2978: 10 Cheap Foods That Help You Lose Fat and Build Muscle

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we picked four questions that listeners wrote in on our Instagram page. And we answered them, but this was after the intro, so today's intro is 54 minutes. Now, in the intro, today we talked about how to eat healthy on a budget. We talked, of course, about nutrition, exercise, fitness, family life, and current events. Look, if you want to write in a question that we can pick for an episode like this, go to Mind Pump Media on Instagram. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Manucora. It's the world's best manuka honey with the highest concentration of MGO. So MGO is the antimicrobial component of manuka honey. This is why you want manuka. Manuka honey. 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I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. It's a myth that eating healthy is expensive. That's false. In fact, oftentimes it saves you money. Here's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about the 10 healthy foods that help you eat healthy on a budget. They'll save you money, and you'll get lean, and you'll build muscle. You can bulk or cut on what we're about to talk about. Let's go. Listen up, college students. Yeah, I think it's important, too, since you're going in this direction, that we should preface, too. Because we haven't talked about this in a long time. We have addressed this before. But for new listeners or relatively new listeners, there is an order of operation when it comes to organic foods, right? Oh, like spending extra on something. Yes, like high quality. And so, because I've had that as an excuse from people before with this whole foods is so expensive and organic food. And it's like, listen, I would always suggest to a client, especially if we are on a budget, to choose foods from the list. And I don't care if it's organic or not. Because you eating these foods and eating healthier and bringing down your body fat or building muscle is going to make a far greater impact on your overall health than whether you could afford the organic banana or not. And so, as we go through these foods, keep that in mind also. Because that's, I think, part of why healthy foods get such a bad rap or are labeled as so expensive. Is, yeah, organic stuff can be more expensive than regular foods. And if we are trying to get healthy and the difference of organic versus regular food is a big difference for you. Yeah, and some of those grocery stores like Whole Foods and I forget the name of that one down south. Oh, Erewhon? Erewhon, yeah. I'm sure there's a perception that that's healthy food, but that's like the super luxury. That's right. Grocery stores. That's right. No, so there is an order of operation. And I will list in order what makes the biggest impact on your health to the least impact. And it starts with whole natural foods. So, the biggest impact you'll have on your health. If you eat a normal standard American diet or standard Western diet, your diet is probably comprised of about 70 to 80% of processed foods. Or your calories, 70, 80% of them come from processed foods or like fast food or something like that, right? So, whole natural foods. Boom, that has a huge impact. The next thing that has a big impact is hitting good macros and calories. So, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and calories, that's the majority. In fact, the data will show that's all the benefit because it's very hard to find data to show dramatic health benefits from going from conventional to organic. Now, I'm not saying there isn't value. So, before everybody gets excited, I'm not saying there isn't potential value. But if you actually look at the data, it's calories, macros, whole natural foods, that makes the biggest, absolute biggest difference. Also, I'll add this, organic used to be a lot more expensive. It was, you know, 25 years ago, when I was training clients, every grocery store didn't have an organic section. You know, 30 years ago, they didn't have an organic section. You had to go to a special health food store to find foods or cereal or whatever you wanted that was organic. Today, Costco, Safeway, like every grocery store has organic options, which has brought the price down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's not nearly as expensive as it used to be. And you can, I mean, I'm such a big fan, too, of supporting your local farms and go to farmer's markets. You get great deals going and getting some of your fruits and vegetables from local farmers. CSA in bulk is a great way to do it. So, there are ways to do it. I just wanted to, before you went through this list, because that becomes the next pushback from somebody. And it's like, listen, if we had the disposable income to buy organic, of course, I encourage my clients to go that route. But it isn't. It isn't that big of a deal that I have a client who can't afford those things. I'm like, listen, we can dramatically improve your health by eating whole foods, even if they're not organic. 100%. All right. So, we're going to list foods that are really healthy, nutrient-dense, satisfy the macro profiles that tend to produce the best results. But also foods that have the ability to be made in a variety of different ways. I don't think eating healthy should be boring either. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be boring. So, the foods that we have here are just, they're staples. And I'll tell you what, if you eat from this group, mostly, you're going to have a pretty damn healthy diet. And you can bulk with this. You can also cut with this. So, depending on what your goal is, it really doesn't matter. You just change the portions. So, we'll start with the first food, which is eggs. So, eggs are super inexpensive. People have referred to eggs as being nature's multivitamin. Whole eggs are incredibly nutrient-dense. That's one of the only complete foods. They're super, super dense with nutrients. They've got essential fats in there. They've got your proteins in there. You can make them a lot of different ways. The protein quality is the best that you can find. Whey and eggs, some of the best you can find. They're phenomenal. And again, they're super versatile and they're very inexpensive. So, eggs at the top, for sure. And again, a bulk farmer's market. There's lots of ways for you to do this. One of the, I mean, the list that you made is, like, literally my diet. I know, same. This is what, what I love about eggs, too, and I've shared on the show many times, is that it's such an easy way to mix with leftover dinner and make it into this. Turn it into a breakfast. Yeah, turn it into this high-protein. I mean, just yesterday, this is exactly what I did. I had barbecued tri-tip for the family. And then the next morning, I chopped up in small dices of the tri-tip into four ounces of that chopped up with four whole eggs, threw some eggs in, some onions, threw an ounce of cheese on it, and I've got this, like, incredible, like, omelet now that's super high-protein, a good amount of healthy fats, low-carbohydrate, like, so, so good, you know, and eat fast, easy. Fast and easy. Next up is ground beef. Ground beef is, I mean, it's beef. It's great. You can get it very lean. You can get it where it's higher in calories. You can go at 80%. You can go as high as in the 90s. I believe I've seen 92% lean ground beef. The cool thing about ground beef is the macros are controlled for you. So, when you get a steak, you can generally estimate what a ribeye is, for example, or tri-tip, but the marbling will change in calories a little bit. Ground beef is 90%. If it's 90%, it's 90%. And so, when you measure it out, you know what the calories are. Super versatile. Yeah, very versatile. You can use ground beef to make so many different dishes. It's very palatable, very high in protein. Ground beef, it makes its way into my diet pretty much daily, pretty much every single day. Yeah, again, easy to go bold. Bulk, too. Bulk. Freeze it. Yeah, four or five pounds of this, I cook it once. Cook a bunch of it up at once. Yes, and it mixes well with the rice, with the eggs, with the potatoes. I mean, it's such an easy dish. Season it with your favorite seasoning. I mean, when we talk about things like this, I love these discussions because there's this myth around eating healthy is so boring and can't taste good. And it's like, you can ground beef and rice and potatoes. I do the mushrooms and onions in it. I mean, you can make it. It's one of my favorite dishes to eat. Totally, totally. Well, and I know that people don't think of this very often, too. But if you can, like, find people with similar goals as well. Like, we went in with just like a quarter of a cow with three other families. And it was really not that expensive at all for, like, you know, frozen meat that you can have for pretty much the rest of the year. That's cool. All right, next is white rice. What I like about white rice, it's definitely inexpensive. It's super inexpensive. has a long shelf life, like rice lasts long. time. It's also simultaneously one of the easiest carbohydrate sources to digest, which is great. So when, you know, when I would train clients, one of the things that were one of the strong considerations for the kinds of foods that they ate was digestibility. How does it affect your gut health? Does it, does it create bloating? Does it make you not feel good? Do you feel lethargic? White rice is well digestible by pretty much everybody. Of course, there's a person out there that can't have it, but for the most part, it's very easy to digest. It's also probably the most versatile food I could think of. I think you can make almost anything. You can add rice to anything and create almost any flavor you want with rice. And it's such a great source of complex carbohydrates. I also like it because it's easy to control portions. You brought up the point about like comparing ground beef to ribeye steak or something like that. And I think that's a really good point that a lot of people don't consider. Like a lot of these foods, when we use things like MyFitnessPal or FatSecret, our estimate is that they're not as good as they used to be. These are just estimations of what these, these things are. And when you have stuff like a ribeye steak, a ribeye cut at Safeway versus one at another place versus like a butcher box, like, I mean, these are all like those, the marbling in that is dramatically different. Very different. It could be like 200 calories different. Exactly. And so the weight can be exactly the same, but you can have a fluctuation of 200 calories, have that once or twice in your, in your day, have that multiple times in a week, and we can be off by a thousand plus calories. And so foods that are easy to control and measure, like rice is so easy. Yeah. When I, when I'm in the bulk, I'm eating a cup or more when I'm in a cut, I'm eating half a cup. And it's like, it's not like I got a way, you know, crazy. It's like, I have a cup scooper and I have a half cup scooper and it's so easy to do that. And so a part of clients being consistent, consistent and adherence for them is finding ways to make stuff very easy for them. This is another reason why it's easy to it's really inexpensive, goes with everything, super easy to in a bulk, add, add more in a cut, subtract a hundred percent. And it, and it's very controlled. And so I like it for that reason. And side note, uh, we didn't say brown rice for a reason. There's a, there's a myth out there that brown rice is healthier than white rice. First off the fiber, uh, difference is nominal, but, but really brown rice contains, we don't have to get too deep into this, but brown rice contains what are called anti-nutrients. Uh, that actually prevent the absorption of certain nutrients. Uh, no joke. So, and it's also worse for gut health. Uh, it's a little bit more harsh on the gut. So white rice, brown rice is not healthy. And it tastes worse. White rice tastes better and it's better for you. So it's not a no brainer. Yeah. No, right. Next up cottage cheese. Uh, now I can't have dairy, but for people that can have dairy cottage cheese is like the easiest protein meal that requires zero prep. Like you could buy a tub of cottage cheese, your best protein, like a dairy option. You could get it lean. You could get it low fat. You can get a high fat. If you want to have more fat, you throw some fruit in there and you've got yourself like it's in, it's requires zero prep. Like you could take a thing to work, put in the fridge. You don't have to cook anything. You go buy the grocery super cheap. That's about it. Oh, it's amazing. You saw me eating mine today. It's a staple for me, either cottage cheese or Greek yogurt. I literally just bounced between the two just to get like some sort of novelty. Yeah. I just came off. I kick of my Greek yogurts, which is a, the two that I eat two of them that have 20 grams each in it. I mix that with blueberries. That's a staple. And then when I get bored of that for a while, I switch over to cottage cheese with pineapple in it. And it's just like, it's an easy go-to and it tastes like a dessert. It's it's, it's, it tastes good. Cottage cheese used to be a bodybuilder staple in the eighties and early nineties. And then for some reason it kind of fell out of favor, but it's great macros, good source of protein, very high quality protein. It's great. Next we have potato. Potatoes. Potatoes are about as cheap as you can get. Yeah. And they're very nutrient dense, believe it or not. They're starchy carbohydrate, great source of complex carbohydrates. Potatoes like rice tastes like whatever you make them with. They're very versatile. Um, you can make, I mean, I learned how to make a baked potato in a microwave. I learned how to do this, uh, in my early twenties, one of my trainers, uh, I'm like, Oh, how are you getting your carbs? I got a potato. I'm like, it's not even cooked. You just wrapped it in a paper towel, put it in the microwave four minutes, turn it over another four minutes. And it was done, took off the skin and you had a baked potato. And I was like, wow, that's the easiest carbohydrate I ever saw. You put coals in there. Yeah. Say, say what? Yeah. Yeah. With a fork. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. That'll cook it better. But I love potatoes are great. Uh, for me personally, white rice is great for whatever reason. Uh, potatoes give me a better, I feel better in the gym when I ate a lot of potatoes. I'm not quite sure why this is just a personal thing. I can't tell you the science cause they're identical when it comes. Yeah. I like potatoes for that reason. For sure. I feel it. Same. So sweet potatoes are my favorite sweet potatoes and yams are my favorite because I can eat them with nothing on them. They're actually pretty good. They're just so good. Yeah. I can't do that with white potatoes. Yeah. White potatoes, you want a little butter and you, I feel like I need something on it. I can eat a sweet potato or a yam plain. I mean, they have enough natural flavor to them. Um, and as, as easily digestible as the rest. And so more, I would say, but again, I would, the three of those again, who the white, white potatoes, yellow potatoes, red potatoes, uh, sweet potatoes, yams, all great sources of carbohydrates, all easy. And then also similar to the rice mixes so well with eggs for breakfast and with other things. And so, you know, making it in bulk, portioning it out, and then it's really easy. And by the way, all, everything that we're saying here for the most part has a long shelf life. Uh, you can freeze the meats. You, the cottage cheese will last a little while. It's got a little bit of eggs will last a little while. Potatoes last a long time. White rice lasts a long time. Actually. Do you know that eggs from an actual chicken, if you go to like a farmer's market with that, do not get refrigerated and will last up. What do we look up up to two years? Oh, I, well, you have to store them a certain way to have to last a long time, but there is a way to do that. So like, for example, so Doug has his own chickens and so he will not put those in the refrigerator. He'll keep those out on the counter and they just last and they will last super long. Now to go two years, there is a, there is a thing that they say to store them to get two years out of them, but they'll last on. On your counter for a month. No problem. Wow. That's awesome. Yes. That's, that's a great way. Two to four weeks. Yeah. Two to four weeks. That's a long time. And that's, that's, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can, you can get them to be two years. Well, so I, we, we, your cousin was telling us about this. Yes. There's like a solution that you can put them in. Oh. That will allow you to have eggs. So apparently if you. Yeah, cause they get like 50 a day. Apparently. How do you deal with 50 a day? If you, if you don't wash them, they last a long time. Yeah. You can't wash them. You can't wash them. Cause the, the, the shell gets porous. Yes. Oh, interesting. Yes. You literally straight from the chicken and you just put them, put them out on the counter and you can leave them in the counter without even going to the refrigerator. That's cool. And that is the four weeks is like minimum. Wow. That's pretty cool. That's like minimum right there. All right. So next up is frozen vegetables, like frozen broccoli. Again, they last forever. You boil them up, cook them and you know, they don't offer a lot. I know there's people like vegetables are good for you. Listen, they're not that nutrient dense. Everybody talks about, but you know what they're good for is digestion. So I eat, I eat vegetables every day because they help me with my digestion. That's fiber. And also if you're on a cut, it helps give you more, you know, volume of your food, but you can buy frozen vegetables. They last a long time. You boil them up and you've got yourself some, you know, some vegetables you can eat and they're very inexpensive. Frozen broccoli is cheap. Yeah. This is something I'm kicking up in my diary. And I think I shared with you off air that, you know, I was kind of going back and break, looking at my macros and I hadn't been really paying attention to fiber. Normally I'm at high enough calories. I don't have to worry about it. My fiber has been really low. And so it got out of my way this last round to like, make sure I kick up like the broccoli, asparagus and the veggies and stuff like that. So it's such a good source for that. Did you see that Doug? We just pulled it up right now. Oh, you, you. 12 to 18 months. In a hydrated lime, calcium hydroxide. Yeah. So my, my cousin who, you know, Stephanie, right? She does that. Well, they get like 50 a day and I'm like, how, how do you get, you can't possibly give that away. Like they live out on a farm. I'm like, even if you were giving them to your neighbors and friends, 50 a day is like. So she just stores them. Yeah. She's like, oh yeah, no, we, we store them like this and they last. That's so cool. I know. Isn't that cool? That's very cool. All right. Next up, tuna fish. Tuna fish lasts a long time. It's in a can, tastes really good. High protein. This was a muscle building staple food. Again, one of those things that kind of fell out of favor for some reason. I don't hear anybody talk about it anymore. I think there was fears around mercury, which are way overstated. I just want to say right now, if you look at cultures that eat a lot of fish, like Japan, the amount of potential mercury they consume is so much higher than ours. And they don't have the issues that everybody says you're going to get with mercury. But tuna fish, very inexpensive, high quality protein, tastes good. And I used to eat them out of the can. I used to eat tuna fish all the time when I was a kid. I got to bring this back. It feels like cat food to me, but you know. You don't like fish. Yeah. This was like a staple for me for cutting and I haven't used it at all. And I used to crack it, drain it, and then just do two of them, throw them in a bowl, and then throw some relish and mustard. That's it. Relish and mustard on it. Zero calories. Yeah. And it's good and high protein. That's right. Yeah. I haven't done that this time though. Next is chicken thighs. You can buy these in bulk, freeze them, unfreeze what you need, meal prep with it. This is the most common. This and ground beef are the two most common meats. Grill it up. And chicken thighs are relatively lean, skinless. People are like, oh, chicken breasts. Chicken breasts are gross. Chicken thighs taste a little better and the calorie difference is not that much. And you season them up and they're just, they're great. Oh, they taste so much, especially if you have to, if you're prepping and you have to reheat. Because of the fat that is in the chicken thighs, it's enough fat that when you reheat it, it makes the meat taste good. Yep. Chicken breast cooked and then reheated. Oh, God. Reheat is dry city. Super dry. And so, yes, they make good, like Katrina makes these really good fresh chicken breast recipes that we have, like lime and stuff, or lemon and stuff in it. And it's like, it tastes really good fresh, but reheat that chicken breast, dries it out. You're washing it down with water. Yeah. And so, for meal prepping reasons, I don't ever recommend chicken breast. It's always chicken thighs. And then frozen berries. You can buy these now. Very inexpensive. And berries are very nutrient-dense and very high in fiber. It's a very fibrous fruit. And you buy the, the reason why I said frozen. Low glycemic, yeah. Yeah, and low glycemic index, so they're great for blood sugar. The reason why I said frozen is the shelf life. Think about berries. Fresh berries are great. Love fresh berries, but they don't last very long. Frozen berries last a long time. And they're pretty, I eat them right out the bag sometimes. You can make smoothies with them as well, but they're great. You know, so I saw somebody on Instagram that I wanted to try. Now, there was a product that was tied to it. I don't know. I don't think you even need the product to do this, but I don't know. Doug, maybe you try this. Do you ever put, like, your blueberries, like, in water? Like, I think if you store them in water, they will last longer than if you just. No idea. Sit in the. No idea. Yeah. I've never done that. No. Yeah, there's this, there's this container that I've seen. And, and you, and you, and it's designed like that. And I saw it on, I saw it online. And I've, I've, I've, my. Does that keep them from getting moldy? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the issue. It's like, no, you should not. There's no. In water. Because excess moisture. Because of quickly grow mold. Okay. Hmm. Best way. Keep them dry. Paper towels. Vinegar wash option. Okay. No idea. Yeah. Get them frozen. They make a thing. They make this. I forget what it was called. Costco sells big bags of frozen berries. Mm-hmm. For really inexpensive. Really, really good. That's the one, that, that, that's the one that it does drive me crazy how quickly they, they mold on me. That's right. And I've been, like, on, I've been on the hunt to figure this out. But frozen berries are good, too. Like, they're good to eat just like that. They taste like a. Like a treat. Well, it's super easy to blend them right away. Very easy to blend. And then lastly, an old school carbohydrate source. Long shelf life. Super cheap. Oatmeal. Oatmeal. Now, there's, there's, like, these biohackers out there talking about how bad oatmeal is for you. Oh, my God. Get, get out of here, dude. They go so crazy. They go so wild into, like, these weird places with food that they scare people away from eating otherwise healthy food. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with oatmeal. Nothing wrong with oatmeal. They're great food. People like to eat it in the morning. You could leave it overnight if you want to do, like, overnight oats. You buy instant, cook them in the morning, put some protein powder if you want a quick meal. But super inexpensive source of carbohydrates. Also a good source of fiber. And that was something that's part of why my fiber is low is that, and I just wasn't paying attention, is because my diet is pretty relatively similar to what it would be when I'm on a normal diet. But I'm not doing my oatmeal. And that's what made me notice it. I was just like, oh, wow, that's crazy. I didn't realize how much fiber. I was getting from my oatmeal every morning that I used to have that in the morning to start my day. And so there's a good source of that. And one of the things I always liked about having oatmeal, too, is it satiated me. It was filling. It does. Right? So if you have something like, let's say. It seems to last. Yes. If I had something like a protein shake or something, man, I feel like I'm like, I need to eat again right afterwards. But I feel like the oatmeal always satisfied me. And it was good for a couple hours, especially when you're dieting. When I was trying to eat, like, a lot of calories, when I was trying to bulk as a kid, my, thing was oatmeal, peanut butter, protein powder, and then I would add honey to it. And it was good. It tasted great. And the calories were high. I had a lot of protein. And it tasted great. The honey made it sweet. I feel like we used to call that GORP. Really? Yeah, I don't know why, but yeah. I think you're right. Look up GORP. What? G-O-R-P. I never even heard of that. I thought it was like a trail mix. Yeah, it was kind of like. You might be right. You'd make it for, yeah, I'm sure it was. Raisins, peanuts. Peanuts. Is that what that is? It's a trail mix. Granola, raisin. Peanuts. It's like a high calorie trail mix. So it's not the oatmeal version of that. Nuts, dried fruits, and sometimes grains. Is GORP an acronym? Is that what it is? It must be. Grains. I don't know. Raisins. I don't know what O is for. Yeah, I don't know what O is for, but GORP is something. Speaking of honey, I want to talk about this because Manuka honey is getting quite popular now. It is. I see it all over now. I didn't even know what it was until we started working with them, and now I see them everywhere. Yes. So the reason why Manuka honey is, by the way, you can only get real Manuka honey from, I believe, New Zealand. There's only one area that you can get Manuka honey, but it's really high in MGO. So MGO is a compound that is very antibacterial, antiviral. It's good for oral health. It's good for wound healing. You can look this up, everybody. It's also good for gut health. The amount of MGO in Manuka honey is many, many times higher than traditional honey. So regular honey has barely any MGO. Manuka honey has a lot higher MGO, and then Manukora, which is the company we work with that has Manuka, they have the highest MGO of any Manuka honey you can find. So it's super high in MGO, and it's been shown to be good for sore throats. It's been good shown to be good. Wound healing, too. Wound healing. That's crazy. Yes. You can look up Manuka honey for wound healing, where they use it as a dressing on a wound, and because of its antimicrobial benefits, the wound heals well. Did I hear there's a reason why the jar is dark like that? It keeps it from the MGO from getting destroyed by light. The UV kind of exposure. So the temperature. From the temperature there, right? Because remember when I told you guys, too, that somebody reached out to me about me stirring it in the honey, or stirring it in my hot tea? Oh, yeah. So probably the heat probably degrades. No, it's the light. It's the light. Yeah. Also. So he can do it, because so can I. They do that a lot with shelf products, yeah. Yes. So 850 plus MGO. That is crazy. That's higher than anything. I think they have a higher one yet. They have an even higher one? I do believe so. So just so you know, Manuka honeys will have like 250. 500, maybe, if you're lucky. Traditional honey has like barely any in it. They're 850 plus. This is like through the roof MGO. And so if you like to sweeten things, you can add it to it. It's good for gut health. Oh, 1,000. Oh, they have a 1,000 one for inflammation. Holy Toledo. What? Yeah, that is incredible. It's a super high. They have a 1,200 plus and a 1,400. What? I want that one. For immune system. Wow, that's really good. Yeah, my whole family. I could use that right now, man. Getting through this. That is. Oh, are you guys still sick? Wow, I didn't realize it had levels to this. Courtney's sick. We all got over it. Now she's got it? Is it bad? Now she has it. Yeah, I mean, she's struggling through it. Really? Yeah, it's just like. Fever? Yeah, it hit like a couple days later. It's always like. I thought for sure she had avoided it, thankfully. But it's just one of those things that just hits when you're finally tired. And it's like it catches up. It's the worst. It went through the whole family for you guys, huh? Yeah. Everybody got it. Oh, dude. You had it the worst. It was a gnarly one. You had it the worst, though, no? Did it feel like COVID? No, no. It didn't feel like COVID. And plus, what I had experienced from COVID was pretty weak. It was just like a weird high fever, and then it was gone. So I didn't get hit that hard with COVID. You got the worst. Oh, yeah, the first time I did. Yeah, the first time. I remember you were tired for like two weeks. Oh, yeah, no, it got me bad the first time. First time it was, I mean, I was. Hot, cold sweats and all the symptoms. I was really, really bad. But the second time, second and third time were like. Second time was so easy. Third time, I didn't even think I had anything. And the only reason why I tested was it was still during that time when everybody was all freaking out. Make sure it's cold, not COVID. Yeah, yeah. And Katrina's like, you know, you never complain about being cold. And I've seen you standing by the fireplace. And this was back when we lived over in Marina. And she's like, it's. It's not cold. I'm always way colder than you. And she's like, I bet you have COVID again. I'm like, I don't have. I'm like, I'm fine. Like it was. And so we kept getting this argument. I'm like, I'm going to take the test just to prove it wrong. But I took the test and I was. And I was like, oh, that's so weird. So, yeah, my third time was like. It barely touched me and my family. We got. We had a little bit. And then I was like, totally OK. But all the hype and fear around it was just like, oh, no, I got COVID. And I was fine. I mean, the first one was bad. You didn't get it bad. I mean, I got it pretty bad. I mean, it wiped me out for a day or two. Yeah, but you weren't like. Remember, Adam was fatigued for two weeks. It was one of the worst flus. After you were done. Yeah. And you were OK. You would be. You were like tired. I mean, even when I went through, I had severe migraines. Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember, you know, because we locked me in that downstairs master bedroom at that house. And I just stayed in there for like a week. And I remember just like freezing. And it was like 75, 80 degrees in the room. Freezing. Having like four blankets over me. And then I would fall asleep and then be drenched in sweat. Was that the sickest you've ever been? One of the times? Definitely top. Yeah, it was definitely a top three ever for sure. Sickest I ever got. I was 14. I was training judo. And I was training partially at San Jose State with their team because I was getting ready to do the high school nationals. So I was actually going to go compete in this big old tournament. And I think I was either over trained. I don't know. It's over. I was trained. I was training a lot. A lot of pressure. And I got exposed to someone had a fever. And it wiped me, dude. Just took over. I had a fever for a week. I had to drop out of the tournament. Wow. Because I lost 10 pounds. I was like for a week. It was the sickest I ever was. But I think it's because I was so over trained. It happened to me at like a double day for football like way back in the day. It was that same thing where it was like way overheated, way overexerted. And somebody had a fever and passed it right on to me. Was that your worst? Was that one of the worst? That was the worst time. Yeah. And I was just, I remember I was puking for like, three days straight i think yeah that's you know what now that i think about it the scariest time i got sick was when i was in thailand you guys remember that oh yeah because you're somewhere else oh well i was in thailand and i had food poisoning but i was hallucinating my fever was like 104 like as an adult 104 fever is ridiculous yeah and we were in thailand and jessica had to go after like the second or third day she had and i'm like i think i see spiders on the walls she had to go hop on a like a random stranger's motorcycle now we could take her to get some like some people back to the room who hooked me up with an iv i don't even know if they're real doctors i'm like okay now were you are you in this in a moment like that are you scared or you just feel awful or do you think do you remember i didn't have an opportunity to be scared yeah i feel like so bad i feel like you don't think you're scared like i think i think back to like like watching katrina go septic that's different like seeing someone else's work oh yeah so i mean like that like that is worse than any sickness i've ever had is to to feel helpless and then to see her at that level like that um like i can't i can't even fathom that was scary that was even close to like like i know i can't even when i had covid i was bad i wasn't scared i was like miserable i wasn't scared about it the worst of it was when they came and hooked me up with ivs they gave me something they gave me an anxiety attack like i could feel the medicine and it did something to me where for the first time in my life i'm laying in the bed and i wanted to rip everything off that they had me hooked up to yeah and jump off the balcony i had that feeling a reaction to the medication yeah so i'm like ripping the bed like this like trying to get through it i had that one time i was better i think i was at one point i was like kind of um allergic to codeine and didn't know it and it was on an empty stomach and like it had that same like my my stomach was in knots and just i was like doubled over and this was the time too where i had stepped on that nail got infected i had this like fleshing bacteria all the way up my leg and i couldn't even walk you know they had to cut it without any anesthetic or anything just to drain all this like disgusting stuff out and i was out i was 10 days in the hospital but yeah they'd come in every hour and put like a popsicle stick in the wound to get a sample it was so brutal how long that last you it was 10 days yeah that's a long time to be in the hospital yeah you know what's crazy as a parent that sucked as a parent imagine what your parents went through because like you're a kid it's like how old are you they felt so guilty too i was uh i was probably like 11 11 yeah oh they're probably because they're scared yeah my kid was in the hospital for 10 days i'd be freaking out well and they're so used to me like because i broke my arm like twice in the same year i didn't cry and i was just like you know i was i was kind of a crazy kid but uh yeah dude so anyways so they were like oh just do an epsom salt bath you know and then it's all gonna be fine and you know and so i was like i did the epsom salt bath it kind of healed but then it healed and it locked this virus or this flesh eating bacteria in my leg and so you know you could have lost your leg right yeah that's what the doctor told me he's like dude you literally if you waited one more day we would have had to cut the leg off honestly you would have died you know what that would that would really suck that would have been sad but it would have been cool too like if i knew you i met you and you had a peg leg yeah i definitely would have done like a wooden leg or something kind of cool kind of rad so you walk around that well i mean now dude i've never had a friend like that i mean i have one guy i have one buddy with you yeah i made a friend made a friend at church i don't even know he i don't know he i only have one ball pat he wasn't stupid hey i go to this true i go to this church function and we were talking about like challenges in our lives it's a it's a it's for man it's a men's group and he goes around he talks about when he lost his leg and i've seen this guy at church all the time i'm like you lost your leg how did it happen and he's like yeah he had he had shorts on and i first saw him and i was like oh my god he's like oh my god he's like oh my god he's the first time i'm like bro you walked so well i had no idea yeah i had a coach uh when i was my sophomore year for football and he he dressed it up very well i had no idea he had a had a prosthetic leg and would wrap it with like ace bandages and everything and then uh one time he goes to like demonstrate and to like kick the football and his leg flew no way i was like oh tell me that was the first that was the first time you found out first time i found out oh my god And of course he's laughing because he's like, oh my God, he told like we were dying, but like he set us up for that for sure. Like, but I, I was losing it. I was like, oh my God, imagine not knowing. And then see, it's like kick their leg and then they go flying. It was wild. Do you guys ever have crazy thoughts? That was a great prank though. I'll give you that. Oh, for students. That's what a great, great sport. Do you guys ever have thoughts like that? Like I told you about this weekend. I had this, I don't know why I get these thoughts. You lose your voice. I had thought I've had thoughts like this. What if I, what if I couldn't walk? What would I do? I think about what I would do. I think you're crazy that you, you would rather not be able to walk than to be able to not be able to talk. Yeah. So I thought like, what if I, so I was watching this sermon and the guy was talking about how we identify so strongly with our gifts or what we do and whatever. And it's like, that's not your identity, right? Your identity is rooted in, in, in your savior. And so I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, what would really like, if I woke up tomorrow, apparently like that would be terrible. If I woke up, what's the thing? What if I lost my voice? That would be devastating. That would be so hard for me. Yeah. And so much, so much that you said you would rather be maybe in a wheelchair. Maybe. Yeah. When you're not, I wouldn't, I couldn't come in here. I wouldn't be able to offer you guys anything. Who knows the difference? Hey, weeks go by, weeks go by. Hey, just to try and say something. Like, dude, you haven't said, you know, I noticed we had done like five of these things. You haven't said anything yet. I just make grunts. Adam would just talk for you. What are you trying to say right now? Justin just nodded his head. What about you, Doug? What would you, if you got you, you had to, would you, uh, I think for me, Justin said it, sight would be the worst. Sight would be tough. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be really rough. Especially if I had it and then to lose it. Yeah. Like, I feel like if I would, if you just lost one eye and you had to wear a patch, would you rather wear a patch or a glass eye patch on? I think a patch. And that wouldn't be bad. You still see it with one. But also patches kind of, you still get, I almost feel like wearing a patch is a little like, I don't know, kind of like tough. Yeah. Someone listening around is really pissed off. Oh yeah. Ah, screw you guys. Yeah. So sight, what would you, what would you, Doug? That's a good question. Probably sight. Yeah. Yeah. That would be tough. Way tough. That'd be hard. Yeah. Especially since you, like I said, if you hadn't ever seen, then I, then it'd be totally different. But you know, you know what the world, the colors, the sky, that was like, imagine too how appreciative you, you, I mean, I mean, think about that for a second. We, the, the beauty that we see. The beauty that we get to see every single day that we just take for granted. I know. And then to, to lose, to lose that would be, oh, but to not talk, you could still write. You can, you know what I'm saying? I wouldn't be able to come in here. I'd look at you guys. It'd be so sad. Like guys, I got nothing. Finally, Justin, I got nothing off of you. Justin, I can talk about sports. Sal's just journaling. Just journaling. What would you guys do with me? I can't do the tech. I'd be a waste of space. Like, I mean, Sal's done. I mean. He can't help us at all. If you couldn't talk, we would. What would I do, bro? I can't edit. I mean, you can still make workout videos. Yeah. That's not going to do anything for us, dude. We don't need you to talk. We'd have to do, we'd do a blowout sale or something. Well, I can do workouts with all of our guests that come in. Dude, do you guys ever watch these, these, these sign language ladies that have to do sign language for like these rap concerts and stuff, dude? Yes. It's just wrong, dude. Bro, it's just so wrong. It's so wrong. I get, I, I, and I can't not, I cannot look. I got to watch. Yeah. Every time I see one. Wasn't there a woman that was doing that? Was she doing it for the white house at one point? And it came out that she was not, she was just making things up. Was that the white house? I think it was at Mandela's. Yes. Nelson Mandela's funeral. His funeral. They were not, they didn't know sign language. They were just making things up. Yes. Somebody got to, got in. I did hear that. Dude, that's. Yeah. Yeah. That's gangster. That's gangster right there. You look like you're not going to get caught. Like it's on international TV. Yeah. But hey, who's going to tell? The deaf community, obviously. I mean, they're going to be like, no, this is a poser. They're up in arms. I mean, eventually they got caught or whatever, you know, they got, they got, they got caught for sure, but I can't help. But the, the concerts, man. Yeah, it was. It was a fake interpreter. Dude. And Nelson Mandela's. Wow. Yeah. The concerts just do you dirty. Well that, and like even comedy shows will happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the, the, the comedian like plays into it and then they're just like, suck, suck. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, oh, that's terrible. Don't do that to them. Yeah. I'm reading a book right now. I think I told you guys a little bit about it called you are not your, you're reading a book. Yeah. Yeah. Or Jessica's reading. No, no, no. And then she's telling you about it. Listen to me. She gives me a fifth note. She read it first. There's the truth. She recommended it. I'm listening. Actually, it was more like, it was more like ordered me to read it. Actually, I got in trouble. I tell you guys about this. You have a book report due. No, she wanted me to read this book and it was going to be helpful and this and that. And I had this really bad and I'm just terrible at this. I feel sorry. Sorry, honey. I do this too. So I'll say like, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. And I don't. Jessica, he does it to everybody. I know. It's not just you. It's not. I tell, I tell the read stuff all the time. That's why I don't even tell him anymore. So anyway, so anyway, so she's like, we got, we got in this argument. I remember what it was about. And she's like, let me see how far you've read in that book. And I'm like, oh, and I was like 10 minutes in and I was like, like weeks after I told her I was going to read some of it. And it only strengthened like the, the argument that she was already having. So it's terrible. So anyway, it's a good book though. It's actually a really good book. It's called you are not your brain. At least the first 10 pages. No, no, it's really good. I'm already, uh, I'm like an hour or so into it. I'm listening to it. Oh, okay. So essentially the guy who wrote it is he came up with the strategy. for people with OCD or addictions or bad habits. And he goes into talking about the difference between the mind and the brain. And the brain is your hardware, right? And your brain creates these patterns. And these patterns will tell you what your brain wants you to do, but it's not really what you want to do. And this is why we do things that we think about. Like, why do I keep doing that type of thing? Okay, so there's four steps that he talks about that help you with this. So step number one, when you have this urge or this craving or this whatever, hey, go on social media. Hey, go eat this thing I'm not supposed to eat, whatever. He says, number one, relabel it out loud and say, this is just a craving or this is just a bad habit or this is just my brain. You reframe it. It's my brain's old wiring. It's not me. It's not reality. Then you refocus immediately on a better action for a few minutes. So immediately try a better action. And then later that day, revalue it by noting how little the original message mattered once you didn't obey it. And what this does, what they show in the data is this, the neuroplasticity that happens through this process, these four steps, it literally rewires your brain. Now, as I'm reading through this, it's a lot of how I learn how to coach people for certain things. I can replace the bad habit with a good habit and then make sure later you tell yourself, oh, I was able to avoid that craving. Yeah, yeah. And so it's very similar to how I used to coach people, which is pretty interesting because it works. What's the name of the book? You Are Not Your Brain. Yeah. That sounds really interesting. Yeah, it is. It's very interesting. It reminds me. It reminds me of How Emotions Are Made, which is another great book. I remember you talking about that. And then Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, another great book. Both those are great books. It didn't, the guy, the Nobel Prize winner is the one that did the Thinking Fast and Slow. I can't think of his name off the top of my head right now. But he's the one who founded the research that talks about the neuroscience of how our brains operate between those two ways. And the natural is to go the thinking fast, which is the default, or what people call the monkey brain, right? Yeah. Like reactive, like, and because of patterns and things like that. But how you can rewire that by being able to switch to the more logical side that actually gets more critical thinking and goes on. So what it is, is that the executive functioning part of the brain, the frontal lobe, you receive the signals from that like a fraction of a second behind the reactive parts of the brain. And so the key is to activate the executive functioning and use the executive functioning part of the brain, which is kind of your higher thinking, to then go, oh, I'm going to rewire the other parts of your brain. And then through practice, that old wiring becomes weaker and weaker and weaker. And so this is why when you break a habit, it's hardest when you first break it. After a year of a broken habit, it tends to be much easier. You don't feel like you need to go back. How difficult do you think that is for the average person? Super hard. Yeah. All of it's super. You know what? Step number one is, I think the reason why it's so hard is when you, because I can think about myself with certain habits I've had in the past. If I'm really honest with myself, I don't want to stop. I shouldn't do this, but do I really want to stop it? Like if I had a magic wand and I could make it go away, like you talk to someone who drinks a lot of alcohol, sometimes they're like, I don't want to stop. Right. Yeah, because you do get some kind of numbing effect and there is some comfort to it, you know, in some of those things. Because to an effect, it works. This is also why it would be impossible to completely eradicate prejudice or racism also. Because if you have somebody who, the person you're talking to, the book How Emotions Are Made does a really good job of breaking this down. You make judgments. Your brain makes judgments. Exactly. Whether you like it or not. That's right. So let's say, you know, three different scenarios. I was walking down the street and, you know, three different times, a group of three to five individuals that were all wearing beanies jumped me or harassed me. So then therefore, anytime I see that, my brain automatically has this negative fear or full thing that's, and it takes a lot of discipline to tell yourself, no, it has nothing to do with those beanies. It's an isolated incident. Right. But the reality is that your brain has already decided that. And then to retrain that and the discipline to want to retrain that, then also be self-aware enough to know that it's already been wired in that way. Have you guys done it? Which is also why it's like, and then to think from a, you know, global everybody being able to do that, it's like so crazy when we have these initiatives of like, we're going to erase all prejudice and erase it and racism. It's like, no, we're not like you. You're not going to convince a person who has had two or three or four multiple scenarios with a type of any insert, any person that that person is not naturally going to have that. That person will have to have gone and done the work. Been one self-aware enough to know that and smart enough to know that that's even what's happening to their brain. There's also sometimes like utility. Like I noticed this, we go online, we go on walks every day and every once in a while. So, you know, we were our studios in downtown San Jose and halfway through the day, we do this walk where we go. I don't know how many blocks we walk. It's not very far, but we do it to get some sunshine because we're locked in the studio and it helps, helps with the following podcast that we're going to do. But anyway, every once in a while we're walking and there'll be school will come out and it's like, I think it's a high school and you'll see like a girl walking home from school. And sometimes we turn the corner and she's walking towards us on the same sidewalk. Now you got four kind of bigger dudes walking on the sidewalk and I can tell immediately that the girl's a little bit like, uh, and she's embarrassed. Do I walk across the street? I mean, what do we always do? We always walk off on the street and we give her the sidewalk. Right. But because you anticipate, that's right. And now she, what if she said to her, it's like, I shouldn't be like that. Like, I don't know. You should, because the odds, there's higher odds that a dude is going to do something where a bunch of big guys, if my daughter was walking, I would tell her. Right, right. Better safe than sorry type of deal. I get it. Still got to play the odds. But that's the, that's her automatic. I've seen it actually happen today. We were walking. It was a young girl walking and we all moved to the street so she could, but you could tell they're kind of like, uh-oh, what do I, what do I do now? Yeah, yeah. You know, three big dudes. No, no, no. Totally. Crazy. Crazy stuff. Anyway, I want to talk about the, just the two-step parasite cleanse that people need to do if they're trying to get rid of parasites in their body. There's two steps that I wanted to highlight. And the reason why I'm bringing this up, so Organifi's parasite cleanse is crushing. It's like, it's like becoming one of their top sellers. And I know why it's doing so well. The reason why it's doing so well is the ingredients in their parasite cleanse are the ones that have been shown in the data to actually have efficacy. But there's two parts that they address. And when people try to get rid of parasites out of the body, which, which a lot of people have them, everybody, even if you live in a modern Western society and it's clean, if you've never, It's a lot more prevalent than you'd think. It is. And if you've never treated yourself for parasites and you do things like eat sushi, raw vegetables, you know, that kind of stuff, you have kids, pets, you know, after 10, 15 years, the odds are you might have one or two and they can cause all kinds of issues like skin issues, digestive issues, hormone issues. They can cause, you know, autoimmune type issues, fatigue. Anyway, when you treat yourself for parasites, you want to take something that kills a parasite, but then you also want to take something that binds to the parasite and the toxins that gets rid of it. You want both. So kills a parasite and then something that binds and takes it out. And so Organifi, the reason why it's crushing, it's got both. It's got the side that kills and then it's got the side that binds everything to get it out of your system to get everything out, avoid really strong Herxheimer effect, which is that, you know, eye-off effect. because of that, do you still recommend running two cycles because of the eggs and how resilient they can be? I think it's smart to run it once, wait two weeks and run it again and then wait another nine months or so to do a cycle again if you want to try. So even with the fact that it does that? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Because I know I've heard you say that before. Yeah, because eggs are really hard to get rid of. They're really, really hard to get rid of. There's a lot of biofilm they create too to kind of protect themselves. And so you'll kill the parasites and the eggs hatch two weeks later. Yeah. And now you've got parasites again. So it's a good idea to treat, wait a couple weeks and then, you know, treat again and, you know, see what's going on. Anyway, you know what else I saw on Facebook this morning? So you guys see all the stuff. We don't have to get into detail with it or go too deep, but you guys see what's happening in Europe, like in France with all the riots. Yeah, I've been kind of not paying attention. Not a lot, I mean either, and we don't have to get too far into it, but there's a lot of like riots and, you know, a lot of looting and just kind of crazy stuff. Yeah. And so because I, lots of protests. So that came up on my feed. So I clicked on one, watched it, and then on my feed came up. Do you guys remember, you guys remember the Rodney King riots in LA? Yeah. So for people who don't remember, this was in the 90s. It's crazy. Guy gets beat like within an inch of his life by the police, gets filmed. They go to court, the cops get off, and this starts huge riots all over Los Angeles. And it was terrible looting, billions of dollars damage. It was like horrible. Like it was worse than the George Floyd's. It was like really, really bad. Oh, yeah, yeah. There were, this clip I saw was from, do you guys remember the rooftop Koreans? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you guys remember these guys? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Koreatown. They were defending their stores. So Koreatown got hit really hard by looting. So I looked up and got more details and the cops were told to stand down. So you had all these businesses of all these immigrant, you know, Koreans who opened, started businesses there. They're like trying to live the American dream and people are setting their stores on fire, stealing everything and they call the cops and cops are like, sorry, we can't come in. So a bunch of them got together, had their firearms together and they organized and they got on the rooftops and they said, you're getting near my business, I'm going to shoot you. And you can look this up. I'm not familiar with this literally Google rooftop Koreans, 1992, and you see pictures of these dudes with rifles and stuff fighting people off and they protected they were they were some of the only stores that didn't get looted yes yeah yes dude they the ones that got protected by these by these uh you know korean groups didn't get touched and there were gunfights i didn't know that did you guys know that yeah i didn't know i didn't know what happened as a result of that i just knew it was a good deterrent they would do like a war like a warning shot and people would fire back and they have like these little gun battles and then people would like this is too much we're not going to go loot their store yeah crazy it got gnarly it's crazy but it makes me as an american it's like uh you know there's a lot of controversy around the second amendment i'm a huge i'm a huge proponent the second amendment and it's like when things break down and we've seen this before law enforcement oftentimes isn't going to do anything and you're not going to get there you know it's like second amendment well even with i mean the whole realization i had because of the fires that we had and we had to evacuate and you know realizing to like there's protocol in there like at a certain point they're just like we're just going to let it burn through your whole um like valley like we're just going to let it just burn itself out and it's like you know it took a bunch of volunteers to literally you know stay there stand up to it like fight the fire and they put it out so like they save like hundreds of houses in my area and it's like there there's something to that in that like small community where you all band together so like we can't lose that on top of like you know worrying about the entire country no i didn't even what is the writing over there about right now i have no idea uh that's a good question i don't look you know i made it uh i did this thing with myself where i just don't get too into details of crazy things happening around the world because i know you should get people like oh you need to stay informed but it's just really and i have no impact but that's important yeah yeah so uh the result of several overlapping grievances okay anti-government movement so it started as a localized student strikes in september and it's mushroomed into nationwide protesting culminating in arson looting clashes with police but why why are they protesting just anti-government just total anarchy on unfilled teaching positions crumbling school buildings overcrowded classrooms and systemic inequality it it's so crazy dude it's it's hard to like look at global events and things and not and actually get the real facts true you know of what actually happened it's so many like of these like independent journalists and people that i've you know read you know some of their stuff on substack and all it's like it's the opposite of what like is accepted as news and you're just like it's just tough to for me to believe most of what's going on that's there's not some manipulative agenda that it's like we want you to see this because of whatever that's why i don't pay attention yeah i'm just like i'm out i feel like you're getting fed what they want you to get fed so it's just like you know what sucks about stuff like this just us talking about it some people are gonna be so mad that you guys aren't covering it in detail and whatever and then there's gonna be a lot of people are gonna be like start your own then there'll be people that are there that are like oh yeah it's nothing like what they're reporting so yeah whatever check it out right now if you buy any maps 15 program you can get any of the following maps programs for free so buy one get one free here they are maps 15 minutes map symmetry map strong maps power lift maps performance maps muscle mommy and maps 40 plus let's buy one get one free at maps 15 bogo.com back to the show first question is from sarah r39 are chin-ups and neutral grip pull-ups good regression exercises if pull-ups are the goal okay so the the idea is to do a variation that feels easier to you uh so that you can move to the harder variation and i would say yes uh but there are other regressions that you would probably go to first uh a weight assisted uh chin-up or assisted with um you know bands uh pull-downs body rows are really good but it is true like i know i can i can pull more neutral grip than i can yeah with a probably for sure yeah i prefer it and so that's what i tend to work out with uh and i would say if i was really focusing on that pronated grip that the neutral grip would be where i would end up going no i think it's i think this is i think it's a great idea um again i think to your point if you have access to like a uh you know weighted or supported machine to do just try and your goal is to just get good chin-ups but i don't think it's a a terrible alternative to do neutral uh neutral grip or reverse grip pull-ups you're getting great back work still yeah it's interesting that people like uh like supinated grip pull-ups i was never really that good at them because the real hard supination tends to hurt my wrist a little bit but yeah i mean i know people are typically it's a stronger position how flexible you are in those positions i would say you're way better yeah yeah supinated is probably well right now i've dealt with the what i got going on with my bicep impacted so not right now but typically that's my strongest position then neutral would be my second strongest position next question is from alexander perkus should i stay away from squats and deadlifts if i have minor scoliosis no you just want to be careful so here's why you don't stay away from squats and deadlifts because you're going to be doing those movements in life yeah you need strength support and movements anyway we just had a live caller yes in her how old was she she's in her 60s with scoliosis and shredded and jacked well i brought this up in that episode that she squats and deadlifts one of the world's best deadlifters of all time had really bad scoliosis now the thing is you're going to get a lot of deadlifts you're going to get compensations and this is where people get confused because they're like well maybe i shouldn't but you need those compensations because you're going to use them it's helpful yeah right your body does that automatically to actually be able to perform those movements and so but to your point too like to incorporate in some uh unilateral type movements would be beneficial to address that at least to to help kind of like beef up some stability there totally next question is from chelsea welsey should abs be worked at every lift what are some good ab exercises to add on to do at home no yeah there's this myth like you got to train your abs every day or something that still persists a lot of people it does this is i mean i i this is like this is a good one to talk about we actually haven't done this in a long time or addressed this type of a question calves can fall under this category too um but they should be treated the same way if you're trying to build your back or your chest and recovery and training them heavy frequency volume same yeah same same concept and and i think the mistake made with abs and calves is this idea of high volume high reps every single day is what's going to build them and grow them not at all in fact in fact most people already do that if they do train them what most people are missing in their ab and routine is heavy loaded five reps and if you do that you want to rest and recover you don't want to run that back every single day you'll be too sore the best ab building exercise one of the things that i learned was decline have waited now you have to do it right right so i'm not pulling up work your way up i'm rolling myself up but you know with a plate on my chest low reps seven reps eight reps and it just built it's a doozy yeah it built bricks on me so those are great you want something that flexes you something that you know rotates your body for the obliques but stabilizing is probably the most important thing um and be able to counter rotation is also really important so good old-fashioned planks but tuck your tailbone that's a great exercise to do at home good old-fashioned perfect sit-ups is a good one uh for flexion reverse crunches yeah reverse crunches those are great these are all good exercises that really don't require any equipment next question is from chase cartez 13 how important is flexibility in all planes i've played hockey all of my life so i'm exceptionally flexible laterally but still can't touch my toes should i prioritize flexibility to improve my range of motion or doesn't it really matter flexibility is awesome so long as you have connection and strength in that range of motion right so if you're really flexible but you're unstable uh or you don't have strength you actually increase you dramatically increase your risk of injury yeah it's more risky at that point very risky like some of the highest injury rates are with people who are who have hyper mobility so hyper mobility is where these you know this and this is more of a genetic thing but they have this like really crazy flexibility but they don't have a lot of strength and they don't have a lot of strength and so their body's kind of like gumby and they hurt themselves working out all the time training people with hyper mobility was such a challenge for me as a trainer the first client ever had with that it was like this it was like a a puzzle i had to figure out what to do and what i ended up doing which is the what you would do with someone like this is i shortened all of her ranges of motion my i was trying to make her tighter yeah uh and and it actually helped quite a bit but when i trained her in the range of motion she could train in she was like hurting herself well these limitations here are the limitations of hyper mobility and i think that's what i'm trying to you know expressing is was beneficial for the sport that's right official for generating force uh and so if your priorities have changed with that and like all of a sudden now like you know life looks totally different from you and you're trying to gain access to new ranges it's it's a bit of a gradual process to to yes getting flexible in that position but then working and mobilizing and and and really connecting so that way you can recruit uh from that position so i would just kind of like if if really think about it like if that's something that's like you know important to you um you know you can work on it and you can get strong in that range of motion it just takes uh quite a bit of time also keep in mind this like touching your toes as a as a benchmark is a bit arbitrary It's not like your morphology can make the difference with this too. Like if you have shorter quad length and long arms, you could probably wrap your fingers around your toes. If you have longer femurs and short arms, good luck. You're going to need really flexible hamstrings to get all the way down there. So your morphology has something to do with this too. So it's like, do you have really tight hamstrings or are you just like the way you're built? You know, it's really good for this. If you want more range of motion in your hamstrings that you have access to with strength, really light Romanian deadlifts. So light, but really challenged the range of motion, but perfect form, right? I mean, I taught the Jefferson curl on the Instagram page. Did you really? Yeah. Did you get a bunch of hate? A lot of people have no idea what a Jefferson curl is. So I was actually addressing people that made a video on the Jefferson curl being bad and dangerous. And the video that I made was like, this absolutely can be a great exercise. And I regressed it to starting, starting with body weight and creating an isometric at the bottom. And then I was holding like a 10 pound weight, really light and curling my body up. And so, I mean, you want to get to the place where you can touch your toes, practice a Jefferson curl. And the irony is the Jefferson curl was used by Greco-Roman wrestlers a lot. They would do it a Zurcher style. They'd hold the barbell and the crook of their elbow and they would roll in a way that you, if people don't know that you look at them, you're going to hurt your back. Oh, your back's done. But Romanian deadlifts for hamstrings. And you grab a lightweight, challenge the range of motion. And what you'll do is you get, you get strong in that length and range of motion and you'll increase your range of motion at the same time. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. 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