5 Ways to Predict Mortality (No Blood Test Required) | Mind Pump 2761

Key Takeaway

Can't balance on one leg for 10 seconds? Your mortality risk just quadrupled. Five simple tests—single leg balance, sit-to-stand, sit-to-rise, push-ups, and grip strength—predict your death risk better than most medical tests. The sit-to-rise test (getting up from the floor without hands) is the ultimate predictor because it measures everything: strength, mobility, balance, and coordination. Start practicing these movements today—your life literally depends on it.

Episode Overview

This episode reveals five powerful tests that predict mortality better than traditional medical exams: single leg balance, sit-to-stand, sit-to-rise, push-ups, and grip strength. The hosts emphasize that strength training just once per week can dramatically improve performance on all these tests, making it the most efficient exercise for longevity.

Full Transcript

Transcript of 5 Ways to Predict Mortality (No Blood Test Required) | Mind Pump 2761 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

You can go to the doctor, you can get blood tests, you can get a checkup, and they'll try to predict mortality. But did you know there are five ways you can predict your mortality that don't involve a blood test or even a doctor? You could do them on your own and they're remarkably accurate. We're going to talk about them today. Let's go. I want to guess at this Well, we know one of them go up there. Yeah. Well, we know one of them. It is. It is.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a predictor of mortality. It is. So, so grip strength. grip strength is one of them. So there's five that uh we have really good studies on body fat percentage has to be one. Um no it's actually not. So with body composition to some extent you can predict mortality. The problem is you can get people who are underweight with very low body fat percentage and that skews it skews it skews it and that yes that makes it actually worse. So but there's some that are really they're they're remarkably accurate more accurate than pretty much any other test that you could take.

Now before you go further just to comment further on the the body fat thing I would okay would okay would okay saying it it generally like that like a body fat test and then that gets thrown out because like you just said like somebody who is under body weight is nearly as dangerous if not more dangerous than somebody they actually have higher mortality. But I would think that we'd have some good stuff that says if you uh like are a male and you manage between this percent this percent that has to be one of the best predictors itself.

Like if you have a range at which you stay in for most of your life that's got to be like like like I would have thought so as well but when I when I was researching for this um episode uh it doesn't it actually pales in comparison to interesting. Yeah, it does because you could have a guy, just give an example, right? You could have a guy that's, let's say, sitting at um 20% body fat. Okay, so or 22% body fat, which is a relatively high body fat percentage for a guy.

Typically, you know, you want to be around 15, 16%. So, five 6% higher than that, but they could be uh very fit. They could be athletic. They could be strong, a lot of muscle. Yes. And then you could have someone who's sitting, let's say, 13%. But they just they're not they're not strong. They don't have good physical fitness. their mortality is far worse. Well, and what r what what that highlights to me is that uh even in a good range like that, there's still a such a wide variance of health.

Yes. Yes. Yes. So, so let me pull some of these up. Right. So, I wrote them down and I wrote down got I mean it's got to be smoking non-smoking is one another one that's more of a behavior, but these are tests. tests. tests. Oh, tests. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So, I'll give you one. Well, you gave us one already. You gave us the grip strength and I'll get to that. I'll get to that, but I'll give you some other ones. So, one test uh was a single leg balance test.

test. test. So, they've done huge studies, thousands of people. of people. of people. And here's what they found. That makes me that makes me feel so good about the thing that I talked about ago is like I always tell my clients like if there's one thing that you continue to do, just do this right here. Yeah. So, when we go through all these at the end, I think would be great for us to talk about what we think they're all pointing to. Right. So, all right.

So, single leg balance, this is just you stand on one foot. Here's what the studies found. That people who could not hold the balance for 10 seconds, so people who couldn't do a single leg just balance for at least 10 seconds, had a fourfold higher risk of death within the next 10 years. Wow. Wow. Wow. Four times higher of just the next 10 years. 10 years. So this is what makes these tests so remarkable is they'll predict mortality in a decade. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yes. So regardless of other things.

So, if you're watching or listening to this and you test yourself out and you just try to stand on one foot and you can't do it for at least 10 seconds, uh, according to the data, dysfunction of frailty kind of indication like instability trend of weakness. weakness. weakness. Yeah. Points to a lot of things. Yeah. A lot of things. So I mean I want to just repeat what I said because I don't remember what episode that was and what what the theme was when I talked about that but we all shared exercises like and the single exercise that I thought was one of the best which would not fall in the average it would fall in the average category of like what people would put up there you know it was l the ability to step up on a step so step up on a on a bench or a step balance hinge over touch your toe come back and step down without ever stepping down That's right.

Without ever Yeah. Without So balancing the whole way through that and and it's just simply the ability to step up and the strength it takes to do that is so important. important. important. To stabilize is so important and the ability to hinge and to do all three of those in a single movement. It's what I've told all my clients that of all the things you learn from me, I know how ridiculous this one thing is that we do. Don't ever stop doing this. Just keep doing this.

I think what this points to is a few different things. Um uh there's a a huge strength component that goes to balance. Okay. So when your balance starts to when you when I would train people in older, you know, older uh uh age groups, right? So people over the age of 60, their balance would dramatically incre increase or improve just because it got stronger. So often times you're just not strong and that's why your balance isn't good. Um then it also points to other things as well, inflammation, issues with your vestibular system, but really what I think uh the other part of it is as you get older uh a huge cause of mortality is falling.

Mhm. Just falling down. Now, the fall itself doesn't doesn't doesn't necessarily kill people. In fact, often times it doesn't. But it's what happens after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They fall down, they break you and then Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Yeah. And then trying to recover and build yourself back up to have function again. Sometimes people like they lose the fight and they just kind of it just spirals. spirals. spirals. Isn't it also I mean that's the the saying goes fall and break your hip, die of pneumonia, right?

And is that is that a lot of that is because so many resources are trying to go to heal when you get attacked by something that is that can really get you. Well, what happens when you get older is when you stop moving the rate at which you decline is quick exponential exponential exponential exponential both mental health uh cognitive function physical health because you're healing. You broke something. So now you're in a chair or in bed for a a couple months. you see a rap I'll never forget I I've told this story many times on on older shows but I'll never forget I had this experience I had a client I had a woman who trained with me her daughter hired me to train her she was an older woman so when I was training her I believe she was in her late 70s there were already signs of cognitive decline okay now you couldn't necessarily tell but if you knew her well you like her daughter knew like her family's like you know she's getting forgetful she losing her independence so they hired me to train her now as I trained trained her.

I trained her over the course of a few years and we did a good job of building some strength and maintaining and but I remember she would tell me the same story sometimes over and over again. So you kind of tell that there was a little bit of cognitive decline at this point and again remember I had I had started training her already well past uh you know deconditioned. So this was like new to her and I'll never forget uh she fell at home. So she fell in her shower at home couldn't come see me.

Uh it was a bad fall. Broke her, you know, I don't remember what it was. I think it was her hip. Um was in the hospital and then she was, you know, incapacitated for a couple months and just didn't come back. It was months later. It wasn't years later. It was just months later. I'm at the grocery store and I'm just grocery shopping and I see her and she's totally hunched over walking with her daughter grocery shopping and I went up to her and her so her posture had completely changed.

I went up to her and I'm like, "Hey, how you doing?" And she, remember, this is a woman I trained twice a week for a couple years. She looked up at me. She had no idea who I was. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And she's like, "Who are you? Who is he?" And then her daughter's like, "Oh, this is S." And it was like, it was like 6 months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So fast. The decline was so quick. Uh because she became uh incapacitated. So uh so that's one.

One of them is balance. Here's another one. Sit to stand. So here's what the test says. says. says. Yep. Yep. Yep. You're you you you have to go all the way down to the floors without using your hands and then stand all the way up. I love that one. Without using your hands. Uh this one uh this one will show. Uh sorry, no. Sit to stand. That was sit to rise. Sorry. We'll get to that one. Sit to stand is sitting on a chair and standing up without hands.

That's the one one one you for men, anything in their if you're in your 50s, anything under 19 reps, you start you have a dramatic increase in mortality. Men in their 60s. Wa hold back up you cuz you you you switched us there. So there. So there. So 19 reps of this is this is from in a chair. Okay. From a chair. So just from a chair getting up with no hands. Yes. You have to do at least 19 reps if you're in your 50s. Under that you start to see a real real sharp rise in mortality.

Um in your 60s 17 reps in your 70s 14. Uh after 80 you got to maintain at least 10. Okay. So, it's just it's just basically box squats without using your You know, it's so uh it's kind of cool to hear these because when I when I think back to back when we were training clients inside gyms, you know, these these were a lot of exercises that this was an exercise. Yeah. I in fact, I I started you would hold my hands and you would be able to use it for support and then eventually get to a point where you you'd stand up all be able to get up, get down, get up, get up, get up, down.

And I don't remember doing that because I heard some study related to mortality. Oh, it was a squat. Yeah. It was just a regret. It was like the the furthest regression. Like I had clients that just that was a struggle. If they got out of a chair, they would have to use their hands through the movement, but assisted. Yeah. Yeah. So, kind of neat to hear it connected to mortality when I know at least that wasn't my intention when I was doing I wasn't thinking like, oh, if we can get to the 19 of these, we're going to like it was more like I can't do a regular squat with this person.

This is the the furthest risk regression I can think of. It's interesting. It makes me think of too, you know, those gravity treadmills like they've figured out with some people that somehow they lose um like the ability to to move their legs, but then they put them in these kind of suit and they have them it actually like moves their legs for them to the point where eventually it trains their neuromuscular system again. Underwater walking. Underwater walking. Underwater walking. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, underwater walking helps uh quite a bit uh because they're just not strong enough enough enough to walk in many.

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I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mypumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. So, just for just so people get an idea of, you know, what you could accomplish, like I had I had several clients in their 80s, uh, which is not that's not a large demographic for personal trainers, but I actually had at some point just because doctors referred people to me. I had quite a few clients in their 80s and we could do, uh, you know, sitting on a bench and standing up.

We would routinely get 20 to 25 reps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is saying be able to maintain 10. Now again, just to give people some context, when they would come hire me at 81 years old, couldn't even do one. One or two if we were lucky, it was usually me helping. Yeah. That's I had to assist a Yeah. That's I had to assist a lot of people. Yeah. But we would go from one or two to over the course of 6 months be able to be like 15.

So your strength can dramatically I love that you're sharing this because um one of the things that you're taking me back here too is uh me having to encourage them like how far they had come. you know, they're not they're not barbell back squatting yet. They're not doing anything crazy or what maybe somebody else in the gym, but hey, we just moved you from a category that is all cause mortality years out of that category. Uh that's a massive huge huge huge win and progression for you.

And so for the trainers that are listening that have clients like this and andor the clients that are going through this right now, you know, you may not think it's that impressive, but to go from I needed help getting out of a chair to I can get up 20 times by myself is a is a big win. Huge win. Huge win when it comes to mortality. Uh let alone doing uh squat with weight or dumbbells or any kind of resistance, which uh again just to encourage people, you study lots of studies show this, we have lots of experience with this.

Your ultimate potential may change as you get older, but your ability to get stronger is they show they show studies with 70-year-olds versus 30-year-olds. The strength gains are very similar in in in terms of percentage of gain. Now, at some point, of course, the potential is lower. You're not going to get as strong as you could have gotten in your 30s and your 70s, but you can get way stronger. So, that's, you know, just again for for some encouragement. All right. The next one is sit to rise.

That's the one I I confused. Oh, confused. Oh, confused. Oh, yeah. So sit to rise is you you start standing and then you go all the way to the ground and then stand all So you go all the way sit on the floor and then stand up without using your hands. So this is a test. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now you you it's you start with 10 points. So I'll explain how this works. One point comes off every time you have to use a hand, a knee or an arm to help yourself up.

yourself up. yourself up. So anytimes you have to put your hand on the floor or get on your knee or do something like you take a point off. People scoring the lowest on this. So, it was a 12-year study done with 4,000 adults. Those scoring the lowest were up to six times more likely to die early from natural causes. Six times more likely to die early. And they what's a low score? Under six. Oh, under six is a low score. Wow. Cuz you easily can see someone's going to get at least two.

One one hand and knee on the ground is like pretty pretty a prop. That's like mobility. Oh, yeah. used to be part of my assessment like when I first was a trainer was like having people start on the ground the floor and you can't use your arms or anything to get up. You got to figure it out. Yeah. I would actually lay them I'd pancake them out. So you have to sit up. So we had the core strength to sit up. They're laying down. They got to get up.

Yes. And then you have that hip mobility to get your legs kind of underneath you and then to get to a split stance and then stand all the way up. And can we do that with it? I just one of our trainers was doing that with somebody just the other day. Yeah. Yeah. Just Yeah. Yeah. So, So, So, what's cool about this is it it this test uh it demonstrates how your whole body works together because some tests will isolate one part of the body versus another.

This one's like everything like you got to be able to get up uh off the floor. You're using the whole body. More accurate to me. Yeah, it is. It's also one of the harder tests to do. U but I tell you what, I don't know how many people in just their 50s Yes. Yes. Yes. could do this. Oh, yeah. Big challenge. Big challenge for a lot of people. Uh and and this also adds mobility as a component, not just strength, but do you have the mobility to move and and maneuver your body?

So, um so that's another one. Yeah. The next one, let me see. We had sit to rise. Uh push-up test. This is an easy one, of course. of course. of course. Uh they did a study of of,00 men for over a decade. So, what's cool about these studies, by the way, is huge sample sizes sample sizes sample sizes in a long time. Lot lot long periods of time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're they're easy tests to do. So the problem with like diet tests and lifestyle tests lifestyle tests lifestyle tests so hard to adhere to that for extended period of time.

Yeah. It's also like it's all a bunch of surveys. So it's like you you follow people for a thousand people for 10 years. years. years. What are they doing reporting what they ate once every year? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's how accurate is it? You know how many tomatoes did you actually eat? Like you know you you don't know. This is like you show up and do some push-ups and then go home and it's pretty objective. So, 1100 men for a decade, those who were able to do 40 or more push-ups had a 96% lower risk of heart disease compared to men who could barely do 10.

So, if you can't do 10 push-ups or you could do 40 push-ups, the difference in your risk of heart disease, 96%. disease, 96%. disease, 96%. At what age? Uh, this was all men. All men. All men. All men. Yeah, this was all men. So, Wow. That's substantial. 40 is legit. Yeah, 40 40 is 40 is legit. Yeah, 40 40 is legit. Mo most I'd say most uh relatively fit guys can bust out 25 30 no problem. Yes. But 40 is a good but under 10 is where you start to see real Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. real issues. real issues. real issues. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then last is the grip strength test. Um test. Um test. Um the reason why the medical community likes the grip strength test the most is because it's the easiest to administer. So like all the ones we talked about sit sit stand up required sit to the floor you know balance on one leg like this is like you get a dynamometer it's in your office here squeeze this let's track every time you come in you're going to squeeze this and we're going to see where you're at if you're going up or down muscle recruitment and yeah how like easy it is for you to really like generate and localize that force.

So so let's have a a fun little debate or discussion about this then like of the five What do you would you value the most most most if I had to pick one? Yes. Oh, easily the s to the the rise to get all the way up. I agree. Yeah, I agree. That covers everything. Focusing. Yeah, Focusing. Yeah, Focusing. Yeah, that covers everything. I I agree. The grip strength test is just uh it's just easy to do and you have to pick things that are easy to do.

Uh you know, it's a By the way, it's it's just a practitioners would be rad if that was like, you know, standard. Yeah. By the way, the grip strength test is not bad for predicting all cause mortality. It's pretty damn good. I mean, for every 5 kg drop in grip strength, early desk risk goes up 16%. And heart disease risk goes up 17% and stroke goes up 9%. So every 5 kilos of lost grip strength. But again, it's just the proxy for overall body strength. If you have a good strong grip, you probably have overall, you know, strength in your body.

And it's again, it's an easy test. It's like a dynamometer, super cheap. Every doctor's office can have one. Here, squeeze this and see what happens. Now, the risk of the grip strength test one is that someone listening could just practice that older could just practice that. They'll sit in their chair at home. Yes. And just squeeze a gripper and that way that their test stand up or split stance too like you know see if you can actually generate force when you're unbalanced. This is why I think the one that we all agree on is the best is because you if you can accomplish that and get good at that, you're going to you Yes.

You have you have uh accomplished something mobility wise. You've definitely accomplished something stability wise. You've definitely accomplished something balance strengthwise. I mean, you've got That's right. That's right. That's right. You could there's no there's no cheating that test or cutting corners on that test. I think that's which is also I to me the progression of that is the one I'm talking about. That's why if I could get once I got a client to be able to step up, step up, step up, balance, hinge, touch their toe, come all the way back.

Also one of my favorite exercises. That was such a good movement. Mh. Um, and I know it doesn't get talked about a lot, but for your average client who cares about longevity, uh, such a good movement to incorporate and teach, was always a staple. Now, here's what's interesting about all this, right? You have all these tests that I just said that are great predictors of all cause mortality. Now, let's think of the average, let's just think of the population of America or Western societies, and we're going to try to improve their mortality.

We're going to try and get everybody to live longer and live better. So, better health span. There's a few stumbling blocks. Uh because I can make all kinds of recommendations, but are they going to do it? Can they stick to it? How much time is it going to take? What's the like how effective is it for the time spent doing it? You can't just Here's what a lot a huge uh some of the big mistakes learning curve to it. Lots of health professionals and longevity experts, they've got great advice, but they don't take into consideration, are people going to do it?

And how much are they actually going to devote to this? And what's the consistency? And what's the payback for the time that they're actually like, you have to look at the real world. And I'll tell you right now, no form of exercise will affect all of these as much as one day a week of strength training. That's it. Why do I like it so much? It's one day a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One day a week. There's no other form of exercise that would improve all of these things as much as strength training in in a one onetoone comparison.

You pick any other form of exercise for 45 minutes once a week versus strength training 45 minutes once a week pales in comparison. Pales in comparison increases range of motion and strength in that range of motion. I think people are are a lot of times have this misconception that like a lot of strength training now we're limiting range of motion. We're not as flexible when the opposite is not proper strength training. No, no, not at all. All right. got some other interesting uh data for you guys.

This I would I would I would say is good and bad news for young men. Um so this is wild. So I was watching this clip. Uh this gentleman was talking about just how different this young the the younger generation of men is from previous generations of men in regards to well trip off these stats. I couldn't believe it when he when he said it. I double checked and he's that's this is what they're showing. uh men between the ages of 18 to 24. Okay. So, young men 18 to 24.

to 24. to 24. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What percentage of them have never asked out a woman to on a date? Oh, Oh, Oh, never. I've seen not like they've done it once or twice. Like right now the current It's a large 18%, right? 18%, right? 18%, right? It's a large percentage. What percentage have never ever ever asked a girl out? Over 60. Over 60. Over 60. Well, no, less than that, but that Okay. Okay. Okay. 45%. 45%. 45%. Almost half. Almost half. Almost half. What? What?

What? That's Listen, That's Listen, That's Listen, weak. weak. weak. Listen, when we were growing up at that age group between 18 and 24, listen, how many guys would you think in our when we were in that age group had never asked a woman out? Like almost none. none. none. Yeah. I mean, okay. So, unless you're just like isolated nerd, you I don't I don't I don't Okay, so yeah, but now you have to Justin the bully just wait. make all those 20-year-olds feel terrible right now.

Yeah. Well, again, this is where the nerds took over and like now now we're ruled by nerds. Okay. So, yeah. So, that what do you expect? What do you expect? You're just going down. You just Hey, Hey, Hey, all let's let's uh speculate on all the reasons why. reasons why. reasons why. Yeah. Well, let me add one more stat because it's going to add to your speculation. Okay. Okay. So 45% of men 18 to 24, which is crazy to me, have never in their life asked a woman out, how what percentage of men under 30 are just like, I'm not even pursuing.

I'm not even going to try to date. Under 30, 63%. 63%. 63%. What? What? What? A majority. A majority of men under 30 don't even aren't even they're waiting for the robots or what? What? What? What? Why is that why is that stat higher? That's confusing to me. Uh be uh No, no. They've asked women out at some point. They just give up. And then they just give up. 63% are like, "I'm not even going to ask. I give up." Oh, Oh, Oh, come on, guys.

All right. All right. So, okay, now let's hear all the speculation. Yeah. Yeah. Let's piss some people off now. Oh, well, so what this guy what this guy was saying girlfriend. girlfriend. girlfriend. What this guy was saying is that he said that um that social connection has been replaced by forums uh the internet uh and pornography and pornography pornography pornography pornography and video games have have trapped a lot of young boys in in the inside the room. It's sapped the energy that that that because it's scary like the the truth if you're a young man you're listening you know what I'm talking about.

Women I don't think understand this because we're the pursuers typically. It's scary. You got to go ask a girl out like she's probably going to say no to you. you. you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to get your crap together because you know women don't just talk to you to you to you and you got to figure things out and you got to get rejected and you got to put yourself out there. It's scary. Here's another one that's a bit controversial but it's also true is that women data cross and up and women have been kicking our ass at a lot of things in the last two decades.

I mean when you look at uh college graduates, when you look at the testing like you you look at what women women in jobs, women are women are women are definitely in the academic setting for sure. sure. sure. Yes. Women are beating guys at a lot of things or elevating, growing, however you want to position that. And so you and then guys are locking themselves in room jerking off playing video games. video games. video games. And it's like you it makes it even more difficult to go, you know, you're this you're this kid who's been playing college.

You're 22 and you've been messing around playing Call of Duty and watching pornography all the time and you see this beautiful chick, but she's she's midway into getting her masters and she's got some intern at this great job. It's like she ain't she ain't dating you and you know it. Yeah. But here's here's the here's the uh the good news cuz here's the truth and I would love I mean I bet you can ask any young woman this. You got 45% of dudes at that age group have never asked a girl out and 63% aren't even trying anymore.

But if you're a dude and you just talk to a girl today, today, today, who's admitting this? Like these these are surveys. These are these are lots of surveys. Just this random surveys. So, but my the good news is this. If you're a dude and you got the laws to just introduce yourself to a girl, you're like a huge advantage. You you look like the man. Like, man, look how confident they are. they are. they are. So, you think that basic but with Okay, what's your what's your argument to what I'm saying then right now?

Because that that kid is not going up to that girl and he knows he's going to fail. That's why he's not doing it. Listen here. I'll I'll ask you think that he you think that he I'll ask you a dude that grew up without money and all the stuff that you said. I grew up listen. Well, you you you put yourself out there. You had a mouthpiece and I'm sure you had to work on that. You had to practice that confidence. Here's the truth. And again, women, this is the other truth.

Women tend to date based off of the potential they see in a man, not necessarily what they see now. Okay. So, yeah. One, and that's confidence. One, I was gifted with some of these things, right? to I was listen I was doing [ __ ] 15 years old starting my own little business hustling by the time I was a a junior in high school getting up at 4:00 in the morning working before school working afterwards so if you're a girl and you're only in high school and you see what I'm doing you you I would think part of that is like he's self motivated going to do his thing like thing like thing like so that that has to play a role yeah but I don't think they were like look at Adam waking up early to go to work you drove the crappy brown car with you had the mold inside of and all that stuff and you I did it because you just you went out and talked to them hanging down a head, you know.

you know. you know. Yeah. I don't know. If if if half dude half the dudes have never asked a girl out a lot if you're an 18-year-old guy and you see a girl and you want to go talk to her, I bet if you approach her and talk to her, she's going to be like, "Oh my god, it's a mentality, dude." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't think they're getting enough exposure to that. like um really understand the value of pain and and rejection and like you know failure.

It's just not stressed enough and and it's not stressed in any of their video games either cuz they just respawn and everything's fine. everything's fine. everything's fine. You know, we had to like literally scramble to try and get some code just to stay like at some level and otherwise you go all the way back to the beginning days and days that we put in. Well, you lost you. Well, you were like me too in this with cuz we admittedly you played video games too, but uh different though like uh everything was different.

My buddies and I um we would play games for a while, video games for a while, but sick of it. You do you get sick of it and then you go outside and you play football and basketball and baseball and you and or whatever. Kick the can, you name it, I did it all. Right. So, you didn't you weren't like these games now suck these kids into the screen. So engineered, dude. Yeah. And they and so these kids will socialize in there. It's like this whole thing where they're just hanging and so you know and and you can't tell me that a lot of the girls mature faster than us.

So you're this 17, 18, 19, 20 year old girl and you're looking at these boys who put headsets on and talk [ __ ] to each other for eight hours on the weekend on video games. Like that's not attractive. not attractive. not attractive. And they're not even talking to you. But even if you did, like what are you wait what what is he going to talk to her about? Like the new skins on Call of Duty. No, no, you got to try, dude. That's how you learn. Let me ask you guys this.

How many times do girls say no to you guys? Yeah. You can't use us as an example. We grew up at a different time. Never. Never. Never. Yeah, dude. All the time. All the time, dude. It's how you learn. No. No. No. And the energy like there's an energy that that that I mean, I'm not I'm not just let you guys to make it clear. I'm not arguing with you that I do think that's a fact. Let me put this Let me put Let me ask you guys this.

knowing what you guys know now, grown men, all your wisdom, all that stuff, and I snap my fingers, you guys are 18 years old, and I'm like, "Go get uh three girls phone numbers right now." right now." right now." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would it be a piece of cake today compared to how it was in the '90s? I I think the way that was Yeah. the I mean, bunch of lazy dudes. I mean, that's what I'm saying. So, I say like, "Go get a job, read a book, and you would probably attract those girls.

They'd come to you. You wouldn't even have to go go to them." Yes. Yes. So that's you would be such an anomaly to me if you're that that guy who's working hard, reading, trying to Well, here's what my argument encouraging these boys. Here's my argument. My argument is this. As a young man, you have a driver uh that pushes you beyond your comfort zone. One of them is your sex drive, and it's not getting quenched with endless pornography. You also have a drive for adventure, which you're not just beating level 65.

Okay, those two things. and then talk about read a book and all that. You know how you figure that out? You go try to talk to girls and they keep rejecting you and you're like I better get my crap together. Yeah. together. Yeah. together. Yeah. Like this. Like this. Like this. I better have something smarter to talk to her about than just women are gayers and this shapes you as a young hygiene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They just forget about that. You can't present yourself like a dumbass.

dumbass. dumbass. Yeah, exactly. You look like [ __ ] No wonder, you know, nobody's telling you that. that. that. But it's what 45 between 18 and 24. The first time I think I approached a girl to talk to her, I think I was like 13. you know, 18 to 24. That's crazy to me. Yeah. That's wild. But but now I put myself in their shoes. If I had endless pornography and video games, I mean, I might I might be in the same boat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but the good news is for young men listening, men listening, men listening, there's not a lot of competition, bro.

Are we switching? Is it Are we Are we Are we swinging back? I mean, are is it coming back the other direction? Is it getting worse? getting worse? getting worse? I think I think some awareness is coming around and around and around and maybe in pockets, but yeah, I don't see it. It's I have such a hard time because sometimes I feel like we're in a bubble whenever we talk about topics. We try to generalize all this stuff, but yeah, half of it I don't see.

So, it's like it sounds cool, but yeah, I don't I don't I mean, I see little bits of like trying to correct and some kids getting it and that it driven. It's like this perfect storm too of like you have the these these boys that are uh for a lack of a better word pussified you know you know in in this direction while we're pushing this narrative box [ __ ] on the other side and it's like it's it's just driving a wedge between wedge between wedge between you know what hap here we'll get controversial since you brought this up trying to force you that direction do you know what happens when there's weak uh when there's no male leadership yeah the women step up and change.

Yeah, they step up that I mean if you look at so these these uh when you have these you hear these conversations even when like someone like Adam Lane Smith comes on and it it triggers some people and the women are like it's not our fault like we men need to step up and they're they're part they're right there's a part of them that's also true you know it's like I and I think it's it's it's less about it's less to blame a sex it's more to blame society and a narrative that's been pushed we've been pushing this to boys play video games watch pornography watch pornography watch pornography you know, your friends can be online and we've been telling girls, go out there, kick ass institch, and the two of those just don't work together.

They just don't. don't. don't. So, it's not a girl problem. So, it's not a girl problem. It's not a guy problem. It's a social narrative that's been pushed for two decades plus now, and we've just seen it get further and further. Now, what I hope is that we're we're living through and our kids are living through the most extreme time and we start to kind of find somewhere back in the middle somewhere cuz I don't think what I just said the extreme is is necessarily bad.

There's listen some married to a a boss [ __ ] right? So, it's you could totally have that mentality. I played video games, too. So, it's like it's not like video games are evil. Uh girls that are like strong independent women are evil. It's like there's like there's like there's there's a balance. There's a balance there. there. there. It all works like Yeah. And I and I hope that we we start to come back. Do you do you guys feel like uh or do you get worried for I know what the data is showing on young men and they're they're in droves turning to um uh to faith.

I think they're looking for structure. They need they're looking for meaning. meaning. meaning. Um the courses that uh help men break the addiction of pornography are exploding right now. So there's a lot of awareness that's happening right now which is good because that uh data on exercise morals discipline uh structure definitely when you think of what what does video game what what's the bad side of video games pornography the lack of morals lack of discipline lack of structure those things and so just simply going that direction will help that out totally so and I do feel like you see the kind of the counter uh with women too you see more and more women speaking up on like the hey the sacrificing the family to have the career isn't what uh it was meant what we all thought it was and so you hear a lot more of that and so maybe we come back by our kids age I don't know know know yeah I hope so I worry about that sometimes sometimes sometimes let's talk about nutrition I want yeah I want to bring this point up we haven't brought it up in in maybe maybe five or 6 months but I think it's such a good uh it's such a great way to reduce your calories without eating less and actually making your food healthier and that's simply taking your total red meat and just going to grass-fed.

And it's the same amount, same size steak, same everything's the same. 10 ounces of steak versus 10 oz of steak, steak, steak, but it's lower in calorie and higher in protein because grass-fed meat is leaner and it has a better better fatty acid protein. protein. protein. I remember when you first brought that up on the show, we looked at the difference. I was really surprised by Yeah, it's hundreds of calories. Yeah, it's it's a major difference. Doug, can you compare like a couple like like um you know, common cuts, one being grass-fed, one being um traditional, you I know Butcher Box is where we get all all of us get our grass-fed meat.

I have to say something about Butcher Box since you're bringing this up. Um I'm I'm back on my kick right now and I'm I'm tracking my protein as we teach everybody first, right? I saw you work out like three times last week. week. week. Yeah. Yeah. Shh, don't tell. You have to get to build a reputation. Always keep track. He's just then I see him in there twerks. uh chicken nuggets, dude. So, I've been living off those. Every every uh three is 10 g of protein.

So, you Yeah. You know, like literally that's a that's a that's a bro. They're the best chicken nuggets. I used to So, back in my early days, I used to do like the 20 packs from McDonald's, like terrible awful fake stuff, right? It's 50 grams of protein in just 15 nuggets. I crush 15 nuggets like easy, easy. So, they're gluten free. It's become my my late night when I'm trying to get extra protein. Heat them up in the oven like super fast. Yeah. So, it's uh it's been kind of a go-to.

Give me give me an example of grass-fed versus uh traditional. So, the protein content is very similar. It's just a little bit higher on the uh the grass-fed. Uh it's the fat profile that's very different. That's the point he's making. He's saying that it's the same protein or higher with less calories. Eight to 12 oz steak. What are you looking at? looking at? looking at? Yeah. I'm trying to find a good uh comparison here. Yeah. Just give me a sec. sec. sec. Yeah. So, uh it typically what you'll see is in the same cut.

It's like a normal serving. Well, 100 something calories. I remember when we looked at easy and you're eating the same amount. I like it cuz it's easy. It's like here you want to cut your calories in an easy way and not feel like you're eating less cuz you're not. Here, just switch your grass-fed calories are automatically lower. So, yeah. We don't need to wait for you, Doug. Doug. Doug. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm having a hard time finding No problem. problem. problem. We talked S brought it up before it surprised me.

It was it was enough of a number that I'd actually never even looked at it like that. Like I mean look back now I think back when I was competing and always trying to like shave calories here there like oh that would I mean that would have been a really cool strategy go I would have actually gone back and done non-grass-fed and uh non- prep, right? So when I'm like offseason and so and bulking and putting Yeah. an easy way to cut is like I'm not even switching anything but just going to grass-fed and shave 150 plus calories totally.

Right. I found a sport that uh I can't believe exist. Well, I can believe exists. One that Justin would probably do. do. do. What is that? It's Doug, can you pull up? Did you get the videos of Run It? I did. I did. I did. You show a clip. Look at this. I'm going to repost. to repost. to repost. So, I do have some numbers here. Finally. Uh, so we'll edit it in in the appropriate part of the of the of the Hey, I just like to highlight my, you know, my Google skills here.

I know you guys find me to be very, uh, very good at it. So, you know, edit he'll edit the show like right after he's not using. This is how Doug does searches. This does uh uh 6 oz ribeye grass-fed versus 6 oz grainfed ribeye. Which has more That's why his searches Listen, I think he still uses ass Jeeps. I don't believe that's the search I did, but I'm not going to sit here and defend myself. What myself. What myself. What you got? you got? you got?

Okay, so you get a lot of uh results sometimes that just don't have the details you want. Okay. So, we have grass-fed beef 8 oz. This is ground beef is what they've used. Grainfed 8 oz. So, for example, the grass-fed is 432 calories. The grainfed is 568. Yeah, there you go. Total fat grass-fed 28 g, grainfed 44. And then getting down to the protein, uh, grass-fed 43 g, 38 for the grain. So, there you go. I'm going to bookmark this, but that was how many ounces you said.

where you you you 8 o. So, so you're talking about higher protein, lower calories by over 100. That's That's That's And it's 8 ounces. They're both 8 ounces. ounces. ounces. Yeah. That's solid. But, you know, it's not only that. It's just so many other things. Vitamin K is higher. Vitamin E balance, too. Way better. better. better. Just all kinds of different things. It's less inflammatory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Doug, pull up the Run It video. Okay. So, this is a new sport that is I would place it.

It's a little bit lower than the slap sport where they just blast each other in the face. It's lower, bro. You know what I mean? Like the slap like that's just peak idiot. This is just a drill that we would do all the time in football and rugby. Like it's just they made it into a sport. Like this is literally like you run into run into run into with no pads. No pads. No pads. No pads. You just blast each other. That's my first introduction. There's a name to that, Justin.

What's that called? It's called uh when you Are you talking about where they where you line up Oklahoma drill? Yeah, that's what is what is what is Look at the size of these guys. Watch. Watch. Except this is just they took out all the the the the function of it and just went into the smash. the smash. the smash. Well, I've seen some of these, bro. Well, what's scary is they're actually doing it from distance. Normally, you do that a little bit closer, right? Oh, I've seen some do where guys get knocked out.

knocked out. knocked out. Yes. Yes. Yes. Get blasted. I mean, this is big old Simone guys like just clashing and then all of a sudden like they're both like knocked out. Oh, bro. You didn't see Doug's pulling up some nice ones. I saw some highlights. What What I'm tripping out right now looking at this is is the is this I used to live for this stuff, dude. Wow. Wow. Wow. What's Justin this What's crazy is how far they are. Like that's a that's a normal drill in football where they line up.

up. up. It's me and it's me and Justin. These guys are running. Yeah, you're getting full speed when you're you're getting hit here. That's crazy. crazy. crazy. Yeah, bro. Yeah, bro. Yeah, bro. This is It's just So, when you do this, I mean, you basically have to have Right. Correct me if I'm wrong, Justin. You will get killed unless you have reckless abandon. You have to go in. There can't be any hesitation sacrificing your leveled cuz the other guy it's uh it's like um also you have to get like that that extra like last second leverage.

So people think you just like go full blast like just straight it. You have to actually dip and then you know launch and like throw all your force through your hips to your shoulder and like and like transfer it. Oh. And you have to do it quickly. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. So it's like if they're not doing that last second dip and up like they're not getting getting getting some of these guys are like 300 lb dudes. dudes. dudes. They all there's no output.

Wait to see like a little guy. I remember wasn't it Doug Justin? Wasn't didn't you go to a weren't you in a mosh pit? Yeah pit? Yeah pit? Yeah you ran into someone like Yeah. There's some big dude. I flattened him, dude. him, dude. him, dude. But that's the thing. It's there's a technique to it and like you learn it over over time. I was trying to teach my son this cuz he's like really into football right now and I was like if you're going to start tackling people, you got to understand the physics here, physics here, physics here, you know.

You got you got to be the lower one every time. God, bro, that's brutal. brutal. brutal. Yeah, that is. I've never seen that before. before. before. Yeah. No, me neither. I didn't know that. I mean, I know that's a drill. I knew that was a drill in football, but they they're closer in football like And you have pass. Oh yeah. Depends how they set it up cuz I mean we've done crazy stuff like bull in the ring and all that too or you're just in the middle and you have the whole team around you and you're just you call them out and then you guys like smash.

Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow. Yeah. I used to love that. Have you seen the the the the parents won? won? won? Yeah. For like Pop. Yeah. Yeah. Like the the the Pop Warner boys are like their their moms come out. Some of the moms do form tackles like bang. bang. bang. Yes. Dude. They got to try to get through the moms and stuff like that. The moms are it's like little popcorn football kids and it's so and so those big kids are taking them out.

I've seen some strong moms, dude. It was was one Samoan mom at the one of the gyms I managed, man. And she was Oh, yeah. She I was like, "You don't want to tackle that lady." She was like 200 She was like lean 210. I I tell the story all I've told I haven't told it in a long time on the podcast, but when uh I had uh Isaac Sapawaga's wife, I I trained her and uh I remember I did an assessment on and now at this point I'm already like 10 years into the career.

So, and I get I think we're all like this. You once you have body fat tested, weighed hundreds of people, I can look at you like it's like it's like yeah, it's like a carnival trick that all my family loves to do is like I I could look at someone and be like, "Oh yeah, they weigh about this much." And I'm probably 3 to 5 pounds. And I remember looking at her and and you know when you're uh guessing someone's weight you it's like my head I know what I'm guessing but then I'm going to go about five pounds lighter just so I look respectful and soend Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want to offend them. And I remember putting her on the scale and like and like and like I mean I I must have been I must have started 50 lbs too light and just pure muscle. Yeah. And then I body fat test her and she's like in the teens. She and just flat stomach. Just a brick house. I've never house. Just a brick house. I've never seen a girl like that. Just brick house. They have kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't I haven't, you know, it'd be interesting to see their kids now because this was like this is 15 plus years ago. Uh their kids could probably play sport. I hate to have Doug try and look up Isaac Sappa. Isaac Sappa. Isaac Sappa. I bet their kids are the league at this point. point. point. Yeah. No, actually I'll have to look him up and see uh see. I know. I'm pretty sure they have kids, but they Yeah, they both were just so I can only imagine what kind of kids they they had.

I I read about uh this psychological phenomena. Uh, change subject, but it's called the Rosenthal effect and um it's it points to you remember how I told you guys that so I did the you know we're on the fig we're doing the fig and eagle course on you know families and stuff and one of the things that Scott recommended for Jessica and I was to speak identity into our children and so like before bed every night we make a list of things and it's like you are intelligent, you are brave, you are courageous, you are a blessing to everyone you know like and we made different ones for all the kids, right?

And even the teenagers, right? My niece and my daughter, they light up every night. And I don't know how they would respond, right? Teenagers, you never know. But every night I go in there and I do it and you just see their faces light up. And it seems to have this I I can tell it's having this kind of positive effect. And I just happen to come upon something called the Rosenthal effect. This is a this is a very interesting um phenomenon where they've done many studies on this but one of them was a classroom experiment where teachers were told that certain students showed exceptional potential even though the labels were randomly assigned.

Over time those students perform better academically. So teachers unknowingly gave more attention, encouragement, patience, and feedback to the students they believed that were gifted. This also works when kids are told that they're they're they're a particular way. They suddenly subtly over time start to behave more in that direction. And so, you know, saying these things to your kids every night, they actually start to take on this identity because well, my, you know, every night my dad tells me I'm courageous. So then when they're scared without realizing, they become more.

I keep forgetting. Really interesting. I keep forgetting to tell Katrina to that. I want to add that cuz you know what I'm doing? I'm uh cuz I I I which is interesting to me cuz I always thought it was like uh instead of like telling your kids they're this thing you're I was better to attach it to a behavior that I see. Right. So like we're reinforcing behavior. So every night we look I think that's great. Right. We look at something but I think I mean I could do both, right?

What stops me from hey daddy saw you do this today. So proud of you. Also, by the way, you're ba. So, I want to add I want to add that you know I have my cousin who's uh who's visiting right now and uh he's never visited me before and getting caught up with him. He's in from the other side of my family and you know that I don't get to see very much and you know we we saw each other last year for the first time in years and said man why don't you come up and visit sometime and so he came up by himself he spent the last like 3 4 days with me does this construction job and then he goes to a an afterchool program for low-income families and the kids range from five to like 13 like 13 like 13 so and he's got all of them and so I've just been asking him all kinds of questions and he just loves it.

It's like it's like he's comes from a family of teachers and you know so he has a lot of passion for helping kids. He's got he's got an incredibly loving sweet soul and just asking him a lot. I'm like man what I mean I can only imagine a lot of these kids are probably troubled and challenged and he goes oh yeah know definitely. He goes they and they love to push boundaries. I'm like how do you deal with that? and he's like, you know, honestly, he's like, what I've learned or what I find is just like kids just uh want attention.

And a lot of times these kids that are so quote unquote bad or misbehave lack the attention. And you know, he had been spending these days with me and he last night before he went to bed, he's like, "Dude, is Max always like" This is always what everybody said. "Is Max always like this?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Actually, I think he's acting kind of wild because you're here showing off." He's like, "He's such a well- behaved kid." I said, "Well, it go I think it goes back to what you said.

I think that it's the just the amount of attention that he gets. Um, you know, we don't do the Yeah, it's the they want they they they they want that and they're a lot of energy, right? You know, I get like there it's all the time. It's not like he wants attention every once in a while. He wants attention all the time. And so, yeah, we do a lot of Legos. We do a lot of puzzles. We do a lot of games like every day, every night, multiple times a day.

And I think that that is what you see is that you just see that he gets a lot of that. And I said, I can see if a kid doesn't how they can start to get on your nerves and then you want to just throw an iPad on him. And then and I and then the next thing you know they're a bad kid because they're acting out. I said I just I think you hit it on the head when you told me what it's like to manage these kids.

I think that a lot of kids and some kids need more. I mean your kid's an example that he needs physical attention. He doesn't need just attention or sit on the puzzle. It's like you got to take him outside, throw the ball at him, go shoot a gun. It's like you got to actually do something like that. And I think that makes a a world of a difference. And the kids just don't know how to communicate that at that age. At that age, he doesn't know how to say, "Daddy, I want more of your attention." His way out.

Yeah. His way of doing it is is acting out. out. out. Speaking of which, I was I I need your guys' help because I think you have an athlete, bro. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. You for sure do. And I'm I'm not, you know. So, my my son, you was it the other day? He's like, "Hey, can I uh try hitting a ball with a bat?" I'm like, "I've never done this with him." I'm like, "All right." So, we're in the backyard. I gave him It wasn't even a bat.

It's like a like a toy. It was kind of like a bat. And I had a tennis ball. And nine out of 10 times he he connects. Nine out of 10. I th the first time [ __ ] And he just over and over and over again. I'm going to start sending you. I'm like, I got to have your your I'm going to start sending you some stuff cuz I follow all these like it's just so funny like dad dad's teaching different sports and one of the dads I love to follow that teaches his son baseball.

baseball. baseball. Oh yeah. He sits on that bucket and puts the helmet on. Yes, bro. I'm going to send it to you. Like he has got this he's got a kid who's just so into it and obviously has a baseball coaching background because the way he's teaching him him him and it's in in a fun playful way. the kids loving it and stuff like that and it's like if it could give you a couple tips on if you have a little natural athlete and you feed into those skills when he's too early behind dude it's so it's so cool man you harness that now if you if he's got a natural gift and then he leans in that we went to a friend's house yesterday and they had football on the TV and anytime football is on we don't watch football I never watch sports but if you're somewhere and football's on he sits down and watches it oh my god he likes it he sits down and then he's like which what's our team football what's our team I'm like dang I don't know the red That's so ironic.

It is so ironic. Yeah. I just like pull my kids into interest, you know, in that direction. It's been such a a weird experience for me cuz it was so like I just gravitated towards it immediately, you know. So, yeah, it might be that case where it's like he'll just do all the extra practicing and all that on his own. That's what I mean. That's why you got to lean into it because if he's into it that much where you start giving him drills and he loves the drills, if he doesn't love the drills and who cares, but if he loves the drills and does that, it's like then it's game on, dude.

Well, I just like that hanging out with him, so I'll do it with him. But the issue is this. The issue now, there's not an issue now, but pretty soon he's going to need someone who who knows how to do this stuff. I don't. So So it's at some point. point. point. always this was always my secret prayer though is that Sal's going to have a kid like this and then it's like you're you're going to have to get into it and then you get into it then you have to you're going to really start to love and appreciate sports.

I just watched. Fast forward five years on my book. Sounds like dropping all the all the stats on all the all the games and we trying get into trampolines, dude. You know how much I hate jumping on a trampoline, dude. That's not I'm like I just feel immediately like I'm going to throw up or something. And I just get I had to get into it. I'm like, I have to figure these things. And then I was like, you know what? You guys are awesome at this.

And I'm just going to watch as a spectator. spectator. spectator. I got to ask you guys, do you guys do you guys ever drink the the one element flavor? I don't have much of is the chocolate one. chocolate one. chocolate one. Do you Who was it that has that in a hot I used to do it in a coffee. You had you had to do it in a hot chocolate mocha kind of Wait, hot coffee? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it good? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cuz the salty.

That's not a bad idea. It's really good. Yeah. And there's no calories. Yeah. And you you kind of Are you guys making your way through all the new the new ones though? All the new skinny ones. skinny ones. skinny ones. Dude, I just love I just They have a lemonade one and like a lemonade and pina colada I think is the other one. other one. other one. Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple. Yeah, the pineapple one is the best. That is the new best flavor to me. me.

me. Oh, that's tried. I do like the lemonade as well. Lemonade. Lemonade is Katrina. Lemonade is Katrina's favorite. Pineapple lemonade. lemonade. lemonade. Pineapple is really good. Yeah. Fire. Fire. Fire. Oo, I got to try that. Yes. Yes. That I I mean I I was I always told you guys grapefruit was my favorite. Still one of my favorites, but the new pineapple flavor is fire. Yeah, I got to try that. They're We We got Didn't we get a report from them recently? They're just company's growing like crazy.

You know, they they they have single-handedly uh created this electrolyte this new electrolyte market. electrolyte market. electrolyte market. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was not You see all kinds of copycats though all because of them. Yeah. All kinds of copycats. All because they were not afraid to put the amount of sodium. That's Yeah. Doing away from the sucralose and all this other nonsense. And it was just 1,000 milligs of sodium. Everybody's too scared to put that much. Shout out to Rob Wolf. Yeah. Very small cuz I mean he was I believe he's the one that was really had the formulation was pushed the formulation that way.

So, no, they're a great great company and continue to do do really well. But, um, yeah, you guys had to go through the all the new flavors. Try the pineapple. The new flavors are I I'm curious, too, how that's because they they did like a smaller size can now, right? So, it's like for some people that are not going to drink the the big full size can. So, they're they're smaller, right? So, they're I think they're half 500 milligram. milligram. milligram. Yeah. Like a Red Bull size is a comparison.

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Get 10% off. Back to the show. This segment of the podcast is brought to you by Mindpump Fitness Coaching. This is the number one course that teaches trainers and coaches how to build sustainable sixf figureure plus businesses and careers in fitness. Look, it's round table based. So, you can hear Adam, Justin, and myself teaching you how to build a better business, get more leads, close more deals, close bigger deals, and be more effective trainers. By the way, our course is nationally recognized. In fact, it gives you 1.9 CEUs with or for your NASM certification.

Find out more at mindpunfitnesscoaching.com. Our first caller is Kevin from Texas. What's up, Kevin? How you doing, Kevin? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? Hey, guys. How's it going, man? Good. How can you help you? Uh, good. Uh, uh, just writing in, uh, little bit of my backstory. I'm 54 years old. Um, been going to the gym probably since I was in my mid20s. Uh, but always struggle with my weight. Uh, it was always a big issue. About a year ago, I got on a GLP1 and it made a huge difference.

Um, finally able to get the diet under control. uh been killing it at the gym. About three months ago, I got on TRT. That's made all the difference in the world. Probably in the best shape of my life right now at 54 years old. Um the problem I'm running into is uh being in the best shape of my life. I feel like everyday things aren't the gym life isn't translating to real world as much as I expected it would. Uh one example like I uh volunteer with my kids band.

My kids in the high school marching band. I volunteer volunteer with them on competition days and games and stuff. We uh are busy unloading trucks, putting props together, moving props out on the field and stuff like that. And by the end of a 3 4 day or 3 4 hour, you know, work schedule, uh I'm just tapped out. And I feel like, you know, being in the shape I'm in, things should be a little bit easier. One thing I do notice is I recover a lot easier.

You know, I'm not just tapped out the next day and bedridden like I used to be. But it's uh you know, am I missing something? Should I be doing something different? Should I be training different? different? different? My my first guess is to ask you where are your calories at? Cuz the testosterone will make you feel a lot of those positive feelings that you're feeling and of course dropping that weight. But uh a lot of times our clients that do the GLP1s end up going so low calorie and and that might be what you're feeling.

Where are your calories at? uh calories, you know, I got to force myself to get about 2,000 a day. day. day. Yep. There you go. That's Yep. There you go. That's what it is. You're low low. Yeah. So, when we did you know we took a group of what was it 50 60 people? 50 people. 50 people. 50 people. Oh, 50 people that were all on GLP ones and we we we coached them through the whole process. And the common theme regardless if you got little results, amazing results, everybody ended up hitting a plateau at some point.

Whether that was after 100 pounds, 30 pounds, it didn't matter. They all and what ended up happening where they all became this point where they were exercising consistently, they lost the weight, uh but their body was stalled. They're just not see and or they were feeling just really just tired and fatigued. They didn't feel strong. And what that is is they they hit a point where their body has adapted to how low the calorie is. And their your body is telling you, I need more fuel.

Um, now the exciting part where you're at where you you're on a you have a night and you you've done a lot already and look great and you've got a solid frame and you're on testosterone, you start to feed that body and you're going to build some muscle and really start to shape, change, and feel different. Yeah. You'll get leaner in effect. Yes. Yes. Yes. What's your How tall are you? How much do you weigh? And what does your workout look like? look like? look like?

Uh, I'm 6 foot. Um, I'm currently at 230. I go between 235 230 uh around there. Um that's from 3:30 a year ago. year ago. year ago. Um my workouts I do uh four to five days resistance training uh upper lower split. Um and then I try to throw in, you know, one or two days I'll hike or do some yoga or something like that. Yeah. You're super underfed and overtrained. overtrained. overtrained. Yeah. Well, Yeah. Well, Yeah. Well, yeah. Guy your size Yeah. guy your size doing that much exercise.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. uh you're like you're just you're fatigued. Yeah. Your body is is like just trying to stay where it's at. Uh and you're probably doing about as much as you could tolerate. So you throw in a three-hour day of moving things, you're going to be dead. And you and you're on testosterone. If you were on testosterone, you'd feel this even more. The little good the good that you feel is is from that. That's giving an artificial signal of like we're we're doing good because otherwise your tes your testosterone would probably be crashing.

There's two things you could do. Bump your calories by 500 and cut your workouts way down. Yeah, there's there's no not only there's no reason for you to be lifting that much that often. It's not it's not getting any better results. You're actually getting worse results. You're doing way too much. 3 days a week would be the most. I'd have you the the hardest part of this, Kevin, is the is where you now what you've come from is the it will be the mental part. Are you taking a GLP1 that's preloaded or do you take do you actually measure for yourself?

I'm taking a compounded. Yeah. Yeah. So that you can lower the dose. dose. dose. Yeah. So that's what we would do. I started splitting up the doses. I I, you know, I was doing the once weekly and I've started splitting that into twice a week. week. week. That's fine. You you So, you know, talk with your doctor and say, "Hey, um, I'm trying to eat more because I'm trying to build some muscle, but I'm having a tough time eating enough. Uh, I'd like to try a lower dose." Uh, so you can get approval and then they'll put you on a lower dose.

That way you could start eating more. I'd get you I' I'd have you go immediately to 2500 calories. Follow like a MAPS 40 plus program. Don't do any more than that. You could walk throughout the, you know, throughout the week. Make sure you walk, you know, eight to 10,000 steps a day. Within within days, you'll feel a difference in energy. Within weeks, you'll see a difference in muscle and you'll get leaner. It'll actually get you leaner. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. The uh you know, the diet that's won't be the hard part.

The staying out of the gym will be the hard part. Well, you can still go like so my clients that love that consistency, you can still go just the days that it doesn't pro we haven't programmed you to lift weights, you walk. Go for a nice walk. Put an e put an ebook in or listen to a podcast. Walk on the treadmill. It's not a hard thing. It's just just walking. Walking is great. So, don't break the routine. When my clients are in a rhythm where they're like, "Adam, I go to the gym 5 days a week, every every Monday through Friday.

That's my thing." Like, I don't want to stop that. I just let me tell you what you're going to do on those five days. It's going to look like this on these days, look like this on the So the days that we don't have programmed, lifting weights for you. You need to be doing things like stretching and walking and listening to audio books, mobility stuff like that's recover recovery, sauna, steam. Those are all good. I'd love to hear you doing those those types of things. So, think of it like that.

You're still going to the gym, just focused on recovery type stuff when you're not uh doing what's on the lifting protocol. And we'll send MAPS 40 to you so you have the protocol to follow. Yeah. Follow that as it's laid out. Don't add to it and do more. And Sal's right. Start right out the gates with 2500 calories and watch what happens. happens. happens. Yeah. You know, Kevin, just so you understand, 25 isn't even where you would start. would start. would start. No. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. If you were my client, I'd start you at 25. We I'd show you some strength gains because that's what you're going to see. You're going to see some nice strength and muscle gains. And then I'd slowly reverse diet you over 3,000 calories. Yes. And then from there, if we want to get leaner, it's easy. Uh but where you're at now, you couldn't get leaner if you tried. You're just going to lose muscle. You're so your calories are so low. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The scale has it stalled for probably a good month now.

This is this is everybody, bro. Everybody that we've helped eventually and the fact that what's awesome and positive positive positive is that you you got to shed 90 pounds before it happened. We some some of these people we see happen at 10 10 pounds because they were already so low calorie and so the GLP one just took them even lower and so they get they get a 10 pound shred and then they hit a hard plateau for six months a year and then we get a hold of them.

You got you you drop 90 pounds which is awesome. Here are some of the challenges so you understand with the reverse diet cuz that's what we're kind of con coaching you through right now. So reverse diet is the slow introduction of an increase in calories high protein uh in combination with good appropriate strength training. Okay. And the the the goal is to build lean tissue, which then results in a faster metabolic rate. At the end of a reverse diet, you have a much higher metabolic rate, which we can then easily cut from.

So, if let's say right now you were running at 3,000 calories, 3200 calories, and you were like feeling great and strong, then I could cut you to 2500 calories, you'd see fat loss. So, in other words, you would cut at higher calories than you're currently at uh through this process. Now, there's a couple challenges that people run into. It's like, okay, well, what if I start gaining body fat? Or how do I know how fast I go up in calories? Or how do I know when I'm ready to cut or what if the strength training need to get changed?

This is when working with a coach becomes very valuable. So, uh, what I'm also going to do, Kevin, is I'm going to have a coach call you. And if that's something you're interested in, a coach could actually just individualize it as you go through the whole process through the whole reverse diet process and the eventual cut. Our trainers have a reverse diet framework that they take people through. So there's an actual framework they'll step you through and then you'll just check in. check in. check in.

It's also just individualized. Yeah. Yeah. You'll check in with them and then they'll they'll modify it accordingly. But that the most difficult part is definitely the psychological part. You'll have these Yeah. That's going to be that that'll be especially because you lost 100 pounds. Yeah. Eating more is scary. That'll be the hardest part. But the I'm telling you right now, uh we can get you all the way up to 3,000 plus calories. Feeling better, looking better than you ever have in your life if we do this correctly.

correctly. correctly. Um, let me ask, where should these calories come from? Uh, currently, you know, I'm meeting my protein goals. That's been my big thing. Protein, protein. I'm getting around anywhere from 180 to 200 grams a day. Um, should I pull from carbs, fats? All the above. Yeah, I'd have you go. That's impressive, by the way, that you're at 2,000 calories and you're able to hit 100, 200, 180, 200. I'd have you keep your protein around 200, 210, but then we'd probably bump your fats cuz I, you know, I'd want to see where they're at at 2,000 calories.

By the way, S that I mean that the highlights too probably where this this energy crash is coming from too. He's probably so high protein and so low carbohydrating carbs in Yeah. You're just not having intaking enough energy. Great job though hitting the protein because that's normally one of the things that people miss bad and they lose a lot of muscle when they lose that 90 lbs. So that's probably what saved you and has has done a good job is the fact that you've done that.

Yeah, my uh lean mass has gone down a few maybe five or six pounds in the year. Wow. Wow. That's impressive. That's really impressive. To drop 90 lbs and le less than 10 of that to be is a is a huge success. You're going to see Yeah. If you do this right if you do what we're saying right, you're going to see some really really surprising muscle gains. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're going to be like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing. You got you got a fun year ahead of you, dude." dude." dude." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting. This is exciting news. It's going to be a good year. We'll we'll have one of them. We we'll send over maps 40 and we'll have one of our reach out to you. Y Y Y All right. Well, I appreciate everything, guys. And uh thanks for being there along with me this past year. It's uh you guys have been an amazing help. amazing help. amazing help. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, man. Good job, brother. Yeah. Great job. Thank you. that that's this is just so good for people to hear uh who go on a diet or who use a GLP which you know really helps with the your body adapts uh and then you're that's it and you're stuck and look here's a guy that's 6 foot 230 lbs a big dude uh he's working out six days a week that's very low calorie for a dude like that size moving that much that's very low and he's doing other activities hiking walking helping Of course, he's exhausted when he goes and and tries to eat.

eat. eat. Barely any carbs and all that, too. Yeah. He's energy has to I mean, you got to eat more. Uh, you know, guy that size doing that much activity typically is going to be around 3,000 calories and lean. No, I'll tell you, uh, a bit of him that's an anomaly. The fact that he was able to lose 90 pounds and less than 10 of that be muscle is a testament to how cons I already without even knowing this guy well enough weight he was consistent with his protein and he lifted weights through this process.

That is the only way you lose 90 lbs in GLP1 and don't lose 50 40 50 lbs of muscle along the way. Most people just cut the calories, so they dramatically decrease their their protein intake. They don't have the energy to lift weights consistently. And sure, they lose the 90 lbs, but half of it is muscle. The fact that he was able to sustain that is a testament to his high protein intake consistently and the fact that he was hitting weights. Our next caller is Sam from Kentucky.

What's up, Sam? How you doing, Sam? What's up? Hey, guys. How's it going? Good, man. How can we help you? Good. All right. Um, I'll just do the normal thing, read down my uh question. I changed a little things cuz, you know, this was about a month and a half ago, so a couple things have changed since then, but then, but then, but I'll read down. Um, so I'm currently in like a pretty aggressive fat loss recomposition journey. Um, I'm 34 6 feet, currently weigh uh 286 I weighed this morning.

Um, I've been lifting weights for a really long time, so I'm kind of past the whole like newbie gains phase. Um, but I still think I can I can get a lot of muscle mass on me. I'm not, you know, close to that limit or anything like that. Years ago, I lost 100 lbs. I went from 350 to 250. Um, gained it all back. I didn't really have a a mechanism in place or or a a process in place for like maintaining that and it just I gained it back pretty quickly.

Um, also like I lost a lot of muscle in that process. Like even no matter how much I lifted in the gym, I could and I didn't really lift hard or anything, but I could just tell like I was weaker. Um, and so that caused me a lot of lean mass loss. I think I gained a lot of it back obviously when I gained the weight back but so this time I'm doing things a little differently. Um I started Zapbound about 6 months ago. Um really good friend of mine is an obesity medicine doctor and so he sort of uh gave me some parameters and he said hit 200 plus prote grams of protein daily.

Um 80 ounces of water, 40 grams of fiber and lift a lot. And so I kind of took that to heart and um I used to lift a lot more um like six times a week and that tired me out real quickly. I I could feel myself overtraining. So now I'm trying to do about two to three full body days and then two more focus days on on what I you know kind of what I want to work on or anything like that. And try to get steps in as well.

getting around around around on average 6,500 a day. I try to hit more, especially when it's warmer out. Go for a walk in the middle of the day or something like that and trying to get that up to at least 8,000. Obviously, it's difficult on a GLP1. Um, but trying to eat, you know, before I was going around 1,800 calories a day. I've upped that to probably like over 2,000 to 22 23 2400. Um, which again it's not easy on a GLP1, but I don't want to like severely cut my calories too much and that would tap into my muscle.

Um, so I guess my question would be like am I doing anything or should is there anything I should do differently? I I eventually eventually eventually I'm still pretty far away from where I want to be. Um but yeah, what should I be doing differently either in my training or nutrition? nutrition? nutrition? Yeah, you're doctor almost gave great advice like the we were hitting it out the park at the beginning there. So like the the protein great, hydration, fiber, great. great. great. uh training is is overdoing it and the amount of training you're doing and cardio is way too much in relation to where your calories are.

It's just uh that and and how big of a guy you are. You're not a little petite. I mean, that's like a a diet for 135 lb girl. You're you're you're a big guy. You you're and you're moving. You're not like a big guy who's sedentary. You're a big guy who's moving and training. um you're just going to if you haven't already hit a hard plateau, you're going to hit a hard plateau and the body's just not going to respond. You probably feel tired. You probably don't feel like you recover well.

You're you're probably not very feeling very strong. Uh Sam, you're saying you said when you're talking about your calories, you're saying probably around this, that, and the other. Do you know for sure, or are you just guessing? No, I track pretty pretty consistently. Okay. And just, you know, I I get at least 2,000, but it's usually in like the 2,200 range. It's just every day is a little different. One day it might be 22, one day it might be 24. So So unless you lower your dose of Zepbound, uh, cuz that's tepid.

So it's be hard to eat more. You're probably already feeling like you're stuffing yourself. yourself. yourself. Uh, with Yeah, it's really hard. So you your routine should be MAPS 15 and you should aim for 8,000 steps a day and that's it. If that's what you're going to do with your diet. Walking too, not running. No, no, walking. Yeah, that's it. that's it. that's it. Yeah, that's what I do. I I don't like the treadmill. I The only real running I do is I'll play basketball once a week.

No, no, you need to stop all that. Unless you just Unless you're going to increase your calories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 2,00 to 2400 calories for 280 lb six foot dude uh is uh really low. And your strength training is going to be max 15. Like so you're doing like two lifts a day. That's it. That's it. That's it. Uh by the way, you'll get stronger on that. that. that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, and no other cardio except for, you know, hitting your steps and that's it.

Unless you're you're you're going to start bumping your calories. What that'll probably look like is you talk to your doctor and you say, "Hey, can I lower my dose because I need to get my calories up to 20, you know, just to start with, like 2,600." But if you keep lifting, you know, if you're lifting two, three full day plus two focus sessions, plus you're doing basketball and you're eating that fewer calories, like you're it's it's going to be hard, dude. Your your body's going to just just just Not just hard, you're done.

you're not going to keep going. This is this is what happens to everybody who's been on a GLP1 is eventually they hit a plateau uh where they're just eating too little for the amount of activity that they're doing and the body's no longer responding like it was when they first got on it. So, it's super common. Um and the answer is to reverse diet out uh of this. And one of the things we want to do is bring down the intensity of training andor volume of training, which you you've got a lot of training you're of you've got a lot of training you're doing right now.

Anything high intensity like basketball got to go. Just you're not fueling the body and supporting that. It's only working against your results right now. Not saying just quit basketball forever, but you need to be like over 3,000 calories and feeling good and strong to do something like basketball inside your routine. eating in the low 2000s, training that much, uh, just it's it's it's too much. Your your body's got not gonna respond the way you want it to. So, rever reversing out mass 15. Do you do you uh what maps 15 do you want them on?

on? on? Uh, wow. Performance. Yeah. I mean, we can go with original. We can go with powerlift. powerlift. powerlift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, do you like the do you like Yeah. Do you do you like you like going to the gym, right? You don't want to work out. Powerlift. Yeah. Yeah. I like I go to the gym five days a week. I've actually noticed some good strength gains since scaling back from like six days a week to full body days. So, it's going to get better.

By Yeah, by the way, that just that's just an example of how you much you needed that. You do it again. Watch what happen. It'll go up again. Yeah. Let's send a mass 15 powerlift. And so, follow that. Um and uh when you'll be going to the gym most days, but you're only doing one or two lifts and the rest of the time you can walk to get your steps up. Yeah, walking is fine. You you if you want to stay busy, you got extra time, walking is totally fine.

But stick with that and then the protocol and then bump your calories at least 230 from where you're at right now. So if and if that's difficult then this is where you got to go back to the doctor and say hey um can I lower my dose? I need or can I can I get a little bit less so I can eat a little bit more? And that's the plan right now is we got to reverse diet out of this. of this. of this. Okay. I I think I can do that honestly.

Like even now my protein like you like you guys know with GLP1s it's hard and so a lot of it is like shakes. That's the only way I can get it in. That's right. Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Super hard. Yep. Super common, dude. dude. dude. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. Great. That's a great plan. Okay, Sam. Okay, Sam. Okay, Sam. You got it, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know how it goes. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. You got it, brother.

This, you know, we predicted this, but uh uh uh it's getting crazy. the demand for coaches is only going to go up as we use GLP once because it's it's not there's not good advice. It's a tool. It's not the solution. It's a great tool, but it has to be used right. right. right. It's it was wild to us when we first now you see so many people that talk to us, but but but you would see people who would lose 35, 40, 50 lbs. They'd have another 30 lbs to go and they'd plateau and you look at their calories, you're like, you're at,200 calories.

at,200 calories. at,200 calories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have 30 more pounds weak and Yeah. fatigued. like this is we have to have to have to I linked figure out I linked up this weekend with five of my buddies I used to run around back with my in my 20s uh all like you they used to be like all jacked everyone was into working out lifting weights all the things they're all married fathers kids most of them have a bunch of little girls uh great time catching up with them the the five right so and and their wives so there's 10 of us there of the 10 eight are on GLP P1 ones.

Of the eight that are on GOP ones, none of them should be. That that is where we're at right now with this. I mean, it it's like it felt like overnight now I've got and I and who knows how many other people that are somewhat connected to me that are that aren't admitting it and telling me these are just are just are just they just think it's like a fat burning. Yes. Yes. Yes. Everybody is just hopping on it as like a way to because it just it's going to be 70% of America.

Yeah. I mean that you that call is so on point now when I see it hit like a a circle of my friends like that very very obvious to me you know so our next caller is Don from Utah. What's up Don? What's up man? Hey guys, thanks for having me on. Yep. How can we help you? So my question it's less of a case of something that's like clearly not working and more just trying to optimize and get the most out of the time I'm putting in.

Um I'm a busy guy. I've got three young kids. It's got a busy career. I carve out, you know, four to five days a week to lift and prioritize prioritize strength training, trying to build muscle. And I usually have about 45 minutes to an hour. And so, as I've been trying to build more muscle, I focused a lot on taking reps close to failure or, you know, one or two reps in reserve. And when I do that, I feel like in order to be ready to go for the next set, um I I need like three minutes, sometimes even more in between each set.

And so that that drags out the exercise and it makes it so that I'm only getting, you know, maybe five different exercises in a session by the time you factor in all the time between. Um, which feels like the volume is I'm always worried in the back of my head like would it be better to do more volume and lower the weight a little bit so I can cut down those rest periods. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, you're basically No, you're doing good. What What program are you following?

following? following? Uh, I'm not following one of yours. I've actually just kind of made it my own through the years based on different things I've seen listening to you guys and stuff like that. There's your problem. There's your first problem. I mean, I think you do great on like a maps 15 protocol. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, you can you can if you you can do either. Okay. So, what you said, you could rest a minute. You Here's the deal. You can rest a long time between sets.

sets. sets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But don't don't make it any less than a minute. Less than a minute and it starts to not really be strength training anymore for the most part. So, between one to five minutes in between sets or more is perfectly fine. Uh five exercises in a workout is great. Plenty. Plenty. Plenty. Yeah. So, you can do you could try doing where you do less weight so you can move faster. faster. faster. Uh, but you're trying to put on mass and size. I'm looking at you right now.

You're probably more of an ectomorph. I You're better off going with the longer rest periods, go heavier, up your calories, and you'll get better gains. I think Mass 15 perform or powerlift. Mass 15 power lil that's in that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. strength. strength. strength. It's gonna feel you. If you already were thinking it's less volume with what you're doing right now and was worried, it's going to feel like that even more. But just keep focusing on what you were saying, get strong. Y get strong, okay?

Give long rest periods. Get good at those lifts that and then as so long as you're consistent too with hitting your protein and calories. calories. calories. So that's the other piece of this puzzle. If you go in and you do this great lifting program and then you're inconsistent with, you know, hitting your grams of protein, you're going to be spinning your wheels. You're going to you're going to be moving good and that's going to be that's good for you. But if you want to build muscle, you got to give it the building blocks consistently.

So the two things you focus on is that mass 15 protocol, having your meals ready for you so you can hit that protein intake, and I guarantee you're going to see the results. results. results. Yeah. Here's how here's how you know, Don. you you follow the program like that we're going to give you. You'll get stronger by the second week and then you'll know, okay, this is working. working. working. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. That's easy. Are you good about hitting your food? I am. Yeah. No, I've gotten this year I've gotten really dialed in.

I've, you know, got my nutrition better than it ever has been. I lost like 45 pounds at the beginning of the year. Good for you, man. 15% body fat. And Wow. Good for you, dude. In the past, you know, since about May, June, I've just been focused on building muscle and I've seen, you know, some decent gains. It's just always that question in the back of my head of like, okay, I'm at the 80 85% level. How can I get the extra five or 10, you know, how do I get the most?

the most? the most? Yeah, we'll turbocharge it. Yeah, dude. You know, when they talk volume, let me just help you out, Don, because you sound like it sounds to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that you'll read studies and you'll read articles. Is that is that what you do? Okay. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that can get you spinning all over the place. And what the articles are going to say is that volume and progressively increasing volume uh is closely connected to hypertrophy.

hypertrophy. hypertrophy. Uh strength is very closely connected to hypertrophy, especially in the first few years. You just lost a lot of weight, so now you're in that kind of strength building phase. You're going to be there for at least a few years. Yeah. That's what I would chase. But consider this. Every time you add a rep or you add a pound, you've added volume. It's not just sets. Yeah. So, it's not just how many sets I do. Like, if if you added 10 pounds to your squat and you did the same three sets, you just went up in volume.

So, if if we drop your volume your sets down, had you follow our program like this and you get stronger, your volume's going to be good. Not to mention, in the first few years of trying to build muscle, the best possible thing you could do is chase strength. Now, strength isn't a great coralate for hypertrophy later. Once you're hitting like big numbers and you're getting real strong, then then the risk factor is high and then necess, you know, gaining 30 pounds on your on your lifts isn't going to correlate as strongly to to to muscle.

But right now, it's going to for sure. Like if I gave you 30 lbs more on your squat, I guarantee your legs would look a lot bigger. Not not to mention this this way of progressive overloading the body. Uh this organic way that Sal's talking about where you just get stronger and you add five or 10 pounds to a lift every week is a much better approach than what most people do. Most people do like okay this is what I did last week. So now I'll do an extra set of this and I'll do one more exercise and now I'll go to five sets of every like that's what people do uh adding and it's way too much way too fast and and they hit a plateau and or go back the other direction.

other direction. other direction. Just do this do this this minimalist type of program. Try and get really strong. If you're getting stronger, you are progressively overloading the body and that will take you quite a ways that those three months of doing that. And paired with paired with paired with making sure you hit that that protein tape, making sure you're feeding the body what it needs and you're going to grow. You're going to grow 100%. 100%. 100%. Okay, Okay, Okay, cool. cool. cool. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, guys. Cool. Cool. Cool. You got it, man. Send that over to you, man. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. this, you know, we should have a more detailed uh maybe we'll do at the beginning of this episode on progressive overload because overload because overload because there's a lot of confusion around this, especially with the studies that come out, right? And I'm going to say this right now. right now. right now. In the first conservatively, okay, first three years of consistent strength training, not three years of inconsistent, but three years of actually really being consistent with strength training, get strong.

Nothing will build muscle like getting strong. getting strong. getting strong. Well, that naturally does the progressive overload. Now, a as you get more advanced, it gets tricky, right? So, you know, if you've been strength training consistently for 5 years and you've built a great physique and you're really strong now, it's a really tricky game. And and no, you can't progressively overload forever. If that was the case, look, I've been lifting weights since I was 14. I would be working out for 15 hours a day day day in order to continue progressing.

It doesn't work that way. In fact, often times the way it works as you get more advanced is you figure out how to scale down, give your body what it needs. It's a much trickier game. It's not so straightforward. straightforward. straightforward. Just do more. It doesn't work that way. Our next caller is Dustin from California. California. California. What's up, Dustin? What's going on, Dustin? What's up? What's up? What's up? Hi, guys. Um, thank you for taking my question. It's it's an honor to meet you guys.

Uh, you guys have been so inspirational over the years. It's uh it's really exciting to talk to you guys. guys. guys. Thanks, man. How can we help you? So, um, I wrote you guys a really long letter. I'm going to try my best to summarize it. you know, I've been um so I've been stuck despite really doing this fitness thing for quite a few years. And honestly, I don't know if anybody that saw me would even know that I go to the gym. Um so I feel like after this much time, I should be further ahead than I am.

Uh and I was I'm willing to be open-minded and just take your advice and see what you guys have for me. Um a little background is my entire life I've been really on this diet lose weight kind of mentality. Uh, I've had multiple really big swings in weight over the years. I've done unhealthy diets. I've been caught in that binge restrict cycle. Um, I do, you know, I was in the military, so I got some PTSD, which leads to some some poor sleep. So, it's really not uncommon for me to wake up two or three times a night.

And I admittedly, you know, usually get up and use food as kind of a a comfort. and and so I'll easily add a couple thousand calories, you know, on a night if I if I, you know, don't let my if I don't keep that in check. Um, you know, as a mailman for many years, that's when I found you guys and I've been listening ever since. Um, I did in 2019. I got I realized I had a problem with alcohol. So I got I got sober and um and so that's playing a part in um uh so what that led to is I became a counselor and then so I left my job as a mailman and had a desk job for the most part.

So I lost a lot of physical activity. Um and so I'm 43. Um I weigh 255. I'm 6 foot. I've never really done an intentional bulk. Um, I've played with macros a lot. Um, so my number two question is given some of my bigger swings with my diet is have I ever even been on a cut or has it when I swing the other way and kind of go off of my diet, does that equate to enough calories where it is almost like a bulk? You know, I tracked last week.

I didn't try to diet. I didn't try to do anything special and I was eating about 4,000 calories. Um, just adding in all those extra little snacks and things like that. Um, so where I'm at now is I currently do a 5day split. I put my calories at about 2500 calories a week. I do some incline walking on the treadmill maybe a couple times a week. And um based on some things you guys said, I did um uh I changed my 4 to six rep range to 10 to 12 reps for about 4 weeks and then I just came back on my four to six reps and I noticed I was able to add some more weight to the bar.

Um which has been really nice. Um I've been on TRT for the last couple months and you know my goal is honestly just aesthetic. I want to build strength and muscle, have a lower body fat percentage, and really just just look good. Um, and then since I wrote that letter, uh, I left my job as a counselor, kind of decided to take some time off and really just kind of work on some just my own mental health kind of thing. And so, I've been doing some like therapy with the VA.

And um, that said, I have a lot more free time. So going to the gym five six days a week is really definitely like the main part of my structure of my day. Um and I definitely it's kind of like another therapy is just getting to the gym and I enjoy it and I I really like you know lifting weights and um you know I don't do a ton of cardio like I said just walking a couple times a week. Um, so the questions I had mentioned for you guys was, um, I was wondering if you guys have, uh, mind pump personal trainers and if that's something I should be investing in, um, to kind of see where I'm going wrong.

Um, and but the my main my real question is what's really blocking me from making progress? Um, I don't really know what I should be doing exactly with my diet and training wise. I don't know if it's just a problem of patience or if it's a consistency problem or if maybe there's something else I'm just missing entirely. So, that's kind of where I'm at right now. Hey, man. I appreciate you calling in. And Dustin, God bless you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You came from you you've come a long way.

way. way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh from where you from what you've described, you've come a long long way. So, you're doing really well. You're at the point now where we have to figure out uh the root of the behaviors. Change that and then the behaviors will change. If we focus on the behaviors uh and that's part of the process as well, but if we just focus on the behaviors and the look and don't solve the root of what's driving those, it's going to be a very very difficult uh battle.

Now, I have a question for you. I know you were working with people as a counselor. Um, were you helping them with their own sobriety? Were you helping people through sobriety and all that? that? that? Correct. Yeah, I was I've worked a couple different programs like an outpatient and inpatient. The last one I worked at was a a detox center. So, it was people that were really just getting over that, you know, initially starting in their sobriety. Okay. And were you getting a good sense of purpose from that helping other people?

people? people? I do get a a lot of purpose from helping others. So, which is what led me to start in that field. Um I do also do some like AA type stuff so I I can help others even on my own personal time too. Good for you. That's one of the best things you could do. do. do. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Uh is help others. Um it's it's other focused. So some of the challenges sometimes this is even this is especially even more true with men is when we focus too much on ourselves and our insides we get in this kind of downward uh spiral.

It's actually a hallmark of depression is uh is lots of self-focus. Uh but doing for others, especially helping others in areas that we need help in um really uh tends to help us quite a bit uh move in the right direction. So I I if I were, you know, you said you're working with a therapist, I would consult with them and say, "Hey, do you think I should go back to counseling and working with people uh just to give me kind of that sense of purpose?" I think that'll help you a lot.

Um, you asked if we have trainers and coaches. We do. You said it says you're in California. Are you near? You don't have to tell us where you're at, but are you near San Jose? Cuz I'd like to see you in person if possible. Yeah. No, I'm not I'm not too far away from you guys. Okay. Here's what we're going to do, Dustin. Dustin. Dustin. We have personal training in person and virtually. virtually. virtually. I want you to come here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If if we're not too far, we're in San Jose, so if if we're less than 30 if we're, you know, if we're somewhat convenient, I'd like to see you in our studio working with someone in person.

Oh, yeah. I'd love that. All right. I'm going to set you up with an assessment with one of our trainers in person here at the studio. When you come in, you make sure you say hi to us. Okay. Okay. Okay. And that's the best possible thing. possible thing. possible thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can do in this direction. If you combine that with helping others, uh cuz our coaches have been trained by us, okay? So, they know what to do. Fitness and diet, like that's the bar.

That's like the minimum, right? You got to know that. But they're really good at getting people to the point where this becomes a lifestyle that's healthy and relaxed and not stressful. one that is not is no longer this crazy stressful struggle for you. Okay? Like in other words, Dustin, imagine what it would be like if uh eating healthy and taking care of yourself is something you you really enjoyed doing and you wanted to do and if you felt stressed out if you reached for something else that was that that served you better than the quick comfort of let's say food or for some people it's alcohol, other people.

if it was something not destructive, if it was something that was really serving you, right? Imagine what that would feel like. This is what our our trainers would would work on with you. And I like that you'd be here because we would see you. So, we're here. We're here at least three days a week uh all day and so we'd see you come in here. So, I'll have somebody reach out to you, man. Okay. Yeah, that'd be amazing. I I really appreciate it. It's It's awesome just talking to you guys, too.

Yeah. No, I appreciate Hey, listen. I appreciate you calling. I also I want to encourage you, dude. You've come a long way. way. way. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, you you've really come along. I mean, if you if you think back, you don't need to give me details, but I'm sure if you think back, think back, think back, uh you're you're probably in a completely different place uh than you were. You're just now you're just like, okay, there's another level here here here that I want to, you know, get to.

Um and we can definitely help you with that. So, So, So, Yep. Yep. Yep. got you, dude. That'd be awesome. Well, thank you guys. I really appreciate it. You're going to get a call here probably within the next hour. Yep. And hopefully we'll see see you soon, man. soon, man. soon, man. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. Look forward to meeting you guys. guys. guys. On. Thanks, brother. Take care. Take care. Take care. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a uh PTSD. Um really, really hard. Uh the fact that he stopped drinking alcohol, man, that's phenomenal.

phenomenal. phenomenal. Huge. Huge. Huge. That's phenomenal. And food is I mean, look, yes, you can abuse food. Uh but he's working on it. But uh I you know, one of the most helpful things that you could do uh is work with other people who need help in a similar area. Mhm. Um because you can help them. It makes you feel good. Yeah. We didn't ask him. I was kind of curious why he quit that. He know, especially since he knew it was serving him and it helped him.

I wonder what the the reason behind uh quitting it was, you know, it can I don't know. I'm going to guess. So, you're you're right. We should ask him that. I'm going to guess, but probably because it got stressful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I know when when if I coach enough people with body dysmorphia, I start looking at myself real real real straight, you know, and it's like, oh, and it makes it a little bit more difficult sometimes, which is a good thing. thing.

thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I'm getting guess that's what it was. So, I don't know. It's a good guess. I mean, It's a good guess. I mean, and then and maybe that's what's catapulted him into, okay, I'm going to get down this and I'm going to go fix myself. myself. myself. But, bro, we got him in here, you guys, with one of our trainers. Yeah, I hope he's close. He's going to be a great Is he telling you how close he is or no? It doesn't show.

Yeah. But he's we I said San Jose. He says it's convenient. So let's let's make it happen, dude. It'd be great to see him. see him. see him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. Shredded, ripped, defined, singledigit body fat. body fat. body fat. Yes. Yes. Yes. You want to get there? Let's talk about it. it. it. Difficult. And is it worth it? That's a follow-up question. follow-up question. follow-up question. Yeah. First off, we got to say, okay, so singledigit body fat, obviously body fat percentages, uh that could be represented by one digit like 3%, 5%, 6%, 9%.

That's uh ripped for men. For women, women, women, add 10%. add 10%. add 10%. Yeah. Don't Yeah, exactly. Go you go up about