Low Reps vs. High Reps, Which Actually Builds More Muscle? (It Surprised Us) | Mind Pump 2944

Key Takeaway

Train both low and high reps—but stop mixing them randomly every workout. For the next 3-4 weeks, focus on one rep range: use low reps to practice technique and build maximal strength, or higher reps to develop strength endurance and improve muscle control. Then switch. Keep most sets similarly challenging by stopping about two reps before failure, and choose the range you have been neglecting to create a novel stimulus.

Episode Overview

The hosts explain why both low- and high-repetition resistance training can build muscle when effort is matched, while producing different strength adaptations and recovery demands. They also coach callers on training for strongman, supporting a teenage wrestler, programming for older adults, and rebuilding a sustainable fitness practice after injury and mental-health setbacks.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Low Reps vs. High Reps, Which Actually Builds More Muscle? (It Surprised Us) | Mind Pump 2944 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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All right, you're strength training, you're lifting weights because you want to build muscle, you want to sculpt your body, you want to boost your metabolism, but what's better, low reps or high reps? Are there advantages to one versus the other, disadvantages? Which one should you train in for your goals? We're going to break it down right now based on the data and our experience. Here we go. Low reps, high reps. This is the challenge. Low reps. Fight! Done. That's the end of the episode. High reps.

This was a debate for a while. The one you're not doing. Yeah, well, we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that, but they are different. So here's the deal. There's two schools of thought. One school of thought says this is a better rep range versus the other one. You know, pick your choice. Then there's another school of thought that says it doesn't really matter. Just as long as you mix them up, they're both the same. Both of them are incorrect. They do both have value.

They do both provide results, but they're also both different. They also do different things to the body, mostly when it comes to performance. But I'll even argue, and this is completely anecdote, I'll even argue it does create maybe a different look in the body. This is pure speculation. Bodybuilders have talked about this for a long time. I think I've noticed this as well. But I think the important thing to start with is, and the data shows this clearly, they both build muscle. You want to build muscle, low reps, high reps.

At the end of the day, that's what matters. They both build muscle. So somebody who's contemplating this or having this discussion, what do you think is the biggest or the biggest mistakes that are made? Yeah, good question. I think one of the big mistakes is people navigate to the one that they like to do better, thus- That's what comes to my mind. Yeah, thus they completely ignore the potential value of the other one. I would say that's probably the biggest mistake. Because some people are afraid to go low reps, and other people- The focus might be wrong too, going into that- That's true.

Rep range. Yeah, especially I know when you're kind of jumping into the low rep range, it really- Totally different feel. Complete different focus and gear. So I literally think you fall into one or two categories. You either are married to one because you love it. You identify more with a power lifter, so you look like a power lifter all the time. Or you love the high reps, super set, low rest period type of stuff, because you identify with that, or like the circuit training. These are the two that I feel like you either fall into.

People will gravitate toward those traps. And then the other person, who was I thinking of with the other person? The other person is somebody who is like me when I first started, where I'm like- Just throwing them around all over the place. Mixing every workout. Like I had this idea of- The muscle confusion guy. Oh yeah, I know the benefits of all the rep ranges. So every workout included kind of all that. One exercise, I'd have short rest periods. Another exercise, I'd have long rest periods.

Yeah, high reps, low reps. High reps, low reps, super set, some stuff. And so I really feel like you're one of those two categories that you kind of fall into. Very, I feel, few people, unless you're following somebody's written program that's mapped this out for you. Ours will have that. Yeah, follow something like that. I think if you're doing it yourself, you tend to gravitate toward the other. Yeah, so in the past, the observation among strength athletes was that low reps built the most muscle. So bodybuilders used to say this.

They used to say, if you want to build mass, this was the terminology they used, then you go really heavy and low reps. Um, and the data, early data showed this as well. So early data actually showed that heavyweight low reps was better, uh, or built more muscle. Now, what they didn't necessarily control for was intensity. So when you control for intensity, in other words, if we do a set of 15 reps, which would be considered high reps or a set of five, which would be considered low reps.

So long as they're within the same reps and reserve, uh, then they're both going to build the same muscle. In other words, uh, you want to pick a weight that you could do maybe 17 reps with, which is the most you could do with that weight. Like you'll go to failure, you stop at 15. So you leave two reps in the tank. Same thing with the five rep set, something you could do seven reps with, but you stop at five. Here's why bodybuilders for so long said that low reps built the most muscle.

It's because higher reps, it's harder to reach that, that point of two reps in, in, uh, in reserve because sometimes stamina gets in the way. So when I'm doing a set of 15 and I'm trying to get close to failure to rep short of it, is it the muscle strength that's failing or is the fact that I'm gassed out? Yeah. And so this is what bodybuilders noticed in the past, especially bigger bodybuilders who, you know, when they're moving that much muscle, this was actually a strong point.

Anybody who's experienced a higher rep squats understands this because that's typically, uh, you know, give me an isolation exercise and it's very easy to take the muscle to failure regardless of the rep range. Like it's, uh, it doesn't take as much gas and stamina, but ask me to do, you know, 20 reps of squats to failure. And I'll tell you right now, the weight I have to choose is not the limiting factor on my muscles. It's my stamina, my stamina, my, my cardio to do, you know, 20 reps of any weight is I'll get gassed.

And so typically what will make me choose a way it's like I had to do a weight that's so light that I could really easily move through 20, but my, it's not my legs that have given out by that. Totally. Now there are like actual differences between them and the main ones, the big glaring differences between them is the strength that you gain in each of those rep ranges is pretty specific to the way that you train. In other words, if I'm focused on low reps, I build maximal strength better.

Okay. So my strength is going to reflect the way that I train. I can lift something really heavy for a few reps. This is why powerlifters train this way. So I powerlifters don't train high reps, even though they both build muscle powerlifter goes into competition, trying to lift as much weight as they can for one rep. So they're going to train in this particular way. Well, what does higher reps do then? Well, it builds more strength endurance. So still strength, but you have more strength endurance, which is still, uh, in the strength category.

So we're not talking about like the cardio endurance necessarily, but it does build more strength endurance than maximal strength. Uh, like the low reps. This is something too. Like I, and I tend to lean more towards the low reps that if I get into the higher reps, like especially grip, uh, so everybody likes the pump, but for me, it was always like a bit of a detriment where, you know, I would hit a certain point where I would, I'm gripping and I'm doing low reps, but fatigue was, was definitely a limiting factor.

And I would, you know, inevitably my grip would fail. And so to, to work on that and then really like work my way through the pump and work through that endurance of it really helped a lot. Yeah. Here's another thing too, that, um, a lot of people don't realize until they start training both in phases, uh, low reps are easier to recover from. They just are. It's just not as much damage on the body. Uh, and that's because the formula for volume is sets times reps times weight.

So although you're lifting more weight, the reps you're doing are so low, the damage isn't as much. And look, we know this. I could do a really intense set of barbell squats for five reps. I can do three sets of five reps, real intense, three sets of 20 reps, real intense. Yeah. The 20 reps sets of squats are going to fry me. Even if I had the stamina to handle it, they're just going to fry my body. So you funny, like I agree on, from a muscle standpoint, from a joint and ligaments, I'm so glad you went.

The opposite is true. Totally. So, uh, like high reps, uh, so much easier for me to overreach and overtrain my muscles. Yes. Uh, low reps. If I lean in that direction and start getting joint problems, then my, my joints and ligaments start talking. Yes. That's where the aches and pains come from. Where would I stay in the high rep range? I don't tend to have that as much. I tend to deal with more, but I'm more likely to feel, uh, over, you know, doms, right. To kick in way more, that kind of fatigue.

Yes. Yeah. So here's where we're going with this. They're both so valuable, uh, that you really should do both of them, but here's what's important. This is where I want to spend some time communicating this earlier. Adam said he used to train in a way where he kind of mixed everything up all the time. Um, and there's not nothing, nothing necessarily wrong with that, but you're better off focusing on one for a phase and then moving to the other one for a phase. Why it's a totally different feel and mentality.

Difficult to determine improvement too. Yes. You know, it's like you become a master of none at that point. Like we're not really being able to gauge like, okay, well my, you know, am I getting more weight, you know, to this lift? Am I improving rep wise? Like, you don't know. Well, that's where that I think matters the most because is there something wrong with say me training that way right now? And I would say, no, there's nothing wrong with me training that way. So long as I don't have like goals that I'm trying to achieve, meaning I'm content with my fitness level.

I'm not really trying to get that much stronger. I'm not trying to change aesthetically because that's where the programming really starts to, to matter and dictate. And so I always, whenever, when someone tells me that they train like that and they, they love that, oh, I just, you know, I mix it up and I do all these things. It's like, cool. If you're happy with stay in shape. Yeah. If you, if you're happy with your fitness level, both aesthetically performance, everything like that, and you enjoy that and you're like, go for it.

But if you tell me you have goals and you're, I'm trying to get stronger, I want to lean, lean down 5% body fat, or I want to build five pounds of muscle. Well, then that's where that's not going to serve you. Yeah. So what I, so, you know, and I'm going to speak from a trainer perspective, uh, when I would train clients, when we were doing low reps, uh, the focus was on teaching them and coaching them on how to feel the movement or how to master the movement and the technique and the skill of the movement.

I was not having my clients do sets of five reps and telling them to feel their pecs or to feel their lats, uh, or to feel their glutes. It was, we're going to have really good biomechanically advantageous form. We're going to maximize your technique and your drive. And I really don't care where you feel it. So long as we're having good for me, not hurting yourself. Now, when I would go to higher reps, this is when I'd want them to feel things like I'm going to wait higher reps on the bench press with the client.

Squeeze the muscles. That's right. I'm like, here, this is the movement in the packs. Here's, I want you to bring your elbows. I want you to focus on feeling it in the packs or we're doing squats. Like here's how you squeeze your quads or let's say Romanian deadlifts. You're going to feel your hamstrings. So it's, it's a totally different field, both of which need to be trained. So I, you know, I've been working out long enough to when I know when I'm going to go do a set of heavy deadlifts or heavy squats or heavy bench presses, I know I'm not trying to feel the muscle.

I've done this long enough where I know the mentality, the technique and the form and how I'm lifting the weight. When I'm going with the higher reps, I also know it's a completely different mentality. And if I'm mixing them up all the time, every week, which, uh, which a lot of people do, they never really get. Good at either one. Yeah, and from a performance perspective, like just looking at it, like I would look at building a, developing a skill, I'd like, fatigue is your enemy.

And so that's why too, like the low rep model, you know, these are really demanding, like the compound lifts. If I'm like focusing on just loading the weight as much as my ability allows, I don't want to involve fatigue by, you know, before that I did this exercise that now I have to carry in this muscle fatigue that I have to account for where, you know, I'm not building these perfect patterns, you know, where I'm, my body's responding the way I want it to. I'm just kind of convoluting everything.

It's hard too, to tell what's really working well for you. What's works well for you. Like there's, we're all individuals, right? And all of us have shared our own personal journeys of, you know, certain rep ranges, certain exercises, certain rest periods, tend to lend themselves well with that client. Like I've had certain clients that just respond better with certain modalities. And if you're doing what I was doing, which is kind of throwing the whole kitchen sink at your body all the time, it's hard to tease out and be like, you know, what's working the best or at all.

Yeah, and that, why is that important to know? Well, I'll do more of what's working the best. The rest of what's not doing 100%. Otherwise you don't figure that out. That's right. One of the hacks that I had with clients, and I'm just going to give a general, right? This is very different from person to person, but later in my career, I really figured this out. And it was such a hack because of what it resulted in was clients that were less fatigued that actually built more muscle and got results, better results.

And here's what it looked like. When I would first get a client, barring any major issue, initially my goal was to get them to do correctional exercise so they can move properly. It's always the initial goal. Then I tried to get them to be able to perform these basic compound lifts really well. Once they felt comfortable with that, which could take anywhere between a month to six months or a year, okay? Depending on the person. Once I got to that point, low rep training with my clients almost always worked better.

Now it doesn't mean I stayed there all the time. I would move them out and do different things, but it just was less damaging and demanding on their bodies. They weren't so strong that we were, you know, risking injury on their joints. You know, this was like Mrs. Johnson deadlifting 135, you know, Mr. Smith, who's pulling 225 off the floor, but man, they would leave, not feel fatigued, build muscle great. When I would have them do the higher rep stuff, it was like, man, you better have good sleep, your diet better be good, and it's gonna fatigue the crap out of you.

And it just, the cumulative stress on their bodies was always harder to manage than the lower rep stuff. So a lot of my clients, I'd train them like this, and I'd move out of it to keep them, you know, the bodies fresh, but this is where they got the best result. This is why MAPS Anabolic started with phase one. Yeah, do you think that's because it's sending a louder signal with just less volume or just overall stress? Oh yeah, like you take somebody. To your point, like Ms.

Johnson, you know, she does three sets of five, you know, three sets of five on deadlifts for 145 pounds, 135 pounds, whatever, versus her doing, you know, three sets of 15 at like 90s or 60s or something like that. It's just, she's gonna get as much, she's telling her body she needs as much, if not more muscle to move that really, really heavy weight than what she needs to move. It's not a bunch of fatiguing work, when, you know, Mrs. Johnson, you know, doesn't get the best sleep, she's got a job, she's gotta take care of her kids.

So this was what I played with quite a bit. In fact, sometimes when my clients would come in and they were really fatigued, we would do sets of singles and doubles at a moderate intensity. I would just have them practice the lift, and it was funny, I'd have to convince them in the beginning to be like, am I really doing anything? Like, I feel like we're not lifting much, and then they'd come back the next week and we'd add 10 pounds to the bar, and I'd say, look, you just got stronger, and it just was less damaging.

Now, when my clients started getting really strong, which I didn't have a lot of clients that got to that place, like Doug's a good example. He started getting really, really strong. Well, we're not gonna play with the singles and doubles all the time, he's pulling 400 pounds at 165 pounds. Now we're looking at risk of injury, so now we're gonna play with some other things, but just something to consider. But I think the important thing to understand with this is do both, do them in phases.

Stick to one for like three or four weeks, have fun with it, learn. Learn how to train that way, then move into the next one for four weeks. It's one of the best things you could do to get perpetual progress. Now, when somebody is looking for body composition change, my favorite thing to tell that person regarding this conversation is the best thing you could possibly do is the thing you're not doing. Of course. One of my go-to favorite moves with a client who was looking for a static change was asking them, what do you typically do?

Totally. And it doesn't matter what the answer is, whether if it's you tend to look- I've been doing five by five for three years. Yeah, five by five is awesome. We're doing high reps, we're supersetting. You wanna change, we'll change. Yeah, and that, with proper eating, would send this awesome, novel stimulus to the body that would induce muscle. Good example of that is Stan Efferding. So Stan Efferding, a bodybuilder, powerlifter. At one point, he was known as the strongest bodybuilder that there was. And even though the guy could squat 700 pounds, when you see him on stage, his legs seem to be lagging a little bit.

And so he started training with Flex Wheeler, who was a top bodybuilder in the 90s. And Flex Wheeler had him doing high rep leg exercises, 15, 20 reps. And Stan was like, man, it was so hard, and I never trained that way. But his legs, he gained like two inches around his quads from training that. Why? His body was so used to, because he was a powerlifter, he was so used to training in that way that when he moved the higher reps, boom, he got more muscle.

So that novelty effect, I think, is an important thing to communicate. I'm gonna switch gears and talk a little bit about a peptide that I just started using, that I've used in the past. It's a mitochondria peptide. In other words, it helps the mitochondria function better. I've talked about MOTC before, which I always love. This one Justin loves too. Loves it. I'm on it right now. Yeah, anytime I've used MOTC, I get more energy, I feel better, I get a little leaner from it. Not a lot, but I definitely notice I get a little leaner.

There's another peptide in this category that works differently called SS31. SS31 operates differently than MOTC, so it's totally different. Started SS31, I think I love it. Really? Yeah, dude, I think I really like it. More than MOTC or like a similar effect? Similar, with the energy, the clarity, the kind of good mood. Your mitochondria is operating well. It's like every cell has more energy. So yeah, it's a pretty good one. And you can get it. For a second there, you weren't able to get it, but now you can.

Mechanistically, are they doing the same thing? Are they doing something different? Different to the mitochondria. So SS31, I'm reading off the screen here, it targets the inner mitochondrial membrane to repair cellular energy production and reduce oxidative stress. So it helps the mitochondria operate better. If you look up MOTC, Doug. I feel like you said that's like the same thing, doesn't it? No. No, it's different. So this targets the inner membrane of the mitochondria to do what it does. MOTC regulates cellular metabolism, insulin sensitivity and energy homeostasis.

But how does it work? It activates AMPK pathway, which acts as a cell's master energy regulator. Here's what a lot of people do with the mitochondria ones, is they'll go one and then they'll do the other one. So they'll do like a cycle of one, a cycle of another one. And what's cool about these- So you have to kind of cycle off and then, yeah. Well, what's cool about them is once it kind of repairs what it needs to do, it's not like you got to stay on it.

Then you're good. So it's like one of those ones you could do like once a year. I mean, again, we don't like to do this, but I know in combination with red light therapy- Oh yeah. It's like awesome. Supercharge it, right? Well, especially with the mitochondrial peptides. Oh, dude. Yeah, it enhances. And our partners at mphormones.com, they're able to offer every peptide that is available from a FDA compounded pharmacy. So it's like all the good ones. Speaking of that, is BPC available, not available? Okay, it is back, right?

Yeah, BPC-157 is available again. So you can get it off there. And I want to ask you, Adam, you're microdosing to Zepatide. I have been now for- So you're taking like one fifth of a normal dose of a starting dose. Yeah, so I started off at five units and then I went to 10 units. Actually, I started off, they started me off at 1.25 or 1.5, or I mean, excuse me, 12.5 or 15 units. I'm thinking about the needle, it's at one, right? So they started me off a little bit higher.

It was too much. I noticed it suppressed my appetite. Because you're not trying to take it for- No. A bunch of weight loss. No, I really wanted to use it. I told you guys that when, although the first time I did all this, I had all the terrible side effects of losing tons of muscle. And I wanted to see what that all felt like by treating it like a client would treat it. It was all experimental for me. Not trying to utilize it to its maxing out.

Not trying to counter it with all your techniques. Yeah, exactly. Now, but what I did notice during that process was, man, my psoriasis was really good. Now, was it good based off of what some of these you know, practitioners are talking about? Because they think that there's some sort of- Or just that you're a little bit low calorie? Or is it just because I'm super low calorie? I wasn't sure, so I wanted to test that. And I was like, okay, well what if I took a dose that's low enough that I get some of the inflammation benefits from it, but not so low that I can't eat what I need to?

You mean not so high that it messes up your food? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So I've been floating around trying to figure out what that number was. It seems that it's somewhere between the five units to 10 units, which is like what you said, like a half or even less than a half of a starting dose. And it is like perfect. I feel the inflammation. I can tell it slows down motility, which has this psychological side of it too for me, which is, because it slows down motility, it has changed a lot of night eating behaviors that I've had for a long time.

Oh, so you're gonna feel like you have a brick if you eat too much and it's hard to sleep at all. Yes, yes. And it only took me a couple times of testing that to go like, I don't like that at all. And so there's been, it just happened last night where I had a good lifting session. I could tell that I was still hungry, my body was wanting to build and eat more. And so that's normally what I'd be like, oh, I lifted, I moved a lot, I'm lean right now, I could afford some ice cream, or I could afford some high calorie meal.

But I know like, oh, like that late at night and something that doesn't easily digest, so what did I go get? Rice and ground beef. Oh, yeah. You know, just another, I had a reheated one of the meals that I normally- It's like another plus side, it makes you wanna eat better. Yes. So I'm not sure if there's something happening with the GLP-1 that is impacting my psoriasis and inflammation as much, or is it curbing some of these negative behaviors that I've had before? All I know is I 100% and the inflammation is down big time.

I can feel it under my hands and joints, I can see it in my face, and I'm holding weight. Like I'm not- Psoriasis, you could tell? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, so this is all, so we have friends that work in this space that are doctors that prescribe it, lead researchers. So there are studies that are going on now examining the anti-inflammatory and autoimmune protecting effects of GLPs, because there's been so much anecdote where people are like, man, this autoimmune issue that I have, I mean, yeah, I'm on a GLP, I'm losing weight, but this autoimmune issue seems a lot better, or I have these lower inflammatory markers.

And it was hard to separate, like, well, is it the GLP or is it because you're eating less? Because eating a lot of garbage will do that too, right? Will make your inflammation go up. Off, but there are a lot of practitioners who've been using off-label, essentially, these compounded, just like from our partners at mphormones.com, right? You get compounded, you know, GLP, so it's not a preloaded pen, which means you can use a tiny dose, you can do a large dose. A lot of these practitioners are, I'm talking to, and they're like, I use them for clients all the time that way.

Like, they don't need to lose weight, but they have, you know, this particular autoimmune issue, we microdose it and it's a lot better. First person I heard talk about that was Dr. Tina when we got on the show. I remember when she said that she uses it a lot like that. You know, I have the same skepticism around it, like, which one is it that's helping me? The thing that I find interesting is that if it was from low calorie, I would think I would be losing weight, but I'm holding.

So it's not so low that you'd lose. Exactly, so it's not so low of calorie that, that for sure was probably a factor, I feel like, when I took it the first time and it crushed appetite and that was, I mean, I lost 20 plus pounds, like, quick. But I'm holding about the same amount. I felt like my body released about three to four pounds of water initially, the inflammation that I joke about in my face and in my joints. I felt like that went, and then I've just held right there.

I mean, I'm just holding at 216 to 218. You guys should see the studies that are being conducted on them right now. It's wild. They're studying them for autoimmune issues. They're studying them for addiction. Addiction, yeah. That is gonna be, that is crazy because a lot of people are reporting, and we don't have any studies yet that show that it does this, but this is a lot of anecdote and the studies are going on right now as we speak. So who knows? The jury's out, but personally, I've heard, again, these practitioners report back that their patients are coming back and saying, you know what's weird?

I know I'm taking this for weight loss, but I don't wanna smoke anymore, or I don't wanna drink alcohol anymore, or I don't wanna gamble. The impulse is gone. Bro, I got a buddy, I got a buddy who has a friend, a close friend of his, who took it for gambling because he had a gambling issue. And I'm like, did he notice that he wants to gamble less? And he goes, yeah. I don't know. So it's acting, definitely acting on the reward centers of the brain.

Theoretically, could it affect these things in any way? Yeah, theoretically, it could. So really weird. It is weird. I mean, here's the deal. For the weight loss effects alone, I predict two-thirds or three-quarters of the American population will be on them at some point. You throw in addiction, you know, positives. Oh my God. Addiction and how many people suffer from autoimmune? A lot. A ton. So yeah, no, I'm I'm pretty fascinated with it. I'm well over a month now. I want to see him like it I got a look back and see Exactly where I'm at and when I start doing it, but it's been a while now.

I'm at least six plus weeks I think into into it and I got nothing but positive things speaking of medications and stuff. Did you guys see this drug? I don't know if it got passed yet. I want to see if it passed the FDA Trials, but there's this drug that Cuts CPAP so it cuts sleep apnea. So sleep nap. Yes sucks. If you have it, you have to wear a CPAP machine 44% it cuts the sleeping events or these breathing events. I should say by 44% a pill interesting a pill.

It's a pill So why because it treats the neuromuscular? Dysfunction that can that can cause snoring Yes, so snoring oftentimes we're like, oh you're heavy that's part of it was tongue grows effects. Okay. Well, that's well, I don't know We don't you go there yet But but we do know that there's some kind of neuromuscular dysfunction That happens with some people because some people have sleep have sleep apnea that are not overweight. They just have it for you're overweight Shots fired. It's all right. I don't know whether we're the CPAP in here, but I'm down beak, but did you guys All right, did you got okay, so let me ask you guys this do you guys notice that like you don't miss you don't have Sleep apnea.

No, but do you snore if you drink? Oh, yeah. Yeah, or I'm really tight if I'm really exhausted or something like that So I periodically will I always have to ask Katrina because I don't know what I do and she'd never Complains a lot. A lot of people will say they don't normally snore. But if they drink they'll snore. Yeah Yeah, it's a neuromuscular issue that's happening. You know, what else can can contribute to snoring? This is a anecdote. There's a lot of them Gluten for some people.

Hmm. So people with gluten intolerances will snore more when they have gluten. Oh, yeah, that's interesting Because it affects their CNS. Huh? So now the side effects of this pill who knows? Yeah, that's I mean It's you this I don't snore anymore, but I was yeah, it's funny commercials, you know of all the drugs like that may cause You get the micromachine guy at the end and wrap. Yeah. Yeah, cool. My rash is gone, but I got ten of these other things More women want to talk to me, but I can't do anything Do you guys know what a merkin is I have a merkin this Yes, that sounds so that sound like that from the movie trolls.

Is that what that is? No the bad guys don't work in Okay, so I what brings this up was because like Honest, it was like can we guess Courtney was talking to one of her friends like hairstylist and they're joking cuz like they're talking About wigs and stuff and all this and it comes up. She's like, you know, I'm working. I'm like, no, it's a wig No for your pubes. Oh, that's what it is. That's what it is. I was like, I know I've heard this It's not just like a new this was like it's supposed to be like stick out of your It's like a It goes through there and it's like a little beard, you know for it.

How do you keep it on? Well in two people a so so actors and actresses like they do this for like sex scenes, too And they put that on to kind of cover up. Okay, so no normal person is like no, but that yes Why I don't know. That was like a desirable thing. Yeah, I mean guys wear muscle shirts now My knowledge I don't know I have I did not know that women are like, yeah, you know, he's cool Doug pull it up. Yeah, my lady search.

He's already over here. He doesn't want to pull it up I really don't want to pull I mean, I don't think that's a thing Is it is that a thing you're like you're insecure because you don't have enough well because back in the day again This is like the syphilis days Merkin trends. Yeah, like Yeah, he's a high-fashion resurgence in popularity through high-fashion pop high-fashion. There you go Yes, sir. I thought you're the fashion guy I know I'm not claiming that public figures like Doja Cat and Julia Fox.

I don't know but they're famous rapper Oh, yeah, they bring back the 1970s full bush So what I don't understand is what I grow it themselves. You want to just grow it? Maybe Maybe they maybe they went too hard and then lasered it at some Right again, they probably lasered it off Yeah, why not? Why not? Listen I'm back to the single Sicilian and he's aware of Mercantilist like Of course, you know, they make wigs but I'm like I didn't know they made wigs for that You dating back to the 14 and 1500s They were originally used historically by sex workers to mask the physical effects of sexually transmitted You got a bunch of crabs You know, it's funny when you see like these new people that do it as a trend right now.

They don't know the origin of Why you wearing that what's going on? So you must tape it on it's got to have like sticky tape on it Yeah, or it's or just sitting in the underwear, you know, we should just sit It's probably just sitting there, you know, we should do we should buy them like a velcro We should buy them in a different hair color I just don't get why not just grow it out. I mean, I mean an Irish Birkin, please This is a carpet mesh Wow, you could also wear that as a goatee though.

Yeah. Yeah the murky Upstairs just don't switch about versatile. Just don't put the wrong one Alright I thought that was all right this total good segue because now I want everything filtered Do you guys read the story the study on HEPA air filters? Did not read this. Have you been seeing this? Surprise, you have it. What are HEPA air filters? So air filters that use a HEPA Like purifier so this is like one of the best Like air filters to clean out the air so that we have the big one in here Yeah, the ones we have in our homes because we all have the same ones They are very very good at purifying the air.

These are my level. Yeah, check this out Trip off this this was a study adults age 40 and older Performed at 12% faster on a test of executive function after using a HEPA air filter in their home for one month Wow, 30 days Wow 30 days Isn't that wild? Imagine what could possibly have a year Dustin. They're the particulate matter here. And by the way microplastics Microplastics a lot of them we breathe in cheese, isn't that crazy? Wow Do you know in some cases indoor air pollution is worse than outdoor?

Well, if they have makes that make sense because you're locked to your clothes just like, you know, you're in a box. Yeah Isn't that crazy trapped in there? So I wonder if like how much of our like degenerative diseases like dementia and stuff might be connected to some of those things So 12% in a month, there's not a supplement that would do that. That's crazy, dude. Isn't that amazing? That's interesting Do you guys have air filters in every room at home? No We have them in every single room you do remember we moved out of that the old place old And so I got really paranoid.

You're able to not You have to burn anything like it didn't transfer with you. No, we threw But I put filters in every bedroom and Yeah, so good. I'm glad I did Wow. That's pretty wild. Actually, it's a big impact I wonder how like the the biggest offenders. I know those like glade plugins are bad, right? Those are really bad No, I don't do anymore. I used to love those. It's such a Dog so it was like my what was your scent vanilla? Yeah That takes me back to high school though So high school You doing a nice cool guy I worked construction, yeah I'm over here copping a feel and make it out.

You don't say that's all I'm doing Guys over here's drugs and strippers Down arrow, I just assumed you were Right, right Shut up. Hey, did you hear about the otter attack? Justin? You were saying we're okay So no, it's not Santa Cruz, but you were saying earlier. Yeah, we have a Local like famous otter that it's off of West Clifton Because it's like this is this is so I don't know where it lives. I don't know this about otter territorial. I love otters They're so cute.

They look like little puppies in the water. It's my one of my favorite and they are super cute They're vicious. Yeah, so it was it would swim up to surfers and bite him and it was funny It was like otter 841. That's his name Wow. Yeah became it became it like people wear shirts like With the otter. No way. Yeah, he's like a mascot of Santa Cruz, it's funny. I like the name 841. Is that the zip code or something? No, they tag So check this out a veteran open water swim instructor from Reno.

So Lynette baleen 38 stitches and intensive medical treatment 38 stitches after being aggressively attacked by a river While swimming along the east shore of Lake Tahoe Wow, like wow, that's vicious. They're not even that big. I didn't think they could get big otters I thought it was just like little bites. I didn't think like you get decent size. I think dude I thought they were the sweetest animals ever. How heavy can they get Doug? Yeah, how big can an otter get because that's like a it's like a river dog I feel like they can get pretty heavy.

No, no, no, dude. They're five to fifty four inches long I would have guessed 80 to 90 pounds at least good lord. Yeah. Yeah 90 pound. Yeah. No, I thought so They look they look fat to me the river ones. Yeah River ones are meaner. Hmm. Oh, yeah Is there a difference between the river and ocean ones size-wise? I don't know but you know, what's funny It's either cute cuz they're furry. Maybe that's why I would be very I would not think they're cute. Totally How big are they all sea otter?

Yeah 90 pounds Oh God big difference. That's a southern sea. That's Like the ocean ones do that's right. We know so much about animals sometimes. Oh Is it the animal shows your son watches? No, I just I mean once while you throw out like a fact about animals and I'm always like, how did he know? 90 pounds. I mean I was wrong on the river. Well, I didn't know I just assumed that they were like the same size I didn't know that they were they were that dramatically different like half the size.

Yeah Huh? Yeah, I tell you guys I didn't tell you guys about speaking to kids my daughter my three-year-old daughter. Mm-hmm. She We go to the pool at the gym we go to and she got her a bikini finally And she caught she was so excited. She calls it a boob mask Look I have a boob mask Yeah Speaking of that we're at we're at this interesting crossroad or phase I guess with max You know, he's at that age now or he's he's he's getting too old to like he's been so comfortable with mom Like, you know grabbing her boobs.

Oh, yeah, like, you know does the same thing? Yeah. Yeah, my son doesn't yeah Yeah, and then Katrina's like trying like hey, you can't do that. Why I don't you know, why why can't I do that? Yeah You know or should we get out of the hot tub and he'll like stick his face between her butt cheeks and like try and Blow my god, bro. Listen, can I tell you something? I feel so much better now. I thought my son had a problem I was like part of me was like Max is do it.

I mean, you know, and maybe that's the thing I had to be careful like I'm like we've and I've also started to go like hmm Is this is probably where I need to stop doing this to where it's just like, you know him and I swim naked in the pool It's our boy. I'm saying that's different. I feel like that's okay, but I told her that but I mean I think we've just been so comfortable with our bodies open. There's no there's my son does the same thing grabs my wife's boobs Yeah, you know we'll do the same thing with the butt.

Yeah, she gets really mad Yeah, so she's like those are private areas. Yeah, Katrina's at their goals and thinks it's funny Yeah, and it doesn't help that I laugh, you know in the background because he first makes me laugh, too We're trying to I'm trying to transition out of that right now and like she needs to know and you know It's he's rubbing up against Katrina and as he can't control his body yet. So no, he doesn't know what's going on And so she's like, okay We need it.

We need to learn to have a little bit of our this would be great to remind him when he's a teenager There's there's parts of the good that are really cute So I'll come in because this is like the new talking point and like he's learning that and I told you to he likes to sleep naked, right, so If I if I come in and like there'll be times where I you know, I get in late or you know I was doing something I hadn't said good night to him And so I'll come in after Katrina's already tucked him in lights are out so I thought also come in kiss him good night and some of that sometimes I'll lay there for a little bit and Remember the first time it happened.

I didn't know what was going on So I obviously know what's going on now, but I would go in and you know It's pitch black and I'm trying to find my way into it to his bed I'm gonna like crawl in lay next to him and just kind of rub his head and kiss him good night or like that and The flight the first time it's happening like he also he pops up it gets up and he's like in the car He's just moving around. I'm like, what is he doing?

And I realized that he's putting his underwear back on Yeah, well, he knows that he well he's been told that like hey when you're laying in bed next to mommy and daddy Like you're okay You can because he's been told he can sleep naked and wants you I tell Katrina like let him sleep naked if you won't sleep But she's like, yeah, but then he won't he crawls in next to me and he's naked and this thing gets all hard She's like Just tell him when he when he's laying You know what our kids are gonna care is when they're 30 something yeah, yeah So but anyway, so she she's coached him on like, you know, you can sleep naked when you're by yourself But when you're with mommy and daddy you put your underwear on so but I didn't know that what was we going on?

I'm like, what are you doing? But he's like, oh I'm putting my underwear. I Think it's hilarious. I can never sleep naked Because always the thought in my head is if I have to jump out of bed to like defend my family, I'm naked Oh, I feel like that's one of the best defenses. It's scarier. Yes. I feel like if I come running out Ass-naked with my gun bro. You are more scared Yeah, I feel like it's way scarier. This guy's crazy Shorts I just don't want to be great.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, or you go like you're gonna grab him You don't even need a gun Guy wasn't there a dude? I think I read this a long time ago this article where someone broke into his house and the dude Tied him up and then like abused him the whole time. No. Yeah, dude, like yes, I think this is true It was like so yeah, so we were in high school. There was a guy we used to terrorize that would be called Under underwear Anderson We used to like we used to like toilet paper the house and be like kids shit, right?

No older guy. Yeah older guy and wall. Oh, I mean, he's probably our age my age I'm saying and he used to come out and chase us in his underwear. It was hated. So I we were all scared to death Listen oh here it is, dude. I told you look at this a local shop, this is an orange, of course, Orange County, Florida a Local shopkeeper his brother caught two individuals attempting to burglarize burglarize the commercial property rather than contending law enforcement The store owners took matters in his hands held him at gunpoint forced relocation So they moved in the back bathroom, then they were ordered stripped naked and were severely beaten Wow when the intruders were arrested for the break in the shop owner was also arrested and faced charges of assault battery with the deadly weapon torture and sexual battery But you know what I guarantee don't run electric fence change their life.

They'll never do that again. No, never though Yeah, I've seen from I read the word. What was that Pulp Fiction? It's just like Pulp Fiction Yeah, I feel like you, you know, that's the f-around and find out I feel like you do something like that that You know, I don't know. I feel like that should be that's part of the gamble your little heist didn't go as planned Yeah, I feel like you get that that goes down that way It's like I mean obviously you can't kill them and like what is torture me does torture just mean like they You know, they handcuffed him stripped him down whipped him a little bit like that So you deserve that bro.

You come in come and try to rob me like you just get a little naked ass whooping It's like that's a lot. You're lucky. You're lucky. I didn't shoot you dead. It's like a gift or human option Listen, yeah, they're call the police or I whip you around a little bit I Want to talk about Manuka honey the company work with money Actually, I was gonna ask you something about monocle cuz so yesterday I asked you about the stack for me for the things I was that it was the one I forgot.

I knew it I gotta give Katrina credit cuz she actually remembered so it's funny. So I so yesterday antiviral Yeah, so the audience knows because we're like talking in code here yesterday. So my son got sick. He didn't go to school And I was telling Sal I'm like man you recently talked about one of our sponsors and It's like benefits for like not getting sick or something I couldn't remember what he had said and I'm like so and I said man I should really add that to my stack and I'm like so I went through the list of things like stack the vitamin D the zinc the No, it was it was zinc elderberry it was What was the other one I told if I miss an alpha yes, I was an alpha so that's an ad and glutathione and then and then the thing that we couldn't remember and so I Did all the stuff I had Katrina and then what made me remember it was last night so we have we have tea like every night and we had that she had just had this she had bought this other off-brand honey because our guy next door who does the does the Does his own honey was out so we just happen to have this random honey that I had on the counter And so I just used it and she's like, why are you using that?

Why would you use the monocore because or like right now max is sick and I'm like That's the thing that sell but that's what we couldn't figure out. It was that right? Yeah, cuz it's antiviral antibacterial And especially when you're being exposed right before you get sick use it. Yes. Yep. Yep So there's the there's the monster stack for you right there. Yeah in a D glutathione zinc Elderberry thymus in alpha minor monocore monocore. You want the ultimate defense to getting sick? Well, you haven't got sick in a while.

Um, I mean not going well right now, but you've been sick inside this room with us Max has been sick. Katrina has been sick. I That's sick. No, Justin never gets you don't get sick either him and Doug don't get sick You've been sick three times the whole time I've known you both my kids have been sick quite a bit Which is what's interesting about that meet is the two of you the more cortisol stress junkies of the two out of all of us Maybe we're too relaxed.

Yeah, maybe me. Yeah, maybe we need more stress. Maybe I'm less stressed than I was Last time Cabral did it but last time I tested normal. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Wow What what would he what would you attribute that because that was something you oh, I worked on that so hard you did That's yeah, I mean like so hard meaning I slept more Yeah Try to change some lifestyle things such as beating the clock, you know, you know more often I'm not late. I was Was that no, that's that's a fair assessment I think it's been a long time since I seen it there had been many times before that were like you were scrambling doing Multitasking coming scrambled for a long time.

Yeah, you haven't which is a good sign. No, you're right My stress is way down but sleep actually rare that I get here because I'm normally one of the first ones here It's rare. I get here and you're not already here Which was not the case. That wasn't yeah. Yeah, that's it. It's truly. I've turned a new leaf Good. I wonder that's I wonder how much that is playing a factor the sleep for me is a is a big I got a huge. I got a 60 last night.

Oh, no. Yeah, I just cuz I didn't I didn't go to sleep on time Uh, well watching no, I was trying to get some for my wife all night long and okay and she yeah She was like and normally she's game always but she was she knows that it gives her energy and it puts me to sleep So that you know, that's how I need to sleep. Yeah Yeah, I'm like I need to sleep and she's going like she turned you down that never happened. I know well that is cuz you Know what?

I missed my window So which I don't like that. No, I don't like putting me in a window. Yeah, like it's so she she's like, you know Hey, let's go. It's like six o'clock, you know, so that's too early. I'm gonna relax a little bit I want to do my thing and then I will or whatever with that and then because I missed my window She's like no, it's gonna wake me up and then all night long. I'm trying and then I can't sleep because I'm like Yeah I don't know about you guys, but that's my like, you know, she says no and they're like an hour later It's like there's something subconscious I don't think I'm not even like doing it like trying it just like some consciously like let me see my wife Just my wife tells me I'm just you're receiving this She says I'm incessant like I'll come on to her and then it's always at the wrong time She's like just have told me she has a migraine ten minutes later.

I'm like And I'm just kind of like persistent it's the sales guy in me, you know, I mean maybe that makes me good at sales I think that's right. It's hard for me. I mean, I'm like, well, there's you know circle the wagon Yeah, it's another objection. We've been five nose. I got two more to go I go to bed and there's that, you know, ten o'clock at night and all night long I still think I have a chance until three o'clock in the morning I got a study for you guys on homeschool.

You guys hear about this? No So this is a peer-reviewed study. That was the first nationwide homeschool achievement study in 15 years You want to know what they found from homeschool kids what they score 29 percentile points higher in reading 25% points higher in language 25% points higher in math 26% point higher in social studies and 27% points higher in science. So generally speaking they perform better You know, I find so interesting about that is how how different that is from what I felt like the narrative was.

Yes So opposite of what you I think people thought before it or is it Sal has Public education just got that bad Well, or is it just a combination of the two? I think it's like maybe homeschooling isn't that much better It's just that public schools are so bad Here's what I know because now I know because we homeschool and I know enough parents at homeschool now because we homeschool One thing that always this is consistent across the board from everybody. I've met It takes them an hour or two hours to do all the schoolwork of the day, that's it Yeah, so you normally go to school for like seven hours.

These kids are done. I have to start super early morning No, dude, like no kid performs awesome like that. No and nobody knows much of a vested interest. So I look at parent I look at This great example in front of me of my son's age and three different approaches to this, right? So we've got you and Jessica with homeschool. I've got my best friend who's public school and their teachers and Katrina and I who have max in private school and I would say all of our kids are excelling but it Strategically from different for different reasons, right like your point about homeschooling.

Yes Like so exactly like you you've pointed out the benefits and of homeschooling. So that Obviously I've seen what with Max and his school like I'm so impressed with a like I know that I don't have The what Jessica has the disciplines you need if you're gonna home school, I could never do it if it was on me No, I know. I know there's just so much so much so much more outside of just parenting structure Yes that that you're you're teaching them and it's not as simple as just you're not teaching them math and education Like there's values that his school is teaching him beyond education that I love right and I would like man I wouldn't even think to do that and so cool that this school does that then I see my my best friend whose kids kids are going to public school, but they're teachers and so school doesn't end when school Ends like they spend a lot afterwards.

They're very and their kids are wicked smart But I also think it's because they don't just it doesn't end at school when they get home They're there. They're both teachers. So everything is a lesson. I remember my mom My mom's like this if you watch my mom when she's a teacher, she's a teacher So when she she doesn't play with my son she teaches when she plays my son so like everything is a teaching lesson and that's a if you've ever anybody who's Been married to or knows a teacher and their family that they have that especially good ones, right?

They have this gift where you everything they do Is it like every meal everything and I feel like homeschool moms have this trait They tend they start to learn how to do that I feel the lesson and everything and the other thing too is there there's a I don't I don't know how you would control for This but I would imagine that the kind of parents that want to homeschool are generally more vested Than the general, you know group of parents who sends little kids off to school.

In other words less like disconnected Yeah, like how much of this percent, you know, 25% better at these, you know categories Is it that just because the parents are care and they're involved, you know factor because I wonder if you took The parents whose kids go to school public school and then took the ones that actually are involved Would we see the difference? You know, I'm saying well the other thing you could also ask yourself You should ask is to is like, you know, how important is Love right for a kid right in the rate the process of raising and how much of love is translated as as in time For them.

Yeah, so in other words You homeschooling them you spend more time with you spend way more time with them, which is perceived as more love And so is the more love playing a bigger factor in all those There's a downside to it too, and people don't want to talk about this, but I'll say it as a parent If if I had to homeschool my kids and it was all me. Yeah, you get no breaks I mean, I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes you send your kid to school and they're and it's good You like the school you get a break Yeah, you get like a three-hour break when they're little a six-hour break when they're older you get to do other things That's rough my wife gets no breaks except for the ones I come in and step in and give her otherwise It's all shifting and then it's hard for you to share that break with her.

Yeah, you know I'm saying so no 100% I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it I have so much respect for somebody who does do that or could chooses to do that I think that it's it's incredibly especially to be good at it, right? I think it's incredibly challenging It's again what I I've I'm so grateful for that we have is that we can send him to a school that I feel is teaching a lot of things that one I want and Then two I wouldn't even have thought of that I think it's so valuable one of our big motivations for it Well a couple one is we want to be able to teach them some of the stuff that we want to teach them that you Won't that you'd have to like specifically find a school that's gonna teach a particular way.

That's hard The second thing is there's things that I don't want them to be taught that a lot of the especially public schools around here Yeah, where I'm like, you know what you don't even find out till after that was my biggest consideration Was was dive drove me out. Yeah I've had that talk many times. We I said the the day they teach something that I don't want my son teaching I'll pull my I have friends who found out after after the kid learned the whatever they were It's like dude.

Well, I mean, yeah, and there was this like Idea that they could opt out like like my kids could just walk out, you know It was like sex education and that was just like the the teacher was literally like no You can't leave and you can't like hold on and you know, this became yes became it's like you can't you can't say That's how the experience is gonna be and then now you're like Literally going against what you're telling me is gonna happen in the class.

So I was like dude, we're out of here Yeah, I mean Katrina and I we went down to the principal and asked all the questions. Mm-hmm Do you teach this do you like I want to know Before it happens not after the fact because I didn't ask the questions because I want to find all that stuff out So I I agree with you. I think It's not just, uh, the stuff that you want them to be taught. It's also stuff that you don't, you don't feel their, your kid needs to be taught, especially at a young age.

It's like at one point, you know, he can learn some of age appropriate and some of it seems innocuous. Like I'm not even talking about the controversial stuff necessarily, although that's part of it. Some of it's just like, you don't, I don't think you need to be teaching the third grader that we're destroying the earth and that, you know, if we don't change directions in 10 years, like what are you teaching my third grade kid who can't has zero control over that to panic and freak out.

And all these animals are extinct and we're killing them all. You know, and it's kids in third grade. They're like, what, what are we doing? It's like, why do they need to know that? Right. So they can do what? Nothing. They can't do anything about it. Yeah. Why are we placing them in activists? And when they'll become a time when they will learn and then we can talk about it, we can discuss that. But at that age, the worst thing you could do is learn about something extremely stressful that you have zero ability to influence or control.

That's a very, that's a, that's a, not a good place to be for a kid. It's scary. Yeah. I think a lot of that stuff too, is, um, predicated on how a teacher delivers it. Cause I think that can play a huge role too, because you could talk about an, an animal being extinct and you can do it in a way that makes people, you can make the kid feel like we're killing these things. That's right. Right. There's two, there's two different things. Like I just used to be.

Exactly. Yeah. There used to be a lot of them. They've died off is one thing. And being extinct is one thing versus saying like, you know, humans are killing it, like that's how they present that information has a lot to do with that information too. Typical children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise. Haya is different. It's made with zero sugar, no gummy junk, and it fills the most common gaps in modern children's diets. So it provides the full body nourishment your kids need. It's non-GMO, vegan, dairy-free, allergy-free, gelatin-free, nut-free, and everything else you can imagine.

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Find out more at mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com. Our first caller is Mark from Wisconsin. Mark, what's up, dude? How you doing, Mark? What's happening? Hey guys, this is cool. Thank you. You got it, man. How can we help you? Well, I'll keep the intro short. Got into fitness a few years ago, been listening to your show for a couple of years now, want to thank you very much for your no-nonsense, you know, just delivery on fitness, right? Keeping to your core principles, finding unique ways to, you know, continue to just get those across.

But I'm a guy that focuses on goals and I kind of had a weight loss goal when I started, I got there, noticed I was starting to get a little stronger, which was awesome, and every couple months I'd have to go to the local gym and pick up a couple more weights, right, pick up a couple more weights. I'm an older guy, I'm in my late forties, but I feel really strong and I want to set a goal of maybe going like a potential strongman competition.

So I went online and started looking at like some of the categories and things you have to do, but I just don't know, like, you know, it seems like there's not a great separation of age, weight limit, skill level, and I'm looking for some advice. Like if that's not the right thing to do, tell me, like, I want to get strong and I want to have something to look forward to and see if I can compete with other late forties, gentlemen. All right. Good question. So let's back up for a second, Mark, cause I'm reading your email and it says, essentially you're talking about needing a new goal and it sounds like without a goal, you kind of feel bored or you lack direction.

Is that, does that resonate? A hundred percent. I got my personal trainer certificate about two years ago and I put programming together, would go to the gym all the time, uh, and now I'm, you know, again, life just gets in the way. And when I go outside in my garage and work out, it's, I, I just don't have the programming set. I'm always doing something a little bit different. Uh, not working on progressive overload, not focusing. I'm just happy that I'm out there and doing something, but.

Uh, I've noticed the strength kind of go away a little bit. So I, I, I want to get back. So the root, the root issue, uh, and just correct me if I'm wrong, the root issue is just kind of, you're losing that spark and you want to kind of reinvigorate that spark. Okay. So there's a couple of things here, uh, that we want to address with that now, one, uh, and I do want to say that having goals is great. I mean, we always encourage people to have goals, that's a big part of fitness, but there is a downside, uh, to goals, which is that you always need to have a goal in order to find yourself, uh, having the motivation to be consistent or to get to, you know, like I said earlier, to have that spark with fitness.

And that can actually be detrimental. It's now, it's not often something that someone runs into because most people just run into the problem of not being consistent. But when somebody is really consistent, constantly needing a goal can actually pose a challenge. And what you sometimes find with people is I would have clients that were like this, is that they had to sign up for something all the time. Yeah. This is the only way they could be consistent with the workouts. And what it, what it can, what it did for many of them is it just moved them in directions that wasn't really good for their bodies, uh, or they would, uh, overtrain or burn themselves out because it had to get the next marathon, the next triathlon, the next.

Whatever. So keep that kind of in mind. So there's nothing wrong with goals, but what we also, what we also want to do, and you've been working out for a while now, we're in the same age category is we want to find a workouts that are just fun for the sake of the workout itself. And that's a great place to be. Like if you just enjoy the workout, because it's fun, if you enjoy being active because it's fun, you'll never run out of that spark. It'll always be there because the spark really is just that workout itself.

It's not that I'm necessarily aiming for something it's that I just enjoy doing what I'm doing and that's a, that's a really, really good place to be. Well, we have to talk a little bit about why that is too, because at some point you, you reach these goals where you, you hit peak, right? So like one of the things you've been going through is you, you lost all this great weight. That was a huge goal. You've accomplished that, you know, now let's say you're seeing strength go up, so now we start, we set this strength goal and strong, man, we're probably going to see some strength.

But eventually you get to a point where at four, you're, you're late forties, you're strong as you, you know, you're hitting your 90 percentile strength, you got good cardio, but like all these things. And so it can get really discouraging when you don't see progress and part of, you know, like I'm definitely way weaker than 35 year old Adam. I definitely don't look as good as 32 years, like, and so if I'm always drawing back to like, if I have to have this competition, I'll look like I'm failing all the time.

So if I were to go try and chase something that I've already peaked at, I, and that's the driving motivator, then it can also work against me as like a, well, shit, I'm, I remember when I was so much stronger than this. And I, and it's like, so that's part of why that, that strategy of always having this like serious goal you can be a failing strategy, especially as we age and we'd been doing this for decades. Yeah. There's a psychological phenomenon you'll see with people when they accomplish a massive goal and then they'll have a period after of what can feel like depression.

So like, I want to be a bestselling author. I get there this, the year after that, it's like one of the hardest years of my life type of deal. Um, and so that's just some of the things you might run into. Now I will say this, uh, you are interested in doing a sport that does have a small, but very, uh, tight community. So like powerlifting strongman tends to have a really great tight community. And so my recommendation to you, if this is something you're interested in is to find a local strongman training gym or group, if one exists near you, uh, go to it and you ask them and say, look, I've never done this before.

I'd love to try. What does that look like? Is there something I can sign up for? Uh, or what do you recommend? And then become a part of that community and then take it from there. And I think that would be the best strategy moving forward. And I would recommend that to you. If you were 26 instead of 46, I would say the same thing I'd say, go find a strongman club, uh, introduce yourself and they love that. I mean, you go in there as long as you're serious and you're not, you know, and you're like, Hey, look, I want to do this.

I want to learn this. Like, what should I do? Uh, they're typically very welcoming, encouraging. And then you just go from there. Yeah. I don't think too. I mean, it's finding another thing to stimulate, uh, to, to keep the training fresh, there's nothing wrong with that. I think too, like, so if this is more of a long-term goals, like a, uh, a macro goal, right. And then you have all these micro goals in between. So if strongman is something that you are really kind of into, there's a lot of unconventional movements within that.

Okay. So now we have to break that up. It's like, okay, can I, can I learn, you know, some of these like really unique lifts and can I just start there and, and, you know, how do I, how do I approach that and then get good at the skill of each one of those different types of lifts? And I think just like tackling that piece by piece and then really seeing, you know, the result of that and the overall strength that that's going to provide and then bleed into the rest of your training, I think would be rad.

And then at that point, you're like, wow, I've, I've accomplished all these new, you know, sub skills that now I can apply and like, maybe, maybe I can, you know, be in this community and I can compete and I can, you know, you know, move forward with this. And so for me, it would be like tackling a program of ours, like all-time strength and really kind of breaking it down, uh, you know, on a micro level of like, you know, can I, can I really sustain and hold this heavy weight overhead, you know, with one arm and can I control that?

And, and can I own that? And, uh, and then kind of move and progress from that, cause it's totally different than, than, you know, going to the gym, just showing up, building muscle. Like this is really movement focused. This is really, uh, you know, technical. And I think like each one of those is super technical. So if you geek out on that and that interests you, uh, there's a lot of room for that. I love, I love that advice that just, and probably will serve you, uh, for much longer, right?

I mean, you could spend the next five years, uh, working at strongman specific lifts, getting good at a circus press, right? Getting good at getting good at specific movements. Uh, and, and that's kind of how I would go after like our strongman, or I mean, our, um, our old time strength program is I would look at it as like, here's all these movements. Several of them will be very unfamiliar. I'm going to pick one of them. I'm really going to hyper focus on to get really good at it.

Now, I'm obviously you're practicing kind of all of them, but it's like the goal is I'm really going to try and get strong and perfect this movement on this one and just keep cycling through it. And, uh, probably interrupt those every two to three times you're running that program with either symmetry or our performance programs addressed mobility and joint health. And, uh, and then after you've done it a few times and feel very proficient at it, then you could also go join a club or sign up for a strongman competition and do that.

So that'll probably set that goal out nice and long. So you have something to work on for a while and probably a safer, smarter approach towards a goal like that too. I love, I love Justin's advice. Thank you. That's awesome. There you go. We'll send old timey over to you, Mark. Oh, well, thank you guys so much. That'd be great. Yeah, you got it, man. Give it a shot. Let us know how you like it. Keep us posted. Love to hear how the journey goes. Yeah.

You're gonna have a good time. I will. Well, thank you guys so much. I appreciate your time. All right, brother. Right on. You guys remember we have Mark when we had Mark Manson on the show a while ago and his, his like life goal was to be a bestselling author, writes the subtle art of not giving an F, uh, it crushes and he was depressed for, I think a year right afterwards, afterwards. And I've seen that with, uh, with people with fitness goals. Yeah. You peak and constantly needing to chase the next goal.

Uh, and then it stops serving you and starts becoming an issue. Um, and then the people that I know when I would manage gyms, people that were so consistent that were in their sixties and seventies, even, uh, they're, they didn't really have a specific goal. It was just, they loved it. They loved coming in. They loved the way they felt. They loved the workout. They look forward to each one. And they, it was never an issue of, you know, I got to get this next, like lose this body fat, build this muscle.

It's just, they just enjoyed the process. And when you enjoy the process, forget it. Everything else takes care of itself. Our next callers are Leah and Audrey from Wisconsin. Oh, Hey, how you guys doing? Nice to meet you guys. How can we help you? Yeah, you got it. So we want to ask a little bit of a mother daughter programming question for you guys. So I'm 36. I've been in law enforcement for 15 years. I've trained consistently for about 11, but took a little bit of a break in 2021 after I had sort of a traumatic injury issue happen.

Um, and then kind of restarted again last year with Audrey, um, she's big into wrestling and I wanted to introduce the weight training aspect of it, uh, along with her wrestling training. So I just kind of want to get your advice on what we can be doing together to help, um, help her the most with her wrestling. She's going to be a sophomore this year. Um, last year she did in the, competed in the one Oh seven category. So awesome. Awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. All right.

So, so there's going to be a bit of a difference between, so are you looking for a workout for both of you or something for your daughter that you could help with? Yeah, no, I think something for both of us, we've been running with MAPS anabolic for like the last three months. We've been doing like we did the intro portion really nice and slow and steady to teach her the foundation. Like the big three movements Making sure her body is doing the right mechanics when we're going into squatting and deadlifting in particular just so we're not developing any bad Habits, so we've been we're still phase one of that But yeah, just kind of looking for something that both of us can do together I think since I've got a relatively decent history of working out that I can keep up with her to some extent She can definitely kick my butt in the cardio aspect of things but Yeah, that's awesome.

Okay, so it's gonna be very different in season versus all season for your daughter So it when she's in season, it's me very little strength training So I'm very familiar with wrestling training and it's brutal volume There's a lot so in season her strength training is gonna be minimal like very minimal like Like maybe three exercises once a week like that's it. Okay off season a traditional strength training program is Totally fine and and what does let me ask you this? What does offseason look like?

For her is she doing anything at all for conditioning or what does that look like? Yeah, so right now we have her meeting with a wrestling specific coach once a week and then her and I are either in the gym Resistance training once or twice a week depending on what our schedule looks like. That's perfect. Okay offseason It's gonna be very basic strength training for her So the most bang for her buck is gonna be in getting good at the super basic compound lifts No, it's not specific like wrestling specific strength training that doesn't come into play until you know Three or four years from now right now.

What we're looking at is building foundational strength. So things like squats Yeah deadlifts overhead presses rows pull-ups, you know that kind of stuff really good wrestling Exercises, are you familiar with the Zurcher like deadlifts or your squat? Okay Really really good for wrestling because it's you know, like a Zurcher deadlift for example The weight is in the crooks of your elbows and it's like you're holding somebody so it simulates what it would be like to clinch with somebody To do a throw or a takedown Split stance lower body exercises are also excellent for wrestlers because it's strengthening her leg Now squats are great, too But you also want split stance exercises because when she's doing like a takedown a single leg a double leg She's shooting and it's usually one knee that's forward when she's driving through to do the takedown And so what you would essentially do in the offseason is you would pick To it'll be two full body workouts.

It'd be one leg one push one pull Maybe a core exercise and then you're done one of those workouts should have a split stance. One of them should have like a Bilateral and that's offseason in season. She's doing like two or three exercises once a week and that's it So right now I'm doing powerlift 15 with my son And we're doing it three times a week and to his point about just doing, you know Focusing on the compound lifts and what you're talking about. I think like what do you guys think about like 15 strong?

Yeah, but like split up so you'd probably do it like three times a week love it like the full You know five day cadence it just because the volume of it I think is more appropriate the focus of it's more specific to those like compound lifts and then you can get Introduction to you are you take are you taking because it's got that's got that's six workouts So are you are you pairing to the workouts? So is it four exercises in her workout or you only doing to work out two lifts?

I'm only doing two lifts Okay, so I just wanna make sure that's clear. So she knows that when we send it to her So it's like we'll send 15 strong to you in there will be six workouts Basically what Justin's saying is taking you're doing three of them one week do the next three the next week and so on Mainly because of the skill of wrestling. I want her to stay specific to that you know when conditioning wise or movement wise The the weight training itself if you just like stick with those two Exercise, but you ramp that intensity up like progressively.

I think that'll serve her a lot better Yeah, the name of the game with a young athlete, especially in a sport like wrestling is injury prevention And building good stability and strength and she's especially in season. She's going to be towing the line Constantly between over training and you know what she could tolerate type of deal and so we want to build resilience In her body in the offseason and in in season we're trying to manage stress quite a bit So I'm sure you already know this and this is very I have teenage kids myself Like most important thing is going to be sleep and nutrition for both those things Those make the biggest difference but 15 strong is a great program for her to follow now leave for you You're not doing the wrestling in So your volume can be higher Than her probably do double that.

Yeah, so you'd be doing twice as much essentially than your daughter with the strength training But you'd be there, of course watch her technique and form and do all that. Do you have math 15 strong by any chance? No, we don't. Okay, that'll be that'll be the program. We'll send you house and do that. Yeah, and we'll do that That'll be awesome. And then is there anything specific that I need to be looking for with her? Just cues that she's over training because that's really what I'm worried about come wrestling season right now We're she's right around 116 115 for body weight She tends to not eat enough decrease in strength You know stiffness and tightness and achiness Yeah, those things.

So is it okay if I go a little deeper into that? Okay, so the big thing to consider With it with a weight class sport like wrestling and this is just as true for the guys. Okay The body dysmorphia is very high in Weight-controlled sports so constantly cutting and trying to make weight what you see with young Girls is and you see this common with with girls sports anyway But especially with a weight class sport is they don't they lose their period that's a big sign right there.

You lose your period We're not eating enough and we're over training And it tends to be accepted as like, oh, that's just what happens But that right there is a big sign and then also with weight class and I know coaches hate it when I say this They really don't like it. But when I would train young wrestlers, I mean if they're within five pounds, that's fine after that I'm like you're wrestling in a higher weight class because the constant like try to stay at that weight as much as possible Some of the hardest clients I've ever trained Were clients who had who had been in a sport for high school and especially college Where they were always fighting to be in a weight class and then they get out of those sports They're trying to live a regular life and their relationship with food and training is so difficult to unwind It's very very difficult to unwind.

So and another way to say this is that she will do better with Five to ten pounds more muscle on her in a higher weight class than she will do cutting eight pounds down to the lower weight class that they might originally say she's in and That'll impede like and that this will also impede on our ability to build muscle and build strength if we're constantly always trying to cut down to a weight and So, you know these coaches sometimes they want to put a kid like oh, I need somebody at this weight So she's close to that.

So we're gonna put her there. It's like I mean if this is this was my daughter or son, it would be like no We're gonna we're gonna build Muscle and get strong and do all the things that you're trying to do right now and kind of where her weight lands That's where we're gonna that's what class she's gonna be and that's kind of the attitude I would have is in the offseason you guys build get strong Do all the things you were talking about and what you're already kind of doing and then when season comes in This is where you're at.

Yeah, wherever she's close to that's the weight class. We're going to I'm not allowing some coach to tell me Like oh, I want her in this weight class right now and then all offseason She's trying to keep her weight close to that and and not build When that's what she should be doing right now is building strength and feeding fueling her body to build strength And then we'll then we'll dictate and just gonna be and leave like coaches are very convincing and so what though and that's their job Like you're a coach your jobs to win.

So I get it But what they're gonna say is she's got a lot of talent If she's this weight class, she could totally dominate this. She's got a lot of potential here And so as a parent you're like, oh, I don't want to take away from my kids Potential success and so it starts to become compromised and I'm telling you later on This turn this can turn into some kind of big issues and so the weight class part I'd be very careful with and so my Goal, the goal would be Make sure my daughter eats make sure she eats enough protein.

Make sure she sleeps. Does she feel good? Is she getting stronger your mom, you know better than anybody so you'll be able to know Oh, you know, she's a little irritable. I think she's overdoing it or whatever And in this in strength is a great metric. Yeah, like if she's getting stronger She's probably doing a lot of things right if her strength's not going up or it's going backwards Sometimes oftentimes that means we're doing a few things wrong. And sometimes oftentimes it means just doing too much Okay That sounds great.

Yeah, and as far as deadlifting is concerned We I started her off on a straight bar and then we moved over to trap because I noticed that she was struggling a little Bit with just the positioning of the bar and yep Good call and now we're back to a straight bar. Is there a preference versus one or over the other? I love what you did Typically with athletes were trap bars kind of where we stay I think the the skill of learning how to do a good deadlift is is a great skill for her to have Yeah, so if and I think what you did is perfect.

You notice form techniques off. Let's go to a trap bar Let's get good at it. If she's having good technique and a conventional deadlift. I love that Yeah, if you but you see it off that I absolutely you're not but by the way There's a few ways out by going trap and there's a few ways to measure strength increases So I'm glad we're going here. One is the obvious there's weight on the bar that you're adding The other one is her techniques better technique sharper And I you know when I'm training a kid like technique is everything like I just want to perfect your skill But that's gonna translate better to the sport anyway, then just adding weight to the bar So if she's you know, if you got weight on the bar, she's doing a straight bar, you know So takes it neeks a little off lighten the load.

Let's get perfect technique That's the most that's gonna be the most important thing. You also want to consider, you know a body coordination isn't Where it's going to be eventually Her body's still changing. So that's going to change How she moves or how she how acclimated she is to you know, doing certain exercises. So technique is going to be Paramount And that'll serve her much better than being like I think we can add five pounds to the bar techniques a little off But okay, you're not hurt.

We'll just keep going like yeah, don't go in that direction right Definitely wanting to avoid any injuries long term. Yes. Yes, but 15 strong's got a lot of exercises that I think will translate Yeah to her sport, but honestly, here's the thing. You don't need to overthink a lot with a young athlete It's like if they get better at certain basic exercises the carryover is massive. Oh, yeah, it gets much more specific when she's you know 18 19 20 now the strength training gets very specific but at 15 16 It's just like let's just get you if you in the next year if you guys just get Proficient at the major lifts meaning your form looks flawless and you add a couple pounds to the bar on top of that That's a huge win.

Yep. Yep, like that's just that that's a good goal It's like let's get the most beautiful deadlift the most beautiful squat and if we can add five or ten pounds to the bar along The way to that's not that's complimenting her skill. So yeah, yes you just doing that in building You know overall strength and just add it's gonna translate so well, but really the skills the highest important. Yeah, I'm glad you said that Justin Nothing so she wants to be good at wrestling wrestling more is gonna do that better than anything Yeah, strength training is literally supplemental.

It's very supplemental. So don't make that the focus It's not the focus. The focus is not lifting weights The focus is wrestling and then how do we support that in in the most effective and slight and also gentle way We possibly feel starting to kind of impede on on, you know your performance with wrestling. This is where we kind of yeah If she's like hey, I came back from wrestling practice and I was sore from our workout Yeah, and it was hard to do wrestling practice.

Okay, we got to back off. Yeah on the strength training Yeah, that's that's good. No, we've been trying to be very Listening to our bodies and be intuitive with what's going on with if she's having a really hard time at practice We back off on the weight training or if perfect trainings a little bit hard, then we take a break from that Yeah, we're doing with her at all And then I can't stress the fueling the body fuel that body give it what it needs protein is so important The challenge of teenagers that is that's why I'm saying that is perfect.

I every every young athlete I've ever trained Getting them to hit protein consistently is one of the hardest things and it is one of the biggest game-changers Yes, here's the here's the two challenges with with teenagers always teenage athletes go to bed on time And sleeping in doesn't make up for it it's better than nothing but doesn't make up for it So that's number one, by the way teenage girls need about nine to ten hours of sleep, especially if you're training hard Not eight. It's like nine to ten.

So go to bed on time eating breakfast That's the other challenge eating a protein heavy breakfast is very very challenging. But if you do that, it sets you up. Yep so I just want to get it on the record that Parmesan bagel with cream cheese No, it is not no she would probably want 30 grams of protein In her breakfast. Yeah, so some kind of meat chicken or have to be or something It's easy like a grid those Greek yogurts that have 20 30 grams of protein in it That's a real easy that's normally where I got to start a lot of my young athletes because maybe they don't have a big appetite or they want Something on the go and fast and so I love those.

What are they? Oh, he close. I always say the name Rose we close or however the hell you say it Yeah, they come in there those little those little thing There's 20 grams of protein in one and they're little and so they can like Shovel those down real quick before they head off to school or do the thing Yeah, and that's a great way in or double it up if you have enough of an appetite and I got 40 grams of protein starting your day like that is Huge to being successful with and know that the way protein works Is that you could have a really good day on Monday?

And if to you know a huge day you go over on Monday Tuesday You're low that extra doesn't carry over like carbohydrates and fat. That means you missed That's a not successful day And you don't want to have too many of those not successful days of hitting your protein because it'll impede Your pursuit of getting strength getting stronger and building muscle. There's two directions here. I'll highlight first for your mom. So one is restrict, which is gonna be very, that's like the natural, easy direction with a weight class sport.

The other one, which you can start building now, is I gotta get my protein. And one of those will serve her for the rest of her life. The other one will be a challenge for the rest of her life. So hitting protein, if that's the target, number one, that's gonna serve, it's gonna make you recover faster, stronger. You're gonna get stronger than the other girls. You're gonna feel faster. You're gonna feel like you got more gas in the tank. The other one, you might make your weight class, but it's not gonna feel as good.

And so it starts in the morning. The way I've motivated my young athletes to do this, this is our competitive edge, because this is one of every athlete's, young athlete's challenge is to eat protein. So one of the, so we focus, like athletes focus so much on their sports and all that. And it's like, listen, if I can get you strength training and I can get you hitting your protein every single day, that is gonna give us a massive competitive edge against everybody else, because I know that 90% of them won't do those two things.

Oh God, 100%. I guarantee 100% of them are not eating enough protein. So that, those two things are a huge lever that we can pull that I'm here to help you, support you through that. And so drill that home. You hit that protein intake consistently, you compliment the strength training, you get good at the technique like we're talking about, and that will give you one of the greatest competitive edge against your peers. I love that, love that. And we very much went into the whole wrestling journey with the mindset of once we start restricting calories and really focusing on what weight class we're supposed to be in, that's when it's time to pull the plug on wrestling.

I was a 15 year old girl once upon a time, and we all think we're fatter than we are. And I'm like, we don't need to add any of that to the equation. Just be strong, be healthy, be happy. That's all I need. Yeah. You're doing it right, mom. Yeah, good job. You're doing it right. Good job. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. I don't know, Audrey, do you have anything you wanna ask about? No. I would love updates. So as you get into the season, please keep us informed.

We love hearing from our young athletes that we help out. So I would love to hear. For sure. Thank you guys so much for everything that you do. We appreciate it. All right, guys. Thanks. Weight class sport. So men, I've trained a lot of men. We just helped somebody not that long ago. I've trained a lot of guys. Remember the last caller, not like the last caller, but one of the last batches, the guy who struggled and we had a 90 day follow-up. Remember? And he blew his mind because he was one of those ex-athletes that was forever.

I think, was it wrestling? I don't remember what sport it was. Or running? It was some sport that kept him dieting his whole life. And he was so afraid to bump his calories. And then we bumped his calories and he was just leaner, stronger, felt better, everything. So no, it's for sure. I tell you what though. I mean, she, I don't know how long, did she say how long she'd been listening to the show? Because she definitely, great approach. Maps anabolic. They sound like they stayed in the pre-phase for a very long time.

Like she worked on technique. She backed her off deadlifts. She put her trap bar. She saw the technique was off. I mean, I'll add this because you kind of made this point. Now this changes as you get to higher levels, you know, you get up to college. But at this stage, if you want to have a huge advantage over your peers, you just eat right and go to bed. Eat right. Because nobody else is doing that. Everybody else is staying up late. You eat right, go to bed.

You're like way advanced. And somewhat get good at these movements. Yeah, yeah. I know. Yeah, you're so much further ahead of your peers. Our next caller is Liz from Utah. Hi Liz. How you doing Liz? Great to be on. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You got it. How can I help you? Well, I just have a question. I love helping older populations, senior citizens get stronger. I help them with their metabolic health, healthy habits, all of that. Often they are not comfortable with going to the gym or say they don't have time or they have a lot of injuries.

So I typically start them just with like walking and band workouts from home. But I also teach aqua fitness at our rec center and we use dumbbells and noodles, different forms of exercise there. And I'm wondering if there is a program that I could help with building strength for older people that maybe have injuries or can't get into the weight room. Yeah, good question. So give me a little more detail. When you say older, what is the age range we're looking at? Oh, typically mid fifties to, I have a couple ladies in my aqua fit class in their eighties, so.

Awesome. Okay, big difference. There's a big difference there. And these are deconditioned kind of beginners? Yes. Okay. So it's gonna be very, very basic. We have a program that you can pull from, but even some of the exercises in the program I send you might be inappropriate for like, let's say some of the 80 year olds or people who just aren't unable to perform certain movements. Map Starter would be the program that I would send you that you can pull from. And then really, you really wanna scale things back to meet the person where they're at.

So I'll give you an example, okay? So a very basic exercise, I'll give you two examples. One basic exercise is a squat, right? A standing body weight squat. Oftentimes when I had somebody in advanced age come in to hire me, they could not do a basic body weight squat. And so what I would do is I would take a bench and I'd put some support pads on it. So I'd elevate the bench essentially, and I'd have them sit down slowly and stand up. And so that was the regression for a squat.

And then as they got better with that, I would remove a pad so the squat was a bit lower and I'd wait until they could get like 10 good ones. And then I'd lower it again until they could sit all the way down on a bench and stand up with control. Another example is like a very basic exercise, like an overhead press. Oftentimes my advanced age clients couldn't even fully extend their arm. So without weight, they just couldn't get a full extension. Their arm would stay bent or they'd have to lean back or do something like that.

And so what I would do is I would have them hold onto my fingers. I'd have them push up as high as they could. Then I'd pull their arms up to the full extension. I'd put them in good position. And then I'd say, try and hold your arms here. I'd take my fingers away and have them do an isometric at the top. And so this is where your mindset needs to be with modifying movements for people so that they can progress in an appropriate way. I would say teaching a class setting to advanced age has to be the most difficult thing to do.

Class settings are already tough to try and appeal to 10 or 20 people that are all uniquely different and have different capabilities. But if I'm dealing with at least 20-year-olds to 40-year-olds that can do a lot of basic movements, you can probably put together. But to Sal's point right now, you could have some great exercises I put together, but then they're totally inappropriate to an 80-year-old to possibly do. I would say that most of the people are probably like 50 to mid-60s. They're just a couple older ones.

But the nice thing about working out in the water is I have ladies that come with a walker, can hardly walk, but once they get in the water, they do fine. And that's one thing I love about aqua is they can go at their own pace and they can adjust things. And so I teach pretty intermediate and we do lots of weights and reps, but I just wondered as far as an aqua class, I teach how to activate muscle protein synthesis through nutrition three times a day.

So I'm actually seeing muscle mask or skeletal muscle go up every week just through nutrition, but I want to accelerate that with exercise. So as far as working out in the water, would you say that that's doable to increase muscle strength? Absolutely, so isometrics are great in the water with older populations. And so what they would do, like an example would be you're standing, maybe supporting yourself with the side of the pool, you lift one leg up straight as high as you can and then hold it.

And so there's a lot of these isometrics you can do in the pool because the pool provides buoyancy, they can get themselves in a position and then hold for an isometric. And isometrics are great for building strength and muscle, especially in people who need to regress to that particular level. So think of that, like what position is going to get this person in that they can hold in the pool because the pool allows them to do it for like 15 to 30 seconds. Okay, and as far as progressing, you know, when I follow your programs, we typically progress in weight to get stronger, but in the pool, when we don't have a lot of options of increasing weight, would you just say more reps?

Would that be the best route to go? More reps, more time, increased tension. More velocity. Yeah, and then here's the other thing. Do you offer one-on-one to any of them if they want it? I haven't. Most of my clients that I coach are over phone and Zoom, so I'm not in the gym with them personally unless I'm teaching a class. Okay, because that would be another thing, would be to offer one-on-one with the people that need it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and what about for someone like myself?

I mean, I've been very consistent in the gym for about four years, really increased muscle strength, but it seems like over the past year, like I'm just kind of really in the thick of perimenopause. All my joints hurt. It seems like I'm nursing a lot of injuries, shoulder, hip, knee, and so I don't feel like I am progressing so well in the gym. Would something working more in the water with it being better on joints, do you think I would see results in the water? Because right now I teach on the side of the pool, but if I myself got in and really worked on weights and exercises in the water, do you feel like someone that's maybe not a beginner would see results?

I don't think that would be your workout. No. Although that wouldn't hurt you to do that in addition to what you're doing. I think getting in the water, the benefit of that would be it would make you a better coach because you're in the water and you are feeling the water, and so it allows you to adjust technique a little bit better, but I don't know what the recommendation would be for you without knowing what your workout looks like right now and what your nutrition looks like right now.

We can go into that if you want. Oh, if you have time. I do. I typically, I love to follow your anabolic and aesthetic. I've been kind of playing around with the kettlebell workout and I feel like my biggest problem is I probably don't warm up or I have an hour in the morning, hour and a half, to get in and get, and some of those are longer and so I probably don't prep enough and so I'm probably trying to lift too heavy without warming up.

Yeah, so typically when I'm, so if I'm looking at an avatar that you kind of fit, right, so you're working fitness, you've probably been doing it a while, and now you're starting to notice a lot of aches and pains, and also based off of the program, one of the programs that you mentioned, which is MAPS Aesthetic, I can pretty much, I think I can confidently guess that you're overdoing it. You're probably doing too much volume in your training. I don't think it's an issue of warmup.

I think you're probably doing too much, and so the cumulative stress is now turning into lots of aches and pains. So like MAPS Aesthetic, for sure, is too much volume for probably 99% of the people who listen to our show or just people who work out in general. MAPS Anabolic is not bad, but phase three can get really high with the volume. So scale, if you're feeling pain, scale the volume down. MAPS 15 Performance is what I put her on. MAPS 15 Performance would be a great, it would reduce volume, address unilateral, multi-planar type movements, which would benefit joint health, and I think that would be a great program for you to follow and see how you feel from that.

We'll send that to you if you don't have it. Oh, that's awesome. I haven't tried any of the 15. I always feel like that would be too short. That's what everybody thinks. All of our fitness people think that, and then we get them on it, and they go, oh my God. I like that, too, because we need to really focus on movement in different planes of motion, too. The programs you had mentioned are very sagittal plane focused only, so to get that variation is going to help a lot to complement that strength stability there in the joints.

Yeah, I love 15 Performance for you. It'd be perfect. Okay. All right, I was thinking maybe I needed to spend more time like priming or those kind of things, but you think just cutting it down. That won't hurt. It's not a bad idea. So it's great if we're setting you up with 15 Performance and you're used to running an anabolic or aesthetic, it's going to give you way more time because now you have all this extra time. So if you do anything more, apply that to mobility and priming.

So spend time doing some 90-90s and do some thread the needles and wall circles. Do some of these movements to benefit your hips and your shoulders in conjunction with the two exercises from 15 Performance. That would be wonderful. So in a perfect world, you follow the weight training from 15 Performance and then absolutely with your free time that you have, because the program's a lot shorter, use that and apply that to hip and shoulder mobility, thoracic mobility, and do that every day with it. It would be awesome.

Okay, perfect. I spend a lot of time kind of physical therapy exercises on my shoulder, on my hip. I have a torn labrum. So that's kind of like prime probably, like just lighter reps, but I like that idea of doing that. Yeah, it's awesome. We'll send you a starter and a 15 Performance. You get two programs. Oh, I would love that. Thank you so much. And then as far as the older population, how are you saying, try to get them out of the water and doing things or keep them in the water?

I think what Sal said that is great advice, like you can progress isometric, right? So if you can coach, it's hard virtually, but if you can communicate well enough to them how to intensify the isometric, that's like progressing an isometric. So first it's like learning how to just hold your leg up and that alone will be challenging and they'll probably be shaking a little bit. And then it's like, okay, now you're there, now intensify it, you know, activate your glutes, activate, you know, so learning how to, you know, squeeze, extend your leg, flex your quad, flex it as hard as you can.

So coaching like that and getting them to intensify it will actually progress it. And then if they want more, and then it would be trying to get them to come out of the pool and let me do some of these exercises for a map starter. That's why we're sending that to you is that you can pull from some of those movements and then ideally coach one-on-one with some of them if you can. The pool's a little difficult, it's mainly cardiovascular. So do you have any of those actual dumbbells that like push and give you more resistance?

Yeah, we have a variety of different sized dumbbells. We have noodles, we have kickboards, we have buoy belts for deep water. We actually get a pretty good workout with all of the dumbbells. I try to do a typical. Um, routine that I would do like in the gym with weights, but move it to the water. And then I'd like to teach them a lot while I'm teaching things that they could do at home, like, um, calf raises while they're brushing their teeth or squats or, you know, like just more movement and nutrition to go with it.

So if, if your goal is, is to help them improve their longevity and vitality, which is what it sounds like, the two most important things that Trump, everything else, number one is consistency and number two is community. Yep. So if you look at the data on, uh, older populations, what improves their longevity and vitality, uh, when, in regards to fitness, it's consistency that Trump's free with their joints, that Trump's the most perfect workout is just that they do it. And then community is massive for longevity and health.

So as a, as a coach, as a teacher, number one for you is to make them want to show up and I know that sounds crazy, but it's like, how do I like, I got, I want to make this, they love coming, they want to come, they want to do this kind of thing. They want to see each other afterwards. You can even organize things outside of the, uh, of the class itself. Those things will do more for the longevity than going from a okay workout to a perfect workout.

I agree. Yeah, we have a great community. We'll get 50 people, you know, in a class and they love coming. So I think that the community is there and they're loving, like, I'm just really trying to teach them healthy habits and, and learn why they're getting stronger. You know, not just for strength, but for blood sugar balance and all of those things that go with it. So is this a, is this your main business, Liz, or do you do something on the side? Also, is this your main business?

Um, not water fitness. That's just something I started on, on the side, just because I wanted to be able to help, um, older people and I don't see him in the gym, you know, like I see him in the water, so, uh, I do that more for fun. I, um, I'm just, I'm a metabolic health coach for the past 15 years and I just help people, um, balance blood sugar. Uh, I teach muscle protein synthesis, synthesis, activation, like to build strength and healthy habits, exercise, sleep, water, hydration.

Um, so just kind of a overall healthy lifestyle. Yeah. I was just asking you is I think the ideal thing is to, to kind of do all the things we're talking about in the water. And then when people are wanting more than I would, I mean, if you're open to like individually, say, Hey, listen, Susie, you're doing so great in the water. If you want more, you want to do more, I would do these one-on-one sessions with you and so I would just have an op, just have an offer, uh, for that progression.

Cause you can do a lot in there for insight, like Sal saying that the big things for longevity are making sure they show up, they love it, but you might have the occasional person that is maybe in their fifties and they're like, they want more and they're loving the progress. And it's like, I would have an offer if I was you, that was like, Hey, for those of you that want to keep going and progressing, you're doing great. I have this, uh, one-on-one thing that I do.

Yeah. Well, I have to fit it in with the five kids and the 93 old grandma, like all the things, so I don't do a lot of one-on-one in the gym, but, um, but that is a great idea. Um, but I do recommend, um, your programs to a lot of people that are just getting started just cause I, I love your programs and I usually recommend like the bands program, like if they're just starting wanting to do something from home, but you mentioned, um, your, uh, map starter, would that be better than the bands for someone that doesn't have a lot of equipment or, and doesn't want to start at both minimal, both minimal equipment.

The starter includes a stability ball and some dumbbells. So it has a little bit more to it, uh, than probably just bands. Bands is probably the easier, like just getting someone started. They don't have much, just get some bands, suspension trainer, beer, another good option. Yep. Okay. Yep. Like a TRX. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Perfect. All right. I love that. Um, yeah, I just, cause I'm trying to build consistency without them going to buy a bunch of equipment first. I'm just trying to make sure that consistency first.

So perfect. You guys are awesome. I appreciate your help. Okay. That's my favorite, uh, my favorite group to work with. It's so fun. It's so fun working with people like that pool stuff. You know, it's funny as early as a young trainer, this is just, this just shows immaturity, right? As a young trainer, stupid. You thought, Oh, I just pull workouts. Oh, what a waste. It's ridiculous. Like what, like how couldn't have been more ignorant? Well, I mean, it's what you, I mean, it's funny. It's very helpful.

We talk about the things that drive us crazy. Some of them are the things we're all guilty of at one point. Uh, you know, as a 20 early 20 trainer, everything you viewed was through the lens of building muscle or burning body fat and the perfect workout. Yeah. Well just, I mean, the ultimate, everything is building muscle and burning body fat, and that's when you, in the context of that or through that lens that those do suck, but through the lens of longevity and health and community.

Well, she said it, you get someone in a Walker who can't stand up straight. They can stand up straight in the pool. And that is a wonderful way to strengthen that position. I mean, our next caller is Justin from Florida. What's up, man? How you doing? Hey guys. How you doing? Good, man. How can we help you? Yeah, not a whole lot, man. Uh, first of all, I just want to say, uh, thank you to you guys. I started, uh, listening to you guys back in 2022 and through the years, I mean, on and off my fitness has kind of been a up and down rollercoaster, uh, going to the Marine Corps and such, um, to where they pretty much just slay your body in one direction and it's not a healthy direction.

And then, um, getting out. I mean, I've always struggled with my weight and whatnot, but from 2022, I started listening to you guys and I got connected with the maps anabolic program. And when I started that program, I was probably weighing around two 45 ish. And within three months I scaled down to one 99. Um, so the program was very effective. Um, I loved it. I loved what you guys, um, preach on a daily basis about fitness and not only that, about, you know, just self-care, uh, mental health wise.

Um, you guys have helped me out a lot when it comes to my mental health, as far as even, you know, I listened to you guys about your father figures and you know, how you guys live your life with your families and such. Um, I lived my whole life without even knowing my dad, you know? So I, uh, I commend you guys and I thank you guys for everything that you do for the community. Um, so with that, um, after anabolic, I did a little bit of a, I did power lift and then my work life changed.

I changed careers. Um, I went into the post office. I'm a letter carrier with them. Um, and then I started getting on the program maps transform. And when I was doing that program, I was, I was in the second phase and I was doing preacher curls. And when I just went down, I think I hyperextended it too far down. And, uh, my right distal bicep tendon ruptured off the radius, a forearm bone, and they had to do a complete reconstruction, uh, surgery on that. Um, so with that, I went out of, uh, work for a little over a year with that injury.

And it just, uh, mentally wise really, you know, set me back and even health wise, it really set me back, um, even to the point to where when I wrote my letter, I mean, I don't have it in front of me to read it. Um, but you know, I'm, I'm one of the heaviest points to where I've ever been in my life of being around like two 60 year plus, you know, and, uh, I've been in all the way down to, you know, when I was, it's funny listening to you guys and everything that I was doing wrong, you guys called out and I started trying to slowly change over that time, you know, as far as even counting my calories, I was so particular and everything that went into my body, I was tracking and, you know, I just got really too much for me, um, mentally wise that I didn't want to do that anymore, um, to where that's when I really went into power lift and I just stopped tracking calories and I just started feeding protein into me.

And then, um, so I don't really know why I got the injury. Maybe it's because of bad form or whatnot, um, or just my body. I'm not sure, but I'm just at a point to where I'm trying to really figure out what's the direction of my health and the best approach to it. Take it, you know, to, uh, to go, I guess. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Thanks for calling in, man. Thanks for the kind words and, uh, thank you for your service. Um, do you mind if I get more into your email?

Cause there's some stuff you said in your email that you don't really mention. Do you mind if I bring some of it up? Oh yeah, no, that's fine. Okay. So, um, so some, some underlying things that we want to, uh, that we need to place in context to help with how we approach fitness and nutrition. Um, so since you got back from Afghanistan, PTSD, depression, anxiety have kind of played a little bit of a role, uh, in, in all of this. Okay. Um, exercise, uh, and nutrition are phenomenal.

Uh, for helping with things like anxiety and depression. Uh, and as those get better, PTSD tends to get a little better as well, but it can also make those things worse. A lot of people don't talk about how fitness and diet can make anxiety, depression, and PTSD worse. But there are ways they can make it worse. And one of the ways it can make it worse is by trying to control everything through diet, exercise, and lifestyle. Like trying to control every calorie that comes in my mouth, looking at all my workouts, like I need to make progress every time I train, or if I'm not progressing in a specific way that I'm failing and that can actually make things a lot worse.

And I don't know if that resonates with you, Justin, uh, with, you know? Yeah, it's all my life. Okay. So we need to do number one, and this is going to help you with a lot with the other goal that you have, which you mentioned in your email, which is like, Hey, I want to get in better shape and lose some weight. What I want to ask you is forget the goals, forget weight loss, forget getting stronger, forget all that stuff with exercise. What makes you feel the best?

What makes you feel good when you're done? My energy. Okay. So you want to just, uh, go ahead, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. No, I just, um, one thing, like I said, my energy, but you know, coming home and just my son saying, you know what I've done and everything, he just, his, uh, sense of pride that comes over him really does a lot for me. I hear you, dude. I hear a little underlying something there too, which I think all dads, uh, struggle with, which is, uh, we want, uh, we want to make our kids proud.

Uh, but I think your kids probably pretty proud of his dad, uh, regardless. So, and I can say that pretty confidently. So, uh, all right. So the energy makes you feel good. So when we're doing exercise to improve the way we feel, there's two ways that exercise improves how we feel. One is in the short term. So when we're active appropriately in the short term, um, all those feel good chemicals go up and we feel good. Then in the long term, the way fitness makes you feel better, there's two ways.

One, it makes you healthier and a healthier brain and body tend to be happier in two, uh, is the sense of accomplishment and the consistency. You're doing something hard, you're staying consistent with it. And that just makes us feel really good. So what we want is we want something that allows you to tap into both of those every day. So what would be better probably for you would rather than, rather than doing three longer workouts or two longer workouts a week, would it be to do a short workout almost every day?

So almost every day you do this workout that gives you that kind of like feel good in the moment. Uh, but also long-term is going to contribute to better health. So the maps 15 style program would be ideal for someone like you. Now, ideally, I don't know what your schedule looks like, but ideally you'd want to do it a first thing in the morning because it does, uh, when you look at the data, it does tend to set the stage for most of the day. Now, if that's not possible, it's not a big deal, but if your schedule can work around that maps 15 in the morning, uh, would be great.

The second thing I would do now you're a male carrier. So you probably get tons of steps already. 15,000. Okay. So I heard you say 15 to 20,000 steps a day. Is that correct? Yeah, it's got, he's got it written up there too. Okay. Yeah. Maps 15 is your workout. Now let's talk about diet with diet. I just want one rule. That's it. We don't need more than one rule. Uh, eat whole foods, try to eat whole foods, try not to eat anything that's not whole foods.

That alone is going to help with the weight loss goal, but it's definitely going to help with making you feel better. And it's also not so controlling that we're, you know, creating this anxiety around everything that we're putting in our mouth and counting things. It's just whole foods, maps 15. Here's the other thing. Once, when you cut out, uh, the fellows and I talked for a second, so you lost connection, but we're going to set you up with our concierge coaching for free for two months.

Thank you so much. That way you meet once a month with a coach, a mind pump coach, and then you report back to them and they'll help move you through the process. Give you some accountability. It'll give you 60 days of that. And they're going to walk you through, uh, this process, modify anything you need or whatever, and kind of coach you for the next 60 days. And I'd like to see if I can hop on one of those calls if possible. So I can talk with you personally on one of those coaching calls.

Sure. And I appreciate that so much, really from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. You got it, dude. And then if I can add one more thing, it's just because I, uh, I have a little bit of knowledge around, um, PTSD because I have people close to me who've had some of that, and one of the most impactful things you could do is be a part of some type of a community. Um, and so if you're not a part of a community that helps support, that makes a huge difference.

Uh, the, the place that, you know, I would recommend as a church. Uh, and so there's something to look into to have those people kind of do life with you. It makes a big difference can make them in the data. It shows it makes a huge difference. So just something on the, you know, little extra there. Okay. Yes, sir. All right, dude. All right. We're going to hook you up with one of our coaches. Got you, Justin. We're going to work through this whole thing with you, dude.

Got you. That's tough, dude. That is very tough. But I, what I said about exercise and diet with anxiety and depression is true. It can make it a lot better. It could also make it worse. Well, yeah, it's like, um, you know, somebody who. has body dysmorphia or eating disorder and, you know, exercise and working out and eating healthy could be a, yeah, it could be a good, could be a good thing, but it can also be a really bad thing. If it becomes this massive, uh, form of tyranny, like you talked about, and that's what it is, is he's tyrannizing himself through it, which will force him eventually to rebel and swing the other direction.

And so, but we'll help them. We'll get them, uh, we'll get them on our concierge and have our coaches to walk them through this, get them going. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. 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 math, anabolic math, performance, and math 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.

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