 All right, there's one thing that the three of us did really well as our careers grew in the fitness space. We trained successful trainers. Here's what we found. These are the wrong reasons to become a personal trainer. Number one, to make a lot of money. Number two, oh look, it's a fun and easy job. Number three, I just love working out. And number four, I want to be in the gym all day long. Those are terrible reasons to become a personal trainer. Here are the reasons that we found successful trainers, became successful trainers or became personal trainers themselves. They had a passion for helping people and their favorite hobby was exercise. Those two things are more guaranteed to make you successful than almost anything else. So take note, don't become a trainer unless those two things you identify with. You know what's funny is one of them I don't think ever existed until recently with the explosion of social media. Make money? That was never a thing. Like when you, when I used to do interviews, yeah, when I used to do the interviews and have like interview trainer, potential trainers, and they come in, never once did, when I asked them why you want to do this, did they say like, I heard I could make a lot of money doing this. That was not a thing back there. You hear that now. You hear that now because again, because we have these examples of, I mean, God, we were just, I was just on it speaking to people like this, the guy, the Sam Solik, is that how you say his last name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, guy came out of nowhere. Let me show it. I showed, I saw Mark Bell shared a video of his meet and greet. I don't know if it's the first one. Oh, crazy crowd. Yeah. Like insane. I mean, and this guy just came from like just a year ago and no one knew who he was. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that exists today, right? This ability to become instantly famous and potentially make a lot of money as a trainer. But you're right though. I agree that it's the, it's not what's going to make you successful. No, because number one, it's a hard way to make, there's a lot easier ways to make a lot of money than to become a personal trainer. It's not an easy way to make money. It's definitely not the kind of job that unless you have a deep passion for helping people, you will not find it fun and easy. First of all, it's hard. It's one of those jobs where if you succeed 30% of the time, let's say you get people results and they can maintain those results 30% of time. You're better than 99% of the average. Like name any other job like that where you fail 70% of the time and you're killing it. It's, okay, you like working out, that'll get old at some point because you're not going to be training a lot of fitness fanatics like yourself. Very few trainers actually make a living training other fitness fanatics. Most people that you'll train or everyday people won't have a passion for, no matter what you do, they'll never have a passion for fitness like you do. And then loving to be in the gym all day long. I get that. I get that as well. But it is a busy, overstimulating, go, go, go. The schedule is not conducive to a normal life. Like you're going to be there in the morning. You're going to be there at night. You're going to be off in the middle of the day if, you know, that's typical schedule. You're just feeding your habit, like your place where you want to hang out at that point. You're not really like pulling yourself out like financially and getting ahead. It's like, okay, now I got my thing established. And it's good to like what you're doing and working in the industry you want to work in, but also to be somewhat financially ahead. Like it's a tough place to be when you're comfortable like that. It is, but you know, the passion for helping people is what will pull you through all the challenging clients. You'll have more of those than you will not. Yeah. It's what's going to pull you through the hours that it requires. I mean, you know, working 40 hours a week in a regular job is not like working 40 hours a week as a personal trainer. 40 hours a week as a personal trainer is you're on every no, I mean, there is no break. 30 hours is considered full-time training space. It's exhausting. It's just, it's rough. But if you have a deep passion for helping people and you love fitness, you know, it's like one of your favorite things to do, then you can learn how to make it a career. And if those things drive you so long as you get the right training, the right mentorship, then yes, you can definitely build a career doing it. But there's so many, the turnover for personal trainers so high, because I think a lot of people don't, they don't have those things, or if they do have those things, they never get the training to learn how to become successful. Because also, by the way, the two that I mentioned, passion for helping people and you love, you know, exercise, those aren't going to guarantee you success either. Those are just the things that will pull you through the tough times. You still have to learn how to build a business. You have to learn how to work with every Tom, Dick and Harry and every difficult person. You have to learn how to help people. You have to learn how to accept the fact that, you know, you got your textbook and there's going to be people who are going to be outliers all the time, you know. Well, shout out to our partners, our friend, Jason, over at NCI and their team, and what a wonderful job they're doing because we just recently had, what, 10 trainers, 10 or 12, 10 or 12. 11, I believe. 11, 11 trainers. But the difference. Yeah. Show up for the event that we had just put on, right? So we just did something special for the business and program that we're launching. And I think almost all, if not all of them, had gone through that. So, and most of these were all elite coaches, right? These are coaches that have been coached. Coaches, the youngest coach was two years. Yeah, that was the only rookie, I think. Yeah, she was considered the rookie of all of them, but all of them have been successful in all different levels of success and ranging all the way, I think, to 15 years, one of the coaches. So, and I think all of them had gone through NCI. So a testament to the good work that they're doing and coaching and teaching trainers had to be better communicators around nutrition, which I think, I think communicating nutrition has to be one of the more difficult things. Way harder than exercise. Yeah, because it's become like a religion, right? And so, just like trying to talk about religion to somebody that's like one of the things they say, don't do, but yet, as a trainer, you have to, because that your job is to help and educate around that. So it really does take a special kind of trainer to navigate those waters, to be able to have those discussions. Well, with exercise, exercise is hard too, right? Keeping people consistent. You gotta learn about biomechanics and exercise programming. Like, I'm not gonna make a lie to that. That's all, a lot of knowledge and it's hard. But when a client shows up, you train them. So if they see you twice a week, three days a week, you train them and so long as they kind of do what you say and you coach them, well, it's okay. Diet is with them all day, every day, when you're not there. And there's more bad relationships and behavior issues tied to diet. So I wouldn't tackle diet with clients until much later. I didn't even tackle, it's in early days, and I'm sure you guys did this too, you did everything, right? Diet, exercise, the whole deal. But then you start to figure out, like, let's get the exercise part first. Let's get you stronger, let's get you feeling better through workouts. And then we're gonna slow play this diet part because that's the tough part. That's the part where people really have a lot of challenges. A lot of pushback, yeah. A lot of pushback and a lot of challenges. But even, like I said, with passionate trainers who really wanna help people, the big challenge at that point, and you talk to any fitness manager, any gym manager, or you talk to any of these top coaches at NCI who coach other coaches, they'll tell you that you get those people, those trainers, then it becomes hard to convince them that they need to learn how to build a business and sell. Yeah. Because then they're like, I don't wanna sell, build a business, I just wanna help people. So okay, until you make millions of dollars and you can volunteer all your services, you have to figure out how to do this, otherwise I won't support you. But if you don't start from that, like I can't, it's so, it would be so hard. Imagine how impossible it would be to take somebody who didn't really have a passion for helping people to teach them how to become a good trainer. That would be super, super challenging. Well, you normally get one or the other, right? I feel like you get the trainer who's super passionate about helping people, but they're totally adverse to selling. I do not wanna sell. Or you get the guy or girl who loves to sell, just wants to close deals, and then they have no morals or values, so they wanna help people. So it was like you, as a trainer, or a leader of trainers, I guess, one of the challenges I always had was finding that blend. Typically, where I had my success was I realized that getting the trainer who all they cared about was making money and there was that journey to getting them to care was much more difficult than getting the one who cared and teaching them how to become an effective communicator and salesperson. Yes, it was a little hard, but man, I was... Yeah, I think what happens is that the people that don't like to sell, they have a bad taste in their mouth for whatever reason, maybe they had a bad experience themselves or they had a family member that was in sales or they have this connection to somebody who was a salesperson and they don't like them, therefore they don't like sales. And then you would have to kind of unpack that, work on that, and then explain to them that really you're in sales. No matter whether you like it or not, you're on sale all the time. People are watching you and you are presenting yourself and presenting what your business that you represent, you're selling your ideas to your clients on what you want them to do or not do. And so there's no way around it if you want this profession, you have to be good at sales. It's the greatest, most challenging sales job of all time. I'll say that all the along. In fact, when I do the... There's a three-day course I'm doing for trainers in January that you could sign up for. And one of the topics I'm gonna cover and do some in-depth training on is effective communication, also known as sales, sales skills. Now, why is coaching and personal training a sales job? Forget the fact that you're trying to sell in personal training or sell in the product. That's not what I'm talking about. It's that you're trying to sell them on why they should fundamentally change their behaviors. And here's the kicker. You're like reframing everything. And then here's the spoiler. You're not gonna sell them on it by telling them they're gonna look good. You're not gonna sell them on it by telling them they're gonna lose weight. You're not gonna sell them on it by telling them they're gonna be attractive and sexy. They've already sold themselves on that idea and it doesn't work, they still fail. So you have to find other ways of communicating to each individual. It's very different from person to person. That's what makes it so challenging. How do I communicate doing things the right way? How do I communicate taking small steps when this person is in this motivated state of mind, just wants to jump head first? How do I communicate to this person that the way that their friend lost 30 pounds isn't gonna work for, not just not for their friend, even though they lost the weight, they'll gain it back, but definitely not work for them or how do I communicate to them that this is a fad or that that works, that this doesn't work, that yeah, I know you think beating yourself up is gonna get you there faster, but it's not. How do I sell that effectively? And it can't just say, well, it's the right way to do it. It's like, no, no, you gotta find a way to say it to somebody so that it makes them wanna do it more than what the other guys tell them, which is lose 30 pounds in 30 days, take this pill, do this special workout or follow this crazy weird diet type of thing. The three-day talk that you're doing, it's hour-long sessions, they're recorded, so if you register for it, but you can't make the date, you'll still get a recording. But if you're there live, then you're gonna get to talk to all of us. Right, because then you, so Adam and Justin are gonna be on there answering questions live, and so you can just interact and go and ask us anything, we're gonna put it all out there. So this is cool because if you've been around for a long time, you might've got to experience when we did the train, train the trainers for free. So we did this thing, a live event, got how many years, five years now, maybe more? There was a few gyms locally, and we didn't even go that far out away from like, we must've done like four gyms maybe? Yeah, yeah, something like that. So this is kind of our idea of doing something similar to that, only reaching people all over the world, right? Because it's gonna be a live, you know, Zoom call or whatever, is it a platform we're using, a Zoom or are we using? I believe it's Zoom, yeah. Like full disclosure, we're trying to unify people and they help people through health space, which encompasses fitness, medicine, wellness, functional medicine, obviously probably mostly personal trainers because that's who we connect to the most, but try to unify them under this kind of common philosophy and then, you know, I'm gonna teach some of the most important things and then we'll have an announcement at the end of some stuff that we're working on, but you're gonna leave with some really, really good, you know, tools. So speaking of crazy and tools, I know you guys saw the video of, by the way, I'm so glad we recorded when I told you guys the Cybertruck was in a crash, you guys are funny. And we get, oh, it sucks, it's gonna take, whatever. It's pretty weird just questioning the design of it as a, I still think it's like a triangle, Doritos. It does fit, it does fit you though. I mean, you should get one, I do think you should get one. It's weird like me. I mean, it's cool, like I wouldn't, I definitely wouldn't, someone gave it to me, I wouldn't give it away, you know what I'm saying? So was that, that little drag racing stunt real? That's real. Yeah. The Porsche. The race is a 9-11. Beats a 9-11 turbo in the quarter mile while towing another 9-11 turbo. Yeah, great marketing. That is the most insane. Did you see that video, Doug? I did, that's crazy. Crazy torque and acceleration. The other day I was getting on the freeway and I saw a truck carrying two Cybertrucks. Oh really? How do you look in person? Oh, I mean, it actually grabbed my attention because they're so unusual looking. They actually look much more. I haven't seen one on the street yet. They look very formidable just in person, right? Yeah. Much more so than when you look at them on a video. Well, so the thing about Elon, that's incredible. First off, he has so much celebrity and pole that I think it's hard for him not to sell something that people want to get it just because of him. But he's got, he's so good with pop culture. So like in the Tesla, you know, ludicrous speed on their Tesla model, whatever. That's from baseball. And it literally makes, if you've ever seen it go in plaid, I'm serious, I'm plaid. You've seen that on screen, right? So this is like an ode to Blade Runner. So it's got that design, that kind of Blade Runner design and the tires look the way they do. And then he made it so that it's essentially bulletproof. I mean, there was that when Joe Rogan shot it with an arrow and it bounced right off. And the windows, you could like hit him with a bat, nothing will happen. Meanwhile, like it's so funny to me because It's a tank. You just see the obvious, like salty haters out there. So a lot of the, I still follow a lot of the tech magazines from Silicon Valley and like tech crunch and like Mashable and all those kind of, in any given opportunity, they're gonna throw shade. So they started posting, you know, when they had that promotional video out, they'll put up the old one of when the guy like punches or like throws a rock and it breaks the window. Oh, there was a metal ball that he threw at it. Yeah. And so like, I don't know, I just find it in, like it's so like weak, you know, like that's like, you're just showing your colors right away. Speaking of weak, I follow, there's this page on Facebook called, I think it's called Futurism. And so it's kind of like a tech page or whatever, but they have a boner for going against or making Elon look bad. It's so obvious. In fact, if you look at the comments, everybody on there's like, okay, whatever. So you know how you went, he got interviewed by New York Times, we talked about this and he's like, he said to the advertisers all pulling advertising. Go fuck yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Iconic moment, right? Futurism posted and said, you know, Elon Musk throws a tantrum on an embarrassing tantrum on stage. Oh God. Bro, I read the comments. Every single person on there was like, it was the greatest thing ever. Yeah, he's super based and authentic and he doesn't give a shit. This is what we, this is the kind of billionaires we need. I'm like, man, they're so out of touch. Yeah. With what people actually, you know, think about that. What is it? What do you think is going to happen? I think there's, cause, and he was like speaking to Disney, I think like straightforward. They've lost thousands of subscribers because of that. So I've been meaning to look up and see, cause I know the stock obviously has been hurting for like the last year, but I wanted to see how much they're losing right now. I don't know, that's a good question. And it's funny cause they feel it into, they're like, they're putting out stuff, like they're making adjustments. And it's just like, it's interesting to me cause you'll see like now they're saying like, well maybe we should kind of back off a little bit and always trying to like add in our ideology and things with every one of the stories. Like it's good to tell a good story and just leave the story. They're saying that you're hearing that? Yes. Like Bob Iger is starting to say that. And it's, I think, I mean, you, if you're at that point where now you have to admit like, oh wow, maybe I guess our play books a little off. Like there's been enough of an influx of bombs where it's like, we got to account for this. So let's see Bud Light signed with the UFC to save themselves. So maybe what are they going to do, sign with Joe Rogan or something? Well, I told you what they were going to do, which is they're putting a massive investment back into the theme parks. And I do think it's a brilliant pivot. I do think that, you know, I guess people have a really, you know, warm place in the heart. Yeah, slowing down there. I know they're famous for the Disney classics, right? I mean, that's one of the, that's all iconic, right? To all the, all the Disney classics that we all know of growing up. But I think the idea of going hard in the direction of the in-person experience is a smart play. And I think it's a really smart play right now, now that we've gone through this decade of, you know, being virtually connected and every company's pushing VR and the whole virtual world and everything that for them to invest in like bringing us back together in person, I think that's a smart move. And who better to lead it than a massive, you know, family-type company like that? I know there's a lot of hate around them. They can pivot. Yeah, they can pivot. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. And I think they can. And I think they will. I mean, at some point money, you know, talks. And you just like, yeah. It just looks like a bunch of executives that were really like really doubling, tripling down on trying to present like certain propaganda and ideas. And, you know, if they just don't do that quite as much, it's, you know, the audience will forgive them for it. And then you have pop culture like South Park poking at them so elegantly and accurately and bluntly. Yeah. Like how do you, like... You can't deny the truth. No, it was so well done. It's right there. Everybody sees it. Yeah. And you know, what were they saying? Like, you know, remake the movie, put a, you know, a female lead, make her a lesbian, you know? It's like, that was the answer to everything. For almost, yeah, every franchise. I know. Yeah. They really did a good job. Those South Park guys are just amazing. Deb, did you guys watch any more Christmas movies over the weekend? Did you guys, have you guys been chipping away yet or what? Yeah. So I watched Home Alone. Yeah. I've watched Elf, right? I heard you say. Elf. Oh, Elf. I did watch Elf. Chris's Vacation was the first one I started with. And then, yeah, then I fell off. You know what my favorite I think is? And I like, Elf is up there. And so is National Lampooms. Those are up there. Like I can't, you could easily slot those in. But I guess it's more recent. Maybe it's around Elf time. Four Christmases. I knew you'd say that. Four Christmases. I've heard that from a lot of people. Vince Vaughn, right? Yes, dude. It's really good. Katrina and I love that one. That one makes me laugh every time. You know who he reminds me of? Vince Vaughn, our good friend, Jason. Phillips? No, no, yeah. Tell me that Vince Vaughn does not remind you. Yeah, yeah. Similar personality. Yeah, yeah, they get a similar humor. Every time I see him. Similar humor. So similar. Is this more of an adult on the right? All adult. It's all adult. Yeah, it's literally the premise is hilarious, right? And I think maybe why Katrina and I like it because we were single for so long and not settling down. We waited a long time to even have kids. And so it's literally this couple that have chose not to get married, have chose not to have kids, just travel. They both are very financially successful. And on the Christmas holiday, they lie to their family always and tell them that they're doing, they're like donating their time to kids. Jesus. But they're really just going to Hawaii and just go and store chocolate. Yeah, they're going to Fiji and they're going to these places whether they tell the families and they get caught, right? So that's how the show opens up is they're going to Fiji, everybody in the family thinks that they're off saving children in Africa or something. And then the news, like the airport delays. And so the news is there to record everybody and they get caught on camera. And then the families call them out and so they have to do four Christmases in one day that they go see four of the families. And each of their parents are divorced. So they gotta go to each mom's house, dad's house. Yes. And it's just pure comedy. It's like you get the type of two people that would drive away, not want to be with family on Christmas for those reasons. And then they're forced to. And it's just, it's iconic. The best characters on there are the characters. Yeah, dude. Yes. The UFC brothers, yeah. I mean, they're all shows up. They start fighting over it. And then one of them has kids with it, like his wife's got all these kids or whatever. And it's just the stuff she says about. Yes, so Courtney and I have one. We usually watch it like the night before because it's like, and that might even be what it's called, the movie. It's with Seth Rogen. And they wear like the Christmas sweaters and like he's Jewish, but he wears like the Hanukkah one. And the whole premise is like, basically one of the guys like, his parents died like a long time ago. And so they kind of like created this, this sort of like ritual that they would do every time where they would like party really hard and all this. And so it's some like grandiose, like Christmas party they're trying to get into and all that stuff. But so they take like all these drugs and everything. And so Seth Rogen at one point, he like stumbles into a church and like he's kind of in there with his wife and his wife's family. He was supposed to be on his own. His wife gave him all these drugs. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to take him all at once. And so he's sitting in the pew and he's like, she was trying not to get him to come with him. He's sitting in their sweat. And then all of a sudden he gets up and he's like, we didn't kill Jesus. And he gets out and he's like, oh my God, I lost my shit. So funny. I don't even see that one. What's it called? Is it night before you said? I think it's called night before. It was really fun. I saw that. I'm going to put that on my list. I saw that. See, I keep bringing it up because I like talking because I feel like every year I find one that somebody else has got like a sleeper one. For the kids, if you guys haven't had your kids watch the Christmas prep, prep and landing on, oh, they're great, they're shorts. Oh, okay. Eight to 12 minutes long. Look up prep and landing from Disney Doug and show the guys. It's called night before. The kids. Yeah, the night before. The night before is the one that you were talking about? Yeah. Yeah, prep and landing, I've seen that too. That's good. They're really good. They're really, really good. There's like three of them, I think. And they're great little shorts for the kids. Speaking of dating and stuff like that, I just read this interesting study on big red flags that men will say are red flags for them. So, I mean, once you hear it, you'll be like, of course that's a red flag, but I wasn't expecting it. So, 64% of men said this particular thing. Was a red flag? Was a red flag. If a girl said this one thing. Okay. I mean, you guys are gonna say obvious ones, I'm sure. Yeah, but maybe something to do with your buddies. Yeah. You know, of all your friends, you have the biggest penis. No, that's out of the way. That's a terrible red flag. Thanks. Oh! Yeah, I'm again happy. For your kids. Make sure you watch that. I'll check it out. 64% of men said that if a woman told them they were a communist. It was a red flag. What? Yeah, I'm like, no shit. Wait, that's a thing? That's, yeah, I guess. That wouldn't even have made my list as like, why would it be a red flag for you? Well, of course, but I mean, of course, but I wouldn't like, did they give them like multiple choices? So that was like, Yeah, there was a bunch of them. Like, how often does that come up? It's like, oh my god. I mean, I don't know. Is that number one then? That was one of the biggest ones. But I mean, of course, like imagine you're on a date with a girl and you're hanging out. A literal red flag. Yeah, she's like, you know, we really should seize the means of production. I'd be like, huh? What? What do you mean? Well, you know, from each to her. What's yours is mine. What's mine is yours. From each to their abilities, to their, you know, whatever. I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Yeah, you know, I don't know about that. You know, don't you hate capitalism? Like, check, please. That's funny. A friend called me after that. She's really like real high maintenance stuff. Yeah, for me, yeah. Like what? I'm trying to think of like specific examples, but. Well, when I was, when I was dating, it was, I can't play video games with my buddies. I mean, that was like a demo. Or too much makeup in my hair. Too much like presentation. It's like, who am I dating? You know, it's, it's not even the same person. Can't tell you the worst, worst, worst thing. And it's more women than men. But some guys do this too at the gym, where they wear hella perfume at the gym. Yeah. What are you doing? Nauseating. I can't stand it. I actually, I'm like allergic to like colors. Yeah, you're really. Yeah. I'm super sensitive to it. And all of the men in Katrina's family. Just love Krudel. Love Krudel. I know when her brother was, cause her brother helped, you know, he was doing our moving. So yeah. Oh yeah, bro. You give him a hug. Oh shit. I smell like cool water. Cool water. Whenever, and then when. I smell like Dracar. Max goes over there. I gotta, I gotta give him a bath when he gets back home. Cause otherwise, like the whole time I'm with him, I can, I can smell the cologne on him. You know, it's interesting about perfumes and colognes. Those are one of the worst offenders when it comes to Xenoestrogens. The, the chemicals that act like, that have kind of these weak hormonal effects on the body. Why is that? So why is, why is, the chemicals, how strong it is? Is that one? It's like based off of whale throw up. So no, that's like, like, if you get like natural colognes, like super expensive, like most colognes use chemicals. And the chemicals that produce these smells are Xenoestrogens. You know what's interesting about that market is that there's like only a handful of people that make like all the clones and perfumes. So they're like, Like suppliers? Yes. There's like, like, they're all like, and then they're branded. That's like glasses. Like Calvin Klein and all these brands that everybody touts, all something like that. Like they go, they all go to like the same source. Like, look this up. You can fact check me here, Dova. I can't remember. I want to say it's like in Switzerland or something. Like there's like a place where most all smells are made and then big companies go and they buy that formulated smell already. They're the smell capital of the world. They might add like a few notes or whatever to it, but it's the base. You know, if you think about it, I can't think of another product that doesn't sell what it actually does ever on commercials. Profumes and clones are never like, it smells good. It's never that. It's always like weird music. Get women, get men. No, it doesn't even say that. I just saw the latest one. You know that kid, the main kid from Dune? You know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The actor, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Every now and then you'll say, he's like Giorgio or whatever. The commercial ad just starts with this and she's like, boom. Yeah, Giorgio. I got to come forward with that. It's like it. That's it. That's it. I love that. It's with like Brad Pitt. You know what? You know, I'm like, huh? I take that back. I take that back. The other product that doesn't tell you what it actually does in the commercial is alcohol. Like you never see a beer commercial like Get Smash. It's never like that. So it's like, yay, but wait a minute. What does it really do? Perfume and Cologne? They don't say what they do. It's not like this smells like whatever. It's always something super weird in the commercials. It's always like, I just had you like really portray that, yeah? Yeah, Smell TV never took it. Did you know movie theaters at one point experimented with that? With what? Smell. What a terrible idea. Like misting out why you're watching it. Especially to compete with somebody's hot dog or like popcorn. I mean, for like things like, you know. Smell-O-Vision, I think they called it. Really? Doug, I think look up Smell-O-Vision. I mean, if it, he's still looking up at my thing. Did you ever find my, what's yours? I'm still looking for it, yeah. Edgy, what are you doing over there? Picking your nose? That's fear in Las Vegas. I'm sure that they're probably like experimenting with that kind of stuff. I would, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, if you had like, It was the 60s. I think in the 60s, they were doing all kinds of weird shit with movie theaters. So try and make them more, you know. More of an entertainment list of all the bad ideas. I would imagine Smell-O-Vision. Gross. It depends. Like if they were, if they were strategic about it, they did it like it like good opportune moments where like it should smell good. Like you're in like a, like a redwood forest and so you like this kind of mist of like, trees, you know? And that, and that, oh man, feels like we're there. Evergreen. Or like you're at the ocean and you get the salty smell of the ocean. Like I could see like, if you sprinkled. That's more like a theme park, right? But you wouldn't want to smell everything, right? You wouldn't want like the guy in the movie to fart in you. He'd drag past a pig farm or something. Oh god, what's that smell? You would say like, I don't think you'd want, you wouldn't want, you wouldn't want that. The guy in front of you is like, ruins my whole story. Smell doesn't add up. Yeah, Rocky training montages would not be great. Oh my god. Tying, stalling, damn. Oh, I hate that. Smells familiar though. Would you guys, would you guys think of the Christmas party? That was great. Oh yeah. Which got done. That was one of my favorite ones. So I don't know how to pronounce it. Fermanich is a company since 1895 that been creating fragrances. I believe they're one of the biggest formulators. Perfumed, I don't know, stuff to find. I think there's only a handful of them. All right, Christmas party. They're based in Geneva. What a great vibe at the Christmas party. Such a great time. Everybody there. That's my favorite one. It was so good, man. That was my favorite one. I had never seen. I liked the bar set up and everything. Those TikTok thingies. What do we do? What do you call that, Andrew? What is it? What is the? The spinny thing. Yeah, the CXM. It's like a bunch of old, old, funny goodies. I don't know exactly what it's called, but it's basically like the 360 video being taken around you. It's like, yeah. It's like a boomerang video except so you're standing on a 360 boomerang video. You're standing on a circle with people. You're facing out, they put the phone on it and they spin it around you and it records and then you get this like. I didn't know what to do at first. It was like, what? And then once I figured it out, it was like. I had no idea. Shout out to Margaret and Jerry and Katrina. The girls that put the thing together, Chokey, like they all, I mean, Katrina and I know, I think your wife helped too, Courtney helped. Like she really like asked everybody, hey, they were all, they were meeting, right? Leading up to this and it's always like, you know, what ideas do you have? And I believe it was Margaret's like, oh, you gotta see this new viral TikTok thing that they're doing. We could rent one of these and Katrina's like, cool. You know what's so funny was I was asked to like pick the music and she's like, give me a song, that's how Katrina asked me, give me a song for the photo booth. And I'm like, song for the photo booth, I can explain. And you can tell she didn't want to tell me. She wants to surprise you. Yeah, and then she wants to surprise me but then she wants me to choose a song. So I just choose like what song that I like, right? And she's like, that's a terrible song for this. I'm like, well, maybe if I had some more detail on what I make, like if I want to see like some context. Yeah, I had no, so they totally threw away my idea and the song they chose I thought was perfect. Well, it was better than that mirror idea we had the other year. Yeah, that was the real mirror or something. That kind of fell on its face, right? Every year we have something a little different, right? That's kind of cool. You shouldn't do a mirror. People are supposed to like cry because they see the real self or that didn't happen. No, no, don't have a, put a bunch of fitness people with more mirrors. Especially one that's gonna make you see what they want to see, dude. Self-conscious, you know what I mean? Bad lighting mirror, you know what I mean? Terrible idea for a... Pretty much. Look how ugly you are in real life. Maybe that's what we should have all year. One of those warped mirrors, like fun house. I thought I fixed this problem. Yeah, yeah, I'm going home. Why? I don't know, anyway. So Adam, did I tell you guys, I was gonna tell you Adam, did I tell you guys about the island that's for sale off the coast of San Francisco? Did I bring this up? No. On the show? No. There's an island for sale off the coast of San Francisco. Let me pull this up. And the reason why I want to tell you guys about it is... You want to buy it? I'm already occupied with... What? I don't know. What do we call them now? No, so... Homeless... No, no, no. I gotta find it because... Challenged. Look at that, you were stuck there. You want to say bombs. Yeah, I'm trying to say bombs. Okay, listen. Bomb island, we got... It's called Red Rock Island. It's in the San Francisco Bay. It's the only privately owned island. $25 million. It's 5.8 acres of land. That's actually not that expensive for your own private island. No. Now, here's the problem. Because that's what I thought. I'm like, San Francisco, you couldn't buy 5.8 acres anywhere in San Francisco for $25 million. It would be way more than that, right? The problem is... Did you get into it? Well, it belongs to like four different districts. There it is. Oh, and it's all... Look at the beach on it, though. Yeah, but there's no like flat area to build on. What are you gonna build? You could build on that. Chop the top off. You could build on it. It's so easy. There's chop the top off right there. No. You could actually buy that, huh? You could buy it, but there's... You have to go through a bunch of... Like, you have to go through San Francisco and their regulations, then there's like... Let me see. Any development would have to pass through three levels of bureaucracy. Now we're talking. Yeah, that's why. 4.1 acres of the island is in Contra Costa County. 0.09 acres is in Marin, and the remaining one and a half acres is in San Francisco. So dumb. So you got to go through... All three have to get prepared to do anything. Bro, yes. So one guy who owns it, his name is Brock Durning. Sounds like a guy who would own around, right? Brock Durning. Yeah, hey, Brock. He's been living in Alaska for decades, inherited the property from his father, and he wanted to make a desalination plant, but he couldn't get through the regulations. Could not figure out... What a waste. What a waste. Terrible, right? Yeah. I know. Because how cool that would be to turn it in and make it like a party destination or something. People have been like, let's build a desalination plant so you get water, make it a solar panel system, and then the regulations are just so insane. It's too bad, right? Because it's sitting right off the coast, and I feel like you could do something awesome there. I mean, that would be amazing. If you could actually build on the top of that right there, and have a little helicopter pad and a little boat launch, and I mean, I would do that, that's awesome. But if you can't, that's stupid though. What if they find like a hidden area underneath it, Justin? Yeah. Yeah. Those are people. I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I don't know. Speaking of things... This is a good bunker destination for me. Thinking of things that look good, they just did a study and found that men who are considered handsome, okay? So, Adam. So, I'm listening. You do, Justin. Yeah. Sorry. No, Adam's the designated guy. Here we go. I don't know about that. Men who are considered handsome earn, on average, 20% more than the average man. I mean, that's taller too, right? Taller, good-looking, like all those things are... I imagine it's similar with women. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't say it. I mean, I know it's always... I mean, anytime I bring this up, I get hate, but this always brings me to the privilege debate that everybody gets into. That's a big call. Handsome privilege. Yeah, it's like... There's a lot of different privileges that are out there that we can't control, you know? And so, it's so funny how we tend to isolate some and make them like everything. The race one is like this massive thing, or sex one is this massive thing. It's like, dude, there's so many different things. And then mindset and experiences, and I mean, you can list an infinite number of them. But what they said in the article, too, was, you know, why we tend to treat good-looking people differently is because it is a strong sign of healthy genetics. This is why we consider some things attractive and other things not. It's an outward sign that you're healthy. Is you think it's more that, or do you think that an attractive person presents, like, more confidence and happier and more than ugly people? Well, I think it's both because, first off, you present yourself as good-looking, you're probably good-looking as a kid growing up, so people treat you differently because the genes are signaling good health and, you know, whatever. But then, also, you get the feedback loop of people treating you better. So you have a different outlook on life and you have more confidence. So it's this positive feedback loop. So I have dating girls that this is a massive disadvantage, too, though. What do you mean, that they're attractive? Yes, because people... That's all their values. Yes, I've given them everything. Everything comes so easy that they've had a hard time finding purpose or actually sticking to one thing for a long time, so any sort of loyalty to anything because there's always somebody else who's offering them a better opportunity or like that or trying to get their attention. I think good looks may have more negative effects on women than men because appearance... Oh, interesting. Well, because appearance is more valued by most people for women than for men. Like, if you're a good-looking dude but you're kind of a loser, you don't make any money or whatever, you're not going to get very far. Not very far. Yeah, and most women will rank things like sense of humor and status and work ethic and stuff like that much higher, whereas appearance tends to rank much higher in women. So if you're a good-looking girl, especially as a young girl, then you get this feedback loop that that's what's important. That's the most important thing about you. And then as you age, you know, that goes away for everybody. So that's got to be a tough situation. But I thought that was interesting. They called it Handsome Privilege. All right, what do we do with that? What do we do with that? They sent me an argument with someone good-looking. I don't know. That's your privilege talking. You give them a good and bad. Any trait you can spend it on, I'm pretty sure. Compliment at the same time. So did you guys... I want to tell you guys about this influencer I just found and how much money they're making. And that's not going to be the weird part. It gets actually kind of weird, but I'm going to bring them up real quick just to kind of show you... It was really interesting to me when I read this. So there's an AI influencer who's now generating about $11,000 a month. Not a huge amount. We know influencers that make a lot more money than that, but, you know, six figures off of a TikTok account. And it's AI generated? It's not real. Wow. It is not... Six figures? It is not real. $11,000 a month. That's the ideal business right there. It is a 100% AI generated individual. Wow. It's not even a real person. Okay, with this whole AI stuff, like we're going to be able to get away... Like these people are going to be able to get away with that and make money off of it? I think it's a small window. Yes, you're right. I think what I brought up about that Sam Sola kid. Okay, so after I found out about that kid, I kind of dug through his stuff to get it... Anytime I hear about someone exploding like that, I'm curious, right? What does this guy do? That's the girl right there. Oh, wow. Now... Dude, that doesn't even look like AI. It doesn't. Wow. It doesn't. Obviously you're a attractive person, but I wouldn't think that it was AI. That looks real. Isn't that weird? The only thing that gives away it's not real is how good the photos all look. Yeah, every picture looks perfect. Yeah, she looks super real, but every... The background and the... Now, don't you think, though, at some point... The way they shot it, it's... I like the comments. Don't you think at some point, though, that they'll figure that out and then AI will make it more gritty? So, okay, yeah. So I do think there's this small window where like this fools enough people. There's also a percentage of people that probably don't care. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think it's really fooling. There's obviously a market... They make love dolls that people fuck, so there's obviously people that don't care, right? Sorry, Doug, it's true, though. So, I mean, it's a fact, Doug. I know it's a fact. Okay. I mean, it's just the way you presented. So, like, in your face. Is there a more elegant way to say that? Make love. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know. There's a group of people that make love to plastic dolls. There you go. Right. Much better. Adam, much better. Okay, so... I don't have time to be that political guy. I do not have sexual relations. My point is bringing up that Sam Sola guy. Love is your supercation. So, as I dove into this stuff to see kind of like what he's all about, cool guy, smart guy, super jacked. It's... And I heard Josh say it. It was exactly what I kind of thought was just raw and gritty. There seems to be this movement and gravitation towards these influencers and people now that are more authentic and more real. And so, people appreciate the kind of, you know, grimy gym area and the hoodie and like just not combed hair and the, you know what I'm saying, eating cereal in the morning just with your phone, iPhone out. Because it's novel. Yeah. When everything's perfect, then that's right. So, not edited up, not hype music behind it and just me talking to the camera and giving you tips and stuff that I've learned. That's so funny. I feel like simultaneously, both are going to be very popular. Like you have like your super scrubbed, AI doubt version because I'm just thinking too in music that's already happening the same thing. Sure. And I'm very much drawn to the GarageBand style. You have to go see them live because it's just not even the same thing otherwise. Besides live, because lives can be very hard. At some point, maybe AI will be able to do that, but the challenge is that AI will be able to copy, you know, gritty. They'll be able to capture, at least, picture and video. So, at some point, people using AI to create these things. Yeah, not yet. I mean, the market's going to go into this, right? Okay, we'll make somebody who looks like they're talking to the phone or has got acne or... So, there will also become a tool though that you'll be able to bolt on to your software that you'll be able to bolt on that will tell you. I agree. I think we're going to have AI to detect AI. Yes, 100 percent. 100 percent. I mean, we... That's cool. I mean, you said it kind of tongue-in-cheek but we really took action and did it. I mean, anybody that's ever seen our podcast logo, it says 100 percent human grade now. Yeah. I do think you're right on that point that it's going to go... It doesn't want organic content. People are going to want to know. And by the way, there will be a... To Justin's point, there will be a portion of people... Because here's the thing that will be valuable of AI is it will be next to free. Yeah. Because it's not taking up any real person's time. So, they'll be able to give away good, free stuff. You won't even need cameras. Right. So, there will... It doesn't challenge you either. It's like all bubblegum... Well, that... So, there'll be a... But there'll be a divide in the population of people that... They don't care that it's fake AI because they're getting what they want from it. It's getting spoon-fed. And it's free. Then there'll be other people that are like, I'm willing to pay and spend money for less perfect because I know it's real. And I want that... I want as close to a human connection as I can have, even though I know it's a virtual world we're doing this in, at least I feel that it's this authentic person. And maybe one day I'll meet them. Now, you guys watched the movie X Machina. Yes. I thought one of the more brilliant... One of the best sci-fi movies ever made. One of the more brilliant things about it was this machine... Eventually, the spoiler alert ends up killing everybody. But the machine itself learned what this particular interviewer liked based off of all of his internet searches. So, it literally became so alluring and so convincing to him because it could manipulate him so effectively because it knew what he liked. At some point, if AI can connect to your Apple Watch, your computer's camera, read your pupil dilation, your heart rate, your cortisol levels, it could literally, in real time, change and mold itself to hit all those buttons. It'll be almost impossible not to get fooled. Have you guys seen... And this is just on the thread of technology, but I watched a commercial where they're promoting this product that was basically like kind of like a Google search or something like you'd use to search things on your phone or whatever, but it would shoot a projection onto your hand. And so it was like a little clip, you attach it to your body and then you kind of audibly talk to it. But then when you need to look up something, it's like, boom, I'm looking and it's shooting it on my hand. And then they're going on with their day. It seemed to me like it was trying to promote like a different way to interact with technology instead of our phones. One step with trying to kind of get us out of this manual sort of... I'm always on my phone looking down and my posture's shitty. So I thought it was interesting. I don't know what the product's called, but it's definitely out there. Yeah, I don't know what the evolution of that looks like. Because that's also, I think, going to come to a halt at one point where we recognize what that's doing to all of us. I mean, it's crazy to me, like you guys have seen... Have you seen something like these kids that are like 18, 19 years old and they grew up on the iPhone from the beginning and they're like their posture as well. There's no shrimps now. Yeah, they're completely rounded forward. You didn't even talk about their brain, their attention. You're just talking about their body. Yeah, I know. And so there's a lot of this stuff that's unfolding now. And it takes a while for us to figure this out. Speaking of which, a big mask, I got to read this to you guys about things that took a little while and now we have the data. Even though a lot of us knew this already, we have data now. Did you guys see the... There was a analysis on studies on masks, a systematic review on children during COVID. First of all, the study showed that it didn't prevent, really didn't prevent any transmission. But here's what it did find. An extensive body of research has found harms associated with mask wearing in children. These associated harms include negative impacts on speech, language, and learning. Mask wearing caused reduced word identification and impedes the ability to teach and evaluate speech. It also may impact mental health and social emotional well-being by limiting the ability to accurately interpret emotions, particularly in younger children. There's also evidence that masks hinder social, emotional learning, and language, literacy development in young children, children with special needs, and autism may be disproportionately impacted by mask requirements. The brain, we are so tuned to reading faces and little minor adjustments to your emotions and whatever, that making kids wear that, we sacrificed a lot. It's like everybody knew that. It's just like we just decided to discard that thought and just run the experiment. Yeah, it's just frustrating because it's like, you're not going to be able to convince anybody that still has issues with that. It's their pacifier. It's the way that they're consoling themselves. They're still alive. I mean, I saw it in our forum. People were discussing some things that they like or not like about us or agree or disagree with us. Someone said the mask? Well, they brought up that we thought that, like when you bring up, like that we handle COVID the wrong way, there's still people that believe that that was the best way to handle that. Wow. Oh, God. Yeah. In our community. How can you look back? It's like, I would love to have debate and discussion and discard, but it's like they don't walk right out. We still really think that, you know, had we not, it would have been 10x worse. And they thought that. The data, the data is clear. Mountains of evidence, but. Now the data is clear. There's not even speculation. It's all pretty dense. It's clear to us that read all of it, but not everybody reads all of it. It's a term for that. It's called cognitive dissonance. It's a very, very difficult thing. Well, I'm telling you right now, it's prevalent enough to be in our community who listen, who actually listen to us daily. So imagine how many more people are out there that actually still think that way. Right. That still think that it was the right sacrifice, even with what you're bringing up that still doesn't matter to them. Yes, there's a percentage of people now and I've seen it. I've seen that also on our channel, of people that came out and said like, I was wrong. You know, I thought, you know, so there we do have some people with that awareness, right? Self-awareness that have admitted that, oh man, I thought we did it the right way and now I see it wasn't, but then there's still a lot of people and I know a lot of people that think that was and it would have been way worse. Had we not. Crazy. All right. You know, I had mentioned earlier like good looks and this and that I talked about. And then we talked about AI and I said acne, like you know, AI might make people have acne and make them look real or whatever. You know, I read a study on red light therapy and acne. Oh yeah. It is an effective acne treatment. So you could use, if you have acne. What is it doing that? Regenerate the skin changes the microbiome on the skin. Oh, so it's changing the microbiome on the skin. That's some of the speculation, but it has been shown in studies to improve not just acne, but the acne scars that are left from really bad cystic acne. So what connection does, does acne have with like your mitochondria health? Is it, is that a sign of poor mitochondria health? Or is it like what's. I think having. Because that's really what that's doing. It's charging that. Having better skin that regenerates faster and, and I guess faster and healthier. And this less likely to have problematic cells. Yes. And it's less likely to have acne. That's interesting. But, but the studies do show, especially with the scarring, caused by acne. So you see, you know, you've run into adults, right? Well, you could tell they had really bad acne when they were kids. But it's an acne treatment. So especially for body acne. That's the other one. If you have acne in your back or your body. Well, I know stretch marks, it definitely made a real big impact. And, you know, I've talked to multiple people that have had experiences without using the red lights really helped with that. So that's interesting. That's pretty cool. That is cool. Because I know, I mean, I know I didn't really deal with this as a kid. But I know, I know adults who still, I mean struggle. It's really tough to, you know, to struggle with that. But I don't know anyone that have tried red light. I had no idea until I pulled up to study. I want mine back. I better hear the studio. But I see the guys are using it like they're, so I feel bad. That's how he uses it all the time. Yeah. This morning, he was in on it again. So I feel bad about taking it because they're actually using it. But I miss having it at my house right now. Hey, I wanted to close off with telling you Arnold's PR. So you guys know what his PRs were and the biggest lifts? Did you guys know that he? Like in the Golden Era. Yeah, when he was lifting. Let's take a guess. Yes, take a guess at all this. I'm going to guess his squat at 575. I'm going to guess his bench at 400. I'm going to bet in 405, 425. Deadlift at 600. Okay. How close am I? His back squat? What did you say it was? 575. What did you say? Yeah, I'll say 515. 525. So back squat, 525. His, oh, wait a minute. That can't be right. Okay, here we go. His bench press, what was his highest bench press? 405. 525. Sorry, his best squat was 610. Sorry, I got that reversed. Best bench press was 525. Squat was 610. What was his best deadlift? Well, I said 600, but it's probably higher. Yeah, 710. 710. Damn, not bad. That's really bad. Not bad at all, man. That's pretty damn good. You know who is, you know who is way stronger than him? Colombo. Franco Colombo. Franco. Little ass Franco. I mean, he's not how they became buddies, right? Like he was smaller, but he was stronger than he was on a lot of stuff, right? Yeah. But I mean, that's pretty damn good. But what's interesting is that you see guys, like 525 back squats a lot. But, you know, there's, I've known guys to be able to squat that much. The bench press, 525. I don't know very many people that could do that. He was obviously very strong at the bench press. What about the Hulk, I forget his name. Lufrino. Lufrino, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, I felt like he was stronger than him, but like, you know, it was... No, I don't think he was. No, I don't think he was. Disco should show you how strong Ronnie Coleman was. Yeah, Ronnie Coleman was a... Made no sense how strong. Remember that video of him doing the 200 pound dumbbell chest presses? Well, he used to row like 5 plates, dude. Yeah, I know. Been over a row. He did some crazy, crazy. And he'd be... I remember that video of him leading up to showtime. Like he was like a week out from getting on stage and doing 700 and something pounds. 800 pound deadlift. Yeah. Where he was, yeah, he was... He said that's the one. He was a 800 pound squat. He said that's the one that he thinks caused all the back damage. Yeah, yeah. Oh, crazy. So Justin, you said something today. So a shout out. I'm going to give a different type of a shout out. You were talking about music. And I have found this artist. I think I shared the artist with you that I've been listening to like crazy. And I was like, oh, you know what? I should share that on the podcast. His name is Steven Rodriguez. What would you consider his music? What would you say it's like? I share with you like... Oh, you shared that guy. Luzzi, jazzy, like raw. Like what would you say? Yeah, he's somewhere in between all that and a little bit of a country kind of vibe. But yeah, no, I think it's more just new wave blues. Because too, I showed you a few other kind of artist examples of that, like Rain Wolf was another one that I love. But yeah, I think... Yeah, he's rad. He's a great artist. Yeah, he's got like a raspy... I sent over to Jessica. I don't know if you ever heard it when I sent it over. I would send some stuff to her. I know she liked it. She sent back, but Steven Rodriguez. So check that out. It's not like a follow on Instagram. It's a check out on Spotify. And I've probably got like eight of his songs downloaded. I like it so much. Organifi is a company that makes supplements or organic that help you with wellness, health, and performance. They have a new product. In fact, I love it. It's called Organifi's Chilajit Gummies. This has real Chilajit inside them, but they taste delicious. Lots of health benefits from boosting testosterone, balancing hormones, reducing inflammation, and helping with cognitive performance. They have lots of other products as well. Go check them out. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com forward slash mine pump, use the code mine pump and get 20% off. All right. Back to the show. Our first caller is Colin from Tennessee. Colin, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, how's it going? Good, man. See you again. Real quick, Adam, I took care of your IOU. And went ahead and bought a grip strength, though. Good stuff. No worries on that. Good stuff. Right on. So just having to do the question. So alternating work out or phases every work out versus doing a phase of training every three to four weeks. And I'll use an example with a client that I had. She worked out every day for something like 20 or 30 years. And she loved it. That was her thing to do. She came from the time when 15 to 25 reps was all you were supposed to do as a woman. And so she did that literally every day for something like 20 or 30 years. And she got to the place where her mobility was so bad. And she had so much joint pain. She stopped for something like five or 10 years. So this is where she meets me. And we start working together and mobility and all those things. And luckily, I had listened to mine pump for a very long time. So I knew what I was doing, going into it. And so we got to where she was kind of pain free and feeling good. But what I noticed was is when we transitioned to like a lighter version of MAPS anabolic, right? So I never had her go. She was probably 62 when we met. I never had her go to like four reps. Like it was never that heavy. I think six or eight was the heaviest or the lowest we would go. But what I noticed was is if I did more than especially like two weeks in one phase, she would get really, really tight, really stiff and had a hard time recovering. And that was almost any phase. So what I ended up doing, because my concern for her was that if she regressed back to having a ton of mobility issues, she was going to quit and never work out again, like she did before. So what I did just through trial and error is on Mondays, it was heavier. Like eight repetitions was the max we would do. And we would go as heavy as she could for eight. And then on Wednesday, we would do more like hypertrophy, like 12 repetitions. And then on Friday, we would do 15, you know, to 20 repetitions. And then we cycled that way. And she seemed to respond really, really well as just from the psychological side. So my question is, is that okay? Would you have done it differently? Would you recommend a different way of doing that? Of course it's okay. Or what is it? Of course it's okay. Yeah, yeah, of course. If she felt good doing it, you did the right thing. Yeah. And this is, you know, for anybody watching as a trainer or coach, I mean, you have to, you know, there's general guidelines, but you have to individualize it. You got to follow the individual. I mean, I would have done it, if I were to do anything any differently, it would have looked more like a strength training workout, a mobility workout, maybe isometrics. So rather than just phase the reps and the weight, it would be the intention as well. And this is how I used to train my older clients. We would do, if I trained somebody more than once a week, there would be strength training, and then there'd be mobility, and then there'd be some other kind of maybe isometric or some kind of balance type of workout. And it just seemed to work best with them. And most people over the age of 65, I actually had them strength trained twice a week. I had very few that would do any kind of strength training more than that. And if I did, like I said, I would throw in the mobility or stability or balance or isometrics. But if you did it and it worked, then it was good. Well, not to mention the studies are pretty clear too that it's, they're pretty equal, right? Somebody who is changing every workout versus somebody who keeps it the same for six weeks, sort of like that. I mean, it's not going to make that big of a difference as far as their results are concerned. And if she's doing better that way as a coach and as a trainer, it's a no-brainer. We tend to advocate for the phases for most people, and we've talked about this before, is because if you are constantly changing every single workout, it's really tough to see what's working well for you. And so it's like, Oh, was it that the eight rep day that I did? Or was it, Oh, the day on Friday where we did more of the, you know, super setting that did it for me? Like people have a hard time being aware of what's going on in their workouts as it is, changing it up every single day just makes it that much more difficult. But as a coach, if you have a specific situation like the one you just talked about, you, you doing a different workout every, every time is not that big of a deal, especially if they're seeing results in there and like it. Yeah. The other thing too is the, um, you know, you're training somebody's mindset and understanding as much as you're training their body. So staying in the same phase for, let's say two to four weeks allows the person to really conceptualize and identify with the mindset that each phase style training requires. So heavy lifting, you know, you're not trying to feel the muscle. You're trying to perfect the movement. You're trying to stay tight. You're trying to maximize the CNS, um, recruitment or activation, you know, with the higher reps, like let's feel the muscle. Let's get the pump. Let's see what's happening here with mobility. It's more about challenging ranges of motion with control. So, so that's another, you know, value. But if someone's with you, okay, and you're coaching them, the advantage that they have is that you can help within that session, help them identify what to look for and what to feel. But, you know, the average person buys one of our programs. They don't have us there to train them. And so what ends up happening when they go a phase one, two and three work on the same week all the time, especially if they're not super, um, experienced is they, they're, they're not able to train the mindset and the understanding, because you know, as well as any other coach or trainer, the way you approach in the way that a heavy squat feels versus a lighter squat feels and have you approach it, is it completely different? It is not the same. Extremes would be like a bodybuilder versus a power lifter. You are, they're looking and trying to feel something completely different. And so, you know, to stay in that phase for a while allows you to really identify and feel and connect to that particular mindset, because that's just as important as training the body. But again, your client has you to be able to do that for her. So now you did the right thing. Okay. So then on that note, you know, you said like mobility day, something I did was always adamant about, especially if she came in and wasn't feeling her best. We always did 20 minutes of prime priming before every session. That was always the standard if after priming, she did feel well enough to do strength training, the whole session would be priming, right? Primer, prime, pro, one of those two. And so that's kind of typically how it would structure it. And then what Adam said about, you know, gauging, that was what bothered me was I couldn't gauge week over week how she was progressing in her like lifts necessarily, like we would traditionally if we were doing three or four weeks in the, you know, in strength or in hypertrophy or in endurance. But what I did do is she followed a very similar, like maybe again, like a lighter version of anabolic where the workouts were the same. I was tracking them. So like if every Monday was a strength workout or every Wednesday was a hypertrophy workout, I was looking at the previous one so that she could know, like, Hey, this is what the numbers were looking at. And, you know, we're seeing if you're progressing in weight or if we're more so progressing in your ability to do the movement well without pain range of motion and things like that. To dig it a step further, I still do think priming is great. You should probably prime before every workout, regardless to some extent. But I do think it's it's important long term to dedicate one of the workouts, especially when someone is reaching, you know, the age of let's say, you know, 55 or older, or somebody younger who's had previous issues, just regardless of how they feel, we are going to do a mobility workout. Today's workout is entirely mobility based and range of motion based and connection connecting. And we're going to try to do some dynamic stuff. And, you know, I think it's going to be regardless, regardless of how the person feels, because what you don't want to do is get behind the eight ball. I think a lot of times as coaches and trainers, we wait until somebody says something hurts. But by the time something hurts, you're already, you're already beyond when you could have had an intervention that would have prevented that. Now you're playing catch up. So I still think it's important that there's a day where it's just no matter what, okay, you feel great. That's great. Today's mobility. Okay. Well, then follow up question to that if that's okay. Sure. So for some of my older clients now, I have them follow maybe a similar model to like map 15, especially the ones who want to work. They like we they love working out. They've done it for a long time, but you know, an hour every day is just way too much. So they're doing kind of 15, 20 minutes a day. Would you still turn like maybe one of those into just mobility or since it's only two or three exercises that they're doing, you know, not as big of a deal for them to replace all the exercises? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And mobility workouts can be longer than the allocated 20 minutes because the intensity and the load and the volume aren't anywhere near the same, but a hundred percent. Yeah. And that'll vary based off of like, if there's anything that needs correction, right? If there's any pain and restriction and, you know, in terms of like frequency and volume with that, that's where you can kind of program and play with that to address very specific things. But overall in general, I just haven't one day devoted to that is just good, you know, constant sort of upkeep and making sure you're reinforcing these joints of the function and everything else. So that way, you don't get into like problems down the road. Yeah. Well, then last question in regards to this topic, for a client who comes in and I recognize that this is what they need as a coach, I know that this comes down to just effectively communicating to them. But when they're, they get a few weeks into it and they're like, well, why am I not seeing progress, right? But we've had to like maybe like what you said, right? Where, you know, we're changing the workouts based off what they need. We're doing a lot of mobility and stuff. How would you communicate that? Or how do you recommend communicating like, hey, progress isn't going to be like what it would normally would be, you know, if you were 20 or 30 years old, right? You're 60 or 70. Wrong argument. Yeah. How would you communicate that? Wrong argument. Yeah. You're saying it the wrong way. Somebody says to you, why am I not progressing? The last thing you want to do is say it's because you're not young or, you know, here's the deal. Are they really not progressing? Call it. Yeah. Are there, What are those other metrics you can pull? Are there any improvements anywhere that you're noticing within that period of time? Sure. Yeah. No, like I guess I would see the progress and I wouldn't, I wouldn't say like, hey, it's because you're not 20 years younger. It's more so them telling me, hey, 20 years ago, I would have been able to do this and see progress faster, right? Yeah. Well, I'm not sure about that, Mrs. Johnson, but you know, here's the things that we have noticed. You did say you're sleeping better and you don't have as much back pain or, you know, well, here's what I did notice. Energy levels are higher. Yeah. You're squatting deeper than you did before. And it looks like you're not getting a sore. Like, you know, have you noticed that? Like your job is going to be to help her broaden her focus on the values that you're providing her with your service. It is not to argue the point that she's making and to keep her focus or his focus on that one narrow scope. Because you will lose that battle, I promise you. Then it'll become a battle of, you know, well, this or that and okay, patience, but how long and I'm frustrated. And ooh, there's this other trainer over there that seems to be getting people really sweaty. I think I'm going to go over there. Yeah. That makes sense. And that goes in line with what you guys said the other day about setting the expectations right up front in the initial session of like, hey, this is what we expect to see and this is the process. And you know, we'll hit these humps and we're going to get through it. And this is, you know, the journey, what the journey will look like. That makes sense. Imagine if you went on a bus ride and the bus driver never told you that he's going to be driving over gravel and bumps and it's going to be crazy storms and then you encounter those, you're going to be freaking out. But what if he told you ahead of time, hey, look at mile five, we're going to be hitting some big bumps. It's all good. I drive over them all the time. Okay. So it's not a problem anymore. You have to set the expectation. You have to make the prediction predictions. All that does is build trust. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. You got it, man. Thanks. Good to see you again, brother. Take it easy. Yeah, that's, you know, okay. For the coach listening, it is your job to broaden the scope of what the person pays attention to notices because people will only pay attention to the scale and the mirror and maybe the weight on the bar. That's it. They won't notice anything else unless you help reveal it to them. And then they, to the individual who's not a trainer or a coach, pay attention to everything because you'll only see what you're looking at. And if all you're doing is looking at the scale, you'll, you won't notice all the other amazing things like that Bruce Lee quote, where, you know, he points off to the moon and he says, stop looking at the finger pointing to the moon, or are you going to miss all that heavenly glory? You have to, you have to identify all of the benefits that your workout and diet are providing you. Otherwise you will lose motivation. It will feel like it's a waste of time. And you will seek out other methods that are inappropriate and that are going to get you not only nowhere, but get you to go backwards. Yeah. We, he was alluding to something we talked about in person, right? So he just left our studio last week. And one of the things that we talked about was the importance of forecasting with your, your clients. I think trainers fail at this a lot. Totally. You know, they, they allow the client to come in and say, hey, I want to lose 30 pounds or hey, I want to get ready for this wedding. And then like, okay, we sign them up and it's like on, onto the gold versus you telling them what this journey is going to look like. And all of the things that we're going to be looking for, other than just getting you in that dress or other than just losing that 30 pounds, because it's, it's important if this is going to be a client that's going to stick with you, that they understand there's going to be these peaks and valleys. And there's other metrics besides just putting weight on the bar or just losing weight on the scale. And you need to help them understand that if you're going to have these clients for a long time. Our next caller is Austin from Kansas. What up, Austin? Awesome. What's happening? Hey guys, I was kind of afraid to be talking to you. First off, thanks for everything you guys do. I love the content, especially the dad stuff. I got two young kids at home. So, but I'm just appreciate you guys put out. Good for you, man. So my question is just read off my email seem to be struggling with, I think is some hypoglycemia or low blood sugar during or after my early morning workouts. I'm usually five 30 in the morning or so usually happens. And when I go to like a moderate intensity or, you know, a longer duration and just get lightheaded and everything. And I feel like I'm nauseous and so I have to drink juice or something get feel better. Question is what should I eat or drink before my workout to avoid feeling that way to fuel my body, my workouts and could what I eat the night before the day before be making a difference? Absolutely. Yeah. So gummy bears. No, I'm just kidding. So what you eat the day before can make a difference. But we got it. First off, we have to make sure that that's what you're actually feeling. Because sometimes it's not oftentimes it's not some form of hypoglycemia. Have you been diagnosed with hypoglycemia or have you ever had your blood sugar levels tested? Yeah, I've kind of tested no issues and never no diabetes or anything like that in my family. Okay. And have you had a nutrient level test? And are you do you know if you're having enough sodium in your diet? Because both of which can cause some of these interesting symptoms. By the way, the symptoms of hypoglycemia can feel like lightheadedness, nausea, cold sweat. Is it all that stomach ache? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically like I'm, you know, I feel like I might pass out or something. Yeah, all of the both. Okay. And do you know how many calories you're eating a day? And are you getting good sleep? You say you have two kids. So yeah, I mean, sleep is probably about about seven, seven and a half hours a night, roughly. Okay. And then calories. I've never, I haven't done any, you know, real close tracking or anything like that. I'd say I'm probably like 2000 or, you know, maybe a little more than that. Okay. Could be a stress response from the exercise, but I would get your nutrient levels tested just to make sure that there's nothing. What kind of workout are we doing? That's nothing off. Yeah. What does a workout look like? Good question, Adam. Yeah. So after finding you guys a couple of years ago, I started doing maps anabolic. And basically I've kind of like adapted it to my own just sort of, you know, still doing like deadlifts and squats and all this full body workouts two times a week, sometimes three times a week, but I'm not doing the trigger sessions anymore. Do you have caffeine before your workout? No, I don't take pre-workouts. I usually just drink a big glass of water or something while before I go and then drinking water while I'm there. I mean, have you, have you ever noticed like, like on a night, maybe when you, like you had like a huge dinner or something different, have you started to connect the dots like your performance is different or you feel different? Like cause it could be as simple as that is that you're just kind of low calorie, low energy and you're fasted going into these workouts. Then you just need some calories. Have you, have you noticed anything? Have you paid attention to that? So probably like a week leading up before I wrote the question. And since I, you know, a couple of weeks since I wrote the question in, I've tried to really dial in on that and I haven't had it happen to me since. But, you know, this has happened to me a handful of times throughout the year. I don't, I say I'm not gluten free. I don't eat low carb normally. But I guess like, I know last time I had a big plate of spaghetti worked out and I was fine this morning. So, you know, I think that could be it. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, definitely could be it. Cause when I go, when I would use to go low calorie at times for particular reasons, sometimes that would happen to me as well. And when I bump my calories up, I didn't notice it as much. You can also try sodium. So with your glass of water in the morning, you know, we work with element, element T, you could try some sodium beforehand. It's got a little bit of magnesium potassium. See if that makes a difference. If it is indeed a hypoglycemic issue, it could be as simple as having a tablespoon of honey or a piece of fruit, nothing to fill you up, but you know, 15 to 20 minutes before you work out. And that could very well make the difference. And you might even throw a little bit of fat on it. So I used to have a client that this would happen to. And they, they legit were hypoglycemic. I mean, we did all the testing and we saw, okay, this is what the deal is. And so she would eat a banana with some peanut butter. And that seemed to solve the issue for her. So those are the things that I would, I would have you look at. But I do think you should have your nutrient levels tested, make sure you're not low in any key nutrients, just to kind of rule that out. Otherwise you'll, you know, you're going to be doing the wrong thing. And maybe you won't get the hypoglycemic issue feeling, I should say. But you still have a nutrient deficiency, which may cause other things. Do you notice any, any like energy, energy issues otherwise? Any issues with like sleep disturbances or libido or anything? Anything that would identify or point to some kind of a nutrient deficiency? No, not you, not that I can think of. So usually after the workout, after I get that juice, I'm feeling pretty good throughout the rest of the day. And then, you know, on those days, if I work out and I don't have that issue during the workout, I feel fine the rest of the day too as well. And usually I don't wake up in the middle of the night with sleep. I don't, I don't have an issue with that. By the way, there's nothing wrong with drinking juice while you work out. Right. You don't have to wait till you're done. There's nothing wrong with, you know, sipping on that throughout the workout. I have had clients like that where that's, that's what we would do. And it would help with that particular issue. What about eating like creatures of habit before you start? Yeah, that's another one. Like something light like that. Have you tried eating something light like that, like creatures of habit, like an oatmeal type of a breakfast before you go with, you slam it pretty easy? No, I haven't. And so typically it's like, I wake up and then I roll out of bed, get dressed and, you know, head straight to the gym. I'm there within 15 minutes of waking up usually. Yeah, yeah. I can try, well, I could try definitely eating, you know, band of peanut butter sounds good. I mean, it's worth it just to test some of this stuff. I mean, here's the thing too. Like we've talked about this before when we talked to people about fasted state working out a long time ago when we first started talking about it. Sal would talk about how much he feels better. He feels better in a fasted state when he lives and I would just, and I was like, man, I just don't, I just, I don't have the gas. So I gas out within 30 minutes of doing it. In fact, I found that I do best. My best workouts are after two meals. I can't just have one meal before a lift. Two meals I need to really load up on some carbohydrates to have. It doesn't mean I'm, I can't do the workout or it just means I just don't feel my best. And some people are like that. You may feel that you need just higher carbs, higher calorie before you go into a workout like that. And so that's what I would do if I just test it and see what happens when you either load up on a good high calorie, high carb dinner and or have like a, you know, creatures of habit breakfast or a shake or smoothie before or sip on something. All those things are going to help fuel the body. And if you start to notice, man, when I do that, I have good workouts and I'm fine. And then when I don't, I notice a difference. And that's just, I mean, you're learning about your body. Do you notice a difference? First thing in the morning when you get up, like you're going to the gym, but you're like, okay, I know it's going to be one of those days where I'm going to be depleted by the time I'm done. Or is this something that you don't even really realize till you start working out? Yeah, it's usually the latter. Yeah. So just, you know, when I get into it, you know, probably about 20 minutes and, you know, I start kind of feeling just weak. So bringing some food with you at that point, I think would make sense. Yeah. I mean, just based off what you're saying, like I said, I don't know if you have any nutrient deficiencies. We don't know what your blood pressure normally is at. Is that, by the way, is that higher low blood pressure? Do you have normal blood pressure? Normal blood pressure. All that's good. Look, based off of all the stuff that you're saying, my guess is that you probably would do well by eating something like I said, a banana with some peanut butter or drinking some juice during your workout and having a nice dinner beforehand. And that should, the fact that you've already noticed an improvement because you've had a good dinner beforehand, that kind of points in the direction that I think- Just keep playing around with it. That's it. You're going to find the right combo. That's right. Okay. Cool. All right. All right, Austin. That's all I got. Thank you. You got it, man. Take it easy, brother. All right. You know, when we're- You look like you need some juice right now. When we're doing that, when we're like investigating and we're asking questions, I always want to fuck with someone like that. Do you get weird feelings when you see men in Speedos or anything like that? It's because we're like, we're all firing like inquiring. Do you get rash? I feel like it's a very specific place in your body. I just want to do it one of these times when we're doing that. Next time we're going to do that. What number two do you wipe front to back? Yes. Yeah. Like some off the wall. Do you double apply or just single ply? Just a question, just a question. Yeah. You know, I had to look at this. This has happened with clients that I've trained. And once you narrow it down, because it could be all the other things that I said, so here's what you don't want to do. I'll never forget I had somebody crash out in a gym that I managed where they passed out. And we had to call an ambulance and I ran to go get candy to give them. Okay. Because I thought it was a little blood sugar. And the paramedics tested them and it was high blood sugar, so high the person lost consciousness. And the paramedic told me, had you given this person candy, you could have very well caused some serious damage. So that, and I was a young, you know, at the time young manager, I realized you got to test. You can't just guess because you could totally do the opposite. Yeah. There's this weird thing that happens. When you get really stressed with your workout or stressed in life, it can cause your liver to also dump a bunch of sugar in your bloodstream. So I had a guy who was pre-diabetic and we would work out, and his blood, he had no food or nothing. He'd work out and his blood sugar would be higher at the end. He's like, I don't understand. I thought my blood sugar was supposed to go down. It's because the workout was a little too intense and his liver just dumped all this blood sugar and he would measure high blood sugar. So it's a lot more complicated than, oh, it must be, you know, hypoglycemia, you know, type of deal. Best person that's going to know is the person. That's right. Our next caller is Jim from Georgia. Jim, what's happening, man? By the way, that's the most perfect beard I've ever seen. That is a good beard. I feel like it's, Jim, how'd you do that? We got you using caldera yet or no? No, not yet. Oh, bro, we got to get you on that caldera. It'll look even more perfect. That's right. All right, what's going on, man? How can we help you? It's botanicals. Oh, well, first of all, I want to say I appreciate the work you guys do. And I'm so glad I found this podcast. I've been listening to you guys since August. And before that, it was just like whatever random YouTube I would find. It was like, you want bigger arms? I'm like, sure, I want bigger arms. You watch the video and you spend eight minutes watching that. And then the next video plays and the guy's like, you want bigger arms? Don't do this. And it's pretty much everything the guy before just said to do. Welcome to YouTube. Gotcha. So then you get a prerecorded message from Mike Menster. And he sounds like Orson Welles from War of the Worlds or something. He basically tells you that everybody's full of crap. So you guys are great. All the content is so easy to find. It's all in one place. And I love it. Love it. Thank you. Thank you, man. Cool. What you got for us? So basically, I've worked out on and off since I was like early teens. Never, never missed a chance to skip leg day. And just I had an incident when I first got my first weight set when I was 14. And you know, the old concrete weights coated in the little plastic stuff that you get from like the outlet store. And first thing I wanted to do was see how much I could squat. I put the weight on the bar, put it on my back and hit the ground. And you know, had something fall off, hit me in the head. So didn't really do squats anymore. So mainly focused on leg presses and stuff. You know, when I had a gym membership or leg extensions. So I got maps anabolic and like, you know, you're forced to do squats. It's the first thing you got to do. So I did the preface, you know, lightweight because, you know, it totally suggests to do like 12 to 16 reps. So I did like 95 pounds. Did pretty good and slowly increase that to about 115 over that three week period. Got into phase one, did box squats, 135, and I said, Hey, this is safe. I got to see, you know, something bad happened. I'm good. So I did 10 reps of that. Good. So I was like, well, all we got to do four reps. So I threw on about 155. You know, I threw on 185 and like instantly got that mental thing where it's like, Oh my God, I can't, I can't, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to get this up. So I started wobbling a little bit, almost fell forward, had to drop the weight a little bit. I don't know if I overdid it or if I wasn't properly engaged in my core or what. But it's when I get deep and then start to start my ascent, I get kind of shaky and I get nervous about, you know, coming up with the weight. So basically my question was, are there other exercises I can do which will translate into being able to squat more because I can bench more than I can squat pretty much. Okay. So let me rephrase your question. That's PTSD by practice. I think what you're asking is, Hey guys, can I not squat? No, no, I want to squat. Then the answer is to squat. Here's the deal. You went 50 pounds over what you did a box squat with and you just started. So what you need to do, just like anything you learn, you have to start slow, especially if you feel any fear or apprehension. If you start to get, here's the deal. Here's what happens with technique in four. Actually this happens with anything in life. You go meet a pretty girl when you're scared. The words don't come out. You don't know what you're saying. You sound like an idiot. So same thing when you're trying to work out, when that fear sets in, you look like an idiot. So in other words, go light, perfect the technique, practice the exercise, inch your way up. There's nothing wrong. There would have been nothing wrong with you doing the 135 for 10 reps in the back squat and then doing 135 for four reps in the full squat, which is what you did and then leaving it at that. I know you've only recently kind of found us. And one of the things that we talk about a lot is just practicing a movement. It's just getting in the, going in the gym and practicing a movement. And we sometimes, especially guys, we overthink the weight on the bar and we have to keep putting more weight on the bar and put more weight on the bar. The goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. If you hadn't been squatting for years and you'd squatted 50 pounds on your back and decided that, I bet you'd see change results and improvement. So there's no, there was no reason for you to hop all the way up there, other than the ego that us men have. You know, you're, that's the things you just jump right to your potential. Your potential is massive, but you know, there's a real methodical way to get there. And we have to stick with that for now. We have to stick with that playbook and run it. And to be able to acclimate to weight and get that bracing technique down. And so to be able to like get under the bar, like you start increasing the weight, I want you to sit there and hold it, feel it and take that moment to really like brace and feel like you're under control, rack the weight again, and get back to it another time and like ramp your way up. It's a very, uh, methodical progressive way to approach it. I'll give you one piece of advice that's going to get you the best results across the board for the next year. Okay. I want you to treat every exercise like it's a skill you're trying to learn. That's it. So you go to the gym and you do the exercise and the, and the, you know, the program says four reps or 10 reps, pick a weight that allows you to practice the exercise to perfect the skill. Don't pick a weight that's going to challenge the hell out of you. Practice the skill of the exercise over the next year. Number one, you won't get hurt doing that or very, very, very low likelihood of getting hurt. And number two, you're going to build muscle, burn body fat and improve significantly after that year is up and you feel like, man, I got the skill of these lifts. Like I got it. I know I could do it. Then you can start playing with challenging yourself, but you're not compromising results. That's the point I want to make because a lot of times people think, well, okay, well, I'll practice the skill, but that means I'm not going to get results for a full year. No, you will get results the entire time if you do what I'm saying. So every single exercise is a skill and like any skill, the better you are at the skill, the more you're going to get out of it. So what I did, I completed phase one and fixed move into phase two. What I did was I lowered the weight back to 135 and when I went down, I did, I think Adam mentioned this and some of you guys, Ball said this, it's controlling the tempo. So I would go down and I would try to hold that like a good solid one to two seconds and then try to explode back up. Love that. Love that. That's great. That's amazing. That's how you should have started. I mean, your mindset of going into something like that, a lift that you hadn't been doing for a very, very long time is back to Sally's point. It's just perfect to move it and put a weight on that's way lower than what you think you can do. And if it's so easy, then just slow it down, slow it down and pause. Like Justin was saying, pause, hold it. Literally practice the movement. Yeah. Just you want to get so good at the movement. You can do it in your sleep. You don't got to think about it. It's become that easy for you. And so approach your lifting like that. Yeah. Think about how much more you can grip the bar with your hands, which then translates to more support with your upper back, which then bracing that core and really digging into all the little nuances and feel your way through that. So you feel supported and that's going to all come back to the confidence you're building. And imagine Justin spotting you naked. This always helps me get out of the hole for some reason. When I think about Justin behind me naked helping me out of that squat, I get out of that hole real easy. You don't want to be in that hole. Let me tell you. That's way too much of a visual there. That's when you get to the bottom of the squad, Justin. You and Doug, I swear to God, you guys are terrible. So, Jim, is that the only program you have? Oh, yeah. I want to actually give you symmetry because I think you'll benefit from symmetry. Map symmetry, as I said. Do you have that program? I just picked up map symmetry, Cyber Monday. Oh, good. All right, good. You're set then. Are you in our forum? Oh, no. All right, we'll put you on our forum, Jim. This whole year, I want you to kind of give us updates, okay? Okay, sounds good. All right, Jim. Thanks for calling in, brother. I appreciate it. All right, I appreciate you. You got it. Right on. So, okay, I'm going to tell a story that this reminds me of. So, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is super popular. Lots of people do it now, right? And the originators of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you know, widely understood to be the Gracie family. Okay, I'll never forget this. Hixing, this is years ago. So, Hixing Gracie's son, Kron, went into like a world championship Jiu-Jitsu tournament and proceeded to submit every person. This is like black bell top level best ever. And he proceeded to submit every opponent with a mounted cross choke. Now, let me explain what that is. That is one of the first submissions you learn in Jiu-Jitsu. It is basic. They teach you how to defend it. It is, but here's why he was able to do that. And the Gracies are exceptional at this. They'll practice a basic technique slow and perfect and then a little faster and then perfect. They'll practice it so much, they get so good at it. So proficient. That you know what they're going to do because each person you went against knew, oh, he's going to do that and they couldn't stop it. This is the value of practicing the fundamentals and getting good at them. By the way, I'm sure you've heard that in a lot of other sports where you you master the fundamentals. So you want to do your spin backhanded, pass or whatever, practice the fundamentals, get perfect at them, and then watch your performance. And it's true with strength training as well. Our next caller is Johnny from Scotland. Johnny, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, how's it going? Pretty good. So just get the usual thanks there. You guys are probably sick of it now. Thank you for all the content that you guys do and all the guys behind the scenes. A guy from my work actually got me on to you guys about a year ago. I remember listening to the first episode and hearing Adam talking about taking his son to the cinema and I was like, what? I thought this was health and fitness. And you know, the more I listened to it and got into all the dad chat, you know, I've got a young kid myself. So it was great. I ended up pushing away the other health and fitness podcast I was listening to. So thanks, guys. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So yeah, I'll just read my email out. Just go through a bit of the added info and then ask my question at the end. So 32 years old, 5 foot 10, about 110 kilo or 242 pounds, with around 30 to 35% body fat according to my digital scale and my smartwatch. I've been lifting on and off since 2014, but with no real structure. Doing various sports before taking less than a bit more serious in 2021. When I started doing a strength program through my gym. So I managed to get my numbers up between 2021, 2022, which I assume was due to beginner gains because I hadn't trained properly and a big increase in calories. I never counted them. I just thought more food equals more strength. So I'm paying the price of that now, I suppose. So then got onto you guys, got anabolic, started training through that. My strength went up even further. Then moved on to power lift because we had an in-house power lifting competition. So I thought I would go into that, but I ended up getting ill with some gut issues. So I was out of training for about five, six weeks. And when I went back, strength had just completely depleted as expected. So I started working on my calories. I was on 2300 to see what my weight would do. Didn't really move. I then went on to the macro calculator you guys have and it suggested 2150. So I'd done that, but it wasn't for long. Ended up going back to 2300 thinking if I just get more protein, I might see something happen. Especially with lifting, I wanted to get my strength back. But the weight doesn't seem to move. It's hard to tell if I'm getting stronger because I'm trying to regain the strength that I had before. So I'm curious just to know if there's a guy at my work who's about 65 kilo and eating 3,500 calories for maintenance. And I'm a bigger guy and I'm maintaining at 2300. So my question is that they're trying to boost my metabolism with reverse dieting or is it just, you know, you're going to have to reduce those calories to lose some body fat. What do we know about the gut? What's going on? Did you fix your gut issue, by the way? Did you figure that out? So I ended up getting a bug. Me and my wife got like food poisoning and it seemed to cling to me and it knocked everything. We've gotten checked for like celiac, like gluten intolerance. That came back negative. I done intolerance tests and found that there was a wheat, rice, coconut and peas. So I eliminated that for four weeks. It got better, but it's not 100%. Retook the intolerance test. Rice is back. It says that it could cause issues, but wheat is definitely out. Okay. You might have some leaky gut syndrome or inflammation that needs to get addressed, but that I would work on with a functional medicine practitioner. Two things, one, don't ever compare your calories to somebody else because there's a lot we don't understand about the metabolism. There really is. I mean, you just, you know, you just called it out. It was like a skinny small dude over there, big dude over there, the small dude eats way more calories. What the hell is going on? We don't quite know. So that's a big mistake. And what it'll do is it'll, it'll compare yourself to someone else is going to make what works for your body seem strange. When in reality it's just, it's an individual variance. Second thing is your body fat test on this, on this electronic competing scale says 30%. You don't look like you're 30% body fat. Unless you have, unless you store it all in your midsection and lower body, you look maybe in the 20s at the most. So I would get a body fat test that might be a little bit more accurate. I mean, you look like you have a lot of muscle on your frame. Yeah, definitely caught it more on my midsection. Okay. Okay. Okay. So look, here's what I would, I would have you do. You can reverse diet. You can definitely have, you can definitely reverse diet or you could just try to hit your target body weight and protein and avoid heavily processed foods and then see where your body weight, where your body weight lands. And that's it. I would literally just, you know, what's, what's your target body weight? Where would you like to go? I mean, I've never really thought about what weight I wanted to come down to. It was more just to get into a healthy body fat percentage. You know, the goal is to just be healthy. I'm not bothered, even if I weighed the same weight, but you know, I was, I was healthy. I would be, I would be happy. What's your body weight again, 240 pounds you said? Yeah, 242 pounds, I think I converted it to. Okay. So, you know, I say, you know, we could, you could start by hitting about 215 to 220 grams of protein a day from whole natural foods, avoid heavily processed foods and just start there and just see what happens. How do you feel, how do you feel at the 21 to 2400 calories? Do you feel like you're really restricting to be at that number? Does that feel comfortable for you? How do you feel about that amount of calories, besides comparing yourself to somebody else? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the 2300, 2400 is fine. I'm kind of like, I know what I'm going to eat, a plan what I'm going to eat for the week. So I can calculate, you know, if I eat this, is that going to screw up how much protein I'm going to get for that day? I ever ends kind of concentrating on making sure I hit my protein within my calories and then everyone else can kind of fall into place. In terms of processed stuff, because for four weeks, I couldn't eat anything with wheat or rice. I mean, everything processed kind of has all that stuff in it anyway. You know, Johnny, I just saw a study where they took groups of people, crossover study, and they had one group eat a high protein diet, the other group eat a low protein diet, and the high protein diet built more muscle, burn more body fat. But here's the weird part. The high protein diet was 300 calories higher than the low protein diet. There seems to be a fat burning effect along with a muscle building effect from protein. I think if you just hit those targets and protein from whole natural foods, avoid heavily processed foods, and just listen to your body, don't stuff yourself. Don't starve yourself. Just eat until you feel about 75, 80% full, as they say in Japan, and see how you feel. And then watch what happens. And my guess is you'll see a slow leaning out through that, and you shouldn't lose or notice any strength losses by following that. That's the reason why I asked how he felt around those calories. I mean, if you feel pretty good and you don't feel like you're, you know, really restricting to be there, you don't feel like you're overstuffing, you're probably at a really good place for how you move and your size. So I would stick right with it. And also something you said earlier that we can all get caught up in, right? And I'm guilty of this, is comparing what you were lifting before. Every time I fall off of my consistency and then I go back in the gym, I think of it as starting at square one. I cannot hold on to the numbers I was hitting when I was the most consistent. Otherwise, that'll get discouraging. Like, oh man, I'm still so weak. But yet you could be progressing in many ways. Like you could be absolutely building muscle and healing your gut and all these positive metrics. But yet you're hung up on the, oh my God, I'm so much weaker than what I was before. You got to kind of throw that out the window and just be like, listen, I'm trying to find the perfect balance for me, be consistent. And the truth is, if you're doing it perfect, it will be this real slow gradual process of losing a little bit of body fat, building a little bit of muscle. I'm going to give you another metric instead of the scale and your body fat percentage based off the scale or your smart watch. Use a tape measure and measure around your waist where your belly button is. First thing in the morning, relaxed. And then measure that. If that's going down, you say you store most of it in your belly, like a lot of men do. If that's starting to go down, you're moving, everything's going great. You're doing good. Yeah, sounds good. You got it, man. And you're following MAPS metabolic right now? Yeah, I'm kind of hanging about in the strength phase because I enjoy that one the most and I work offshore. So it's going to be hard to train in a gym on an oil rig offshore, trying to lift heavy. So I'm trying to wait until I go there to move into phase two where I'm going to be lifting weights that they're likely going to have or not going to go through the floor or anything like that. Do you have anything that helps with mobility, like Prime Pro? Or suspension trainer with him, with him going on the rig? Are you allowed to work out on the oil rig? Yeah, there's a gym. The one that I'm going to has got quite a small gym. So it's usually pretty cramped. Oh. So it's going to get in and get out. But I've got MAPS Prime. Suspension trainer. Yeah, suspension rubber band. Yeah, I'm going to send you MAPS suspension because then that'll give you some suspension trainer exercises you could do while you're on the rig. Cool. Thank you very much. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in, huh? Yeah. Cheers, guys. Take it easy, Johnny. Take it easy. I always picture, like, oil rig. You're like, you watch movies? He looks like so. Who would be? Yeah. I feel like it's the most manly job in the world. I don't know what the positions are. All I know is I see the videos where the, you know, water, when they're like chaos and change and shit. Somebody's arms almost getting sucked in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's up there with one of the more dangerous jobs, isn't it? I think it's like that and crab fisherman and like something else. It's pretty crazy. No, for sure. Yeah, I hate, you know, you know, it's funny. For most men, this is probably more accurate for men than it is for women. For most men, a simple waste circumference measurement is going to be one of the most accurate. That's what Doug does, right? I know. That's your go-to move. That's where I got it from. Yeah, the scale is BS. Total BS. Yeah. So that's really the only accurate thing I've done. The scales fake huge. Most dudes don't want to lose weight. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm anomaly, but I don't want to lose weight. No, you want to get leaner. Yeah, I was leaner and just keep my weight. That's it, 100%. Look, if you like the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com, check out our free guides. Also, if you're a trainer or coach, you have to sign up for our free three-day training course for trainers and coaches that's happening in January. Doug, what is it? Is it mindpumptrainer.com? Yes, mindpumptrainer.com. Mindpumptrainer.com, sign up. It's free. It starts January 15th. I'll be talking directly to you to help you become more successful as a coach or personal trainer. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mindpump. Justin, I'm at Mindpump to Stefano and Adam. It's a Mind Pump battle.