How to Get Strong as Fast as Possible | Mind Pump 2974

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Shop Wayfair's WayDay sale and get up to 80% off now till October 26th. These deals won't last. Go to Wayfair.com today. Wayfair. Every style, every home. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MindPump. MindPump. With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we answered live caller's questions. We coached them live on air, but this was after the intro. Today's intro is 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about how to build strength as fast as possible. Talk about diet and exercise. Talk about GLP use, testosterone use. It's a great time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, here's what you got to do. Submit your question to MPlivecaller.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. They deliver healthy meat to your door. Today, I talked about their grass-fed tri-tip. 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If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. One of the best experiences when you work out in the gym is to get strong, to get stronger. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about how you can get strong AF and as fast as possible. Let's go. Do you have the AF there? Do you want me to say bad words? You don't want YouTube to call you out. Okay, so people like to be strong, obviously, but why get strong? Why don't we just work out and can we build muscle without strength, whatever? Here's the deal. When you look at the longevity connections between, let's say, muscle and longevity and health, there's a much stronger connection between strength and longevity. In fact, the tests that we often refer to when talking about longevity, like the grip strength test. A simple grip strength test is a better predictor of all-cause mortality than almost any other test, which is wild. Now, we talk about building muscle, and of course, muscle looks good, and it's aesthetic, and all these wonderful things, and how healthy it is to have more muscle. But really, when you really look at the data, it's strength that is correlated with longevity. Now, muscle's connected to strength, and muscle has its own benefits, especially if it's healthy and fit muscle, but strength has all the benefits. Yeah, but can you summon on command? Can you get up out of your chair? Can you lift things when you need to? Can you protect yourself from getting injured? All these things matter through the lens of strength, and strength is that ability. We don't want to lose our abilities as we age. That's one of the biggest things that's going to start spiraling from there. For strength, it's really like everything is going well when you see your strength either maintaining or progressing. Well, as we age, especially in the advanced stage, we inevitably are going to lose some of it. I think of it as investing right now. You're banking it all. Yeah, you're investing right now so you can afford to lose a lot of strength and still be considered strong. But if you go about your life like a lot of average Americans do, and they don't exercise, and they don't get strong, and aging inevitably happens, and you get weaker, as we all do when we get older, your starting point at which you start to get weaker from is already at a pretty weak or frail point, and so you become really frail and sick, and many times fall and hurt yourself, and you get ammonia, and you're less resilient. So the person, though, that spends some of their earlier years—and earlier years doesn't mean you start in your—it could be his 50s could be considered earlier years still—and you start lifting and building strength now, you're investing in that so that when you start to get weaker, you're getting weaker from the person who could deadlift 300 pounds, and you're weaker now is 250, which is still significantly stronger than the average 30-year-old. And so I really think of it like you're really investing for old age. You are. It prevents fragility. It's actually the most anti-fragility thing you can do is to be strong. Strength also leads to building muscle. So if you're like, look, I just like the way it looks, especially in the first three to, let's say, five years of consistent good strength training, it's a very strong correlate with muscle growth. In other words, if you're training in the first five years of your lifting career, and you want to build your butt, you want to build your delts, you want to have a nicer looking back, the best thing you could do is chase strength because it always leads to more muscle. And then back to what Justin said, strength is a great metric for the most part. It's not perfect, but it's great because it's hard to get stronger and get fundamental things wrong. So in other words, you know, you got, you got too much stress in your life. Uh, it's hard to get stronger. Uh, your diet's not right. It's hard to get stronger sleeves. It's part of your hormones are off. Uh, your health is off. It's hard to get stronger when you're getting stronger as a coach, as a trainer. I looked at a lot of things when I was monitoring my clients to see if we were progressing in the right way. But the number one thing I looked at was strength. It's also objective. So it's not as subjective while you look better, even how you feel can be sometimes subjective strength. You either lift more weight or you don't. And as a trainer, it's like, that's the best evidence I have that we're moving in the right direction. Well, you, we, if you get stronger, you build more muscle, you build more muscle, you get more metabolic flexibility too. And in a world where very few of us eat perfect all the time and have the occasional drink and eat out and don't move enough, uh, metabolic flexibility, um, is crucial to longevity and health. And so, you know, that part is all, I mean, talking about muscle for aesthetic purposes and looking good and protecting, but yeah, that's all great. But I mean, argue the point that, man, you have more muscle, you actually have a lot more flexibility. And really just to add to that, um, what we find in the data when it comes to food intake on what's healthy and what's not healthy, when you eat, uh, less than you burn or right around how much you burn, you get away with a lot more. In other words, uh, there's, there's people have done this and there's studies on this where they'll have people eat a sub calorie diet and the diet itself isn't good. It's like fast food and they'll do this on purpose to see what's the effect. Now, I'm not saying that that's the best way to do things, but many of the negative effects of eating poorly, uh, go away because you burn it off. Right. And having more strength and more muscle gives you that flexibility. You got more muscle. Well, you burn more calories. Now you get away with more, which means you're healthier. Even if your diet isn't perfect. One of the things I want to touch on, two of the things I want to touch on with strength. It's one of the best physical attributes because it also is the one that is the easiest to keep. This is what's wild about strength. Okay. Stamina, endurance, flexibility. You stop training those. They go away pretty quickly. Stamina in particular. Okay. If you, you know this, if you're an endurance athlete, like you, you stop training your endurance for a week or two, go back and you're like, wow, am I gassed out? Strength sticks around for a while without you touching it. In fact, if you look at the data, you, you, your strength doesn't go away for like six weeks. In other words, you lift weights consistently take six weeks off. You probably not going to lose much strength if any. Uh, now if you're really, really strong, you'll see some of that cause skill drops. But for most people, they'll go back to the gym after a month, maybe even two, not lost much. They'll lose some stamina for sure, but they haven't lost much strength. And then the other thing quickly, the other thing is, uh, I don't care how old you are, you build strength. So if you can move and you do some form of strength training and it's proper, I don't care if you're 90, the data on this is very clear. Now I have experienced training people in advanced age, but there's studies on this. 90 year olds gain strength perfectly well. So strength is also this adaptation that is almost always available to us. Whereas other adaptations can be still pursue it. That's right. So what we're going to do is we're going to list the things that you can do to get strong, uh, fast. Like I want to boost my strength. I want to get it there quickly. What are the most important things that I can focus on? Well, number one, lift heavy. Okay. That's obvious. But in order to get stronger, you have to challenge your strength, uh, with the weights that you're lifting. Uh, there's a lot of people that work out and they go to the gym and they're not really challenging themselves. Uh, I, I, you know, I remember so many clients that I would have that would come in who were working out. Yeah. And, and they were instantly stronger with me, not because they were stronger, but because I saw them do the lift and that's what they thought they can lift. I said, you actually lift 15 more pounds and they added 15 pounds and they were surprised. This happened a lot. I mean, especially with once you get comfortable in a routine and you feel like you got your consistency, you're frequently going to the gym. I mean, that's a big hurdle to cross initially. And so to gain that momentum is everything. But now, I mean, we really need to keep challenging that, like, you know, and you need to, it's one of those things in order to get through these plateaus or to a place where it's like, you're not progressing at all. Like we need to challenge that intensity. We need to add a little more load and we need to progressively approach it that way. Yeah. Now the next thing is don't lift, uh, to failure. Okay. So failure training, uh, actually isn't beneficial for pretty much any goal, but definitely when it comes to strength in the data, uh, going to failure is actually detrimental to building strength. So failure is when I lift a weight until I can't lift it anymore. So I complete eight reps and there's no way I could done a ninth rep. So I lifted to failure strength, building strength looks more like I can lift this for eight reps, but I stop at five or six. Uh, this clearly, uh, in the data and in practice is the best way to build strength. Going to failure is actually a very quick way to prevent strength gains. You might get some strength gains going to failure, but it stops very quickly within weeks. You'll plateau quickly because the intensity is too high, uh, for those strength adaptations. Yeah, this has been, uh, obviously we all figured this out training clients over the last few decades, but I feel like it's, uh, it's become more important today. And I don't know if that's just because of the low level stress that we all seem to have. It seems like there's more, um, and it's, there's less acute stress, like crazy wars that we're going off to as kids and stuff like that. But I feel like there's more, there's no breaks. This is daily social media. Yeah. So I feel like every, I feel like everybody's, uh, stress inundated. It feels like everybody's to give like a visual or paint the picture of what I'm getting at is like, it's almost like everybody's stress buckets starting half full already, you know, and then, you know, you have these other things work and, uh, not the best to sleep that add to that. And then, you know, your workout, which is a good stress, but it's also still a stress. And, you know, the goal is to, to stress the body enough to, to present it challenged. And so the body then adapts and builds a muscle doing anything beyond that puts yourself at risk of not recovering, not adapting. And I think a lot of people that tend to want to train to failure tend to be that same personality who overdo it and have a lot of stress in their life. And so I think failure training is one of the biggest disservices that the fitness community has done to the average person. I just, I've trained many clients and never trained to failure and got them incredible results. That doesn't mean that I haven't used failure training and I haven't myself personally and on clients and seen results. It's just that a majority of people could never train to failure and see great results. Even the ones that you do use failure. It's such a small percentage of the time. Very small. I, I, the small window for some of the fastest strength gains I ever experienced in my entire life personally, or when I stopped training to failure, when all I did, I changed nothing else. I stopped my sets two reps before failure got stronger instantly. And it was like mind-blowing to me like, oh, this, this was a problem. It's the difference of feeling completely overwhelmed and hammered the next workout. You, you go to attempt and it's like, you can, you can really like be effective with that by stopping those two reps short and like reserving that. So now we have that energy to spill over. That's right. Next, uh, this is just, this is a programming thing. Okay. So when I say programming, what I'm referring to is the workout program and what goes into a workout program is referred to by strength coaches. and trainers as programming. And this includes things like sets and reps and exercises and what the day looks like with the workout and how it's laid out throughout the week. And you know how the months looks out and all that's, all that's all of that is under the umbrella of programming, strength building programming, there is one characteristic of it that is very specific, which is this, you're doing less exercises, but more sets per exercise. So to give an example, a traditional, let's say traditional chest workout might look like, um, you know, three chest exercises for three sets each. So I'm doing nine total sets while a strength building workout might look like two exercises, one, five sets on one, four, or maybe even one exercise for nine sets. And you're just doing that one lift. This is one of the fastest ways to build strength because strength is also a skill. So practicing the same lift for more sets will give you more of that targeted strength, uh, then doing a bunch of different, so effective for like just pure strength focused training. Because yeah, it's a, such a skill and to be able to summon that amount of force and to be able to really get the highest potential to your recruitment process, uh, to do that without fatigue interrupting that. That's right. And so this is the thing it's like, we're not just getting through the exercise. We're not just trying to get to the end of the workout. Like, how can we maximize our potential with this one lift right now? Uh, and to, to do this by, you know, less reps, but now we're going to spread this out by sets. So you have that extra additional bit of, uh, rest to, to eliminate the fatigue. It's huge. Yeah. And also focus on the big lifts here. So, uh, yeah, so you're doing more sets of less exercises, but the exercises that you're doing are the ones that make you really strong barbell squats and deadlifts and overhead presses and rows and bench presses. Like these are the lifts that give you real strength. Like, it's great to get strong at a bicep curl. It's cool to get strong at a leg extension, but get strong at a squat or a deadlift or an overhead press, and you're getting stronger and you feel it in the real world. It's got this carryover because it's this big complex kind of, you know, multi-joint. Well, it has, it has the greatest ROI for strength and it also is the highest skill. Yeah. So, uh, even more reason why it makes so much sense to not focus on a lot of other things, focus just on that and more sets of those things because a sets of that exercise, because that exercise has such a great ROI and it's such a high skill you're really good at. Yeah. You get really good at, and it takes a long time to get really good at it. I mean, I still, all the years that I've been squatting and deadlifting, uh, and I, I would say that I'm fairly proficient at it or pretty good at it. I don't think I'm the greatest squatter or the greatest. It's like, that's a, I practiced it a lot. So it's, there's not, there's not a lot of the, I think I've mastered the bicep curl. There's not much, right. There's not much room for improving that or getting more out of that exercise where I absolutely still think, I mean, every time I get back in the rhythm of, of deadlifting consistently, you know, there still is that, uh, even the process of those first few weeks of that, like getting my, getting my technique call back down. It's like, it's, it's more like a golf swing than it is like an exercise. Technical stuff. And what's happening there is your muscles are learning to work together in a complex way. So, uh, now why is that important? That's strength. Everybody in the real world, when you want strength to work, uh, for you, it's multiple muscles working together. It's not a muscle working on its own. So these big complex movements just give you that real world strength. Next up is you got to eat a lot. Here's the deal. Trying to get strong, especially trying to get really strong, really fast in a calorie good luck, good luck, everybody in the foot feed yourself. Now I'm not saying eat a lot of garbage. Okay. But what I am saying is you've got to eat a calorie surplus, eat high protein, eat more calories in your burning. That's one of the, uh, that's one of the core components of building strength period. End of story. Well, you're also going to recover better. Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of it. You, of course, you're going to get more energy in your list, which is going to help you improve the technique of it. And you can keep repeating that and getting better at it. Uh, so it just helps to kind of fuel that, but at the end of the day, too, it's, that's a big part of the recovery process, which is what's going to build you muscle strength. The followup question to that is how much, right? And I think that if you're eating a whole food, whole food diet, and you're, you're leading with protein, you're hitting your protein intake. It's pretty cool that you have these natural signals that will tell you to eat more. I'm hungry. Yeah. Like if you are, if you're eating whole foods, you're eating protein and hitting your targets, uh, you're, and you're lifting and you're lifting these complex lifts and you're getting stronger, you're going to see the appetite go up, feed it, fuel it, but fuel it with again, whole foods, healthy choices, protein first. Dude. Like clockwork. I don't know about you guys, but when my strength starts going up, so does my appetite. Yeah. Every single time. Always. Yeah. And, and, and as so long as you discipline yourself to not eat way out of bounds and choose process garbage and you eat whole foods and you continue to eat protein first, uh, it's amazing how much it takes care of that difficult question that everybody asks because it's difficult because it's nuanced and it's unique to every individual. How many more calories you need in a, you know, built strength building program versus him versus me, all different. But what we all share is through that process, if I'm eating whole foods and eating clean, my body will tell me it's time to eat more when I'm getting stronger and I'll be able to eat till I'm satisfied by following those rules. My calories may flop fall at 3,800. Justin's might fall at 32 years, might fall at 42, like, but that's the, that's the nuance and the, of the individual. But the same thing, the thing, the thing that is true between all of us is that the body signaled it when I got stronger. And so long as I followed those kinds of rules, it kind of takes care of itself. And lastly, aim for nine hours of sleep every single night. So nine hours means nine hours between when you go to bed and when you wake up, that'll guarantee you get your eight. But here's the deal. Yes. It helps with recovery. Everybody knows that helps with muscle repair, helps with muscle building. It also, this is how you get your central nervous system to fire. Yeah. You need your central nervous system to be strong. That's what's telling your muscles to contract. Let me tell you something. A strong central nervous system is a strong person, a weak central. You can have a, if your central nervous system is fried and you have big giant muscles, you're weak, that's just the bottom line and getting good sleep does this. In fact, and you'll see this in the data, a poor night of sleep or a good night of sleep will translate to more or less strength the next day and injury. Injury is a big component. That's a big one. Yeah. It's funny how you, I mean, if most people know this, if they've had like jet lag or had a really bad weekend of sleep, and then they go to attempt to lift how dysfunctional they are in getting their body to respond, how they normally do. You know, I, I, I plan to talk about this today, I guess it fits here. Uh, anyways, it's something that I've been actually doing, um, right now during this, this whole process, cause I'm tracking and really focusing on my readiness score and my sleep score and really trying to improve that. This is the first time I've ever really modified my training intensity based off of my readiness score and my sleep. And, uh, it's been a really good, uh, guy for me and a lot of that, the motivation for me personally has been, you know, the last couple of times I've gotten in one of these kicks, I've hurt myself. Uh, and I've done a really bad job of limiting, you know, pushing. I was going off of how I felt and I felt stronger and so, and my body was putting muscle back on. And so the momentum thing, I was leaning more into that, like, Oh, I'm in a rhythm and my momentum is good. And Oh, I feel stronger today. And so pushing it versus, you know what? Let me use these other metrics on, you know, whether I should push or not right now. And it's like, you know what? Like last two nights, haven't had the best of sleep. My readiness score is poor right now. I know I'm feeling really good. I got a rhythm right now. And I wanted to get after squat, say I'm going to probably take it easy and I'm going to back off of the weight and probably do 80% of my intensity instead of really trying to push that PR, which is what I wanted to do. It's really served me. Um, and it's been challenging because, uh, I've, I've had several days where I'm lifting, where I want to really put more weight on the bar, but I've also not hurt myself. I've continued to progress and I feel really good. And so this is the first time that I've been really diligent about doing it. That's awesome. You know, speaking of diet and stuff, so I pulled something up. That's really cool. So my favorite, one of my favorite cuts of meat in generally is tri-tip. I just love tri-tip. I think it tastes great. It's, it's, it's really good. Uh, you know, rewarmed, like, you know, I cook it and the way we cook it, you know, we, we, you know, you season it and then we do the cast iron pan. So we sear both sides. Then we throw the whole thing in the oven, cook it, and it's just, it's so good. You eat it the next day. It's really good. It's easy to pour it to portion out. Uh, it's just my favorite, one of my favorite cuts of meat and butcher box has a really good tri-tip. So they have a grass fed tri-tip. It's leaner than most. Here's what I looked up. Yeah. So here's what, so this is so, so cool to me. It's crazy how much leaner it is. Well, here's, what's cool about this. Okay. You can keep the same amount of meat that you're eating now. So let's say you always eat tri-tip and you're like, all right, I want to cut my calories, typically you have to eat less to do that, but what if you just kept the same amount of meat, but you went from grain fed tri-tip, which is what you buy typically at the grocery store to grass fed tri-tip, which butcher box has, what's the difference? Eight ounce grass fed versus eight ounce of grain fed tri-tip. Here's the difference. Calories, grass fed, 280 to 300. Conventional, 350 to 380. So there's a difference there of, of a pretty, a pretty good difference. It's close to a hundred calorie difference with just eight ounces. Grams of protein, 48 to 50 on grass fed, 46 to 48 on grain finished. So a little bit more protein on the grass fed. Fat 10 to 14 on grass fed, 16 to 20 on grain finished, that's one eight ounce serving. If you eat three meals a day with tri-tip or four meals a day, like I do with tri-tip, that's like three to 400 calories. Yeah. And I did my, the same serving, I'm eating eight ounces of tri-tip each time. It feels like you changed nothing. I changed nothing. The difference though is 300 calorie drop. I mean, the same amount, like it's such a hack. A little more protein, yeah, less calories. It's such a hack. I've had family members that have switched to butcher box because they like the quality of the meat and because they know it's got better fatty acid profile. So they didn't even do it to get leaner, but they're like, oh, I'm losing weight. What's going on? I'm like, dude, it's leaner. Yeah. You're just eating less calories. I don't even realize. You know, when I, when I competed a similar strategy that I used like that, so it was just so easy and it didn't feel like I was depriving that much. It was, it just, I went from when, when you're eating six meals a day and if four to six of are comprised of higher fat cuts and red meat, switching to like your white meats and leaner cuts is such an easy way to cut two to 400 calories out of the day without changing the portion and making it feel like you're doing this radical change in the diet or like I'm really restricting. That always was like one of the first things that I did to start leaning. I was going to ask you, Adam, cause you just, so you know, you're, you're, you've been trying to get leaner. You've lost how much, how much have you lost on the scale? Not much on the scale. So I was, uh, two to 20, um, on the scale when we first started. And then, uh, right away when, when I dieted, I dropped two to two 15, which I think was just mostly water, right? Right away. And then I've really hovered around two 10 to two 15 this entire time for the last two or three months or whatever it's been. You've had a good body comp change. You've built. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I definitely, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, uh, test, I mean, that is my goal, uh, almost always is, uh, which is, I mean, before mind pump started and I documented my whole, you know, transformation journey, I was 212 pounds and 19% body fat. And the thing that I set out to prove and show was that I'm not going to move my weight on the scale much, but watch me completely shift my body composition. And so at the end of my journey, that when I went to 7%, I was two 12 still. Wow. And so that was the idea. So you went from 19 to 7% same body weight. Yes. Looks so different. Yeah. And, and yet, I mean, that's the scale like it's doing right now fluctuates five to seven pounds North or South, right? You know, like right now I'm already back up to two 15, two 16 because I'm refeeding. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Cause you were, we were talking earlier and you said you hit a plateau. It too. So now you're doing a reverse diet. Yeah. Go back into it. So really interesting. I, I pushed myself into lower calories than I normally would. Um, I don't normally go down as low as 23, 2,400 calories, typically 2,500 calories would used to be my floor. Now I allowed myself to go that low because I know I'm not moving as much. I know I'm lower muscle sitting here all day. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, you know, let me, let me, let me push, let me push lower and see, see what happens and inevitably I definitely leaned out. I lost a lot of body fat, I think for the last month or so, but then I've been telling you for the last two weeks, I've been really stuck at, uh, at that two 10. I just, that's been my floor. Someone might be like, well, just cut your calories even more. Right. Right. And I already know I'm so low at two. And by the way, my steps are high too. I'm like, I minimum 10,000, a lot of days I'm hitting 15,000, 16,000 steps. Yeah. So going lower in calories, you're just going to lose muscle and feel like crap. Yeah. Cause you're a big guy. Yeah. It's like, I'm, it's, I'm already, I, that, at that, that's about as low as I can get to still hit healthy fats and protein. Any lower than that. And I'm sacrificing one of those too. And I already, I've already had days of low fat and it impedes my sleep and I already see the difference and any lower protein and I'm going to sacrifice muscle for sure. So I'm already at that floor and yet I still have further to go leaning out or at least that I want to do. So the inevitable for me right now, and I think this is where a lot, a lot of people end up getting, and I think a lot of people get here probably faster because they cut harder and do more quicker. But this, this is what happens is you, uh, you, you hit this kind of plateau and it seems counterintuitive that the answer to the, to the plateau is to add back calories and, and it's psychologically difficult. Cause remember I was just at two 10 on the scale a day and a half ago. I'm reading two 15 now. Yeah. Well, that's water. We know that. Right. I know that, you know, that person freaked out. Yeah. Freak out. Like, Oh, he told me to reverse diet. It's like, yeah, no, I was completely depleted and, um, and I still think I need to, I, I. I've already done this one other time and I shoot back up to two 18. So I'm, I'm hovering right around there. Uh, now how long do you like, how long do you plan on reverse dieting? Are you trying to get up to a calorie amount before you cut again? I'm not trying to go to a calorie amount. I'll go off of how I feel. Typically what it'll look like is I'll probably do it for about a week of like, and then I'll start to cut again. I, I, my body tends to respond pretty quick to that surplus and then I'll go. And the last time I did this, it was, I couldn't break two 12. And so I, I did it and then I came back and then instantly I went down to two 10. Um, and so I, I'm, I have a feeling the same thing will happen again is all, I'll, I'll push for the rest of this week, I'm in a surplus and I'm going to push calories. I'll probably push as high as 3,500 to 3,600 calories. Stay there for the week and then I'll go back down and probably crash down to like 25 and then you'll see fat loss and then I'll, I'll see, I'll see fat loss. That's crazy. I haven't tracked at all. I never, and in fact, I try, you know, the one time I tracked my calories, you guys want to know the one time I tracked my calories, a hundred percent true story. I, I was working as a trainer at 24 fitness. So I was young. Uh, I become the fitness manager. We used to sell a nutrition program called Apex, uh, which I actually didn't know what it was. I just, we said side story, side story, but the district fitness manager wanted me to do a presentation to the district on how, on, on Apex. Cause we were number one in the country, in the, in the area and Apex. And I took him a sound, like, I don't know what Apex is. He's like, well, why are you selling so much of it? Like, cause you told me to, and I know it's nutrition. I know it's nutrition. Just throw the $50 kid. I know it's a nutrition program that people need that. So he said, go through it. So I went through it and it was the only time I'd ever tracked ever. And I didn't like it. So I never tracked again. So I never, I don't know. That was literally the only time you did that? Never. I've never put myself, I've had clients track. I find it so fascinating that you don't, because you're such a data and you're such a nerd about everything else that I feel like you would, you would, and you're neurotic about food and supplements. That's like, it makes no sense. Yeah. It's like, why not be neurotic about that too? So you're already all in. I think God's like, listen, dude, we're going to keep you like, because I feel like I'm so it would be more like my personality either. It'd be like my personality to be more like you about it. Like, ah, I'm more aloof about it. But I actually, um, and I remember Justin got the front row seat of this because him and I were hanging out measured everything water, but it wasn't until then, so he, he was a part of, you know, I was doing that when we were building the app and I was doing the whole social media thing, but up into that point, I had never tracked like that. I had tracked a little bit of writing stuff on paper, but never like this. Like now that I was in a competition and I'm competitive, I'm like, okay, I'm going to really do this. And I remember meeting with him on a weekly basis, just totally nerding out. I'm like, dude, this is fascinating. What I'm learning and what I'm seeing, you know, uh, with my body, like really paying attention. I feel like I'm a picture. Like, I think about this, like I don't track anything. I feel like I'm like that, that, that blind Kung Fu guy in the movies, the old guy that just knows where things are. This is how I like to romanticize it. The truth is it would be a lot, it'd probably be a lot easier if I tracked, but I tend to just go off of like, I mean, you know, and look and stray. I think you really stray a lot from what you normally eat. So I feel like that's kind of something that you have a good gauge of like, well, you know, all I got, I have to do is add a little bit more meat. That's true. I think that's a, I think that's a really good point. And I'm all over the map, like, like when I'm off the diet and eating whatever I want, I mean, I'm eating out and I'm not, I'm super happy. And that's why I always, I always share on the podcast track. I always like to share on the podcast with the audience that, cause I think, I think I'm, I'm probably more like the average American than you are. I think, I think you're very special and unique when it comes to the way you eat and diet. Uh, I'm very much so, Hey, when I don't care, I'm kind of just whatever. And when I come back to tracking, just like I did this time, again, the two big thing, glaring things right away. Always is low protein. I'm way low on protein and over consuming carbs and fats. And the other big glaring thing for me this time was like, Oh shit. My portion control has gotten out of control. Like what I thought was like a, what I thought was a small circle. You messed me up, dude. We ordered food. We used to get it. So we, you know, we used to always get food from Nick, the great, it's this restaurant, it's like Mediterranean skewers or whatever, and I'd order it. And it's two chicken skewers. And Adam's like this, like, and I trust Adam cause he's the ex bodybuilder, right? Cause it's only 30 grams of protein, 30 grams of protein, really? So I'd get two extra skewers. Well, anyway, I go and I calculate how much, bro. I mean, like it's 70, bro. What the hell, bro? Yeah. My portions were like 45. My portions were, especially on like the carbohydrates and the other things. Uh, cause I was just, I was like, I, when I started weighing, I was like, that can't be a cup or that can't, I was like, that wasn't like two cups. Damn. I didn't realize that this, my scoops of protein. I was just like, yeah, that's probably like eight ounces. Like, Oh shit. That was like a pound. You know, you know, bodybuilders largely didn't track for a long time. Really? Yeah. So like, uh, Gaspari was one of the first guys that really track in the eighties. Back then they just went on a bodybuilder diet. They would just change their diet completely. And you know what their buddies told them is what they would do type of deal. In the nineties, they w they would hire nutrition coaches or some famous ones that then would give diets to the bodybuilders and they were the ones that were telling them how many calories to eat, but body wasn't tracked for a long time. They just went by eating, believe it or not. It's actually more common still than you think. So what I, I was actually probably one of the more neurotic bodybuilders out of my circle of friends. You know what they do? It's, and it's, it's a blend of the two. Um, when they're, when they're in bulk, it's like eat everything, eat everything inside, just hit your protein take when they go into a cut, like tilapia broccoli. Yeah, so exactly. It's like a, it's a, and they don't really, they don't track calories. They track a carb cycling. That's it. That's all they would track was just like, these are my high carb days. This is my low carb. They didn't track anything else. They're not trying, they're not tracking fats. They're not tracking calories. It's literally carb cycling. And then they switched, they switched the meats. It's like, it goes from, I can eat everything inside and bulk protein, all the calories, whatever. I get on my diet. My diet goes straight over to tilapia and asparagus. And then all I get is larger portions of rice and sweet potato on these days. And these days I get half of it. And these days I get a third of it. Like that was literally, that's it. That's what they track. And it's now what I know they're doing with the tilapia is that they're cutting their calories and they're, they're, they're fluctuating their calories with that. But I, I ate all low. I ate all kinds of food. So like, I, I enjoyed the whole, yeah. So I just, and I just would manage my calories. You know, it's crazy. I got to, I was actually gonna ask you about this, Adam, and you might want to chime in on this too, Justin. Uh, but this, you know, bodybuilding, the thing that made it so hard. His now is now almost gone. What I mean by that is like, like being consistent in the gym, you know, and then you have the good genetics and yeah, you know, at high levels, they take, you know, drugs and all that stuff. But what made bodybuilding really hard was the dieting period. End of story. Like nobody diets harder. That was the suffering. They're bodybuilders. Nobody can suffer when it comes to diet, like a bodybuilder. Like if you're ever around a bodybuilder 12 weeks out and you watch what they eat and what they do, it's crazy ruling. Yeah. And what they're doing now is they're just giving themselves GLPs and they're just increasing the dose. They're just up in the dose. Oh, cool. I'll just eat less. I've talked to a couple of buddies of mine who competed and they're like, dude, if I had this back in the day, I have a buddy who competed and he's like, yeah, I just increased the doses. Like, dude, I'm not even that hungry on my pre-contest diet. And then I'm like, what do you think this is like for the younger bodybuilders? He goes, they have no idea what it was like for us back in the day. We had to just not eat. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. I, I would have to say it's, it's hard for me to, um, just to try and like put myself in like the competing like mode, but I, but from what I'm experiencing right now with the, the dose of, uh, GLP one that I'm, I'm on while doing this, it's definitely the easiest it's ever been for me to, yeah, it's still, and it doesn't mean it's like, it's not without hunger still, you're also microdosing. Yeah. These guys are going up every week. Like, I wonder if I was like trying to use it like that, where it was just like, okay, it's time for me to reduce even more calories. Let me bump it. My buddy said pre-contest had to force feed himself. That's how powerful the drugs are and the doses are. Oh, I mean, I imagine force feeding yourself. Well, I could totally imagine what that, I mean, what that feels like. That was the problem I had with it. When I did, when I, when I took the recommended dose from the doctors and just said, okay, let me see how this feels. Oh, I definitely had no desire to eat. I mean, it was like, I could go for a day. I'd be like, oh, I'm good. Yeah. It's, it's, it's that powerful. So I could see, um, I could see guys and leave the bodybuilding world. Of course, they're going to abuse the crap out of stuff. I imagine though it would present other challenges, at least what I'm, what I'm going through right now with, uh, like you, you would definitely have, would have to like strategize differently because one of the things I just, I told you off air because I'm going on this, like refeed. Um, I mean, I completely skipped the shot this week because I, when I'm doing it bodybuilder style naturally, and I don't have a GLP one, I would just, you know, oh, today's refeed day. And I couldn't wait for refeed. I just, I, and I could, I had to still limit how I eat. Cause I could eat 6,000 calories. I can just go off. Cause the, my, I've been hungry all week and my appetite's there and my motility is fast and I just power the food right now. My body has got so comfortable eating low calorie that, that, that feels comfortable that, so that part's easy. But then now I'm like, okay, I need to refeed cause I'm at a hard plateau. I go to refeed and I'm like, oh man, it is hard to get past 2600 calories. This is weird. Yeah. And, and so it's just real. And so I'm like, I got it. I totally skipped the shot this week because I need to get, I need to get some of my appetite back to get back to filling back up timing for people. We have clients, right? We have, so people listening, we have trainers. Uh, we have a lot of trainers now that work with clients and a lot of the people come in already using a GLP and a lot of them plateau on a GLP because they have to do what's called a reverse diet, like Adam said, so they'll lose like 40 pounds and like another 40 pounds ago, but the calories are so low they've been on a GLP for a while, like, what do I do? And oftentimes we get on the phone with their doctor and the doctor reduces the dose or takes them off so we could do a reverse diet, build back some muscle and then get them back on to do the cut. Otherwise they're just stuck and we can't reverse diet. I mean, yeah, no, I don't know if I could. Properly reverse diet without, and I'm only, I'm literally doing a microdose too. So I can't imagine. Uh, so definitely one, I think you're doing something like one seventh, the dose of what a starting doses. So I can't imagine like being on a, like a full dose and then trying to reverse diet, how challenging, um, that would be. So, yeah, it would, so yes, it would be a, a huge cheat code for bodybuilding, but it also would change how I would have to do it. So my question is this, cause I know one of the reasons why you microdose this, cause it had such a positive effect on your psoriasis and, uh, there is, there are studies going on right now. Uh, on GLPs and autoimmune, uh, issues, uh, cause what they're finding in some of these studies. So this is preliminary. It's not real cases. None of this is established, but people are getting benefits, uh, on their, on some autoimmune issues before they lose any weight. So, cause there was a lot of speculation, well, it's a reduction in calories that oftentimes have a positive effect on, uh, on inflammation level, positive effect on autoimmune, but doctors are reporting people, especially doctors have been doing this for a while. Like, I don't know, people are getting benefits before any weight loss happens. So I'm curious to see if you have, cause I know you went off of it to refeed. So I want to know if you have an interesting, you brought this up. I wasn't going to bring this up. I was actually gonna talk off air with you guys with this, but whatever, we'll have it now. Um, I've actually have a doctor right now. That's really pushing back on me. Uh, and wanting me to get off the GLP one that is trying to, that wants to help me with my psoriasis. Uh, she's like separately with something else. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, I sent in all my photos, like she, that's actually the first doctor that I've ever had, uh, ask if I knew what kind of psoriasis that I had in like the different types. And, um, so I had to send in all these pictures. So yours was the STD version. Yeah. The angry, she, uh, she actually described, uh, very well, all my symptoms and you go, oh, you have what's called, I think plaque psoriasis. And, uh, she goes, uh, this is, uh, in this, this is me also playing the game between Katrina, her telling Katrina, Katrina telling me telephone, yeah. It's a telephone game. And she goes, uh, you know, this is a hundred percent, all his gut related. And I'm like, well, no shit. It's an autoimmune. So of course I know it's got into my body attacking itself. So that's not new news to me, but she's like, I don't like him on the GLP one. I want, I want to know more about his experience with it. And because her theory is that slowing down the motility like that is stressing my gut more and component. Now. What I haven't talked to her and here's my pushback to that or what I will say to her, because I better since you've been on, it's been way better, the best. It's yeah. That's what made me, that's what made me get back on. It was not this motive. I was on it already. And, uh, because of, for those reasons, the whole diet thing I'm doing with you is like a sidebar after the fact. Um, I, and, and what it's done for me is absolutely slowed down, but what slowing down, but see, and then this is what's interesting about how these doctors, cause some doctors are like so pro the GLP one use for certain things. And then some of them are so anti and I have a feeling this person's anti. I'm not your average person. I listened to my body when my motility slows down and I, and I just told you off air this, I'm like, I can't even push 800 calories, good food or not. It's that, that large of a, of a meal with my motility, that slow messes my gut up. So I'm very cognizant of that. And so not only do I eat whole foods and healthy, I try and land around six, 700 calories because it, it, it totally sits well with me anything beyond that. I definitely, if I eat garbage, I will pay for that for sure. So I'm assuming that that's what she's used to seeing is somebody who's on psoriasis tries the GLP one to help their psoriasis, their motility gets slowed down. They still eat like an asshole. Don't change their behaviors. And now they're just stressing the gut out because they're eating. And then I could totally see how that would flare. My psoriasis up, but no instead what it's done for me is it's lowered my calorie intake It's lowered my portion my portion size It's forced me to want to eat healthier foods more than I ever eat like I already eat healthy But I really don't eat out of balance right now. It's only benefited my gut health and it's But my so a lot of people get worse gut health with a GLP because it slows down Motility and it can increase odds of things like SIBO and SIFO and stuff like that I have more of a nervous gut. I think this is what you and I are like this That's why I actually helped and I think this doctor's argument in point I could so I can imagine the average American I can also imagine the person who has Average to slow motility already and then they do that. Yeah, I was like you I have super fast Motility I have a tendency towards too fast too fast. I would been cheap my whole life. I've been teased about that There's a like everybody makes fun of me because I can't even everyone's at a dinner table still and I'm already got going to the Bathroom, right? That's how fast and that's like help. That's like crap food That's like like food will go through me that quick And so, you know, this is that I've actually it's been nice to not feel like that all the time You know many people more commonly with women Will report that they poop once a week or less Yeah, yeah, it's actually not that uncommon I guarantee you there's a lot of people listening Literally 100% there's people listening right now. They don't even know that that's wrong Then they'll go a whole week. That's crazy without going to the bathroom, which is wild. Yeah, which is great Yeah, so I so I that's I haven't got on the phone with this doctor and I will because I am curious I was very like the fact that she was able to like right away pinpoint my symptoms and talk about the stuff and Say that they have this she's probably gonna want to put you on immune suppressing drugs that I'd be very careful with Yeah, yeah, I'd be very careful with that because the side effects of that is not necessarily good. Yeah, so just that just yeah Yeah for me what I mean, nothing has ever Cured my psoriasis. I've only gone through phases of it Completely like tamp down and that's where I'm at right now. It's like it's obviously still there I have these giant patches all over my body that I've had forever and they've continued to grow as I've gotten older And and they absolutely flare when they flare up. It sucks if it gets itchy scabby scaly all the things it's awful But and I it's always when I'm eating bad or eating a lot of extra calories and not eating healthy food sugar stuff like that Definitely does all that but man right now. I'm like, it's I haven't scratched itched or picked in three months You know, and so so it's so I don't care what she says to me. You can't convince me watch this Doug right in the search GLP and psoriasis or and see because I there's they're actually studying it specifically for Certain autoimmune issues and I believe you choose. There you go right there GLP one receptor agonist can improve psoriasis severity and quality of life as an adjuvant add-on Therapy particularly in patients who will be CD a type 1 to diabetes. Oh scroll down Yeah, but just to challenge that just so we're playing devil's advocate here. You google it this way, you know, can GLP one aggravate Psoriasis, okay, and and see what it says, but we'll go back to the previous page. I'll show you the mechanisms That they're identifying and I'm telling you right now. They're studying it for now There's some autoimmune autoimmune issues that GLPs can actually that they think make worse, but there's some that they make better No, they do not aggravate psoriasis things told you scroll go back again Doug to where we were. Here we go So right there systemic inflammation reinduction GLP one lower inflammation markers such as C reactive protein interleukin 17 interleukin 23 and tumor necrosis factor alpha so So and and there's literally there there are right now trials going on Specifically well, I mean like I said, I don't even care what the doctor says to me. You can't convince me that I'm not I know yeah, I know I'm Way better right now the last three months that I was just previous and we're heading into winter winter is always the worst time of The year for me. So when as soon as the season changes, it gets really bad in the wintertime crazy no matter what my diet is and so I Firsthand can tell you that how much better it is right now I told you guys that the first time I went around the my one positive feedback of you know Getting Ozympic face was yeah, I lost 30 pounds of muscle And that was terrible and it was awful all the things cheeks But I was like damn my my psoriasis hadn't felt so good in in forever And so that was what motivated me like hey What if I took a micro dose of this to see if I can get some of the benefits from it and a hundred percent? I've seen so all right. So check out this study that's making its rounds, which is so Wild, it's so wild by the way, we've seen Similar effects in men. So this study was done on women. So here's I'll read a little bit about it So if women are given testosterone Okay, they actually give them testosterone. They behave more fairly and less with less conflict. However, however No, no, listen this happens with men too However women who believe they took testosterone who actually took a placebo behave more unfairly and more aggressively Okay, so what they're showing here. We have this perception of testosterone. That is so wrong. It's so wrong Yeah that it makes us like oh we gave you testosterone right now It actually gave you nothing and now you're gonna act more like you think Testosterone make you act but the women who were actually given testosterone They act much better Men give it testosterone and makes them behave Less deceitfully and their generosity no longer depends on whether someone is watching them So less testosterone favors a generosity is more dependent on the gaze of others and more strategic So everybody's like by the way, this is not referring to Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone. Yeah where you're taking like bodybuilder dose. No, it's healthy amounts Yeah, but a a normal to high level of testosterone Produces better behavior in both men and women and that's what the studies are sure But we've associated it with like rage and aggressiveness and like it's just like money. Yeah, what it's just like money It's just money more money more testosterone just makes you more of what you are Yeah, you're an asshole beforehand and you get a bunch of money. You're a bigger out. You're rich. Yeah I know you're a rich asshole You say if you take if you were an asshole before and you think about testosterone now, you're a bigger Well this what these studies are showing is that you might actually might make you a better person Hey, I and I would argue that the same thing goes with money. Yeah I would say hey, listen, there's a lot of there's a lot of myths around that there's a lot of people that think I I and I say this coming from somebody who had this belief because I was I was Raised in this belief that rich people are evil money is the root of all you don't really communicated or was it implied? It was implied okay that rich people are sneaky and yeah, it was more it was more It was more implied than it was like it was wasn't preached to me My parents were that but it was and it but it wasn't it was interpreted that way to me, too That even though that's not what the verse means by that Later that I found that out, right? But so I grew up thinking that and and the opposite was true as I as I met more and more people that way Actually and some of the the wealthiest people that I have met are some of the most generous kind humble people and and I went in with the perception of Skeptical and looking for the bat. Oh, they must be fake and being deceitful and it's like, oh, I should you know You know nice and generous and you know was implied in my family So this nobody said this but what was implied in my family was authority, especially government authority That they're just deceitful and you know, I don't trust them. I know what they're saying like this These are the conversations out here Were they wrong in my family like a politician would be speaking and my grandfather be like don't believe them You know, they don't this is how they would talk about that stuff. You know what they're doing They're they come up with their own like conspiracy theories But whenever we would meet or talk with remember I'm from a family of immigrants So these are my family's all from Sicily whenever we'd meet someone who was especially a successful entrepreneur When they would leave my grandfather my dad my mom they'd tell me they'd say you see how successful that person is They work really hard. That's why we came to this country So you could so it was implied to me was the opposite people who were successful That they're doing something right and they're working hard, but with like government officials Nobody they trusted I'll just say they're pretty accurate. You know what they were, right? Yeah, I definitely had the same as Adam it was like more, you know There must they must have done something to get their money. That was deceitful dishonest Like yes, it's kind of like they put somebody down to get up. Yes, and that's the only way you can be successful That was like drilled in my head, which was crazy. Wow, but yes They work they worship money over God, you know You've got you can't be you can't be that successful and not love God. You must have you must meanwhile So we're successful people. I knew were the most that had the biggest donations had the most you know contributing to these mission trips and it's just like it just didn't add up to me and Yeah, it's just one of those things that you're you you have to meet enough people to really understand like there's there's different versions Like you could be you could have bad behavior You know attached to like money will propel that bad behavior. Totally. Yes Yeah, you can be a piece of crap and be you can be a good person and propel that you know It's like yeah and that's what I mean is that you know money or testosterone just makes you more of that and I would argue that to your Point with the testosterone that in most cases actually it might actually show that it actually improves it I would argue that in most cases. I think people become happier and nicer and oh my god If you're low testosterone and you take testosterone you're happier. Well, that's the thing. I feel good I think that's it's a big part. I think people are staying with you feel good when you're struggling paycheck-to-paycheck In your when you're poor and you can't make rent and then all sudden you can like you tend to be a happier nicer person Your bills pay yeah, yeah, it's There's definitely a there's a curve there Like it's it's tough to be super happy positive all the time when you're getting beat up all the time And as soon as you get a little bit of financial break For the most part that shifts a lot of people's mindset and happiness and outlook and so as you know I think back to my family was none of them. Nobody was wealthy because again, they were all you know I make no education poor immigrants, but very hard-working And my you know, my dad did a good job. Actually, we lived somewhat middle-class even though four kids My mom didn't work and he just worked his butt off But you know, we they were all always very generous My whole family's very generous not with money because they didn't have a lot of money So they couldn't be generous with money, although they were When they could be but very generous with their time like anybody in my family My dad so my dad my parents you really? Very generous for their time. Really? So that's such a wonderful thing to grow up around because I knew my dad, you know He did stonework. So I did tile marble granite any family or friend needed help After work He would go to their house and they would just buy the materials and he would just work for hours afterwards to redo their kitchen or their bathroom and they would Fight with them to pay him money and it was like this struggle and he'd be like no no, I'll do it for you Wow, yeah, and I just grew up in that environment Which is so as I didn't realize as a kid what a blessing it was. Yeah, it's unique and that kind of remark Oh, you've definitely adopted that for sure. It was really cool carry that on. Yeah. Awesome. All right I gotta talk about legions egg protein. Did you know that I had to go do the the Utah for this other day? The the shoots. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I had to go do the Oh at Walmart in Walmart. So the Legion is now Yeah. Yeah, they're in Walmart now, which is great. First of all, I had no idea deal that Walmart had a Huge supplement section huge huge huge. Yeah, actually one of the top sellers of supplements in America and and are they really? Yes, I mean, I believe it after seeing the selection And all caged this is like which I thought was interesting it was like do people were really like walking out with things and yeah Is Are we really stealing protein and protein gum and creating gummies at that higher rate that needs to be issues? Oh, yeah, what's up? What's that guy over there? Yeah Absolutely. You see? Yeah, you have to go get somebody to open it up to get it. But yeah Legion was there It was super. What was your photo shoot? Just shopping. I mean like yeah, not like a video. Yeah. Yeah, so at least favorite thing Oh, it could actually it's the tie. It's worse than the stuff we have to do in here Yeah, because I'm in public. Yeah, and I got a kid you got to pretend Yeah, I got a kid follow me around the camera. So and everybody everybody's looking first of all How do you get stared at Walmart? Like every visit that's like a some But they were Following me out the employees, you know taking pictures of me asking me. Are you somebody important? You know, you answer that. Yes Yeah, no, it's super awkward and but yeah, no what products does Legion have there they full line So now that they're full line they had so I'm sure they're whey proteins whey proteins there They had their gummies there and they have creating gummies there and they had Does pre-workout there Those are those are the three there so their egg proteins amazing It's it's my it's my so I can't do dairy which sucks because whey protein is so great whey protein is such a great protein But there a protein is like I mean a protein is right there with whey in terms of quality amino acid score bioavailability It's almost the next best thing. Yeah, I mean it is it's actually right. It's literally you can actually make an argument Against whey for egg. Okay, that's how high of course especially when you're making shakes Oh It tastes great their chocolate egg is amazing. I love it. So it's you know post-workout. It's what I've been having lately Yeah, no legions legions like that I you know, I'm back to also taking my creatine stuff like that and there I like their their pink lemonade Creatine gummies. Yeah or fire the sprinkles So good Hey, check it out. We don't do this often. In fact, we only do this a couple times a year We have a buy one get one free for maps workout programs Here's what you do buy any maps 15 style workout program Remember these programs are designed to be 15 to 20 minutes a day That's it by any one of them and then you can get any one of these other seven programs for free maps 15 minutes symmetry or strong or powerless for performance or muscle mommy or 40 plus it's a buy one, get one free and it's happening right now for a limited time, go to maps15bogo.com, here comes the show. Our first caller is Valerie from New York. Hey Valerie. How are you doing Valerie? Hello. Hi. Hi Mind Pump team. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. That's all right. How can we help you? Okay, so I'm going to read off so I just don't lose track. It's a little long. Okay. Hi Mind Pump team. First, I want to thank you all for all the wonderful content. I've been a huge fan and listener since 2020. I've ran Muscle Mommy, MAPS Symmetry, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Anabolic Advance. So my question is, how do you know when it's time to stop chasing strength and adding more weight to your lifts? Is there a point where weight is simply too heavy or heavy enough for your body? For some context, I'm 33 years old, I'm five feet tall, currently weighing around 128 pounds. I'm also a mom to a beautiful nine-year-old girl. Hi Mia. I've been strength training for six years, but honestly, I didn't start seeing significant progress until this past year with my trainer, Luis, at Absolute Power. Since then, I've really fallen in love with getting stronger, building muscle, and just the overall gym culture. I'm hitting numbers that I genuinely never thought I would hit. Between my DEXA scan in May 2025 and my most recent scan, I gained almost seven pounds of lean mass. I dropped three percent body fat, and my most recent DEXA scan had me around 26 percent body fat and 91 pounds of lean mass. Strength-wise, my one-rep max for squat is 315 pounds, for deadlift is 300 pounds, and I'm benching 135 for a few reps. And this one is probably for style, but I can also hip thrust 500 pounds for 10 reps. The last three months, I was eating at a deficit of 1,800 for three weeks, and then doing a refeed at 2,400. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. And so, okay, so then I would line up my refeed weeks for the weeks I lift heavier. However, I've been doing this for three months, and then I decided to go back to 2,300, which is around my maintenance. I sleep seven to nine hours consistently. I currently train four days a week, two lower bodies, one upper body, and one full day on Fridays with my trainer. And I'm walking around 15 to 25 steps most days. So this question is partly inspired by my mom and my boyfriend. They both look at me and then look at the way that I'm lifting, and they get nervous. They're proud of me, but they're worried that if I keep trying to go heavier and heavier, I'm eventually going to get hurt. Despite feeling I'm doing everything correctly, including training in blocks. I really enjoy being strong and seeing what my body is capable of, but it has made me stop to think about whether I should just focus on maintaining the strength that I have now. So I've been wondering, where is the line between getting stronger in a healthy, productive way and pushing those that are unnecessarily heavy for my body? And how would you determine what is actually too heavy for an individual? Is it based on strength relative to weight, technique, recovery, joint, or back stress? Or is there really no predetermined limit as long as you're progressing appropriately? Yeah, good question. Very good question. You're really strong, like exceptionally strong. So here's the risk that comes from chasing strength past a certain point, right? So when you're doing a barbell squat, for example, and you're off by a little bit with your form, it's far riskier when you have a really heavy weight on your back than when you have a weight that's not so heavy, even relative to your strength, okay? So even though you can handle, you know, 275 pounds, right? If your one rep max is 315, you can handle 275. It's still a heavy weight, and it becomes exponentially more difficult or challenging or risky if your technique is off just by a little bit. So just the higher you perform, the greater risk of potential injury because you can't be off by even a little bit. So to give you an example, an analogy, if you're driving 30 miles an hour and you jerk the steering wheel, that poses a risk. But if you're driving 120 miles an hour and you jerk the steering wheel, it poses a much greater risk. So this is just what you need to consider. You're exceptionally strong. Now what plays a role in this is genetics and training and all that stuff. So technically, you've got really good genetics for strength. You're also trained really well, obviously, but you also got really good genetics. Very few women at your size would ever be able to do those lifts, ever. It's impressive. So you're also genetically gifted. So the question is like, okay, how do I know when this is like getting too risky or, you know, what do I do here? Here's the deal. If your constant pursuit is to hit new PRs, just know that the risk of injury is there. If you're always pursuing PRs, if that's the thing that you're constantly chasing, the risk of injury is going to always be there. So the only advice I could give someone like you who's so consistent and doing so well and so strong would be to change the pursuits, would be to focus on maybe unilateral training or athleticism or mobility. It would be to not necessarily make strength the constant pursuit. And here's the deal. Again, if you never got any stronger, heck, you could drop your list by 50 pounds. You'd be one of the strongest women on earth, especially at your size still. So this is just something to consider. Very few people get to this place. So this isn't a conversation that I have often with people, but this is a consideration for people who are high performing, who often compete. It's like, cause look, here's the deal. Strength training in generally reduces joint pain and reduces injury. We know that generally speaking. But if you go in the competitive levels, Olympic lifters and power lifters, they have higher rates of injury than the general population and they strength train all the time. Why is it? Because they're performing at such a high level. They're athletes. Yeah. At some point it turns into a sport, which is like literally what you're talking about. And I think if you look at it from that perspective, you know, be enjoying it because you're pursuing the strength of it as a sport, there's risks, higher risks involved when you, when you compete. But in terms of like general strength and lifestyle there's a way to do that as well. It just looks a bit differently. And so you'd have to approach it with a different mindset towards that. But I mean, there's nothing wrong with still pursuing strength in different avenues, you know, different ranges of motion, you know, going that route. We have like old time strength is another one I always like to kind of steer people towards that are like they love and enjoy strength in itself because it exposes you to different movement patterns that will challenge you in different directions, which will also then kind of benefit these lifts as well, you know, as well. So I think, you know, there's other ways to kind of look at it, but definitely, you know, for long-term and long longevity wise, like we're going to have to look at this differently. Well, I think you just have to really evaluate what your goals are. You know, you say you want to, you like, you like being strong when you're there, you're already strong, you're strong as shit. So it's like, uh, it's like talking to my buddy who's like, you can talk about his goals and stuff like that. And I'm like, he was talking financial goals and I'm like, you're already rich. What do you want? Do you want double that? I mean, you're there, you know, how about other goals in your life or other parts? So like you're strong, you did it. And maintaining it is a great goal to have to, uh, what are your other goals and what do you want? Is it longevity? Is it more time? Is it feeling mobility? Is it getting strong at other lifts too? Because that's to Justin's point. Um, if you really love chasing strength and getting stronger in lifts, uh, maybe you don't stop doing that. Maybe you just focus on different lists for a while that will serve you in different ways. You know, get really good at the windmill, get really good at the Turkish get up, you know, get really good at the circus press, get really good at these other great lifts that have other added benefits. And you'll probably have to start lower cause you haven't been practicing them probably as much as you have your squatting and movement patterns like that. And so if you want to stay in that lane of just trying to progress and get stronger, my suggestion would be to move into other lists because you're at the peak, you're at the 1% right now of those lifts. So for your size, your height, your weight, uh, female, you're already at the 1% uh, to Sal's point. You're always playing at risk now where, where you're at, you're playing at a very high level. And so, you know, maybe take yourself to a lower level at a lift that you don't ever do and go get good, go get strong at that and get good at that. Here's the other thing too, Valerie. So strength is very closely correlated to muscle growth up to a certain point. Okay. So once you start to get really strong, uh, it's not necessarily correlated as closely to muscle growth. So to give you an example, you know, um, when I was deadlifting, when I went from a 400 pound deadlift to a 500 pound deadlift, uh, I saw some muscle on my body, 500 to 600. I saw not as much if I go six to seven, even probably less. Um, and so it's not as closely correlated. So you could also focus on bodybuilding, uh, for a little while. And what that looks like is you drop the weight, bump the volume, focus on the squeeze and the pump, and you're not going to be lifting as much weight, but you'll, you might experience more muscle, uh, hypertrophy. And then one last thing. This is just, if you decide, cause I don't like to tell people, don't do this thing that you love so much. And especially when someone's good at it, like you could compete for Valerie, you could compete and when, uh, you probably break some records, uh, in, in certain categories, that's how strong you are. Something else you could do is, you know, let's say your PR is three 15 in the squat. Um, and you did three 15, you're like, Whoa, I think I could go to three, three 20. Don't just, they have three, even if three 15 becomes easy, just practice with three 15 for the next 10 weeks until it feels so easy that you could go up just five pounds. So instead of challenging your PR, you get so good at a particular lift at a particular weight that it's adding five pounds, not a big deal. That's one way to progress your strength with a, with a lower risk of injury, if that makes sense. Yeah. That's actually pretty much how I've been training. Uh, recently I've just been, my trainer has me go up, uh, every like every like week or so five pounds. And to the point where I knew I was always strong, but I felt like I didn't have the confidence and I felt like that's what he brought out of me. And then, so my problem is I've been going back and forth between like wanting to body build, wanting to possibly do a competition. Um, so it's, yeah, I feel like, and I know I can't have both of them. Um, so it's just, yeah, it's been like, I wonder, like, what do you, I guess what should probably, in your opinion, be my next goal? Which one will, which one's the most fun to you? Yeah. Well, probably chasing the PR. So let's see, I don't know. What's most fun. I mean, you're so good at it. There's a reason why she loves to do it. Yeah, I would, I would, I would challenge that. So I, I would, I would push back and just because you like, I, I think it's good for us to do things that, uh, we tend not to do. I mean, I've been talking about this on the podcast for a long time. Like, I don't love mobility stuff. That was challenging for me. It was like, I I'm going to let go of being strong and being focused on my aesthetics because I like that stuff, but I know how good chasing mobility was for me. And so I went in and what's great about it. It's not like you can't go back the other way for a while too. So it's like, it's not like you decide you're going to body build for a while. And it's like, all of a sudden you're gonna become weak and you can't go back to being like lifting powerlifting. It's like have a season where you hyper focus on mobility or hyper focus on bodybuilding and then you can return. Here's the difference. If you want to try bodybuilding style training, uh, you, you play with higher reps, you know, 10 to 12 and instead of trying to make the weight feel light by having like really good driving technique, you're trying to make the weight feel heavy by feeling it in the muscles. That's it. And don't worry about the weight on the bar. So you put weight on the bar. You're like, okay, oh, this feels, I'm going to try and make it feel hard. Uh, and I'm going to keep the reps higher and that'll probably build muscle on you. So you're not gonna be lifting crazy weights, risk of injury goes down, but you'll probably build more muscle as a result. Yeah. I would like, especially in my lower body, I've been like wanting to focus more on building my lower body. Um, so I have been like, again, also contemplating whether like bodybuilding might actually be, uh, what I want to chase for this season. Um, and then I, I also wanted just your opinion on like when programs that like, just like squats over, so there's a program called squats over, and then I'm just not sure if, because I just finished off a block of really, uh, like a high number of three 15, if squatting for a month is actually going to be beneficial. No, I think, but I think if you know, you can follow your routine, cut the weight down, aim for 12 reps and try to make the weight feel heavy, focus on feel. And that'll build muscle in your lower body. You'll see, you'll see more muscle and it'll be weird to you because you're like, I'm not even getting. You run a, you run a four day a week program. I'd love to see her do like upper, lower, or we could send you our upper, lower program, run up, run up or lower and, and follow it the way it's laid out. Or you could do go for it. I don't know. I've kind of, I think, yeah, cause you're so good. Like, and you've never competed before. It's like, you might as well, like you'll cross that, cross it off the list and then go into bodybuilding. It wouldn't be bad. It wouldn't be a bad idea to bodybuild for, for a season. It would actually make you better at powerlifting, uh, later on. If you haven't done something like that, uh, we can send you maps up or lower and you can try following that and then just focus on the pump and the squeeze and the, making the weight feel heavier. And that'll probably put some muscle on your body, especially if you're in a good calorie surplus. Then if you really miss powerlifting, good run back a powerlifting cycle and sign up for a powerlifting meet and go crush it. That sounds great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything you guys do. All the content. I'm just a huge fan. Honestly. And I respect you guys as men. I also got baptized last week and partly, partly, partly. Like I felt like I, you guys just opened that up for me as well too. Praise God. Valerie, do you train people? Are you a trainer? No, I own a dog walking business. So anytime you guys speak about dogs, I love it too. Hey, listen, you should offer some, some services to your church. I bet there's some women that would benefit from learning how to strength from someone like you, just a thought. That's a really good idea. I've just, uh, I've been attending service for like the past several months. So I have been thinking about like trying to, you know, introduce myself to more people and get more involved and serve. Oh, well, they need that. They definitely need that. And you'd be a good candidate. So, well, thanks for calling in Valerie. Thanks Valerie. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye. Just for listeners to listen. Crazy how strong she is. I know, dude. She is a record-breaking strength. Yeah. Like that's insane. Well, I mean, we've been- 128 pounds, 315 pounds. We've been doing this for a really long time, and we've taken probably hundreds of live callers now. I don't think we've had a female at her height and weight anywhere near that. I don't think so. No. She competed in a natural category, drug-tested. She would blow everyone away. I know. With some of those lifts. And that's- Right there. You hear us talk about on the podcast all the time, get strong, get strong. For 90% of people, that's going to give you the best results. But there does come a point, if you're real consistent, you've been doing it for three years, and you're starting to get real strong, where chasing strength starts to come with too high of a risk of injury, and it's just not worth it. And there's other ways to continue to progress. Well, you said it really well. I mean, the ROI diminishes at her level. That's right. Like, it's huge when she went from zero to 200 pounds squat. I mean, huge. I mean, I guarantee if we would have dug into like, hey, when you'd never squat before, and then you went from never squatting and worked your way all the way to 200, how much did your body radically change, and how did you- That's right. That's right. All the things. But I bet you, if you asked her, what was the difference between 200 and 275, probably very little. Yeah. I mean, I know this for sure. I got my squat, all those lifts are 100, 100 plus pounds, way more or less than what I was before, yet my body physique, all the other things is relatively close to where it was. So it's not, no, it's not that big of a difference at that point. Our next caller is Nadia from France. Hi, Nadia. Hi, Nadia. Hello. Bonjour. Bonjour. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I've been listening to you guys for the better part of a year, so it's very cool to finally meet you. I just wanted to say one quick thing, which is I obviously love listening to your content and your topics, and even when you guys just shoot the shit about random stuff, I do love that too, but I have to say that I've gotten so much benefit from the listener callers and the way in which you guide them, and I just think it's such a master class in grace and generosity. Okay. So I've learned a lot just from how you guys speak to your listeners. Thank you. Thank you. That's so kind. How can we help you? Okay. So a bit of background. So I'm 44 years old, and I started lifting weights about 10 or 11 months ago, and I was convinced to start because of you. Wow. So I discovered Sal first via Ariel Lori's podcast, and I just instantly fell in love with the approach. It was just so simple, so straightforward, and then I found you guys, fell in love with all of you. Don't tell my husband. And at 43 years old, I picked up a dumbbell for the first time. So I thought I could just give a little bit of context on where I'm coming from before my question because I think my blueprint is similar to maybe a lot of women who call in, and maybe my story could help others as well. So I'll keep it as brief as possible, but just for the context. So I'm a 90s kid, so I grew up wanting to be as thin as possible. So that meant quite a few different things for several decades. I was between vegan and vegetarian for 22 years. I did intense cardio. I was super into fasting for a while, calorie restriction, all that kind of stuff. I also grew up a ballet dancer and a classical musician, so all of that pressure and perfection, et cetera. And then later on, type A personality, daughter of immigrants, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you can imagine that by the time I reached my early 20s, I had developed a pretty severe eating disorder. And as you guys know very well, you don't ever fully recover from an ED, but you do try to learn to manage it to the best of your ability. So in those intervening years, I definitely was chronically nutrient deficient. I was usually under eating, usually over exercising, generally obsessed with exercise, and not always a lot of fun to be around, I would say, as a result of those things. So things started to change when I hit 40, but not the way most people and most women change at 40. So at the time, I was plant-based. My only form of exercise was yoga, and I was strict intermittent fasting. So I was doing zero resistance training, and I was eating effectively zero protein. And all of that was starting to catch up to me at 40. So the pandemic hit, and on a whim, like every other girl in the world, I think I signed up for online Pilates, which was the first resistance training I had ever done in my life. So I kind of got these like newbie gains really quickly. And at the same time, my body was, I think after two decades of not eating animal products was just like screaming for nutrients. So I actually did start to eat meat and dairy again, and mostly steak, and a lot of it because I was really making up for lost time. And things happened really quickly from there. So within six months, I dropped 25 pounds. I'm a former ballerina, so I was always petite. So I was really, really, really thin. And I still had that diet mentality. So I was still fasting. I was still under eating, even if those foods were more nutrient dense. So I was super underweight. And at my thinnest, I was like 100 pounds. I had no body fat. But as someone who had had an eating disorder, I thought that like I had achieved the dream. I was like, so skinny. And I wanted the number on the scale to be as low as humanly possible. And not to brag, but I could get it pretty low. So all of that stuff happened. And from there, everything that happens to women when that happens, happened. So loss of cycle, loss of hormones, loss of zest for life, loss of my body, just I was skin and bones. So that was sort of my state. I know a lot of people were very worried about me. And I don't know, about two years ago, I stumbled on the work of Paul Saladino. I don't know if you're familiar with him. But him and kind of this whole host of I guess what you would call like crunchy influencers now. But they're like these women who were really nourishing themselves and living naturally and eating meat and dairy and like raw foods and lifting weights. And showing that having a real strong body was beautiful. So I very, very slowly started to turn my life around through health. So for the first year, I just changed how I ate. I was still doing Pilates every day for like an hour. So you guys can see there was still like that pattern. But I did stop fasting and I adopted a mainly like animal-based diet, which turned out to be something of a healing diet for me, because it was just like the world's most nutrient-dense food. So I was focusing on gaining healthy weight. And then last December, right around the time I started to think about lifting weights, because I was listening to you all, I was staying at a hotel that had a DEXA scan. So I was like, why not? Like, I do Pilates every day. I eat a ton of protein. It's probably going to be a great result. And the result was like 26% body fat, which I know is like still healthy, but I was surprised that it was that high, I guess. And the practitioner was like, look, the only way you're going to lose body fat is if you gain muscle. So he told me that, and then I kind of discovered you guys at the same time, and the rest is history. So last December, I ordered a set of dumbbells from my home, and I started lifting four times a week, not knowing what I was doing. But I kept listening to you guys. And I eventually scaled it back to three times a week, because I felt like I wasn't quite recovering enough. And the process was really interesting. It was everything you guys talk about. It was super uncomfortable. It was super scary, frightening. I didn't like the changes that were happening to my body. I kept wanting to run back to Pilates, and I kept trying to kind of quit. But then I just kept listening to you and trusting the process. So I ate enough. I took days off for the first time in years. I rested. I lifted. And then I went up a size in jeans. And then I went up another size in jeans. But my waist stayed the same size. And then I would, like, look at my arms in the mirror, and I was like, wow, I have arms, actual arms. And then I saw that I had better abs than when I was doing, like, 45 minutes of crunches, you know, in Pilates. So all of a sudden I had, like, shape and structure and curves. And I started to love this new body and what it was capable of, even if during the process it was super uncomfortable, super scary, especially for someone with my background. So after some time, I finally got a weight room membership. And I started going there. And I love it. And I'm usually, like, one of the only women. And now 10 months in, my body is, like, it's night and day. I'm sculpted. I'm toned. I weigh exactly the same as I did a year ago. I haven't had another DEXA scan, but I assume that means that I gained muscle and lost body fat. But here's the thing. I don't care. Sorry if I get a little emotional, but weightlifting has given me gifts that I could have never even believed. I'm really strong inside and out. I'm fed. I'm happy. I'm capable. I'm healthy. And I'm free. I live. You know, I eat. I rest. I respect my body. I even started writing about weightlifting and strength and nourishment as the ultimate form of female empowerment on Substack. And I have this, like, community that appeared of all these women who want the same message that you don't need to chase skin thin, that healthy is beautiful, and strength is magic, and a body with muscle and fat is gorgeous. So I also found that I really love bodybuilding culture. Like, who knew? I read and regularly reread Lisa Lyon's book Body Magic, which every woman I feel should read, and, like, Rachel McLeish and all the others. And so, like, this whole world is very fascinating to me, and I love, obviously, the conversations you guys have about it. So to get to my question, it hasn't even been a year, but lifting weights has changed my life, and I want to keep doing it forever. I guess the big question for me is where do I go from here? I don't want or need to be shredded. I don't want or need to lose fat. I'm very happy. But I also know this is just the start, and I love to learn new things and explore and experiment. For example, now that I take recovery days, which are great, you know, I've been exploring, like, fashion maneuvers and lymph flows and mobility and yoga, and I just like understanding all these different modalities. So I want to just keep going further and feeling better forever. So my question is what would you say to a woman in my life stage who's in perimenopause with my weightlifting experience, which is less than a year and, like, pretty much self-taught? What could I do from here? So I currently lift three times a week, full body, because I like feeling the balance of the full body when I go to the gym. Or is it really just keep doing it, like, every week, every year forever? You know, how can I set many goals for myself? As I said, I don't need to, like, even hit PRs or gain a ton of muscle. Honestly, I'm just like a regular woman with a busy job and a social life and a marriage and friends, and I live in a city. I just want to keep discovering and improving. So thanks again for everything that you do. You have absolutely changed my life for the better. Thank you, Nadia. God bless you. Great. I love hearing your journey and where you're at. I think it's so great for women listening who are in similar shoes to kind of be like, okay, this is kind of where I can go. Okay, so you're at a very interesting place with this whole journey. And so I'm just going to kind of illustrate some of the pitfalls and then maybe some of the directions that you might want to go in. So the fitness space, the wellness space, the bodybuilding space is littered with dysfunctional relationships with fitness and our bodies and food. And so to give you an example, and this is really a normal journey. This is not an uncommon journey from someone who's really pursuing trying to heal from some of the stuff. Like you went plant-based, you know, fasting to the other end of the spectrum of dysfunction, which is Palo Saladino, only eat meat, avoid vegetables because they're bad for you, to bodybuilding culture, which is also kind of that thing as well. And so I think what you're looking for and I think what you're really, really enjoying is the inner transformation more than the outer transformation. Now, here's the deal. In order to do that, we have to not completely focus. We have to completely not focus, I should say, on any of the outer transformation. So now that's difficult. So if I say don't do this, like good luck. Like don't think of a zebra. Now you're thinking of a zebra, right? So cool. Don't pay attention to the size of my jeans. Don't pay attention to how my arms look. Don't do a DEXA scan. Okay, but that's impossible because not doing something is impossible. What do I focus on? Your tendency, and this is just because of the way you've been for so long, is to focus on something. You have to have a focus. Okay, so what's the next best focus for someone like you that'll move you in the right direction? Isn't perfect because this can also get crazy, but will serve you well for the next few years. Strength. There is no better focus for you than strength. And so you have a mind and a tendency where you can gear everything towards this idea, and I'm going to go in that direction. What's going to serve you best is strength right now. How you eat, how you train, how you sleep, and the supplements you take. Gear it towards strength. Now, it's not perfect because that gets crazy too. That'll also get crazy. But at least for the next couple of years, it's going to help you break the connection to what's in the mirror, the body fat test, the scale, all these other things. It's going to move you away because you're going to be focused purely on performance. It's going to lead you, if you continue on that focus, to feeding yourself appropriately. What it can look like without that is, well, now I'm in this camp over here, and we don't eat foods that are this, and we only eat these types of foods, and meat is very nourishing, so that's all I'm going to eat, or I'm going to eat these foods. But if you're focused on strength, what'll end up happening, Nadia, is you'll actually start to feed yourself based off of how you perform, and that is actually the most nourishing way you can feed yourself at this moment. Because it's hard to get stronger while not eating enough calories or enough nutrients or whatever. It also loosens things up a little bit because you're going to find, sometimes, you go out to eat with your husband, and you eat out, and you're not really, you know, avoiding certain things. And you enjoy yourself, and then you go work out the next day, and you're like, oh my God, I'm stronger. Not realizing that you needed the extra calories. But you're now creating a relationship with eating out with your husband, which is a little bit more positive. Which right now, you might avoid certain things. That might be your tendency. So I would say focus on strength. Now you do have, it sounds like you have a community with your Substack, and you've got women that are kind of following you, and also you're highly motivated, you're obviously very intelligent, you've got a great background. The best possible thing you can do, Nadia, to really accelerate this and to really move this forward, and to help you build your community, and to help you learn, is for you to work with a coach. To have a good coach work with you through this process, to guide you, and for you to take your hands off the wheel a little bit. And to just observe. And it'll be a massive learning experience for you. In six months, you'll get more out of working with a coach and just following what they tell you to do, and not trying to judge it, and not trying to control it yourself. You'll learn more in that process than you would trying to go through this on your own. Well, you've already said it, listening to our live callers has been like a master class for you. Imagine, and I love that you're doing the Substack, what it would look like to me is you go through that process with a coach, and you are talking about it. So as you learn it and apply it, you turn around, so it feeds you in two different ways, right? It's going to obviously feed you for your life and what you're doing, and then also fuel this cool community that you're building. So it's got a double win for you that you take those master classes that you're getting from your trainer and coach, and you apply it to your own life, and then you go teach it. And I don't think there's a better thing that you could possibly do for that. Just to piggyback off what Sal said, because of course, I have a bias towards bodybuilding, and I love that. But it's a very dangerous place to get into because it is body focused. And then your decisions start to be made around the way you look, even though you say you don't want to do that. And when you get into that community, it's hard not to, because that's what everybody's talking about and doing. Where to his point, the reason why strength will serve you so well is what you'll find on this path of trying to keep getting stronger over the next couple of years, is you won't for a little while. You'll hit a plateau, and then what will happen is you'll have to eat more, whether you accidentally do it out of dinner, like he's saying, or you consciously say, I'm going to increase my calories by 250 or 300 calories a day and see what happens. And then what you're going to notice when you do that is you're going to get stronger in the gym again. You're going to go, oh shit. You also can't overtrain. Yeah. Like overtraining and getting stronger doesn't exist. So it'll naturally move your programming, your diet, your sleep, and your lifestyle away from what you're trying to get away from and towards what you're trying to get towards. Now after two or three years, I don't think you should continue to chase strength because that in itself starts to become an issue as well. But it would be the next, it's definitely the next logical step. I've worked with people like you. So if you were my client, Nadia, this is what we would do for the next couple of years. And my goal as your coach would be to get you to trust me so much that you stop questioning what I tell you to do. And you just take your hands off the wheel and you just go. And then what happens is you start to get hindsight. So you're like three months into trusting me, which is, it sounds easy, but it's not easy. I promise you. There'll be many conversations we would have where I'm like, Nadia, you got to do what I'm telling you. Like just trust. And you would do it. And then you'd look back and be like, oh my God, that worked. Wow. And then you'd see what happened. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to trust him even more now. And then you start to develop a different relationship. The value of the coach is that, is that, uh, we can give you the best advice in the world right now, but it won't be linear. It won't be this like, oh, okay, cool. Let me take those things and go apply it. Then I'm just going to see this. It's back and forth. And I don't know how, how consistent you are with listening, but I've been sharing the journey that I've been on with Corrine and it's been a year, you know, and it's a year and she has a similar background as you do. And so it's a year of this push and pull and you know, I can get her to do this for a while and she trusts me and then she's, then I can, I can feel her energy's like enough is enough. I got to pull back a little bit. And so it's this, there's no perfect plan. Like people ask me like, well, what exactly are you doing with her? It's like, well, it's week to week, you know, one week we're doing this and I'm pushing her in a direction. And then, and then she's like, Hey, I need a break or I need to come. And so that's what it'll look like. It'll look like this ebb and flow with the coach. And along the way, so much learning will happen about your body and how you feel and when you apply. And, and so, and I think that'll be awesome for the community. Yeah. Just in strength pursuits and you know, and I think too, like strength, stability, like learning your body of where there's imbalance, where there's dysfunction, where there's things you can address to avoid pain and like future pain. And you know, with a coach, we'll really be able to highlight that and the physiology of everything. You know, I feel like you'd get a lot out of that with your mind to, to self-diagnose and how to, how to, you know, really make these micro adjustments and things within your movement patterns. So there's just a lot there still left to explore. You've done the hardest part, which is you've you've pulled back the curtain and you're seeing things and now you can look back and really start to see that's actually the hardest part. Now, the next step is to take some of those steps in that direction. Tell me a little bit about this community that you have on Substack. How many people are reading your, your writing and stuff? Yeah. Can I just, can I just respond to one thing that you said before that? Just because I think, I think it's the beginning of a journey, but when I said I'm free, I mean, gosh, I really mean like I'm free in the sense that there are things that I wouldn't have done before. Like example, you know, last weekend we went away with friends on, on a country weekend and like, I didn't know what we were going to be doing. I didn't know what we were going to be eating. There wasn't going to be a gym. You know what I mean? And we, and I would just float and I had the time of my life. And when I did come back, I think I hadn't been to the gym in like three or four days and they went and I was like, Whoa, this is like, I'm so strong because I had pasta all weekend, you know? And it was amazing. So there's definitely like a freedom to my life because I trust my body. And I used to think obviously how little can I eat? Now my mentality is how can I best nourish my body so that it performs the best? So it's, it's really been this lifestyle change, but I do know that it also doesn't happen totally in a year, but those are some of the shifts. And when I order pasta at a restaurant, my husband's like, that is the hottest thing you've ever done. Like, he's just like, I love to see it. And by the way, he started lifting around the same time I did. So it's something we do together, which is really not, well, we go to the gym room together and he's 46 and like, looks like a movie star now. Like it's just crazy. So we're just like, we're just converting. Just to back you up. So what I said, you pulled back the curtain. Okay. That's the, that's what the freedom feels like. So there's a quote that says, there's a quote, none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe they are free. So when the curtain, when you didn't pull back the curtain, you have no idea you're enslaved. Yeah. You're living the way you are. Exactly. You thought you were in control actually. That's right. And now you see, and so this is why you feel free. And so a hundred percent, uh, you know what you're experiencing is such a great, that's the hardest step. Like what you did is the most difficult, that's very difficult to do. So congratulations on that part. Thank you. Um, yeah, I started my sub stack in December and I have about 3000 followers all over the world. Yeah. It's crazy. And the thing that makes me so happy is I get a lot of notes from people, often young women who I guess, like, I guess I needed a big sister when I was young, but they'll say like, you've inspired me to not restrict my eating. You've inspired me to start lifting weights. You've inspired me to be more natural. Like I'm very natural. I don't, I write also about like not doing injections and not, and like aging naturally and all these things. And so I feel like I'm taking all the mistakes and the mess that I had in my life and like channeling it into helping other women. Awesome. That's so good. So good. That's so wonderful. Yeah. Well, two options for you. Um, I can send you maps power lift, which would be program I'd want you to follow. Um, uh, second option, uh, I could have you get on the phone with one of our coaches and you can see if you'd want to work with one of our coaches. I think. Yeah. I'd love that. Okay. I think six to nine months would be good. Uh, a good start for someone like you. Um, and I think at the end of it, uh, as smart as you are, as self-aware as you are and the fact that you have this, this great responsibility of serving 3000 women, I think you'd go very far in a short period of time, uh, with something like that. So. Oh my gosh, that'd be so cool. Yeah. I would love to speak with someone. Yeah. I would love to plug the sub stack. So other women that are listening right now and know where to find you. Oh, that's so nice. Um, it's called Nuri Paris N O U R I Paris where I live and Nuri is a play on, um, the French word for nourishment. So check it out. Awesome. Cool. Thanks Nadia. We'll have somebody call you. Okay. Either way you'll get it. Thanks guys. Bye. Bye. Great story. So cool. And so, um, I've seen people go on journeys like this and it's so, listen, I would, I could have totally predicted that you would have gone, someone would have gone from plant based to Paul Saladino. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like I went, took my kids bowling over the weekend and uh, you know, they put the bumpers up and that's what it's like. You throw the ball, it hits one bumper and it hits the other bumper and it does this for a little while before you figure out kind of where you're going. Uh, the fact that she's working with, uh, in serving other women is so helpful. Yeah. Very much so. Very therapeutic. Yes. It's very therapeutic. It keeps your, it keeps you honest. Yeah. With what you do with yourself. Um, she, her working with one of our coaches, cause our coaches are phenomenal. We know that we pick, we handpick them. Her working with one of our coaches will be, it will be incredible to see where she's at. Well, I mean, for me, if I'm her, it's a no brainer because of, obviously she's building this community and it's probably going to turn right about it. Yeah. It's, it will serve that and then serve yourself at the same time. So it's like a, it's a win all around. I have to say though, very impressed with in such a short period of time, the distance that she's, she's come. Oh yeah. Because for her to be able to take off on a weekend like that, not track, eat a bunch of pasta. That's hard. That's a big, that's a big deal. That's a huge step. I know. That's a huge, that's a scary, you could have done all the other things that she's done this far, but you still wouldn't control the vacation. Oh yeah. Control it, pass on things like that, but to like be free, eat pasta, have a good time and then, and then come back. That's huge. So she truly has freed herself. So it's really cool. Our next caller is Caitlin from California. Hi Caitlin. Hello. Hi dude. I'm so psyched. This is crazy. This is actually insane. How are you doing? I'm all right. How are you guys? Good. How can we help you? Dude. Okay. First, like everyone says, I just want to start off and say, thank you guys so much for all the ways that you've helped me. I've been listening to you guys for, I don't know, I think I started when I was like 17 or 18 and you guys really walked me through like a very difficult time with my relationship to eating and exercise. And I've made a lot of changes because of you guys. That's kind of helped get me through other things in my life, like nursing school and stuff. I feel like if I had kept going down the road that I was without you guys, like I would not be graduating in December. So thank you guys so much. Anyways. Okay. I'm going to read my question because I have a tendency to ramble as you can probably already tell. So it says, my name is Caitlin. I'm a 22 year old female, six foot around 105 pounds. I'm a former collegiate volleyball player and I've been lifting for almost a decade. I got into it when my dad introduced me when I was like 12 or 13. And like I said, I've been following your guys' advice, but I've hit a plateau and I've honestly been stuck for what feels like years now. I cannot go up in weight. I keep decreasing, if anything. And as someone who's really passionate about fitness and going into nursing soon, I'm kind of desperate to like fix this plateau before I get into a career that's like has shift work and high stress environments and stuff. Because if I can't make progress now, I don't know how I'm going to figure it out then. Anyways. So a little bit of background. The past couple of years have been a cycle of dialing back workouts, feeling a little bit better and then hitting a wall of like extremely low energy and fatigue and then having to dial back again. I've tried to follow a reverse diet during this process, but every time I try to increase my calories, I seem to gain weight like just around my midsection. And I know this is like a common effect of when you've been in kind of starvation mode for a while, your body will tend to hold on to fat in areas that you need it before it redistributes. But for me, it just never seems to really go anywhere. And then as a former volleyball player, I used to handle a lot of volume like no problem. I had two to three hour long practices. I was lifting five times a week. But now I'm struggling to do what I consider like pretty modest, three to four times lifting about hour or 45 minute sessions. And then I do, you guys are going to be like, why are you calling in? But I also do 20 to 30 minutes of lists like following those sessions. So I know that could be a big problem. I'm scared to back off cardio because of my history with weight gain going not where I want to. Anyways, okay, wrapping it up, sorry, sorry. Last thing I wanna mention is that I've dealt with chronic digestive issues, I'm pretty sure, because of my history of restriction and everything. My main symptoms are painful bloating and constipation. Sometimes it feels like the food just sits in my stomach, and I've tried a lot avoiding inflammatory foods, probiotics, walks after meals. Nothing really seems to help, or it will help for a little bit, and then I'll just go back. So my question is, after my little spiel, just where do I go from here? I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm a pretty independent person, so it's like frustrating for me that I can't figure this out. And I really wanna go back to just being the resilient athlete and high-functioning person I was, because fitness is just very important to me. Thank you so much for calling in, Caitlin. I really appreciate you doing that. And thanks for listening for so long. You're still a kid, but you were a really young kid when you started listening. So that's really cool. Okay, can I be direct? Oh, I feel like she already knows this. Please, bro, real honesty all the way. Okay, so first I need to ask you a bit of a personal question, if that's okay. Do you have a regular cycle? Has your cycle been a regular, or are you regular with that? No. Okay, okay, so that's just gonna add to kind of what I'm saying. So you're a whole. And I guess this would be helpful for you guys too. I know a lot of callers mention it. I did get a body fat percentage. It was just like the, where you hold on to the scale. But it was 12%, and that was, three months ago. So I'm not sure where I'm at now, but. Okay, so your height, your body weight, and some of the symptoms that you're telling us, how you feel, including the loss of menses or the irregularity, you need to gain just weight. We need to gain weight, and we need to gain body fat, which is probably really scary to hear. And it's gonna be really scary to go through, okay? But gaining body fat would be a good thing at this point. Gaining muscle would be cool too. But I don't think that's gonna happen until we gain some body fat. You're probably gonna have to gain body fat first. And you're probably gonna have to get your period back regularly before we start to see muscle gain. Now, here's why you can handle so much volume before and why it feels like you just can't. Stress starts to become cumulative. And you're still young, which by the way, I'm gonna encourage you, we can reverse this. We have a really, really good chance of reversing this in a relatively short period of time. Like within a year, we can see some dramatic changes in your health, okay, because you're still young. But you could handle it before, and it just builds up over time, and your body's shutting down. And your body's like, no, I'm not doing this anymore. And so smarty. That's what it feels like, just this constant burnout that I can't get over. And so smart of you to get on here and talk about this now before the nursing thing goes on, because it is only gonna get harder and worse if we don't fix now. So I'm gonna tell you what you need to do, and then I'm gonna tell you how you're gonna do it, okay? What you need to do is we need to see your weight go up. You need to gain at least 20 pounds. I don't care what it is that you gain. You need to gain at least 20 pounds. We need to be very gentle with your strength training and your exercise through this process. This is gonna look like healing. With diet, the bloating, there's a supplement called a Trantil. You can get it. It's relatively inexpensive. I'll have Doug email you the name. You would take a couple capsules about 10 minutes before two of your meals, and that'll help with any potential SIBO that you might have developed. I would also like you to take psyllium husk daily. This is a fiber that'll help. Lots of water. I'm a little hesitant about the fiber because of constipation, but do you think if I just make sure I'm getting consistent water intake, it'd be okay? So psyllium will help with constipation so long as you drink a nice big glass of water with it. Okay. Okay. So psyllium husk, a lot of water, and regardless of the blow and the constipation, which I think will get better with this, we still need to put on weight, okay? So you're gonna eat more, a lot more than you're used to. It's gonna feel, so I'm gonna tell you what it's gonna feel like. It's gonna feel uncomfortable. You're gonna feel like, oh my God, I'm getting body fat because you need to. You're not gonna like it, but this is the process of kind of healing your body. We need to be very gentle with your training volume and intensity. Then you're gonna reach a point if you're consistent with this where you're like, I think I can push more training and you're not. No, don't push more training because we're gonna burn out real quick. You've got at least six to nine months of us gaining weight and starting to heal your body, okay? And your body weight needs to go up by at least 20 pounds. And I'm giving you a hard number, not because it's the perfect number, but because I need you to get okay with gaining 20 pounds. Do you actually need to gain 20 pounds? I don't know. It might be less, it might be more before we start to really heal, but I'm gonna solidify in your head, just be, accept the fact that your body weight will go from 105 to 125. Just accept that for now. Now here's how you're gonna do it. You're gonna need to work with a coach. I'm just gonna be straight up with you because doing this on your own, you're gonna see the weight go up 10 pounds and you're gonna wanna reverse. And it's gonna feel too uncomfortable and you're not gonna wanna do it. Are you listening to the journey with Corinne with me? I am, yes. Yeah, it's been a year. We're still working. So it's- Yeah, she's, I mean, she's honestly one of the reasons that prompted me to write into you guys because this is a highly psychological thing that I just can't get past. And it's like, I know my potential because before I started struggling with this stuff, I was very good at my sport. I had no problem like doing back-to-back tourneys, keeping up with schoolwork, whatever. But now it's just like, I'm so frustrated because I look back and I'm like, there's no way I could do that now. And I can't get past this mental block. Caitlin, I want you to take, can you get a picture of yourself when you were like seven? Do you have that somewhere? You don't need to show me, but I'm sure you have that. Maybe, yeah. I want you to make that your home screen on your phone. And every time you open your phone, I want you to look at that kid and I want you to think how you can take care of that child. Okay, that's gonna help you. Now here's why working with a coach is what I think might be necessary. Before you can reroute and do this, you gotta let go completely. You gotta let it go. You just gotta be like, tell me what to do and I'll just do it. And it's gonna suck and I'm gonna hate it. And I'm gonna text you every time it sucks and I'm gonna call you every time I can't do it and then I'm just gonna let go. So it's not once you're gonna let go, you're gonna be letting go all the time because you're gonna wanna grab it back. It's gonna take about six months, nine months, maybe a year of you letting go and then the new relationship will start to develop. And you're right, it is 100% psychological. It's not mostly psychological. This is 100% psychological and which makes it even more difficult. And even with a coach, it's not gonna be easy. No, you're gonna have battles with your coach and I encourage you to. If you end up working with one of our coaches, I encourage you to tell them you're pissed off if you are. I encourage you to challenge them if that's what you wanna do. What you don't wanna do is hold back or try to appear to be the perfect client because that makes it much more difficult to coach you. Or lie or deceive. You tell them, this sucks, I don't wanna do it. Like let them coach you. Or I failed this week, I know I was supposed to do this and I didn't. Or I lied to you. That's part of it. Part of it's gonna, I'm gonna set goals for you and you're gonna do it for a week or two and you're gonna be doing great and then you're gonna have a really rough weekend and then you're not. And then you gotta be honest. You gotta be honest and tell your coach that so they know how to course correct and they know how to push and pull. And it'll be an ongoing thing with that. But just to use Corinne's story a little bit, she was 97 pounds was kind of where she was hovering around, give or take. And we're at 112. I've pushed her as high as 118. We gotta come back. Then we go forward, we come back. But it's been a journey. It's been a process. And even for someone as advanced, as intelligent as she is and knows all the things that she needs to do, still relies heavily on me to guide and push through that whole process. So I know firsthand and it's top of mind for me right now because she's the only person I'm helping and I know it'll be a process. But it'll be, you gotta do it now before the nursing thing happens because you're so right that it's only gonna get harder with that type of a schedule. And let me just paint the picture of what this looks like at the end. You're gonna love exercise again. Food isn't gonna feel like this thing you gotta think about all the time. You're gonna feel free. So done right, it frees you. It doesn't enslave you. So that's what it's gonna feel like right now. Like you get rid of this tyrannical, this tyrant that's hovering over you that makes you feel like you can't do anything. It's gonna feel free. Okay, but it's like skydiving. You gotta let go and just jump out the plane and trust the parachute, which is your coach. So it's gonna require the jump. Yeah, a lot of what you guys are saying kind of resonates with me because I did go through like an eating disorder program back when I was 15. And so I did the process. I put on about 30 pounds and it was everything you guys said. It was psychologically taxing. It was scary. I hated everything about my life for a very long time until I got to a point where I was comfortable with food and I enjoyed exercising again. I did it because I wanted to and then I kind of just have been slowly sliding back into habits and I've found myself in the exact same place I was all those years ago. And so I know I need someone to help me with this. I am hesitant to ask to go back to like eating disorder treatment specifically because I think their focus is not what mine is and that they just want you to put on weight and that's that. They don't really care what happens to you afterwards. But I want to like keep my kind of goal being to be someone who's like fit and focused on longevity and like if that makes sense, a little bit different. If I can have Corinne work with you, would you work with Corinne? I think I would, yeah. My only other concern is as a college student, I'm a little bit short on financial resources. That said, I know you guys preach kind of like investing in your health. So I'd be open, very, very open to talking to her and like exploring kind of the price range and stuff. But I do agree with you guys that like this isn't something I can do alone as much as I really, really want to and tell myself I can. Okay, okay. Let's see what happens and I'll make sure I stay in contact with whoever you talk to and I'll make sure. It'll be Marcelo since we know it'll be a financial thing. Marcelo will work something, he'll plan out for you so we can do this financially and then I'll talk to Corinne to make sure she opens up her book because she's probably loaded but I do want you with her. If she can't take me, honestly, I, trust is really hard with this because of my history with it. I've had clinicians and therapists who really didn't care and told me things that like didn't work out how they were supposed to, if that makes sense, made promises that like, oh, I was gonna, I'll be fine, I'll love the process, whatever and you guys are being straight up and just listening to you guys, I know how you train your trainers and they're like the only population I would trust. Okay, well that's 90% of it. And if you end up working with the coaches, Caitlin, I'll hop on some of the calls if that's okay. We'll be overseeing. Oh, please, anytime. No, we'll be overseeing it. Okay. We're gonna get you there. All right, we'll stay in contact. Okay, in the meantime, I know I probably shouldn't ask this because it just shows you where my head's at, but following this journey, do you think it's possible once I'm at a stable place and like not just at that year mark, but like a little further down the line, do you think it's possible for someone to get back into competitive sports? Because one of my goals is like as a nurse, I want to live on the beach and like play beach volleyball on my days off and stuff, just because that's like what I'm working towards is one of the things that motivate me. So I'm just wondering. That's a great goal. 100%. That's a great goal. No, no, no, that's not just possible, that's plausible. We just gotta get you healthy first. Yeah, that's a great goal. It's actually a very good thing for you to focus on is that's our end goal. It's not some visual of what my body looks like or what the scale looks like. It's that I wanna play competitive volleyball while I'm also a nurse kicking ass and living on the beach. That's an awesome goal. With my golden retriever. Yes. Yeah. Let's focus on that. Okay, thank you guys so much. I appreciate it, like truly. You got it, Caitlin. All right, Caitlin. Thank you. Yeah, I wanna make sure we follow up and she gets something. No, no, no, I'll have Marcella make sure she gets started. Something. Yeah, yeah, no, you can't. I don't wanna leave her alone on her own. But that's tough, man. That's really tough. And you know. Hey, kudos to her for coming now because she's right. You get into working and have a schedule like that and you haven't fixed this, that's. Oh my God. Well, when you have this friend that you turn to for a sense of control and comfort, then when things feel hard, this is the friend you turn to. And so becoming a shift worker, nurse, the stress of that, like the tendency will be like, let me go control my eating. Double down, yeah. So. Our next caller is Shan from Texas. What's up, Shan? Shan, what's going on? Oh man, this studio looks sexy. My goodness. This is a, what an evolution of the studio. This is great. I'm happy to be on. Thank you guys for having me today. Thanks, man. How can we help you? Well, a couple of things. First, I wanted to ask a question about scalability when it comes to scaling my personal training program here at the fitness center that I'm working at. And then the second question I have is about my own body. So, but first I'll start with my career. So, I messaged Adam about a year and some change ago, probably about almost two years ago. Honestly, time has been flying by. And I came on to a position to be a director at a gym I won't name. I don't work there right now. And I asked him a particular question on Instagram and he referred to me a book called The New One Minute Manager. And it completely changed my outlook when it comes to managing a facility and then working with trainers and then working with people that are directly assisting the trainers. So, now I'm in a much better situation. And I came on to a place in which I don't think they realized how much upward mobility they have. So, in the month of June, we were able to have over 1,000 personal training sessions sold. In August, we had over 800 and I think it was in August, we're at 883. And I'm trying to push that envelope and move it farther ahead. The only thing that is getting in my way, and I don't know if you guys have any experience with this, is having trainers that are contractors and not employees. And having to get the buy-in from our trainers to be able to scale the business farther beyond where it's at presently. So, if you guys have any type of feedback, any... Explain to me how the structure is. So, if they're a contract, they lease from you the spot. Are they paying like 800 bucks a month and they get to work there and then you make no cut of the sales or do you make a cut of sales? Explain the business model so I understand. Okay, so how the model works is that you come on and I don't get a cut from it, our business does. Where I work, we get the cut from it. You set your own hourly rate. So, if you want to charge 300 an hour and you believe you can sell that, that's what it would be. And then you come on with the split. So, let's say you come on at 50% and then you can work your way up to 70% of that split over time. So, that's how that works. And so, I feel like when you kind of first get on, you're very encouraged to work hard to get up to your 70%. But then you quickly realize how hard the personal training game is when all you focus on is scaling your income versus growing what you do as a craft. And so, it's hard for me sometimes to figure out how to motivate and inspire contractors to develop their own skillset so it's not just me pushing a lot of the work. I know, I get that. Do you get time to meet with each of them individually? Do you have that? Yes, I do. Okay, you do have that time. Have you heard me talk about trainers understanding their numbers and reverse engineering their income and how to do that? The reverse engineering income part, I can't say I remember. Okay, so I have a video. Doug, do you know where that video is at? It's a good question. I'll have to look for it. I'll have Doug hunt it down because I know we have it in our Elite Trainer Academy where I talk about first. So, what I would do every month is sit down with a trainer and the conversation would look like this is, hey, Justin, how much do you want to make this month? Or how much money do you want to make this month? Because I'm not going to motivate and push somebody to make $10,000 or $20,000 a month if they're happy. You know what I'm saying? If they're like, oh, I don't want to make any more money. I'm happy. It's like, okay, well, I can't help that. But what you'll find, I would guess, that probably half or 80% of them will go, I'd like to make more money. I'd like to make 10 grand a month or I'd like to make whatever. Okay, so let's reverse engineer that. And the way you do that is they all need to track how many people do they need to get in front of them per month in order to close them on personal training at what dollar. So, the first month is all just tracking. Okay, I want you guys to track your numbers. So, and you guys, I don't know what you guys call your free appointments or free assessments. We're getting your consultations. Okay, cool. So, I want you to track this month your total consultations that you book. Of those that you booked, how many of them showed up? Of those that showed up, how many of those closed? Of those that you closed, what was the dollar amount that you got out of it? Okay, and this month is all about tracking. It's not about impressing me. It's just like you work your butt off just to do that. And I'm going to find out your math. Once I got your math, I know that, okay, it looks like you need to book 100 people just for 75 to show up. Of the 75 to show up, only 25 of them buy. Of the 25 that buy, spend an average of $1,500. That, and then do the math on what that is. And that's how you, and so, you teach them all their individual math. Because they're all going to be different. You're probably going to have somebody who's really good at booking and showing. You'll have others that are great at closing big packages. And so, once you teach them what their number is, then you reverse engineer. You say, okay, you say you want to make 10 grand. That means, based off of last month when we tracked all your numbers, that this, and all I want you to focus on is you need to book this many consultations this month. Don't think about the money. Don't think about the sale. You know, because we already know what will happen if you just do the work. And so, by the week and the day. So it's like, okay, so if your goal was to book 66 people this month to make your $8,000 a month, because we know your math, then every day I'm holding that person accountable. Did you book, hey, did you book your three consultations today? And then you motivate them on a daily basis like that. And then what's dope is when they see that, it'll click, and they'll be like, oh shit. So they'll just, and they don't have to focus on the sale and the money and the closing. They're focusing on getting people in front of them, which is what they all want to do, because they want to train and help people. That's right, they have to. So now they know, and then what you'll learn as the leader is you will see like, Justin is so good at booking and getting his people to show up. Man, Sal doesn't book as much to show up, but man, when Sal gets someone in front of him, he closes fucking huge numbers. And so I know as a leader, I'm going to motivate Sal to book more people and push him in that direction. Justin, I'm going to have, maybe I even have Sal help him with his presentation. It's like, hey, what are you doing? You're so good at getting people in front of you. I want Sal to talk to you about his presentation, right? So like, you can use the other trainers to start coaching, help each other, and then all their numbers start to come up. And you're over here. I'm going to have to take that, because for some reason, when you started speaking, stuff started to click. So when I first came on here, I had that conversation with them, and I was able to actually scale trainers up to six-figure-a-year earners. So that works. Now, the hard part that I have, and I'm actually going to take that again and reintroduce it, because I think reintroducing that idea of what you ended on with trainers collaborating with their weak points and their strength points, that's going to create some type of environment which our members are seeing that. And that sells itself. That's right. Okay, okay. Yeah, that's culture. That's culture. Yeah, Cheyenne, the culture of the gym makes such a huge impact on everybody's business. Right. It's a community. A gym is a community. And so when the culture is pro-growth, trainers helping each other, working together, members are all, they feel it, and everybody does better. So, you know. Everybody gains. Everybody gains from that kind of pro-growth culture. I agree. Are your coaches able to sell training for each other? Do they get a commission if they sell the training and give it to another person? They don't, but that is something that I can always look at adding into the frame. You do have a lot of flexibility when it comes to the structure and how they're able to develop and scale their own business. So I know that's something. Here's why I like that, because what may happen sometimes is you get a coach who comes in, they build their business, now their book is full. Yes. And they're just, they're not really motivated to sell more training because they got their clients, and they're just going to re-enroll. But if they know that if they find a client and they keep 10% of it, then what'll happen is you'll get those highly motivated trainers who are like, look, I got a full book, but I'm still selling training. And then I don't need to train the person. I'll just set them up with these other trainers. The other trainers are happy because they get a client, and they're happy because they get a commission, and you'll get your best closers and producers to continue to produce. We're structured that way here. We have our people that are really good at sales, and they handle more of the leads, but they hand off to the clients, or to the coaches that need clients, because they don't need clients. Right, right. They make a commission for that sale. So they're highly motivated to take those consults and those leads, because they're going to make a commission off of it, and they don't need the client, and the other trainer's happy because they just love training clients. And then you probably have this already in your staff where you've got great coaches, but then they're just not very good at sales. They don't love sales. You know what I'm saying? So you keep them, because you want good coaches and trainers. Yeah, they can help each other out. And so incentivize the ones that like to sell and are good at selling, pay them a good commission, and then allow them to fill those other ones. And then what you get is when you get your leads, because obviously your gym's going to get its own leads that come in. Oh yeah, it gets a lot, a lot. Oh, well then you just hand it off to your top sales guys. Even though their book is full, you're like, hey, they'll be motivated to sell and set them up with other trainers. And the other trainers are always happy because they get new clients. And so that's how I would be motivated. Yeah, it's an ecosystem you guys are creating. I like it. It's less of like a top-down deliver off to members, to trainers, but more of an ecosystem in which it's happening subconsciously, 24-7 around you. It's almost trainers looking for people that need help just so they can build their business and still build that person that they see that they can't personally help. Yeah, I mean, if I was a trainer in a place like yours, I'd be highly motivated to get clients. But once my book was full, I would have no motivation if I didn't get a commission. But if I knew I got 10%, I would be like, cool, I'll sign up people all day long and just pass them off to other trainers. Okay, that's all right. You guys just put something in my brain. My brain works like Kobe Bryant, rest in peace. So I'm definitely going to be honest. And my next step, if I do have a little bit more time to explain, I'm 38 years old and I'm married. I have two children. I have a 10-month-old and a three-and-a-half-year-old. And at one point I was, in the year 2019, I got down to like 5.2 or 3% body fat. I don't think I ever want to do that again. I didn't compete or anything. It was first, it was just to get healthy. And then my dad passed away from not being healthy. Of course, that triggered something. You go one way or the other. And I went towards just being very obsessed with doing any and everything I can to get fat off of myself. So now I kind of, I got out of a bulk and I was, I got up to about like 250 something recently. But in August, I started to cut. So I started to cut the top of August and I'm down to right now, I'm down to 228. I'm 17% body fat. I use the N-body for my reading, by the way. 17% body fat. I have 40 pounds of fat mass and I have 111 pounds of skeletal muscle mass. And I'm trying to figure out, because I feel plateaued here. I've been like, I've been losing fat, but my muscle's not gaining. I know that's the way it's supposed to necessarily be, but I've plateaued. Like for the last three weeks, two weeks, my weight can go down or up, but everything else stays the same, except for the fat. What's more important to you, building this business or having big physique changes? Man, Sal, the business is always going to come first because that's how I take care of my family, for sure. And that's what I'm obsessed about. The reason why he asked, because you're not in an unhealthy place. 15 to 17% body fat is, I hover around that most of the time, bro. And then I have sprints where like right now, I'm getting shredded right now for a short period of time. And then I'll go back to, hovering around that body fat percentage. Now you can do both, but the focus isn't on your physique. So what it looks like is meal prep, because that'll actually make you a more effective manager. You're going to worry about getting your food, it's all planned out, you got it. And then just work out to have fun. Because if you focus too heavily on your body, it's going to take focus away from the business. Yeah, it's just, it's gotta be one or the other, but the meal prepping helps with both, just because it takes away the thought. So you meal prep once a week, twice a week, you come to work, then you don't got to leave. You got your food, you eat it, and then you run your business and you'll probably get leaner just because you're meal prepped. I wouldn't make that the focus. Like it's very difficult to grow a business like yours while simultaneously trying to get down to 10% body fat. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Because the obsession and the focus is going to have to some way. Something's got to give. That's right. Something's got to give. I used to always tell people, you always knew where my financial was based off the way I was physique wise. As long as I've been like, hey man, when I was 3% body fat, I'm struggling financially, you know what I'm saying? But if I would look a little bit thicker, like business is going good. You know, that's just. No, that's true. I'm not mad at that. I'm not mad at that. So Hubbard. I appreciate the feedback, especially when it comes to, like I'm doing my best to motivate and inspire our trainers. But I would say like the caveat or whatever, the difficult part for me is knowing that they are contractors and knowing that I was a trainer before and I built my business from the ground up and was able to do. And of course, not everybody's going to be you. Everybody's different. But that's like the psychological challenge that I face daily is, I want them to have more go after, go get and go do what they need to do. Cause I'd rather have to turn someone down than turn them up. And. One of my favorite ways when I'm challenged like you are right now. Okay. How many trainers do you have there? 15. Okay. So you got 15 trainers there. The likelihood that I'm going to get all of them, bring all of them together right away is really tough. So I really only need to get a couple of these bought into what I'm trying to teach. Right. So I can then use them to teach all the rest of them. Right. Cause everybody, you're going to sit down with all 15 and at least 10 to 12 of them would say, if when you go, would you like to make more money every single month? Would say, yeah, yeah. They're going to say, yeah. Right. Whether they were willing to do the work or not, they're all going to say, yeah. Say yeah, but out of those 10 to 12, maybe two of them are willing to do the work and follow everything you tell them to a tee. So I'm going to lean into the two, they're going to take my advice and I'm going to really put a lot of my energy and focus in them because then I can use them as the example for the rest of them. It's like, see what I showed Justin and Sal and they went and did, they were making eight grand a month, now they're making 12 grand a month because I taught them how to focus on the consultations. We've worked on the, and so like, so you use, instead of like you spreading yourself so thin trying to like focus on everybody, tell everybody to have that sit down and then see who does it. See who like buys in right away, tracks everything all diligent and they, you could tell they want to learn. They want to make more money, lean into those guys or girls and use them to teach the others and that's a better way to focus your energy. So I had contractors in my facility and there were three, there were a few things that contributed to everybody working together like we all worked for the same company. One of them's culture. So they could be a contractor, but when they show up to an amazing culture, they love it. So that was number one. Number one was culture. Number two was a sense of autonomy. So I always respected their autonomy and what that looks like for trainers is in how they train people. And so the way I would do that is if I had, I had a trainer that was really good at athletic training, I would ask them, Hey, do you want to teach some of the other trainers, some of these things? And it was great and it actually made everybody better. So that was the second thing. And then the third thing is you make sure you schedule things outside of work where everybody comes together and those things really make a big difference. And then you'll get people working, wanting to work there, even though the contract, they want to be a part of this environment. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that because yeah, I worked in a facility like that. It was all contractors and, you know, to get us all to really hang out and to work together and create that culture, it was somebody would go out and get educated, would come back and teach us all. And so it was like also a way to save money because, you know, these certifications are really expensive. Yes, they are. And, you know, for, to incentivize them, you know, like our, the guy that owned the, the gym actually would pay them sometimes to, you know, go get educated, come back and then teach the rest of us. That makes sense. Yeah. Collaborated that way again. Yeah. And hanging out, it really does kind of facilitate that, that group dynamic. Do you guys know of any companies that go to gyms and host certification, like classes that trainers can use for their, for their credit hours? I mean, a lot of them. Ken Stretch. Ken Stretch will come to you, which would be an awesome certification course. Glenn Line University. Because our, our demographic is, tends to be a little bit older. And so I've really wanted to tap into Ken Stretch. Yep. Ken Stretch. Yeah. Go Ken Stretch that direction. Most, most certifications that are recognized nationally, if you contact them and say, Hey, I have 15 trainers. I'd love for somebody to come in person and teach everybody. They'll cut you a deal. CPPS with, yeah. Joe DeFranco's. Yeah. Great. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of really good ones out there. Okay. If you have an older population, the corrective movements you're going to get from Ken Stretch are probably the most valuable one of everything we, or Joe. Joe does a lot of good stuff. Yeah. Eldola too would be good to pursue. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I like, I like, I like you y'all. I could talk to y'all all day. Cause I've been listening to y'all since, since COVID, like, like it's the Bible. I know Sal would like that. I've been listening to y'all. It's been religious for me. It's helped, it's helped me. It's helped my business. It's helped every other person that I've worked with. I still train clients online. I have GLP one clients and trust me, the advice that you guys have given us as listeners has allowed me to slow down their mindset. I'm used to working with type a personalities. Like I've been a trainer for your athletes in the NBA, the NFL retired, all them type a fast driven, want to get things done. And it seems to have somewhat of a similar relation with GLP one, just as like high expectations with low patients versus the understanding of patients being a mandatory factor. And so the advice you guys have given from the types of workouts to the, to the behavioral science concept of it, but the approach it is, it's helped me a lot, like a lot, a lot. And so I want to say thank you for that. It's something that I know when you guys first tapped in on, I don't know how you guys kind of thought about it, but I started seeing you guys kind of buying into it as a tool. If understood and used appropriately, if I'm not misunderstanding you guys, I want to say thank you for taking the time to understand something that can be demonized or overused or whatever, and giving us a clear path on how to kind of utilize this for the people that we work with. Well, thank you, man. Thank you. You're killing it, bro. You're killing it. Keep it up. I appreciate your help, man. Any, any other thing that comes to my mind? I'll send you a message, Adam. I know you're over racing cars and having a good time with your family, Justin. Next time if I call him, I have to talk to you mostly because you don't get a lot of love on this setting. You're a one smart cookie, man. And Sal, you're an amazing guy. I appreciate you for bringing this all together and, and getting with Doug and seeing a vision that's bigger than what any other fitness podcast is doing. You guys care. You're genuine. You have a lot of true integrity and I respect that and I honor it. So thank you so much. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Yes. Thank you, brother. You guys have a great rest of your day. You too. Appreciate it. Take it easy. Bye-bye. Great energy. We should spend the rest of the time to give Justin love. You get all the love, dude. What are you talking about? Great, great, great energy. It's awesome. Yeah, dude. It's awesome. fitness leaders like that. Because, uh, a good trainer can be so profound, uh, in impacting someone in such a positive way and their health and their longevity and the quality of life. And a bad trainer can have just as big of an impact the opposite direction. And unfortunately there's both in our space and not enough good trainers. So when I hear someone like that makes me really hopeful. Oh yeah. He's helping all of them. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, and MAPS Aesthetic, nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump. They're down 21 with just over six minutes remaining. This is the moment, baby! This is the moment we separate the dogs from the boys, and if you ask me, I only got one question. Do you got that dog in you? Because it's never about the winners or the losers, but it is about the difference between those brave enough to put some action on the game, and those who just want to watch from the sidelines eating off-brand pizza rolls. So sit down, lock in those picks, and trust that, ow, dog in you, underdog. Unleash your dog. Terms may apply.