 All right, our first question is from Zoe from DC. Hey Zoe, how can we help you? Hey guys, um, so my question is I'm on phase two of, um, maps aesthetic. Um, I just started it and, um, would you implement any cardio into it? Because, um, I feel like I'm not doing enough sometimes. So that was my question. That's a really, really good question, but I need to ask you a few more things before. Yeah. What were you doing before? Yeah. So first question I'm going to ask you is, is this your first maps program or did you start with maps anabolic? Like, what's your fitness history before? This is my first. Okay. And then this is my first maps code. Now were you working out a lot before maps aesthetic? Yeah, I worked out, um, for a while now. I grew up with gymnastics and then I got into lifting heavy, um, did kind of power lifting ish and then just bodybuilding ish type workouts. Cool. Now what, what have you seen so far performance and I guess, uh, just visual changes since you've started maps aesthetic? Um, so actually my lifts have gotten, um, have went up a lot. So a few years ago I was in a really bad accident and, um, I broke my pelvis and, uh, I basically broke my back also. Um, so I had to start all over again. So I haven't lifted this heavy in a while. And, um, last week I got up to 225 on deadlift. Um, yeah, it's almost 200 on squat. So when I haven't done those numbers in years, so it's done great for me. That's awesome. That's excellent. Okay. So you're, you're stronger. Has your body weight changed at all? Um, I'm not sure. I don't really weigh myself. I don't even have a scale actually, but, um, I feel like I'm getting tighter. Yeah. Okay. Do you feel like you're getting bigger or do you think you're staying the same or getting smaller? The reason why I'm asking, I'm trying to see if you're, if you're burning any body fat while getting stronger. Um, I, I don't know if I'm just feeling tighter because I'm lifting heavier or, you know, kind of staying the same. I don't see anything drastic right now. Okay. And then do you know how many steps you're taking a day? Do you have any, any idea of tracking? Well, that's the thing. My job, I'm kind of sedentary depending on the day. Um, so I work, you know, with computers. Um, so that's the one thing like the time I do go outside is with my dogs, but you know, that's not going to add up to like 10,000 steps. Okay. Yeah. So I would start with that. I would start with trying to get your steps, um, to increase at first, track them, see where you're at, and then bump them by 25 to maybe 50%, depending on how low they are. So if your steps are like 6,000, that's okay. Yeah. It's okay to bump them up to about 10,000 steps a day. Now the second part I want to address is how you said that you feel like you can do more. If you're getting stronger, if your performance is improving, that's the metric you need to measure. Now, considering your background in gymnastics, from my experience, I've trained gymnasts in the past. And, uh, it's one of those sports where they train, you train a lot. And you really, you really push your body's recovery ability, you push your capability. And so that might have skewed your, your perception of what is enough training. Does that, does that resonate with you? Yeah. I always feel like, you know, especially on the focus days, like I'm just like, oh, that's it. Like, you know, I feel like there's more in the tank. I need to like push myself. I know that's not always good, you know, in the past, that's hindered my progress. If I, you know, go too far. But it's just that feeling that I have. So that's also a great place where to start to build the steps in, right? Because the focus sessions are a lot shorter than your foundational days, right? So one of the things that I like to do with clients that are following maps aesthetic is to build like a walk into that workout. So you go do your focus session for 20 to 30 minutes and then you walk post-workout for 30 minutes to boost your steps. My goal is always with my clients to increase steps over time, whether it be walking the dog or, you know, 10 minutes after your meal or 15 to 20 minutes post-workout and keep trying to increase just your daily movement through steps before we start to push on a piece of cardio equipment. And then once we move into a place where you look at me as a client, you go, okay, Adam, I'm walking the dog in the morning, I'm walking after my meals, I'm doing on focus days, you know, I'm doing 15, 20 minutes of walking after I work out and I'm kind of peeking out at, you know, 10 or 12,000 steps a day. Now, maybe what we'll do is post-workout on either foundational days or focus days, we might do like a 15 to 20 minute like hit session of cardio post-workout. But I would progress you that way week over week for the next four to six weeks before we even consider starting to really do. Have you been tracking your calories, Zoe? I haven't. I eat pretty intuitively. I mean, I eat pretty healthy. I feel like sometimes I don't eat enough. It's not like I'm not eating anything too bad, but I know I have trouble eating enough sometimes, which for me it messes up, you know, like I'll actually gain weight if I don't eat enough food. You know, here's another question. You mentioned you had an accident and you recovered from that. Do you have any issues with mobility, rotation, any issues with mobility in the hips? I know you said your pelvis and your back were affected. Yeah, that was probably my first big feat. Trying to get back to that, especially it was almost like when Adam, he's talking about his Achilles for a while, I couldn't walk for three months. So it was just so hard going from being able to do so much to nothing. So I started from, you know, scratch basically, and started like I was five years old again. So mobility, it's actually bad for me in my upper body than my lower body now. I get really stiff. My upper back, my shoulders can stiff up really easily. You said something else that I think that we have to be careful of, which is really common with clients. You address that you might be under eating sometimes. And that's where we can get in a lot of trouble if we start adding cardio into your routine. It was a great question by Justin to ask kind of where your nutrition was, because the last thing we want to do is to be under consuming on nutrition and then also pushing and doing cardio because all that's going to do is tell your body to conserve energy and you're going to end up going the opposite direction you really want to go. So much better off trying to add steps and walking and get to a place where you feel good as far as what your calorie intake is. Last thing you want to do is have low calories and then also push the body of cardiovascular. Yeah, definitely. I have one quick question. What do you guys suggest after aesthetic? That's actually great because I was going to comment and say that mobility work burns calories like walking. In my opinion, based off of what you've said with your history, it might be more beneficial to add mobility instead of adding steps because now you're improving mobility plus you're moving so you're burning those extra calories. And then the next program I would recommend is MAPS performance hands down, which does both. You're going to get those aesthetic benefits that it sounds like you're looking for, but you get that added benefit of performance and mobility into your routine. So I would say that MAPS performance would be a wonderful transition for MAPS aesthetic for you. Yeah, okay. That sounds great. Awesome. Thank you, Zoe. Thank you so much. Yeah, you know, it's I remember this as a trainer and it was when it first happened to me, it was so strange because I thought that ex-athletes would be the easiest clients to train. Oh, no, it's the opposite. They're the hardest because they have this perception of intensity and how they should feel during a workout that comes from their years of competition. And it's so hard to train them appropriately, especially when they're, you know, beginner, intermediate or just not, as conditioned as they were back when they were. Oh, yeah. And they can work through the pain. And so a lot of times, you know, you have to really spend some time repatterning a lot of these movements and things to make them beneficial again. So that way you're still progressing forward. I'm so glad Justin asked the calorie question too, because that changes the response to this question also, because if you got somebody, you know, so the listeners understand, you got somebody who's, say, eating 1300 to 1500 calories and they're all they're doing is weight training, they don't move very much. And they're building strength, things are going good. And then they want to add cardio like this. And then all of a sudden she starts doing 30 minutes to an hour of, you know, semi intense or intense cardio every other day or every day, what ends up happening, that person who's only eating 1300 to 1500 calories, their body. You start losing muscle. Yeah, exactly. And so great question by Justin, because I definitely wouldn't want her doing cardio yet, not until we get her calorie intake up into a place where I feel good about her starting to push her body intensely like that. The best way to go right now is purely just walking. And this is why it's so important if there's any trainers listening to keep asking questions because from what I've experienced with athletes and especially gymnast, gymnast, you know, Justin commented that athletes work through pain. Gymnasts are the kings and queens of that. I mean, this is, you will hardly find a competitive gymnast that doesn't have some kind of chronic injury that they continue to train through. I, you know, it brings back memories of the 1996 Olympics with what's her, you know, I think it was struggled with her last name when she did that poll. And she just landed with a busted ankle to win. They train this way. So and then here's the other part. You should feel like you have more in the tank. Like when you're done with your workout, you should feel like you can do more. Yeah, you should not feel like you're done and you can't do a single thing extra. That's at the point. Well, I do think it's really common with our maps aesthetic because those focus sessions are a little short, right? And so you kind of either one, you end up wanting to lift more, which I know a lot of people do that even though they don't follow protocol. But in a perfect world, that's what I would just have somebody just go get on the treadmill, walk for the rest of the 30, 40 minutes, just get some, especially if, you know, like she said, I have a very sedentary job. If you've got a very sedentary job and you're not getting a lot of movement, then you hit those three days a week when you're hitting focus sessions for 25 minutes, then you spend the other time walking on the treadmill. You got to figure out how you're going to add in more activity throughout your day. Yeah. But how about those straight gains? I love hearing that. It's so common, especially after phase one of maps aesthetic. Well, that's another great point too is like, man, if I have a client who's telling me that, we're probably not making much adjustments. You know, if anything, it's trying to increase calories. And so what I would love to do or have someone like her do is like, okay, let's just say, because she didn't know her exact steps, but let's pretend she's stepping 6,000 steps a day and she's asking this question. My goal would be, okay, let's increase your calories by about 250 a day. And now I want you to get to, you know, 9 to 10,000 steps every single day, hoping that that extra movement kind of cancels out those extra calories. We build our metabolism up. That's where I'd ideally be with someone like that.