2889: 7 Muscle Building Exercises You Have Never Done (But Should Start Immediately)

11:21Adam Schafer:So circus press, we got introduced to when we wrote Map Strong, right? Yep. That was the one we, okay. Yes. And the circus press, it looks like a one-arm dumbbell push press, essentially. Yep. And this is a lift that strong men will do in competition. So you can see in strong man competitions, they'll do something called a circus press. And oftentimes, they're pressing kind of like a circus-looking dumbbell. Yeah. You know, like the Thomas Inch dumbbell.

11:44Sal Di Stefano:They're pretty much cleaning it to the shoulder, and then they're push pressing it out of that.

11:50Adam Schafer:Now, the reason why, and you can speak to this, Adam, the reason why I like this is it builds my shoulders.

11:55Sal Di Stefano:Oh, dude. I mean, so if you don't know how to, because bench press, or the bent press is a more technical lift.

12:02Adam Schafer:Yes.

12:03Sal Di Stefano:And so, and admittedly, I'm not great at that. Like, I have to still do really lightweight when I do it because my technique isn't there. But I can circus press a good amount of weight because it's a little bit easier technique. Way less technical. And so therefore, being the aesthetic guy who likes to see my shoulders develop like that, I saw lots of benefit from the circus press because I could quickly get the technique down and I could start to really load it pretty quick. And then now I'm able to single arm press a dumbbell over my head more than I could in any sort of strict form. You get more of that fast twitch stimulus, which a lot of people neglect.

12:40Adam Schafer:Didn't I see you do this with a 120-pound dumbbell?

12:42Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Yeah.

12:43Adam Schafer:This guy's such a moose. I don't think I ever got that head. No, no, no, no. I love these kind of lifts. Yeah, it's right up my alley. Next up, we have Zontman curls. So Zontman curls are curls where you're supinating on the way up, pronating on the way down. This is phenomenal for the brachioradialis, the brachialis, and just creating strong wrists and forearms. And it fell out of favor because it's not bicep-centric like a traditional curl. So anytime someone does curls, they're like, I'm just building my biceps. and their ability to pronate, supinate, which requires the biceps and some other muscles, and the strength of the wrist, especially in the strength of the wrist in a pronated position, is super neglected.

13:24Adam Schafer:A lot of people who are really strong, who lift weights, you put their wrists in a pronated position and suddenly they're flimsy. And this will strengthen the heck out of your arms. And lifters did this back in the day because, well, back in the day, they needed strong wrists to do all the other lifts they were going to do. And so I love this exercise.

13:41Sal Di Stefano:How often have you seen this movement to benefit somebody who has issues with like tennis elbow, golfers elbow? Because a lot of times that's due to weakness and instability in the wrist. And if you don't ever train, everybody trains in the same plane when they do curls. And articulating the wrist, pronating and supinating like that through the movement, it tends to eliminate that or keep people from doing that. It creates a lot more stability, yeah. Yes. keeps them from dealing with that issue. So I think it's a great movement for that. Totally.

14:16Adam Schafer:Then we have weighted windmills.

14:18Sal Di Stefano:Also.

14:18Adam Schafer:Now, I never attempted a windmill until, what program was it that, was it Prime?

14:24Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, well, Prime, we did the test and yeah, and we started to use that as like a gauge.

14:28Adam Schafer:It was Prime. I'd never done a windmill before and I will never forget this. So when did we create Prime? Was that eight years ago? Well, we did, we did, what did we do?

14:37Sal Di Stefano:I think we did it even earlier on Mind Pump TV. there's a video of us Justin teaching you and I on Mind Pump TV I couldn't get in the position without weight and I remember that lit a fire under you to go and get good at it because you're like I couldn't even I couldn't even get in a position yeah

14:53Adam Schafer:I'm like what's wrong with me yeah I can't do it there it is right there yeah and so it's really really good for it's actually great for shoulder stability that's nine years ago

15:03Sal Di Stefano:that video right there nine years ago yeah

15:04Adam Schafer:it's really good for shoulder stability but what it really does is it bulletproofs your back especially if you like the deadlift and this is why i liked it yeah because uh i have a strong deadlift it's my best lift the lateral stability part uh is where i would have the holes strength oh man like it's like when i deadlift heavy sometimes i'll get a little bit of si joint pain this is like in the lower kind of sacrum area on one side adding the windmills got rid of it

15:28Sal Di Stefano:wouldn't you guys agree to this would be a good regression or a place to start somebody who wants

15:33Adam Schafer:to get good at the bent press in old time and maps old time you start with this yeah you need to get

15:38Sal Di Stefano:You want to get good at a traditional windmill that's a slower, more controlled movement, lighter weight, and really figuring out how to do that and load the body like that. Well, just, yeah, even getting in that position, holding, sustaining it, and adding now tension. Yes. A lot of people have weeks of work with that just to kind of get comfortable. Right. So if you don't have our program and you're not following, because we program it that way, right? So if you don't have it, then you're taking the list that we're giving right now. Before you jump to trying to get good at bent press, first get good at weighted windmills.

16:13Sal Di Stefano:For sure. If you get good at weighted windmills, then you can progress to a bent press. Bent press is definitely a progression to that movement. 100%.

16:20Adam Schafer:Then we have heavy overhead carries. Yeah. Now, this got my interest a while ago, and I'll tell you why in just a second. But I didn't really implement them until Justin encouraged us to try these. So I always liked overhead pressing. I thought, you know, it's a cool exercise to get strong at, and it is. And I didn't really piece together that I needed strength at the top where I was stable, where I could hold something. That's what this does exactly. So once I implemented it, I saw these huge strength gains. But the first time my interest was piqued was watching Olympic lifters do overhead squats.

16:59Adam Schafer:So Olympic lifters will do, you know what the Olympic lifts are. So we know the cleaning jerk, the snatch. We know all the Olympic lifts. But they also break those lifts down in their workouts. And one way they do this is they do something called an overhead squat. So they'll have a barbell set up on blocks. They'll get underneath it and squat it up. And the amount of weight they can hold overhead is unreal. It's unreal. It's more weight than I could squat on my back. And that just, you want to talk about shoulder.

17:28Sal Di Stefano:It defies physics almost. It's quite trippy. I know I geek out on that stuff too, especially when you really know how to pack the shoulders properly and really utilize, you know, your back and all the surrounding muscles to support it. So you train that and you train it with locomotion and it actually like adds those variables, those lateral stability, the rotational stability you have to account for. So this has always been one of those that I always go back to this and then even then, you know, adding in a longer lever to that. So like in old time strength, we have, you know, just the barbell itself.

18:01Sal Di Stefano:It's 45 pounds, but just holding that with that long lever puts an added level of stress on the wrist, stability and everything else. So it's such a great movement.

18:10Adam Schafer:Yeah. Adding these to my regimen got my overhead press go up 10 pounds, which is a lift that I have difficulty going up in. And it's just, again, what Justin said, walking with the weight makes it move, which requires more stability. So you just lock your arm out, hold it up above your head, walk real steady, switch arms. You could do it with a dumbbell or you could do it with a barbell.

18:31Sal Di Stefano:Doing these changed the way I even shoulder press and stuff. And what I mean by that is I saw so much value in the in-range as stability component of a press. Because traditionally coming from a kind of bodybuilder mentality. You don't stay at the top. You never stay at the top. You're always, you know, the thought process, oh, keeping tension on the muscle. As if there's no tension. Right. And so you would always be just a little shy of locking out and you would come right back down in almost every movement that you do, especially something like a shoulder press. And man, one of the things that blew my shoulders up was being able to stabilize really heavy weight over my head.

19:11Sal Di Stefano:And so even today now when I do – even if I'm seated and I'm being lazy and I do a seated press, I will always stabilize and hold the top now. Just because I think there's just – You get a better pump too. Yes, you get a better pump from it. I've seen better development from it. It's better for the shoulders. And so I think there's tremendous value. And I think a great place to start is just overhead carries, getting good at stabilizing the weight, adding the walking component in there. You learn to kind of do that. And then you start to carry that over into your push presses, your circus press, all these different movements where you'll stabilize that weight at the top.

19:45Sal Di Stefano:And I think you get lots of benefit.

19:47Adam Schafer:Next is a lift I love. And I implement this. I haven't done it in a routine in a long time, but it was a period of time.

19:54Sal Di Stefano:You were doing that for a hot minute when we had the green turf out here. You were on a kick of how much you could do that with.

20:01Adam Schafer:Well, it just got my deadlift really strong. It created crazy stability in my spine. It made my hands really strong. Oh, yeah. And just overall, there's some lifts that I can do. You guys know what I'm talking about. there's some lifts that you can do that make you feel big. And then there's lifts you could do that make you feel strong. Yeah. And this one makes you feel, I don't mean it made me feel strong because I'm lifting a lot of weight. I mean in my everyday life. Yeah. Like my everyday life, just moving around when I was getting good at this, I just felt really strong. Like I could move things and lift things and do things.

20:35Adam Schafer:I just felt super strong because I was strong at walking. Yeah. Like strong in movement. Yeah.

20:39Sal Di Stefano:I think there's, there's something to that. I think there's, it's great to, to really focus, you know, on highlight like musculature and like, I'm trying to build this up in this stationary position. But, you know, now you add that in movement. And to your point, I feel the same way. Like, I feel like when I focus more on, like, moving-type exercises with heavy loads, regular life is so much easier in everything you're doing. Well, I'm trying to think of something that challenges it, like the central nervous system being lit up with that much intensity from your fingertips all the way down to your toes like that.

21:16Sal Di Stefano:I don't think they're even – so a deadlift, a real heavy deadlift would be close, but there's no movement to that. So there's no stability component to that or not as much of a stability component as it is to moving because you could actually – a lot of people can actually do almost deadlift or carry almost as much as they can deadlift. When you were doing that, you were doing –

21:35Adam Schafer:Oh, I got up to 500 pounds. Yeah. You can carry a lot with the trap.

21:39Sal Di Stefano:You're actually holding 500 pounds and moving. Yeah. Man, you get strong at that. And like you said, from your fingertips down to your feet and toes and core stabilizing that. Totally. I mean, I don't know if there's anything that can just overall stabilize and strengthen the body in one particular movement. Is that such a great movement? Yeah.

21:57Adam Schafer:And then last, this is a lift. It's not going to build crazy muscle. But the value of this lift came to me as a trainer. When I would train clients, a lot of clients I had like to run. A lot of people like to run. and the most common issue that people will report from running are shin splints. And they'll do all kinds of things to fix their shin splints. Things like taping their shins, massaging my calves, taking time off, changing my shoes. And I'll never forget, and this was just a stupid idea that I had. I just guessed. I'm like, huh, it's on the shin. Inflammation there. The muscle, the tibialis is there.

22:33What if we strengthen the tibialis?

22:35Adam Schafer:So we did tibialis raises. Yes. And it fixed everybody's shins. Instantly. This is the biggest hack I've had with athletes.

22:41Sal Di Stefano:It's the dumbest thing. I'm not even joking. It's because it's completely. It's mandatory. And I don't know why we never learned that. You know, this is one of those things I point back and I'm like angry about it. Yeah. It's so simple. I couldn't use this. Yeah. A lot in my career. And especially if you get into plyometrics, if you get into anything where you're explosively moving, like this is like critical for you to really kind of build up that strength support system. It's funny because it's like comparing to anywhere else in the body, to develop the quads and not touch the hamstrings would be ridiculous.

23:12Sal Di Stefano:It would cause pain. Yeah, develop the biceps and never touch the triceps would be ridiculous. It's like it's the opposing muscle of a muscle that you use like crazy in all these athletic movements that you do. And to completely ignore it is silly and it's crazy. So it does seem like such a tedious movement. But, boy, if you play sport recreationally, you like to go on runs. and if you like you want developed calves uh that was a thing that for me for me i i started incorporate this makes your calves look bigger yes from a development perspective that's kind of how i got into it i wasn't at that time i wasn't doing any sport um but i was doing everything i could to give the illusion of having bigger calves on stage and i was like why don't i develop the front you know i'm saying i put all this effort in the back all the time what if i develop the front oh what do you know it made my made my calves look way better but it's it's literally the it's and

24:02Adam Schafer:I just echo with what Justin said. It's the dumbest, simplest, most straightforward solution to shin splints. And it's so dumb because it's so simple. And before I figured this out, we did all kinds of - We were icing our legs. Oh, God. Like all the time.

24:16Sal Di Stefano:Because that's just what we had to do.

24:18Adam Schafer:But if you look, it's the tibia and the fibula. And the tibia sits on top of it. And shin splints are essentially inflammation in between those two bones. And it's from a weakness in the tibia. That's it. Strength of the tibia, boom. Shin splints are gone. I mean, if you're a runner listening right now, or you get shin splints from hiking, sometimes people get it from hiking.

24:36Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

24:37Adam Schafer:You do some of these like twice a week, boom, fixed. Suddenly you cured.

24:41Sal Di Stefano:You pair that with some ankle mobility, because that'll exacerbate it, right? If you have poor ankle mobility and you do a lot of sport like that, it'll make the shin splints even worse. You do some combat stretch with tibialis work, and that's like an instant fix for that. I know.

24:55Adam Schafer:I was going to ask you, I saw you eating another one of the Legion Rice Krispie.

24:59Sal Di Stefano:They have new ones. What is it? Well, I think they're new. at least they're new to me. Like a flavored one? Yeah, they originally just had kind of the Rice Krispie Treat one. Now they have like a chocolate chip peanut butter one.

25:08Adam Schafer:And what are the macros? 15 grams of protein?

25:09Sal Di Stefano:These are so good.

25:11Adam Schafer:Are you hoarding all of them, dude? I do. He does. He's got a box in there. I've already got a box too. So do you.

25:15Sal Di Stefano:I've got a box too. You guys. It's only 190 calories. So it's 190 calories, 15 grams of protein. And it tastes like a Rice Krispie Treat with chocolate chips inside of it. So no, I'm a -

25:26Adam Schafer:You know what I like those for? They're killing it. You know what I like those for? Okay, so obvious reason. It's a, you want to treat, you want hip protein targets. Here you go. Better than eating a regular rice, crispy treat tastes almost the same, but you know what I really like them for people on GLP, uh, because their appetite is so low and so difficult and that hyper palatability can help. It does help. So it's like 15 grams of protein and it's so palatable. It tastes good. It helps them, helps them hit those protein targets, which make, you know, a big difference. Legion hit it out the park with those.

25:57Adam Schafer:I know they did. Those are so good. Dude. Uh, did you see, I got to read this to you guys. So they did, I'm going to read it because I don't want to mess it up. So they had AI analyze. Oh my God. They had AI analyze, uh, like stock, uh, um, I'll read it to you. A platform called GovGreed built a seven layer machine learning system. Dude, this is AI is great, right? Dude, everything is getting exposed. Everything. This is all public data, but it's just so much of it. You'd need like 10 brilliant minds to go through it for months to piece this together. So what they did is they used a machine learning system that cross-references every stock trade disclosed by every sitting politician against the bills their committees control, the campaign donations they receive, and the companies that their votes directly impact.

26:47Adam Schafer:How is this not getting everybody? This has to be like in front of everybody. Listen, it scored all 540 politicians currently in Congress. It scored them? Okay. 56. So this is what's crazy. First of all, it should be illegal. Yeah. Yeah. Illegal. They're passing laws on companies. It's like the unfair advantage.

27:08Sal Di Stefano:It's like insider trading like crazy. It's like sports refs betting on the games. Yeah. This should not be allowed. You can't be able to make a policy that directly affects the market. It's exactly like that. Ridiculous. Why do we not let the NBA refs bet on finals games? Because they directly can influence it. Whether they do it or not doesn't matter. It's the fact that they can influence it. And the fact that politicians can influence regulation that influences the stock market. They don't want to change that. Should not be allowed. Voters need to change that.

27:38Adam Schafer:And by the way, this is why you have these politicians who, because how much does a congressperson make? Was it$250 ,000 a year, Doug? Yeah. If that. That's on the high end. Okay. So you're making like$200 ,000 a year. You live in Washington, D.C. It's expensive as hell. Yeah. So you're not making a ton of money. They're serving us. And these guys are millionaires. Some of them worth$100 million,$200 million. And it's like, how are they doing that? Outside of food. Because they're the best stock traders in history. $174 ,000. 274 or 174? Yeah, 174. And a lot of them live in, some of them live in.

28:14Sal Di Stefano:I mean, isn't this. This should be so illegal. Yeah, I know. But what you're about to share, is anybody surprised? Everybody knows this. and isn't this why you want to get in office is that you know this you're not going for the most these people are that is their incentive most of them i want to write like because you know you're not going to get paid a lot yeah and a lot of them have like legal degrees they go do a different profession that pays them more than they have a passion for helping people yeah yeah

28:43Adam Schafer:that's that's that's what they sell the lemmings so check this out this is what i found 56 percent of every stock purchase made by Congress in the last 16 months was on a stock directly affected by a bill the buyer later voted on. So that's over 6 ,000 out of 11 ,000 total purchases. More than half of their stock buys are on companies whose fate the same politician was about to decide. 343 of the 540 Congress members actively trade stocks while holding access to non-public legislative information. They know what's about to happen. They know that this thing's and they trade. This is crazy. And then you look at some of their value, like Nancy Pelosi's portfolio.

29:26Adam Schafer:Do you know how much she... 194 million. She's got to be one of the top ones in there. Her greediness score, according to this thing, was 98 out of 100.

29:34Sal Di Stefano:Oh my God, dude.

29:37Adam Schafer:Insane. So what's crazy about this is there's an act called the Stock Act, but they're sitting on it. Do you know why? Because they're the very people that need to vote on it to make it happen are the ones that are making the money from it.

29:48Sal Di Stefano:I mean... So they're just not... Well, why does it go into like family too? Because you see how like city presidents and everybody else, like their family benefits. I mean, even if we just, even if you just limit it, it still would be like. It's super cheating. What I'm saying is like, okay, so because if you, if you got rid of it completely, which you would think is the right thing to do, then nobody wants to do it. The job. Good. You know who I want to be?

30:15Adam Schafer:You know who I want to run government? Somebody doesn't want to do it. Right. I'm serious. For real. I'm serious. The person who desires power is the last person who should have power. That's just a fact. So it should literally be like, okay, whatever. I guess I'll do it. It's a duty. Cool.

30:28Sal Di Stefano:I mean, it would be the ideal way because you would get people that didn't really want to do the position and it would organically shrink government too. Totally. Because it's like, listen, we don't have enough people that want to do that thing. So we can't create.

30:40Adam Schafer:You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of when the FBI investigates itself. You know what I mean? For fraud. It's like a company taking an employee. Give yourself a review. Yeah. And let me know if you should get a raise. I'm sure the report's on my desk Monday. Yeah. Oh, I deserve a raise, dude. Good job. You're crushing. I know. I just think it's so crazy.

31:00Sal Di Stefano:You know what? I wish I, because I know there's pages that are dedicated to just following these politicians' bets. I mean, there's people.

31:07Adam Schafer:They've tried to shut those down.

31:08Sal Di Stefano:They have? Yes. People do well, actually, that have been following those, too. They just copy their bets. Yeah. Copy it directly. Just follow what they're doing and buy what they buy.

31:17Adam Schafer:And what makes me really mad about all this is that these are the same people that rail on entrepreneurs. Yes. And people who create jobs. It's the most hypocritical system ever.

31:29Sal Di Stefano:You know, since you went down the stock thing, and obviously it's been a topic with SpaceX going on, and we've been talking off air a lot about all this stuff like that. Something that I'm super curious about, and I don't know, maybe help Doug Google this, is... I feel like a five-year-old right now. Well, I don't even know. You know what I should say. I don't even know how I Google this. But what I'm trying to get to the bottom of is people that buy stocks today is radically different than what it was just 25 years ago. Oh, yeah. With Robinhood. You have more young retail buyers. It used to be something that was just serious investors or you hired someone to do it.

32:15Sal Di Stefano:And then E-Trade came around, and that kind of changed it a little bit. Robinhood has really changed it. And so I'd like to see how much of this market manipulation is just retail buyers following trends and doing stuff versus true.

32:29Adam Schafer:They have to organize. Remember, they did that with GameStop. Remember, they all got together.

32:34Sal Di Stefano:I mean, they don't really have to organize, Sal. For example, SpaceX is a great example of this. It is in my feed. Everybody's talking about it. So it's got so much heat behind it that there's so many people that just follow trends. Oh, I see what you're saying.

32:49Adam Schafer:Like social media hype and stuff. Oh, yeah.

32:51Sal Di Stefano:I mean, there's so much of that now. Is that now 20 % of what our investors, are they 30 %? Are they half?

33:00Adam Schafer:I don't think so. I mean, you're talking about huge valuations and the average buyer.

33:05Sal Di Stefano:That's why 20 % would be crazy. Would be crazy. Because big money is moving, like BlackRock and stuff like that.

33:12Adam Schafer:There was a dude that just bought another$2 billion shares of$2 billion.

33:16Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, there's people that are really moving it. But has it crept up from 25 years ago when retail buyers couldn't even make an influence on the market right now? That retail buyers now make up 20 % of investing, which if retail buyers can make up 20 % or 30%, even though it's not BlackRock, that's nothing to sniff at.

33:38Adam Schafer:Doug, maybe Google this. what percentage of stock investments are made by everyday retail investors? That might be a good, but I bet you it varies between, you know, what company, right? And we also have 401ks and stuff. So it might put that in there where it's our best.

33:54Sal Di Stefano:I know that's why I didn't know how to Google it to get to the, what I'm, but you get where I'm going, right? Yeah. There is definitely, I mean, I see this in other markets also, like you see it in the card market.

34:04Adam Schafer:20 to 30 % of total trading volume equity markets, but in total outstanding equity ownership, retail investment. Okay, so total ownership is low. The vast majority, 90 % of all corporate stocks is controlled by institutional investors, like mutual funds, hedge funds, and pension funds. So it's not a lot.

34:24Sal Di Stefano:And I wonder how much of that has changed over the last 20 years. That's like, was it before 99 %? And now they've moved into 10 %? That's a good question. Yeah, so I'm curious to how much, because I see this, like I said.

34:36Adam Schafer:You're probably right. because remember 401ks haven't been around for a long long long time right like it was pensions for years and years and years uh and there wasn't this and even that i i think there's what i think

34:49Sal Di Stefano:there's more of it there's there's more random people buying five hundred dollars worth of stocks a thousand dollars worth of stocks than there was before now it takes a lot of those to make up for you know one even that is kind of yeah one fund you know i'm saying but i mean i think it's it's interesting and i think it's it kind of leans into doug was talking about this off arrow just about how crazy this this the stock market run that we've been on but if we've had this over the last 20 years every year an increase of retail buyers coming in it's going to impact that now it can't swing the market the same that blackrock and some of these big ones can but it absolutely could send it on this like this doesn't make sense that we keep going you know it's wild too i was

35:28Adam Schafer:just thinking about because as i'm talking like i just mentioned that dude uh that uh that i think he bought another billion dollars or two billion dollars worth of just spacex number one i was thinking about man the cojones on on someone like that to take a billion dollars that is a huge but then here's the other thing when you're a big time investor like that your move influences a lot of people like you go put a billion everyone's like oh god we should buy this yeah and right off the

35:54Sal Di Stefano:gates it takes the momentum of the stock yeah it's got a big influence i know so crazy anyway

35:59Adam Schafer:I want to bring something up in regards to essential amino acids because their use is getting more popular, especially with GLP consumers. And it's important. So this is really important to know when it comes to essential amino acid use. The leucine content has to be high. Otherwise, it really doesn't do much. So leucine is the trigger amino acid. Leucine is what tells the body to go into muscle protein synthesis. Then it has the essential amino acids there to do the job, but it's leucine that triggers the thing moving forward.

36:42Sal Di Stefano:Which makes it the most valuable in there, yeah.

36:43Adam Schafer:Yes, 40%. If your essential amino acid supplement isn't 40 % leucine, you have to take twice as much or three times as much to do the same thing. So you're taking all these essential amino acids, but the leucine is the trigger. And without that trigger, then you're not going to get the benefits. And the data on this is really, really good and really, really clear.

37:02Sal Di Stefano:Well, I remember the last time we talked about Keon and we were talking about this. I had, remember we had Doug Lokupik. It's the more expensive ingredient of all the ingredients too. Yes. So if there's going to be an area that a company pixie dusts or goes short on.

37:16Adam Schafer:It's the most expensive. Right. One of the most expensive.

37:18Sal Di Stefano:And if the average person just hears, oh, when you're on a GLP-1 or, oh, the benefits of EAAs, and they don't know how to look at how much leucine or how much content you may be buying, and you strictly buy because, oh, that's the best deal, there's a good chance that the reason why it is the best deal is the cheapest.

37:35Adam Schafer:And you think it's the same. You think it's the same because you look at the product.

37:38Sal Di Stefano:Because it has the same stuff in it, but the amount of it matters.

37:40Adam Schafer:What they don't show, and this is what your not great essential amino acid companies will do, is they won't tell you the amounts of each amino acid. It'll say total. Total, you know, 25 grams of essential amino acids or whatever, or five grams or whatever the number is, without telling you what the leucine content is. So Keon's is 40%. So of the total, 40 % of it is coming from leucine.

38:06Sal Di Stefano:Another stuff is good stuff.

38:07Adam Schafer:Speaking of protein, by the way, there's been an advancement in whey protein formulation. I'm going to pull that up.

38:12Sal Di Stefano:Wait, wait, wait. Since you're bringing that up, what's going on with the, I've seen posts now, quite a bit of this, around a shortage of, that there's this fear that we're going to have a shortage of - It's already happening. Is it? Yeah. Of protein?

38:25Adam Schafer:Yeah, expect whey protein to go up in price. No way. That's right. Get out of here. No way. Thanks, Doug. Hey. Whey protein is a good source of protein. It's also one of the best ones to add to foods. And so many foods now are trying to fortify with protein that the demand on whey protein is going through the roof.

38:50Sal Di Stefano:So GLP kind of markets influence this a lot, they think?

38:54Adam Schafer:That's part of it. There's also now public awareness on the benefits of protein. I mean, you guys are seeing this, right, with like -

39:01Sal Di Stefano:Food pyramid. Doritos chips with added protein. I mean, they're throwing protein in everything now. So that's what I was curious. So that's why the shortage is, because so many companies now are sprinkling.

39:14Adam Schafer:It's just public awareness, dude. It's like the GLP, I think GLP use has increased public awareness tremendously around protein. People have been speaking about protein now for a while. We have.

39:24Sal Di Stefano:I think we were already on that track the last 10 years. And I think, because you talked about that. You talked about that being, I mean, early on in the podcast, you talked about that being like the thing that we would demonize. That's right. At some point. Yeah, because there was such a hard push for it. And then we'll counter and come the other direction. Are we moving towards crickets now? Which I see. No, I see the pushback on the high protein already. Yeah. Yeah, because it's become so popular now. Now it's in everything. And now you have the other side that's coming back and being like, oh, this high protein is a bunch of BS.

39:57Adam Schafer:You think of shortages, right? you think of people stockpiling and like freaking out, there's gonna be a bunch of bodybuilders overnight rich.

40:05Sal Di Stefano:Or just,

40:06Adam Schafer:just freaking out. Yeah. You know, and their Armageddon. They're the ones stockpiling right now.

40:10Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Like COVID with toilet paper. Doug pulled up, uh, the hosts of mind pump podcast frequently discussed the demonization of protein. They initially featured this topic on the main subject in episode one aired in 2020.

40:23Adam Schafer:Wow. That's what AI actually says. Well, that's cool. Did you type our name in? Oh yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Oh Doug, I thought we were cool for a second. well no i had to give it some wow yeah but anyway so there's new technology in how they're going to improve the palatability of whey protein and believe it or not this is a science day make it make it better even make it taste better it already tastes good no it's gonna taste even better so this isn't science day this is so weird right so this is so yeah so the title of this in in science news the secret behind smoother better tasting protein shakes this was out of the University of Reading.

40:56Adam Schafer:And it's a new whey protein manufacturing technique would make protein shakes taste better and feel smoother in the mouth. So they've traced unwanted bitterness to concentrated minerals and found a way to remove them without sacrificing the improved texture. So they have this technique of improving the texture of it. So whey protein is kind of thin. You know, like casein has got great mouthfeel. Have you ever had casein protein? It's got like a nice creamy texture. Whey is kind of thin. they found a way through processing to make the whey protein have that nice mouthfeel. But then because it's got a little bit of bitterness because of these minerals that they've also removed.

41:34Adam Schafer:So now they're like, oh, cool. We're going to make whey protein even more palatable. That's going to be interesting. I know.

41:40Sal Di Stefano:Because I think there's some companies that have just really hit it out the park with the way protein shakes taste now. I mean, I remember protein shakes. You remember. Yeah, I remember protein shakes when we were younger and they were nuts. You had to choke them down. You remember, I know you did. I had them all, dude. I had the 82 box of EAS Myoplex shakes that were like cake batter. Yeah. It took me like three hours to get them. You'd hold them like this. Yes.

42:11Adam Schafer:It would like pour out hella slow.

42:14Sal Di Stefano:Yes, bro. It was cake batter. It was so thick and hard to choke down.

42:20Adam Schafer:My first protein shake was my dad bought it. So my dad, I told you guys, he had like a short, literally three-month stit of lifting weights because one of his helpers talked about how much he could bench press. And so my dad bought a weight set that he ended up only using for three months that I used later on. And he bought a protein because the guy told me you got to take protein shakes. My dad's like, okay. So he went to the sporting goods store because that's where you had to buy them. And it was a weeder. It had the picture of weeder. You know, when his arms were crossed. and he looks all jacked like this.

42:52Adam Schafer:And I can't remember the name of it. It was a Weeder. It was a Gainer Shake. It might have been called Muscle Builder or something like that. And it was, bro, it was chalk. It was chalk.

43:04Sal Di Stefano:Well, that was like the GNC Gainer 4000 or whatever they were that were like that. They were super chalky. Mega Mass, Mega Mass 4000. It wasn't Mega Mass.

43:12Adam Schafer:That's later. So that was Mega Mass 4000 was later. I remember that one. Doug, look up Weeder, Gainer, and Protein Shake, 1994. Look that up and see what the picture looks like.

43:23Sal Di Stefano:Do you think eventually with that new technology we'll be able to get protein soft serve?

43:29Adam Schafer:That would be so good. Oh, that would be elegant.

43:31Sal Di Stefano:Well, I mean, we already have the Ninja Creamy does a pretty good job of making a protein shake taste like ice cream.

43:38Adam Schafer:Just click on images because it might pull up old school pictures.

43:41Sal Di Stefano:I mean, I can't wait if Sal's talking about this new technology you put that powder in there, that thing already tastes like ice cream. It's going to be amazing. I mean, yeah.

43:48Adam Schafer:Oh, there's one right here. That's out of it. Oh, and then there was that one. That's right. Mike Mentzer was on the picture of that. I also bought that one. Boy, this is bringing back memory. Dynamic weight gainer. That one's a weight gainer. And it was just, you know what it was? It was protein and dextrose. That's how they made the calories. It was a lot of dextrose. It was a sugar bomb. There's a sugar bomb. That's hilarious. This one right here, maybe? Which one? Weight gainer. No, it had a picture of him on the cover. You know what's funny, though?

44:15Sal Di Stefano:as he's going through all these, I think I had most of these. Every single one. There isn't one there that I didn't try.

44:21Adam Schafer:Oh, there you go. Dynamic Way Gamer. Bro, look at that. I could taste it right now. I swear to you guys.

44:29Sal Di Stefano:Don't leave it in your car. Does it still exist? Can you still get it? No. I don't think so. You still can't get it, right?

44:35Adam Schafer:Wow, look at that, dude.

44:38Sal Di Stefano:What is it in, Sal? It looks like it's in a beer can.

44:43Adam Schafer:Oh, that's a ready to drink. Yeah, no, mine was in a, it was like in a. They actually did those in ready to drink. It was like a carton. I didn't have it like that. It was in a carton with like a plastic lid that you peeled off. It looked like an oatmeal. And it didn't even have a scoop. You had to use a tablespoon. Oh, it didn't even have a scoop. So it'll tell you how many tablespoons. Oh, that was like a huge.

44:57Sal Di Stefano:That was like a huge invention when they started putting the plastic scoop inside there. Dude, talk about that. You know what's funny? They never solved. Did any company ever solve the. That you lose it at the bottom. Yes, that you don't, that you'd have it at the top always. Yeah.

45:11Adam Schafer:Who solved it? I don't know who did, but it's that they put the long, the long handle. No, the long handle. Cause no matter what you could grab the long handle. Wow. I tried that one. I use, that's the one I use on the very right. Vintage Joe Weider. The dynamic muscle builder. Dynamic muscle builder. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know what's funny too? So I was, I was young, right? Yeah. And so I went into my parents like, like medicine cabinet or whatever, not medicine cabinet, but like they have like a cabinet in the kitchen where they'll have like supplements. Yeah. Yeah. And I grabbed it and I was like, kind of like sneaking it.

45:39Adam Schafer:nobody will know you know hey talking about stuff that tastes uh like that doesn't take that tastes

45:47Sal Di Stefano:amazing that we have as one of our partners i am on the lemonade iced tea kick oh yeah so good so i don't know did you guys get um i thought we all got one of those we did package with yeah and they had like yeah and they had the little you know iced tea thing so state and we keep in the refrigerator now uh one of those filled up with the lemonade so good it is so refreshing the move is to make so i believe it calls for three packets and then you fill up the the whole thing yeah and i fill it up and then i pour that over ice and it is and it's got a little bit of caffeine in it too so it's like a nice little cap what is that serving 50 i think it's 50 yeah is that you got it right there yeah 50 milligrams yeah i think it's 60 actually It says 50.

46:33Sal Di Stefano:It doesn't say 60. Yeah, it says 50.

46:35Adam Schafer:So it's 50 milligrams per packet. So it's like a little, it's like a tiny shot of espresso, essentially. But it tastes good.

46:42Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, the Arnold Palmer, I used to be on a kick of those a long time ago, and it kind of totally resembled. That's what it kind of reminds me of. It's a very, it's summertime right now. We're at the pool all the time. And so it's such a refreshing drink to have. And so I'm on that kick right now.

46:57Adam Schafer:Dude, I saw this one post. I wish I saved it. but there was one supplement on there that I remember. So this guy wrote this post and is like, here's all the supplements that you missed out on. And these were all the old school things that are now banned.

47:09Sal Di Stefano:I think I saw that post. Did you see it? I think I saw that post.

47:11Adam Schafer:These were all old school supplements that were banned. Yeah. And there was one supplement in the nineties called Hot Stuff. Do you remember Hot Stuff?

47:19Sal Di Stefano:I think I remember that.

47:20Adam Schafer:It was called Hot Stuff and it had a bunch of things in it. So it had all the like - Who made it? I don't know. Maybe Doug - Was it Twin Labs? Hot Stuff supplement. The hot stuff. Anyway, it became a cult favorite because people were like, dude, you get jacked on this. And then they had two hot stuff nutritionals. 1980s and 90s. Click on images. Is that a word? So the original hot stuff is that one on the left. Oh, I seen that one. I remember that one. So you know what it had?

47:52Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

47:53Adam Schafer:Okay. It had pro-hormones in there. It did? Yes. Pro-hormones, niacin. No, no, no. What else? By the way, everybody, pro-hormones, they used to use that term to make it sound like it wasn't steroids.

48:03Sal Di Stefano:Right, that's the name because it sounds like it's illegal, like hot stuff, like it's, yeah.

48:08Adam Schafer:Well, I don't, I mean, I don't know.

48:09Sal Di Stefano:That's what people call if you have something that's like stolen.

48:13Adam Schafer:Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. So you know what, so there was this big talk, I'll never forget this in the 90s. Remember, I'm a kid, so I'm 16, I'm working out in gyms, and I'm talking to the meatheads in there, and one of them brought up the old, oh, guys, you guys remember the old formula? So by this point, Hot Stuff had to change their formula. But they were just talking about how this hot dude, man, I put on like 10 pounds of muscle. So I read this post and I forgot all about it, right? I read this post and this guy wrote about it and they had thrown designer steroids in there. So dudes were taking a protein shake and taking steroids, bro.

48:46Adam Schafer:It's working. Yeah, dude. Like this stuff is great. I mean, that's been the hustle

48:51Sal Di Stefano:in the supplement industry for a long time is to change. change uh because basically what pro hormone stuff is it's like they take a steroid and they change it by like one molecule and then it's like just so what just just off a little bit this is

49:07Adam Schafer:just classic bro this is like this this is the supplement industry the dark side in a nutshell so real pro hormone is a hormone that is converted to one of the more active hormones so like uh androstenedaone is a pro hormone dhea you could buy dhea right now you go to the you go to a grocery store and in their supplement section, they'll have DHEA and DHEA has its own benefits, but it also goes through two or three conversions and can become, you know, a testosterone or estrogen or whatever. So that's called a pro hormone, but here's what supplement companies did. They went through farm through pharmaceutical companies, discarded attempts at making new steroids.

49:44Adam Schafer:this one got old stuff. This had side effects.

49:45Sal Di Stefano:So we stopped making this one. We'll take that. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. And the reason they weren't banned, they weren't banned. So the reason why they could do that and get away with it, It wasn't banned. And then the hustle was, you put that in your pre-workout, you put that in your muscle-building stack pill, and people will feel it. Of course. And they did. And they would feel it. And then a run would happen. Word would get out so fast. This is before social media.

50:09Adam Schafer:Oh, yeah.

50:09Sal Di Stefano:Word on the street would get out. So I knew. There's real little bagger in there. And you would be running down, and you would buy, buy, buy, buy. Then eventually, someone would test it and find out it's got some of the illegal stuff in it or not illegal banned yet and then they would get raided and get in trouble and then all those subliminal stores would put it under the counter because they had it stocked up still and so you'd have to ask for the under the counter stuff until they ran out of that and then it was on to the next one and then it was just new name new formulation that wasn't banned yet and we wonder why I have to take hormone therapy I wonder what happened

50:49Adam Schafer:It's four years old. Do you know? Okay, so one of the popular ones back then was called Superdrawal. Remember Superdrawal? Yeah, yeah. You want to know what's crazy about Superdrawal? So Superdrawal now is illegal. So people buy it on the black market. Powerlifters prefer Superdrawal over the classics like Anadrol.

51:06Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

51:06Adam Schafer:Because it's stronger. This was what you could buy at the store.

51:09Sal Di Stefano:There was a thing called. Dude, I was a kid. There was a thing called TrenX or basically a supplement that was like some sort of precursor to Tren that I liked. And I tried the real thing. I liked the pill form from the supplement. It felt stronger than the actual steroid, which is crazy to think that. You know, so no, there's been, there was examples of, you know, pro hormone or supplements that I've taken in the past that I was like, that felt like a real steroid.

51:41Adam Schafer:You know, it feels like that now is the kind of gray market for peptides is like, it goes down that route, right? Totally. Playing the game of whatever. Yeah. I know, dude. No, no. So it's so, it's so crazy to me. Anyway, I got a cool, I got a cool study. Let me see if I can find it on the effects of strength training on the elderly. This was a study that was done in 1988. So this is a crazy study. So trip off this. So in 1988, there was a doctor in Boston who wanted to teach the oldest, frailest people to lift weights, to try to get stronger. And in 1988, nobody tried this. So nobody had done this before.

52:21Adam Schafer:Did you find it, Doug? Yeah, do you see that? Yeah, great Googler. Oh man, how'd you get that? Yeah, just amazing. Did I send that to you? No, the link was already in the show notes. Oh, my bad. Okay. All right, all right. She just stole that credit. She just stole that credit. First off, credit to this doctor in 1988 when in 1988, the last thing that any doctor would tell a frail old person to do is lift weights. Like, oh my God, how dare you? You're going to hurt them. But they did anyway. So they did it at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the aged. The resident's average age, you want to hear?

52:55Adam Schafer:88. Wow. So these were like old people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All of them had multiple chronic diseases and then frailty and falls were like facts of life. Six women and three men completed an eight-week training program. So it's like one of the first studies on strength training and the elderly. We have much better ones now. They did one exercise, three sets of eight reps, three times a week. Here's what they found. You ready for this? This was published in the Journal of the American Medical Society. The minimum strength gain. So of all of those people that did it, remember the average age, 88.

53:27Adam Schafer:Minimum strength gain was 61%. Average strength. 61? Average strength gain was 174%. The maximum strength gain was 374%. Wow. Holy cow. Zero injuries. Over what period of time? This was done, let's see, eight weeks. Wow. Eight weeks. A 300%. Zero injuries. Zero injuries. Nothing but gains. One of the people in there, Dorothy Tischler, she was 92, she said, I became younger. Five years ago, I could hardly walk. now I can walk better than my daughter who's 72. And this is because - Walk better than my daughter who's 72. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. So, and now here's the deal. Like, by the way, your potential for strength is reduced when you get older.

54:09Adam Schafer:So this is where people get like confused, right? Because you're like, what? 300 % increase in strength, but you're 90. Yeah, yeah. A 90-year-old is not going to get the peak strength levels from training that a 20-year-old will. That's true. The top is definitely minimized. but the potential to gain strength is still there. And the potential to build muscle is still there. And 300 % increase in strength sounds crazy. But when you're talking about somebody super frail, you can't stand up without assistance to be able to stand up without assistance. That's a 300 % increase in a lot of people. There's nothing but improvement there.

54:42Adam Schafer:One of my favorite, it was one of my favorite demographics to train because, you know, as a trainer and I love training people because you see people's lives improve and you get to be a part of that and it's super rewarding but nothing was more rewarding i mean people losing weight is rewarding people like you know getting stronger is rewarding you know i got in shape that's super rewarding you know my 40 year old clients 50 year old that's great but when i had my 90 year old clients they were like bringing life back to them i have i had a full-time nurse now i don't anymore yeah that's well we're really part of the generation um like

55:15Sal Di Stefano:the generation before us it wasn't popular when they were kids to work out it wasn't it was it's only become popular now and so i had a i wish i could put a number to it but a large percentage of my clients uh above 55 could would say things like i'm in the best shape of my life yep and they're 55 60 65 i'm in the best shape of my life and now a lot of that is because that they weren't introduced to strength training at all it wasn't it wasn't in vogue in the back in in those times right and so them them getting introduced even though they're older and when they first come to me thinking like is it possible for me still to build muscle is it possible it's like absolutely especially considering we haven't done any of that stuff the potential is still huge yeah you you you obviously if you would have started this when you were 25 you could have seen potentially higher deadlift numbers and squat numbers but if you've never lifted weights even if you've never lifted weights and you're all the way to 70 or 80 and then you start lifting weights the potential of how much you can build.

56:15Sal Di Stefano:It's also just life-changing.

56:16Adam Schafer:It impacts your life. I had a client, Kim. She was in her late 80s. And her daughter hired me to train her. And she was frail. She's like your typical late 80s, never lifted weights. And I remember our first session, she came in in a walker. And we had her sit on a bench. And so I'd have to kind of assist her and sit down. and the first exercises were no weight knee extensions so she'd like lift her leg and like extend her leg i'd have her just reach up as high as she good uh and hold for tension the first time we did uh where i had her stand up um she would hold on to my hands and i'd have her lean forward and she'd really just with a lot of strength come up and that was it one rep months later she was doing 15 20 reps standing and sitting standing and sitting uh and we almost got her to the point where she didn't need her walker anymore, which is crazy.

57:09Adam Schafer:When she had been using that thing for years and years and years.

57:11Sal Di Stefano:I remember having clients that starting was, they would use me, assisted, to sit up and sit down. That was our session. We do a little bit of mobility stuff to get going, and then it would be like, this is all we're doing for the entire, was getting enough strength to do that with long rest periods in between, and then to watch that person who needs your assistance to just get up and down from chair. To be able to do that themselves or to be leg pressing or doing weight, actually weight on their back, it's just the coolest thing to watch.

57:44Adam Schafer:And the best thing is to see their change, because you'll see this in the data, cognitive function improves, attitude and move improves. We have a client here. I won't say her last name, Jean. You guys know Jean. Yep. And we call her Mean Jean because she's been here now. How long has Jean been here now? Training with her? Who's she trained with? I think it's a good six months, two years. Did you train with Tyler? Yeah, Tyler. Okay. So Jean comes in and love her to death. And so she would come in and she would kind of be kind of crotchety, like in a bad mood, you know, whatever. And we'd tease her and have fun with her or whatever.

58:15Adam Schafer:And I'm used to it. Like when I had my studio and people would come in for the first time, they'd do the thing and some of them kind of like, I don't necessarily want to be here. I have to kind of deal, kind of attitude. A little prickly, I would say. How many months now has she been with Tyler? I'd say six to nine. I don't know. Yeah, less than a year. Yeah. Less than a year. she's got the biggest smile every time now. Yeah. Her attitude and mood completely changed. Completely 180. She's got like the happiest face ever. I remember the first time I talked to her, she was kind of like, why aren't you guys open all the time?

58:44Adam Schafer:I want to come and do it. And I'm like, I'm sorry, Chief. Get to be with your trainer. Yeah. And now she's like this big smile on her face. And it's for sure. It's been changed. Life changing for her. Love seeing it.

58:54Sal Di Stefano:That's so cool.

58:55Adam Schafer:Another capsule or powder. It's a liquid supplement. So you take it daily. Two ounce shot. It tastes like fresh squeezed orange juice. and it cleanses the liver of unwanted stressors that are slowing your liver down. Why do you want to do this? Because you feel better. So when your liver is bogged down, your skin doesn't look as good, you've got less energy, you just don't feel good. Fat metabolism can even be impacted and you can also feel more inflamed. Your digestion also gets affected, by the way. So here's what's cool about Dose and their liver product. It's got real results. It has two double-blind placebo-controlled studies showing it actually works on liver enzymes.

59:36Adam Schafer:It works, you guys. It's a real supplement that works, and it's all natural. Go to dosedaily.co slash mindpump. Use the discount code mindpump and get 25 % off. Back to the show. Our first caller is Bobby from New Jersey. What's up, Bobby? How you doing, Bobby? What's going on, guys? It's a pleasure. Hey. Thank you. How can we help you, man? I'll start reading the email that I sent you First of all, I love the podcast I'm 55 years old I decided to start my health journey in September of 2024 I went for my yearly physical And my numbers were all going in the wrong direction My cholesterol was high, elevated blood pressure Elevated A1c I'm 5 '9", I weighed 230 pounds at that time I told my doctor I'd start intermittent fasting and eating better come back in six months I went back in March of 2025 I had gotten down to 217 pounds most of that was I cut out all starches and sugar was exercising a little bit and the intermittent fasting helped because I'm a truck driver so I wasn't eating when I got home at night so for the next six months from March until around August.

1:00:56I was just back and forth from like 217 to 224, really not losing any more weight. Uh, in August of 2025, went back to the doctor. My levels had come down, but they still weren't normal. And, uh, that was when the GLP one was recommended. Uh, he prescribed that, uh, 2.5 of that bound. I didn't start it until October because I wanted to do the research myself and really just look into it because I wasn't sure about it. Did a lot of research on the internet. That's when I found you guys. And we started to start taking it in October of 2025. Started with 2.5 milligrams for the first month, went up to 5.5 milligrams in November.

1:01:46And then in January, I started every other month at five, never went about five and for the last three months i've been doing it once a month and i've stated 180 pounds and as of march of 2026 on my 55th birthday all my levels were normal first time my blow working has been normal in probably 30 years so stuff that's great congrats man that's awesome yeah Thank you. So what I'm looking for basically from you guys is a program, something that's stayed on pace. I want to lose some body fat. I want to stay around 180, 185 pounds. I really don't want to lose too much more weight. And something that I can just do on a normal day because I have a tendency to overdo it once I get into it.

1:02:39So my three-day splits are really turning into five, six-day workouts. and I don't want to hurt myself at this point.

1:02:48Sal Di Stefano:Can I make a suggestion, Bobby? Sure. Yeah, I think you are light enough on the scale that the focus shouldn't be around losing anymore and actually starting to build. And as you build your physique, I think you'll lean out and reduce body fat. I think 180 pounds is plenty light enough and I'm assuming your calories are probably pretty low.

1:03:13Adam Schafer:Yeah, in the email, Bobby, it says 17 to 1 ,900 calories. Is that still happening? I'm over 2 ,000 now. I'd say I'm around 2 ,200 right now. Okay. It's still a little low.

1:03:25Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:03:25Adam Schafer:So tell me about your date. What does your activity look like?

1:03:31Pretty much I get my steps in, whether I'm at work. If I'm at work, like I said, I'm a truck driver. So if I have any downtime, I get out walk. But yeah, I get home at like seven o 'clock at night and I usually get a good workout in between seven and eight. That's pretty much my daily activity. Other than that, like, you know, because I'm pretty much driving all day.

1:03:56Sal Di Stefano:So whenever I get a chance, I'm out walking, you know, any idea on like what steps average like in a normal day? Do you have any idea? I'm averaging around 8000. there's days I get over 10 ,000

1:04:09Adam Schafer:but it's usually around over 10 ,000 okay that's not bad at all and when you're working out how long does that take you

1:04:17I'm usually right around an hour, a little over an hour sometimes.

1:04:22Adam Schafer:Okay. And that's turning into five days a week of that? Yeah. It's definitely three days a week over an hour, like an hour, hour, 15 minutes. Then the other two are probably right around an hour, maybe 45 minutes where I do like a core cardio workout. Or I do like one day of, I'll get on the bike and do like a 30 minute interval cardio. All right. I mean, it's going to be pretty simple, pretty simple prescription for you, Bobby. I'll send you maps 15. It's a lot shorter than what you're doing, but what you're doing is overdoing it. Yeah, I looked into that and I was wondering if it would be enough.

1:04:59Adam Schafer:It is. It is.

1:05:01Sal Di Stefano:You've reached a point now where your body is adapted to how low of calorie and how much activity you've done. And you've done a great job. You've got down, you look great. You've done well. Obviously, all the markers are telling you that you're getting healthier. but you're at a point now where it's time to build. It's time to build muscle, build your metabolism. Yeah. Yeah. We should easily be able to eat 2 ,800 to 3 ,000 calories and maintain a healthy fit physique where you're at with less activity than what you're doing. So that's, so it's, you're in a good place, but the prescription is going to look, you're going to, when we tell you what to do, it's going to feel like it's not enough.

1:05:38Sal Di Stefano:So the hard part will be the psychological part. You're going to feel like, oh man. And then you can't let the scale mess with your head because hopefully we build some muscle. And you might see the scale go up two or four pounds initially because we're eating more calories and we're lifting weights, but we're heading in the right direction. And so that's what it's going to look like is a slow reverse diet, increasing calories a little bit, and following a protocol like MAPS 15.

1:06:02Adam Schafer:You're at like what, 2 ,200, 2 ,300 calories right now? Yes, that's around 21. 21. Okay, so I would get you up to 20, right out the gates, 25, 26. Hit your body weight and protein if you're not already doing that. Be consistent with that. Yep. And then follow MAPS 15. Continue with your steps. If you want to do a little cardio, steady state, that's perfectly fine. And what you'll see is you're just going to get stronger. You're going to get stronger very consistently.

1:06:32Sal Di Stefano:Awesome. Appreciate it. I'd love to have a follow-up afterwards as you follow through this because I think you're going to see some great results if you follow the prescription.

1:06:41Adam Schafer:After about four weeks at 2 ,500, 2 ,600 calories, you're feeling good, you're getting stronger, you can bump it up another couple hundred calories up to 27 or so. All right, cool. Yeah, I mean, I have no problem eating. I love eating.

1:06:54Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, even though this is a generic prescription, I'm going to tell you right now, it's a pretty good gauge. The first month, Sal's saying go up 200. Your second month of the program, go up another 200. The third month of the program, go up another 200.

1:07:04Adam Schafer:Yeah, that would be a good step.

1:07:05Sal Di Stefano:We should be close to 3 ,000 calories by the end of MAPS 15, and I think you'll be feeling strong, looking good, like all the things. And then I'd love to follow up with you. I'd love to hear how you're going after three months.

1:07:21Adam Schafer:Absolutely, definitely.

1:07:22Sal Di Stefano:Cool.

1:07:23Adam Schafer:All right. We'll send that to you, Bobby. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for everything. All right, man.

1:07:28Sal Di Stefano:Keep us posted. Thank you.

1:07:31Adam Schafer:Pretty easy.

1:07:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, yeah. He did a good job.

1:07:34Adam Schafer:He did, but I'll just. Just for people listening right now, what we're trying to do is reverse him out of some kind of mistakes he made. Ideally, he would be where he wants to be already. Oh, yeah. Because we would have reversed him earlier on. We would have focused on building. He still would have lost a lot of body fat, but he wouldn't have, you know, sitting around. Because in his email, he was, for a while, 1 ,719 calories. You know, 8 ,000 steps a day, lifting weights five days a week. He's a guy.

1:08:01Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. 180 pounds.

1:08:02Adam Schafer:Like, that's really low calories.

1:08:04Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, it's very low calories. And at that point, this is where people get. He's already, you know that he knew he was so low. Like, at this point,$1 ,700,$1 ,900, I can't go lower. I'm already doing 8 ,000 steps. And he's a truck driver. He doesn't have that much time in the day to get probably 15 ,000, 20 ,000 steps. You get to a place where you're like, okay, where do I go from here? And we should have reversed. But, I mean, I feel pretty confident if he takes a prescription and follows that. uh you know we might see five to eight pounds on the scale up possibly i think so yeah i think so

1:08:40Adam Schafer:especially following a good uh workout program yeah it's appropriate for him yeah bumping his calories i think he's going to build a great strength and muscle yeah our next caller is casey from north carolina hi casey how you doing casey hi guys it's so good to be here i appreciate it. You got it. How can we help you? Yeah. So I've been a listener, um, avidly since 2019. I'm truly in love with your guys's content and truly everything you guys put out there. Um, so I have a question kind of regarding my lifestyle around having an autoimmune disease. So about three years ago at 31, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's by functional, functional health practitioner.

1:09:21At the time I was kind of recommended to cut out the gluten, the everyday things, right, that we kind of just assume with gluten, the sugar, pretty much dairy, processed pretty much anything. And then I was also encouraged to go down the HIIT style workouts. And I have to admit, listening to you guys, hearing that, it's like these mixed signals. So I started the HIIT program that you guys have, added in a spin class once a week, continued doing yoga class once a week um and in a direct way i like like i said in here i don't like hit don't love it um all the things so went back to lifting uh so i run symmetry once a year and then run anabolic the rest of the year along with anabolic three days a week i also do the yoga the one 45 minute spin class and uh trying to make sure i get the eight to ten thousand steps a day um so kind of just some back steps to this is prior to 2023 I'd always been in the gym but never really looked like it I've always been on the bigger side even in my early teens um and I was really in kind of in the early teens already going to the doctor and kind of talking about my thyroid and getting it checked um so then in 2015 I dropped over 60 pounds and felt great around the 175 mark.

1:10:49And over the course of the last three years, I've put on 40 pounds and really kind of in this like unsure, unsure way. And so I eat around 2200 calories, strive to hit protein around the 170 mark, cut out gluten, dairy, alcohol, processed sugars, and did a reverse diet for about six months there. And really, I bumped it up. I bumped my calories about 2 ,600 calories and just didn't see much change. And I really thought I would. I thought maybe that was maybe a factor. Just my calories were needing some adjustments and just didn't see a whole lot happen. Actually, I kind of increased. I kind of gained a little bit of weight.

1:11:34So question is, with having the autoimmune disease, would anything training wise need to change, additional supplements, dietary. I feel as though I'm just doing like your average advice and not really seeing much of a change in results and just kind of curious what your guys' maybe input would look like to maybe feeling better and dropping just a little bit of weight.

1:11:59Adam Schafer:Yeah, good. Good question, Casey. Tell me about the rest of your life. What do you do outside of working out and stuff like that? Yeah, so I'm a teacher. So I'm in the special ed world. And so kind of have been for the past 10 years. So I've kind of got to lock in on that, but I love it. Let's see. Yeah, the gym. Love that. I'm social. Love to do kind of going out, seeing friends. Do you have family, kids? No kids. I do have family, but they're back in the Midwest. So I've kind of built my own family out here in North Carolina. Great. And then how's your sleep? Great. I'm going to make sure I get about eight to nine hours.

1:12:40Adam Schafer:Okay. I'm curious as to why the functional medicine practitioner recommended such intense exercise. It's not a match at all. That's what I thought, especially, I mean, just because I love hearing your guys' thoughts on things. And you've had a couple other callers with some somewhat similar questions. And that's your guys' advice too. It was like, don't need, like Adam says, like, yeah, like elicit the change the less amount. But I, yeah, I was kind of in that curiosity too. And why the 1800 calories was the other, the other recommender. And I'm like, okay, you know, not loving it, not loving how my body felt.

1:13:17I'm like wondering, is that what I needed to do? And I just didn't give enough time or is it truly not the right advice?

1:13:23Adam Schafer:I like that you cut out, uh, gluten. Uh, there, there seems to be a connection with that. And, um, I like that you cut out sugar. I like that you're nighting processed foods. I think your body is maybe fried. And this tends to be the case with autoimmune issues. When we have autoimmune issues, we tend to be more sensitive to stress. That's why I asked you about the rest of your life. Now, as a special ed teacher, I'm sure it takes a lot out of you. I know my mom works with kids like that. And I know it's a very, I mean, it's a demanding, takes a lot out of you. But I do think your body is a little bit more sensitive to stress.

1:14:02Adam Schafer:and so I would change your workout. I wouldn't push anything. What I mean by that is I wouldn't push a reverse diet. I wouldn't push a cut. What I would try to do is kind of sit somewhere that feels good and follow a program that looks more like MAPS 15. I would do no additional exercise. You can do yoga if it's like yin yoga. I wondered if you'd recommend that because I tend to be on the warm flow side and I wondered if maybe you would say kind of go the yin slow.

1:14:32Sal Di Stefano:Yin yoga, walking. That's all good.

1:14:35Adam Schafer:And MAPS 15. That's it. So MAPS 15, hit your steps. Do you know where your calories are sitting at right now? Are you like 22? I've been on an average of 2 ,200 calories, right? Like probably the past month. Yeah. So there's a couple ways we could do this. You can stay around 2 ,200. Follow MAPS 15. If you don't have that, I'll send that to you. No additional workouts, okay? But walking, yin yoga, totally fine. So anything else you do, I want you to think recuperative. So like, okay, I'm going to go outside and walk. It's going to be a recuperative walk. Or I'm going to go do a yoga class. Which one's recuperative?

1:15:09Adam Schafer:The only workouts you're going to do are Mass 15. With diet, there's going to be two approaches. One is you can keep tracking and, you know, stay around 2 ,200 calories. The other one is to do this. Hit your protein targets, stick to whole natural foods, and then eat when you're hungry and don't eat when you're not hungry. Okay. Okay. So that's going to allow fluctuations. it's also going to take stress off of you I don't know how tracking feels for you but I know for most people tracking constantly is an additional stress I got to count everything that goes into my mouth type of deal especially when you cut out gluten, sugar, dairy and processed foods and so those are two options the one that resonates better with you I would go with but the only thing I would have you track would be protein and I think 170 grams of protein is perfectly fine aim for that whole natural foods I'm hungry.

1:15:58Adam Schafer:I'll eat some more. If I'm not hungry, I'm not going to eat as much. And then just follow Mass 15. And then the idea is to let your body settle down a little bit. Rest and build. Yeah, because I think you've been, I think it's very reactive to stress. Okay. And, you know, symmetry, anabolic, they're not bad. But coming from where you've been, I think we need to scale back and give our body like three months at least of kind of like this kind of lower intensity, lower volume style of training just to let your body heal a little bit.

1:16:30Sal Di Stefano:Casey, just out of curiosity, I know you've been listening to the show for a long time. And so you obviously know what we talk about, diet philosophy and all the things around there. If you were being critical of yourself on your diet, what would you say is the areas that you are the most challenged with or you struggle the most with? Probably your when your weekend. I tend to do really well When I've got this mindset And everyone around me knows Hey, we're dialed in But I think that Saturday night Date night, we might go out And sometimes it does involve gluten Because I do wonder if that also Maybe factors Do I have any bites of it?

1:17:13And it really resets me

1:17:14Adam Schafer:So it's not always true but it's often true with thyroid antibodies. You got to avoid gluten like you have an allergy to it. Yeah. Okay. So like, like no cross contaminant, like it's like, you can't get near it to allow the immune system to, to, to kind of settle down. Cause even a little bit of exposure here and there can keep things a bit elevated with the autoimmune issue.

1:17:36Sal Di Stefano:And because you know that about yourself as we're, since we're given all this advice right now, everything's Sal saying on point. And then my piece would be when the weekend make that a thing, make that a thing. at least give that to yourself for 60, 90 days so you can see what a difference that makes when you do. Take all the advice he's saying on the diet recommendations, the exercise recommendations, make it a goal, set a goal for a certain amount of time. I'm going to win these this many weekends in a row, and I want to see what kind of impact it makes. And I have a feeling if you take all of the advice we've given, you win that many weekends in a row, I think you're going to feel and see a nice difference.

1:18:12Adam Schafer:But I want you to really gauge it by how you feel and by performance. Let's not worry too much about the scale until we start to see strength and we start to feel better. Then we can start to worry about that a little bit. And then what I said about the diet, oftentimes, and you let me know if this resonates, oftentimes the reason why people go off on the weekend is because they're so strict during the week. And so if the tracking is not so much on the calories but just the protein and staying away from those things that you're reactive to, it might give you the flexibility on the weekend. So you go out on a date and you're like, you know what, I'm going to stay away from, you know, gluten, sugar, like those types of things.

1:18:49Adam Schafer:I'm not tracking my calories. I'll hit my protein. And now I can kind of enjoy myself a little bit. And if I'm a little hungry, I'll eat more. If I'm not, I'll eat a little less. So again, you know, you know yourself, if that feels like it's going to, you know, make you more consistent, then I would go in that direction. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I definitely think that that's manageable. I think, like you said, three months even just to see, cause I don't, I wouldn't say there's extreme cheats or like I go off the tracks often, but I wondered, I heard something not too long ago, like it can set you back even, even a month.

1:19:22Just like, yeah, digestion wise.

1:19:24Adam Schafer:It can. And then do you, have you ever been tested for like SIBO, SIFO, parasites? No, I haven't officially been tested, but did do the Organifi parasite cleanse, which I loved. felt great after that. Did you really? Yeah, that was January that I did that and felt really good. Okay. So that was the last time you did it was then. And what did you notice afterwards? Just, you just felt better? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, um, probably a week after I finally started like just feeling more relaxed. I didn't feel as much digestion. Um, it was like, I felt like digestion overload, maybe the best way to put that prior.

1:20:00And it just kind of like,

1:20:02Adam Schafer:So here's how you would use something like that. I would do it again. And when you're done, I would wait two weeks and then do it again. So here's what happens. If there are indeed parasites, it's pretty good odds it'll kill the parasites, but not touch the eggs. So you're finished with it. You feel better. 30 days later, you start to feel worse again. That's because the eggs are hatching. So that's why you would wait two to three weeks and then do it another cycle. Got it. Okay. All right. I will like just within all of this, the supplement route. Is there anything within having Hashimoto's but autoimmune disease you guys would recommend?

1:20:40Adam Schafer:Yeah, I would go methylated B vitamins. I would do vitamin D, creatine. I think creatine is a good idea if you don't already take it. And that's pretty much it. Unless you see another functional health practitioner, they recommend some other stuff. I don't like treating personally treating autoimmune with supplements but really more supportive I do take quite a few supplements looking at the list going is there any chance any of these can get weeded off which ones are you taking so I've got finally put on levothyroxine 25 mg I do seeds probiotic and multivitamin ferritin, zinc, digestive enzymes, fish oil, magnesium And then I started taking rose, carcumin, um, carcumin, uh, yeah, the roads are all fine.

1:21:31Adam Schafer:I don't think, I think the multivitamin, the probiotic will be the more kind of necessary ones. Uh, uh, but yeah, I think you're, I think you're, you're totally fine. Okay. Cool. Perfect. Well, I appreciate it guys. I, vitamin D one more thing. Have you had your vitamin D levels tested? I did. Yeah. Yeah. It came back in range. Yes. Okay, good. That's it. Good. All right. Well, perfect. Thank you so much, guys. You got it. I'll send over maps 15. Okay. And then, you know what? Let's get you back on in 90 days. I want to see how you feel. Okay. Yeah. That'd be awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

1:22:05Adam Schafer:You got it. All right, Casey. Bye. Yeah. There's a, there's a, it's interesting how, um, I don't like you giving her freedom on the weekend.

1:22:13Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. Well, I don't, I, I, I sense this. I, this is why I asked.

1:22:18Adam Schafer:She needs to be really controlled on the weekend.

1:22:19Sal Di Stefano:Yep. Yep. Yep. And that's exactly why I asked the question I asked, and she gave me the answer that I thought I'd get.

1:22:26Adam Schafer:I surmise the worst thing that she does on the weekend is eat gluten if she is, in fact, reactive to it for the autoimmune. I think that would be the worst thing that she'd possibly do. Eating more, it's got its own detriments. But I've worked with enough clients with antibodies to see that they would just have a tiny bit of gluten. And they'd be crap. They'd feel like shit for three months.

1:22:47Sal Di Stefano:My point to winning the weekend is you got to make that extra effort on that weekend to be really strict. If you're a teacher, you're organized always. They're organized with their money. They're organized with their schedule. So I bet you Monday through Friday, she's dialed and locked in. And she's got high stress, Hashimoto's. She's got all this stuff going on. Weekend, she's like, let go. And then that thing gets crept in the diet. and whether it's a little bit of it like you're saying or it's like a little more than it's saying, like whatever, that's the time for her and she's admitted that that's it.

1:23:23Sal Di Stefano:It's like I would want her tight on the weekend. Be tight on the weekend. Be strict on it. Be dialed in. Don't let anything like that into your diet and then I bet the rest of the week takes care of itself. I don't disagree. Our next caller is Sharon from Connecticut. Hi, Sharon. How you doing, Sharon? What's happening? Nice to meet you guys.

1:23:40Adam Schafer:How can we help you? um i've been kind of just listening to you guys in the background for the past few years my husband loves your content it's always on the computer or on his phone so it's always wherever the rest of the family is um and he's lost about 90 pounds he's put on a ton of muscle and he's used a lot of your content to um i guess make that easier and he's always like suggested that I should call in to get some advice. And so I figured I would just try it. I wasn't really expecting a response, but basically I have a bunch of medical stuff going on. I have hypermobility. So my joints are basically too loose.

1:24:26It's a connective tissue disorder. I have something called hyperandrenergic POTS, which is dysautonomia. Basically there's not enough blood volume in my body. So I have to wear compression garments. I use electrolytes on a daily basis. And it just affects stuff that your body controls on its own, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion. So just standing up, my heart rate could shoot up like almost 200. My blood pressure can shoot up dangerously high. But then when I lay down, it all reserves. And then I also have something called MCAS, a histamine issue. So it's like, I have a lot of hard time working out because working out can trigger histamine release and I could get hives or angioedema.

1:25:18And then I had done a couple cycles lifting with my husband, like a five by five and a three by seven. And it did well a couple of years ago, but well, last year, but this year when I tried this whole winter, I tried to work out and I kept injuring myself every time. And I know you guys have a lot of programs. Like I think the one for like in the forties, but I was wondering if you guys had a program for people that are old because he told me that you guys have made progress with even elderly people and they have joint issues and mobility issues. And so I'm wondering like, what's a way that I could actually make progress, but without risk of injury?

1:25:55Adam Schafer:Yeah, it's a good question. And I appreciate you calling in. So there's a couple of things we need to consider with exercise for someone like you. One is we have to manage intensity very carefully. I think you already know that. So your intensity is always going to be moderate. And you're going to treat the exercises like practice. So what you don't want to do, Sharon, is go into a workout trying to work out. What you're going to do is go into a workout trying to get better at the exercise, getting better at the movement. The second thing with hypermobility is that you're not going to do the full range of motion.

1:26:32Adam Schafer:So when you see an exercise and you see a squat and they go all the way down and all the way up, that's not what you're going to do. You're going to stop and keep your reps short because those end ranges of motion where you'll hurt yourself because of the hypermobility. You're also going to do things like, you also There's a couple of ways we could do this. One way would be, and you can see me on camera. If I'm doing a shoulder press with dumbbells, normally we'd have you go, let's say all the way down. I'd have you stop here. You'd hold there for five seconds. And then when you go up to the top, you'd hold there for five seconds.

1:27:05Adam Schafer:Okay. And you would do these isometrics at these ranges of motion. Not the end ranges that you have, which are really deep, but cut short and then hold. Okay. Okay. And the intensity, a little bit intense is okay, but really it's just about practicing the exercise. I want to ask you about the electrolyte consumption. Do you know how much sodium you're taking in a day? I use LMNT and I basically just use a half a packet in almost every water bottle I drink all throughout the day and night. And how many packets do you go through a day? Two to three. Okay, so that's 2 ,000, 3 ,000 milligrams. And then what about your diet?

1:27:44it? Um, I've been trying to like cut sugar completely out because that increases the inflammation. Um, same thing with, I'm trying to reduce the processed food. My, my husband eats like extremely clean, like even when he's bulking, it's clean. Um, so the, the food content over the past few years in the house has just gotten a lot better. Um, so in general I try to, oh, I forgot to mention years and years ago, I, um, had gotten a gastric sleeve. So the amount of food that I could eat isn't typical. So I try to eat smaller meals and prioritize protein while trying to throw a little bit of, you know, fiber and a smaller bit of carbs in there as well.

1:28:27But I also am in my early forties now. And when like just a couple of years ago, if I just, you know, got strict with my diet the weight would like fall off like my job is kind of active i'm a construction worker and a truck driver so i have really long shifts like 10 to 16 hour shifts and moving around doing stuff all night so if i just was if i just ate well weight would fall off but it's like a little by little and putting it on it's not coming off like when i'm eating well it's like i think took me two to get down five hours and it never used to be like that before

1:29:02Adam Schafer:Okay, so it's going to sound crazy, but I don't want you to chase any weight loss. I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but I think if you chase weight loss, you're going to move in the wrong direction with all the behaviors and actions. Okay. I'd like to see you play with a higher sodium intake. Okay. Especially with the issues with blood pressure, people tend to respond better. When you started adding electrolytes, did you notice an improvement? i noticed a slight improvement it's it's always better the more i drink and i guess for the way my body works the the water can actually work water supposed to out the electrodes so the the more i drink the better and the compression might actually help more than anything it's like a body compression guard okay so when you increase your sodium increase your water but but i would play with that a little bit.

1:29:52Adam Schafer:If you're at two to three packets a day of element, you could go up to four and start there and be consistent with it. So that'll include more water. I think it would be wise, and I don't know how well you do this, but I would avoid foods that people tend to be reactive to. So gluten and dairy, legumes, and all legumes, including peanuts. And I would just avoid those to start completely, like pretend like you get an allergy. That's really the only way to see if it'll make a difference. Um, and, uh, yeah. And then as far as a strength training program is concerned, uh, I would send you map starter.

1:30:30Adam Schafer:You can follow map starter, but do what I said with the range of motion and the pausing where you're pausing and holding and trying to stay tight at those range at those, uh, you know, beginning and, uh, range of motion. So should I do the, the ranges of motion without weight starting out i would start well i don't know how strong you are but you're looking for a like you want to feel like you're you're you're training but i don't want you to push yourself super hard i just want you to kind of feel the issue is it's go ahead i'm sorry i apologize um i've i've started because he's taught me how to start low and move up and she was while i'm working out i feel fine and i actually like nothing wrong it's not until after the workout i'll move and i'm like that doesn't fit i did something yeah and but i wasn't my husband was saying that that i might have to learn how to feel the muscles and act with the muscles and get the movements right before i because i think i can handle weight i like with the five by five i said that i got stronger just last year but it's like every three few every few days a few weeks so winter every time i tried to work out and i i wasn't struggling with it but there would be an in it once i asked his his

1:31:45Sal Di Stefano:his suggestion his suggestion about getting connected to the muscles is correct and what sal's advising you to do is the way you'll do that so if you just shorten all those movements up that you probably were doing with your husband just don't go as deep don't go as low in all the movements with weight that's fine and pause at the bottom and pause at the top you're building isometrics in there that'll help you connect to the muscle better almost like a 90 degree angle like rule for each joint you know and it's kind of like a little bit of a standard that we've had as trainers is to try and kind of keep people within like these 90 degrees of your squat or the angle with your knee angle with you know your overhead press uh so just as a general kind of gauge but yeah to to keep that monitored is like you're starting and then your end point with extension you really can't hold the isometric too long so another in other words like really emphasize that so that becomes more important so let's say it's a they call you guys you said you did five by fives with your husband.

1:32:41Sal Di Stefano:So let's say the workout calls five by five and you only do three reps, but you pause for five seconds at the bottom. That's fine. I'd rather that than you add a bunch more weight and try and get to five. It would be better for you to really emphasize the pausing and the isometric portion. That's what's going to get you connected to the muscle better.

1:33:01Adam Schafer:So isometrics are going to connect you better. They're going to prevent you from going too deep, which is where the injury happens. And they're also better at strengthening connective tissue and tendons, which is what you need. Yep.

1:33:14Sal Di Stefano:It'll help you recruit muscle a lot better. That program that you were talking about, is that like a certain amount of time, amount of days, just a few days a week? Three days a week. What is the...

1:33:25Adam Schafer:It's three days a week. You need dumbbells and a physio ball. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Yeah. So you can get... Yeah. It's pretty accessible. One more question. Do you take high doses of vitamin C? um i i did they put c together with k no d is with k okay yeah i think i think i have a c but i think it's in it's in combination with something else for better absorption i just can't remember what it was i would look up so you do this i'm not going to recommend this but i want you to look up vitamin c uh with some of your your your conditions and look up high dose vitamin c and see what the literature says.

1:34:05Adam Schafer:Because I have a theory, a suspicion that you might find some positives. So you'd be something like 1 ,000, 2 ,000 milligrams a day. But I would look it up first, Sharon. All right, yeah, I'll do that. Thank you. You got it. I'll send over that program to you, OK? All right, thank you, guys. I appreciate it very much. You got it. All right. One of the most difficult clients I ever had, ever, because I'd never experienced it before, was someone with extreme hypermobility.

1:34:32Sal Di Stefano:could not. There's a few factors. I was going to say, throw in the blood pressure. She's got a lot going on there. Yeah, the compression. All of that. We didn't recommend it, but when she listens to this, if you still struggle through this process, she'd be a great candidate for a coach. Of course.

1:34:50Adam Schafer:There's going to be a lot of hands-on spotting with her form and everything. That's right.

1:34:55Sal Di Stefano:We have coaches that can help you through this. Why don't you send her, Doug,

1:34:59Adam Schafer:a link is hey if you want to get more you know talk with a coach yeah spend some more time and

1:35:05Sal Di Stefano:because to your just to set her up well because you you said something i think that is so key and that sometimes it's really easy to say it it's very difficult for the average person to to understand it uh or go by it which is like how she feels is the is the most important part of how we how we gauge intensity yeah uh not can she left more weight and so sometimes that takes coaching through that process. No, I - It's an education process.

1:35:28Adam Schafer:I literally, I had a client with hypermobility and couldn't figure it out until I started shortening her ranges of motion. Yeah. But she would get dizzy after a set of like a squat or a deadlift. And I remember we would like, you know, she'd deadlift, put the weight down, then she'd get real dizzy, we'd have to sit down. And so I had to teach her to stay tight. Yeah. After the set. So like after the set, I'd be like, keep squeezing your legs, keep squeezing, and then slowly release them because her blood pressure would suddenly drop. And so I think there might be a correlation. You know what?

1:35:59Sal Di Stefano:It's so rare, right? I think each of us probably only had a couple or a handful of these clients in our entire career. So we didn't put a lot of focus on this. But it feels like we've had quite a few people. Yeah. Might be worth writing a free guide. For hypermobility?

1:36:12Adam Schafer:Uh-huh. Maybe.

1:36:13Sal Di Stefano:Just like a real kind of generic steps on what to do and protocols and maybe some demos of some movements.

1:36:20Adam Schafer:Honestly, the perfect routine for someone with hypermobility would be like three months of isometrics.

1:36:25Sal Di Stefano:So what I was going to recommend to her, I know you went to start her out, was I was going to tell her to run phase one of symmetry. I mean, that would be good too. Run phase one of symmetry for a while. Just that. Just that alone. Especially with her condition where she's just like.

1:36:37Adam Schafer:You know what threw me off about that was her histamine issue, where she breaks out in hives with intensity. And pure isometrics are intensity. Yeah. Like you're driving. Yeah. So that's the reason why I was like, we'll see. Our next caller is Renee from Hawaii. Hi, Renee. How you doing, Renee? Hello, hello. Hey, guys. Hi, how are you? Good. How can we help you? Well, how much time do you have? No, I'm kidding. Thanks so much for taking my call and all the information that you guys provided over the years. I only just started listening to you guys, but immediately dove right in and have caught up on pretty much all the episodes.

1:37:13So thanks for everything you guys do and Jackie for squeezing me in last minute. So I kind of just like wrote bullet points so I don't ramble. So here we go. I am 39, 5 '6", and currently weighing 160 pounds, unfortunately, roughly about 28 % body fat. I'm a single mom of two boys that are 13 years apart. I had a tubal ligation in 2020, recently diagnosed with adenomyosis after years of pain. so I'm scheduled for a b-note hysterectomy on the 10th a week from today minimally invasive so it should only take about like four to six weeks for healing I am a one-time bikini competitor after only eight months of training I had joined a private gym that offered like small group personal training and did some body recompense my goal is to stay get stage ready for wellness by 2028.

1:38:21You know, I know I need some time to build. I guess my question ultimately is like, what maps program will kind of get me the best results until I can afford a coach? Because at the time, I just, I can't right now. So I started in late August of 2024 at 150 pounds, approximately 27 body fat so pretty much where I'm at again when I got on stage I was down to 126 pounds approximately 21 % body fat I know I definitely was not ready to get on stage but I wanted the experience I had a less than favorable coach approaching that date but had a great experience Nonetheless, jumped headfirst into getting my CPT because I loved fitness and wanted to help other people with it.

1:39:14Post-show, I had zero guidance with the reverse dieting, so just kind of mispigied it for a little while. Then I had a car accident in September that I totaled my car, which broke some of my toes that affected my balance. and I had a bruised sternum, which also affected some of my exercises with range of motion. I had recently been hired at UFC as a personal trainer. No clients as of yet, though. I was doing an assessment with one of the other trainers, and they had pointed out some things that I didn't realize I was doing incorrectly. Turns out the entire time I was training at that small private gym, I was not bracing my core.

1:40:04And no wonder I was getting hurt all of the time. So I started doing some unilateral training and some corrective exercises because I have like a real bad anterior pelvic tilt. So I know I need some deep core work, obviously, post-recovery and some help on my LPHC. I want to practice some diaphragmic breathing to kind of support that. I'm concerned about my weak pelvic floor. Also, I believe I have hypermobility. So when I'm doing any overhead stuff or whatever, like I get the clicking in my shoulders, I'm constantly hyper-extending my knees. So then I have pain there, my hips. So I've been trying to do some corrective exercises for that.

1:40:53and because of that I've been avoiding the barbell exercises like completely because you guessed it I'm afraid to get hurt so I'm trying not to focus on the numbers because I know that I need to build into a wellness body I need to feed that but I have problems with my nutrition that's that's why I feel like I have gained most of the weight back. I have a problem with like emotional or stress eating kind of thing. I have to like force myself to eat during the day because I'm not hungry. Even right after the gym, I'm kind of just still on the move, keep go. So then at night it catches up to me and I know all of this.

1:41:40I have body awareness. I just need to like get to it. The adenomyosis makes it difficult for me to stay consistent. Some days I'm super, super tired, can't get out of bed, crazy pain. So I'm really looking forward to the hysterectomy and having all of that, you know, hopefully taken care of. My sleep is averaging around six hours if I'm lucky, but it is non-restorative. So poor REM sleep for sure. I take creatine every day, multivitamins, omega-3, fish oil, EAAs as I work out, and I am starting the Z-biotic sugar to fiber to hopefully help with everything post. So yeah, I just really was hoping for some suggestions on like the map 15 programs because i live super close to my gym um at least until i can afford to start work really working with a coach yeah thanks for calling in yeah renee can i ask the what's the motivation of the competing um honestly it really made me feel good uh the sense of accomplishment um yeah i i don't know i i liked the structure of that lifestyle when i was doing it i felt like i was in control of of

1:43:08Sal Di Stefano:you know my life pretty much because i hate it for you just so you know yeah oh no absolutely

1:43:13Adam Schafer:let's back up for a second you got a lot of stuff going on i'll let sal be sensitive yeah you do hun and i think you might have liked it you tell me if i'm wrong okay uh you said it gave you a sense of a call may give you some meaning some purpose and it felt like you were in control when other things feel out of control yeah and like you know that that sense of accomplishment of like because i have very low self-esteem um so when i got up there it was difficult because i was like oh my god i have to pretend that i'm confident in this right now but i'm really like don't look at me yeah i don't want to be i get that no i get it it was a hard thing and you did it but you did it i don't think you i don't think it's a good idea to do it again that's right you already proved it you could do it and um you got a hysterectomy coming up so you're going to be on hormone therapy after you get off i'm hoping so um we haven't really discussed that part but i believe i'm keeping my ovaries so i'm not sure if yeah okay okay you got a lot of stuff going on and I think you need a break.

1:44:13Adam Schafer:The sleep would be the first place I would look. Can I ask you some personal questions? Sure. Do you drink or smoke weed? I do smoke weed, yes. And not so much drink occasionally. Okay, so the weed is really going to affect your restorative sleep in a negative way.

1:44:30Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

1:44:31Adam Schafer:That's what's killing your REM.

1:44:32Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, that'll kill your REM. That'll shut the REM right off. That's right.

1:44:35Adam Schafer:Shit. And so what you can do, what you would do is you would try to really reduce that and come off of it. And then if you feel like you need help with the cannabinoid withdrawal, you can stick to just CBD and you're going to go through, I don't know, a couple of weeks to a month where it's going to feel a little worse, but that's kills, that kills restorative sleep. I mean, that's, that's a very well-documented effect of, of THC in particular. So I would try. I've been doing it thinking it's going to help me sleep.

1:45:07Sal Di Stefano:Well, it helps you fall asleep, and I can attest to that feeling. I was a every night weed smoker myself, and so it helps you fall asleep, but then you don't get REM. That's the problem with it. Notice you probably don't dream either. You don't dream probably much, if ever. You'll get really crazy dreams when you come off. Yeah, you'll get really vivid, wild dreams when you come off. Yeah, yeah.

1:45:29Adam Schafer:So just look at that. Really focus on your sleep. MAPS 15 is the right program for you. um and now you said you can't afford coaching how much is coaching what do you what do you think it costs like what's the idea that you have on how much you would have to spend on a coach um i i believe for roughly about like four or five hundred a month like right now um so about a year or two ago i had uh left a domestic violence situation to where my my yeah so my my son and I, my two sons, and I had to restart over again. And now I'm in public housing kind of thing. So like I, yeah, so it's like really limited and only just got the job as a personal trainer.

1:46:13So not very many clients. Oh, thank you.

1:46:16Adam Schafer:So I'm going to do this right now. I'm going to give you 30 days. I'm going to give you free coaching for 30 days with one of our coaches. And if you like it, if you like it after that, we have something called concierge coaching, which is a lot less than the number you said okay okay the reason why i said that is there's a lot of stuff going on here and i could throw advice at you but i think it would be a good idea to have somebody kind of guide you like step by step step by step to attack one thing at a time yeah you know we're gonna we would look at diet you know make sure you hit your protein be consistent with that but really it's about caring about yourself on like really treating yourself like somebody who deserves to be cared for is what's going to drive all the right behaviors looking for feeling like a show is going to make you feel like you have value is the wrong direction, especially one that judges you by the way you look.

1:47:02Adam Schafer:It could definitely swing in the opposite direction. I love that you're a personal trainer because I'm going to tell you something right now. You start training people and you start helping other people, that's going to make you feel so good. Yeah.

1:47:13Sal Di Stefano:I want to equip you with Prime Pro mainly because of what you also mentioned with your bracing and just a lot of the techniques in there, even restorative techniques after your your procedure and everything else just to get you to learn uh really then on yourself and then how you can apply that to your clients as well i think would be like super valuable yeah i think

1:47:35Adam Schafer:prime pro plus as a trainer just as a trainer that's gonna be so valuable for you it's gonna make you really valuable as a trainer yeah in the ufc gym and then are you responsible for getting your own clients or they set you up um so they have set me up with one um but yeah i'm pretty much responsible for kind of getting my own um and i'm i'm not very hi i'm renee nice to meet you like i i never have been so that's where i've been really struggling with the part like i'm almost i was almost kind of giving up on it because i haven't i'm not very i'm gonna do something i'm gonna do something i've never done before at the at the uh at the possibly angering my partners i'm gonna give you our course our certification course for free wow what the that's right yeah i'm already like was in there because when you first um started it i i got in but then i was like oh i can't you know it's it's a costly course but it is recognized by by the national certifications and it's going to help you build your business that's what it's focused on all right because because i do have like a bigger um long-term goal of like doing a non-profit for women who are surviving domestic violence to get memberships, memberships to the gym to, yeah.

1:48:54Adam Schafer:Listen, Renee, here's what I want you to do. You're going to work with one of our coaches. I don't want you to do a show. I don't think that's a good idea. Focus on sleep. I really want you to make that a focus. It's going to take you about 30 to 60 days to really fix that. Okay. So just give some time. And then when you get our course, open it and watch the videos and build your business. That's right now the most important thing you could do that I think will help you in all the areas that you're going to feel the best are going to be starting to build a client base.

1:49:18Sal Di Stefano:Yeah, I agree.

1:49:19Adam Schafer:It's going to, it's going to really give you all the things you're looking for. It really will. Cause I feel like you're going to help people. I feel like training people is going to make you feel good. It's going to help you reflect on yourself. It's going to give you a sense of purpose. It's a wonderful career. And our course, what it does is it helps trainers build their business. That's the main focus of it.

1:49:36Sal Di Stefano:If you're not already listening to the elite trainer podcast to listen to that, which is all of our, yeah, yeah. That's a, That's on Elite Trainer Podcast. Is that under the mind pump? Is that mind pump? No, it's got its own. Yeah. Yeah. It's got its own. Look up on YouTube, Elite Trainer Podcast. And those are our coaches and trainers. And that's all they're doing is helping other coaches and trainers be better coaches.

1:49:55Adam Schafer:I'm going to have you come back on here. And let me have you back on in 30 days. And what I'd like to hear is hopefully you get a client or two within that period of time. Okay. And we'll talk to you then. Well, I was kind of hesitant because of the surgery. Like I'm going to be out. So how do I get clients if I'm. oh that's when's the surgery schedule when is the schedule a week a week from today okay on the 10th let's have you on let's have you on in 60 days then so give you some time yeah okay yeah thank you you got awesome guys thanks so much you got it was great all right we'll see you then bye bye yeah it's the worst thing she could do is get on stage oh yeah 100 percent uh oh man but so what people didn't see she brought it up but what i saw in her email was uh she escaped an abusive relationship.

1:50:41Adam Schafer:And so she had to get away from that. She's got an issue where she has to get a hysterectomy. That's a big deal. That's a big surgery. She started a new job, which I love what she's doing, but that's a brand new job. Brand new. Public housing. The last thing she should do is like attempt to shred her body down with poor sleep and all that stuff. Oh my God. That's the last thing she should do. So hopefully what happens, this is what I meant when I said that I think training people is going to solve a lot of this. She starts to build a business and starts to help people. Yeah, yeah. It's going to feel so good.

1:51:09Adam Schafer:You can't help it.

1:51:10Sal Di Stefano:You can't help it reflect on yourself. Yeah. While you're doing that. No. That saved me. As you're coaching somebody, you're going like, I need this advice on yourself. That's right. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a great advice. And there's so much going on here that a blanket prescription of go do all these things won't do anything.

1:51:28Adam Schafer:The quitting weed or coming off weed would be the one thing that I would. Right.

1:51:32Sal Di Stefano:That in itself is going to be a process. You know, so it's like that, then the diet, then the like training properly. Like, yeah, there's just, there's so much there that you would want to tackle those things one at a time and start to build. And the main focus for her needs to be to get healthy, to get healthy, to sleep good, to feel good, not go get ready to get ready for a show. Absolutely not.

1:51:55Adam Schafer:If you like Mind Pump, 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.

1:52:40Sal Di Stefano:The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

1:52:50Adam Schafer:If you enjoy this show, please share the love By leaving us a 5 star rating and review on iTunes And by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family We thank you for your support And until next time, this is Mind Pump