The Truth About Burning Fat After 40 & Why Evidence-Based Training Can Be Wrong - With Jay Ferruggia

24:35Shawn Stevenson:and to top it off, you get to try all this risk-free with their no questions asked refunds if you don't absolutely love the way that it makes you feel. Again, head over to drinklmnt.com forward slash model right now to take advantage. My favorite flavors right now, grapefruit is popping, lemonade. The lemonade salt is incredible, especially if you're doing anything where you're sweating a lot, that lemonade salt hits different. So again, head over there, check them out. DrinkLMNT.com forward slash model. And now back to the show. In addition to that, and we'll put this study up for everybody to see, testosterone is a very sleep dependent hormone as well.

25:19Shawn Stevenson:And so there's a strong correlation with the more hours of sleep that we're getting and the quality of that sleep and raising our testosterone levels. And taking young men, college age men, sleep depriving them for just a week, testosterone drops by about 15%. which that's like making them like 10, 20 years older. It's crazy. When it comes to testosterone, if we're again, looking at fat loss, building muscle, just that energy to perform for men and women, testosterone is obviously important. Yeah. And then there's that relationship with testosterone and estrogen or estradiol on a blood test, where you need those to be in balance, right?

25:56So for men, generally men are gonna feel best probably around 40, maybe up to 50 on estradiol. um but if your testosterone ratio is off if you're saying they're like then your estrogen shoots off now you have too much of the female hormone and then you start again gaining more fat like you have negative implications from that as well yeah so for people specifically for people

26:18Shawn Stevenson:over 40 of these six s's is there anywhere that people should focus on specifically or is there anything else to add? Because again, when I'm thinking about being leaner and being sleep deprived or not getting a lot of sleep, I was thinking, you know, in my twenties, I didn't even think about sleep, you know what I mean? But I was still walking around pretty lean. So would this be something that's even more important as people are, you know, getting over 40? For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Cause you're fighting against the clock. You're fighting father time. So you got to do all the things like the things that we could get away with 20 years ago, you can't anymore.

26:55like I find myself now at 51 prioritizing my sleep even more even though like I'm like an east coast hustle kind of guy and I want to get up I'm like I'm gonna stay in bed for another hour just because I know like I have the evidence on my blood work but not but not only that how I feel and perform every day like I'm like all right I'm hard charging I want to get up and I want to attack but I'm like nah I'm gonna stay here like I've actually it's taken me a while to do that but the performance dude is so much better like I get sick so much less everything feels better everything about my life feels better when I when I prioritize sleep, you just you have to you can't, you can't get away with the things you used to.

27:30And here's another misconception about this kind of covers all the s's that we're talking about is so many people say, well, your metabolism slows down when you get older. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. I can eat more food than like I could in my 20s and stay lean. But it's you have to do all the things to optimize that right? It's eating the right foods and the right ratios training the right way, doing the cardio doing the recovery, sleeping, optimizing your hormones yeah i mean if you exist on uh 1300 calories a day as a 50 or 40 year old male and you're uh you're fasting you're doing too much training well yeah your metabolism it's slowed down now you eat you one piece of pizza i like to build someone's metabolism to the point where they're fat proof where it's like okay now you can have one or eight slices of pizza and you're fine if your metabolism shot you can't you do that and you you look like java the hut like You know what I mean?

28:17But we need to get to the point where you're fat proof. And so a really strong metabolism is like the number one thing I'm trying to work on with people.

28:25Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. All right, so what I'm hearing overall is just stacking conditions, having these small pieces in place, because we're not trying to just attack losing fat by just sweating our face off and busting our ass in the gym, because it simply does not work like that. It doesn't, I wish it did. It's all these other things outside the gym. Yes, we need those inputs, but it's the other things outside of the gym. All right. So, and to focus on that even more as we are over 40. With that being said, life happens. There's stuff going on and you work with people who have some crazy schedules and they're doing very intense things.

29:03Shawn Stevenson:They're training, they're performing. Whether this is, you know, your MLB, you know, baseball players or the WWE. So I want to talk to you about that and that experience, because you just got back and you shared some of your adventures with me and working with some of these WWE superstars and just seeing the way that they train and what they put their bodies through. So what is your mindset and what what are some of the things that you are thinking about when you're working with athletes like that that need to look good, but they also need to be durable? And also they're they get injured a nice amount of of times.

29:42Shawn Stevenson:And so how do you come into it working with somebody like that? So the first thing that comes to mind is I remember what Buddy Morris said. Is that the name ringing a bell? But Buddy Morris was a strength coach in the NFL for years. And this is probably back in the 90s. He told me this. He said, the first rule when you're working with a high-level athlete, a pro-level athlete, is don't f*** them up. And that's huge, right? Because if you do that, their career is over. Your career is over. You can't do that. So you can't treat it like you're training a 16-year-old. you're like okay these guys are already high level how much can i help them avoid injury recover perform better change their training so their joints are better and then a lot of it just becomes like you could have the perfect plan on paper but it's always changing because like you said there's there's flights 52 weeks a year multiple times a week you're in a different gym all the time um you may have gotten injured you're you're stressed out of your mind you're not eating proper, whatever it is.

30:38So we have to be changing that on the fly. And, you know, you have to be adaptable. You can't be too rigid. You have to be like, Hey, listen, here's what we're doing. We got, we got to change this. But I would say, and again, even for guys like us, like the first thing I'm going to think about when we go to the gym is, okay, let's not get injured. Let's feel really good. Let's get the stimulus we want without beating ourselves up, without wrecking our joints, our spine, our hips, our CNS, um, and, and, and depleting our hormones, like we've talked about. Um, so, so those are the things I consider.

31:09And then when you have high level type a guys, as you know, from being around so many of them for years, it's sometimes it's just kind of like keeping them like, dude, you're doing too much. You're pushing too hard. I just had this conversation with the guy the other day and he, he even started, he texted me. He's like, dude, you're right. We got to have a come to Jesus moment. Like I got to calm down a little bit. I'm like, dude, I've been telling you, um, which is the opposite problem you have with a lot of sedentary people, but high level guys, you have to just kind of hold them back a little bit and still make them feel like hey i'm pushing myself but let's push ourselves in the right way it's not gonna have a negative impact you know and most guys again over 40 i think we always want to think longevity certainly for an athlete wwe guys we got to think longevity because they're taking bumps they're landing on their back on the floor all the time we got to think longevity but even even for guys like us we got to think longevity because we've we've accumulated years and years of wear and tear yeah like from playing sports i'm doing stupid stuff you know like i used to jump my bike off a cliff and do flips when I was, you know, like you just have years of wear and tear.

32:07Shawn Stevenson:It's like, be smarter about it now, you know? Oh man. I'm just thinking about some of the crazy stuff I did, man. You know, like one of the things, nevermind, I'm not even going to talk about it. So with this in mind, how, how do you recommend an athlete or again, us as well, like life athletes, if we're not trying to wreck our joints and to feel, you know, sore and we've got things to do, we've got to perform so for example you've got and you've worked with some of the top people in the wwe what are some of the training principles when when you have them in the gym doing exercises how are you going about that so that they're not feeling a mess once they get into the ring yeah and so and you mentioned what i love about training the wwe guys is it's performance and aesthetics in one which is what everybody would want like it's the coolest person to train you know because like football player they're in their uniform it's more performance but that that's what's really cool that's what most people would want is like you're like a real life action hero you're wolverine or deadpool or something so we we have to train and eat in a way that's going to enhance the aesthetics obviously you're out there in your underwear in front of you know thousands and millions of people so what does that look like that looks like for most of my guys it's about four sessions a week sometimes five like if they're if they're obsessed we got to go five but then we just hack the volume now we basically take the volume of four sessions and you know add it to the fifth one um but the training has to be you know you and i have trained together it's like we want to train hard i'm never going to tell someone don't train hard we're going to train hard we're going to go heavy we're going to get the necessary stimulus but in a way that you feel good like you leave like i could do that workout again i feel better i have no joint pain the next day i did it didn't negatively impact my sleep um you know things like that are super important so So we kind of modify or moderate the volume based on that, right?

33:59I have a, like I can keep kind of like ratios for people. Like if you want to train, it's kind of based on the number of sleeps, right? So like if say we train today and then we want to train 48 hours later. So with two sleeps, you could basically recover from one to three sets per body part. With three sleeps, you can recover from about three to five. So I mean, if we did an upper body day today, let's say today's Monday, and then we go Tuesday, Thursday, I'm sorry, Wednesday, and then Thursday. So that would be three sleeps, right? And then four sleeps, you cover from about six to eight sets.

34:34So that it's good to know that as a general rule, because then you can kind of structure your training. Do I want to do full body? Do I want to do upper lower? Do I want to do push, pull legs, whatever. So you know, the number of sets has to match the number of sleeps. And it's six to eight sets for a body part, you'll kind of maximize the stimulus. Doing more than that isn't necessary. Again, it depends. Legs aren't legs. Legs are quads, glutes, and hamstrings. Then back isn't back. It's upper back and lats. There's some gray area there. I would say for most people, you want to train each body part three to four sleeps.

35:04Five sleeps max if you're more advanced and your recovery is slow. Then, of course, we've got to quantify what is a set, like a lateral raise versus a military press, different recovery demands. A leg extension versus a squat, different recovery demands. And so there's some gray areas there. And then how hard are you training? Are you taking your sets to failure or are you taking your sets two reps shy? That's still, that's going to be a little different too. I think it's really important to quantify those things and not just go in blind. And then again, back to the X's and O's of training. And again, you and I have trained together even just recently.

35:35The execution is really important. You could get away with just bouncing in sloppy form when you're younger. You can't do that when you're older. So execution, you have to be, it has to be meditative. If you have to be fully in there in every set thinking about, okay, how do I go from the stretch position to the shortened position, not use momentum, not kind of bounce, not get sloppy towards the end. And then, and then what's, what's a true set to failure. It's perfect form. The, the, the last rep looks like the first rep, but it's slower. You have to have that involuntary slowing and the contraction speed, but it's not okay.

36:08Now my elbows flared out. No, that's not failure. You failed one or two reps before that. so it's just form and execution becomes really important exercise selection like i'm not going to have guys do as you get older especially the wwe guys i'm not going to have them risk doing like barbell back squats barbell deadlift on the floor bench press standing overhead press we're not going to do any of that anymore we're going to pick dumbbell variations maybe machines maybe cables and if we do those barbell variations we would do them second or third you know again when we train will, I don't know if you're paying as much attention to it as I am, but we'll sequence things a certain way where if we do this exercise first, this exercise second, this third, this third one feels so much better than if we did it first.

36:49If we did it first, it's like, oh my God, my shoulders kill. Third, pain-free, right? So that's something that a lot of people don't think about that you really need to consider. The sequencing, the exercise selection, and how you actually do them. And then once you do that, you can train hard. Like I've seen guys, and I'm not gonna name who because they're huge uh influencers and doctors whatever say oh you can't you gotta lift for 15 reps and above when you're older i'm like no you don't you just have to know how to set up your workouts correctly and then you can still train heavy and hard yeah that's been my my firsthand

37:21Shawn Stevenson:experience with you because this was just like about a week ago when we trained and i lift more when i'm working with you than i thought i would be able to and literally it's that exact thing you said, when the workout was over, I feel like I could do that again. Like I could do all that stuff more, but I lifted more than I thought. And pain free, right? And pain free, you know, but it was really a lot of focus, that mind muscle connection. Man, after the first exercise, we were doing a row machine. What do we call that machine? Yeah, we were doing like a lat focus single arm row. And I remember you were like, dude, my lats, it's crazy.

37:57Yeah, man,

37:57Shawn Stevenson:I got a lat pump. Like I felt like I could fly away, man. My lats were just sticking out, man. It was incredible. And again, just that feeling afterwards of like, I didn't feel like super depleted, anything like that. Like I really came in there, we pushed the right buttons because we went to that point right there, one rep or less is right there at failure, but maintaining that form and just really being locked in and doing the work. And it's just amazing the difference, man. Cause you can go in there and just do a lot of sloppy stuff. And again, like you can feel like you're doing something, but if you want to get the most from it, you've got to pay attention to the details.

38:34Yeah. And some people are like, oh, just go move weight. I'm like, what other physical endeavor? What other sport do you do that? Just shoot however you want. You know what I mean? Don't practice your swing. It's like, that doesn't make, makes no sense. You, I think you should always be practicing to improve your form, to get better. Like every set, even if I've done this machine or this dumbbell exercise a thousand times, I'm still going to do it. And I'm going to learn. I'm always learning. So if I'm training with you, I'm looking at everything you're doing I'm learning something there and then when I do myself like oh he did that little thing I do that sometimes and then I'll check myself right like you always want to be improving and learning that's why it's good to video even not for social media just for yourself video and watch it back but oh I thought I had my head in a good position but I'm poking forward like this on every row or whatever it is right because we all have I have that I'll see videos of me and be like I tell a million people a day not to do that and I'm doing that you know so you got it you got to just be aware and that that's how you get better and that's how you train pain free, you know, with that longevity in mind is if you're constantly improving your form.

39:33Shawn Stevenson:Now, can we go back to sequencing a little bit more? Because again, just to think about where you're putting a certain exercise in your program can make a huge difference. The thing that we came into this thinking again, it's like you do your hardest thing first, right? So is that a principle that we should abide by? Or can you give us more insight on sequencing the exercise that we do? yeah so a good rule of thumb is what you want to prioritize you should do first so let's say you were doing a push day and you're like i want to i want to grow my shoulders that's my main thing okay so then i'm not going to have you do a press overhead first it's too stressful at our age but we could do lateral raises we could do dumbbell laterals machine laterals we do cable laterals and we could do three or four sets of those it's not going to negatively impact your pressing at all then i might say hey sean you know what let's actually do rear delts too let's fully pump up the delt before we start to press and then it's going to feel so much better so now we do let's say three or four uh side laterals rear delt flies now the shoulder's feeling really good now our core temperature's up now that it's just like it's going to feel so much better so now it's okay let's overhead press but instead of standing or at a 90 degree angle let's let's incline the bench to 75 degrees because now it's a little bit more of a natural range of motion whereas most people as you get older you lose that overhead mobility and the thoracic extension so now it's just safer We could also, if your shoulders are really bad, but just like, I want to grow my shoulders, I would do the same thing.

40:56I would do the side delts, the rear delts, then let's hit chest, however many sets we do for chest, five, six sets, and then finish with more delts at the end. So we're kind of sandwiching it in. And if your shoulders are so shot that you can't overhead press, then we'll just add more laterals at the end. And so back to your other question about, should we do the hard thing first? Yes. But again, I think your priority muscle group that you want to bring up, but in a safe way. And what people will say is, oh, well, then it's going to really decrease the amount of weight I can do on my squat or my press or whatever.

41:27But it doesn't. You adapt over time. The human body is really adaptable. Your work capacity increases over time. So it really doesn't. And then even if it did a little bit, who cares? You feel so much better and you can train forever. If you're always getting injured, then what does it matter, right? So same kind of theory when it comes to legs. I'll always do hamstrings before squatting exercise. Sometimes hamstrings, sometimes adductors and glutes before squats. Cause now everything's warmed up. Everything's going to feel great. Knees, hips, low back feels way better. And then by the time you get to squats, you're like, Oh, this feels amazing.

41:57Cause I'll have guys my age say, I can't squat anymore. Like, no, you can just let me, let me do it this way. And you'll be able to. And so I think that's the key is just having those safer exercises first and getting a pump. It's funny. We live in this world now of like science-based training where people are like, oh, pump doesn't matter. And this doesn't matter. You should only do four reps or it's too much fatigue. It's like, yeah, but in the real world, none of that, none of that works. You can't go in at 50 years old and just go do four reps on a squat or a bench or something first. You know, you can do it for six to eight, maybe six to 10, but if you do other stuff first and you're smart about it and you're getting that pump and everything.

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42:34Shawn Stevenson:recent decades. In fact, an analysis published by scientists at the university of Texas made an alarming discovery. 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients from the 1950s to 1999. According to that research, everything from vitamin A to calcium to iron and more has significantly declined. Again, if it's not in the soil, it's not in the food. It's the unsustainable farming practices that have obliterated our soil quality. But this is changing thanks to farmers who are dedicated to regenerative farming practices. And this is not easy to do in a market that is slanted towards quantity over quality.

43:12Shawn Stevenson:But select farms are stepping up to do the right thing. And this is especially seen in the domain of animal foods. Research published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that beef from animals fed an abnormal diet of conventional pesticide-laden grains that decimate the soil quality contained up to five times less omega-3 fatty acids than what's found in grass-fed beef. And research from the College of Agriculture at California State University has found that grass-fed beef contains elevated precursors of vitamin A and E, as well as increased disease-fighting antioxidants like glutathione and superoxide dismutase activity compared to conventionally raised grain-fed beef with unsustainable farming practices.

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44:42Shawn Stevenson:Absolutely incredible. Go to wildpastures.com forward slash model. That's W-I-L-D-P-A-S-T-U-R-E-S.com forward slash model. 20 % off for life, free shipping and$15 off your first order. Head over there, check them out. Wildpastures.com forward slash model. Now back to the show. This is a perfect segue into something I want to ask you about because you've already mentioned this a little bit and you know far better than most, we're in this paradigm of evidence-based medicine, evidence-based lifting. And, you know, and I really helped to kind of champion this message. You know, I've been doing this for almost 25 years myself, but, you know, people can go back and see, you know, content from me 20 years ago, referencing some peer-reviewed data.

45:34Shawn Stevenson:And we've done that even in this episode. But what happens is we swing too far over to the other side of the where everything, it has to have some kind of study reference. And what people miss out on is this very important caveat, which is we can have a thousand people in this study and 999 of them can get amazing results, but one of them dies. One of them is killed by the same thing that helps 999 people, right? And it's just like, well, that one person doesn't matter. Like this is what the evidence says. that one person matters. And you could be that one person where everybody's saying to do this thing, but this thing over here works way better for you.

46:17Shawn Stevenson:And that's okay. So I know that what's going to happen eventually is we're going to find that happy medium where all things tend to lie, which is yes, we wanna have this evidence-based information, but we do not wanna lose sight of N of one. Your own personal experience and experience and experimentation as well, because no one can tell you what's gonna work for you better than you finding out for yourself, right? And so with all that being said, and evidence-based lifting, which is, some people would say the nerds are taking over the gym, but both of us are nerds as well in our own ways. And that's awesome.

47:03Shawn Stevenson:and we're inviting, we're being more inclusive into who's doing this work. And the mission for a lot of these individuals is to get the result with the least amount of effort, which is awesome. It's a great way of thinking about things. But sometimes you just gotta lift. Sometimes you just gotta experiment. Sometimes you gotta do something, you gotta experiment in a way that like, and I know you've done this probably 10 ,000 times in the gym, like, damn, like, let me try this. Yeah. right so what is evidence-based lifting possibly missing for people so so many of those studies and the people that are quoting those studies all day you could tell in two seconds they never trained anyone because in the real world all that goes out the window you would not nobody would run a successful training business if you just did what they're telling you to do it's way too boring it's not realistic you're going to get injured and so you know to your point about things that don't that aren't proven in studies but are fun to do like for years when i ran my own gym for 15 years i would do things that are just challenges like like nfl uh coaches will do at the end of practice right there's no scientific study that shows you that running these suicides is going to be good or doing this is going to be good any mental challenge any rocky balboa kind of highlight film like none of that is good on paper but it's good mentally and it's fun and it bonds people.

48:30And it's why people stick with you as a trainer or coach, whatever, for years, because they remember that was so much fun. Men want to compete. Females do too, but most of my clients are men. So I'm speaking to men, like men need to compete. They need to bond. They need to go to war together. And so things where you're like, oh, drop sets cause too much fatigue. It's like, it's fun, dude. It's fun. You need to work hard. You know what I mean? You get a great pump. Nobody likes going to the gym and not getting a great pump. I don't care what the science kids say you're not going to the gym and not great and getting a great pump it's it's the best feeling in the world and and and and as far as getting a great pump goes there's no way in hell that if someone comes to me and says i need to improve my shoulders and my biceps and triceps those three muscles then i'm not going to pump them up we're not going to get a huge pump on those someone's like hey i'm going to start in this thing in in 90 days you're getting a monster pump you're doing high reps you're doing high volume you're doing lower rest periods stuff i wouldn't tell you to do for chest or back or or hamstrings but we're going to do that because i know after 30 years of doing this.

49:28That's what works for delts. You could say, oh, well, overhead press for sets of six. Dude, I've had a million people do that. And I know a million colleagues who have had a million people do that. Shoulders don't grow. Oh, now we start doing 12 to 20 reps on laterals, shoulders grow. Okay. So I don't care what the science says. I just literally last week wanted to ask two of my friends who are NFL strength coaches something. They both said the same thing. I never once thought, is there a study? They told me what worked for their guys and they both been doing it 30 years. I said, that's fine. That's good enough for me.

49:55That's all I need to know. I'm going to are doing it. You know, that's it. Like, that's who I want to talk to is people that are actually in the trenches and whether it's in pro sports, their own private thing, whatever, have you produced results in the real world with real people? Because otherwise, and I don't know, it doesn't really matter to me. You know, it really doesn't matter. And there's never going to be a study that shows if you do leg curls and hip thrust before squats, your knees feel better. There's never going to be a study on that. You know, there's never going to be a study on so many of the things that we've even talked about here.

50:23The things that you and I do when training like um putting this row before this row and and sequencing your overhead stuff later because i just know it's better for your shoulder health i know at 40 or 50 years old i don't want to go in and go heavy overhead chins or pull downs first i want to get a pump get some rows in and then do it never gonna be a study on that that's just experience that's just me doing this for 30 years and everyone's saying oh my shoulder feels better okay it's good enough for me you know exactly Exactly.

50:50Shawn Stevenson:It's finding out what makes you feel good. And that study is probably not going to be done because you're you as well. So thank you for mentioning that because again, doing these particular things, your knees feel better, is going to be situationally dependent. Yeah. And then it's, what do you enjoy? You could argue, okay, higher frequency is better. Maybe in certain cases, but if you can't recover, your joints aren't recovering. Everyone has individual recovery rates, which I don't think is taken into account. There's four of us in this room right now, we might all recover differently. There's nothing you can do to change that.

51:23That's genetic. There's things you can do to improve it. But at the end of the day, there's individual recovery rates. There's individual responses to exercise. If there weren't, then we could all be Michael Jordan, or we could all be Ronnie Coleman, right? It's individual. And then again, back to your enjoyment. Like if I said full body, training a muscle every two sleeps, every 48 hours is ideal. Studies prove that unequivocally, but you don't like it. You like getting a pump more. So you going to get better results doing that? And because it's long term. So if you are just gauging your whatever you're going to do in the gym based on a 90 day study or a six month study, it's like, dude, you're gonna be training for 30 years.

52:03At the end of a year, and here's where here's how I can negate every study of all time on training is with this statement. We all know that after your first few years of training, you can like you're gaining muscle at a snail's pace. So whether you do full body, upper, lower, push, pull legs, a once a week bro split, it's not going to change. You're still, if you've been training for 20 years, you'll be lucky if you gain three pounds of muscle in a year. It sucks, but that's the reality. And here's the thing as a newbie, any split, you're still going to gain 20 pounds of muscle that first year, as long as you're eating enough.

52:34So it doesn't matter. We get so caught up in all these little nuances about this is optimal. This is optimal. It's like, it doesn't matter, bro. Think if you think long term, you're gonna end up at the same place. That's all that matters.

52:47Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, yeah. And here's the truth as well. A lot of the studies that are being done are just affirming what you've known already for years. So thank you for sharing that, man. Well, something that I wanna ask you about that I wouldn't necessarily ask anybody else, like to say that you love hip hop is an understatement. The biggest. You love hip hop, you're a historian, of hip hop, it's in your DNA and just where you grew up, how you grew up. And so you live it, like it's just a part of who you are. And in hip hop, there's always been this conversation about top five, who's your top five, who's your top five, top five dead or alive.

53:30Shawn Stevenson:But I wanna turn this to the training world and to ask you your top five exercises, dead or alive. And I know this is tough, so I'm gonna split it up upper and lower. if you had no other choice, you had your five exercises, the only five exercises that you can do. And I know again, I'm talking to you. So there's so much situational dependency. But for the majority of people, top five dead or alive upper body exercises. All right. I'm going to go with an incline dumbbell press. I'll go with a neutral grip chin up. I'll go with a chest supported row.

54:10I'd probably go with a lateral raise just because everyone wants big delts. It's the superhero look.

54:20And maybe a standing dumbbell curl.

54:22Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. That's a good top five. That's solid. That's solid. Again, it seems those are the classics. Yeah. All the classics. What about lower body? Lower body. We've got to have something for hamstrings, glutes, quads. So for hamstrings, for me personally, I would go with a glute ham raise, but most people aren't strong enough to do that. So it's some kind of leg curl, seated leg curl. For glutes, I would do a hip thrust. For quad, I would do two quads. I would do some kind of squat. I'd pick like a safety bar squat. And I would pick a rear foot elevated split squat. And then we got to have a hinge in there.

55:07So I would default to like a semi stiff legged or Romanian deadlift, but so many people can't do it and it's very risky. So I'm going to put a 45 degree back extension on there that you can, you know, hold weight on. I put those. Okay.

55:20Shawn Stevenson:Got it. Got it. Now, what about the core? Because again, this is just being a hundred. I don't know about you. I rarely ever quote, just do apps. Like it's just baked into what I do. And obviously having a quote six pack is more so about leanness than these particular exercises. We all have abdominal muscles. They're just covered up sometimes. But with that being said, to make the muscles maybe a little bit more blocky or pop, what would those five exercises be? That's a great question. And there's one thing I want to touch on that you brought up. Visible abs, people think is cardio and doing abs.

56:03It's really neither. I have pictures, myself where I have visible six pack or eight pack. I barely did any cardio for a year and I did like two sets of abs. So, um, but I would say that that's a good point too, because people think, let me do a thousand reps and I'll spot reduce. But what you said is what you actually want to do. You want to make the abs bigger and blockier so that when your body fat's lean enough, they actually stand out no different than your delts, your chest, anything like that. So you want to be doing weighted exercises for six to 12 reps with progressive overload in mind.

56:31So I like some kind weighted sit-up variation my favorite one actually is uh you take an ab mat and you put it on a bench and then you lay cross uh like you're like on a t on the bench that way you're getting a full stretch and then you're crunching up and sitting up so it really loads the muscles in a stretch fully stretched fully shortened and you can load that over time just holding weight behind your head that's number one for me i like a hanging knee raise and if people aren't strong enough to do it just do an incline reverse crunch i like some kind of uh loaded carry so i'm going to say a uh one-armed suitcase or a one-armed farmer's walk um and then i like i would probably put um like some kind of ab rollout would be next and then some kind of rotational drill i'm thinking functional here as well um probably like a like where you stick the bar in a landmine unit and do like a russian twist or a full contact twist with that that way we're getting we're getting we're getting uh yeah i think we covered i mean generally i like to cover anti-extension extension rotation anti-rotation but i don't think i fit all those in that list but that would be my list there too because you'd get the progressive overload with the crossbench crunch and with the um the uh the reverse crunch or the hanging knee raise and if you just progressively overload those over time your abs will get bigger and pop out and they'll look better amazing thank you bro i

57:56Shawn Stevenson:I appreciate it so much, man. I mean, since we already ventured into hip hop, top five, who's your top five? All right. Nas, Eminem, Black Thought. I always get caught up here. It's always those three. And then depending on the day, it could go a different direction. But I'll go, I'll go. Can we throw groups in or is it just solo? You can throw a group in. If we're throwing groups in, then I would go Tribe Called Quest there and Public Enemy. boom yeah that's fire that's fire my man i appreciate you so much um i cannot be around you and not get better my man you know that's the greatest testament as a as a a brother and as a human being you are exceptional man and i just i appreciate you so much it means a lot all right there you have it jay ferrugia where can people connect with you get more information follow you get more into your world yeah if you just go to jay.fit keep it super simple just jay fit you can find the podcast on there you can find my social on there you can find free downloads if you want to hit me up for coaching or get involved in anything uh it's all right there there you have it man anything else that's it man appreciate you thanks so much more hip-hop more muscle yes we're just getting started oh yeah my man the one and only jay ferruja everybody thank you so much for tuning into this episode today i hope that you got a lot of value out of this if you did you already know what to do share it out with somebody that you care about send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on.

59:28Shawn Stevenson:Little DM action. Or of course, you can share this on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode. Share it on your IG story. You can tweet it out or exit out, whatever. Do you still call it tweets? Or of course, Facebook, wherever you want to share it, please share it out. Share your voice. And of course, tag Jay as well. I'm sure he would love to see the love. And we are just getting warmed up. We got some incredible, incredible masterclasses and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care. Have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon.