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2961: 5 Things Research Gets Wrong About Building Muscle

from Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth ·

99m 12s

2961: 5 Things Research Gets Wrong About Building Muscle

The podcast critiques the limitations of fitness studies, arguing that their short duration, small samples, and narrow demographics (college-aged males) make their findings less applicable to real-world, long-term training. The hosts emphasize that overtraining, high volume, and extreme intensity are unsustainable and counterproductive for most people, especially as they age. Instead, sustainable consistency, enjoyment, and smart progression—like using supersets or periodization—are more effective for long-term muscle growth. Real-life experience shows that recovery, proper intensity, and mental well-being matter more than strict adherence to study-based protocols. The hosts also highlight broader life lessons: the value of connection in relationships, the dangers of obsession in fitness, and the importance of balance. They reference trends like the "sex recession" and a surprising statistic on assisted suicide in Canada to underscore how societal norms and personal values shape health and well-being. Ultimately, the message is clear: fitness success comes not from rigid study protocols, but from a balanced, enjoyable, and long-term approach to health.

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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history, approaching over half a billion downloads. This is MindPump. In today's episode, we had callers call in, ask us questions about their health and fitness. We got to help them live on air. This was after the intro, though. So the intro is about 52 minutes long. Now, in the intro, we talk about muscle growth and fat loss and diet. We talk about current events in family life. It's always fun. Look, if you want to be on an episode like this, submit your question to MPLifeCaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Kion. So Kion makes high-quality supplements for muscle building, fat loss, and athletic performance. Today, we talked about their essential amino acid supplement. Using these, especially when you're cutting, will help you preserve muscle. Now, using when you're trying to build muscle and, essentially, when you're cutting, will help you preserve muscle. Now, surplus will help you build even more muscle. They're inexpensive and very effective. And Kion's amino acids have the right amount of leucine that the studies show make a big difference. Go try them out. Go to GetKion.com. That's G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com slash MindPump. That link will get you 20% off. We also have a brand new workout program, MAPS Abs and Butt. Now, this is a full-body workout program, but the emphasis is on developing your abs and getting a nice round butt. Because it's a new program, it's 40% off, and if you get it right now, I will throw in Muscle Mommy 15 or Muscle Mommy. It's another workout program. Plus, I'll throw in a diet guide. Go to MAPSAbsandButt.com and use the code LAUNCH for the discount and the free stuff. Back to the show. T-shirt time! And it's t-shirt time! Aw, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. Two winners this week. One for Apple Podcasts, one for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winner is the Life Changer. And for Facebook, we have J. Jacob Whitaker. Both of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. A huge meta-analysis of many, many studies. Over 30,000 participants across all the studies has just told us all the rules for hypertrophy, for muscle growth. This is what makes your muscles grow. Here's the deal. They're wrong. I'm serious. They're wrong. We're going to break it down right now. Why they're wrong and what you could do to get your body to respond. Let's get to it. Wait a second. Tell me in here. Studies? This is new? So yeah, huge, huge meta-analysis. First off, I want to say this first. By the way, that's supposed to be one of the best. Yeah. So a meta-analysis is when they take lots of studies and study the studies and try to find commonalities, which those are like the gold standard, right, of studies. And I want to say this. I think studies on fitness are super valuable. I'm definitely not one of those guys that say, who cares what the study says type of deal. They're super, super valuable. But that being said, we have to understand the context. We have to understand how, how this applies and how it may apply to the average person that's listening right now. And that makes a big difference. And so first off, let me just kind of explain what these studies look like. The vast majority of studies on strength training, the vast majority, including the ones that were in this study right here, are typically between, on average, about 12 weeks long, usually about eight weeks long. Okay. So you're looking at studies that are over two to three months on average. Because that's how long these studies are done for. You're also looking at an average amount of participants in the study looking like around between 10 to 20. So about 10 to 20 people are in these studies. Now, some of them have more people, but on average, most of these studies that are, that were considered for this meta-analysis or that are generally, you know, peer-reviewed and people say are good. Now, would you consider that a lot or a wide variety? No. Okay. As I say, I wouldn't. No. And so we'll get to that. So you're looking at typically 10, sometimes 20 people per study. The average age in the study is always less than 50, but typically you're looking at college-aged males. So I just want to paint the picture. Right. Eight to 12 weeks long, 10 to 20 people, typically dudes that are college age. Sometimes you'll have athletic women in there as well. So that's what we're looking at when we're looking at these studies. And so you got to be very careful at taking what a study says and then applying it to yourself. When you're, let's say middle-aged, you've got normal life, and you're going to plan on working out for longer than eight weeks or 12 weeks. Like you're not just training for a couple months. You're like, listen, I want to be able to do this for the rest of my life. You've got a lot more variables. That's right. Like way more variables. And so this is why it's so important to look at a study, but also consider experience. So what you would do is you would talk to coaches and trainers that have trained people for a decade or two decades or longer. And then you would talk to coaches and then cross, you know, put them together and say, okay, does this apply? Have you noticed this when you train regular people? And what you're going to hear almost every time is it depends. It really does depend. So I'm going to go through some of the stuff that the study said is like, this is what these studies say. And then I'm going to counter why this is actually not true for most people. So we'll start with the first one, which is how much volume is ideal for hypertrophy. Okay. I know this one's BS. Yeah. So volume, they typically count this as sets. So how many sets of the exercises that you're doing? Okay. And what the studies show is around 10 sets per week is the minimum. Okay. So you got to do at least 10 sets total per body part per week to really start to see some muscle growth. Uh, and then on average, the best seems to be about 15 to 20 sets total per body part per week. I'm going to, I'm going to say this right now. Okay. And every trainer who's trained people for more than five years, we'll tell you this. You take a lot, you take nine out of 10 people, you apply 15 to 20 sets per body part per week on that person. They will be fried within three months. Yes. Right. Overtrained. Nothing will happen. They'll start to hurt themselves. It just doesn't work. So why then, and even if they can tolerate it, they'll see minimal to no results because there might be somebody who's listening right now. Why train that? I'm fine. Yeah. You're probably not seeing results. You're tolerating. You're probably been plateaued for a really long time too. So it's like, there's, there's also that there's this idea that because I can tolerate and I can do it. Oh, I'm I fall in this study category. That's right. So now why would this be true in a study? Well, if I take, uh, two groups of college aged males for eight weeks, okay. So it's two months. That's it. And I take this group over here and I go, we're doing 10 sets per body part per week. And you guys are doing 20 sets per body part per week. I'm probably going to see more muscle growth growth in the 20 sets over the eight week period, stretch it out and you'll start to see problems even with the college aged males. And this is where it becomes a problem is that this, this, this, the short, uh, the, the short duration and the type of people that were, you know, that we're applying this to, but the average person, everybody, listen, I've been working out for years, consistent. I'm also on hormone replacement therapy. So I've got that going for me. If I did 20 sets per body part per week consistently, uh, I could, I could probably do this for about a month or so, but then I'll start to notice, uh, overtraining symptoms. I can't get away with this for very long. Yes. I'm 47. Uh, but again, hormone replacement therapy, I've been doing this for years. Like it's just too much, even lack of sleep and like extra bits of responsibility, which adds in stress to the everyday lifestyle, like demands. It's like, you know, to add that kind of volume on top of that, it's just, it doesn't do well. Anybody who is in, uh, their mid thirties and above can all relate to that. Remembering what it was like to be a college age, you know, male or female of being, I mean, I just remember not sleeping, working all day, getting right back up the next day, feeling fine. Yeah. I mean, that never happens. Yeah. No, get up and rebound there. I mean, and, and we can, we can, we tease each other and talk about being, getting older, but it's like, it's, it's, it's a part of life. Like at some point you cross over this, this point where, uh, you, you have to take getting ready for bed seriously. You have to do that that late and then get up that early in the morning, two days in a row. Like you just can't do that stuff anymore. Also, I just want to say this too, if you are in that age group, uh, and you're like, well, cool, I'll just keep, you know, doing tons and tons of volume. It actually works better for most of you as well. When you cut things down, like I had this kid who just, I met his dad at church, uh, and his dad's like, Hey, let me hire you to, to help my kid. And I said, no, no, I'll talk to him for free. Great kid. So he came over, we sat down and went over his routine. He was doing a five day split, typical, you know, you know, muscle building split type of deal. And so I have him trained full body three days a week. I'm having him go to bed at the same time every night, wake up at the same time. And I'm also having him, uh, not skip breakfast. So like three important things. And he's like, you really think this is going to work? I'm like, yeah. Okay. In one month, those are big moves in one month. He's added 20 pounds to, to most of his big lifts. This guy's already been working out for him in one month. And in fact, I saw him recently and he's like, Oh, I don't know if I'm doing enough. And I'm like, well, tell me what your strength gains are like. And he's like, well, I'm adding some weight. I said, how much? He's I'm like, "It's working, dude." i know it's good all right here's what the study also showed that light weight and high reps uh or lower or or heavy weight and lower reps both build the same amount of muscle so long as the intensity is high well yeah but this is the problem with the 8 to 12 week thing yeah i've poked holes in this forever about like uh this is that that including with the rep range thing all these all fall in the same category that novelty trumps all of this so if somebody is the reason why i'd be saying if you take one group that does uh all all lightweight one group that's heavy for only eight weeks they're both going to see this these great results you flip flop those groups they're going to see great results again too because it's a novel stimulus and so therefore our conclusion is it's pretty much the same well so there's that but here's a bigger one for me is that lightweight at a high intensity uh fatigue plays a bigger role in your ability to complete the set it's very close to endurance yeah so so here's what i mean okay so there's certain exercises yeah you could go you know 18 reps close to failure and you'll be all right like curls tricep extensions laterals like that kind of stuff but you start doing the big gross motor movements uh and getting close to failure at 18 reps with a deadlift or a squat you're fried yeah you're dead dude try doing taxing try doing three more sets of that it's not going to happen you know three sets of six reps close to failure it's also hard but it's not going to destroy you and so fatigue plays a bigger role and so in practice in real life when we do this especially over over time uh the heavy weight uh tends to do better because of the fatigue factor yeah that tends to get in the way especially with the big compound lifts um here's the next one uh you want to build muscle it needs to be close to failure period end of story now this is it is important to train intensely but it's also important over long periods of time to train hard and to train hard and to train hard and to train hard and to train to work out show up much lower yeah intensity like you're not in other words you're not wasting your time but not training almost a failure that's that's what this uh message this is the that's the message this sends across well so it's interesting that there's controversy around this when we see when we have great examples of the people that track and are the most consistent which are like your your power lifters and your olympic lifters and they don't train that well no i remember how you can't sustain that you know i remember i still the reason why i feel so strongly about that or i think it's such an important topic is that i still remember being a trainer i'd already been a trainer for quite some time and i hadn't really met any power lifters or olympic lifters i didn't know any but like on a serious level that were like competing um at that time uh and then i had a trainer and then i remember watching him train in his programming and i was like baffled by like how easy he was going all the time i just assumed that oh this is the highest level of lifter if he's lifting the most weight and like i assume that he because and this this is time where i'm also bought into the these types of studies that like intensity is everything training to failure is the way to train like i'm training this way and thinking that i could go do more right thinking that and then meeting somebody far stronger than i am right and i at higher level thought for sure he must be training it so intense all the time it was like the complete opposite completely blew my mind yeah like it was and so we have that example of the strongest people that do not use intensity like that well for me what's even more important because you're right in fact the data in that study did show that when it comes to strength and power uh training close to failure isn't always necessary so they at least did show that and now my argument with that is getting stronger uh and being able to perform better eventually over time will translate to more muscle as well yeah well so that there's that but here's the other one is like when i read this if i'm some kid reading this or some person reading this getting into fitness what this says to me is if i'm not training close to failure and my goal is to build muscle i'm wasting my time that's exactly how i read it that's right that's what i mean by that it's like i read it that way that if i'm but yeah i like i said here's an example of looking at this very muscular strong dude who i was working with who was training half as intense as i was this is like he's more muscular and more strong than than i am yeah i'm training way more intensely this doesn't make sense to me yeah well these studies are playing a short game and so yeah you can kind of show like good result when you get close to failure in that regard but you got to really draw this out for a long period of time like you can't sustain that kind of intensity and be able to recover and progress you know like you really have to be dialed and manage that appropriately so you can keep maximizing your next workout yeah so the real question is uh if you're reading this these this meta analysis you're like okay i'm trying to build muscle this says that to build muscle i have to train within one or two reps you know close to failure uh does that mean then i'm tired or i'm feeling a little sore so going to the gym and working at like 50 percent is a waste of time is it better for me to go to the gym go through the motions at 50 percent or is it better to skip and the truth is oftentimes it's better to go and train lighter well you actually get better results or a third option which is the dumb option i always chose which is push through it or just keep going yeah because there's the third option there that i think a lot of us probably chose was either do i skip well no that's terrible i'm gonna go backwards you know should i go through 50 percent well that's a good option i'm gonna go backwards you know i'm gonna go backwards that's a waste of time that's a waste of time because that doesn't do any hypertrophy i got i'm trying to build muscle here that's right so i'm just gonna gonna push through yeah and and failure is just gonna overcome it yeah i'm just gonna try and overcome like and which is as as bad as it's the worst of probably the three that's right and probably right it's probably the worst of the three yeah it's probably the worst of the three right three choices and that's the one you choose to do most of the time if you're this young ambitious kid who wants to build muscle and are willing to do whatever it takes to do that 100 all right next is that the studies show that frequency in other words training a body part more often throughout the week uh is not gonna help with hypertrophy so long as all of as as the volume is perfectly controlled for so that's the part that we need to pay attention to because we know in real life that's not what it never happened so here's what they do in studies we had previous studies that showed that training a body part uh you know three days a week uh was better than training it twice a week it was better than once a week but then they said oh let's control the volume exactly the same let's make sure they do the exact same sets the exact same weight the exact same exercises and then what they find is that uh it doesn't build more muscle well in the real life when you divide up your sets over three workouts you end up doing more volume because you're stronger and so this this the study tries to ends up controlling something that in real life never ends up being controlled because if i'm gonna do and i'll use a stupid example okay going to do 15 sets of squats for the week for my legs if i did 15 sets in one workout yeah the last 10 are worthless the weight and the reps that i'm going to do we're going to look very different than if i did five sets three times that week yeah yeah so so obviously the the volume isn't controlled because in real world in real life i'm more fresh each time not as fatigued i can go heavier so of course uh it's going to end up add yeah and that's why frequency ends up doing so well when it comes to building muscle this is why when i would train clients this way it would be more effective is because not in the real world i'm not perfectly controlling uh the the volume makes no sense not to mention the other argument that we make for this all the time which is that three times a week means more practice at a lift that's right lifting is a skill getting better at that skill allows you to reap more from that that skill too there's also this saying right with your energy and you guys have heard you've heard practice makes perfect but then you've also heard this one perfect practice makes perfect have you heard that before okay practicing a lift when you're super fatigued is practicing bad technique it just is yeah you do 15 sets of squats in one day i'm gonna tell you right now by set eight your form is starting to look crappy i wish i like like that's such my my motto like as a coach but like i wish i was like that when i was an athlete yeah nobody really you know figured that out when i was when i was training but that would have been huge totally and then lastly uh the studies said or the meta analysis says that periodization changes your body weight and your body weight changes your body range you rep ranges and intensity really doesn't make a difference for hypertrophy and i'm going to tell you something really yeah that's even with that yeah because it's they're 12 weeks long yeah yeah periodization doesn't make a difference when you're doing it for 12 weeks it doesn't make a difference when you're doing it for you know maybe 12 20 weeks but over a year two years three years it makes a big difference it starts to make a really big difference and the problem is studies are limited so this is why they're never perfect you can only have so many people in there you can only have so many people in there and you can only have so many people in there and you can only have control of uh so well and you can only do it for so long because they're expensive yeah so it's like what are we gonna do we're gonna get a hundred people study different ways of strength training over five years that would cost billions of dollars you'd never be able to do that yeah so periodization is applied in every sport because we know it prevents injury and we know it produces better results we know this so that's why once this study comes out i'm like but that's not true it's just it just doesn't work i'm actually surprised though still because i definitely wouldn't be surprised if i were you know if i were you know if i were you know if i were you if it was six to eight weeks because it's just not enough time but 12 weeks in at least in my experience i i've i can see it but you've been training for longer than 12 weeks yeah it's still not a 12-week study for you because you've been doing it for years and years uh and we're also talking about hypertrophy which takes a while uh so periodization for strength and performance in a 12-week study that's a good point yeah that's a good point yeah but when it comes to hypertrophy which takes a long time you gotta be patient you're not gonna see much in 20 weeks with something like that but that's true if you plan on working out for longer than that it makes a huge difference makes it makes a really big difference speaking of working out um i was uh this was last week it was really occurring to me um the value of supersets so supersets are for people listening is when you do two exercises back to back you do one then you move to another exercise introduces to me and kill me yeah well there's different ways to do supersets okay uh one way just generally the general two ways to do supersets is you do the same body part for two exercises another way to do supersets is to do two different body parts uh with two different exercises a lot of people like to do the same body part the problem with that is fatigue sets in becomes a little bit more endurance uh it's high intensity is it really better maybe maybe not but when you do different body part supersets especially antagonistic body parts it's a great way so long as you've got decent fitness it's a great way to save time yeah great so if i'm today i'm going to go hit chest and back and i'm going to do you know five sets of each if i could go straight from chest straight to back and each body part doesn't affect yeah you don't lose you don't lose a lot of strength i don't get fatigued yeah yeah because a little muscle endurance and kicks in because obviously you're you're constantly working without rest but it's almost as good as me yeah resting yeah yeah in between agree that's thing that's thing so important but i'm like can you do that with supersets totally if it's i mean i've made this case on the podcast for a long time if you've listened long enough uh i've always advocated for this is how i i i don't program that type of stuff i allow life to get happen and then it happens and then it happens yeah and then it's so beautiful because it's like oh it's been a while since i've done this this is gonna be a great workout instead of having the attitude of like oh i only got 20 minutes to get this in i don't have enough time to get my full 50 minute workout that i wanted to do it's like oh you know what i'll do is i'll superset everything and i'll get out of here in in 20 minutes and i'm gonna and you know what i haven't done that in so long it's gonna shock my body it's gonna be great it's gonna be different you know it's another thing we don't consider while we do uh when we were trainers this was actually one of the number one considerations as trainers but a lot of people don't consider or at least studies don't is just the fact that you enjoy it like oh it doesn't give you better results yeah but did you have fun way more fun let's go yeah that's such an important thing oh yeah that's the that's the paul check motto and you know i feel like he preaches that so much yeah yeah just like it's so important i mean that being consistent which justin brought up earlier is is in is more important than anything else you know you could and i've also made this case too is that you could go to the gym and never train a failure and just go in there and get a good at the exercises get a good workout and enjoy it and just i mean you keep the diet right yep over time you will watch your body you know i was talking to my friend over the weekend uh because we're talking about fitness and uh you know i was talking about my challenges with it and he's like and so there's i definitely have some some challenges with being too obsessive uh with working out but then he asked me he goes do you actually enjoy it like literally do you enjoy it do you have fun way like dude i love it yeah it's a lot of fun yeah and i'm like you know that's played the biggest role in my consistency is i would say even if i regardless of how i looked and what it produced i just enjoy doing it and so that's such an important thing for people to consider like find a way to enjoy your workouts and if that means you do a less effective quote-unquote workout so be it you're more likely to be consistent because you're just having fun i mean that's also got to be one of the hardest things for you when you think about like trying to work on the obsessiveness of it because there there is such an enjoyment factor and positive health factor that you get you know even though you know you could probably take it to the gym but you're not going to be able to do it because you're not going to be able to do it because you're not going to be able to do it because you're not going to be able the edge and it's too much and it can it can affect other things some other things negatively it has so many positives that it's got to be really a hard thing for you to like reconcile totally did you see that uh stallone interview i sent oh i didn't watch it i i saw like half of it it's really short it's really good sure yeah really good i never heard him say that before yeah i was like surprised um you know on some level obviously i wasn't surprised on so the fact that like he was kind of like tormented by being so shredded and at that point where he was like you know trying so hard to maintain this look this physique and all that's where he was like became bulimic and it happened right around rocky three right yeah we started getting shredded started getting super shredded and then he just became like an identity for him and like tortured him and so but yeah he became very obsessed and like you know and like was taking all the the things to to keep it up and keep the facade up it was it was cool to see him like you know be vulnerable about that he was very honest i've actually never he borderline talked negatively about yeah he did yeah like i've never heard him talk like that where like he was oh big problems yes yeah like like total obsession and i couldn't imagine teetered off into yeah the darkness well i couldn't imagine being that famous and be and it being connected large a big part to how you look remember that in the 80s in the 90s he was one of the action oh i mean he's ours yeah he's one of the 80s and he's right him i mean arnold was like competing to to look like him at that point like just the shreddedness and all this he's like whatever stallone is doing i have to do it even better you know he'd have bigger guns if that's our identity you get all this love for it make all this money and get all the success like letting go of that that could be so hard so hard i can i heard him even say he was bulimic yeah he did say that's what he said did you did you know that i didn't know that i did not know that either yeah i did not know that that's crazy it's way crazy he did get super shredded for uh it was rocky three four rambo i know he tore his pec yeah uh training for rocky four i want to i think yeah he had franco colombo train him oh and they were trying to go he was trying to compete with franco with lifts which is stupid that is crazy he's so strong and he tore his best when you see when you see him stallone you'll notice one of his pecs is a little looks a little different because that thing i got going on now are you gonna go get an image or what yeah i gotta go get it i'm all right i've actually been waiting to see um uh your boy come back in here because i want to talk to him more because um if i don't know if do you remember i actually had huge bruising on my bicep right here so um i'm wanting i want to hear his opinion if there if i did something both to the bicep and the pec major like if if there was if there's because i get so much pain from bicep i tried to bicep curls the other day again for the first time oh even in the in the in the forward position i still can't do more than 35 pounds yeah i still they're like and i pushed it and just to see you're gonna have to get an image dude to have them look yeah dude i mean there's definitely i mean there's definitely some serious damage there it's like what what i'm curious about is like can we fix it um uh what will they do you know to fix it i mean it'd be awesome i mean surgery is probably inevitable i mean there's no way that uh this long i mean this has been this is almost two summers ago it's been yeah and it still hurts yeah oh yeah a lot too it's not like kind of weird enough for me to not train biceps like i've not trained biceps at all and then i do what i did the other day i was wondering i was looking at your arms thank god i overcompensated for a really long time yeah so um but yeah i mean i it's crazy it's it's which is really tough because uh even though i i'd already worked through like how much i love to train that and then i've talked many times on the podcast how i rarely have to train them i still enjoy it you know i'm saying it's still a good body so tell me so so because you're i'm now trying to move away i'm still trying to eat you know eat only when i'm hungry which means i'm eating less uh but it turned into now me getting shredded i talked about this on the last episode it's like i'm you know i'm going extreme here extreme in that direction but i know you're still kind of focused on getting lean you know your trip got canceled or whatever are you i saw you using keon's uh essential yeah i'm using them throughout the day oh yeah three times a day i mean difference i i mean i tracked i don't know if you guys remember i when we when we did that whole uh when i did that series uh which was so great because i i was tracking everything i was tracking with the dexter scan i've done that forever with competing so i i know what uh what a normal cut looks like i know what to anticipate what to expect yeah what to expect and i thought oh this would be great because that was right around the time when we were starting to take keon as a partner and you know we were all kind of you know that's it's not that often where our our paradigm has been shattered our paradigm was shattered in in that situation where we had we had talked a lot of shit about um amino acids for building muscle that they're overrated or preserving muscle yeah or yeah and so uh we got presented with some pretty interesting data no and so it so it was fascinating like okay cool let me put this to practice i'm right in the middle of running my series and i already did a dexter scan i'm going into a cut i know what to expect on it and so what i mean by that so the audience understands is that when you are cutting especially cutting to get single digit body fat pretty aggressively like that like for a show or trying to get down a single digits um you know it's inevitable you're gonna lose some muscle you expect it the goal is as little as lose as little as possible and shred all body fat that's right it's almost impossible okay without nobody who nobody gets to single body uh single digit body fat without losing some i mean that's that's what you should expect yeah and hence why so many bodybuilders put on so much mass in the off season so that when they shred they shred down they know they're gonna lose some but again the game is how little can you lose i lost none that was wild that was that's like unheard of taking what seven capsules three times a day yep yeah yep so i just got a bottle here because i'm gonna start throwing those on myself yeah i took it before we podcasted right now and took it on my trip so i did back when we were working with them i did experiment with them but i was not in the cut i was just actually just trying to build and they did notice well i know he made the case he made the case for a positive even if you are hitting protein i think it's really uh probably important when you're as low especially right now i'm low calorie uh perfect example too this this trip which is also, you know, interesting thing to talk about as i'm going through this like uh strategies for people you know i had a three-day trip where uh i was on the road 10 hours a day every day um and so just and i i brought a cooler with my protein shakes and some bars i had beef jerky when i could get to it so those were like my like safe foods but it was i had to eat out it was i didn't have a lot i couldn't even i wasn't even home in time to prep food before i go out and so and we're in cars with no access to anything so prepping wasn't even an option it was just and so the strategy for me becomes uh just do as little damage as i can to the physique right now as i possibly can and what that looks like for me is keeping the calories just really low and so and getting trying to get as much the protein target as i possibly can i'm not being able to train i'm not being able to hit adequate calories and everything that i need and so i'd rather caution because i don't want to put on a triple that which very easily as we're hitting truck stops and burger joints and bars and like that's what we're eating at places like that every day two three times a day um so i was the guy that was you know pulling that out or i was ordering a chicken salad when i could and stuff like that um and you know i i came back and uh i didn't make i didn't make any progress but i also didn't i didn't have a slide i didn't slide back and so it's like like uh you do the typical like when i do eat i'll avoid uh you know carbohydrates i'll eat protein first and hey if there's no good options fast yeah so even like so like i like uh like one of the places like the best healthy choices like pulled pork or brisket or something like that it's just like you know i'm not gonna have that on the bun with the fries with that just straight give me the brisket just give me the brisket and i'll just i'll eat the brisket you know like so i did things like that um because there's plenty of oils and butter and extra calories i'm getting in there and i'm not gonna throw that on top of the you know carbs and the other everything else you know where i ate yesterday they actually have the calories on the menu and it's hilarious to see what the calories are on the menu uh cheesecake factory find me a meal under 13 you guys gonna say they're like crazy all the salad even the salad the salad's like 1300 yeah it's full of 1300 yeah it's nuts dude they're crazy the amount of calories of their meals people have actually like decided to get the burger and the fries instead because it was like the same calories as the salad forget it she made such a good point about salad so when you eat a salad and it's just leaves and dressing sometimes you'll go to you'll go somewhere and that'll be it it'll be leaves maybe a couple tomatoes yeah and dressing yeah waste of time you know what you're basically doing just drinking dressing yes you are because lettuce is nothing the lettuce is like lettuce is nothing the leaves i'm gonna piss off some people the leaves and salads have almost no nutritional value they have almost no it's gut health value it's arguably the love it's it's arguably the closest thing to water it's nothing you got you got leaves and celery i've like one or two of like water all the time it's nothing and also you're like you're getting no nutritional value at all and then you put your buttermilk branch dressing even if you put like even if you use the different leaves like the arugula and that look at the nutrient content no it's like nothing it's nothing yeah you're all you're doing is you might as well water yeah because she made a joke we were at a wedding and a little bit of fiber they had salad and she's like you just ask him for a cup of dressing what's the difference i know i know so you have to have like the butter or the butter like croutons you got to have the cheese you got the bacon and all that to actually make it otherwise it's a waste of time put some food on there dude well speaking of that too like have you got so i always love paying attention to like companies that do something cool and creative and like you know marketing wise and like they know their audience really well like back in the day it was like you know jack in the box they knew that their whole thing was like stoners like so wendy's knows like you know i guess like they have a big demographic that are like you know kids that go to rock concerts and like you know emo and really yeah yeah so they when this is emo dude so they actually like hired a legit band um to create a song for them and it's like a hit song dude it's a sick song but really it's literally just about like some girl not wanting fries and they wrote this whole song about it it's like a like a like a screamo kind of song and i think it's like memphis mayfire or emory or the the lead singer from it like did it and like i was like is this a real song and this is an ad it's just an ad and it's a full song i do love good marketing it's sick does it speak to the the fact that when you go to a restaurant like that with your girlfriend or your wife and she says no i don't i wouldn't like anything that she's gonna eat off your plate that pain point that's it that's it and i was like this is brilliant and even he even threw in like the square patty you know and all that i'm like oh my god dude that's awesome the name of the song is she said she didn't want fries yes oh my god that's actually you said you didn't want dude i got i got some data that is so amazing right now it's going viral it's so amazing because it's more right more more vile than justin's number seven steak oh bro can we talk about that so so we did pissed off the whole internet it's like the most viral thing we ever posted on instagram and it's all because you said you like your steak well done which was an accident which is an accident which is so funny because like again like i get it like people who are just pissed you know and like no it's like me uh and it's funny you guys know i've been like to restaurants i order it medium to medium rare yeah we every time so you just mistaken so i just was like and when we do when you look when you look at the picture to your defense like you it's it's hard to tell yeah yeah it's not well and i again like i was and again i was way overthinking this because i'm like eight million people like and like oh my god like how do i defend myself i can't defend myself i just like pointed to that so i was like i guess bring on the heat you know like i fucked up but at the same time i was like i don't know dude maybe my subconscious like because i had a rare steak and i went more on the rare side and it was like so chewy and gnarly and like grizzly and uh i don't know that was the last time i had like it was like one of those restaurants that are kind of like overcompensated like muscle overcompensated and like anyways but that's that's my only thought process behind it but we do these like shotgun like video and like boom boom boom i had like this this this and i and i'm like oh cool dude i went to i had a friend flame roasted right i had a friend order a steak blue have you had yeah yeah blue is like do you know what that is that's basically yeah that's literally like this and then put it on the plate what yeah yeah it's like literally sting it on each side and then put it back on the plate yeah yeah gross you know it's so funny about that too it's like that's the hack i guess so we just you just need to say one thing wrong no it's true and then the entire like oh you get all these views and millions it's so dumb yeah like literally like i messed up and so it's like that's exactly what it is it's rage bait no it's rage bait yeah well i mean danny set me up on this way i was stressing about the marriage one i'm like oh man she put me on the spot with some questions i'm like i'm actually surprised it didn't get as bad as it got like i was like calm down bro it's not it's only you're so worried there's this handful of people let me tease because i knew it when i did it it's like it's like him doing the steak he's like i know i don't order a seven i'm like that sounds really bad the way that company comes out yeah but what was weird no i don't do that what was weird is you've never told me to not tease you publicly which was weird if adam when's adam ever said that he's always like yeah roast me yeah and i'm like oh watch this look what i'm gonna say he's like no don't say anything bro don't don't feel him i'm like oh my god well probably because it's fueling comments because i you know why something like that something like that i feel like katrina is an innocent bystander in that one so if it was just me but she's so secure i know she is she don't care which is even more reason i'm like i don't want to bring it on to her you know i'm saying like so it's like that if it was just me it's like bring it on like i like it but it was just like i already probably didn't make her look the greatest in that light already you know because the way it was positioned and then it's like if you lean into it it's like i don't want to add any not that fine it doesn't feel like because i don't mind getting burned getting her burn when she's when she's already like not not a fan of it but i think she's i think i don't know if she's going to or not but i heard danny uh and i heard her say fine i will she said um she goes can i do a video with you and with her yeah yeah she doesn't even have a social media i know so i think because it did get enough like i think people want to hear like her thoughts like who's this this asshole he can't this girl can absolutely put up with this guy so i just hope she doesn't like she doesn't roast me too she doesn't put me on blast like that she like gets my back maybe i'll i'll like serve you guys steak while you're good just char the shit well you know so hockey puck i i mean uh looking back now it's kind of obvious that something like that would happen because it's it's it's funny to me so katrina is is a well done steak person and it's the big joke whenever we go out she does order she likes it ruined oh yeah well done she tells she tells the the waiter to leave it leave it on the grill and walk away like that's what's how she orders it she goes well done and i always follow up with a joke like just go pick up some beef jerky across the street from the gas station she won't know the difference yes so and we're like at a fine dining you know restaurant and so most people at this point they're most people are pretty good but there's some places we'll go uh and the chef will refuse to do it the chef won't even do it so she'll she'll ask well done and then it'll still come back medium like there's some places where chefs are like refused to to cook a steak like that and it's just like you get old restaurant meals was like that yeah french fine dining yes dude nothing past like medium rare that's right that's like a like some places so i get that so like that's like a big i know i i was thinking about that too i was like why so much hate and i'm like oh that's why i worked in the restaurant industry i know better there's videos on uh on uh on social media where people go to italian coffee shops and ask for like soy milk and just to look at the guy's face like no soy what is no How dare you? Get out of my room. So on this trip when we were eating, we were talking about all these trends that I didn't even know were happening on the internet right now that some of them were hilarious. Have you guys seen the airport buddies with the pants trend? No. Okay, so like five or six buddies all go to the airport. Now, we all, so we could do this together because we fly together so much. We got shirts too. So we all buy pants for each other and you don't know what it is. You just have to go to the bathroom and go put them on and wear them on the plane. Did you like the jazzled pants? Bro, they're over the top. Assless chaps. They're like over the top pants. That right there, the guy with the LFL ones. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, it is hilarious. Because we would do that. Oh, we would. I was like, I would do that with the guys. We fly so much together. Can I tell you what the ones I would get? Dude, you have to. Can I tell you what I would get? What? Because once I say these pants, you tell me where you'd see these. Cookie Monster pajama bottoms. Oh, yeah, that'd be hilarious. Yeah. It's Walmart special. Walmart, you see that? Yeah. Late night, you know, shopping. I didn't even know I didn't know it was a trend at all. And I went down the rabbit hole with my buddies watching them. And I'm like, oh, these are hilarious. Or Lululemon. I would totally do this with the guys. Those are great. Those are funny. We would agree to do it to each other. And it's like, you don't know what it is until you go. So it's just like, we hand you. Like, me, the three of us would know what we got done. Yeah. You know, and the three of you would know, you know, but you don't know what you get. And so it's just like, you go to that bathroom, you open up, you just come out. And then all the guys are just like. Oh, that's dangerous. Oh, yeah, yeah. I thought that was hilarious. All right, let me go back. Let me go to my study now that I brought up earlier that I think is so, so awesome. So did you guys know that they're noticing, it's a trend that they've noticed now since the 90s, they call it the sex recession. Okay. People are having less sex. Couples in particular are having less sex. Do you guys know that there's one group that has avoided the sex recession? So if you look, people look this up, sex recession. Married people. You'll see in the data. No, we're talking couples now. No. In the data, couples, married couples are just having less and less sex. This just seems to be happening. So are we talking about an age group? Well, there's a group, there's a subgroup of married couples that are having great sex and reporting great sex. And it's the people who people you would think are not doing it great. Yeah, the Christians. That's right. Oh. People who go to church regularly. It's because they held out for 20 years. No. They held out for 25 years. They're making up for time right there, dog. How crazy is this? Husbands and wives who attend religious services at least twice a month are having the best sex. They're reporting the best sex and they're having the most sex. And these are couples who've been married a long time. So they're like young couples. They're like in their 50s, 60s. And it's going viral right now because. There's a funny argument to that. Sure. They have nothing to compare to. Well, that's great. So what? So it's the best sex they've had. So they're eating at a three-star restaurant but they have no idea what a five-star restaurant tastes like. I don't think that's what it is. I'm just saying there's a funny comeback to that. That you have to also throw in that category. So here's why. And I know people will say that but here's what the data shows. The data shows because we think that. What we think. The world would tell you that good sex is lots of tricks, lots of stamina, sexy young body. Okay? Here's what the data shows. It's about connection. These are people in their 50s and 60s who've been married forever. They're not doing all this crazy stuff. They just have really fulfilling sex lives because the sex comes out of connection and love. It's not. It's not sex by itself. Dude, these polyamory influencers have really fallen off, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen any more of those. Weird. Yeah, it's weird. I wonder what happened. It didn't last very long. I know. They were so involved. I was like. Whatever. You know how popular that was when we first started the podcast? Dude, everybody in our space. Every one of our. Every other one of our friends was like swinging into the open relationship and all that. I remember that. It was big. Which is funny because isn't Sex at Dawn, which was the Bible for them, right? Yeah. It was an older book, wasn't it? Or did that come out around that time? Oh, that explains it. Can you pull up. When did Sex at Dawn come out? Yeah. Chris Nolan, right? I think is the author. You know what's crazy is when you read books like that or studies around that. 2010. Yeah, see? When we point to our. I guess you could call it primal instincts. That is not. That does not mean that's the way we should be. Yeah. Right. That was a. You know, I read that book with Katrina. And it was. Or we listened to that book together. And it was a really good list. That's right around when you propositioned Justin. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, honey. Hey, guys. I know you like his calves. Why is there a chair in the bedroom? He's so hairy. No, it was a great exercise for us to do that. What it did do was create great dialogue and conversation with her and I. And her and I did not go into it like, hey, let's think about. We weren't, as your tongue-in-cheek, right? It was so popular in the space that just straight curious. And her and I, that was the time when we were listening to books a lot. We listened to a lot together. And I'm like, hey, let's listen to this book together. And it was. It was great dialogue. And one of the best takeaways, though, I thought that we got from it is what you're saying right now is how much our animals. And then actually the resistance of that and the value of resisting of that. And then also having empathy for the other person of like they have to be able to do that and resist that because the animal instinct is to do these types of things. But the benefit of us resisting and having empathy is how much more that would bond and connect us. And there's way more value. Yeah. I remember. I won't say who it is. Yeah, we took a very different take on it than what I felt like the community did. Because you actually read it and it's not like this, like what I thought everybody was presenting it like. Like I thought it makes this hard case for. No, it doesn't really. It really makes a case for like how animalistic we are and how natural that is to do that. It doesn't make the case that you should be. Natural, quote unquote, isn't best. Like when you look at. Well, this is what we naturally do. So back then, I won't say too much. We also used to kill the weakest and it's how you. So the fitness space, especially media, social media fitness space was going weird in that direction. So you had all these fitness people like, oh, we're polyamorous. It's so evolved, you know, whatever. And all of us were kind of rolling our eyes. And there was one person in particular who was kind of, you know, blowing his trumpet. Won't say who it is. And I remember he did a whole post. Thanks. He did a whole post about how it's great. It's evolved. It requires lots of communication and connection between people and your partners, this and that. Meanwhile, they're a fitness person. And so I remember I commented underneath and I said, you know, what do you say to the person whose desires are to eat donuts and candy and not move? Do they listen to their animal instincts or is there more value in denying some of those things for a greater value? And it was crazy to me. I blew his mind. And you could see lots of people liking it and saying, absolutely. And it's like, how do you piece that together with health and fitness? But you can't piece it together with your hedonistic desires to just have sex with lots of different people. Right. Disconnect there. Big time. Yeah. But very great, great parallel to those two things. Yeah. And I felt like that was why it was such an interesting read for her and I because we got that from that. It wasn't like that this was like, hey, green light, we should fuck everybody now. It was like, hey, this is like- Well, I'm convinced. It was like, it was actually more like so much more respect for the other person for being able to resist that. Like knowing like, man, your partner probably, no matter what, no matter how much they love the other person, like there's an animal instinct that makes you want to do this and the disconnect and the discipline to be able to resist from that is because of the love that they have and respect for the other person and it's like, and that, the thought of that gained more value and more connection. So that was like what I got from it. All right. You guys ready for an interesting statistic? Yeah. Did you guys, I just read this the other day. The assisted suicide deaths in Canada. So you guys know this. Yeah, yeah. So Canada a while ago, now they do this now. If you're terminally ill, mentally ill, if you're like, hey, I don't want to live anymore, they've made it, they've reduced a lot of friction. Yeah. Very accessible. Essentially put you to sleep. It's assisted suicide. In fact, there was a recent story I talked about in the last podcast where this grandmother with cancer was forced. Oh my God. The doctors forced it. Yeah. She resisted it. She fought it and they forced her to die. Which is crazy and they're under a lawsuit right now. Anyway, there are more assisted suicide deaths in Canada than there are firearm deaths in America. What? Yeah. So you know they always talk about how dangerous it is that we have, there's more medically assisted suicide deaths in Canada than firearm deaths in America right now. That's an interesting story. So alarming. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. Crazy. That is a crazy stat. It's crazy. How many, yeah, to me it was so wild that they allowed even mental illness to be. So if you want to kill yourself, essentially, then they'll let you, they'll help you. Yeah. Like what about treatment? You know? Look at this. Assisted dying, what is that? One in 20 Canadian deaths. One in 20. It's so anti-human, dude. It's so evil. What are you doing? Isn't it crazy? That is weird. I know. I know, bro. Wow. I mean. I can't believe people put up with that. What is the math on that? What's like, how many, how many? Yeah, look up the total numbers, Doug. Say, how many assisted suicide? Last year, 15,300 people underwent assisted dying last year. 15,000 people last year alone. Now, is there any, is there, is there something, because I'm not, obviously, I'm not, I'm not thinking of all the potential cases. Like, what, are there any situations where this makes sense? I mean. That we're not thinking about. Pain, like, terminal illness. It's a super slippery slope. No, I get that. Because we either, we either. What I'm trying to do is trying to do, I'm trying to do some, some, you know, mental. Yeah, they'll make the case that there's like terminal. Yeah, there'll be. Lots of pain. Yeah, the pain thing. And that's, that's a very slippery slope. Here's, here's the way I look at it. We either value human life. Above all things. And consider it special. We don't. Cause, cause the reason why I'm asking that is just cause, okay, give me those cases. and then go, of the 15,300, what percentage of those? Because is it 99% of them are those, and then there's 1% is this weird outlier thing? I wonder, yeah. Or is there a lot of these? All of them had some kind of illness or something. So they were all in the medical system. No, of course. But like the mental illness one, I can't believe that they could qualify with that. Like you're depressed. I know, but you see where I'm going with this, right? It's like, okay, so yes, it is. You're probably highlighting the extremes is what you're saying. Exactly, and so I don't want to be as like this alarmist where it's like there was three cases that were actual mental people. And what we don't know is how extreme those cases were and all these things like that. And 15,298 of it were actually ones where if it was your family member, you would have been like, let them go. They're on their last one. They're in so much pain. Let them go type of deal. Like that's what I would want to know more. This is what I think. Because you got to know, Sal, that this is the stuff that makes news. And headlines and go viral and people talk about it because that's so alarming. Yeah, but you got to dive deeper in the data, data guy. Yeah, I lost my grandmother, my grandfather. I had somebody who was terminal cancer. If my close family member who had terminal cancer was trying to kill herself, I would try to stop her. I just would. I wouldn't be like, all right, go ahead and do it. I just wouldn't. That's why I'm asking the question. What's the case where you would? I don't think I would. I don't think I ever would. I don't know. I think you either, look, human life has to be deemed, really special and different than in separate from like your dog. Like you put your dog down because he's suffering. That's a dog. But for humans. If I'm on the bed and I'm in horrible pain and a tube is in my mouth and I can't even really communicate with you guys other than typing on something and I've been there and I'm not leaving there anytime soon. And I ask, I want to say my goodbyes and go versus drift away. Like, I don't know. I don't know if that's, I don't, I don't. I wouldn't want you guys to not let me go in that case. Yeah. I don't know if I'm asking for it. There's a difference between like brain dead. Yeah. Like vegetable. Yes. I'm talking about. No, these are people that are consent. That would be a different case in my. Yeah. A lot of these are just like, Hey, I'm terminal. I'm in a lot of pain. There was a case of this woman who had severe depression. And she was, she just, you know, So the ones that like can cognitively make that decision. Yeah. Yeah. So none of the other ones are in that category or in that 50. So here, let me put it this way. Cause that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom. Let me put it this way in America. Life support. You can turn off life support. Yeah. If they're not. And that won't go in that. And that doesn't go in that number. That's not assisted suicide. Okay. So that doesn't go into that category. No. That's what I'm trying to get at right now. It's like, how much of like, are we lumping or convoluting like things that would have been like. So like we have a, my, so my dad has a family friend right now who's been in a coma for like three months and there's some, and so they're now discussing, should they take them off life support? That's not the same as assisted suicide. Okay. So they wouldn't even, they wouldn't even count that in the 15,300. Okay. No. Assisted suicide is its own, its own category. So this is literally every single person in this 15,300 is saying like, Hey, kill me. They could literally vocalize that and say, I don't want to live anymore. In some way, shape or form. And there's, like I said, there was a case of the grandmother who they forced it on her to the point where she got bloodied because they were trying to jab her and she was blocking it. There was one case I read about with this woman who was like in her, I want to say forties who had chronic depression and she made the case that she was suffering and her family was fighting it. They were going to, and they were saying, please don't do this. And she was fighting and she won and she got, she, the, the, the courts in Canada said, yes, she can, she can go ahead and do assisted suicide. And the family was begging them not to. That's a case that happened. So this is what we're dealing with, which is wild. It's just crazy. Yeah. That's sad, dude. All right. So what is dose for your liver? So dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement. Now it's not a capsule or a powder. It's a liquid supplement. Take about two ounces a day and it tastes like, or is juice. 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Our first caller is Cole from South Carolina. Cole, what's up, dude? What's up, man? Hey, Cole. Hey, guys. How we doing? Good. Good, dude. All right. How can we help you? Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, I had a parathyroidectomy. And after some tests and everything, they realized my calcium was super off. And they were like, well, we see this tumor in your neck. And so we need to get it removed. And then they did August 10th. And one week later, I started medical school. So it was quite a quick journey, quick turnaround. And here I am now. I'm in my fourth week of medical school. And I followed a few of your programs. But I'm just trying to look for the best balance, you know, as far as trying to get back in recovery and get back to the gym and manage this new lifestyle. Yeah, good. I'm assuming you're on thyroid medication now. I am. Okay, good. So that's balanced. And I'm sure you know this already. But, you know, that's one of the things that you can solve relatively easy with modern medicine. So just taking thyroid seems to be a pretty good job of replacing. When there's a missing thyroid. The thing that I want you to consider the most, the most important thing is the load, the workload that medical school places on you. Now, the type of person that tends to go to medical school and the type of person that makes it through medical school is also the kind of person that has a poor gauge on stress. It tends to fuel them. Tolerating it. Yeah. And I've worked with a lot of doctors and surgeons. And it's just consistent. It's consistent across the board. It's just, you know, no, I'm good. I'm fine. In fact, they kind of thrive on it a little bit. And so my job as a coach was always to try to train them appropriately, which always felt to them like too little. Pull them back. They always felt. In fact, I got a buddy right now that I'm, he's an ER doctor, surgeon. And he'll come in and be like, no, man, I need you to kick my ass. I need you to kick my ass. You know, and I'm like, listen, dude, no, we're going to train this. We're going to, you know, and I train him. He's like, that was too easy. And then meanwhile, he's getting stronger. But it's a constant conversation. Okay. So where am I going with this? Your program is Math 15. Yep. That's it. Yeah. None of our other programs will be appropriate for you while you go through medical school, while you're in residency. And also, depending on what kind of medicine you practice, where are you going to be? What kind of doctor do you want to be? I really don't know yet. I'll be honest. After this recent kind of chapter, I'm interested in oncology, but I've still got plenty of time to make that decision. Well, if it's oncology. You're going to be doing Math 15 for the rest of your life. Yeah. I will say, I love PPL. I did that during the summer. And so I was kind of interested in like the two upper, two lower that came out. But I had a feeling that y'all would recommend Math 15. You just won't get good results doing it, bro. It's just going to be too much. Even if you did, because you're still young and pretty resilient, you would get better results on Math 15. Yeah. So that's just it. It's just that. And PPL, not too bad. That's probably one of our moderate volume. Like it's not super high. It's not overwhelming. But definitely you'll get better on Math 15. Math 15 is just more appropriate for what you're heading into. You'll get better results. And do you do things outside of the gym? Do you like to do other physical activities? Yeah. So I started picking up basketball again. And then Charleston's a huge running community. So I like to do that. Good. So here's the thing. So the workout, the structured workout portion is Math 15. but that doesn't mean don't be active outside of that. Okay. So the way you would treat outside activity is not like a workout. So what the mistake you can make is be like, I got to go play some basketball so I can burn some calories. The proper way to do it is, man, I'm going to go have some fun. Yeah. And so if you treat activity like that, like, man, I'm gonna go have some fun. And then your base program is mass 15. You're going to do great, bro. You're going to get great results. You're going to consistently get stronger. It'll take you through medical school. It'll make you resilient. But if you're like chasing the sweat and the workouts all the time, you're going to burn yourself out real quick. And we'll send you maps 15 and then, uh, and then go through, just go through the library of those. We have so many of them just rotate. You already got mass 15. Don't you already have it? Yeah, I've got a couple of them. And actually that's one of the things I wanted to ask coming out of the summer, did PPL and I'm kind of coming back slowly to the weights, uh, just as more and more and I get cleared. What's your take on maps 15 symmetry? Should I do that a little bit later? Should I go ahead and run that now? No, let's go, dude. Give it to you now. Okay. Yeah. You'll love it. All right. Appreciate it. You got it, man. Good luck, dude. Yeah. Good luck, bro. Well, thanks guys. And I just got to say, uh, truly y'all are a blessing. Listen to y'all all through the hospital. Got my family and friends listening to y'all. So I really appreciate the content and what you're staying for. That's great, brother. Yeah. Thanks guys. Take it easy. When I hear, uh, someone want to be an oncologist, I'm always like, why? Like, I get it. It takes a special person. You need that. We need them. Holy crap. I can't think that's one of the most stressful. Yeah. It's like all your patients are dying yeah like for real yeah that's tough home with you yeah you know the thing people understand is that um the appropriate amount of volume and training and intensity will give you the best results always more than that won't less than that won't either but more than that definitely well it's it can be deceiving too when like for example he push pull legs and maybe he gets good results on that or and it's not that uh that is perfect or great for you so you could have done something even better and he wasn't in medical school he's starting medical school yeah there's a whole new ball game for sure yeah our next caller is ellen from indiana hi ellen hello hi oh my gosh i can't see you guys ah oh there you are okay here we are hi thank you so much for having me i'm so excited how can we help you all right i'll go ahead and read my email so that way i don't stray too far from it um hi mind pump team first i would like to thank you for everything you do and for all of the great content you put out i've been a listener for five years now and i never miss an episode my husband recommended your podcast to me when i was struggling to get pregnant at the time i was working out six to seven days per week lifting with minimal rest breaks daily cardio intermittent fasting restricting calories and carbs while excessively tracking my intake taking minimal rest etc basically everything wrong i believe the harder i worked the more results i would see i was frustrated because i wasn't seeing results and i also was not having a menstrual cycle at the time a fertility doctor recommended that i try to lose five to ten pounds to help me ovulate but little did he know that i was already so restrictive regarding my nutrition and had been trying to lose those same five to ten pounds for years one of the first episodes that i listened to you spoke to a listener who was trying to get her cycle back you spoke with her about the importance of reducing training volume and eating more calories so that her body could feel safe again i felt like i had nothing to lose so i gave up my daily cardio and intermittent fasting and purchased maps anabolic and focused on daily steps taking rest breaks between sets i also started intentionally eating more calories and carbohydrates on a daily basis i was able to get pregnant naturally with my son who is now three years old and i also have a one-year-old daughter wonderful beautiful thank you from the bottom of my heart my kids are my entire world and i'm not sure i'd have them today without your advice thank you from the bottom of my heart my kids are my entire world and i'm not sure i'd have them today without your advice fast forward to today i am 32 years old 5 10 160 pounds i work full time i average 10 000 to 11 000 steps per day i enjoy lifting weights and i've really enjoyed your maps 15 style workouts because i like getting up every morning and moving my body before my kids wake up and before i go to work every day my question is what my current goal should be my husband encouraged me to reach out to you over the last few years i have watched him completely transform his body through reverse dieting and running your maps programs um it's been about a month since i wrote in so i have a few updates this next section um i'm still nursing my 16 month old daughter but i'm slowly trying to wean her um my cycle has recently returned um and just preparing for the call i've been tracking over the last few weeks so that way i could give you guys some more specific numbers um so i have been averaging 2700 calories per day and i've been hitting 160 grams of protein every day um i feel as though i'm eating a good amount of calories based off of what i hear you recommend to your other listeners however i'm just feeling stuck i would like to lean out my midsection as this is where i have always carried my weight even before kids and i would also like to gain more muscle specifically in the glutes and legs i realize that these are contradictory and i'm not going to be able to do that every day so i'm going to do that every day so i'm going to do that every day so i'm going to do that every day so i'm going to postpartum i have worked my way up to a 200 pound deadlift a 145 pound squat and 105 pound bench press um i'm currently feeling somewhat stalled and i was a little bit stronger than this prior to having kids um i want to be a strong healthy and confident mom for my kids i want to be an example of a healthy relationship with nutrition and exercise while also feeling confident in myself should i continue eating 2700 calories per day as i wean for my kids i want to be a strong breastfeeding reduce my calories as i wean or attempt to increase calories to focus on building muscle any program recommendations would also be appreciated um and since having my daughter i have completed maps starter maps 15 advanced maps muscle mommy powerlift 15 symmetry anabolic the female edition and i'm currently in phase one of maps 15 strong and i often split the non-maps 15 workouts in half and complete each day on separate days just to fit my schedule um and i apologize for the long-winded email thank you so much for your time and everything you do ellen this is amazing what a tremendous success killing it you're killing it you're doing phenomenally and uh so there's uh you're at this phase now which is a great place to be uh it is a phase of growth in fitness uh where you initially it's like i need to reach this finish line i have this goal i want to get to this place then you get there and you're like well what do i do now and honestly what you do now is you enjoy it and you will continue to progress and i want to remind you you just just got your cycle back and you're still breastfeeding but you're starting to wean uh your daughter off is that correct yes that's correct so you're at this place now where you really just enjoy what you're doing and have fun with it and you will continue to progress but again i was gonna remind you that you're weaning your daughter off breastfeeding you just got your cycle back and so you're gonna see as the hormones start to come back because that's what's happening right while you're breastfeeding there's a difference in hormones than when you're not uh you're gonna see faster results start to happen here soon even though you've been kicking butt and you're crushing it typically in my experience takes about two years uh postpartum for a woman who's fit to start to really feel uh like she used to um and that's gonna happen for you and so really there's not much i would change your caloric intake is good you're following good programming you're strong i mean could you cut you could could you reverse diet more you could i don't think you i don't think you should because as you come off a breast so breastfeeding you're burning extra calories every day and so it's naturally going to put you in a natural reverse diet yeah so by coming off of breastfeeding that's going to start to become like a slight surplus of additional calories and that should fuel right into your workouts yeah and so really just i would stay the course keep getting strong and and watch what happens in my experience when my female clients stopped breastfeeding about two or three months after things seem to turbocharge a little bit like if we kept everything the same it's like everything started to uh move a little faster and so uh i'd say hang tight and stay consistent i mean your calories are good you're going to be okay you're going to be okay you're going to be your strength training is good your steps are good i mean you're doing phenomenal i wouldn't do anything until probably the first of the year like considering to like cut or do something like that it's like i would stay the course uh as you come off of breastfeeding like sal said give it a few months of being consistent with that watch what happens we should see strength increases you should continue to feel better stronger you probably will kind of naturally recomp so you'll kind of lean out and naturally it'll be a nice slow process you get build a little muscle lose a little bit of body fat and then come january you're going to be like oh my god i'm going to be like you should be feeling back to yourself a hundred percent yourself and you're in a good place calorie wise if you feel like okay i kind of want to lean out a little bit now you're in a place in a position to cut some calories cut three five hundred calories a day and then watch you just lean right out that's it yep okay so this process is taking a little bit longer than i imagined it would with her um so i feel like i haven't made much progress um in the last month um even though my strength is a little bit lower than i imagined it would with her um so i feel like i haven't made much progress um in the last month um even though my strength is a little bit lower than i imagined it would with her um even though my strength is a little bit lower than i imagined it would with her um even though my strength is a little bit lower than i imagined it would with her um even though my strength is a little bit lower than i imagined it would do you think that i should try to bump calories like a little bit since i we're kind of she's still needing that right now let me ask you this do you feel do you feel like you'd be stuffing yourself if you added more calories do you think you could do it and be okay yeah are you hungry um i yeah i think i could do it and be okay but i just i've been afraid oh no no no no no if you're in that case yeah if you're hungry if you're hungry if you have an appetite and you're hungry and you feel like you're actually keeping yourself from anymore eat more you know and it doesn't have to be much 150 200 calories yeah okay yeah and i think you'll like it i think you'll see the strength gains go up in that case yeah okay yeah um my other question so i um wrote this in before you guys dropped your latest program last week do you feel like i'd be a good candidate for that program i know it's like a four day a week and i i know you guys recommend like the 15 style to like parents with young kids a lot of times i like you on the 15 i like you you're also working you said too right so you've got two little ones you're breastfeeding and you're working i think you're working 15 is a perfect program for you yeah we just cycle our way there but yeah i think the 15 is gonna just cycle through those 15 programs that's gonna get you the best results consistently okay yeah thank you so much you got it and and man what a wonderful success story i really hope somebody's listening right now that's going through that for sure the only part of your whole story that makes me uh just uh is i cannot believe a fertility doctor told you to lose weight yeah that's crazy to get you that's crazy to me but thank god you went in the opposite direction um and i'm so glad you communicated that and and don't feel guilty about continuing that breast feeding that's liquid gold keep up that liquid gold yeah all right you're gonna have a strong healthy baby yeah thank you guys so much again i really really appreciate it you got it Thank you, Ellen. You know, let's see. I love that. You know why I like that so much? Somebody listening is going to hear that and go, oh. Maybe I should try that. That works. Think about it. Crazy workouts. Tons of calories burned. Doing everything. Restricting carbs. Restricting calories. Lose 5 to 10 pounds. Went in the opposite direction. Way less workouts. Especially eating more. Did you see her height and weight? Yeah. I know. 5'10", 160? No. That's not a lose weight place. She's now strong, lean. Her metabolism's on fire. And she works. And she's got kids. Everybody, pay attention, you guys. It works. Our next caller is Michelle from Maryland. Hi, Michelle. How you doing, Michelle? Hello. It's so cool to see all of you. I listen to you all day, every day. Well, I wouldn't say that, but a lot of the day, every day. Thank you. How you doing? I'm good. Excited. A little nervous, but excited. Yeah. How can we help you? Yeah. I'll guess. I'll just read from my email. So this was like a month ago that I sent this. So I've been a listener for about, I guess, nine months now. Binge listening. Loving every minute of it. I laugh often and love how compassionate you all are to the overtrainers and overachievers like me. Feels like you're talking to me. And I thank you very much. And I think listening to three very understanding, compassionate, caring men, it's kind of like you're like fathers I can look up to. Even though you're my age. Thank you. So I don't understand that. But my question is in relation to Sal and his commitment and somewhat compulsive need for supplements and training consistently. I can relate strongly with Sal and thought to ask a question to see if Sal, Adam or Justin know anything about OCD or working with clients that had OCD or how to support them. So I was, I was informally diagnosed with it, but I think it's more like OCPD, which is like obsessive compulsive personality disorder. So it's slightly different if you've done the research, but I wouldn't say I'm officially OCD, but yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I have all the letters. Sal's got the whole alphabet. Listen, Michelle, we do, we do the answers here. Okay. We do the tell, we tell people what's going on. We don't do the other way. Uh, I'm not super familiar, uh, with OCD, uh, aside from what I think, um, a lot of people would assume OCD is. Um. But I'm very familiar with like body dysmorphia, very familiar with insecurities and stuff like that. So, uh, what's the difference, what, what's characteristic of OCD? OCD is more like unwanted thoughts and like of harming yourself or other people getting hurt, unwanted things where OC PD is more like the perfectionistic. Like you're obsessively doing things to make it like perfect or to, um, in, in completion or like, for instance, like my morning routine. It's very like, I, I like to do certain things at certain times or like my meal timing, that type of thing. And it's all things that help me function well in a day, but it can be on the like compulsive side. So OCD is more like where you can't function, it keeps you from functioning through the day. Got it. So what do they call denial OC PD? Cause that's part of what Sal has. No, I actually know. So neither one of those, uh. You know, what will resonate with me, but I do, um, I do have an attachment now here's the deal with exercise. I can now miss it and it doesn't really bother me like it used to. Really? Yeah. And I work out way less. I work out like three days a week now, um, which is, uh, very low, uh, for someone like me. Um, so that doesn't, but I am, I definitely am neurodivergent and I'm sure there's a connection between the two. Um, but it doesn't. It's like, okay. Uh, you know, so, so I don't have like the unwanted thoughts or wanting to hurt anybody sometimes Adam, but that's, that's wanted, it's a wanton thing. It's more of a fantasy. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. None of those, that doesn't really resonate, but I'll read more into it. Cause I, I, you know, admittedly I don't know a ton about either one of those. Yeah. I would think, do you, do you, uh, do you work with anybody? Do you have, uh, We have been working with someone lately. Yes. Okay. Cause I, I would think that would be one of the most powerful things that you can do. Is to be able to get some of those thoughts out also, you know, have somebody else who you kind of relinquish a lot of the direction from, and you're just kind of more following their direction orders versus you're getting in your own mind and doing that. I would think that would be really useful. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm, I'm listening in the 2024 year, I'm kind of like back listening and I heard you recently stuck, talk to a, uh, a person that called in, they had like this almost exact same thing as me. Like they like to eat at a certain time, they like to walk after they're eating, they like to do this certain amount of thing and it like makes them feel settled. And I think it's a control thing ultimately, cause I feel like I have a lot of stress in my life. It's kind of like rigidity. Yeah. And, um, if I don't work out, I feel very anxious. And I remember Sal mentioning that back in 2024 anyway. So I'm cool that you're like not as attached as you used to be. So maybe I'll get to that one at one point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say I can identify with some of those things, um, uh, and how now missing workouts doesn't really bother me like it used to, uh, but it does. It is a powerful antidepressant. Just movement is, uh, for me. So moving in the morning helps me podcast that helps me, uh, feel better. Um, especially because the workouts are also prayer time and, you know, gratitude time. Um, so, um, you know, that's kind of more. Yeah. I'm more, uh, what it is now, um, than, than what it used to be, I would say, but I'm going to look more into it. I think that's a, that's a great, yeah. I think that's a great place to look into. Yeah. I always like how Adam is very like chill about things when it comes to like, oh, I go on vacation. I don't work out. And I'm like, what? I can never imagine that. So. I mean, what would you, what would you say Sal has been the big shift for you that's allowed you to go from that? Uh, I, I, I think you were very much so you couldn't miss a workout, uh, not that long ago and now you have been able to, and so what has been a big unlock for you to be able to do that? My faith. A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. My faith. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing's had an impact on it like that. I mean, it always helped me to train people. So coaching other people is a really, really, uh, it's a really effective mirror. And I always talk to coaches about this. Uh, if you genuinely want to help people. Yeah. If you just want to train people, cause you like fitness is different, but if you really want to help people, like you really care about them, you'll find yourself saying things to them that you should also say to yourself. And so that was kind of a check and balance for me, uh, for a long time. But it wasn't until, um, you know, I found, um, Jesus and that made the biggest difference. I imagine there's a lot of people who have faith or believe in Christ, but that still struggle with that. Is it, uh, a prayer, a conversation that you had? Constant repentance, conversation, uh, and turning to, um, and I mean, I don't want to go on a tangent, but if you look at the data on, uh, so self-proclaimed Christians aren't really a good data set because we're in Western society. Some, a lot of people identify that way. So what they do is they take the data, they look at people who attend church and read the Bible three or more times a week. And so what they're trying to look for are people who really have a faith, right? Not someone who just says, I'm a Christian because you know, we're, we're in a Western society. It's a big deal to say that what they find with the data shows is a far lower rate of addiction, uh, far lower rates of depression, anxiety, uh, you know, more often, uh, more likely to volunteer. Uh, they tend to have more kids. So, so it helps for sure. So I think it's a dedication, but I mean, if I sit here and tell you like, this is what I did exactly, I guess the, the, the clearest thing would be just constant turning and praying, uh, to, you know, to, to God. Yeah. I've been sort of doing that kind of like with my therapist has kind of been, she's been pointing me that way. And I think that's like, it's a really good way to like learn, letting go of control, I think. Yeah. There's a difference between, um, I can do this. I can fix this under my own strength, which, uh, there's some value to that for sure. Uh, but the Christian faith, uh, very much says, uh, you can't, but you, you need a savior, the whole point. And then there's a supernatural component, uh, that comes from that. And I don't want to ever dismiss that cause that's real. So, and what you're saying is the link, the relinquishing of control can feel like giving up to somebody. Like, what do you mean? I have no control. I just give it up. And it's like, yeah, you trust your trust. You're like, I've gone as far as I can. I'm not, this ain't working. So I'm just going to give this to you, uh, and try not to do the thing where you like throw out the fishing line and then you wheel it back in. You know? It's a constant giving up. It doesn't just happen once. It's constant. Yeah. Yeah. And then what you meant about, uh, said about helping people I've actually been, there's going to be a big change cause my husband's in the military and he'll be retiring soon. And he wants to kind of like do this big change. So, um, it'd be like 20 years, he'll be done thing and it'll be great when he is, but he wants to do this big change, which will make us move. I might have to change my job and I'm like, I really would love to get into the like personal training field. Yeah. And that was like my side question though. Like with my rigidity and perfectionistic and that type of thing would, and like, especially with wellness and diet it's my way of controlling my life is my wellness and my diet it's kind of like and it's been known like kind of orthorexic like but is going to training other people a good route to take yes like i would yes well i gotta ask you this do you really want to help people or is it just because you want to be more fit oh i think helping people yes yes and absolutely and the answer is yes because that's part of what sal's saying that was such a big thing for him is he would come on this show and he's giving this communicate he's telling other people hey take some days off hey do this to that hearing himself going like i need to take you're gonna have to take your own advice take your own advice it's really hard to hear yourself love someone else and not do that for yourself so exactly so then doing that would eventually help me do that for myself yeah it'll also make an outward will help you come back inward yeah and it'll also make you a good coach yeah because you're gonna see a lot of people like you yep and and i tell you what uh you know this is an extreme example okay this isn't you but a drug addict who's trying to become sober will connect more to somebody who used to be a drug addict than somebody who's never touched drugs before so someone like you uh you're well positioned to communicate to people who struggle with fitness in the ways that you do and a lot of people do by the way yeah yeah it's a powerful thing yeah i think it's a great idea i love that idea good i was worried i was like i don't know if that would be the right route i think it'll just like make it all worse but ultimately you're you're talking it'll be good for me and also yeah it'd be great and when you're ready you let us know because i think uh going through our course it would be great for you because our course is around that really how to be how to become how to build your business and be a great coach exactly that'll be the plan like and you all recommend like nasum first and then your course you can do you can do them they're very different like nasm will be very focused on the exercise portion of training and like it would make you very proficient with biomechanics and things like that ours is much more on the business coaching communication with client side so you could do you could do them simultaneously our course is recognized by nasm so you'll get uh continuing education units with nasm for taking our course um and if you're looking to work in a uh big box gym you're going to need an nasm cert or something similar if you plan on working for yourself you don't need that necessarily um our course would be more valuable because it's more based on building your business let's see and i think i'm not that good of a business person so i definitely would need your help yeah yeah yeah i have a twin sister she's she's got four businesses so we're i could always lean on her too for a little help she does bookkeeping so she's gonna be my bookkeeper yeah you love it we have a we have a school group that's an ongoing community where they meet and we have an educator who's so it's not like you just take the course and you go away like you're in a community that we're all helping and supporting each other exciting i'd love to do that it kind of gives me excitement so i appreciate all the recommendations yeah yeah and what's one recommendation you have like one thing because i hear you all say it all the time go for walks after your meals it all the benefits of it go for walks after your meals it all the benefits of it and i do that but then i get like comments from people that i like my family they're like why do you always have to go on walks why are you so obsessive about it so i'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because i it really helps me my mental health and obviously my physical and i need a break sometimes like that but i get all this judgment from people so how do you navigate that well um so uh sometimes don't take the walk and i would tell someone like you that um and let go of it um and then the other thing is and you got to be careful with this because people like us can like thrive we can feed off this so this can go in the wrong direction but being healthy oftentimes uh is a little bit of being a rebel countercultural and so it's a big countercultural now i'm i'm careful with that because you could also wear that like a badge of honor and be like yeah i just do you know everybody's out to get me you know and so it can also fuel that but it's you know just miss the occasional walk i mean i'm i'm i'm huge on taking walks after we katrina and i are big fans of but i'll tell you an example of when i don't and when i do uh i'm over at her family's house there's 12 15 family members we're all eating and we're having dinner uh i don't get up and take a walk after that her and i go out for a restaurant uh friday night together we absolutely go for a walk after after that because she loves to do it i love to do it we it's something that's important to us uh anytime i'm by myself and i eat go for a walk i'm with these guys we eat we go for a walk uh so i think there's times to do it and i think there's times when it's probably more important to stay with the family and converse and have a good night now if the whole family wanted to get up and go for a walk we do together awesome but i most the time it's not the case they want to stay there and have drinks and eat food and do their thing and you know i'm going to sit around and enjoy the family and be there for that and i'm not going to be kind of a weirdo and get up and leave down that their neighborhood and walk around the neighborhood just so i can get my steps or walk and i'm going to take that time unless you take them with you right right yeah that's what i mean unless that was something they all wanted to do which they don't so what if you're in a house with five crazy kids and you need all under 10 and you need a breather then you get the hell out of it yes take 10 minutes you don't want to yeah beating kids is not a good yeah me and my sister we get together there's five kids under 11 and it's a lot that is a lot that is a lot yeah yeah that's a different type that's a different type of walk i'm not gonna i don't want to kill somebody walking yeah yeah okay so just judge the moment yeah and see what it okay thank you yeah do a good michelle i love to see you in the trainer program michelle i love the fact i love your question and your and your input i'm really gonna look into that i appreciate it thank you so much i appreciate it you got it all right you have a good one all right thanks so much bye-bye bye she's sweet yeah she's sweet i like uh i like what she was asking and uh i think i'm definitely gonna look into i never thought of ocd but i'll look into it yeah i mean i do check the door lock 15 times because you never know we all think it is that's what i think it is right but i like very uh i'm very aware that i don't know much yeah so i'm like i don't know is there any ocd totally tendencies and will knowing that help or does that one of those like more labels i've got enough labels attached to me i don't need any more necessarily so our next caller is beth from georgia hey beth how you doing good to see you again how are you guys good good how's it going really good thank you let's hear the update good to see you yeah yeah good to see you he had a great time over there he said thanks again for inviting me that was that was oh i'm so glad it worked out yeah it was fun that was a good time yeah so give us an update ever it might have been a little bored um while jess and i geeked out on all the sports science stuff i mean it was it was half of it was for us but that's okay they loved it you all right let's hear you jump in on my email yeah let's hear this update so um a few things to report back on i had a dexa scan since i last uh spoke with you all so between september of 25 and july of 26 my weight was identical my body fat went from 20.5 to 17.6 but my bone mineral density increased so i know you challenged me on that oh good good a little bit after the call i think beth real quick where is your range of bone mineral density i know it improved but on the chart because i'm not familiar off the top of my head with what the numbers mean where does it rank because dexa typically will tell you if it's in the middle if it's low if it's high yep um it's it looked like it was let's see if i can interpret this thing i mean it went up slightly from should tell you in what percentile you're in um not sure i know how to read that exactly or it'll have like a little a little bar graph where it's like uh you're on the in the middle left or right does it show that similar to where how it shows where your body yes i'm on the bar graph i'm looking like a little i'm in the like bottom of the green zone top of the yellow zone oh that's not bad that's not bad not not bad but now how long have you been strength training oh 30 years okay so very good uh you i would expect someone who's been strength training that long to be in the green yeah way yeah way like on the on the high end oh okay yeah but not bad yeah but i would expect it to be on the high end is where you want to be okay so moving in the right direction like keep going keep going i'm not going backwards no no exactly that's a good that's a good sign we're moving in the right direction okay so sorry i'll start with the i still can't see you guys so i'm just gonna keep rolling yeah okay we're here okay um okay so anyway i was gonna say like credit i know my body fat percentage went down but i wasn't trying i wasn't in eating in a deficit or anything i've i kind of credited the programming just because it was you know the last couple years have been my first time with really um solid programming that i wasn't creating myself okay so anyway okay so i'm in the last week of performance and i'm in the performance 15 advanced that was what justin recommended on my last call i really really liked it it was a nice change up from my regular you know traditional strength training um i'm i'm doing slightly better with resting between sets that was also a challenge um but i'm definitely trying to like take more notes about where i'm lifting and what i'm you know accomplishing during that time um my sleep quality has been better i still eat a lot i way out eat my counterparts at work um what i'm struggling with still uh i still get a lot of steps a day i still do yoga daily trying not to make everyday power yoga but um you know i i like it i you know i like the mobility aspects and the flexibility um so my questions are programming wise since we're starting the regular season this week should i stick with like a 15 minute protocol throughout the football season yes yes you're super busy right now yes yeah this would match you best stay in that keep pushing calories keep doing the sleep focusing on the sleep keep moving in that direction okay do is there a particular one you recommend like i bought power lift and upper lower so i was really eager to try those um i guess maybe only power lift has a 15 minute version it does yeah mass 15 power lift would be great massive power lift and then when you get in a time like maybe after season and life slows down a bit then maybe we can go play with upper lower but now i would say stay in 15 during the season i can only imagine how busy you are in season yeah it's a lot with with travel seven day work week yeah yeah yeah i imagine it's crazy so yeah 15 and keep pushing calories where your calories at right now i don't track calories because i i don't have a great history i track protein i mean like i estimate my protein but i i eat a lot of protein and i supplement with like cottage cheese and greek yogurt to help hit my target are you are you are you are you strike me as someone who's pretty consistent with the types of foods and meals you eat are you pretty regiment about what you eat i mean i am we have you know the the lovely cafeteria which justin visited here which is really nice they do an amazing job with food so um i get to mix it up a good bit at lunch and lunch is probably my biggest meal for that um so i you know i eat a lot of meat um you know chicken fish shrimp beef um and last time i think you challenged me a little bit to eat fattier cuts which i mean i generally will choose like a ribeye over something else so i try to do that so continue that i would just since you don't track and we're not going to do that i want you to add one more meal one more meal yeah just add another meal at another meal of the day somewhere so yeah and here's the thing beth you were in a deficit that's why you got leaner so i know you said you weren't trying to be in a deficit but you were and this is why i'm telling you more calories and you need more body fat okay so if you're walking around in the teens you and you have something bad happen you have a bad injury you need a surgery you have a lot you have illness you need body fat to bolster you through that process you're actually placing yourself in a vulnerable position with by being too lean all the time now it's okay to get into that leanness and get back out of it but i i if you if you want to feel more recovered if you want to feel more vitality if you want better health uh i would want your body fat percentage uh like 21 22 percent okay yeah you need more 17 walking around at 17 percent for a woman uh it doesn't give you much wiggle room if you if something ever happens like you get real sick or something like that so i'm going to you need that uh on your body i mean you're you're you're like really lean you're shredded essentially um and so adding like four or five percent body fat is just going to improve your health and so adding that extra meal uh will will help uh do that and so what it's going to feel like to you beth is going to feel like you're purposely trying to bulk okay i've never really done that yeah yeah that's our goal right now that's our that's our goal is to do that is to do that right now is to add another meal and bulk we need to put we need to push you'll feel strong you'll have a lot more it'll have more energy yeah you'll feel really stronger yeah a lot of benefits from it okay um okay a couple more questions um so if i do 15 power lift um what what after that i mean just does it matter any kind of 15 vertical they're all good i like 15 muscle mommy i like 15 symmetry uh for you 15 strong uh yeah i mean they're all great as long as you hit 15 performance or symmetry once a year it doesn't matter kind of what you pick after that so we kind of just just because that'll address the unilateral work you know rotational stuff and that'll just keep us now you do yoga too which is great so you're probably covering a lot of the basis by incorporating that too so yeah really pick uh the ones that you enjoy and rotate through those yep and you think i'm good with um like sometimes i combine two things and i'm like okay i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this that's kind of a typical like it's a little easier if i do like days one and two on a 15 and like that third day i'm doing like trigger sessions or something you can do that but don't organize there you go don't organize it that way so you can do more yes because if that's what you're doing then don't do that yes you should take a day off if you pair a day up you've now we've programmed the total volume we think you should be doing for the whole week so because it gives you permission to take a day off take a walk so even though even though those are trigger sessions you're like nope no nope you don't need to do nothing you don't need to do anything you know what i tell you beth i'm telling you if you just if you add an extra meal keep following mass 15 you're gonna hit prs in the gym yeah that's it yeah just if you just do that every day you add that extra meal every day watch what happens to your progress don't change the workout watch what happens okay yep all right anything else i'm missing no no just that's it just the meal that's the only thing missing is the meal give it give yourself that meal and thank you so much for the hospitality that you showed justin that's so phenomenal you're welcome if y'all want to come to a game now i know we're not the niners i promise i'll give you a fun fun game day experience hey robinson hey robinson was my number one draft pick in fantasy last week so so that's my guy that's my guy now i'm watching every fantasy game i've ever seen i'm watching every fantasy game i've ever seen falcon game this year so i'm a falcon fan this year i love it we appreciate it and listen i did want to shout out jackie and katrina they've both been awesome to work with so they are very much brand ambassadors for you like you like you we have we have super women over here working for us too so they're awesome so appreciate you saying that they are yeah well thank you guys for having me back on i really appreciate keep us updated i like to hear how it goes okay keep us updated all right i will thank you all right it's great to see you yeah thanks you too bye i've had a few i've had uh you know more than a few experiences with uh clients she's jacked dude where the goal where i i had them uh train gain body fat a couple of them were gained fertility and a couple of them were just like like what do i do now when you walk around too lean let's put that's like the goal is to gain some body fat yeah and they were all blown because we're we're told we're constantly hammered how fat is bad your body fat's bad but there's an amount that you need um and all of them were just like i didn't know that this would feel so much better yeah you know and that's what that's one of the things that she needs to do yeah look if you like the show come find us on instagram it's mind pump media we'll see you there thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now at mindpumpmedia.com plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mindpump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is mindpump

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. A large meta-analysis of fitness studies shows that muscle growth results are heavily influenced by study design, which may not apply to real-world, long-term training.
  2. Most studies involve small sample sizes (10–20 people), short durations (8–12 weeks), and college-aged males, making their findings less relevant to average adults or older populations.
  3. High volume (15–20 sets per week) is often recommended in studies, but leads to overtraining and fatigue in real-life scenarios, especially for people over 30.
  4. Training intensity and training close to failure are overemphasized in studies, but real-world results show that consistent, sustainable effort and recovery are more important for long-term muscle growth.
  5. Frequency of training and periodization have limited impact in short studies, but over time, periodized training improves results and prevents injury.
  6. Supersets, especially between antagonistic body parts, save time and improve workout efficiency without sacrificing effectiveness.
  7. Enjoyment and consistency are more critical than extreme intensity or volume, as fun workouts lead to better long-term adherence.
  8. The podcast highlights real-life fitness challenges, including the risks of obsession, and uses examples like Arnold Schwarzenegger and modern trends to emphasize balance, health, and mental well-being.

Summary:

The podcast critiques the limitations of fitness studies, arguing that their short duration, small samples, and narrow demographics (college-aged males) make their findings less applicable to real-world, long-term training. The hosts emphasize that overtraining, high volume, and extreme intensity are unsustainable and counterproductive for most people, especially as they age. Instead, sustainable consistency, enjoyment, and smart progression—like using supersets or periodization—are more effective for long-term muscle growth.

Real-life experience shows that recovery, proper intensity, and mental well-being matter more than strict adherence to study-based protocols. The hosts also highlight broader life lessons: the value of connection in relationships, the dangers of obsession in fitness, and the importance of balance. They reference trends like the "sex recession" and a surprising statistic on assisted suicide in Canada to underscore how societal norms and personal values shape health and well-being.

Ultimately, the message is clear: fitness success comes not from rigid study protocols, but from a balanced, enjoyable, and long-term approach to health.

FAQs

MindPump is a health, fitness, and entertainment podcast with over half a billion downloads. It's popular for its engaging content on fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle, featuring expert hosts and real-time listener interactions.

You can submit your question to MPLifeCaller.com to be featured on an episode. The show often addresses listener questions about health, fitness, and wellness.

The meta-analysis shows that studies often use short durations (8–12 weeks) and small sample sizes (10–20 participants), mostly college-aged males. This makes findings less applicable to long-term, real-world training.

While studies suggest training close to failure helps, real-world evidence shows that consistent, moderate effort with proper recovery leads to better long-term results. Overtraining can cause fatigue and injury.

Training a body part more frequently (e.g., three times a week) allows better recovery and improved technique. In real life, volume isn't evenly distributed, and fresh sessions enable heavier lifting and better form.

Periodization—varying training intensity and volume over time—makes a significant difference over longer periods (years), helping prevent plateaus and injuries, unlike short-term studies.

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