2974: How to Get Strong as Fast as Possible

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. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we answered live callers' questions. We coached them live on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro is 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about how to build strength as fast as possible. Talk about diet and exercise. Talk about GLP use, testosterone use. It's a great time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, here's what you got to do. Submit your question to MPLiveCaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. They deliver healthy meat to your door. Today, I talked about their grass-fed tri-tip. You can eat the same amount of tri-tip and cut your calories because it's naturally leaner because it's grass-fed. 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One of the best experiences when you work out in the gym is to get strong, to get stronger. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about how you can get strong AF and as fast as possible. Let's go. Do you have the AF there? I'm not saying the full. You want me to say bad words? You don't have YouTube to call you out. Okay, so people like to be strong, obviously, but why get strong? Why don't we just work out and can we build muscle without strength, whatever? Here's the deal. Here's the deal. When you look at the longevity connections between, let's say, muscle and longevity and health, there's a much stronger connection between strength and longevity. In fact, the tests that we often refer to when talking about longevity, like the grip strength test. Okay, so a simple grip strength test is a better predictor of all-cause mortality than almost any other test, which is wild. Now, we talk about building muscle. And of course, muscle looks good and it's aesthetic and all these wonderful things and how healthy it is to have more muscle. But really, when you really look at the data, it's strength that is correlated with longevity. Now, muscle's connected to strength and muscle has its own benefits, especially if it's healthy and fit muscle, but it's strength. Strength has all the benefits. Yeah, but can you summon on command? Can you get up out of your chair? Can you lift things? When you need to, can you protect yourself from getting injured? All these things matter through the lens of strength. And strength is really, you know, it's that ability. We don't want to lose our abilities as we age. That's like one of the biggest things that it's going to start spiraling from there. And so for strength, it's really like everything is going well when you see your strength either maintaining or progressing. Well, as we age, you know, especially in advanced age, we inevitably are going to lose some of it. And I think of it as like investing. You know, right now, like you getting really. You're banking it all. Yeah, you're investing right now so you can afford to lose a lot of strength and still be considered strong. And if you, but if you go about your life like a lot of average Americans do and they don't exercise and they don't get strong and aging inevitably happens and you get weaker, as we all do when we get older, you're. You're. You're. You're. You're starting point at which you start to get weaker from is already at a pretty weak or frail point. And so you become really frail and sick and many times fall and hurt yourself and get ammonia and die, right? You're less resilient. And so the person, though, that spends, you know, some of their earlier years, and earlier years doesn't mean you start in your. It could be his 50s could be considered earlier years still. And you start lifting. You start lifting and building strength now. You're investing in that so that when you start to get weaker, you know, you're getting weaker from the person who could deadlift 300 pounds. And, like, you're weaker now is 250, which is still significantly stronger than the average 30-year-old, you know? That's right. And so I really think of it like you're really investing for old age. You are. It prevents fragility. It's actually the most anti-fragility thing you can do is to be strong. Strength also leads to building muscle. So if you're like, look, I just like the way it looks. Sure. Especially in the first three to, let's say, five years of consistent, good strength training, it's a very strong correlate with muscle growth. In other words, if you're training in the first five years of your lifting career and you want to build your butt, you want to build your delts, you want to have a nicer looking back, the best thing you could do. is chase strength because it always leads to more muscle. And then back to what Justin said, strength is a great metric for the most part. It's not perfect, but it's great because it's hard to get stronger and get fundamental things wrong. So in other words, you know, you got too much stress in your life, it's hard to get stronger. Your diet's not right. It's hard to get stronger. Not getting enough sleep is hard to get stronger. It's hard to get. Your hormones are off. Your health is off. When you're getting stronger, as a coach. As a trainer, I looked at a lot of things when I was monitoring my clients to see if we were progressing in the right way. But the number one thing I looked at was strength. It's also objective. So it's not as subjective while you look better. Even how you feel can be sometimes subjective. Strength, you either lift more weight or you don't. And as a trainer, it's like that's the best evidence I have that we're moving in the right direction. Well, if you get stronger, you build more muscle. You build more muscle, you get more metabolic flexibility too. Totally. And in a world where very few of us eat perfect all the time and have the occasional drink and eat out and. Don't move enough. Don't move enough. Metabolic flexibility is crucial to longevity and health. And so, you know, that part is. I mean, talking about muscle for aesthetic purposes and looking good and protecting. Yeah, that's all great. But, I mean, argue the point that, man, you have more muscle, you actually have a lot more flexibility. And really, just to add to that. What we find in the data when it comes to food intake on what's healthy and what's not healthy, when you eat less than you burn or right around how much you burn, you get away with a lot more. In other words, people have done this and there's studies on this where they'll have people eat a subcalorie diet and the diet itself isn't good. It's like fast food. And they'll do this on purpose to see what's the effect. Now, I'm not saying that that's the best way to do things, but many of the negative effects of eating poorly are the negative effects of eating poorly. Now, I'm not saying that that's the best way to do things, but many of the negative effects of eating poorly go away because you burn it off. Right. And having more strength and more muscle gives you that flexibility. You got more muscle, well, you burn more calories. Now, you get away with more, which means you're healthier even if your diet isn't perfect. One other thing I want to touch on. Two other things I want to touch on with strength. It's one of the best physical attributes because it also is the one that is the easiest to keep. This is what's wild about strength, okay? Stamina, endurance, flexibility. You stop training. You stop training those. They go away pretty quickly. Stamina in particular. Look, you know this if you're an endurance athlete. Like, you stop training your endurance for a week or two, go back, and you're like, wow, am I gassed out. Strength sticks around for a while without you touching it. In fact, if you look at the data, your strength doesn't go away for like six weeks. In other words, you lift weights consistently, you take six weeks off, you're probably not going to lose much strength, if any. Now, if you're really, really strong, you'll see some of that because skill drops. But for most people, they'll go back to the gym after a month, maybe even two, not lost much. They'll lose some stamina for sure, but they haven't lost much strength. And then the other thing is, I don't care how old you are, you build strength. So, if you can move and you do some form of strength training and it's proper, I don't care if you're 90, the data on this is very clear. Now, I have experienced training people in advanced age, but there's studies on this. 90-year-olds gain strength perfectly well. So, strength is also this adaptation. There's this adaptation that is almost always available to us, whereas other adaptations can be… You can still pursue it. That's right. So, what we're going to do is we're going to list the things that you can do to get strong fast. Like, I want to boost my strength. I want to get it there quickly. What are the most important things that I can focus on? Well, number one, lift heavy. Okay, that's obvious. But in order to get stronger, you have to challenge your strength with the weights that you're lifting. There's a lot of people that work out and they go to the gym. And they're not really challenging themselves. I remember so many clients that I would have that would come in who were… working out yeah and and they were instantly stronger with me not because they were stronger but because I saw them do the lift and that's what they thought they can lift I said you can actually lift 15 more pounds and they added 15 pounds and they were surprised this happened a lot I mean especially with once you get comfortable in a routine and you feel like you got your consistency you're frequently going to the gym I mean that's a big hurdle uh to cross initially and so to gain that momentum's everything but now I mean we really need to keep challenging that like you know and you need to it's one of those things in order to get through these plateaus or to a place where it's like you're not progressing at all like we need to challenge that intensity we need to add a little more load and we need to progressively approach it that way yeah now the next thing is don't lift uh to failure okay so failure training uh actually isn't beneficial for pretty much any goal but definitely when it comes to strength in the data uh going to failure is detrimental to building strength so failure is when I lift a weight until I can't lift it anymore so I complete eight reps and there's no way I could have done a ninth rep so I lifted to failure strength building strength looks more like I can lift this for eight reps but I stop at five or six uh this clearly in the data and in practice is the best way to build strength going to failure is actually a very quick way to prevent strength gains you might get some strength gains going to failure but it stops very quickly within a minute you're going to fail you're going to fail very quickly within weeks you'll plateau quickly because the intensity is too high uh for those strength adaptations yeah this has been uh obviously we all figure this out training clients over the last few decades but I feel like it's uh it's become more important today and I don't know if that's just because of the low level stress that we all seem to have it seems like there's more um and there's less acute stress like crazy wars that we're going off to as kids and stuff like that but I feel like it's a very important thing to do and I think it's a very like that but i feel like there's more there's no breaks this is daily social media yeah so i feel like every i feel like everybody's uh stress and dated it feels like everybody's to give like a visual or paint the picture of what i'm getting at is like it's almost like everybody's stress buckets starting half full already you know and then you know you have these other things work and uh not the best to sleep that add to that and then you know your workout which is a good stress but it's also still a stress and you know the goal is to to stress the body enough to to present it challenged and so the body then adapts and builds some muscle doing anything beyond that puts yourself at risk of not recovering not adapting and i think a lot of people that tend to want to train to failure tend to be that same personality who overdo it and have a lot of stress in their life and so i think failure training is one of the biggest disservices that the fitness community has to deal with and i think that's one of the biggest disservices that that the fitness community has done to the average person i just i've trained many clients and never trained to failure and got them incredible results that doesn't mean that i haven't used failure training and i haven't myself personally and on clients and seen results it's just that a majority of people could never train to failure and see great results and even the ones that you do use failure it's such a small percentage of the time very small i i there's a small window for it some of the fastest strength gains i ever experienced in my entire life personally are when i start training and i start training and i start training and i start training and i start training and i start training and i start training and i start training and i stop training to failure when all i did i changed nothing else i stopped my sets two reps before failure got stronger instantly and it was like mind-blowing to me like oh this this was a problem it's the difference of feeling completely overwhelmed and hammered the next workout you you go to attempt and it's like you can you can really like be effective with that by stopping those two reps short and like reserving that so now we have that energy to spill over that's right next uh this is just this is a programming thing okay so when i say programming what i'm referring to is the workout program and what goes into a workout program is referred to by strength coaches and trainers as programming and this includes things like sets and reps and exercises and what the day looks like with the workout and how it's laid out throughout the week and you know how the months looks out and all that's all that's all of that is under the umbrella of programming strength building programming there is one characteristic of it that is very specific which is this you're doing less exercises but more sets per exercise so to give an example a traditional let's say traditional chest workout might look like uh you know three chest exercises for three sets each so i'm doing nine total sets well a strength building workout might look like two exercises one five sets and one four or maybe even one exercise for nine sets and you're just doing that one lift this is one of the fastest ways to build strength because strength is also a skill so practicing the lift for more sets will give you more of that targeted strength uh than doing a bunch of different exercises effective for like just pure strength focused training uh because yeah it's such a skill and to be able to summon that amount of force and to be able to really get the highest potential to your recruitment process uh to do that without fatigue interrupting that that's right and so this is the thing it's like we're not just getting through the exercise we're not just trying to get to the end of the workout like how can we match that with the exercise we're not just trying to maximize our potential with this one lift right now uh and to do this by you know less reps but now we're going to spread this out by set so you have that extra additional bit of uh rest to eliminate the fatigue it's huge yeah and also focus on the big lifts here so the best ones yeah so you're doing more sets of less exercises but the exercises that you're doing are the ones that make you really strong barbell squats and deadlifts and overhead presses and rows and bench presses like these are the ones that make you really strong and then you're going to do some deadlifts that give you real strength like it's great to get strong at a bicep curl it's cool to get strong at a leg extension but get strong at a squat or a deadlift or an overhead press and you're getting stronger and you feel it in the real world it's got this carryover because it's this big complex kind of you know multi-joint well it has it has the greatest roi for strength and it also is the highest skill yeah so even more reason why it makes so much sense to not focus on the deadlifts and overhead presses because you're getting stronger and you're focusing on a lot of other things focus just on that and more sets of those things because a sets of that exercise because that exercise has such a great roi and it's such a high skill you're really good at yeah you get really good at and it takes a long time to get really good at i mean i still all the years that i've been squatting and deadlifting uh and i i would say that i'm fairly proficient at it or pretty good at it i don't think i'm the greatest squatter or the greatest it's like that's a i've practiced it a lot yeah so it's there's not there's not a lot of movement like the i think i've mastered the bicep curl you know saying there's not much it took a month right there's not much room for improving that or getting more out of that exercise where i absolutely still think i mean every time i get back in the rhythm of of deadlifting consistently you know there still is that uh even the process of those first few weeks of that like getting my getting my technique all back down it's like it's it's more like a golf swing than it is like an exercise and what's happening technical stuff and what's happening there is your muscles are learning to work together in a complex way so uh now why is that important that's strength everybody in the real world when you want strength to work uh for you it's multiple muscles working together it's not a muscle working on its own so these big complex movements just give you that real world uh strength next up is you got to eat a lot here's the deal trying to get strong especially trying to get really strong really fast in a calorie deficit good luck good luck everybody in the foot feed yourself now i'm not saying eat a lot of garbage okay but what i am saying is you got to eat in calorie surplus eat high protein eat more calories in your burning that's one of the uh that's one of the core components of building strength period end of story well you're also going to recover better yeah i mean that's a big part of it of course you're going to get more energy in your list which is going to help you improve the technique of it and you can keep repeating that and getting better at it uh so it just helps to kind of fuel that but at the end of the day too it's that's a big part of the recovery process which is what's going to build you muscle strength the follow-up question to that is how much right and i think that if you're eating a whole food whole food diet and you're you're leading with protein you're hitting your protein intake it's pretty cool that you have these natural signals that will tell you to eat more i'm hungry yeah like if you are if you're eating whole foods you're eating protein and hitting your targets uh you're and you're lifting and you're lifting these complex lifts and you're getting stronger you're going to see the appetite go up feed it fuel it but fuel it with again whole foods healthy choices protein first dude like clockwork i don't know about you guys but when my strength starts going up so does my appetite yeah every single time always yeah and and so long as you discipline yourself to not eat way out of bounds and choose process garbage and you eat whole foods and you continue to eat protein first it's amazing how much it takes care of that difficult question that everybody asks because you're eating a whole food and you're eating protein first and you're it's difficult because it's nuanced and it's unique to every individual how many more calories you need in a you know built strength building program versus him versus me all different but what we all share is through that process if i'm eating whole foods and eating clean my body will tell me it's time to eat more when i'm getting stronger and i'll be able to eat till i'm satisfied by following those rules my calories may fall at 3800 justin's might fall at 32 yours might fall at 42 like but that's the that's the nuance and the of the individual but the same thing the same thing that is true between all of us is that the body signaled it when I got stronger, and so long as I followed those kind of rules, it kind of takes care of itself. And lastly, aim for nine hours of sleep every single night. So nine hours means nine hours between when you go to bed and when you wake up. That'll guarantee you get your eight. But here's the deal. Yes, it helps with recovery. Everybody knows that. It helps with muscle repair. It helps with muscle building. And also, this is how you get your central nervous system to fire. You need your central nervous system to be strong. That's what's telling your muscles to contract. Let me tell you something. A strong central nervous system is a strong person, a weak central. If your central nervous system is fried and you have big, giant muscles, you're weak. That's just the bottom line. And getting good sleep does this. In fact, and you'll see this in the data, a poor night of sleep or a good night of sleep will translate to more or less strength the next day. And injury. Injury is a big component to that. That's a big one. Yeah, it's funny how most people know this if they've had jet lag or had a really bad weekend of sleep, and then they go to attempt a lift. That's how dysfunctional they are in getting their body to respond how they normally do. You know, I plan to talk about this today. I guess it fits here. Anyways, it's something that I've been actually doing right now during this whole process because I'm tracking and really focusing on my readiness score and my sleep score and really trying to improve that. This is the first time I've ever really modified my training intensity based off of my readiness score and my sleep. And it's been a really good guide for me. And a lot of that, the motivation for me personally has been, you know, the last couple of times I've gotten in one of these kicks, I've hurt myself. And I've done a really bad job of limiting, you know, pushing. I was going off of how I felt, and I felt stronger. And my body was putting muscle back on. And so the momentum thing, I was leaning more into that. Like, oh, I'm in a rhythm, and my momentum is good. And, oh, I feel stronger today. And so pushing it versus, you know what, let me use these other metrics. On, you know, whether I should push or not right now. And it's like, you know what? Like, last two nights, haven't had the best of sleep. My readiness score is poor right now. I know I'm feeling really good. I got a rhythm right now. And I wanted to get after a squat. Say, I'm going to probably take it easy, and I'm going to back off of the weight and probably do 80% of my intensity instead of really trying to push that PR, which is what I wanted to do. It's really served me. And it's been challenging because I've had several days where I'm lifting where I want to really push. I put more weight on the bar. But I've also not hurt myself. I've continued to progress, and I feel really good. And so this is the first time that I've been really diligent about doing that. That's awesome. Speaking of diet and stuff, so I pulled something up that's really cool. So my favorite, one of my favorite cuts of meat generally is tri-tip. I just love tri-tip. I think it tastes great. So tasty. It's really good, you know, re-warmed. Like, you know, I cook it. And the way we cook it, you know, you season it, and then we do the cast iron pan, so we sear both sides. Then we throw it in the oven. Throw the whole thing in the oven, cook it. And it's just, it's so good. You eat it the next day, it's really good. It's easy to portion out. It's just one of my favorite cuts of meat. And ButcherBox has a really good tri-tip. So they have grass-fed tri-tip. It's leaner than most. Here's what I looked up. So this is so cool to me. It's crazy how much leaner it is. Well, here's what's cool about this, okay? You can keep the same amount of meat that you're eating now. So let's say you always eat tri-tip. And you're like, all right, I want to cut my calories. Typically. You have to eat less to do that. But what if you just kept the same amount of meat, but you went from grain-fed tri-tip, which is what you buy typically at the grocery store, to grass-fed tri-tip, which ButcherBox has? What's the difference? Eight-ounce grass-fed versus eight-ounce of grain-fed tri-tip. Here's the difference. Calories, grass-fed, 280 to 300. Conventional, 350 to 380. So there's a difference there of a pretty good difference. It's close to 100-calorie difference. It's just eight ounces. Grams of protein, 48 to 50 on grass-fed, 46 to 48 on grain-finished. So a little bit more protein on the grass-fed. Fat, 10 to 14 on grass-fed, 16 to 20 on grain-finished. That's one eight-ounce serving. If you eat three meals a day with tri-tip, or four meals a day like I do with tri-tip, that's like 300 to 400 calories. And I did the same serving. I'm eating eight ounces of tri-tip each time. It feels like you changed nothing. I changed nothing. The difference, though, is 300-calorie drop. I mean, the same amount. It's such a hack. A little more protein, yeah, less calories. It's such a hack. I've had family members that have switched to ButcherBox because they like the quality of the meat and because they know it's got better fatty acid profile. So they didn't even do it to get leaner. But they're like, oh, I'm losing weight. What's going on? I'm like, dude, it's leaner. You're just eating less calories. I don't even realize it. You know, when I competed, similar strategy that I used like that. So it was just so easy, and it didn't feel like I was depriving that much. It just, I went from, when you're eating six meals a day, and if four to six of those are comprised of higher fat cuts and red meat, switching to like your white meats and leaner cuts is such an easy way to cut two to 400 calories out of the day without changing the portion and making it feel like you're doing this radical change in the diet or like I'm really restricting. That always was like one of the first things that I did to start leaning out. I was going to ask you, Adam, because you just, so, you know, you've been trying to get leaner. How much have you lost on the scale? Not much on the scale. So I was 220 on the scale when we first started. And then right away when I dieted, I dropped to 215, which I think was just mostly water right away. And then I've really hovered around 210 to 215 this entire time for the last two weeks. Two or three months or whatever it's been. But you've had a good body comp change. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I definitely, I mean, I didn't test. I mean, that is my goal almost always is, which is, I mean, before Mind Pump started and I documented my whole, you know, transformation journey, I was 212 pounds and 19% body fat. And the thing that I set out to prove and show was that I'm not going to move my weight on the scale much, but watch me completely shift my body. My body composition. And so at the end of my journey that when I went to 7%, I was 212 still. Wow. And so that was the idea. Wow, so you went from 19% to 7% same body weight. Yes. Looks so different. Yeah, and yet, I mean, that's the scale like it's doing right now. Fluctuates five to seven pounds north or south. Right. You know, like right now I'm already back up to 215, 216 because I'm refeeding. Well, that's what I was going to ask you because we were talking earlier and you said you hit a plateau. Hit 210. So now you're doing a reverse diet. Yes. To go back into it. So really interesting. I pushed myself into lower calories than I normally would. I don't normally go down as low as 23, 2400 calories. Typically, 2500 calories used to be my floor. Now, I allowed myself to go that low because I know I'm not moving as much. I know I have lower muscle. We're sitting in here all day. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, you know, let me push lower and see what happens. And inevitably, I definitely leaned out. I lost a lot of body fat, I think, for the last month or so. But then I've been telling you for the last two weeks, I've been really stuck at that 210. That's been my floor. So someone might be like, well, just cut your calories even more. Right, right. And I already know I'm so low at 210. And by the way, my steps are high, too. I'm like, I minimum 10,000. A lot of days, I'm hitting 15,000, 16,000 steps. Yeah, so going lower in calories, you're just going to lose muscle and feel like crap because you're a big guy. Yeah, it's like I'm already, that's about as low as I can get to still hit healthy. Yeah. Low fats and protein. Any lower than that, and I'm sacrificing one of those, too. And I've already had days of low fat, and it impedes my sleep, and I already see the difference. And any lower protein, and I'm going to sacrifice muscle for sure. So I'm already at that floor, and yet I still have further to go leaning out, or at least that I want to do. So the inevitable for me right now, and I think this is where a lot of people end up getting. And I think a lot of people get here probably faster because they cut harder and do more quicker. But this is what happens. You hit this kind of plateau, and it seems counterintuitive that the answer to the plateau is to add back calories. And it's psychologically difficult. Because remember, I was just at 210 on the scale a day and a half ago. I'm reading 215 now. Well, that's water. We know that. Right. I know that. You know that. But the average person freaks out. Well, the average person goes, oh, yeah, freak out. Like, oh, you told me to reverse diet. It's like, yeah, no, I was completely depleted. And I still think I need to. I have already done this one other time. And I shoot back up to 218. So I'm hovering right around there. Now, how long do you plan on reverse dieting? Are you trying to get up to a calorie amount before you cut again? I'm not trying to go to a calorie amount. I'll go off of how I feel. Typically, what it'll look like is I'll probably do it for about a week. And then you'll start to cut again? And then I'll start to cut again. My body tends to respond pretty quick to that surplus. And then I'll go. And the last time I did this, it was I couldn't break 212. And so I did it. And then I came back. And then instantly, I went down to 210. And so I have a feeling the same thing will happen again is I'll push for the rest of this week. I'm in a surplus. And I'm going to push calories. I'll probably push as high as 3,500 to 3,600 calories. Stay there for the week. And then I'll go back down and probably crash down to like 25. And then you'll see fat loss. And then I'll see fat loss. That's crazy. I haven't tracked at all, and in fact, you know, the one time I tracked my calories, you guys want to know the one time I tracked my calories, a hundred percent true story. I, I was working as a trainer at 24 fitness. So I was young. Uh, I become the fitness manager. We used to sell a nutrition program called apex, uh, which I actually didn't know what it was. I just, we said side story, side story, but the district fitness manager wanted me to do a presentation to the district on how on, on apex. Cause we were number one in the country, in the, in the area and apex. And I took him a sign. I'm like, I don't know what apex is. He's like, well, why are you selling so much of it? Like, cause you told me to throw the thing in. I know it's nutrition. I just throw the $50 kid. I know it's a nutrition program that people need that. So he said, go through it. So I went through it and it was the only time I'd ever tracked ever. And I didn't like it. So I never tracked again. So I never, I don't, that was literally the only time you did that. Never. I've never, I've had clients track. I find it so fascinating that you don't, because you're such a data, and you're such a nerd about everything else that I feel like you would, you would, and you're neurotic about food and supplements. That's like, it makes no sense. Yeah. It's like, why not be neurotic about that too? So you're already all in. I think God's like, listen, dude, we're going to keep you like, cause I feel like I'm so it'd be more like my personality. It'd be like my personality to be more like you about it. Like, ah, I'm more aloof about it, but I actually, um, and I remember Justin got the front row seat of this. Because him and I were hanging out measured everything. Well, water, but it wasn't until then. So he, he was a part of, you know, I was doing that when we were building the app and I was doing the whole social media thing. But up until that point, I had never tracked like that. I had tracked a little bit of writing stuff on paper, but never like this. Like now that I was in a competition and I'm competitive, I'm like, okay, I'm going to really do this. And I remember meeting with him on a weekly basis, just totally nerding out. I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm like, dude, this is fascinating what I'm learning and what I'm seeing, you know, uh, with my body, like really paying attention. I feel like I'm a picture. Like, cause I think about this, I don't track anything. I feel like I'm like that, that, that blind Kung Fu guy in the movies, the old guy that just knows where things are. This is how I like to romanticize it. The truth is it would be a lot, it'd probably be a lot easier if I tracked, but I tend to just go off of like feel and look and strain. You don't really stray a lot from what you normally eat. So I feel kind of something that you have a good gauge of like, well, you know, all I have to do is add a little bit more meat. That's true. I think that's a, I think that's a really good point. And I'm all over the map. Like when I'm off the diet and eating whatever I want, I mean, I'm eating out and I'm, and that's why I always, I always share on the podcast. I always like to share on the podcast with the audience. Cause I think, I think I'm, I'm probably more like the average American than you are. I think, I think you're very special and unique when it comes to the way you eat and diet. Uh, I'm very much so, Hey, when I don't care, I'm kind of just whatever. And when I come back to tracking, just like I did this time, again, the two big thing, glaring things right away, always is low protein. I'm way low on protein and over consuming carbs and fats. And the other big glaring thing for me this time was like, Oh shit, my portion control has gotten out of control. Like what I thought was like a, what I thought was a small circle. You messed me up, dude. We ordered food. We used to get, so we, you know, we used to always get food from Nick restaurants, like Mediterranean skewers or whatever. And I'd order it and it's two chicken skewers. And Adam's like this, like, and I trust Adam. Cause he's the ex bodybuilder, right? Cause it's only 30 grams of protein. It's 30 grams of protein. Really? So I'd get two extra skewers. Well, anyway, I go and I calculate how much, bro. I mean like 70 grams of protein. Bro, what the hell, bro? Two skewers is like 45 grams of protein. My portions were, especially on like the carbohydrates and the other things. Uh, I was just, I was like, I, when I started weighing, I was like, that can't be a cup or that can't, I was like, that was like two cups. And then my scoops of protein, I was just like, yeah, that's probably like eight ounces. Like, Oh shit. That was like a pound, you know, you know, bodybuilders largely didn't track for a long time. Really? Yeah. So like, uh, Gaspari was one of the first guys that really track in the eighties. Back then they just went on a bodybuilder diet. They would just change their diet completely. And you know, with their buddies, all of them is what they would do type of deal in the nineties. They would hire nutrition coaches or some famous ones that then would give diets to the bodybuilders. And they were the ones that were telling them how many calories to eat, but body wasn't tracked for a long time. They just went by eating or not. It's actually more common still than you think. So what I, I was actually probably one of the more neurotic bodybuilders out of my circle of friends. You know what they do? It's, and it's, it's a blend of the two. Um, when they're, when they're in bulk, it's like, eat everything, eat everything in sight. Just hit, hit your protein take when they go into a cut like tilapia broccoli. Yeah, so exactly. It's like a, it's a, and they don't really, they don't track calories. They track a carb cycling. That's it. That's all they would track was just like, these are my high carb days. This is my low carb. They didn't track anything else. They're not tracking. They're not tracking fats. They're not tracking calories. It's literally carb cycling. And then they switch, they switch the meats. It's like, it goes from, I can eat everything in sight and bulk protein, all the calories, whatever I get on my diet. My diet goes straight over. To tilapia and asparagus. And then all I get is larger portions of rice and sweet potato on these days. And these days I get half of it. And these days I get a third of it. Like that was literally, that's it. That's what they track. And it's now what I know they're doing with the tilapia is that they're cutting their calories and they're, they're, they're fluctuating their calories with that. But I, I ate all low. I ate all kinds of foods. I like, I, I enjoyed the whole, because you understood the calorie. Yeah. So I just, and I just would manage my calories. You know, it's crazy. I gotta, I was, actually going to ask you about this, Adam, and you might, might've chime in on this too, Justin. But this, you know, bodybuilding, the thing that made it so hard is now, is now almost gone. What I mean by that is like, okay, like being consistent in the gym, you know, and then you have the good genetics and you have, you know, at high levels, they take, you know, drugs and all that stuff. But you know, what made bodybuilding really hard was the dieting period end of story. Like nobody diets harder. That was the suffering. The bodybuilders, nobody can suffer when it comes to diet, like a bodybuilder. Like if you're ever around a bodybuilder, 12 weeks out and you watch what they eat and what they do, it's crazy. Grueling. Yeah. And what they're doing now is they're just giving themselves GLPs and they're just increasing the dose. They're just upping the dose. Oh, cool. I'll just eat less. I've talked to a couple of buddies of mine who competed and they're like, dude, if I had this back in the day, I have a buddy who competed and he's like, yeah, I just increased the dose. He's like, dude, I'm not even that hungry on my pre. Contest diet. And then I'm like, what do you think this is like for the younger bodybuilders? He goes, they have no idea what it was like for us back in the day. We had to just not eat. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. I would have to say it's hard for me to just to try and like put myself in like the competing like mode. But from what I'm experiencing right now with the dose of GLP-1 that I'm on while doing this, it's definitely the easiest it's ever been for me to, yeah. And it doesn't mean it's like, it's not without. You're also micro dosing. Yeah. These guys are going up. Right. Right. Like you'd be every week. Like, I wonder if I was like trying to use it like that, or is this like, okay, it's time for me to reduce even more calories. Let me bump it. My buddy said pre-contest had to force feed himself. That's how powerful the drugs are and the doses. Oh, I mean, I imagine force feeding yourself. Well, I could totally imagine what that, I mean, what that feels like. That was the problem I had with it when I did, when I, when I took the recommended dose from the doctors and just said, okay, let me see how this feels. Oh, I definitely had no desire to eat. I mean, it was like, I could go forgot. Yeah. I go a day. I'd be like, oh, I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's that powerful. So I could see, um, I could see guys and leave the bodybuilding world. Of course, they're going to abuse the crap out of stuff. Yeah. I imagine though, it would present other challenges, at least what I'm, what I'm going through right now with, uh, like you, you would definitely, I would have to like strategize differently because one of the things I just, I told you off air because I'm going on this like refeed. Um, I mean, I completely skipped the shot this week because I, when I'm doing it bodybuilder style naturally, and I don't have a GLP one, I would just, you know, oh, today's refeed day. And I couldn't wait for refeed. I could just, I, and I could, I had to still limit how I eat. Cause I could eat 6,000. I can just go off. Cause the, my, I've been hungry all week and my appetite's there and my motility is fast. Power the food right now. My body has got so comfortable eating low calorie that that feels comfortable that so that part's easy. But then now I'm like, okay, I need to refeed cause I'm at a hard plateau. I go to refeed and I'm like, oh man, it is hard to get past weird 2,600 calories. This is weird. Yeah. And, and so it's this real. And so I'm like, I got it. I totally skipped the shot this week because I need to get, I need to get some of my appetite back to get back to filling back. That's why the timing for people, we have clients, right? We have, so people listening, we have trainers. Uh, we have a lot of trainers now that work with clients. And a lot of the people come in already using a GLP and a lot of them plateau on a GLP because they have to do what's called a reverse diet, like Adam said. So they'll lose like 40 pounds or like another 40 pounds ago, but the calories are so low. They've been on a GLP for a while. Like what do I do? And oftentimes we get on the phone with their doctor and the doctor reduces the dose or takes them off. So we could do a reverse diet, build back some muscle and then get them back on to do the cut. Otherwise they're just stuck. Yep. And we can't reverse diet him. Yeah, no, I don't know if I could properly. properly reverse diet without, and I'm only, I'm literally doing a microdose. Yeah. So I can't imagine. Uh, so definitely one, I think you're doing something like one seventh, the dose of what a starting dose is. So I can't imagine like being on a, like a full dose and then trying to reverse diet, how challenging, um, that would be. So yeah, it would. So yes, it would be a huge cheat code for bodybuilding, but it also would change how I would have to do. So my question is this, cause I know one of the reasons why you microdosed is because it had such a positive effect on your psoriasis. And, uh, there is, there are studies going on right now, uh, on GLPs and autoimmune, uh, issues, uh, cause what they're finding in some of these studies. So this is preliminary. It's not really a case of none of this is established, but people are getting benefits, uh, on their, on some autoimmune issues before they lose any weight. So, cause there was a lot of speculation. Well, it's a reduction in calories that oftentimes have a positive effect on, uh, on. Inflammation will have a positive effect on autoimmune, but doctors are reporting people, especially doctors been doing this for a while. Like, I don't know, people are getting benefits before any weight loss happens. So I'm curious to see if you have, cause I know you went off of it to refeed. So I want to know if you have an, uh, interesting, you brought this up. I wasn't going to bring this up. I was actually gonna talk off air with you guys about this, but whatever. We'll have it now. Um, I've actually have a doctor right now. That's really pushing back on me, uh, and wanting me to get off the GLP one that is trying to, that wants to help me with my psoriasis. Uh, she's like separately with something else. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, I sent in all my photos. Like she, that's actually the first doctor that I've ever had, uh, ask if I knew what kind of psoriasis that I had in like the different types. And, um, so I had to send in all these pictures. It was the STD version. Yeah. It's the angry one. Uh, she, uh, she actually described, uh, very well, all my symptoms and you go, Oh, you have what's called, I think plaque psoriasis. Oh yeah. Yeah. And, uh, she goes, uh, this is, uh, uh, and this, this is me also playing the game between Katrina, her time, Katrina, Katrina, telling me telephone. Yeah. Telephone game. And she goes, uh, you know, this is a hundred percent, all his gut related. And I'm like, well, no shit. It's an autoimmune. So of course I know it's got into my body attacking itself. So that's not new news to me, but she's like, I don't like him on the GLP one. I want, I want to know more about his experience with it. And because her theory is that slowing down the motility like that is stressing my gut more and now what I haven't talked to her and here's my pushback to that or what I will say to her because I better since you've been on, it's been way better. The best it's yeah. That's, that's, that's what made me, that's what made me get back on. It was not this motive. I was on it already. And, uh, because of, for those reasons, the whole diet thing I'm doing with you is like just sidebar after the fact. Um, I, and, and what it's done for me is absolutely slow down, but what slowing down, but see, and then this is what's interesting about how these doctors, cause some doctors are like so pro the GLP one use for certain things. And then some of them are so anti and I have a feeling this person's anti I'm not your average person. I listened to my body when my motility slows down. And I re and I just told you off air this I'm like, I can't even push 800 calories, good food or not. It's that, that, that large of a, of a meal with my motility that slow messes my gut up. So I'm very cognizant of that. And so not only do I eat whole foods and healthy, I try and land around six, 700 calories because it, it, it totally sits well with me. Anything beyond that. I definitely, if I eat garbage, I will pay for that for sure. So I'm assuming that that's what she's used to seeing is somebody who's on psoriasis tries the GLP one to help their psoriasis, their motility gets slowed down. They still eat like an asshole. Don't change their behaviors. And now they're just stressing. The gut out because they're eating. And then I could totally see how that would flare my psoriasis up, but no, instead what it's done for me is it's lowered my calorie intake. It's lowered my portion, my portion size. It's forced me to want to eat healthier foods more than I ever eat. Like I already eat healthy, but I really don't eat out of balance right now. It's only benefited my gut health. Uh, and it's, uh, but my, so a lot of people get worse gut health with a GLP because it slows down motility and it can increase odds of things like SIBO, and CFO and stuff like that. Uh, I have more of a nervous gut. I think this is what you and I are like this. That's why I actually helped. And I think to this doctor's argument point, I could, so I can imagine the average American. I can also imagine the person who has averaged to slow motility already. And then they do that. I was like you, I have super fast motility. I have a tendency towards too fast, too fast. I've dealt with, I've been teased my whole life. I've been teased about that. There's like, everybody makes fun of me because I can't even everyone's at a dinner table still. And I'm already going to the bathroom. That's how fast. And that's like, hell that's like crap food. That's like, like food will go through me that quick. And so, you know, this is, I've actually, it's been nice to not feel like that all the time. You know how many people more commonly with women, uh, will report that they poop once a week or less. Yeah. It's actually not that uncommon. I guarantee you there's a lot of people listening right now that don't even literally a hundred percent. There's people listening right now. They don't even know that that's wrong. Then they'll, they'll go a whole week. That's crazy without going to the bathroom, which is wild, which is crazy. Yeah. So I, so I, that's, I haven't got on the phone with this doctor and I will, because I am curious. I was very like the fact that she was able to like right away pinpoint my symptoms and talk about the stuff and say that they have this, they have, she's probably going to want to put you on immune suppressing drugs that I'd be very careful with. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be very careful with that because the side effects of that is, uh, not necessarily good. Yeah. So just that, just, yeah, for me, what I mean, nothing has ever cured my psoriasis. I've only gone through phases of it completely like tamped down and that's where I'm at right now. It's like, it's obviously still there. I have these giant patches all over my body that I've had forever and they've continued to grow as I've gotten older. Um, and, and they absolutely flare when they flare up, it sucks if it gets itchy, scabby, scaly, all the things it's awful. Um, but, and I, it's always when I'm eating bad or eating a lot of extra calories and not eating healthy food, sugar, stuff like that. Definitely does all that. But man, right now I'm like, it's, I haven't, I haven't scratched, itched or picked in three months, you know? And so, so it's, so I don't care what she says to me. You can't convince me. Watch this Doug, Google right in the search, uh, GLP and psoriasis or, and see, cause I, there's, they're actually studying it specifically for certain autoimmune issues. And I believe there you go right there. GLP one receptor agonists can improve psoriasis severity and quality of life as an adjuvant add on therapy, particularly in patients who will be sitting at type one, two diabetes. So scroll down. Yeah. But just to challenge that, just so we're playing devil's advocate here, you Google it this way, you know, can GLP one, uh, aggravate psoriasis Okay. And, and, and see what it says. Go back to the previous page. I'll show you the mechanisms, uh, that they're identifying. And I'm telling you right now, they're studying it for now. There's some autoimmune autoimmune issues that GLPs can actually, that they think make worse, but there's some that they make better. No, they do not aggravate psoriasis. See, it's told you scroll, go back again, Doug, uh, to where we were. Here we go. Um, so right there, systemic inflammation, reinduction, GLP one, lower inflammation markers, such as C-reactive protein, interleukin 17, interleukin 23, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Uh, so, so, and, and there's literally, there are, there are right now trials going on specifically. Well, I mean, like I said, I don't even care what the doctor says to me. You can't convince me that I'm not, I know, I know I'm, I'm way better right now, the last three months than I was just previous. And we're heading into winter. Winter is always the worst time of the year for me. So as soon as the season changes, it gets really bad in the winter time, uh, no matter what my diet is. And so I, I firsthand, I can tell you that how much better it is, uh, right now. I mean, I told you guys that the first time I went around that my one positive feedback of, you know, getting Ozempic face was, yeah, I lost 30 pounds of muscle and that was terrible. And it was awful, all the things, but I was like, damn, my, my psoriasis hadn't felt so good in forever. And so that was what motivated me like, Hey, what if I took a micro dose of this to see if I can get some of the benefits from it? And a hundred percent I've, I've seen. So, all right. So uh, check out this study that's making its rounds, which is so wild. It's so wild. By the way, we've seen similar effects in men. So this study was done on women. So here's, I'll read a little bit about it. So if women are given testosterone, okay. They actually give them testosterone. They behave more fairly and less, uh, with less conflict. However, however, we're going to get roasted. No, no, no. Listen, this happens with men too. However, women who believe they took testosterone, but who actually took a placebo behave more unfairly and more aggressively. Okay. So what they're showing here, we have this perception of testosterone that is so wrong. It's so wrong that it makes us so like, Oh, we gave you testosterone right now. It actually gave you nothing. And now you're going to act more like you think testosterone will make you act, but the women who were actually given testosterone, they act much better. Um, men given testosterone, it makes them behave, uh, less deceitfully. And they're generosity no longer depends on whether someone is watching them. So less testosterone favors the generosity is more dependent on the gaze of others and more strategic. so everybody needs to like by the way this is not referring to supraphysiologic doses of testosterone yeah where you're taking like bodybuilder doses like healthy amounts yeah but a a normal to high level of testosterone uh produces better behavior in both men and women and that's what the studies are showing but we've associated it with like rage and aggressiveness and like it's just like money yeah what it's just like money it's just money more money more testosterone just makes you more of what you are yeah if you're an asshole beforehand and you get a bunch of money you're a bigger ass now you're rich yeah now you're a rich asshole you say if you take if you were an asshole before and you take a bunch of testosterone now you're a bigger well this what these studies are showing is that you might it actually might make you a better person and i would argue that the same thing goes with money yeah i would say hey listen there's a lot of there's a lot of myths around that there's a lot of people that think i i and i say this coming from somebody who had this belief because i was i was raised in this belief that rich people are evil money is the root of all that really communicated or was it implied it was implied okay that rich people are sneaky and yeah it was more it was more it was more implied than it was like it was wasn't preached to me by my parents without but it was and but it was it was interpreted that way to me too that even though that's not what the verse means by that um later that i found that out right but so i grew up thinking that and and the opposite was true as i as i met more and more people that way actually man some of the the wealthiest people that i have met are some of the most generous kind humble people and and i went in with the perception of skeptical and looking for the bat oh they must be fake and being deceitful and then it's like wow actually they're you know really nice and generous and you know it was implied in my family so this nobody said this but what was implied in my family was that they're just a government authority especially government authority uh that they're just deceitful and you know i don't trust them i know what they're saying like this these are the conversations i would hear were they wrong in my family like a politician would be speaking and my grandfather would be like don't believe them you know they don't this is how they would talk about that stuff you know what they're doing they're and they come up with their own like conspiracy theories but whenever we would meet or talk with remember i'm a from a family of immigrants so these are my family's all from sicily whenever we'd meet someone who was especially a successful entrepreneur when they would leave my grandfather my dad my mom they'd tell they'd say you see how successful that person is they work really hard that's why we came to this country so you could so it was implied to me was the opposite people who are successful that they're doing something right and they're working hard but with like government officials and stuff like that nobody they trusted oh they're on top of it i was gonna say they're probably they're pretty accurate you know what they were right dude yeah i definitely had the same as adam it was like more you know they must they must have done something to get their money that was deceitful dishonest like yes it's kind of like they put somebody down to get up yes and that's the only way you can be successful that was like drilled in my head which was crazy wow but yeah so i i didn't believe it they worship money over god you know what i'm saying you can't be you can't be that successful and not love god you must have you must be successful people i knew were the most that had the biggest donations had the most you know contributing to these mission trips and it's just like it just didn't add up to me and um yeah it's just one of those things that you're you you have to meet enough people to really understand like there's there's different versions like you could be you could have bad behavior you know attached to like money will propel that bad behavior totally yes yeah it could be a piece of crap and be you could be a good person and propel that you know it's like yeah and that's what i mean is that you know money or testosterone just makes you more of that and i would argue that to your point with the testosterone that in most cases actually it might actually show that it actually improves it i would argue that in most cases i think people become happier and nicer and better god if you're low testosterone and you take testosterone you're happier well that's the thing you feel good i think that's it's a big part i think people don't understand testosterone makes you feel good when you're struggling paycheck to paycheck and you're when you're poor and you can't make rent and then all of a sudden you can like you tend to be a happier nicer person there's definitely a there's a curve there like it's it's tough to be super happy positive all the time when you're getting beat up all the time and as soon as you get a little bit of financial break it's for the most part that shifts a lot of people's mindset and happiness and outlook and so as you know as i think back to my family was none of them nobody was wealthy because again they were all uh you know like no education poor immigrants but very hard working um and my you know my dad did a good job actually we lived somewhat middle class even though four kids my mom didn't work and he just worked his butt off um but you know we they were all always very generous uh my whole family was very generous not with money because they didn't have a lot of money so they couldn't be generous with money although they were when they could be but very generous with their time like anybody in my family my dad so my dad my parents the same you really okay yeah so very generous for their time really so that's such a wonderful thing to grow up around because i my dad you know he did stonework so i did tile marble granite any family or friend needed help after work he would go to their house and they would just buy the materials and he would just work for hours afterwards to redo their kitchen or their bathroom and they would fight with him to pay him money and it was like this struggle and he'd be like no no i'll do it for you that's wild yeah and i just grew up in that environment which is so as i didn't realize as a kid what a blessing it was it's unique and that kind of environment oh you've definitely adopted that for sure it's carried that on yeah awesome all right i gotta uh talk about uh legion's uh egg protein did you know that i had to go do the the you talked about this the other day the the shoots yeah oh yeah i had to go do the oh at walmart in walmart so the legion is now totally in walmart yeah yeah they're they're in walmart now which is great first of all i had no idea that walmart had a supplement huge supplement section huge huge huge huge they're actually one of the top sellers of supplements in america and and are they really yes i mean i believe it after seeing the selection of the holy crap and all caged this is like which i thought was interesting i was like dude people were really like walking out with things and yeah i'm like hey is is are we really stealing protein and and protein gum and creatine gummies at that higher rate that needs to be issues oh yeah watch that watch that jack guy over there yeah absolutely you so yeah you have to go get somebody to open it up to get it but um yeah legion was there um it was super awkward what was your photo shoot just shopping i mean like yeah not like a video yeah yeah so the least favorite thing oh it actually it's the top it's worse than the stuff we have to do in here yeah because i'm in public yeah and i got a kid and you gotta pretend yeah i got a kid following me around the camera so and everybody everybody's looking first of all how do you get scared at walmart like that's like a sometimes it's a circus sometimes but they were oh i mean following me out the employees you know taking pictures of me give me are you somebody important you know how do you answer that yes are you being on tiktok that's all yeah yeah yeah yeah no it's super awkward and but yeah no so what products does legion have there are they full line so not they're full line they had so i'm sure they're whey proteins whey proteins there they had their gummies there and they had creatine gummies there and they had um does pre-workout there pre-workout cereal those are those are the three so their egg protein is amazing it's it's my it's my so i can't do dairy uh which sucks because whey protein's so great whey protein is such a great protein yeah but their egg protein is like i mean egg protein is right there with whey in terms of quality amino acid score bioavailability it's almost the next best thing yeah i mean it is it's actually right it's literally you can actually make an argument uh against the way for egg okay because that's how high of well especially when you're making shakes oh because it it tastes great their chocolate egg is amazing yeah and i love it so it's you know post-workout that's what i've been having lately yeah no legions legions like the i you know i'm i'm i'm not i'm not a big fan of legion i'm back to also taking my creatine and stuff like that and they're uh i like their their pink lemonade um creatine gummies yeah or fire the sprinkles of whatever that is on there yeah sure looks like it's so good hey check it out we don't do this often in fact we only do this a couple times a year we have a buy one get one free for maps workout programs here's what you do buy any maps 15 style workout program remember these programs are designed to be 15 to 20 minutes a day that's it buy any one of them and you're going to be able to do it in 15 to 20 minutes a day and then you can get any one of these other seven programs for free maps 15 minutes symmetry or strong or power lift or performance or muscle mommy or 40 plus it's a buy one get one free and it's happening right now for a limited time go to maps 15 bogo.com here comes the show our first caller is valerie from new york hey valerie how you doing valerie hello hi hi i'm from team sorry i'm a little nervous that's all right how can we help you okay so i'm gonna read off so i just don't lose track it's a little long okay um hi mind pump team first i want to thank you all for all the wonderful content i've been a huge fan and listener since 2020 i've ran muscle mommy map symmetry math performance and maps anabolic advance so my question is how do you know when it's time to stop chasing strength and adding more weight to your lifts is there a point where weight is simply too heavy or heavy enough for your body for some context context i'm 33 years old i'm five feet tall currently weighing around 128 pounds i'm also a mom to a beautiful nine-year-old girl hi mia um i've been strength training for six years but honestly i didn't start seeing significant progress until this past year with my trainer lewis at absolute power since then i've really fallen in love with getting stronger building muscle and just the overall gym culture i'm hitting numbers that i genuinely never thought i would hit between my dexter scan in may 2025 and my most recent scan i gained almost seven pounds of lean mass i dropped three percent body fat and my most recent dexter scan has me around 26 body fat and 91 pounds of lean mass strength wise my one rep max for squat is 315 pounds for deadlift is 300 pounds and i'm benching 135 for a few reps and this one is probably for style but i can also hip thrust 500 pounds for 10 reps the last three months i was eating at a deficit you of 1800 for three weeks and then doing a refeed at 2400 sorry i'm a little nervous and um so okay so then i would line up my refeed weeks for the weeks i lift heavier however i've been doing this for three months and then i decided to go back to 2300 which is around my maintenance i sleep seven to nine hours consistently i currently train four days a week two lower bodies one upper body and one full day on fridays with my trainer and i'm walking around 15 to 25 steps most days so this question is partly inspired by my mom and my boyfriend they both look at me and then look at the way that i'm lifting and they get nervous they're proud of me but they're worried that if i keep trying to go heavier and heavier i'm eventually going to get hurt despite feeling i'm doing everything correctly including training and blocks i really enjoy being strong and seeing what my body is capable of but it has made me stop to think about whether i should just focus on maintaining the strength that i have now so i've been wondering where is the line between getting stronger in a healthy productive way and pushing those that are unnecessarily heavy for my body and now and how would you determine what is actually too heavy for an individual is it based on strength relative to weight technique recovery joint or back stress or is there really no predetermined limit to as limit as long as you're progressively appropriately progressing appropriately yeah good question very good question you're really strong yes like exceptionally strong so here's the um the risk that comes from chasing strength past a certain point right so uh when you're doing a barbell squat for example and you're off by a little bit with your form it's far riskier when you have a really heavy weight on your back than when you have a weight that's not so heavy even uh relative to your strength okay so even though you can handle you know 275 pounds right if you're if you're one rep max is 315 you can handle 275 uh it's still a heavy weight uh and it becomes exponentially more difficult or challenging or risky uh if your technique is off just by a little bit so just the higher you perform the greater risk of potential injury because you can't be off by even a little bit so to give you an example an analogy uh if you're driving 30 miles an hour and you jerk the steering wheel that poses a risk but if you're driving 120 miles an hour and you jerk jerk the steering wheel it poses a much greater risk so this is just what you need to consider you're exceptionally strong now what plays a role in this is genetics and training and all that stuff obviously you've got really good genetics for strength you're also trained really well obviously but you also got really good genetics very few women at your size would ever be able to do those lifts ever it's impressive so so you've got to be able to do those lifts you're also you're also genetically gifted so the question is like okay how do i know uh when this is like getting too risky or you know what do i do here here's the deal um if your constant pursuit is to hit new prs just know that the risk of injury is there if you're always pursuing prs if that's the thing that you're constantly chasing the risk of injury is going to always be there so the the only advice i could give someone like you who's so concerned about the risk of injury is to just know that the risk of injury is there consistent and doing so well and so strong would be to change the pursuits uh would be to focus on maybe unilateral training or athleticism or mobility uh it would be to uh not necessarily make strength the constant pursuit uh and here's the deal again if you never got any stronger heck you could drop your lifts by 50 pounds you'd be one of the strongest women on earth especially at your size still so this is just something to consider very few people get to this place so this isn't a conversation that i have often with people but this is a consideration for people who are high performing who often compete it's like because look here's the deal strength training in generally reduces joint pain and reduces injury we know that generally speaking but if you go in the competitive levels olympic lifters and power lifters they have higher rates of injury than the high level athletes and they strength train all the time why is it because they're performing at such a high level they're athletes yeah at some point it turns into a sport which is like literally what you're talking about and i think if you look at it from that perspective um you know being enjoying it because you're pursuing the strength of it as a sport there's risks higher risks involved when you when you compete um but in terms of like general strength and lifestyle there's a way to do that as well it just looks a bit differently and so you'd have to approach it uh with a different mindset uh towards that but i mean there's nothing wrong with still pursuing strength in different avenues you know different ranges of motion you know going that route we have like old time strength is another one i always like to kind of steer people towards that are like they love and enjoy strength in in itself uh because it exposes you to different movement patterns um that will challenge you uh in different directions which will also then kind of benefit uh these lifts as well uh you know and so i think it's a good thing that we're able to you know as well so i think uh you know there's other ways to kind of look at it but definitely um you know for long term and longevity wise like we're gonna have to look at this differently well i think you just have to really evaluate what your goals are you know you say you want you like you like being strong well you're there you're already strong you're strong as shit so it's like uh it's like talking to my buddy who's like you talk about his goals and stuff like that and like he was talking financial goals and i'm like you're already rich what you want you want double that i mean you're there you know how about you know you're already rich you're already rich you're already you know how about other goals in your life or other parts so like you're strong you did it and maintaining it is a great goal to have too uh what are your other goals and what do you want is it longevity is it more time is it feeling mobility is it getting strong at other lifts too because that's to justin's point um if you really love chasing strength and getting stronger in lifts uh maybe you don't stop doing that maybe you just focus on different lifts for a while that will serve you in different ways you know get really good at the windmill get really good at the grass get really good at these other great lifts that have other added benefits and you'll probably have to start lower because you haven't been practicing them probably as much as you have your squatting and movement patterns like that and so if you want to stay in that lane of just trying to progress and get stronger my suggestion would be to move into other lifts because you're at the peak you're at the one percent right now of those lifts so for your size your height your weight uh female you're already at the one percent uh to sal's point it you're always playing at risk now where you're at you're playing at a very high level and so you know maybe take yourself to a lower level at a lift that you don't ever do and go get good go get strong at that and get good at that here's the other thing too valerie uh so strength is very closely correlated to muscle growth up to a certain point okay so once you start to get really strong uh it's not necessarily correlated as closely to muscle growth so to give you an example you know um when i was lifting when i went from a 400 pound deadlift to a 500 pound deadlift uh i saw some muscle on my body 500 to 600 i saw not as much if i go six to seven even probably less um and so it's not as closely correlated so you could also focus on bodybuilding uh for a little while and what that looks like is you drop the weight bump the volume focus on the squeeze and the pump and you're not going to be and then one last thing this is just if you decide because i don't like to tell people don't do this thing that you love so much because and especially when someone's good at it like you could compete valerie you could compete and win yeah uh you probably break some records uh in in certain categories that's how strong you are something else you could do is you know let's say your pr is 315 in the squat um and you did 315 you're like whoa i think i could go to 320 don't just 315 becomes easy just practice with 315 for the next 10 weeks until it feels so easy that you can go up just five pounds so instead of challenging your pr you get so good at a particular lift at a particular weight that it's adding five pounds not a big deal that's one way to progress your strength with uh with a lower risk of injury if that makes sense yeah that's actually pretty much how i've been um training uh recently i've just been my trainer has me go up uh every like every week or so five pounds and to the point where i knew i was always strong but i felt like i didn't have the confidence and i felt like that's what he brought out of me and then so my problem is i've been going back and forth between like wanting to bodybuild wanting to possibly do a competition um so it's yeah i feel like and i know i can't have both of them um so it's just yeah it's been like like i wonder like what do you i guess what should probably in your opinion be my next goal which one will which one's the most fun to you yeah well probably chasing the prs let's see i don't know what's most fun i mean You're so good at it. There's a reason why she loves doing it, bro. I would challenge that. So I would push back just because you like. I think it's good for us to do things that we tend not to do. I mean, I've been talking about this on the podcast for a long time. Like, I don't love mobility stuff. That was challenging for me. It was like, I'm going to let go of being strong and being focused on my aesthetics because I like that stuff. But I know how good chasing mobility was for me. And so I went in. And what's great about it, it's not like you can't go back the other way for a while, too. So it's not like you decide you're going to bodybuild for a while. And it's like, all of a sudden, you're going to become weak. And you can't go back to being like lifting, powerlifting. It's like, have a season where you hyper-focus on mobility or hyper-focus on bodybuilding. And then you can return. If you want to try bodybuilding-style training, you play with higher reps, you know, 10 to 12. And instead of trying to make the weight feel light by having, like, really good driving technique, you're trying to make the weight feel heavy by feeling it in the muscles. That's it. And don't worry about the weight on the bar. So you put weight on the bar. You're like, okay, oh, this feels – I'm going to try and make it feel hard. And I'm going to keep the reps higher. And that'll probably build muscle on you. So you're not going to be lifting crazy weights. Risk of injury goes down. But you'll probably build more muscle as a result. Yeah, I would like – especially in my lower body, I've been, like, wanting to focus more on building my lower body. So I have been, like, again, also contemplating whether, like, bodybuilding might actually – might actually be what I want to chase for this season. And then I also wanted just your opinion on, like, when programs that, like, just – like, Squattober. So there's a program called Squattober. And then I'm just not sure if – because I just finished off a block of really, like, a high number, 315, if squatting for a month is actually going to be beneficial. Nah, but I think, you know, you can follow your routine, cut the weight down, aim for 12 reps, and try to make the weight feel heavy, focus on feel, and that'll build muscle in your lower body. You'll see more muscle. And it'll be weird to you because, like, I'm not even getting – I mean, you run a four-day-a-week program. I'd love to see her do, like, upper-lower or do – We could send you our upper-lower program. Yeah, run upper-lower and follow it the way it's laid out. Or you could do powerlifting and go for it. I don't know. I've kind of disagreed. Let's say – I think, yeah, because you're so good, like, and you've never competed before. It's like you might as well, like – Yeah, cross that off the list and then go into bodybuilding. It wouldn't be a bad idea to bodybuild for a season. It would actually make you better at powerlifting later on if you haven't done something like that. We can send you maps upper-lower, and you could try following that, and then just focus on the pump and the squeeze and making the weight feel heavier, and that'll probably put some muscle on your body, especially if you're in a good calorie surplus. Then if you really miss powerlifting, run back a powerlifting cycle and sign up for a powerlifting meeting. Go crush it. Okay. That sounds great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything you guys do, all the content. I'm just a huge fan, honestly, and I respect you guys as men. I also got baptized last week. Oh, awesome. Partly, partly, partly, like, I feel like you guys just opened that up for me as well, too. Oh, praise God. Thank you so much. Valerie, do you train people? Are you a trainer? No, I own a dog walking business. So anytime you guys speak about dogs, I love it, too. Oh. Hey, listen, you should offer some services to your church. I bet there's some women. That would benefit from learning how to strength train from someone like you. Just a thought. That's a really good idea. I've been attending service for, like, the past several months. So I have been thinking about, like, trying to, you know, introduce myself to more people and get more involved and serve. Oh, well, they need that. They definitely need that. And you'd be a good candidate. So, well, thanks for calling in, Valerie. Thanks, Valerie. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you. Just for listeners to listen. Crazy how strong she is. I know, dude. She is record-breaking strength. Yeah. Like, that's it. Well, I mean, we've been doing this for a really long time. And we've taken probably hundreds of live callers now. I don't think we've had a female at her height and weight anywhere near that. I don't think so. No, she competed in a natural category, drug-tested. She would blow everyone away with some of those lifts. And that's, look, you hear us talk about on the podcast all the time, get strong, get strong. For 90% of people, that's going to give you the best results. But there does come a point if you get, you know, you're not going to be able to do it. If you're real consistent, you've been doing it for three years, and you're starting to get real strong, where chasing strength starts to come with too high of a risk of injury, and it's just not worth it. And there's other ways to continue to progress. Well, you said it really well. I mean, the ROI diminishes at her level. Like, it's huge when she went from zero to 200-pound squat. I mean, huge. I mean, I guarantee if we would have dug into, like, hey, when you'd never squat before, and then you went from never squatting and worked your way all the way to 200, how much did your body radically change and how did you, all the things. But I bet you, if you had done it, you would have done it. If you asked her what was the difference between 200 and 275, probably very little. And, I mean, I know this for sure. My squat, all those lifts are 100, 100-plus pounds, way more or less than what I was before. Yet my body, physique, all the other things is relatively close to where it was. So it's not, no, it's not that big of a difference at that point. Our next caller is Nadia from France. Hi, Nadia. Hi, Nadia. Hello. Bonjour. Bonjour. Bonjour. Hi. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for taking my call. I've been listening to you guys for the better part of a year. So it's very cool to finally meet you. I just wanted to say one quick thing, which is I obviously love listening to your content and your topics. And even when you guys just, like, shoot the shit about random stuff, I do love that too. But I have to say that I've gotten so much benefit from the listener callers and the way in which you guide them. And I just think it's such a master class in grace and generosity. So I've learned a lot just from how you guys speak to your listeners. Thank you. Thank you. That's so kind. How can we help you? Okay. So a bit of background. So I'm 44 years old and I started lifting weights about 10 or 11 months ago. And I was convinced to start because of you. So I discovered Sal first via Ariel Laurie's podcast. And I just instantly fell in love with the approach. It was just so much fun. It was so simple, so straightforward. And then I found you guys, fell in love with all of you. Don't tell my husband. And at 43 years old, I picked up a dumbbell for the first time. So I thought I could just give a little bit of context on where I'm coming from before my question. Because I think my blueprint is similar to maybe a lot of women who call in. And maybe my story could help others as well. I'll keep it as brief as possible. But just for the context. So I'm a 90s kid. So I grew up wanting to be as thin as possible. So that meant quite a few different things for several decades. I was between vegan and vegetarian for 22 years. I did intense cardio. I was super into fasting for a while, calorie restriction, all that kind of stuff. I also grew up a ballet dancer and a classical musician. So all of that pressure and perfection, et cetera. And then later on, type A personality, daughter of immigrants, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you can imagine that by the time I reached my early 20s, I had developed a pretty severe eating disorder. And as you guys know very well, you don't ever fully recover from an ED. But you do try to learn to manage it to the best of your ability. So in those intervening years, I definitely was chronically nutrient deficient. I was usually under eating. I was usually overexercising, generally obsessed with exercise, and not always a lot of fun to be around, I would say, as a result of those things. So things started to change when I hit 40, but not the way most people and most women change at 40. So at the time, I was plant-based. My only form of exercise was yoga, and I was strict intermittent fasting. So I was doing zero-resistance training, and I was eating. I was eating effectively zero protein. And all of that was starting to catch up to me at 40. So the pandemic hit, and on a whim, like every other girl in the world, I think, I signed up for online Pilates, which was the first resistance training I had ever done in my life. So I kind of got these, like, newbie gains really quickly. And at the same time, my body was, I think, after two decades of not eating animal products, was just, like, screaming for nutrients. So I actually did start to eat meat and dairy again, and mostly steak, and a lot of it, because I was really making up for lost time. And things happened really quickly from there. So within six months, I dropped 25 pounds. I'm a former ballerina, so I was always petite. So I was really, really, really thin. And I still had that diet mentality. So I was still fasting. I was still under eating, even if those foods were more nutrient-dense. So I was super underweight. And at my thinnest, I was, like, 100 pounds. I had no body fat. But as someone who had had an eating disorder, disorder I thought that like I had achieved the dream I was like so skinny and I wanted the number on the scale to be as low as humanly possible and not to brag but I could get it pretty low so all of that stuff happened um and from there everything that happens to women when that happens happened so loss of cycle loss of hormones loss of zest for life loss of my body just I was skin and bones so that was sort of my state I know a lot of people were very worried about me and I don't know about two years ago I stumbled on the work of Paul Saladino I don't know if you're familiar with him um but him and kind of this whole host of I guess what you would call like crunchy influencers now um but they're like these women who were really nourishing themselves and living naturally and eating meat and dairy and like raw foods and lifting weights you know and I think that's kind of what I was like I don't know if you've ever heard of them but they're like these women who were really nourishing themselves and living naturally and showing that having a real strong body was beautiful so I very very slowly started to turn my life around through health so for the first year I just changed how I ate um I was still doing pilates every day for like an hour so you guys can see there was still like that pattern um but I did stop fasting and I adopted a mainly like animal-based diet which turned out to be something of a healing diet for me because it was just like the world's most nutrient-dense food so I was focusing on gaining healthy weight and then last December right around the time I started to think about lifting weights because I was listening to you all um I was staying at a hotel that had a DEXA scan so I was like why not like I do pilates every day I eat a ton of protein it's probably going to be a great result and the result was like 26 percent body fat which I know is like still healthy but I was surprised that it was that high I guess and the practitioner was like look the only way you're going to lose body fat is if you gain muscle so he told me that and then I kind of discovered you guys at the same time and the rest is history so last December I ordered a set of dumbbells for my home and I started lifting four times a week not knowing what I was doing but I kept listening to you guys and I eventually scaled it back to three times a week because I felt like I wasn't quite recovering enough um and it was the process was really interesting it was everything you guys talk about it was it was super uncomfortable it was super scary frightening I didn't like the changes that were happening to my body I kept wanting to run back to pilates and I kept trying to kind of quit but then I just kept listening to you and trusting the process so I ate enough I took days off for the first time in years I rested I lifted and then I went up a size in jeans and then I went up another size in jeans um but my waist stayed the same size um and then I would like look at my arms in the mirror and I was like wow I have arms actual arms um and then I saw that I had better abs than when I was doing like 45 minutes of crunches you know in pilates so all of a sudden I had like shape and structure and curves and I started to love this new body and what it was capable of even if during the process it was super uncomfortable super scary and I was like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this especially for someone with my background so after some time I finally got a weight room membership and I started going there and I love it um and I'm usually like one of the only women and now 10 months in my body is like it's night and day um I'm sculpted I'm toned I weigh exactly the same as I did a year ago um I haven't had another DEXA scan but I assume that means that I gained muscle and lost body fat um I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know but here's the thing um I don't care um sorry if I get a little emotional but um weightlifting has given me gifts that I could have never even believed um I'm really strong inside and I'm out I'm fed I'm happy I'm capable I'm healthy and I'm free um I live you know I eat I rest I respect my body um I even started writing about weightlifting and strength and nourishment as the ultimate form of female empowerment on substack and I have this like community that appeared of all these women who want the same message that you don't need to get thin that healthy is beautiful and strength is magic and a body with muscle and fat is gorgeous so I also found that I really love bodybuilding culture like who knew um I read and regularly reread Lisa Lyon's book Body Magic which every woman I feel should read and like Rachel Mclish and all the others and so like this whole world is very fascinating to me and I love obviously the conversations you guys have about it so to get to my question it hasn't even been a year um but lifting weights has changed my life and I want to keep doing it forever um I guess the big question for me is where do I go from here um I don't want or need to be shredded I don't want or need to lose fat I'm very happy but I also know this is just the start and I love to learn new things and explore and experiment um for example now that I take recovery days which are great you know I've been exploring like fashion maneuvers and lymph flows and mobility and yoga and I just like understanding all these different modalities so I want to just keep going further and feeling better forever so my question is what would you say to a woman in my life stage who's in perimenopause with my weightlifting experience which is less than a year and like pretty much self-taught um what could I do from here so I currently lift three times a week full body because I like feeling the balance of the full body uh when I go to the gym um or is it really just keep doing it like every week every year forever um you know how can I set mini goals for myself um I think that's a great question I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question um I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question honestly I'm just like a regular woman with a busy job and a social life and a marriage and friends and I live in a city I just want to keep discovering and improving so thanks again for everything that you do you have absolutely changed my life for the better oh thank you Nadia god bless you great I loved hearing great story your journey and where you're at um I think it's incredible yeah so great for women listening who are in similar shoes to kind of be like okay this is kind of where I can go and I think that's a great question and I think that's a great question okay so you're at a very interesting place uh with this whole journey and so I'm just gonna kind of illustrate uh some of the pitfalls uh and then maybe some of the directions that you might want to go in so the fitness space the wellness space the bodybuilding space is littered with uh dysfunctional relationships with fitness uh and our bodies and food and so to give you an example and this is this is a this is really a normal journey it's not an uncommon journey it's a normal journey it's not a normal journey it's not a normal journey it's not a normal we have to not completely focus we have to completely not focus I should say on any of the outer transformation so there it's now that's difficult so if I say don't do this like good luck like don't think of a zebra now you're thinking of a zebra right so cool don't pay attention to the size of my jeans don't pay attention to how my arms look don't do a dexter scan okay but that's impossible because uh not doing something is impossible what do I focus on you're taking care of yourself you're taking care of yourself you're taking care of yourself you're and this is just because of the way uh you've been for so long is to focus on something you have to have a focus okay so what's the next best focus for someone like you that'll move you in the right direction isn't perfect because this can also get crazy but will serve you well for the next few years strength there is no better focus for you than strength and so you have a mind and a you're everything towards this idea and I'm going to go in that direction and the one that's going to serve you best is strength right now how you eat how you train how you sleep and the supplements you take gear it towards strength now it's not perfect because that gets crazy too that'll also get crazy but at least for the next couple years it's going to help you break the connection to what's in the mirror the body fat test and my gain yeah the scale like all these other things it's going to move you away because you're going to be focused purely on performance and it's going to lead you if you continue on that focus to feeding yourself appropriately so because because what it can look like without that is well now I'm in this camp over here and we don't eat foods that are this and we only eat these types of foods and meat is very nourishing so that's all I'm going to eat or I'm going to eat these foods these are but if you're focused on strength what'll end up happening Nadia is you'll actually start to feed yourself based off of how you perform and that is actually the most nourishing the way you can feed yourself at this moment. Because it's hard to get stronger while not eating enough calories or enough nutrients or whatever. It also loosens things up a little bit because you're going to find sometimes you go out to eat with your husband and you eat out and you're not really, you know, avoiding certain things and you enjoy yourself. And then you go work out the next day and you're like, oh my God, I'm stronger. Not realizing that you needed the extra calories, but you're now creating a relationship with eating out with your husband, which is a little bit more positive, which right now you might avoid certain things. That might be your tendency. So I would say focus on strength. Now you do have, it sounds like you have a community with your sub stack and you've got women that are kind of following you and also you're highly motivated. You're obviously very intelligent. You've got a great background. If the best possible thing you can do, Nadia, to really accelerate this and to really move this forward and to help you build your community and to help you learn is for you to work with a coach, to have a good coach work with you through. This process to guide you and for you to take your hands off the wheel a little bit and to just observe. And it'll be a massive learning experience for you. It'll be in six months. You'll get more out of working with a coach and just following what they tell you to do and not trying to judge it and not trying to control it yourself. You'll learn more in that process than you would trying to go through this on your own. Well, you've already said it. Listening to our live callers has been like a masterclass for you. Imagine. And I love that you're doing this. So I'm going to ask you a question. What it would look like to me is you go through that process with a coach and you are talking about it. So as you learn it and apply it, you turn right. So it feeds you in two different ways, right? It's going to obviously feed you for your life and what you're doing and then also fuel this cool community that you're building. So it's got a double win for you that you take those masterclasses that you're getting from your trainer and coach and you apply it to your own life and then you go teach it. And that I don't think there's a better thing that you could possibly do for that. Just to piggyback off what Sal said. Cause of course I have a bias towards bodybuilding and I love that, but it's a very dangerous place to get into because it is body focused. Um, and then you become hyper and then your decisions start to be made around the way you look, even though you say you don't want to do that. But if you're into that community, it's hard not to, because that's what everybody's talking about and doing where to his point, like the reason why strength will serve you so well is what you'll find on this path of trying to be, get, keep getting stronger over the next couple of years is you won't for a little while you'll hit a plateau. And then, and then what will happen is you'll have to eat more, whether you accidentally do it out of dinner, like he's saying, or you consciously say, I'm going to increase my calories by two 50 or 300 calories a day and see what happens. And then what you're going to notice when you do that is you're going to get stronger in the gym again. You can go, Oh shit. You also can't over-train like you over-training getting stronger doesn't exist. So it'll, it'll naturally move your programming, your diet, your sleep and your lifestyle away from what you're doing. What you're trying to get away from and towards what you're trying to get towards now after two or three years, I don't think you should continue to chase strength because that in itself starts to become an issue as well, but it would be the next, it's definitely the next logical step. I've worked with people like you. So if you were my client, Nadia, this is what we would do for the next couple of years. And my goal as your coach would be to get you to trust me so much that you stop questioning what I tell you to do. And you just take your hands off the wheel and you just go. And then what happens is you start to get hindsight. So you're like three months into trust. Trusting me, which is sounds easy, but it's not easy. I promise you there'll be many conversations we would have where I'm like, Nadia, you got to do what I'm telling you, like just try and you would do. And then you'd look back and be like, Oh my God, that worked. Wow. I could see what happened. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to trust him even more now. And then you start to develop a different relationship. The value of the coach is that, is that, uh, we can give you the best advice in the world right now, but it won't be linear. It won't be this like, Oh, okay, cool. Let me take those things and go apply it. Then I'm just going to see this. It's back and forth. And I don't know how, how consistent you are with listening, but I've been sharing the journey that I've been on with Corinne and it's been a year, you know, and it's a year and she has a similar background as you do. And so it's a year of this push and pull and you know, I can get her to do this for a while and she trusts me. And then she's, then I can, I can feel her energy. She's like, enough is enough. I got to pull back a little bit. And so it's this, there's no perfect plan. Like people ask me like, well, what exactly are you doing with her? It's like, well, it's week to week, you know, one week we're doing this and I'm pushing her in a direction. And then, and then she's like, Hey, I need a break or I need to come. And so that's what it'll look like. It'll look like this ebb and flow. And along the way, so much learning will happen about your body and how you feel and when you apply. And so, and I think that'll be awesome. There's so much there. Yeah. Just in strength pursuits. And you know, and I think too, like strength, stability, like learning your body of where there's imbalance, where there's dysfunction, where there's things you can address to avoid pain and like future pain. And, you know, with a coach. We'll really be able to highlight that and the physiology of everything. And, you know, I feel like you'd get a lot out of that with your mind, uh, to, to self diagnose and how to, how to, you know, really make these micro adjustments and things, uh, within your movement patterns. Um, so there's just a lot there, uh, still left to explore. You've, you've done the hardest part, uh, which is you've, uh, you've pulled back the curtain and you're seeing things and now you can look back and really start to see that's actually the hardest part. Now, the next part. The next step is to take some of those steps in that direction. Tell me a little bit about this community that you have on sub stack. How many people are reading your, your writing and stuff? Um, yeah. Can I just, can I just respond to one thing that you said before that? Um, just because I think, um, uh, I, I think it's the beginning of a journey, but when I said I'm free, I mean, gosh, I really mean like I'm free in the sense that there are things that I wouldn't have done before. Like example, you know, last weekend we went away with friends on, on a country weekend and like, you know, we were like, I'm free. I didn't know what we were going to be doing. I didn't know what we were going to be eating. I didn't, there wasn't going to be a gym. You know what I mean? And we, and I would just float and I had the time of my life. And when I did come back, I, I think I hadn't been to the gym in like three or four days and I went and I was like, Whoa, this is like, I'm so strong because I had pasta all weekend, you know? And it was amazing. So there's definitely like a freedom to my life because I trust my body. And I used to think, obviously, how little can I eat now? My mentality is how can I best nourish my body? So that it performs the best. So it's, it's really been this lifestyle change, but I do know that it also doesn't happen totally in a year, but those are some of the shifts. And when I order pasta at a restaurant, my husband's like, that is the hottest thing you've ever done. Like, he's just like, I love to see it. And by the way, he started lifting around the same time I did. So it's something we do together, which is really not, well, we go to the gym room together and he's 46 and like, looks like a movie star now. Like, it's just. It's just crazy. So we're just like, whew, we're just encouraging him. Nadia, just to back you up. So what I said, you pulled back the curtain. Okay. That's the, that's what the freedom feels like. So there's a quote that says, there's a quote, none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe they are free. So when the curtain, when you didn't pull back the curtain, you have no idea you're enslaved. You live in the way you are. Exactly. You thought you were control actually. That's right. And now you see, and so this is why you feel free. Um, and so a hundred percent, uh, you know what you're experiencing. Such a great, that's the hardest step. Like what you did is the most difficult. That's very difficult to do. So congratulations on that part. Thank you. Um, yeah, I started my sub stack in December and I have about 3000 followers all over the world. It's crazy. And the thing that makes me so happy is I get a lot of notes from people, often young women who I guess, like, I guess I needed a big sister when I was young, but they'll say like, you've inspired me to not restrict my eating. You've inspired me to start lifting weights. You've inspired me. You've inspired me to be more natural. Like I'm very natural. I don't, I write also about like not doing injections and not, and like aging naturally and all these things. And so I feel like I'm taking all the mistakes and the mess that I had in my life and like channeling it into helping other women. Awesome. That's so good. So good. That's so wonderful. Yeah. Well, two options for you. Um, I can send you maps power lift, which would the program I'd want you to follow. Um, uh, second option, uh, I could have you get on the phone with one of our coaches and you can see if you'd want to work with one of our coaches, I think. Yeah. Okay. I think six to nine months would be good. Uh, a good start for someone like you. Um, and I think at the end of it, uh, as smart as you are, as self-aware as you are, and the fact that you have this, this great responsibility of serving 3000 women, I think you'd go very far in a short period of time, uh, with something like that. So. Oh my gosh, that'd be so cool. Yeah. I would love to speak with someone. Why don't you, uh, plug the sub stack. So other women that are listening right now and know where to find you. Oh, that's so nice. Um, it's called Nori, Paris. Where I live and Nori is a play on, um, the French word for nourishment, um, so check it out. Awesome. Cool. Thanks Nadia. We'll have somebody call you. Okay. Either way, you'll get mass power. You got it. Thanks guys. Bye. Bye. Great story. So cool. And so, um, I've seen people go on, you know, journeys like this and it's so listen, I would, I could have totally predicted that you would've gone, someone would've gone from plant-based to Paul Saladino. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like I went, took my kids bowling over the weekend. And, uh, you know, they put the bumpers up and that's what it's like. You throw the ball, it hits one bumper and it hits the other bumper and it does this for a little while before you figure out kind of where you're going. Uh, the fact that she's working with, uh, in serving other women is so helpful. Yeah. Very much so. Very therapeutic. Yes. It's very therapeutic. It keeps your, it keeps you honest with what you do with yourself. Um, she, her working with one of our coaches, cause our coaches are phenomenal. We know them. We pick, we hand pick them. Her working with one of our coaches. will be incredible to see where she's at. - Well, I mean, for me, if I'm her, It's a no-brainer because of, obviously, she's building this community. And it's probably going to turn out. Write about it. Yeah, it will serve that and then serve yourself at the same time. So it's a win all around. I have to say, though, very impressed with, in such a short period of time, the distance that she's come. Oh, yeah. Because for her to be able to take off on a weekend like that, not track, eat a bunch of pasta. That's hard on her own. That's a big deal. That's a huge step. I know. That's a huge shift. That's scary. You could have done all the other things that she's done this far. But you still, what do you go do? And then control the vacation. Oh, yeah. Control it. Pass on things like that. But to be free, eat pasta, have a good time, and then come back. That's huge. So she truly has freed herself. So it's really cool. Our next caller is Caitlin from California. Hi, Caitlin. Hello. Hi. Dude, I'm so psyched. This is crazy. This is actually insane. How are you doing? I'm all right. How are you guys? Good. How can we help you? Dude, okay. Like everyone says, I just want to start off and say thank you guys so much for all the ways that you've helped me. I've been listening to you guys for, I don't know, I think I started when I was like 17 or 18. Wow. And you guys really walked me through like a very difficult time with my relationship to eating and exercise. And I've made a lot of changes because of you guys. That's kind of helped get me through other things in my life like nursing school and stuff. I feel like if I had kept going down the road that I was without you guys, like I would not be graduating in December. So thank you guys so much. God bless you. Anyways. Okay. I'm going to read my question because I have a tendency to ramble as you can probably already tell. So it says, my name is Caitlin. I'm a 22-year-old female, six foot, around 105 pounds. I'm a former collegiate volleyball player. And I've been lifting for almost a decade. I got into it when my dad introduced me when I was like 12 or 13. However, and like I said, I've been following your guys' advice, but I've hit a plateau. And I've honestly been stuck for what feels like years now. I cannot go up in weight. I keep decreasing, if anything. And as someone who's really passionate about fitness and going into nursing soon, I'm kind of desperate. I'm desperate to like fix this plateau before I get into a career that's like has shift work and high stress environments and stuff. Because if I can't make progress now, I don't know how I'm going to figure it out then. Anyways. So a little bit of background. The past couple of years have been a cycle of dialing back workouts, feeling a little bit better, and then hitting a wall of like extremely low energy and fatigue. And then having to dial back again. I've tried to follow a reverse diet during this process, but every time I try to increase my calories, I seem to gain weight like just around my midsection. And I know this is like a common effect of when you've been in kind of starvation mode for a while, your body will tend to hold on to fat in areas that you need it before it redistributes. But for me, it just never seems to really go anywhere. And then as a former weightlifter, I've been doing a lot of weight training. And as a former volleyball player, I used to handle a lot of volume like no problem. I had two to three hour long practices. I was lifting five times a week. But now I'm struggling to do what I consider like pretty modest, three to four times lifting about hour or 45 minute sessions. And then I do. You guys are going to be like, why are you calling in? But I also do 20 to 30 minutes of lists like following those sessions. So I know that. Could be a big problem. But I'm scared to back off cardio because of my history with like weight gain going not where I want to. Anyways. Okay. Wrapping it up. Sorry. Sorry. Last thing I want to mention is that I've dealt with chronic digestive issues. I'm pretty sure because of my history of restriction and everything. My main symptoms are like painful bloating and constipation. Sometimes it feels like the food just like sits in my stomach. And I've tried a lot. Avoiding inflammatory foods, probiotics, walks after meals. Nothing really seems to help or it will help for a little bit. And then I'll just go back. So my question is after my little spiel, just where do I go from here? I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm a pretty independent person. So it's like frustrating for me that I can't figure this out. And I really want to go back to just being the like resilient athlete and like high functioning person I was. Because fitness is so important. Fitness is just very important to me. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for calling in, Caitlin. I really appreciate you doing that. And thanks for listening for so long. You're still a kid, but you were a really young kid when you started listening. So that's really cool. Okay. Can I be direct? Oh, I feel like she already knows. Please. I feel like you know it's coming. Real honesty all the way. Okay. So first I'd like, I need to ask you a bit of a personal question if that's okay. Do you have a regular cycle? Has your cycle been irregular or are you regular? What's that? No. Okay. Okay. So, so that's just going to add to kind of what I'm saying. So, um, you're, I guess this would be helpful for you guys too. I know a lot of callers mention it. I did get a body fat percentage. It was just like the, where you hold on to the scale. Um, but it was 12% and that was three months ago. So not sure where I'm at now, but okay. So your height, your body weight, and some of the. Symptoms, uh, that you're, um, telling us how you feel, including the loss of menses or the irregularity, um, you need to gain just weight. We need to gain weight and we need to gain body fat, which is probably really scary to hear. And it's going to be really scary to go through. Okay. But, uh, gaining body fat would be a good thing at this point. Gaining muscle be cool too, but I don't think that's going to happen until we gain some body fat. You're probably gonna have to gain body fat first. And you're probably going to have to get your period back regularly before we start to see muscle gain. Now here's why you can handle so much volume before and why it feels like you just can't stress starts to become cumulative and you're still young, which by the way, I'm gonna encourage you. We can reverse this. We have a really, really good chance of reversing this, uh, in a, in a relatively short period of time, like within a year, we can see some dramatic changes in your health. Okay. Because you're still young, but you could handle it before. And it just builds up over time and your body's shutting down. Yeah. And your body's like, no, I'm not doing this anymore. And so smart. That's what it feels like. Just this constant burnout that I can't get over. And so smart of you to get on here and talk about this now before the nursing thing goes on, because it is only gonna get harder and worse if we, if we don't fix now, so I'm gonna tell you what you need to do, and then I'm gonna tell you how you're gonna do it. Okay. What you need to do, uh, is work. We need to see your weight go up. You need to gain at least 20 pounds. I don't care what it is that you gain. We need to be very gentle with your strength training and your exercise through this process. Uh, this is gonna look like healing with diet. Um, the bloating, uh, there's a supplement called a trend till you can get it. It's relatively inexpensive. I'll have Doug email you the name. You would take a couple capsules about 10 minutes before two of your meals, and that'll help with any potential. SIBO that you might have developed. I would also like you to take psyllium husk, uh, daily. This is a fiber that'll help lots of water. I'm a little hesitant about the fiber because of constipation, but do you think if I just make sure I'm getting consistent water intake, it'd be okay. So psyllium will help with constipation. So long as you drink a nice big glass of water with it. Okay. Okay. So psyllium husk, a lot of water. Okay. And regardless of the blow and the constipation, which I think will get better with this, we still need to put on weight. Okay. So you're gonna eat more, a lot more than you're used to. It's gonna feel long. So I'm gonna tell you what it's gonna feel like. It's gonna feel uncomfortable. You're gonna feel like, oh my God, I'm getting body fat because you need to, uh, you're not gonna like it, but this is the process of kind of healing your body. We need to be very gentle with your training volume and intensity. Then you're gonna reach a point. If you're consistent. If you're consistent with this, where you're like, I think I can push more training and you're not, no, don't push more training cuz we're gonna burn out real quick. You've got at least six to nine months of us gaining weight and starting to heal your body. Okay. And your body weight needs to go up by at least 20 pounds. And I'm giving you a hard number, not because it's, it's the perfect number, but because I need you to get okay with gaining 20 pounds. Yeah. Do you actually need to gain 20 pounds? I don't know. It might be less. It might be more before we start to really heal. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna solidify in your head. Just be accept the fact that your body weight will go from 105 to 125. Just accept that for now. Now here's how you're gonna do it. You're gonna need to work with a coach. I'm just gonna be straight up with you because doing this on your own, you're gonna see the weight go up 10 pounds and you're gonna want to reverse and it's gonna feel too uncomfortable and you're not gonna want to do it. Are you listening to the journey with Karen with me? I am guess. Yeah. It's been a year. We're still, we're still working. - Yeah. - So it's- I mean, she's honestly one of the reasons that like prompted me to write into you guys because I, this is a highly psychological thing that I just can't get past. And it's like, I know my potential because before I started struggling with this stuff, I was very good at my sport. I had no problem like doing back to back tourneys, keeping up with schoolwork, whatever. But now it's just like, I'm so frustrated because I look back and I'm like, there's no way I could do that now. And I can't get past this mental block. Caitlin, I want you to take, can you get your, can you get a picture of yourself when you were like seven? Do you have, do you have that somewhere? You don't need to show me, but I'm sure you have that. Maybe. Yeah. I want you to make that your, your home screen on your phone. And every time you open your phone, I want you to look at that kid. And I want you to think how you could take care of that child. Okay. That's going to help you. Now, here's why working with a coach is what I think might be necessary before you can reroute and, and do this. You got to let go completely. You got to let it go. You just got to be like, tell me what to do and I'll just do it. And it's going to suck. And I'm going to hate it. And I'm going to text you every time it sucks. And I'm going to call you every time I can't do it. And then I'm just going to let go. So it's not once you're going to let go, you're going to be letting go all the time because you're going to want to grab it back. It's going to take about six months. Nine months, maybe a year of you letting go. And then the new relationship will start to develop. And you're right. It is 100% psychological. It's not mostly psychological. This is 100% psychological and which makes it even more difficult. And even with a coach, it's not going to be easy. I mean, it's, uh, no, you're going to have battles with your coach. And I encourage you to, if you end up working with one of our coaches, I encourage you to tell them you're pissed off. If you are, I encourage you to challenge them. If that's. That's what you want to do. What you don't want to do is hold back or try to appear to be the perfect client. Cause that makes it much more difficult to coach, to coach you or lie or to see you tell them this sucks. I don't want to do it. Like let them coach you. Or I failed this week. I know I was supposed to do this and I didn't. Or I lied to you. It's just, that's part of it. That's right. Part of it's going to, uh, you know, I'm going to set goals for you and you're going to do it for a week or two. You're going to be doing great. And then you're going to have a really rough weekend and then you're not. And then you got to be honest. You got to be honest and tell me, tell your coach that. So they know how to course correct and they know how to push and pull. And that's, that's, it's a, it'll be an ongoing thing with that. But, you know, just to use Corinne's story a little bit, you know, she was 97 pounds was kind of where, where she was hovering around, give or take. And, uh, you know, we're at one 12. I've pushed her as high as one 18 and we got to come back. Then we go forward and come back. But, um, it's been a journey. It's been a process. And even for someone as, as advanced, as intelligent as she is and knows all the things that she needs to do still relies heavily on me. To, to guide and push through that whole process. So I know firsthand and it's top of mind for me right now because she's the only person I'm helping. And I know it'll be a process, but it'll be, you got to do it now before the nursing thing happens, because you're so right that it's only going to get harder with that type of a schedule. And let me, uh, let me just, uh, paint the picture of what this looks like at the end. You're going to, you're going to love exercise again. Food isn't going to feel like this thing you got to think about all the time. You're going to feel free. So done. Right. It frees you. It doesn't enslave you. So that's what it's going to feel like right now. Like you get rid of this tyrannical, um, you know, this tyrant that's hovering over you. That makes you feel like you can't do anything. It's going to feel free. Okay. But it's like skydiving. You got to let go and just jump out the plane and trust the parachute, which is your coach. So it's going to require the jump. Yeah. Um, I, a lot of what you guys are saying kind of resonates with me because I did go through like an eating disorder program back when I was, um, 15. And so I did the process. I put on about 30 pounds. Um, and it was everything you guys said. It was psychologically taxing. It was scary. I hated everything about my life for a very long time until I got to a point where I was comfortable with food and I enjoyed exercising again. I did it because I wanted to. And then I kind of just have been slowly sliding back into habits and I've found myself in the exact same place I was all those years ago. And so I, I know I need someone to help me with this. I am hesitant to ask to go back to like eating disorder treatment specifically because I think their focus is not what mine is. And that is. They just want you to put on weight and that's that. They don't really care what happens to you afterwards. But I want to like keep my kind of goal being to be someone who's like fit and focused on longevity. And like, if that makes sense, a little bit different. Um, if I can have Corinne work with you, would you work with Corinne? I think I would. Yeah. Uh, my only other concern is as a college student. I'm a little bit short on financial resources. That said, I know you guys preach kind of like investing in your health, so I'd be open, very, very open to talking to her and like exploring kind of the price range and stuff. Um, but I do agree with you guys that like, this isn't something I can do alone as much as I really, really want to and tell myself I can. Okay. Okay. Let's see what happens. Uh, and I'll make sure I stay in contact with whoever you talk to. Um, and I'll make sure it'll be, it'll be, it'll be Marcelo since we know it'll be a financial thing. Marcelo will work something. I'll plan out for you so we can do this financially. And then I'll talk to Corinne to make sure she opens up her book because she's probably loaded, but I do want you with her. If she can't take me, honestly, like I trust is really hard with this because of my history with it. I've had clinicians and therapists who really didn't care. Um, and told me things. That like, didn't work out how they were supposed to, if that makes sense, made promises that like, oh, I was going to, I'll be fine. I'll love the process, whatever. And you guys are being straight up and just listening to you guys. I know how you train your trainers and they're like the only population I would trust. So that's, that's, that's 90% of it. And if you end up working with the coaches, Caitlin, I'll hop on some of the calls. If that's okay. We'll be, we'll be overseeing that. We'll be monitoring it. Okay. We're going to get you there. All right. We'll stay in contact. Okay. In the meantime, I know I probably shouldn't ask this because it just shows you where my head's at, but following this journey, do you think it's possible once I'm at a stable place and like, not just at that year mark, but like a little further down the line? Um, do you think it's possible for someone to get back into competitive sports? Because one of my goals is like, as a nurse, I want to live on the beach and like play beach volleyball on my days off and stuff, just because that's like what I'm working towards is one of the things that motivate me. So I'm just wondering. That's a great goal. A hundred percent. That's a great goal. No, no, no. That's not just possible. That's plausible. We just got to get you healthy first. Yeah. That's a great goal. It's a great, it's actually a very good thing for you to focus on is that's our end goal. It's not some visual of what my body looks like or what the scale looks like. It's that I want to play competitive volleyball while I'm also a nurse kicking ass. And living on the beach. That's an awesome goal with my golden retriever focus on that. Okay. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. Like truly you got it. Caitlin. All right, Caitlin. Thank you. Yeah. I want to make sure we follow up and she gets something. No, no, no. I'll have some kind of, I'll have Marcelo make sure that she gets started. Yeah, no, you can't. And she's, I don't want to leave her alone on her own. Uh, uh, but that's tough, man. That's really tough. And that, you know, Hey, kudos to her for coming now before, because she's, she's right. You, you get into working and have a schedule like that and you haven't fixed this. That's Oh my God. Well, when you're, when you have this friend that you turn to, uh, for a sense of control and comfort, uh, then when things feel hard, this is the friend you turn to. And so becoming a shift worker nurse, the stress of that, like the tendency will be like, let me go control my. Double down. Let me go. Yeah. So our next caller is Shan from Texas. What's up, Shan? Shan. What's going on? Oh man, this studio looks sexy. My goodness. This is a, what a, what a, what an evolution of the studio. This is great. I'm, I'm, I'm happy to be on. Thank you guys for having me today. Thanks man. How can we help you? Well, a couple of things. Um, first I wanted to ask a question about scalability when it comes to scaling my personal training program here at the fitness center that I'm working at. Um, and then the. The second question I have is about my own body. So, but first I'll start, uh, with my career. So, um, I messaged Adam about a year and some change ago, uh, probably about almost two years ago. Honestly, time has been flying by and I came on to a position to be a, um, a director at a gym. I won't name, I don't work there right now. And I asked him a particular question on Instagram and he referred to me a book called the new one minute manager. And it completely changed. Changed my outlook when it comes to managing a facility and then working with trainers and then working with people that are directly assisting the trainers, um, So now I'm in a much better situation, and I came on to a place in which I don't think they realized how much upward mobility they have. So in the month of June, we were able to have over 1,000 personal training sessions sold. In August, we had over 800, and I think it was in August, we're at 883. And I'm trying to push that envelope and move it farther ahead. The only thing that is getting in my way, and I don't know if you guys have any experience with this, is having trainers that are contractors and not employees. And having to get the buy-in from our trainers to be able to scale the business farther beyond where it's at presently. So if you guys have any type of feedback, any. Explain to me how the structure is. So if they're a contract, they lease from you. The spot, are they paying like 800 bucks a month and they get to work there? And then you make no cut of the sales, or do you make a cut of sales? Explain the business model so I understand. So how the model works is that you come on and I don't get a cut from it. Our business does. Where I work, we get the cut from it. You set your own hourly rate. So if you want to charge 300 an hour and you believe you can sell that, that's what it would be. And then you come on with a split. So let's say you come on at 50%. And then you can work. You can work your way up to 70% of that split over time. So that's how that works. And so I feel like when you kind of first get on, you're very encouraged to work hard to get up to your 70%. But then you quickly realize how hard the personal training game is when all you focus on is scaling your income versus growing what you do as a craft. And so it's hard for me sometimes to figure out how to motivate and inspire contractors to develop their own skill set so it's not just me pushing a lot of the work. Do you get time to meet with each of them individually? Do you have that? Yes, I do. Okay, you do have that time. Have you heard me talk about trainers understanding their numbers and reverse engineering their income and how to do that? The reverse engineering income part, I can't say I remember. Okay, so I have a video. Doug, do you know where that video is at? It's a good question. I'll have to look for it. I'll have Doug hunt it down. I'll have Doug hunt it down because I know we have it in our elite trainer academy where I talk about first. So what I would do every month is sit down with a trainer and the conversation would look like this is, hey, Justin, how much do you want to make this much? How much money do you want to make this month? Because I'm not going to motivate and push somebody to make $10,000 or $20,000 a month if they're happy. You know what I'm saying? That's a waste of your energy. If they're like, oh, I don't want to make any more money, I'm happy. It's like, okay, well, I can't help that. But what you'll find, I would guess that probably half or 80% of them will go, I'd like to make more money. You know, I'd like to make $10,000 a month or I'd like to make whatever. Okay, so let's reverse engineer that. Okay. And the way you do that is they all need to track how many people do they need to get in front of them per month in order to close them on personal training at what dollar. So the first month is all just tracking. It's literally just, okay, I want you guys to track your numbers. So, and you guys, I don't know what you guys call your free appointments or free assessments. Yeah, your consultations. Your consultations. Okay, cool. So that's what, so I want you to track this month, your total consultations that you book. Of those that you booked, how many of them showed up? Of those that showed up, how many of those closed? Of those that you closed, what was the dollar amount that you got out of it? Okay. And I don't, right, this month is all about tracking. It's not about impressing me. It's just like you work your butt off just to do that. And then I'm going to find out your math. Once I got your math, I know that, okay, it looks like you need to book 100 people just for 75 to show up. Of the 75 to show up, only 25 of them buy. Of the 25 that buy, spend an average of $1,500. And then do the math on what that is. And that's how you, and so you teach them all their individual math. Because they're all going to be different. You're probably going to have somebody who's really good at booking and showing. You'll have others that are great at closing big packages. And so once you teach them what their number is, then you reverse engineer. You say, okay, you say you want to make 10 grand. That means, based off of last month when we tracked all your numbers, that this, and all I want you to focus on is you need to book this many consultations this month. Don't think about the money. Don't think about the sale. You know, because we already know what will happen if you just do the work. And so by the week and the day. So it's like, okay, so if your goal was to book 66 people this month to make your $8,000 a month, because we know your math, then every day I'm holding that person accountable. Did you book, hey, did you book your three consultations today? And then you motivate them on a daily basis like that. And then what's dope is. When they see that, it'll click and they'll be like, oh shit. So they'll just, and they don't have to focus on the sale and the money and the closing. They're focusing on getting people in front of them, which is what they all want to do because they want to train and help people. That's right. They have to. So now they know. And then what you'll learn as the leader is you will see like, Justin is so good at booking and getting his people to show up. Man, Sal doesn't book as much and show up. But man, when Sal gets someone in front of him, he closes fucking huge numbers. And so I know as a leader, I'm going to motivate Sal to book more people and push him in that direction. Justin, I'm going to have, maybe I even have Sal help him with his presentation. It's like, hey, what do you, what are you doing? You're getting, you're so good at getting people in front of you. I want Sal to talk to you about his presentation, right? So like you can use the other trainers to start coaching, help each other. And then all their numbers start to come up and you're over here. I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to take that because for some reason, when you started speaking, stuff started to click. So when I first came on here, I had that conversation. And I was able to actually scale trainers up to six figure a year earners. So that works. Now the hard part that I have, and I'm actually going to take that again and reintroduce it because I think reintroducing that idea of what you ended on with trainers collaborating with their weak points and their strength points, that's going to create some type of environment in which our members are seeing that. And that's that net sells itself. That's right. Okay. Okay. That's culture. And, uh, uh, Shan, a, the culture of the gym makes such a huge impact on everybody's business, right? It's a, it's a community. A gym is a community. And so when the culture is pro growth, trainers helping each other, working together, members are all, they feel it, uh, and everybody does better. So, you know, everybody gains, everybody gains from that kind of pro growth, uh, culture or are your coaches able to sell training for each other? Do they get a commission if they sell the training, give it to another person? Um, they don't, but that is something that I can always look at adding into the frame. You do have a lot of flexibility when it comes to the structure and how they're able to develop and scale their own business. So, so here's why, here's why I like that. Cause what may happen sometimes is you get a coach who comes in, they build their business. Now their book is full and they're just, they're not really motivated to sell more training cause they got their clients and they're just going to re-enroll. But if they know that they, if they find a client and they keep 10% of it, then what will happen is you'll get those highly motivated trainers who are like, look, I got a full book, but I'm still selling training. And then I don't need to train the person. I'll just set them up with these other trainers. The other trainers are happy cause they get a client and they're happy cause they get a commission and you'll get your best, your best closers and producers to continue to produce. We're, we're structured that way here. We have, so we have our, our people that are really good at sales and they handle more of the leads, but they hand off to the clients or to the coaches that need clients cause they don't need clients, but they make, they make a commission for that sale. So they're highly motivated to take those, those, those console, those consults and those leads because they're going to make a commission off of it and they, they don't need the client. So they handed it to, and the other trainers happy because they just love training clients and they, you probably have this already in your staff where you've got those, you got great coaches, but then they're just not very good at sales. They don't love sales. So you keep them cause you want good coaches and trainers. Yeah. They can help each other out. And so incentivize the ones that like to sell and are good at selling. Pay them a good commission and then allow them to fill those other ones. And then what you get is when you get your leads, cause obviously your gym is going to get its own leads that come in. Oh yeah. It gets a lot, a lot. Oh, well then you just hand it off to your top sales guys, even though their book is full, you're like, Hey, they'll be motivated to sell and set them up with other trainers. And the other trainers are always happy cause they get new clients. And so that's how I would be motivated. Like, yeah, it's, it's an ecosystem you guys are creating. I like it. It's, it's less of like a top down deliver off to, to members that took, to trainers, but more of an ecosystem in which it's happening subconsciously 24, seven around you. Yeah. It's almost trainers looking for people that need help just so they can build their business and still build that person that they see that they can't personally help. Yeah. I mean, if I was a trainer in a place like yours, I'd be highly motivated to get clients. But once my book was full, I would have no motivation if I didn't get a commission. But if I knew I got 10%, I would, I would be like, cool. I'll, I'll sign up people all day long and just pass them off to other trainers. Okay. That's all right. You guys just put a, uh, put something in my brain. My brain works like Kobe Bryant, rest in peace. So I'm definitely going to be on this. Um, and my next step, if I, if I do have a little bit more time to, um, explain, I'm a, I'm 38 years old and I have, I'm married. I have two children. I have a 10 month old and a three and a half year old. And at one point I was in two, in the year 2019, I got down to like five point, I think it was two or 3% body. I don't think I ever want to do that again. Um, it was, I didn't compete or anything. It was first, it was just to get healthy. And then my dad passed away from not being healthy. Of course, that triggered something. You go one way or the other. And I went towards just being very obsessed with doing any and everything I can to get fat off of myself. So now I got out of a bulk and I got up to about like 250 something recently. But in August, I started to cut. So I started to cut the top of August and I'm down to right now, I'm down to 228. I'm 17% body fat. I use the N-body for my reading, by the way. 17% body fat. I have 40 pounds of fat mass and I have 111 pounds of skeletal muscle mass. And I'm trying to figure out because I feel plateaued here. I've been like, I've been losing fat, but my muscle's not gaining. I know that's the way it's supposed to necessarily be, but I've plateaued. Like for the last three weeks, two weeks, my weight can go down or up, but everything else stays the same. Yeah. Like except for the fat. What's more important to you, building this business or having big physique changes? Man, Sal. The business is always going to come first because that's how I take care of my family. Okay. For sure. And that's what I'm obsessed about. The reason why he asked because you're not in an unhealthy place. 15 to 17% body fat is I hover around that most of the time, bro. Yeah. Trying to do both. Then I have sprints where like right now I'm getting shredded right now for a short period of time. Right. I'll go back to, you know, hovering around that body fat percentage. Now you can do both, but the focus isn't on your physique. So what it looks like is meal prep because that'll actually make you a more effective manager. You're going to worry about getting your food planned out. You got it. And then just work out to have fun. Because if you focus too heavily on your body, it's going to take focus away from the business. Yep. True. Yeah. It's just, it's got to be one or the other, but the meal prepping helps with both. It just, cause it takes away the thought. So you meal prep once a week. Twice a week. You come to work. Then you don't got to leave. You got your food, you eat it, and then you run your business and you'll probably get leaner just cause you're meal prepped. Right. I wouldn't make that the focus. Like it's very difficult to grow a business like yours while simultaneously trying to get down to 10% body fat. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Cause the obsession and the focus is going to have to somewhat. Something's got to give. That's right. I mean, I used to always tell people, you always knew where my financial was based off the way I was physique wise. As long as I've been like, you know, Hey man, when I, when I was 3% body fat, I'm struggling financially. But if I look, if I would look a little bit thicker, like a business is going good. You know, that's just, that's, that's, that's true. I'm not, I'm not mad at that. So I appreciate, I appreciate like the, the, the feedback, um, especially when it comes to like, I'm doing my best to motivate and inspire our trainers. Um, but I would say like the, the caveat or whatever, the difficult part for me is. Is knowing that they are contractors and knowing that I was a trainer before, and I built my business from the ground up and was able to do. And of course not everybody's going to be you, everybody's different, but that's like the psychological challenge that I, uh, I face daily is I want them to have more go after, go get and go do what they need to do. Um, cause I, I rather have to turn someone down than turn them up. One of my favorite ways. When I'm, when I'm challenged like you are right now. Okay. Because how many trainers do you have there? 15. Okay. So you got 15 trainers there. The likelihood that I'm going to get all of them, bring all of them together right away is, is really tough. So I really only need to get a couple of these bought into what I'm trying to teach. Right. So I can then use them to teach all the rest of them. Right. Cause everybody, you're going to sit down with all 15 and at least 10 to 12 of them are, would say, if, when you go, would you like to make more money every single month would say, yeah, yeah. They're going to say, yeah. Right. Whether they, they were willing. They're willing to do the work or not. They're all going to say, yeah. But out of those 10 to 12, maybe two of them are willing to do the work and follow everything you tell them to a T. So I'm going to lean into the two. They're going to take my advice and I'm going to really put a lot of my energy and focus in them. Cause then I can use them as the example for the rest of them. It's like, see what I showed Justin and Sal and they went and did, they were only making, they were making eight grand a month. Now they're making 12 grand a month because I taught them how to focus on the consultations we've worked on. And so like, so you, you use, instead of like you spreading yourself so thin, trying to like focus on everything. Focus on everybody. Right. Tell everybody to have that sit down and see, and then see who does it. See who like buys in right away, tracks everything all diligent. And they, you could tell they want to learn. They want to make more money, lean into those guys or girls and use them to teach the others. And that's a better way to focus your energy. Okay. So I had, I had contractors in my facility and there were three, there were a few things that contributed to, uh, everybody working together. Like we all worked for the same company. Uh, one of them's culture. Um, so they could be a contractor, but when they show up to an amazing culture, uh, they love it. So that was number one. Number one was culture. Number two was a sense of autonomy. So I always, uh, respected their autonomy and what that looks like for trainers is in how they train people. And so the way I would do that is if I had, I had a trainer that was really good at athletic training, I would ask them, Hey, do you want to teach some of the other trainers? Some of these, and it was great and it actually made everybody better. So that was the second thing. And then the third thing is you make sure you schedule. Right. Things outside of work where everybody comes together and those things, uh, really make a big difference. And then you'll get people working, wanting to work there, even though the contract, they want to be a part of this environment. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. Cause, uh, yeah, I worked in a facility like that. It was all contractors and, you know, to get us all to really hang out and to work together and create that culture. It was somebody would go out and get educated, would come back and teach us all. And so it was like also a way to save money because, you know, these certifications are really expensive. Yes, they are. Um, and you know, for, to incentivize them, you know, like our, the guy that owned the, the gym actually would pay them sometimes to, you know, go get educated, come back and then teach the rest of us. And we all like, yeah, collaborated that way again. Yeah. And hanging out, it really does kind of facilitate that, uh, that group dynamic. Do you guys know of any companies that go to gyms and host certification, like classes that trainers can use for their. For their credit hours. I mean, a lot of them can stretch, can stretch, will come to you, which would be an awesome certification course, my university, um, because our, our demographic is, tends to be a little bit older. And so I've really wanted to tap into stretch. Yep. Can stretch. Yeah. Go can stretch that direction. Yeah. Oh, they'll get, so they'll get some, most certifications that are recognized nationally. If you contact them and say, Hey, I have 15 trainers, I'd love for somebody to come in person and teach everybody. They'll cut you a, a CPPS. Yeah. Joe DeFranco. Yeah. Great. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of really good ones out there. Okay. But if you have an older population, the corrective movements you're going to get from Ken stretch are probably the most valuable one and everything we, or Joe, Joe doesn't want to get stuck. Yeah. LDOA too. It'd be good to pursue. Okay. Yeah. I like, I like, I like it. Y'all back and talk to y'all all day. Cause I've been listening to y'all since, since COVID, like, like it's the Bible. I know Sal would like that. I've been listening to y'all, I've been, it's been religious for me. It's helped. It's helped me. It's helped. Um, every other person that I've worked with, I still train clients online. I have GLP one clients and trust me, the advice that you guys have given us as listeners has allowed me to slow down their mindset. I'm used to working with type a personalities. Like I've been a trainer for your athletes in the NBA, the NFL retired all them type a fast driven, want to get things done. And it seems to have somewhat of a similar relation with GLP one, just as like high expectations with low patients. It's the understanding of patients being a mandatory factor. And so the advice you guys have given from the types of workouts to the, to the behavioral science concept of it, but the approach it is, it has helped me a lot, like a lot, a lot. Um, and so I want to say thank you for that. It's something that I know when you guys first tapped in on, I don't know how you guys kind of thought about it, but I started seeing you guys kind of buying into it as a tool. Um, if understood and used appropriately, if I'm not misunderstanding you guys, I want to say, thank you for taking the time. To understand something that can be demonized or overused or whatever, and given us a clear path on how to kind of utilize this for the people that we work with. Well, thanks man. Thank you. You're killing it, bro. You're killing it. Keep it up. I appreciate your help, man. Any, any other thing that comes to my mind? I'll, I'll send you a message, Adam. I know you're over racing cars and having a good time with your family, Justin. Next time, if I call him, I have to talk to you mostly because you don't get a lot of love on this setting. You're a one smart cookie, man. And Sal, you're an amazing guy. I appreciate you. Thank you for putting this all together and, and getting with Doug and seeing a vision that's bigger than what any other fitness podcast is doing. You guys care. You're genuine. You have a lot of true integrity and I respect that and I honor it. So thank you so much. Thanks man. Appreciate it. Yes. Thank you guys. Have a great rest of your day. Appreciate it. Take it easy. Bye-bye. Great energy. We should spend the rest of the time to give Justin love. You get all the love, dude. What you talking about? Great, great, great energy. It's awesome. Yeah, dude. It's awesome. Yeah. I love hearing fitness leaders. I love leaders like that because a good trainer can be so profound and impacting someone in such a positive way and their health and their longevity and the quality of life and a bad trainer can have just as big of an impact in the opposite direction. And unfortunately there's both in our space and not enough good trainers. So when I hear someone like that, it makes me really hopeful. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's helping all of them. Look, if you like our 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 plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. 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