anabolic um and for sure our foundational program and what brought us together it did it did bring us together so it was 10 years ago that we launched it doug but we when was the program you wrote it like three years before almost three years before that was it three years before that so yeah we wrote it in 2013 2013 2013 yeah and then we did launch it in 2016 no we launched it initially in 2013 oh so we finished it in october that was before you guys met us exactly they needed the help yeah just to get the word let's be honest they were missing justin and i so in that program so the way that it kind of started uh doug was my client at the time so this was way back when i had a damn way to humble me there Yeah, I know.

3:51You pulled up P90X? Don't look at that. Oh, man. I mean, you just pulled up like the biggest ever, right? Yeah, well, we have a ways to go. Let's just say. How much money do they spend marketing? Yeah, exactly. Five million copies. Yeah. Boy, that just makes us... Dominated, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'll put... I mean, we'll put Map Sanabolic up against any of those. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Quality. If it was your results, I'd like to see it. I bet we'll go... There. There you go. Absolutely. But yeah, I remember... So it was a long time ago. So 2013 is when we created it. So probably a year before that, I was training Doug.

4:25He was my client. And he approached me and said, hey, if you ever want to sell anything online, fitness related, I have a little bit of internet marketing experience. Weren't you already kind of dabbling in writing and doing the program though? No. Oh, you weren't? No. So I had come up with the theories around MAPS anabolic. So at this point, I'd been training people for a long time. And I'd come to a lot of different conclusions on what works. I had read Dinosaur Training was a book that I read. I understood bodybuilding training, of course. I'd studied powerlifting programming. And then I'd also looked at, you know, Bronze Era strength training.

5:02Oh, starting strength. Yeah, starting strength was another one. Yeah. And how people strength trained before, essentially before anabolic steroids became a thing. Because I think anabolic, I know this, The anabolic steroids skewed what proper strength training looks like because the people that tend to popularize strength training are the people that look like they do the most of it. Yeah. And so when anabolic steroid kind of entered the fray, strength training started to look different. So I said, how did guys and girls work out before steroids were invented? And when I read up on these people, first off, the feats of strength that they performed were remarkable.

5:40I mean, they didn't even have protein powder back then, let alone anabolic steroids. But, you know, talking about one arm bent press with 300 pounds and incredible looking physiques. Yeah. And they all kind of train in a similar way. And so when Doug approached me, I initially, I thought to myself, like, what would I, what would I put together? And it just so happened right after that, I had read this study from the New England Journal of Medicine that we've quoted on the show in the past. And in this study, they had three groups of people, three groups of men that they compared in terms of muscle growth.

6:15And there was group one was a group of guys that lifted weights. Group two was a group of guys that lifted weights plus took steroids. And group three didn't work out at all, but just took steroids. So they didn't do any lifting weights. They just took steroids. What was shocking about the study was not who got first place. As we would expect, the people that lifted weights and took steroids built the most muscle. Second place was the group that did nothing and took steroids. They actually built more muscle than the group who lifted weights who didn't take steroids. Now, it wasn't a long study.

6:44It was like a 90-day study. Nonetheless, what occurred to me was, you know, there's a lot of different ways to signal muscle growth. And it's not just, you know, causing damage in the gym or stressing the body with exercise. Because in this particular scenario with the study, this was a strong hormonal signal. so I started to think of what are the different ways we could signal muscle growth aside from the traditional you know stress that we get from strength training and the reason why it's important is because although it is the most powerful signal you can do you can induce aside from taking anabolics which is a stress from exercise you're limited you're limited because you only have so much capacity you can only handle so much stress you can only recover and adapt so what are these other things that we could do and I also started to think I remember this was one night.

7:33I was up till like 3 a.m. This is when I first really put together MAPS Anabolic. I started to think about some of the blue collar workers in my family who didn't lift weights. They had no interest in lifting weights. But they had muscular body parts that corresponded to like their work. Like I had mechanics in my family. They all had really muscular forms. I had some male carriers in my family. They had really muscular defined calves. And I thought, you know, what's crazy is, you know, I'm sure if you're a mechanic, the first year you're sore from twisting and cranking on wrenches and stuff. But after that, there's no like stress and damage.

8:09The same thing every single day. But these guys, their forearms look like, like they lifted weights. So there's also some other kind of signaling that's happening that doesn't have to do too much with stress. And so through that, I wrote maps anabolic, came up with the concept of trigger sessions, came up with phasing because I knew how the body adapted to different rep ranges and stuff. And then Doug and I, and I had many friends of mine, test the program out. And everybody was just like, this works. I'm getting stronger. I'm building muscle. I feel good. This is really crazy. And when you look at the program at FaceValue, it looks very simple and basic.

8:49But people gave me tons and tons of reviews. And this was before I had brought it to you. Well, yeah, I remember how that happened and why this is such a neat story to me is I'm also 10 years plus into my career of personal training and what I'd say finally getting good as a coach and trainer. And what I mean by that is you've probably heard us talk on the podcast many times of the mistakes that we made of overtraining our clients to crazy soreness and the random crazy exercises that we do with them. And so my workouts were always just unique and different and just teaching them all these different exercises.

9:33And I went through that phase for several years before I started to realize that how ineffective it was. And it started to get to a place where my workouts were really simple and boring, but it was the core lifts. It was very effective. But it was very effective. I mean, my clients were seeing the best results. They were maybe the least entertained. And I probably had to deal with a lot of this, like, is this all we're going to do? And just trust me, we get good at this. We get strong at this. This is what's going to build your metabolism. This is what's going to change your body. Don't worry, I'm going to teach you.

10:10I'd always sell them on that. Don't worry, I'm going to teach you all kinds of other stuff first, but we need to lay the right... I used to always use the house analogy of this is laying the foundation. And so I started to understand how important this was to program, especially early on, which is we get a lot of clients like that, that are either returning athletes. They're 50 years old. They refer to themselves as ex-athletes who worked out when, you know, they were in high school and played sports and then they're out of shape or people that have never lifted weights. I'd say those are the most common clients that you get.

10:41And what served them best was really dialing in and training and getting good at these core four or five lifts and then building on and layering on that. And so I'm just starting to figure this out like almost 10 years into my career. And that switch is clicking for me. And meanwhile, you and I start to get connected through mutual friends, yet we had heard about each other before. So I knew of, you know, who you were and, uh, you know, we worked for the same company, but it was a massive company. So you could easily not see each other. And I knew you were a top performer. I knew that, we had mutual friends that we were very respected in the space, right?

11:21Some of the best of the best in the fitness space. And so when you had connected with me on Facebook, you know, I was curious to what you had to say. And we obviously we connected on the cannabis thing because of your story with your mother-in-law and everything you went through. And that was the initial connection. And then you shared what you and Doug a piece together. And I believe it was the first promo video or what was that video? Yeah, we shot a 30 minute sales video. Infomercial. Infomercial, especially, yeah. And I think we can actually make it available somewhere so people can watch it.

11:52Oh, I hope so. You want to see a really young Sal. It was really good. Yeah, it was well done. And at this time, too, remember, this isn't, I mean, we started this off talking about P90X, right? And so, you know, this is in the height of Beachbody. And as I'm aware, I'm becoming aware of my own shitty programming and how I need to be programming. I'm becoming more aware of all these other shitty programs. I'm going like, this is. Well, that's, yeah, that was a lot of my experience, you know, seeing the actual programming of it. Because I was a little worried and concerned initially because I'd seen a lot of the programs online were very, especially the bodybuilder kind of segment and hypertrophy.

12:34It was pretty ridiculous. There wasn't good programming out there to kind of grab onto. And I was in a gym where it was all serious career trainers. Like I had finally moved around and jumped around a lot of different gyms and then landed on this one where everybody like really knew their shit. And I was like, you know, a bit insecure, like trying to get back to the core of like what works. Everybody there just cared about getting strong. And that was the whole consensus. And so, you know, kind of peeling through the whole thing. I was looking like, oh, this is not what I expected. Like this is very much about strength and that's what matters.

13:08And then it kind of, you know, gets into hypertrophy. But yeah, that was like my initial impression was like, this is a lot different than what I was expecting. I was wondering that actually, Justin, because I don't know how you were introduced. I know Adam introduced you. I mean, what's funny about this is the MAPS anabolic story is the beginning. It's really the beginning of Mind Pump. It's actually the origin of Mind Pump. If it wasn't for that video, because at this time, Justin and I are kind of doing our own thing. I'm running the cannabis businesses. I got a side thing with him. We're building a fitness app and we're doing our own thing.

13:38and so I have no interest in another business. But when I watched that promo video and I thought, this is so good. And right now, the most popular programs on the internet, to Justin's point and talking about the Beachbody stuff, like a lot of it was crap. It was good marketing though. What Beachbody and a lot of these programs that people revered as great, that sold millions, was because they did great marketing. they did they weren't great programs high production and i was aware of that and then i saw this video that you and doug made and not only did i think that you guys did a good job from a marketing perspective like you i think you sold the what you sold you made something unsexy sexy to me and i'm like this is and i remember going like this is it right here this is like what will really help people and actually the way you presented it was digestible and like interesting and i thought oh man we have to we have to get together we get all that we and that is when I said, let's all get together.

14:37And no plan of any business ideas. It was just like, we're at similar places in our careers and understanding around training and programming. Let's just see - We can help each other. Yeah, let's see if we can help each other. And there was no idea of let's go into business because it was just like, we obviously have things in common, right? Because we connected on the cannabis thing. We connected on the programming thing. It was like, let's all just get together. And I think I remember you saying, or we talked about you and I, I'm like, can I bring my buddy Justin with me? and so that was kind of how it all started was let's get in a room together and and just hear each other out the reason why because i i you know taking a step back um i had heard of you through mutual friends as well and when we wrote when we came out with the program created the marketing material wrote out the blueprints so essentially you had the program all done uh i remembered like i don't know what it was but i thought adam i'm gonna show adam i've heard good things about him.

15:32I want his opinion. I had no idea of selling anything to you. I had no idea of working with you. I just thought I want your opinion. And so that's what I did. I sent a message to Adam. I said, Hey, can I send you something and get your opinion? And Adam's, you know, always open for stuff like that. And so I sent it to you. And then that's when you sent me a message. It's like, Hey, let's get together. And then your side of the story, you know, I'm not too familiar with Justin because you were, uh, I would consider you one of the best workout programmers I've ever met, especially back then. Same with you, bro.

16:02Because you were surrounded with really, really good coaches and trainers. I'd say you were probably in one of the best studios in the area, if not the best. Yeah. And so I didn't know that. So Adam showed it to you before we all met. Yeah, you know, and I was in that headspace. You know how I am. I want to hate first before I like. So I was looking for things to kind of pick apart. But no, I was actually really impressed. uh and it because again like the the hype video and all that i was like okay there's there's something here but i i was worried that it was going to go more towards the the over intensity and go into like it was either going to be one of those over intensity ones or it's going to be way too much crazy bodybuilder volume and um yeah and it just was not either of those things and uh and for me again your kind of background of like dinosaur training you know starting strength Like I was doing a lot of RKC and I was learning a lot of like old, you know, strength methods.

17:00And I was around a lot of trainers that were like very much into just sports performance, but also just like we just are about strength and like the whole gym, you know. So it actually like was kind of perfect in the sense that it was simple. And I was like, oh, OK, he actually gets it. Well, he was really cool. I mean, you're kind of briefly talking about it, but Justin was, it's such a cool incubator. I mean, for the audience, probably actually knows now people like stick mobility. Yeah. Which is developed there. Oh, you know what's interesting? Sorry to cut you off. No. But like, so the first class they ever did, and they run like certifications now and like all worldwide and whatnot.

17:41But I was in that very first class. They just posted a picture the other day. Oh, really? I mean, they're doing the archer stretch. And they developed it, and we all kind of riffed and contributed to it, and then they just took off with it with this entire philosophy. A couple people, too, like went off to become like trained a lot of UFC fighters. I was going to say, you had guys that were training pro fighters. Yeah. You had rock climbing dudes. You had stick mobility. You had sports performance guys. Yeah, specialists. I mean, you had a power lifter guy. I mean, I remember coming in there. The pedigree of coaches in there was incredible.

18:18It was incredible. It was really high. It was just, and diverse. Yes. You know, a lot of times gyms have a culture. Yeah, it's like just powerlifting. It's like just powerlifting. It was super unique and diverse. So you could go in there and see just all kinds of random, cool training and really intelligent coaches and trainers. And you were there for a while. I was. Yeah, I was actually lucky, yeah. But, I mean, it was one of those things. I've jumped because when you're an independent trainer, you're always looking for like, uh, good gyms to kind of bring your clients to where everybody's bought in and you just didn't get that many places.

18:53Like there's just a lot of lazy trainers, a lot of like, you know, dysfunction and, you know, and the owners aren't really that great and cool. And so I just got lucky. I finally landed on that place. And really I ended up learning a lot from everybody around. Does it still exist? It does. I went to same owner too. Uh, same owner. Yeah. Really? Same owner. Yeah. And it's literally like, it's like nobody touched it except a lot of the trainers left. There's some that I still know there, but it's, yeah, it's still there. Yeah. You mentioned strength a lot, Justin. Like one of the game changing things for me as a trainer, because when I, I trained mostly everyday people, I didn't train athletes.

19:29I mean, I'd had athletes, but 99 % of my clients were everyday people looking to get fit. Number one goal was weight loss. Typically, you know, moms, dads, just everyday people want to get fit. and when I piece together that if I get them stronger, everything else clicks. Like everything else works. If I can get these people stronger in certain lifts, in all lifts but in certain lifts, and over time if I continue to improve their strength, and we work on diet and stuff like that, things work. Things just work. Their bodies work. Their metabolism boosted. They got leaner. They had no pain. They felt better.

20:05And I'm like, I think strength has got to be one of the most important things. Even if they're not strength athletes, I got to focus on that. That's going to be one of those important things. You're also touching on another thing, another piece to the secret sauce or formula to, you know, MAPS Anabolic and Mind Pump and everything working the way it did and something that we all kind of brought to this. That was unique. So kind of to Justin's point with the bodybuilding program, because there's a lot of pro bodybuilders that put out programming and stuff that's out there. What the average person doesn't understand is, I know that Ronnie Coleman looks like that.

20:40But you have no business training like that. You're nowhere near that level or taking what he's taking or the genetic anomaly that he is. So you shouldn't be. But yeah, everybody is drawn to that because they're famous and they look a certain way. And so those were some of the most popular things that were out there. And what we had experienced with was like, I never trained one Ronnie Coleman. No. Not one. Between all of us, thousands of people we've worked with, right? Right. And they've none, no, no, no one. And I can count on one hand, how many collegiate level athletes I even got to train.

21:13So most people that, that are working out and wanting to get in shape are not even following, even, even the, even if it's quote unquote, good programming for another pro bodybuilder, it doesn't work. It doesn't work for the average person. It's not appropriate for where they're at in their current journey. And their bodies just don't respond. Right. When I had clients who were willing, I had a lot of these clients, especially later in my career, who were willing to come in as much as I asked them to. They would pay for sessions, and I'll come five days a week if you need, six days a week if you want.

21:43They got their best results two days a week. Two days a week. Average client got their best results with good programming two days a week, sometimes three days a week. Well, that's Doug's part of the story. That's right. Right. I mean, Doug is a lifelong magazine reader, lifter, self-experimenting fitness guy, knowledgeable in his own right, and had been trying to chip away at changing his body composition. And I remember the first thing you did with him was reduce his volume of training. When he hired me, first of all, he came to me because he had back pain. He got sent to me from a chiropractor.

22:19And he comes in, we start talking, and Doug's like, all right, cool, how many days a week are we going to work out? I could have very easily said four days a week. Doug would have been fine. Five days a week, he would have been fine. No, we're doing two. And I remember he had a little bit of skepticism. Like, two days a week, is that it? I said, just watch what happens and we'll see. Two days a week, we followed this kind of programming, this style of programming. And Doug went from having back pain to deadlifting 400 pounds. At a body weight that's well below 170 pounds or something like that?

22:46Oh, at the time it was 152 pounds. Deadlifting 400 pounds at 150 pounds. This is a guy with the back pain. who thought he had bad genetics, by the way. If you know Doug now, you know he doesn't have bad genetics. He can build muscle. But because he had followed that bodybuilder style programming, which it just doesn't work for the vast majority of people. It just doesn't work. Your body will not respond. Now, if you've got crazy genetics and you're on steroids, maybe. But for the average person, it just doesn't work. And so I put this program together. And by the way, you're the first person to pick up on something in MAPS Anabolic.

23:17Nobody else picked up on this. when you look at MAPS anabolic, it's broken up into three phases. And you phase a program typically because the body adapts and you want to move into a new phase to change the stimulus to get the body moving in another direction. You also want to build more well-rounded strength and you want to add different things, but a lot of it has to do with avoiding plateaus. Okay. But I started MAPS anabolic in phase one with a low rep, low rep, heavy, heavy weight phase. So you're doing like five reps or three reps. Nobody picked up on this except for you. You got this and Adam right away saw why, why would you put a phase one in the beginning?

23:55And Adam knew right away, said, oh, cause most people don't train this way. And right out the gates by week two, they're going to see crazy strength gains cause they've never done this and they're going to be hooked. That was exactly. Well, that was another connection that we had. That was a big selling point for me. Cause this is, I remember this epiphany. Again, a majority of our clients, over 60 % of my clientele were female. Most were middle-aged. Most wanted body composition change. Most had never trained five-by-five training. Most had done circuit, class, high reps, maybe hypertrophy 10 to 12 reps.

24:31Nobody was barbell, back squatting, dead lifting, shoulder pressing five reps. But I knew that because of that, just from the novelty side, if I wanted to get this girl to be bought into what I am about to teach her, I'm going to show her like rapid strength gains and her body change right away. Well, what's the best way to do that? Take her out of something she's never done before. Give her long rest periods. Get her to lift heavier weight than she ever does. And in two, three weeks, she's going to be like, holy crap. I feel a different – her appetite goes up, her libido also. And part of being a good coach and trainer is being able to sell yourself on that you know what you're doing and that I've got this path laid out for us.

25:11And so there's always this challenge of giving the client what they want and then knowing what's best for them, right? And so that they buy into the vision. And as a young trainer, I fell into the trap of giving them what they want, which is a hard workout and unique exercises because that's what they wanted. And so that was my value was, oh, I know all kinds of exercises. I know form and technique, and I can definitely work your out. I could write a hard program. And so I fell into the trap of trying to appease them that way. And so now I know the better pathway, but I'm like, how do I sell it to them or get them bought in?