 Ladies and gentlemen, Salom Mike out here in nature. Bugs, spiders, trees, allergies, all that. Here to answer your questions, follow me, Salom Mike, 2K's Instagram. We have a very important special caller. Hey guys, love the content, Adam Paul here. Long time follower, first time caller. Thanks for calling in Adam. Does masturbating five times a day negatively affect my progress in the gym? I'm asking for a friend. Hey Adam, you came to the right place. Seems a little aggressive and I just worry about your grip strength when it comes to the deadlift from, you know, fatigue. Another thing you might worry about when you're going five times a day, that's basically 35 times a week. That's a lot. The lubricant bill might go through the roof. So you wanna make sure your finances are in place. My man, Natoria, says, how do I tell my parents that I pull Sumo? I don't get it. What is more anabolic? Cinnamon toast crunch or craft dinner? What's a craft dinner? Craft mac and cheese? Cinnamon toast crunch is by far the most anabolic cereal. What kind of mindset helped you guys cut weight and get fit while maintaining strength? Are there any tips or tricks to actually sticking to your nutrition program? Any specific programs or plans that are better than others? You're a big dude. My fat loss is plateaued at 260 pounds from 340. That's pretty good progress, man. Look at the cut and I'm not too worried about losing strength. I probably have 35, 60 pounds left to lose. Keshi, what do you think about fat loss, buddy? That's a long haul, man. You might need a little diet break. It is really hard to one, lose 100 pounds or so like you already did, but then two to diet for too long is tough mentally and physically. So taking a little bit of a break might be able to help kinda eat maintenance if not a slight surplus for maybe a month. Mentally though, I think switching up your workouts, having some fun with your cardio may help, whether that's sports or going from an outside exercise, walk, bike, run, walking some stairs, to inside doing a podcast or watching TV, at your typical gym cardio. I think mixing those up can help a lot. But the diet break, it sounds like something you might need. Losing strength, when losing that much amount, a percent of your body weight will happen. It's almost impossible to keep the same leverages and keep your strength throughout that entire cut, but focus on one thing at a time. Get to your goal weight, find your maintenance and then continue. In terms of a diet program or something that I think is better than another, I think one, you have to figure out what you can stick to. Adherence is gonna be number one, what fits your mentality, your lifestyle, but typically some type of flexible dieting where you're kinda tracking and keeping somewhat of an idea of how many calories and macronutrients you're eating a day, mixed in with some good amount of veggies and fruits to kinda keep the micronutrients going will be best for long term success. How frequently should you OHP overhead press to increase it? Good question, stock man. So with upper body exercises, with any exercise, you wanna find a balance of how much volume you need to progress and how much frequency you need to progress, volume being how much training you're doing, how many sets, reps and weight. Typically with the upper body movements, because they're smaller muscles and the overall load your handlings a little bit less, you can do them more frequently. So depending on if you still wanna bench press or how much you wanna bench press, you could probably overhead press maybe three, four times a week and make a lot of progress that way. One, you get to practice more of the movement. Two, you obviously get more volume because you're doing it more often. So I'll try to experiment with that, try a block maybe four weeks, see what happens. Changing up different reps, different intensities, trying to progress. Accessory movements for the sumo deadlift, Mr. Victor. So any movement we're talking about, I think there's the exercise itself which you actually is a skill and you have to get better at that exercise, not only to become more efficient technically but also build volume and strength in that exact motor and movement pattern. Second to that is exercise variations which are maybe exercises that are very similar to that. So in terms of the sumo, maybe the conventional or sumo block pull or stiff leg, something like that. And then beyond that, we kinda have accessories which might be a leg curl or a plank or even a bent over row, some things that train muscles that help that lift but aren't necessarily emulating that exact same lift. So I think one, you have to lock down and get a good program with good progressions for the sumo deadlift itself. Two, some maybe variations I like in the sumo deadlift, a sumo stiff leg, a regular stiff leg and the conventional pull itself I think are some of the best variations. Now when you're talking about actual accessories, I think some of the things that help things to focus on for the sumo that have helped me in the past go from maybe a 600-ish pound sumo pull to a 705 pound is building up my quads and my back. So bent over rows, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, lat pull downs, closed grip, wide grip, et cetera. And then actually just building up my quads. So whether that's a high bar squat, a safety squat bar, maybe some even quad extensions, Bulgarian split squats, lunges and my personal favorite, the belt squat because then I'm saving my back and I can break it up. I can get a lot of good volume from the sumo itself, working legs back, et cetera. And then I can focus on my quads with a belt squat and then I can focus on my lats with maybe a heavy bent over row or closed grip pull downs. It's one of my favorites or a chin up. Does power lifting, my man Brandon asks, does power lifting carry over to basketball? I don't like the term carry over because I think people think that oh, because I closed grip bench now my chest pass is gonna be better or now that I hit a slingshot PR on the bench now I'm gonna hit a regular PR on the bench. Carry over isn't the best word but any sport from golf to darts to basketball to football, I think if you need a base level of strength and being stronger is never gonna hurt. So in that sense, yes, I think power lifting can help basketball. Where training may differ is that in the gym the volume it takes and the beating your body takes to become a very good power lifter is probably too much if you're also trying to focus on basketball. So if you're playing basketball five, six, seven times a week multiple sessions, if you're a competitive basketball player at a high level you'll probably only be able to lift weights maybe three times a week and still have enough energy and recover to focus on the basketball. You have to prioritize things. In the off season you might be able to go three or four times and get a little more volume and strength training but then during a season or intense session of basketball it's gonna be hard to balance those things. So you only have one pool of energy in your body. The stress from training is the same stress from family is the same stress from studying and lack of sleep and lack of nutrition and lack of hydration. It all comes from the same tank. So as soon as you start to use some of that energy to add into that stress from squats it's energy and stress you're taking away from basketball and if basketball is the main priority you obviously have to balance those things. How do you maintain longevity in a sport like powerlifting? It's very difficult. It's very difficult. I think, you know, first of all, genetics are gonna play a role. How you train plays a role and then how strong you are plays a role. You know, the stronger you are the harder it is I think to be really competitive for a very long time and that gives even more props to someone who like Ed Cohen or Fred Hatfield and some of these legends that it did it for so long Larry Pacifico. Smart training, knowing when to push, knowing when to not push. Training in a way where you can get the most out of your training. So I think it's very popular right now to be really high frequency, really high volume because it does create very strong athletes very quickly. You get great results but how long can you do that and for how many cycles? I think it's better off to have times where you're stepping on the gas a little bit where you're shifting down. Maybe you're only squatting twice a week here and there and then when it's time to ramp up into a strong off season or even a meet then you're pushing it to three or four times whatever it might be. Efficiency in your technique before everything, controlling your volume and then again having kind of off seasons not competing too often and controlling your program. I think those are kind of the keys. Starbucks don't ever put sugar in my black coffee again. Deadlift variation for improving speed off the floor. The most common answer, deficit deadlifts. I disagree, I highly disagree. Let's be controversial for a second. What I found working with a lot of different athletes especially when they're pulling conventional and you're using a deficit is the deficit almost forces you to be in a tighter position and that way even though you're increasing the range of motion, having to pull that bar a couple more inches, it's a solid exercise but I think people get a false sense of tightness and often people can pull more if not the same off a deficit which kind of defeats the purpose in my eyes. I think speed off the floor, one has to do with how you're built. If you're built to pull you're obviously gonna be a little bit faster through the entire range of motion but then two, getting better at your starting position and how tight you can actually get is gonna help. I know a lot of people that I've worked with one-on-one or with our form fixes or whatever over time, yank on the bar and they think they're being explosive but it's purely because one, you're going from zero to 100 and two, your head's moving quickly so you have the perception that you're moving quickly where the actual bar path is inefficient and you're not moving that fast. Whereas if you take your time, patience get tight, get all the slack out of your entire system on the pole and actually just get stronger, you'll look overall more explosive and the bar path and bar speed will increase over time. A lot of people talk about my bar speed with 85% and under being really quick and really smooth and looking so easy. It's because I've taken the time to become efficient in the pole. Now I'm not the strongest by any means but I'm fairly efficient and also my bar speed is pretty good. What are your thoughts on daily carbot timing? Consuming the majority of your carbs, one to two hours window, pre-after lifting. Says Leo, Leo Lemon. So I think we have to think about our nutrition and kind of our habits in a priority sense where a lot of people have done it and I think my man Eric Helms is a very, very, very smart man. Kind of talked about the pyramid of priorities when it comes to nutrition and number one has to be overall calorie intake and this is all backed by science. Now what's gonna make the most effect on not only our performance but also our body composition meaning how much body fat we have. So we have to focus in on our calories, how many calories we're eating a day, keeping that consistent. Once you kind of build that habit great and then we kind of worry about our macro nutrients, the breakdown of carbs, fat and protein and the ratio that we're eating every day and that can affect on how we feel and how we look, how many carbs you're eating, et cetera. Then beyond that, we obviously have to get our minimum or a good amount of micronutrients. After that, I think we can start to worry about the frequency in which we eat and the timing of our carbs. Once you, again, if you have all the rest kind of locked in our micro nutrients, macro nutrients and also our calorie intake, then yes, getting your carbs more around your activity whether it's before or after will make some, what, of a difference overall. But if the other factors are skewed and you're eating too many calories or too few calories, then the timing of the meals and the timing of the macro nutrients themselves won't really matter. Hopefully that makes some sense. Does that make some sense? Makes some sense. So calories, micro nutrients, micro nutrients, then maybe some timing of your carbohydrates. Thoughts on occlusion training. So for those that don't know, occlusion training is kind of when you tie a very, very light tourniquet on a joint and train the muscle below it. There's a lot of research on it. Jeremy Linnike, I believe, is researching it in Oklahoma. Don't quote me. Sorry, Jeremy, if I'm wrong, but I believe it's Dr. Jeremy Linnike. And the main findings are that you can use a lighter load and higher repetitions and still get a good amount of hypertrophy training and stimulus from it. So that's kind of what the science says. And then the application is how you use it. I don't think science or anyone's application has shown it has any benefits beyond regular training, meaning that you'll get more hypertrophy or more strength. But something that you might get out of it is if you have some tendonitis or you want to not use such heavy dumbbells to get curls that you could use it and perhaps get a similar stimulus with just using 10 pound dumbbells over time. So I think there are some applications for it for sure. That's kind of with everything with programming, coaching, strength training, sports, is this huge barrel of tools and then how you apply them is what's most important. Ladies and gentlemen, that's it for this Q and A. Be sure to follow me at Salomike with 2Ks on Instagram and Twitter if you want to get involved in the next one. Smash the thumbs up. New videos Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday with maybe daily videos coming soon. Salomike, I'm out of here.